Phil's Beast Machines Review

[Philip Ayres]

Since BM came 2nd in the poll on what i should review next and it's next in chronological order I'll be reviewing the BM toys next.

I no longer own any BM boxed toys. So you won't see new reviews for Mega Cheetor, Supreme Cheetor, Megatron, Rattrap, Blast Punch Primal, Ultra Jetstorm or Nightscream. I did however take the oppotunity to write a full Tankor review before I sold that a few months back.

Similarly there are some carded toys I no longer own: Blackarachnia, Blastcharge, Thrust & Beast Changer from the deluxe toys, Silverbolt, Night Viper & Hammerstrike from the basics. But I may chance my memory on these (my goodness how many repaints has BM BA had Nearly as many as Jetstorm !)

So the BM reviews may not be as exhaustive as the BW ones. Reviewing the BM toys will also take care of some repaints in RID and Universe.

[Andy Turnbull]

I look forward to your thoughts on the BM Tank Drone.

Andy

[Philip Ayres]

To start with..... how about one of Phil's favorite toys ever ? When I came to reformat this review a couple of months back to include both BM & Universe versions I discovered I was 100% happy with both sections already making the BM NSC the earliest review to survive without alteration !

Beast Machines Night Slash Cheetor

Well.......

If the news this morning that BM is dead in the UK is true then it's a great shame because the toys they're turning out now are fantastic.

I saw the prototypes for this waaaay back last year when those dodgy photos were looking around and thought it looked good then. Now I've got in my hands that impression is confirmed - very nice. The detailing is more mechanical than on many BM Maximals and very reminiscent of the Transmetal toys - James and I were discussing the Megas earlier on in the week and I'd got my Primal and Megs TM out to look at them - NSC doesn't look out of place next to TM Primal. The colour is not your standard Cheetor yellow (a bit like the TM version *again* in that respect which was mostly grey) it's a very dark blue, with orange (fur patterns) and metalic green highlights (wrists, ankles and robot jaw), lots of transparent orange - claws, chest and 2 sets of lightpipe eyes and a few additional grey bits (swords mainly).

It comes (as I said, spent a while trying to find this out) in Robot mode but crouched in the package. (Why can't I find a ruler when I need one ?) The robot is the most stable cheetor of the BM range - Hasbro win massive brownie points for this - and can be posed/transformed/extended to a number of heights - there's an entire section of leg that retracts below the knee in Beast mode that if kept hidden will produce a reasonably well proportioned robot that's about the same height as TM Op - and that's good cos all the BM C's have looked completely out of proportion even at their shortest (I've even managed to get a NSC position that looks too short !) With a little bending of limbs and extending of legs you can still get a very tall Cheetor (about an inch taller than the pint glass on my desk)

The robot has the sword's in the shoulders that flip into the hands at the press of a button, and the spark in his back swings the arms - neither of these gimmicks can be tested through the packaging - no try me stuff here. The arms are a little difficult to leave in one position at the shoulders but it can be done. The elbows are screw joint so that the fore and upper arms are always in line for the sword dropping gimmick.

(Following my earlier comments about Cheetor's arms - the arm's can be posed properly but you need to push each arm against the direction it would move in the gimmick - one arm slashes down and the other up, so to pose the down arm - the one that's on your left (his right) raise it, where necessary rotating through nearly 360 degrees. And vice versa for the other arm. I also failed to mention that Cheetors head is on a ball and socket joint so the head can be posed looking upwards. Still loving these toys)

Transform - open the chest and the back, swap the heads and place on all 4s. Not the hardest TF in the world and it's rated basic. A note to say the heel spurs retreat into the rear feet and the hands have the same thumb mechanism as TM2 Cheetor

The Cheetah mode is very reminiscent of the TM toy again - very mechanical. Again a little trouble posing the forearms due to the gimmick but that can be overcome.

Best BM Cheetor by a mile, and when the inevitable yellow repaint happens I'll be getting one sent over - they can repaint this as many times as they like.

(Cheetor's now purched on the 2 Mega boxes piled by the PC that I'm waiting to send to the US)

Botcon 2002 Catscan

A CAT scan is "computed axial tomography" used to create images of thre body for medical purposes. So NSC becomes a medic and gets a white and red makeover. Looks quite good and probably the closest we'll come to a Beast era Ratchet !

Universe Night Slash Cheetor

There is an element to *Finally*/At Long Last about this toy - as in they've finally repainted it in something resembling proper Cheetor colours. There's also an element of waiting for the bus - you wait forever and 2 come along at once - there's a "New Cheetor" listed in wave 3 for the Japanese TRU exclusive BW Returns and I'm betting it's a NSC recolour.

Cheetor is another toy who's been done a lot, and he's had his various mouldings reused:
Original - 3 eye colour variations
Tigertron repaint
Shadow Panther repaint
Fox Kids Repaint
Transmetal
Japanese Ravage Remold
Botcon Tigertron Ravage
Fox Kids Transmetal
Armada Cheetor
TM2
Tripredicus Agent
Beast Machines Mega unstable
Beast Machines Supreme waste of plastic
Beast Machines Battle for the Spark Night Slash Cheetor

That's a fair few. Long term readers - or those who have clicked on the link - will know of my near evangelical liking for the original Night Slash Cheetor - does the toy stand the test of time and the whims of the Universe repainters ?

The toy itself never ceases in my mind to be anything but fabulous - a sleek robotic looking animal that wouldn't have looked out of place with some of the G1 interpretations and yet still looks like the animal, It's stable, which scores mega points over both of the other BM versions, it doesn't look proportionately deformed but you can still achieve a more deformed BM Cheetor look by extending the legs, and he had 2 major gimmicks that both work - the swords ejecting from the shoulders and the slashing action with the arms. Since my original review (well shortly afterwards) I discovered that the arms could both be posed OK, it just needed each arm to be pushed in the right direction and a small movement in the wrong direction would mean turning the arm all the way round. During Armada when beasts were brought in I was very strongly in favour of this mold being reused, with the triggers on the shoulders being converted to minicon posts, an extra point being added to his back, possibly to power the slashing gimmick and the obligatory proper colours repaint. We've had to wait till now for that .....

