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Zob's Thoughts on More Age of Extinction One-Step Changers
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Zobovor
May 16, 2015, 7:42:22 PM5/16/15
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We've had these stupid things marked down at my store for a while now. We've been told to aggressive mark down the clearance and deleted merchandise to prepare for inventory (only about 60% of our clearance usually gets counted, so the less of it we have, the better). They were five bucks last week and three dollars this week; they'll go down to a dollar next week if there are any left. Out of the 360-some they shipped to the store for Christmas, there are only about 60 left!
I bought some of the ones my seven-year-old son doesn't have yet--strictly in the interest in helping my store move some of its inventory, of course. In no particular order:
LOCKDOWN
Lockdown's such a sexy car. He's actually got open side windows, a design element we generally haven't seen in a sports car since the Diaclone days. His push-button to transform him is in the center of his windshield, and it creates an ugly Powermaster engine-shaped seam. Press the button and his legs spring out and his arms pop out automatically. Getting him back into car mode is tough; he's fidgety and doesn't like to lock together. Folding in the left arm causes the right leg to retract; flipping closed the right arm makes the left leg retract. That's weird. As a robot, his elbows can swivel up slightly (not even a full 90 degrees), and that's it for articulation. One advantage of the toy's design is that all of his robot detailing is essentially a relief sculpture (he's basically a really big RPM toy), so the detailing for his chest and upper legs and head is elaborate, authentic, and doesn't have to actually turn into anything. So, in that respect he's much more accurate to Age of Extinction than the Deluxe-class Generations toy. He's wearing his lens-faced battle mask, not the Beast Machines Optimus Primal face shown on his packaging.
DINOBOT SLUG
Rather than producing different versions of the Dinobotz in differing color schemes (like, for instance, doing the One-Step Changers in rainbow colors but doing the Generations toys in more film-accurate gunmetal shades), One-Step Slug is decked up in the same Hasbro-created colors as Sixteen-Step Slug. He's reasonably similar in design, and in fact, in some ways this allegedly kid-friendly toy is more hazardous than the collector-driven Generations edition, since this toy is entirely styrene, and has no rubbery horns or tail. As a dino, his tail can pivot up and down, and his front legs wiggle a little, but that's it on useful articulation. To transform him, you split the dino head in half, and the toy's springs and gearworks take care of the rest. You have to cheat a little and fold his arms to his sides to complete the robot mode, but he boasts shoulder and elbow articulation, so that's a win. He's also got 5-mm peg holes in his fists, albeit shallow ones, so you could stuff a weapon in there if you wanted. All in all, this is a surprisingly successful transition to the One-Step format.
GALVATRON
I dunno. I kind of feel like Hasbro was trying a little too hard with this one. It's like all the executives were sitting in the board room going, "Okay, what kind of One-Step transformation, er, conversion haven't we used yet?" and some guy went, "What if you took the backpack and spun it around and around and around and around, and then when your hands got tired you still had to spin it around three or four more times?" Okay, it actually only requires a single complete revolution, but it's a slow and comparatively laborious approach. The upshot is that the truck mode is solid and won't accidentally transform if you don't want it to. Rotating the cab windows activates the internal gearworks that makes the robot head extend, and the arm panels open and pivot around, makes the legs spread apart slightly, and makes the rigid grill structure flip around to form the chest panel. Very slowly. The robot mode is brackish and super blocky, with the arms providing the only two points of articulation. Also, a panel on his roof can be pressed for no apparent reason. I think perhaps the original plan was that pressing the panel would cause the roof to rotate on its own and the robot would spin back into a truck, but wasn't realized on the final version of the toy.
HIGH OCTANE BUMBLEBEE
Black Bumblebee is so ugly. They never should have made this toy. He's a horrible pegwarmer! My store is totally out of One-Step Optimus Primes and Prowls and Rollbars and Grimlocks and yellow Bumblebees, but there's tons of black Bumblebees. If he'd been yellow, he would have sold like crazy. Anyway. Rather than copying the yellow Bumblebee toy, which transforms a bit like GoBots Destroyer, this one uses the Drift-style transformation where each entire side of the car wraps around to form a leg. There's lots of room inside his hollow legs for the robot arms and some weaponry, so this edition of Bumblebee is packing a gun-arm and a metallic blue blade. The entire front of his robot mode is a faux panel formed from the inside of the hood-and-windshield plate, and amusingly, the robot chest, which is sculpted to look like the front of the car, has a LOT more yellow than the actual front of the car does. You can transform the toy very quickly between both modes, as long as his arms are lined up so they'll tuck away into his leg-grooves. It's just such a shame about the black.
AUTOBOT HOUND
Hound's vehicle mode is perhaps less successful than some of the other One-Step toys. Due to the way they designed him, he's quite obviously the top half of an APC riding on a pair of robot legs. Also, his robot hands are quite clearly and obviously hanging off the back of the vehicle. There's also a scale issue; he had to fit in the One-Step packaging, which means he's more or less the same size as Bumblebee. His transformation is "backwards" so that he's facing the opposite direction as a robot than he was as a vehicle. This also means that all the surface details for his robot arms and chest are tucked away and hidden within the APC shell, so the detail is pretty close to his CGI model. (There was a missed opportunity to do something asymmetrical here, like slinging an ammo belt across his chest, that wouldn't interfere with the transformation at all.) His arms are made out of missiles and ammo belts. As with other Hasbro versions of the character, there's no cigar in his mouth. Also, like the Voyager-class Generations toy, he's not really fat enough. The shoulders and head are articulated. Not really a bad toy, but not nearly as impressive as the Voyager version.
