Dave's Fall of Cybertron Rant: Voyager Grimlock

[Dave Van Domelen]

Dave's Transformers Generations Rant: Fall of Cybertron Voyager Wave 2

Grimlock (Tyrannosaurus rex)

Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Gen/VGrimlock

Shipped along with Autobot Blaster, which was reviewed alongside
Soundblaster. Since wave 3 has started showing up (but I keep getting beaten
to the Springers by others), I figure I should get this reviewed now.


CAPSULE

$20-23 price point.

Grimlock: Good robot mode, okay transformation, and disappointingly
bricky dino mode. The light-up gimmick works well, but I could have done
without it in exchange for a little more dino-articulation. Mildly
recommended, recommended for those who don't mind bricky altmodes.


RANT

Package: Same as on Autobot Blaster, including cosells on the bottom for
the Autobot disc sets. The instructions are the new full-bleed pattern
style, and the picture at the top of the sheet is art rather than a photo (so
the tail is in a position the toy cannot get into). The left panel of the
box has Grimlock footprints rather than a host of disc minions.


AUTOBOT: GRIMLOCK
Series: 01
Number: 003
Altmode: Tyrannosaurus rex
Transformation Difficulty: Intermediate (2)
Previous Name Use: G1, G2, BW, RiD/Uni, Alt, Classic, TF:A
Previous Mold Use: None
Weapon: Energo-sword and shield
Function: Experimental Subject
Motto: "You make me, Grimlock. Me, Grimlock, BREAK you!"

There was a time when the rage that boils inside GRIMLOCK would have
driven him straight to the ranks of the DECEPTICONS. But while his flawed
manner of speaking may make him sound strange, he's smart enough to recognize
a bully when he sees on - and GRIMLOCK doesn't like bullies. It's this that
fuels his dedication to fight against the DECEPTICONS.

STR 10 INT 7 SPD 5 END 10 RNK 9 COUR 10 FRB 9 SKL 8 Avg 8.5

In the Fall of Cybertron game, Grimlock was a badass commando type who
went looking for his captured buddies...and fell into Shockwave's trap,
becoming another experimental subject. He and the others were remade into
Dinobots, atavisms based on relic CNA code much like the Insecticons, and
early steps in the re-creation of the Predacons.

Packaging: Four strings hold the robot into the tray, one each on the
sword and shield which are packaged behind the robot's head. A rubber band
keeps the backpack together.

Robot Mode: While immediately recognizable as Grimlock, this definitely
is going with a darker and duller color scheme along the lines of the TF:A
Grimlock, rather than the shinier metallic colors of G1 Grimlock. It doesn't
use the toothy faceplate of some of the other Cybertronian-era Grimlock
designs, but neither does it use the simple angular faceplate. While the
chest is hollow to allow for the dino head to fit, and feels a little
thin-walled, the toy overall feels fairly sturdy.
7" (18cm) tall and pretty bulky, although with slender thighs because
they have to fit inside the tail. Mostly a mix of medium shiny grays, with
some dull gold and red. Dark gunmetal plastic is used for the head, knee
joints and toes, plus some internal shoulder bits hidden inside the torso.
The torso itself is dull pale gold plastic, as are the foot-claws on the
wrists, the dino neck inside the backpack, and the tail pieces hidden inside
the boots. The sword, shield, lightpiping and panels in the torso front and
the beast head are clear red plastic. Light gray plastic is used on a few
internal joints and the T.rex forelimbs hanging off the backpack. Everything
else is one of a few slightly different shades of medium faintly metallic
gray plastic.
There's a fair amount of gunmetal paint on the chest and abdomen to
cover most of the clear red and a few other bits. A square block in the
center of the chest that is also clear red plastic is painted over in pale
gold to create a Lightning Strike Coalition symbol (it's like an Autobot
symbol, but with jagged teeth and lightning bolts on the cheeks). There's
also gold paint on the shins, tops of the feet and sides of the boots. Red
paint is applied to vents on the shoulders and kneecaps, plus round details
on the elbows.
The head turns, the waist does not. The shoulders are on a complicated
arrangement of struts and joints (some of which ratchet) that give a pretty
wide range of motion. There's bicep swivels, hinge elbows and swivel
wrists. The hips are universal joints that ratchet in the swivel direction
and can only spread out to the sides about 40 degrees. There's smooth
mid-thigh swivels and very stiff ratcheting knees. There's transformation
joints tucked inside the boots that cause some hassles when trying to just
bend the knees, and the boots can come apart as well. The toes are hinged
for transformation, but not meaningfully articulated.
The beast mode's light-up gimmick is designed to work here as well, with
the breath weapon light aimed at the clear red parts of the torso front.
Conveniently, the battery cover is on top of the backpack, so it's accessible
in either mode...no need to half-transform just to replace the batteries.
The hands can hold 5mm pegs, and there's 5mm peg holes on the forearms
and shoulders.