.... and the result is close but possibly a near miss. The bulk of the body that was previously done in black is now done in a dull mustard yellow - which has previously appeared on other Universe toys notably the Tank drone. However I feel it's a bit dull for Cheetor and should have been a brighter yellow. The mustard surfaces are covered in some metallic dark blue circuitry/battle damage in a completely different pattern to his previous spots. His forearms, head, back of feet, thruster pack and inner chest - previously black I think, I really aught to have kept my NSC to hand to check - are now another Universe favourite, burgundy. This works much better than the red on the FK versions but isn't 100% Cheetor either. The clear plastic chest, hands, feet and light pipe eyes are now in clear red - possibly giving the impression of blood stained claws fresh from the kill. The extending leg pieces and tail are both a brown colour, and the swords are similar but with a lovely silver flake in the mix. Claws and feet have gold highlights, and there's a silver face plate. All in all it looks a little dirty for Cheetor I'm afraid, but is getting close to a proper colour scheme. Perhaps Day Slash Cheetor would be a better name for him this time ;-)

In case you're remotely interested I'd have a yellowy/orange body, with black forelimbs and head, silver swords if possible and probably yellow clear plastic....

But I'm glad to see this mold back, and am generally pleased with what they've done. As a favourite mold and a very clearly defined character I'm more exacting about what I'd expect of a colour scheme.

But what of NSC I hear you ask ? Cheetor's yellow, he's black and you liked him ! NSC worked cos it was a radical reinterpretation of the character, the black almost gave the impression of some sort of stealth armour/colour scheme that you could envisage the character using. I remind you of repaint rule 1: If in doubt, Paint it black, stealth colour schemes are cool.

[Philip Ayres]

Beast Machines Night Slash Cheetor

Optimus Primal was one of the first Beast Machines toys released in both the US and the UK as part of a case containing four of him and four of Jetstorm. He was carried over into further US cases but because the UK spent so long between case refreshes on BM this case effectively killed the line in the UK.

This was the first time that Optimus Primal had been done as a deluxe sized toy. The toy is mainly molded in black & clear blue plastic with some gold paint on the shoulders, chest, back and face. Each arm turns at the shoulder and bends a little out to the side at the same point. Mounted in his left shoulder is a green bladed throwing weapon. There's a rotational bicep joint where the arm becomes blue, a bending elbow, a joint for the thumb and joints for first & second knuckle on the remaining four fingers which are molded together. His waist turns as do both of his hips, but only the left hip folds to the sides. Knee and ankle are ball joints ending in a pair of hand like feet that make it difficult to stand him up straight.

He has an action feature in this mode. If you pull down the flap behind the head and push it in it causes his mouth to open, his shoulders to swing back, his mouth to open and his chest to open up revealing a green BM Maximal spark - I'm presuming you're meant to pose the arms right before doing this to get some sort of chest beating action out of him.

TF: Open the back flap, fold the head back into it, close the flap up. Pull the shoulders and their connecting struts away from the side of the toy. Fold above the neck and link the shoulders together to form the robot's waist and legs. Twist the legs till the feet face forward, fold the thumb back as a heel spur and fold the fingers of the beast under the foot. Separate the beast waist in two and fold to the sides. Pull back on the blue part of the beast's chest, then fold the lower part into the top part. Fold the beast's bottom against the robot's back. Fold the beast waist halves onto the sides of the robot body and peg in place. Swing the elbows round.

What you get out of the end is a quite attractive blue and black robot with the gold paint mainly on the chest and the hips. The weapon has ended up in his left hip and can be inserted into his right hand. The right arm can then be pulled up & back and will spring forward on release causing the weapon to be thrown. Except it doesn't because no toy throwing gimmick has ever worked ! The grip on the hand is either so loose it drops the weapon or so tight that it doesn't let go of it when it should ! The gimmick explains the limitation to the hip I mentioned earlier. Beast leg articulation can now be attributed to the robot's arms and similarly beast arms to the robot legs. The spark isn't visible in this mode and if it was it would be upside down. Sadly the beast back flap can still be opened in this mode which means the beast head can be folded down into an unfortunate position.....

One of the consequences of the TF is that he's ended up with rather a large lump of clear blue plastic - the beast lower chest - folded up on his back which doesn't look too good. I'd have got round this by implementing the TF very differently. I'd have had both the shoulder and the hip on each side connected to a bar running down the side of the toy - similar to what TM Rhinox has for moving his beast front legs to become the robot legs. You'd pull the waist apart like you do at the moment, pull the bar out to the sides, turn it through 180 degrees and fold what were the shoulders down to become the new waist. The heads would then fold in and out of the body. You'd probably loose the chest beating gimmick but it wouldn't be a huge loss.

And then we have the head which I will now describe: A clear blue plastic cover over a green brain which light pipes through to the eyes (working light pipe = plus points !) A gold bar running under the eyes and over the nose and a molded mouth. Here's my problem: It looks nothing like Prime/Primal. I can cope with Optimus taking different forms but where possible I do want his head to be identifiable. The same problem carries over to most of the BM toys which are characters brought over from BW - their heads in no way resemble the previous version of the character. It's more obvious with Prime. I have my suspicions that this toy wasn't originally meant to be Prime at all in fact ....

Overall: OK ape, OK robot apart from the back pack kibble and the failed gimmick. But it isn't Optimus Primal, it doesn't look like any previous version of him and it doesn't look like what you see on screen in the BM cartoon and that hurts the toy more than anything and in turn does real damage to the line.

[Philip Ayres]

Jetstorm

In 200 I wrote "Parcelforce finally got their act together and delivered some of my outstanding parcels today. As well as my long awaited Waspy repaint - not as bad as it looks in Robot mode with Robot head, and the 3 BM Basics - Mirage good, Scavenger strange, Buzzsaw hmmm - I had a Jetstorm. Not bad. Pig to TF without the instructions the first time :-) But not a bad robot and a rather good jet. "

We can do much better than that now.

