Phil's Cyberverse Legion Reviews

[Philip Ayres]

Here we find all of Phil's Cyberverse Legion Reviews starting with.....

Dark of the Moon Cyberverse Legion Barricade

I was stung by the toys from the first Bay movie, I avoided the ones for the second till they got round to some non Movie characters. With the third I'm buying the Human Alliance Basics and the Cyberverse figures. I'm mainly going for the larger Cyberverse toys and action sets but there was one Legion (formerly Legends) toy I wanted.

Barricade has had a few movie versions, and several at the old legends size. I think this new Barricade, a white police car with a painted blue strip round the base, is a remold of the older Legends Barricade and Legends Recon Barricade. I bought it because I thought it might be a remould of Legends Prowl. Now I have it in front of me there are similarities, but this is definitely not an adapted Prowl or Jazz.

Transformation: unpeg the sides of the car above the rear wheel and pull the sides out. Fold the rear of the vehicle back to become the legs. Fold the front of the vehicle forward to form the chest and reveal the head. Position the arms & feet then attempt to stand.....

....at which point he will almost certainly keel over. Due to there being no holes in the back of the car the legs on this toy won't fully straighten, giving him a permanently bent knee stance which isn't ideal for balancing him. Again he resembles Prowl & Jazz in this mode: the doors protruding straight back behind the head especially. Articulation isn't bad: ball jointed outer shoulders and shrugging inner shoulders, ball jointed hips & ankles and bending knees. The remould the figure has concerns it right hand. Previously a diamond shape, like his left still is, the right hand now has a 3mm c-clip cut into it allowing him to hold the 3mm bar weapons that the larger Cyberverse toys have. This is a reverse of the 3mm bars being mounted on the toys and the clips being part of the weapons that we've seen on recent toys so I've not yet got many things he can hold. However he can hold United Rumble/Frenzy's guns, or use a 3mm bar to hang onto a larger toy.

Overall: hand is a nice touch, but I feel conned having paid a fiver for a toy that can hardly stand.

[Philip Ayres]

Dark of the Moon Cyberverse Legion Topspin

Topspin comes in robot mode but transforming him into car mode is easy: fold the arms down, push the legs together, fold the feet up and fold the arms over the robot chest to produce a dark blue racing car, with white decals and a yellow number 48 on each side. TF Wiki tells me that it is a

"NASCAR Sprint Cup Chevy Impala stock car, specifically Jimmie Johnson's Lowes and Kobalt sponsored #48 car."

and I'll take their word on this matter knowing nothing about NASCAR racing.

To return to robot mode you fold the body of the vehicle out to the sides to form the arms & reveal the chest. Fold the feet down and separate the legs

The robot mode reveals a grey chest, head and arms with his dreadlock like hair cables painted blue. There's pipes extending up from this shoulders at an angle that look like gun and I immediately wanted to point them straight up or forward, but can't because the shoulders only fold out to the sides as part of the transformation. I see no reason at all for not making the shoulders a ball joint to allow sideways & rotational movement and think Hasbro have missed a trick here. The articulation is somewhat lacking all over: ignoring joints used in transformation all he has are ball jointed hips, bending elbows and an opening left hand claw. The right hand claw is moulded closed with a c-clip between the top & bottom of the claw.

Topspin's not a bad Legion (Legends) figure, but I wouldn't being paying the £5/£6 full price that some places are asking. £3 in the Tescos' reductions however is a different matter entirely! But you look at it and think it could have been so much better: two opening claws, the aforementioned ball jointed shoulders and bending knees.

[Philip Ayres]

Dark of the Moon Cyberverse Legion Crankcase

Like all Legion figures Crankcase comes in robot mode but is easily returned to vehicle mode: fold the feet up, push the legs together & fold the knees back. Fold the chest up then rotate the doors into place.

Crankcase's robot mode is a police van making him into a companion piece for Barricade. He resembles Movie Ironhide in this mode somewhat too.

Transform him back to robot mode by pulling the car doors out to the sides, folding the sides of the vehicle front down, unfolding the legs & feet the splitting them in two so he can stand.

Crankcase's articulation is really limited to ball jointed hips & shoulders, the knees functioning just as transformation joints. The base of the feet is sloped slightly giving him an open stance. A lot of fuss has been made in the US about the deluxe Crankcase having it's finger trimmed but I'm surprised the points sticking out the end of the arms here haven't had some attention as those could have someone's eye out. There's a c-clip moulded into his right hand to allow him to hold a 3mm handle weapon.

Crankcase is another Legion I wouldn't have paid full price for but was happy to have for £3 when they were reduced at Tescos. He's not bad, but I'm not a fan of Decepticons having police vehicles and indeed of Decepticons being ground based vehicles.