Weapons: Both are made of clear red plastic and painted with gunmetal on
the parts that are supposed to be physical. The energo-sword has a clear
blade and saw-like hilt guard, and has 5mm pegs on either side of the hilt
for storage in addition to the 5mm haft. The energo-shield has a painted
core piece, but only on the front side, with the attachment peg left
unpainted. The clear gem in the center of the shield would be more effective
if there was a way to connect it in the path of the light-up gimmick.
The sword is 4.25" (11cm) long, the shield is 3" (7.5cm) tall and 2.25"
(5.5cm) wide.

Transformation: Essentially the same as the G1 transformation, in broad
strokes. The legs combine to make the tail, the arms become dino legs, and
the dino head and forelimbs come from the backpack.
There's no attempt to conceal the weapons as part of the beast mode,
they just store on the hips.

Beast Mode: Him, Grimlock, like big tails, and him cannot lie. Me, not
so enamored. The tail is very thick because it's made up of the boots with
the feet near the tail tip rather than the folding way the G1 Grimlock did
it. Otherwise, it's a pretty good mecha-rex, defaulting to the horizontal
body stance of current scientific consensus rather than the tail-dragger of
my childhood. If you want to play with aligned continuity, this is a hybrid
of modern (well, as of 4 million years ago) Cybertronian robot modes and some
of the early Predacon CNA, which just happens to look like a T.rex.
9.25" (23.5cm) long from snout to tail tip, with the robot chest (which
is now the rump) rising 4" (10cm) from the table. Assuming he's supposed to
be as large as the biggest T.rex on record (which was female, T.rexes seem to
have had bigger women than men) this makes it about 1:50 to 1:55 scale. A
bit too big for interacting with most Cyberverse altmodes on the same scale,
but close.
A lot more of the pale gold plastic is visible and prominent in this
mode, with the body almost striped in pale gold and gunmetal. The red
accents on the boots are now on the tail, the arm bits of red are on the
legs, and they're joined by some red lines on the neck and red circular vents
on the cheeks. Gunmetal paint is used on the frills on the top of the neck
and to outline an Autobot symbol on the clear red plastic square on the
forehead. Yeah, in robot mode he has an LSC symbol (which is on his butt in
dino mode), but in dino mode he goes to Autobot. Interesting. The head is
constructed with fairly thin gunmetal plastic to help the light-up gimmick,
and in addition to the eyes and the forehead square there's a strip of clear
red plastic down the midline of the snout.
Articulation in this mode is pretty minimal, especially since the hips
are pegged into place. The neck can tilt up and down a little, the knees can
be used to change the overall angle of the body, but the joints on the feet
are pretty useless for changing poses. The forelimbs are ball-jointed at the
shoulders. The tail is a big immobile chunk. The light-up trigger makes the
jaw open slightly, but you can manually open the jaws about twice as far as
the gimmick does. It is possible to make a tail-dragger pose, the hinge at
the root of the neck has JUST enough range to let him drop his head to
horizontal while his tail is resting on the tabletop, but not enough to let
him look down at the scurrying puny humans.
Okay, this has more articulation than Autobot Blaster's altmode, but
that's a wheeled vehicle, it's okay if that's a box with wheels. While I'm
okay with an immobile tail, a design that locks the hips in place (and looks
broken when you unlock 'em) is just a bad design. I mean, the G1 Grimlock's
T.rex mode is about as articulated as this, if not slightly more.
Pulling back the light gray trigger on the back of the neck makes the
mouth open a little bit and turns on the red LED inside. This lights up the
eyes, forehead symbol and snout stripe strongly, and makes the panel lines on
the sides of the head light up pretty well.
The 5mm peg holes from the shoulders and forearms end up on the legs,
and the ones on the shoulders/hips are intended for weapon storage.
Additionally, some mold details on the insides of the foreclaws can hold 3mm
pegs, although I don't think that's an intentional design element. Still,
you can give Grimlock a pair of Cyberverse weapons to flail about on his tiny
forelimbs. The claws themselves are open too wide to hold 5mm pegs, but you
can sort of balance the weapons in them if you're careful. Hm, actually, the
thicker detail above the top of the hilt peg is just right for claw-holding,
but the lack of a wrist swivel means he just sort of holds the sword
horizontally and can't gesture menacingly with it unless you have him hold it
backwards and lift the arm as high as it'll go to the side.

Overall: Frankly, this would have worked better as a Deluxe without the
light-up feature. At the Deluxe size, the lack of dino-mode weapon
integration and articulation would be more excusable (and the lower mass
would make it less important to lock the hips, IMO). It's a good robot mode,
though, and if you don't demand articulation of beast modes you'll probably
like this toy.

Dave Van Domelen, should probably do the Kre-O combiners next.

[mathewi...@gmail.com]

Can't even find Grimlock or Blaster in stores anywhere.

Mathew

[Zobovor]

On May 23, 5:13 pm, mathewignas...@gmail.com wrote:

> Can't even find Grimlock or Blaster in stores anywhere.

They're not shipping any longer. Blitzwing and Springer have taken
over the case assortment.


Zob

[Neo Thunder]

I haven't seen any of the four here (I got Grimlock online though).

t.k.

[markbake...@fuller.edu]

I'm holding out hope for some Ross/TJMaxx/Marshall's somewhere to pick up the slack, but yeah, the time seems to have passed. It went pretty fast.

G.B. Blackrock