Jetstorm is the first deluxe Vehicon release paired in a case with Optimus Primal on initial release. Jetstorm is a dark blue jet covered in yellow detailing including stripes on his wings. The wings can rotate on their mounting so they can either be swept back like a traditional aircraft or forward (like the GI Joe Conquest or Cyberjet Strafe) The sides of the plane each house a missile launcher activated by a trigger on top of each side which project a clear red missile - I like these as clear plastic is a good representation of an energy bolt and should be used for missiles more often.. Under each side there's a little landing gear that folds to the side and a third landing gear may be found under the nose. There's also a pair of fold down covers and jets found under the rear of the jet. There are four tail fins - two project up and out diagonally while the other two can be laid flat or folded up to any position up to alongside the fixed fins. There's a fold up silver hatch half way down the body under which is a red Vehicon spark which looks very much like a radiation warning sign. In front of the hatch there's another trigger which causes the nose of the jet to shoot forward about 1cm allowing the nose to be moved from side to side and bent down. This also activates a lightpipe causing two eyes at the base of the canopy to glow giving the impression that the front of the jet is a face. All of the vehicons would incorporate a face into their vehicle mode somehow. The detail work on the toy is superb, tons of molded in panel lines.

TF: Make sure the nose is retracted. Fold out to the sides the blue panels in front of the tail fins. Rotate the sides of the jet (missile launchers and wings) down under the jet using the robot's bicep joints then fold the entire side - panels, missile launcher and wings - up by the hinge next to the body. Fold both halves of the rear undercarriage containing the concealed jets out to the sides 90 degrees to form the legs. Fold the bar connecting the leg section forward degrees so that the legs latch onto two catches either side of the plane's nose. Fold the two static tail fins back 90 degrees revealing the robot head in between them. Fold the rear half of the plane back 180 degrees - the fuselage bends in the middle - so it's along the back of the rest of the plane. Fold the head, arms and the yellow frame that runs down the side of the body that they're attached to up 180 degrees. Bend the arms back. Fold the neck section down onto the top of the body. Bring the arms forward and lock the panels onto the front of the pegs. Fold out the feet and the heel spurs. Fold back the panel at the end of each arm to reveal a three fingered claw.

The resulting robot mode is quite squat and bulky for a jet which I usually associate with being tall and thin ! His head turns - it looks quite bat like with the tail fins, with an odd gas mask like face and red light pipe eyes. The arms turn at the shoulders as well as bend out to the sides. The biceps rotate, the elbows bend and the wrists contain ball joints though it's difficult to get enough purchase on the hands to turn them. Hips are also ball jointed, there's a rotation joint beneath them, and the knees bend. Missiles can still be fired on each arm.

He's also got a hovering robot mode: take the normal robot, turn each leg till it faces out then bring the legs together under the cockpit of the jet - they'll peg into each other. Open the covers up on the front of each leg and fold the jets out. It's nice to have an alternate mode but this one won't stand up by itself !

Overall: Decent jet & robot, lots of detail. It's the first deluxe sized jet and I'm grateful Hasbro gave us a jet at deluxe size at the first time it was possible. It still stands up well today.

Sonic Attack Jet

Jetstorm is the only Beast Machines toy to get a repaint within the Beast Machines toy line !

Normally when a repaint comes along we argue that it weren't necessary or it's the wrong colours. Neither is true in this case. Up to this point Jetstorm has been a general without any troops. Now he get some in a similar colour scheme to him but just different enough to stand out. All the dark blue is now switched to two slightly different shades of light blue. The spark cover and the hand covers are silver, most of the yellow becomes grey and hands & fold out jet nozzles become blue.

An appropriate repaint providing a jet drone trooper.

Storm Jet

Do you see what they've done with the name ? Ho, ho, ho. Very funny. When Robots In Disguise was looking to bolster the line towards the end they chose a few of the Beast Machines molds to serve as basic, deluxe and mega sized toys. Jetstorm was chosen as the deluxe toy but not as you'd expect as a Decepticon - which would have been sensible as there are less RID Decepticons than Autobots. No they make him an Autobot. Since he's going to be an Autobot they break out the Jetfire colours. Almost all the toy is white, with red & black details painted on. The legs, feet, head & panels that cover the robot chest are molded red and the shoulders, robot waist, fold out leg jets and mechanism for attaching the head to the body are molded in black. The cockpit is painted over in black but the black paint on mine chipped off ever so easily !

Attractive repaint which was very much in demand at the time. This was the third time out for the mold which was reckoned to be starting to be a little too often !

Jhiaxus

Jetstorm next returned as one of a pair of KB exclusives - the other was a Megabolt Megatron repaint. The uses the same paint masks as Storm Jet but swaps white for orange and red for pale lilac. The missiles change colour in this release and are also pale lilac.

It's the first time Jhiaxus had been a toy, but I don't think the colours that closely matched his comic appearance.

Skywarp

Finally (for the moment) Jetstorm is repainted in Universe as the G1 Character Skywarp. The toy is mainly black with purple for the engine covers & nozzles, hands and shoulders while grey is used for the upper arms and robot waist pieces. The cockpit is painted red and the missiles and lightpipe continue to be cast in a red plastic - I'd have been tempted to use purple here.

Classy repaint capturing the Skywarp look perfectly, and not that easy to find now.

[Philip Ayres]

Beast Machines Tankor

Tankor is one of the original three generals that Megatron employs to lead his beast army. He's one of the first seven Beast Machines toys - 3 basic, 2 deluxe and 2 mega - that came out before whatever problems that delayed the remaining Beast Machines toys and forced Dinobots to happen.

Tankor is a tank. Bet you didn't see that one coming. He rolls along courtesy of four wheels built into his molded tank treads. He has a turret that you can turn complete with a wide shallow window round the front through which is visible a red dot like a Cylon Centurion's eye. The dot can be moved by a little knob on top of the turret, and can be lit up by lowering a flap on the back of the turret. The entire turret can be swung round using a knob on the back of the toy. The turret has a cannon built into it's left side (as you look at the front of the tank) which elevates from a pivot at the back. This has a missile launcher built into it, the trigger of which is on the side of the base of the turret. The dominant colour of the tank is a silver grey, with darker grey covers to the four tank treads and some red detailing.

He has a pair of claws that can be folded out from the bumper on the front of the tank. Once the claws are folded out find the panel behind the bumper and in front of the turret and split the frosted plastic panel in two folding each half to the sides. This exposes a pair of circular saw blades, silver chrome with a red tinge to the edges. Roll the tank forward and the blades spin.

The above steps are necessary to start the TF: From there turn the tank over to look at the underside, pull the rear treads to the sides and fold behind the tank to become robot legs. Pull the front part of the tank to the sides to form the arms. Fold the robot legs under the tank do they're at the front of the tank, and swivel 180 degrees at the waist. Stand the robot up Turn the turret round on the robot's back and fold the cannon forward over the shoulder on your right. Turn the knob that was on the back of the tank round till the robot faces forward, pull the end of the knob back locking the turret into place and then fold it upwards so it rests upright behind the robot head. Lock the shoulders into place, turn the clear panels on the robot upper arms so they're facing out and turn at the bicep joint till the saw blades face out and the arms can bend upwards at the elbow:

Articulation: Swivel joint bellow the knees, knee bends, ball jointed hip, waist turns, head would turn but is pretty much locked in place by the bit holding the backpack on. The jaw raises and lowers, the shoulders turn and swing out to the sides, there's a bicep swivel joint, the elbows bend and the claw hands open and close. The saw blades can be turned by running your finger over the wheel on the outside of the hand. The tank barrel can still elevate and the missile can still be fired. The knob on the turret can be turned and this moves a Cylon style eye on the robot's head. A red Vehicon spark can be found under a panel on the side of the turret/robot back pack.

Overall: Not a bad toy at all. The head is a slightly different design aesthetic to many TFs but the rest of the toy is broadly what you might expect from a TF. The eye details is nice. It works here but on other Beast Machines toys the little details included are to the detriment of the toy as a whole.

Universe Tankor with Universe Obsidian

Tankor got a re-release in Universe, together with a recoloured Obsidian to bung him up form a basic to the old Ultra/Voyage class of toy.

The dominant colour is the Universe favourite mustard yellow being used for the silver and the detailing - previously in red - with the covers to the tank treads becoming dark green. It's not Universes greatest recolouring disaster, but you get the feeling an all green tank would have worked better !

[Philip Ayres]

Stryka

Nice armoured vehicle type thang with a very good gimmick - press the spark down and you get a pom-pom action with the guns which are themselves missile launchers. Wheels turn freely which is nice.

Transform - to make up for NSC this one's nasty, but has the best pegging arrangement I've seen for many a year: The front wheels unpeg from the front of the vehicle to become the feet revealing the legs running right the way under the vehicle. There's props on the back of the legs - fold them down to support the legs in either wheeled or footed mode - rotate at the ankle for choice. The hips come forward and pin into a piece that folds down from the front of the vehicle. Unpin the sides of the vehicle from the front and fold the shoulders back until they peg into the missile launcher. Fold the middle set of wheels up and slide them in to become the bulk of the chest. Lift the cab up out of the way, then fold and rotate the remainder of the front to become the robot chest. Fold the back wheels under the launcher to form a rocket pack and rotate the arms forward. You've got the sides of the vehicle on the ends of the arms which sort of look like weapons BUT they then slide through to form the forearms with pipelike molded hands inside. Fold up the neck of the cab onto the shoulders and lift the cab back to reveal the head.

You've ended up with something that's a little spindly on some of the limbs, but's got a lot of bulk on the boday and got a massive rocket pack and got twin missile launchers over the shoulders which still use the Pom Pom gimmick. There's something weird and skeleteral going on with some of the limbs and the chest plate with the grey colouring and it actually looks a tiny bit scary - serves me right for watching the League of Gentleman Christmas special last night.

Another very good toy which I believ isn't in quite show colours lending credence to there being a BM repaint assortment later perhaps ?

Beast Wars Returns Stryka

Since I wrote the review a repaint has shown up in the Japanese Beast Wars Returns line which is adds a lot more lilac to the colour scheme. Om reflection I prefer the original.

Nemesis Stryka

Nemesis Strika is a sort of tan and purple version of the old BM Moon Buggy thing. Looks good, and is the same pegasaurus tf we had before. Not the most available toy the first time round so worth a look.

[Stomski]

Jetstorm is the only Beast Machines toy to get a repaint within the Beast Machines toy line !

Unless you count the Deployers and Beast Riders! *shudder*

Phil should remember these as I took the Beast Rider repaints off his hands and completed my Beast Machines collection...

[Philip Ayres]

Ah so that's where they went. I hadn't counted them when I made the statement - yet both sets are on my list to do - as they aren't really proper TFs are they ?

[The Doctor]

I used to own the Deployers. Not even my strange love of crap TF's could endear me to them. Why I bought them, I will never know. I had even forgotten this until now! Perhaps my brain was trying to protect me.

-Ralph

[Philip Ayres]

I had Rav (and Dillo, Mol, Che & Mechatron) out tonight. Mrs A saw Rav and said ooh that looks nice.


Apparently the repaints are called Cro, Trench & Burro !

[legios]

The Beast Machines toys are the ones that got me back into Transformers, so I for one am quite pleased to see these reviews.
I'd agree with you that the Deluxe Jetstorm mold is one that has aged rather well. It is a clever piece of engineering and is really quite well designed in all modes. For my money Skywarp is definitely the best colour scheme that it had - hence why that one has been spared the "Great Slimming Down" that has overtaken my collection.

My favourite Beast Machines toy is a bit of a quirky choice I have to say - Stryka. There is just something about the way it is engineered, and the whole chunky, tough, look of the toy that rather appeals to me.

Looking forward to seeing your review of "Shower Curtain Megatron" in due course...

Karl

[Philip Ayres]

Megatron's a mega toy - I've not got one so it's unlikely to feel the full force of my wrath. A small look at it is already on the site, but inexplicably I miss several important points so what's there may get expanded into a bit of a rant as we go.

Stryka is nice. But NSC is my favorite.

[legios]

Nov 28, 2008 23:17:56 GMT Philip Ayres said:

Megatron's a mega toy - I've not got one so it's unlikely to feel the full force of my wrath. A small look at it is already on the site, but inexplicably I miss several important points so what's there may get expanded into a bit of a rant as we go.

Ah well. As a former owner of SCMegs I was looking forward to seeing him getting "the treatment". One of the few Beast Machines toys I remember looking at and thinking "what?" - and bear in mind that I owned a couple of Deployers.....

Night Scream Cheetor is quite nice, another very good toy from an underappreciated line.

Karl

[blueshift]

Rav was a nice deployer and quite sought after now because he was Cryotek's targetmaster

The rest live sealed in their cards in a box somewhere

[Philip Ayres]

Rav's the red one. It's Cro that's Cryotek's companion.

[Philip Ayres]

Beast Machines Obsidian

Obsidian is a basic sized toy and was one of the first Beast machines toys to be released after the initial offerings. He's a dual rotor helicopter with each rotor projecting upwards from the wing instead of being mounted on the body. The rotor's consist of a pair of blades opposite each other surrounded by what looks like an energy pattern. The blades turn and the rotors can be pivoted backwards and forwards. The rotors are in fact ball missile launchers but don't project a long distance because they're not that aerodynamic ! The majority of the helicopter is bright green with the tail of the helicopter, the pivoting gun under the nose & the rotor supports being molded in dark green plastic. The rear of the tail folds down to become a landing gear - there's a pair of landing gear molded on the underside of the missile boxes under the wings. The front of the helicopter moves slightly from side to side and has two eyes molded in it lightpiped by the many cockpit window - this gives the helicopter the distinctive face on a vehicle look of the vehicons.

TF: Fold the legs down under the helicopter which in turn folds the nose down under the helicopter. Fold the head up out of the back of the helicopter and down onto the top of the cockpit. Fold the missile boxes down to become the arms. Fold the landing gear forward to become the feet and fold the tail fins back to become heel spurs.

Time to introduce the earlier Obsidian review I wrote: "Obsidian's quite cool - not to posable in the leg dept., simple TF and a cool robot head on a long and posable neck ! The rotors are used for Cyberjet style missiles. " Well the dark green legs bend at the ankle & knee and has a ball jointed hip so can't really see what I was complaining about. No waist. The neck folds forward and back at the base and is ball jointed at the head which gives you a range of movement and a choice of there the head sits. Shoulders are ball jointed, the elbows bend and *then* have a ball joint allowing the arms to be folded up. The rotor mounts/missile launchers are attached to the wings by a ball joint allowing a large range of movement. The nose and cannon can be folded up via a ball joint behind the head so the cannon faces forward. The spark is located in his back and is an orangey yellow colour.

Overall: Decent basic, appearing well in advance of his debut.

Robots In Disguise Obsidian

Obsidian was brought back for Robots in Disguise. This time round the body green becomes a sandy colour with dark brown camouflage patches and the dark green becomes grey. The Spark crystal is still visible - possibly the only BM repaint for whom this is true - and is now molded in clear purple. The rotors stay orange.

Lovely desert repaint. Good realistic colours.

Universe Tankor with Universe Obsidian

Obsidian returns in Transformers Universe paired with a repaint of Tankor. This time round the body green becomes a slightly metallic dark blue with some silver patterns added and the dark green becomes dark metallic grey. The rotors & all other clear pieces are now molded in clear red.

Again a nice repaint, though the RID version is the better of them for my liking

Beast Wars Returns Obsidian

Beast Wars Returns is the Japanese release of Beast Machines. Obsidian is recoloured to more closely match his animating model with the green body work becoming a metallic blue green and the dark green becoming what looks like nearly black to my eyes. The rotors and other clear pieces are now clear green. New red and yellow paint work is added.

Not essential unless your toys must match their animation models.

[Philip Ayres]

Buzzsaw

Buzzsaw was the only Maximal issued in the first wave of Beast Machine basics. He's also the first BM Maximal to use a BW Predacon form. Buzzsaw is an insect, but a much more angular one than we're used to in Beast Wars. He's a mixture of pale green for the body, dark green for the limbs & antennae, clear greenish plastic for the wings and clear orange plastic for the tail stinger. The stinger bends up and down and is mounted on a spring. The front limbs move up & down together as do the back pair on each side. The wings are ball jointed to the body and then bend just as they become clear plastic. The head has two pairs of orange eyes.

TF: Fold the legs out to the sides, fold the tail out to one side, fold the front pair of legs on their limb under the body then fold out to the side at the back the other way from the tail. Fold the beast head down under the beast and fold the robot head up. Flatten the tail panel against one shoulder and the arm with the forelimbs against the other. Folds the wing base under the toy as the waist and pose the wings as legs. Fold the beast head even further down as the robot chest.

Robot mode is thin with odd high heels on the feet. It bends at the knee and has ball jointed hips. The head is ball jointed so can turn and lead back. The arm with the forelimbs on is ball jointed at shoulder & elbow. The stinger arm turns at the shoulder & bends down, turns & bends at the elbow, the stinger claw open and the tip of the stinger extends. Within the stinger is the orange Maximal spark.

Overall: Different type of insect to what we're used. Doesn't quite work especially in the arm dept for the robot.

[Philip Ayres]

Beast Machines Mirage

Another short review summed up my feeling in 2000: "Parcelforce finally got their act together and delivered some of my outstanding parcels today.

As well as my long awaited Waspy repaint - not as bad as it looks in Robot mode with Robot head, and the 3 BM Basics - Mirage good, Scavenger strange, Buzzsaw hmmm!"

Mirage is a basic sized racing car mainly molded in black with grey and yellow detailing. A pair of clear blue exhaust pipes at the back form ball missiles embedded in the yellow spoiler though these will need to be rotated round to fire as the ends are flush against the back of the cab. The spoiler has a pair of missiles molded into the end of each side. The car's rear wheels are hidden under the sides of the car though their position is quite clearly marked. The cab is occupied by a gun. If you pull the gun up the cab can be turned around to reveal the robot's face.

TF: Fold the spoiler back behind the car. Pull the rear sides of the car away and fold out to the side of the car behind the nose. Fold the spoiler halves out to the sides behind these. Pull the nose up folding back so the head is in the space at the back of the car and the nose is on to of the car. Fold the sides of the rear down to form the legs and fold the back wheels underneath them as feet. Fold the spoilers down to serve as arms. Turn at the waist so the holes on the legs are at the back the same side as the front nose. Bend the gun on the back of the robot head forward - you might be able to remove this to put in the hand as a hand weapon.

Robot bends at the ankle, turns at the waist and bends at the base of his neck. There's ball joints at knee, hip, neck, shoulder and elbow. The shoulders shrug up. The forearm weapons, upper arms & legs and waist are all yellow while the chest and forearms are clear blue. The missile launchers are wrist mounted. One of the few BM toys with no lightpipe.

Overall: Decent car, poseable robot. An early BM success story.

Robots In Disguise Mirage GT

Mirage returns as an Autobot and takes the black and makes it yellow while turning the blue & yellow into black. As repaints go it's a little gaudy (avoid bright yellow on toys !)

[Philip Ayres]

Beast Machines Scavenger

Scavenger is described on his package as a Demolition drone. In practice he looks like an odd cross between a tank and construction machinery. He's got treads up front and wheels to the rear at either side of a dark green platform on which is mounted (via a ball joint) an pinkish orange arm that bends at the base, middle and top that ends in a spring loaded opening shovel grabber which has a gun on one side and three molded missiles on the other. In some ways he looks like he's the offspring of G1 Ratchet/Ironhide's tracked base parts ! A panel on the side folds down to reveal a green Vehicon spark.

TF: Fold the back wheels out to the sides. separating the claws between them to form arms. Turn the tracks round 180 degrees so that the wheels face up. Fold out the feet from the front of the vehicle. Fold the legs under the vehicles. Collapse the vehicle arm and fold the back wheels around the sides of it. Pull the head out of the top of the shovel scoop.

The robot is odd, very blocky, minimal head - though more of it extends than you might think and you'll want to push it through from underneath to see all. The chromed claws on each hand open, there's a double ball jointed elbow - though the bending part of both ball joints faces in until you turn the lower part of the arm round - and ball jointed shoulders, hips & knees. The head is lightpiped in clear orange with the rest of the robot using the same dark green and orangey pink as before.

Not the most loved TF toy out there, and a huge shelf warmer in the UK when it came out.

Robots in Disguise Scavenger

Scavenger came back in the RID vehicon three pack with the green replaced by blue and the orange by white. It's not until I've sat down to write this that I've ever given much thought to it but I now think there's a huge mistake with this set: Scavenger and Mirage GT have each other's colours. Mirage GT in white & blue would look like the G1 Car while Scavenger in yellow & black would be a decent bit of construction machinery. Oh dear !

[Philip Ayres]

Beast Machines Spystreak

In 2001 I wrote this when I got the original Spystreak" disappointed. Olive green and rust brown/red doesn't work anywhere near as well as the black and gold on the promo material :-( The scissor gimmick is hard to operate on mine in jet mode and I can't get the missiles to fire because of it. Reminds me a lot of the Cyber and MW jets in TF and robot mode, and the chest plate looks so much like the chest of one of the new microman toys advertised on the car robots leaflets. The posability of the arms is limited by the weapons being permanently attached to them and the weapons being large and clashing with other things....."

Spystreak is a Battle for the Spark Beast Machines toy - all of these have the figure's spark being the trigger for a gimmick. Spystreak is a blackbird style stealth jet. Initial pictures appeared to show in as black with gold shoulder and upper legs in robot mode - this picture is used on a competition flyer given away with some of the Beast wars videos in the UK. When the toy came out it turned out the black was a dark mucky olive green and the gold was a rusty red. (The tail fins and missiles are done in a clear yellow green) This immediately detracts from the vehicle mode by displaying it in the wrong colours. In this mode pushing the spark forward should cause the sides of the jet to open up like scissor blades and for the missiles to discharge. However the missile section doesn't quite mesh with the scissor section well enough causing it to be very difficult to fire the missiles in this mode.

TF: Fold the tail fins out to the side. Pull the wings away from the side of the vehicle and fold out behind it with the wings pointing down. Look at the underside of the plane and fold out the feet and heel spurs. Pull forward on the missile section till it come away on the right. Fold the nose of the jet out to your right and the missile section out to your left. Push up on the clear chest panel raising the head. Fold the nose & missiles down to form the arms.

As I said above the robot is very Cyberjet/Flipchanger in style. His ankles bend, ball jointed knees & hips, turning head - which is lightpiped in the same colour as the missiles, shoulders that turn & raise to the sides and ball jointed elbows. No hands as such, just the nose on one arm that opens to form a claw weapon using the spark and the missile launcher on the other - the triggers for which can be found underneath.

It not a bad toy at all, just let down by some engineering difficulties and a bad paint job.

Robots In Disguise Nightcruz

Spystreak came back as Nightcruz in the Autobot three pack of Vehicon repaints for Robots in Disguise. Here the jet body becomes back but with the panels lines now picked out in pale blue. The rust coloured panels become grey and the clear plastic is yellow.

Not a bad go, better than the original, but the panel lining hurts the toy.

Transformers Universe Fireflight

with

Firebot (Emergency Team)

and

Thunderwing (Air Military Team)

In 2004 I said "The quest for new minicon repaints has driven me into the arms of Transformers Universe for the first time. I shunned it due to it being just recolours, and mostly bad ones at that but these are quite good. In the case of the 2 minicon teams, excellent.

Fireflight is the BM Stealth Jet but in white with some blue and red as highlights and limb pieces - looks nice again, though the sooner they do an all black version.(and I mean all black, no coloured arm pieces or white detailing lines) the better. Comes with Hotspot and Thunderwing at a dlx price point.... (so basic + 2 minicon = 1 deluxe......)"

The white works which is a surprise but it is at best just an adequate repaint. Of all the Universe toys it wouldn't have been too hard to modify the spark into a minicon hardpoint so that you'd be able to be able to mount the minicons that came with the toy !

[Philip Ayres]

Geckobot

In 2000 I wrote "Nice Lizard - what is it ? ? Robot's OK but with too long arms if you TF it properly. Various solutions are available but none that look quite right. The purple on the wings looks nice in the light."

I still have no idea what sort of Lizard it is. Geckobot is the most organic looking of the BM Maximals molded in a dark green plastic. He's got four limbs - all ball jointed at hip, elbow & knee. The tail moves up & down and is flattened at the end. There's eight purple wings mounted on the beast - the rear six swing back while the front two move forward in a pincer movement. The head moves from side to side and has a pair of clear green eyes. If you lift the top of the head up via a hinge at the back these are revealed to be the edge of his spark which takes up his brain pain in this opened mode.

TF: Stand on the rear legs and rotate the knees to the front. Just doing that makes a passable robot but .... Pull the wings in two down the middle and via two ball joints on each side fold down & out to the sides. Swing the body pieces they are connected to up to form the shoulders. fold down the beast head.

I'd forgotten quite how bad the arms were - ball joints at shoulder, bellow the shoulder,at the elbow after the wings, midway along the forearm and at the wrist which if the arms are hanging straight down is bellow the knee. Horrible. Legs take the beast leg articulation and the purple lightpiped head turns. It's better proportioned as a lizard stood on it's rear legs !

Horrible !

[Philip Ayres]

Quickstrike

In 2000 I wrote this about Quickstrike: "OK Wolf, inventive transformation, decent small robot with a nice sword gimmick "

Now Quickstrike as a name was associated in Beast Wars with the Scorpion/Cobra fuzor. Why attach it to a wolf in Beast Machines when there's a perfectly good wolf name - Wolfang - in use in Beast Wars already ?

Quickstrike is a grey/blue wolf with brown/bronze highlight and clear blue feet & sword blade tail. The front legs have a limited ball joint at the hip and bend at a very low knee & at the ankle. The front legs look oddly bent in the middle. The back legs have a ball joint within the body, a bending joint followed by another limited ball joint that only turns in at where the hip is and a bending ankle. The mouth opens and the head moves back & forth and side to side on a ball joint.

TF: fold the legs straight in front and behind the wolf. Fold the back legs down to the sides. Fold the chest panel under the beast out taking the head with it. Push down on the tail and the robot head. pushing into the body and extending the waist at the other end. Turn the waist round. Fold the head in and close the chest panel. Fold the robot feet out and fold the arms up at the elbow.

Oh dear, another robot I don't like (see Geckobot written the same evening) Arms are far too long, legs too short - so much so that the hands aren't that far off touching the floor when the arms hang straight down. Bends at the ankle & knee - again knee far too low on the legs formed from the front beast legs. Hips are ball jointed, waist turns, neck is ball jointed leading to a head that should be lightpiped but doesn't work too well. Shoulders are ball jointed, arm bends above the elbow which immediately connects to another ball joint. Wrists bend.

Decent gimmick in the left arm - flick a switch and a blue blade folds out. Obviously can't be used if arm hangs straight down, and also has problems folding out if the wrist isn't bent inwards.

Have gone off the wolf & robot mode since my initial assessment. TF is still quite fun though !

[Philip Ayres]

Nov 28, 2008 23:32:21 GMT legios said:

Nov 28, 2008 23:17:56 GMT Philip Ayres said:

Nov 28, 2008 23:11:45 GMT legios said:

Looking forward to seeing your review of "Shower Curtain Megatron" in due course...l

Megatron's a mega toy - I've not got one so it's unlikely to feel the full force of my wrath. A small look at it is already on the site, but inexplicably I miss several important points so what's there may get expanded into a bit of a rant as we go.

Ah well. As a former owner of SCMegs I was looking forward to seeing him getting "the treatment". One of the few Beast Machines toys I remember looking at and thinking "what?" - and bear in mind that I owned a couple of Deployers.....

Karl

Just for Karl

Megatron

I wasn't going to pass further comment on the boxed BM toys but it turns out there was something I wanted to say about Megatron and when I looked at the photos it brought a lot back to me. So ....

In 2000 I wrote "BM Megs: Yes he is small. But it's a great toy, plenty of detail, nice punching/dragon head moving gimmick. Possibly worth the Mega size - I can never tell if an item is good value since it's been so long since I sent the stuff in exchange for it.... I do like this though.... "

Beast Machines Megatron is packed in a Mega sized box. He's short enough that he can be packaged standing up in Dragon mode albeit with the legs & neck bent. His legs bend at the ankle, knee and hip. The tail bends and turns near it's base, and bends again shortly after. The neck turns at it's base then bends twice before turning at the head which features an opening jaw. Finally he has ball jointed shoulders and bending elbows. The wings here are huge great sheets of grey plastic - dreadful looking and hardly shaped like Dragon wings at all which is a huge disappointment as the rest of the dragon mode is quite good. If small.

TF: Fold the arms out to the sides. Fold the body complete with head and tail up and out. Turn 90 degrees clockwise so the dragon head is on your right and the tail is on your left. Fold back onto the body. Bring the beast hips together. Fold the arms up and slot under the body. Fold the head up from the body.

The beast arms as lower body look odd but otherwise this is a very good attempt at rendering the Megatron Dragon down two size classes. The head is more like what Megatron is in BM rather than BW. Both arms turn & bend at the shoulder, the tail arms has a bicep joint, both bend at the elbow and the beast head arm turns at the base of the head which forms an opening hand, the tail folds back from the other arm to reveal a hole in a black clenched fist. Legs as peg dragon mode. He's still got the annoying huge wing things but they sit lower on the toy in this mode and look better. They also fold round the toy to create the "Megatron in Shower Curtain" look seen in the show.

Onto the points I wanted to make

1) This toy is far too small a toy for Mega. With better proportioned wings he'd have easily fitted into a deluxe sized card bubble and been hailed as a great deluxe toy.

2) Why is this toy out at all ? Why not just rerelease the TM2 Ultra in a new box to give the Beast Machines ultras a head start ? On the only occasions that Megatron does TF in Beast Machines he's identifiably still the TM2 Dragon. Doesn't make sense.

Decent dragon minus the wings. OK robot. Very poor value for money size wise

[Philip Ayres]

Cheetor

Cheetor was on of the first mega sized Beast Machines toys released along with Tankor. Why release Cheetor as a mega ? All his previous incarnations have been deluxe toys, he serves as the main hero character at the deluxe price point - a slot later taken by Hot Shot (Armada, Energon & Cybertron) Bumblebee (Classics & Movie) His form is greatly altered for BM becoming much longer and thinner in beast mode. Front ankles & knees bend, the limbs turn above the knee, both shoulders turn as well as fold out to the sides. One of the shoulder pads moves causing the corresponding paw to move about covering a quarter circle in front of it. The chromed head with red lightpiped eyes moves causing the mouth to open when it does and there is a bending joint towards the rear of the body. The tail turns and bends in two places. Back legs move at the hip and have a limit ball joint at the first knee. The second knee bends as does the ankle.

TF: Straighten the rear legs out, extend the lower leg, collapse the body, stand and watch the toy fall over. Open the chest up slide the beast head in and the robot head out. Close the chest. Pose with tail in front arm as a sword. I know I've forgotten something as the arms have to end up on opposite sides in beast mode to robot mode but it doesn't matter cos I'm told nobody ever reads this bit anyway !

Robot mode is very unstable. Hard to stand up and very hard to stand in anything other than a neutral position. The arms inherit the front legs articulation while the back legs become the robot legs.

Doesn't look like Cheetor, hasn't got the vital feature of the show version - the two swords - is too big and very unstable. So for an encore they make a bigger and more unstable version. Not clever. Thankfully at the third attempt a decent BM Cheetor was produced - the wonderful Night Slash Cheetor. If you want a BM style Cheetor by that instead while you wait for it to be repainted in yellow with clear green.

[The Doctor]

I still recall my feelings of utter incredulity when I saw Shower Curtain Megs on shelves (I had yet to see the show). I was just starting to become interested in TF's again, and I saw it in TRU Edinburgh and laughed and laughed and laughed.

-Ralph

[Stomski]

If you want a BM style Cheetor by that instead while you wait for it to be repainted in yellow with clear green.

This is clearly wrong. If you want a BM style Cheetor, please buy my spare Supreme one, still MISB!!!

[grahamthomson]

BM Mega Cheetor was the first Transformer I had ever broken while taking out of the box (that weak little "heel" thing on the back of the leg).

[legios]

Phil, you have actually hit on one of my main problems with BM Megatron - the fact that they wanted a Mega price point for what was basically a deluxe figure. It doesnt help that, bereft of the moody lighting and sinister music, the BM Megatron character model actually looks more absurd than impressive, mind you.

I never had the experience of seeing it on shelves though. My first experience of it in the plastic was seeing one that someone else owned, and being more than a little underwhelmed by it.

Karl

[Philip Ayres]

Beast Machines Skydive

In 2000 I wrote "Must go and decard Skydive ... BM Skydive - very spindly robot mode - took me ages to think what it reminded me of and it's one of the SW E1 alien races. He's currently sitting crosslegged in meditative pose. I'm having a little bit of part detaching - especially round the robot head parts. The Transform is basically turning the toy inside out, with a nice variation on the arms. Not greatly happy with the Terranadon yet but there's probably something I'm doing wrong there. "

Skydive is a dino bird - a pteradon - in the main Beast Machines line instead of as part of the Dinobot sub lie. He's a mixture of purple, orange and blue/grey plastic with some transparent orange pieces mainly on his wings and his nose. His dino legs are folded underneath him - ball jointed at ankles and hips. The wings have a ball joint at the base. He has a gimmick in this mode - pull down on the tab on the beast neck and the entire head and neck springs forward.

TF: turn the beast over an look at the tail. Fold the clear orange sections down so the ball joint at the end is level with the end of the tail pieces. Fold the ball joint round to the back and stretch the legs out behind (was probably this step I was getting wrong when TFing back to dino bird). Bend the tail section forward, then bend the back panel forward. Fold the shoulder panels out to the sides at the front. Fold the robot head out of the front of the body. Rotate the back panel 180 degrees round so it's now under the body then fold up so it's flat against the back of the neck. Bring the arms through the shoulder sections and then fold the shoulder sections round the beast neck. Fold the robot head panel down onto the base of the beast neck. Fold top of the robot legs back round the beast neck and fold the tail down as a loin cloth. Fold the wings down to the sides, pull the clear bits back at the elbow and fold the grey bits up at the shoulder moving the wing mass behind the upper arms.

The type of SW Alien I was thinking of was an Anx (Graxol Kelvyyn from the Watto's box cinema scene) It's the tall conical head that does it. Skydive is very tall and thin for a deluxe TF but it somehow works for him. His legs - mainly blue till the orange at the top are ball jointed at ankle, knee and hip as is the neck, shoulders, elbows and wrists. There's long blades extending from each hand that did use to run along the top of the wings - these bend up or down where they attach to the hand. The wings are clipped up behind the elbow but a small push deploys them easily. The chest features a green Maximal spark with a vivid cut diagonally across the chest as if he's been struck by a blade weapon across the spark. The poseability of the toy is excellent - I can think of no other TF capable of sitting cross legged in a meditative pose like this one can !

Decent dino bird, inventive turn inside out TF and poseable robot. Very decent toy !

Universe Skydive

Skydive returns in Transformers Universe having gained Autobot symbols on his spark and wings. Blue becomes burgundy red, grey becomes gold, orange becomes grey and the clear orange becomes clear yellow. Not a bad repaint, quite an attractive blend of colours.