AUTOBOT DRIFT (CAR)
I'm not sure why Drift is such a pegwarmer. Both the One-Step and the Generations versions sell so poorly. (At my store, the only Deluxe toys we have are Drift and Hot Shot/Tracks. Well, and Rattrap, and Tankor.) He shares a transformation with Prowl and High Octane Bumblebee, so that the sides of the car end up nearly touching each other to form the legs, and the windshield and roof flip over to reveal the robot chest details. The chest panel won't stay all the way down on my toy. In lieu of swords, he's got a blade attached to each forearm. The toy generally suffers from a lack of painted detail (his arms are entirely grey with some very sparse electric blue detailing; the robot chest is the same way) but he's not completely terrible.
AUTOBOT DRIFT (HELICOPTER)
This is the only helicopter version of Drift I'm ever going to own, since I have no intention of buying the Voyager toy (which wasn't even designed to be Drift in the first place). I have no idea what his helicopter CGI model actually looks like, but I imagine this is reasonably close. He's got the GoBots Destroyer style transformation, where he's already standing on his robot legs, even in vehicle mode, and the whole vehicle just "scissors" into robot mode. I like the robot styling of the helicopter toy much more than the car version, since this edition actually has the samurai armor on his arms and legs. The only major way in which the toy fails is that his robot face is completely flat. The robot head presses right up against the back of the helicopter canopy in vehicle mode, so I guess they figured protruding facial features were bad. There is seriously no depth to his face at all. Look at him from the side and his face totally vanishes. Still a better toy than Driftcar, though.
Oh, and every single one of these guys has that same weird little metal disk embedded in his foot. I assume this has got something to do with the functionality of Chomp and Stomp Grimlock (the Optimus Prime figurine that came with that absurdly overpriced toy also had a metal disk in his foot, which activated some of the gimmicks). This functionality has never been mentioned in any packaging or instructions that I've ever seen though.
Zob (amused that the "Chomp and Stomp" trademark is being recycled for the Jurassic World toy line)
I bought some of the ones my seven-year-old son doesn't have yet--strictly in the interest in helping my store move some of its inventory, of course. In no particular order:
LOCKDOWN
Lockdown's such a sexy car. He's actually got open side windows, a design element we generally haven't seen in a sports car since the Diaclone days. His push-button to transform him is in the center of his windshield, and it creates an ugly Powermaster engine-shaped seam. Press the button and his legs spring out and his arms pop out automatically. Getting him back into car mode is tough; he's fidgety and doesn't like to lock together. Folding in the left arm causes the right leg to retract; flipping closed the right arm makes the left leg retract. That's weird. As a robot, his elbows can swivel up slightly (not even a full 90 degrees), and that's it for articulation. One advantage of the toy's design is that all of his robot detailing is essentially a relief sculpture (he's basically a really big RPM toy), so the detailing for his chest and upper legs and head is elaborate, authentic, and doesn't have to actually turn into anything. So, in that respect he's much more accurate to Age of Extinction than the Deluxe-class Generations toy. He's wearing his lens-faced battle mask, not the Beast Machines Optimus Primal face shown on his packaging.
DINOBOT SLUG
Rather than producing different versions of the Dinobotz in differing color schemes (like, for instance, doing the One-Step Changers in rainbow colors but doing the Generations toys in more film-accurate gunmetal shades), One-Step Slug is decked up in the same Hasbro-created colors as Sixteen-Step Slug. He's reasonably similar in design, and in fact, in some ways this allegedly kid-friendly toy is more hazardous than the collector-driven Generations edition, since this toy is entirely styrene, and has no rubbery horns or tail. As a dino, his tail can pivot up and down, and his front legs wiggle a little, but that's it on useful articulation. To transform him, you split the dino head in half, and the toy's springs and gearworks take care of the rest. You have to cheat a little and fold his arms to his sides to complete the robot mode, but he boasts shoulder and elbow articulation, so that's a win. He's also got 5-mm peg holes in his fists, albeit shallow ones, so you could stuff a weapon in there if you wanted. All in all, this is a surprisingly successful transition to the One-Step format.
GALVATRON
I dunno. I kind of feel like Hasbro was trying a little too hard with this one. It's like all the executives were sitting in the board room going, "Okay, what kind of One-Step transformation, er, conversion haven't we used yet?" and some guy went, "What if you took the backpack and spun it around and around and around and around, and then when your hands got tired you still had to spin it around three or four more times?" Okay, it actually only requires a single complete revolution, but it's a slow and comparatively laborious approach. The upshot is that the truck mode is solid and won't accidentally transform if you don't want it to. Rotating the cab windows activates the internal gearworks that makes the robot head extend, and the arm panels open and pivot around, makes the legs spread apart slightly, and makes the rigid grill structure flip around to form the chest panel. Very slowly. The robot mode is brackish and super blocky, with the arms providing the only two points of articulation. Also, a panel on his roof can be pressed for no apparent reason. I think perhaps the original plan was that pressing the panel would cause the roof to rotate on its own and the robot would spin back into a truck, but wasn't realized on the final version of the toy.
HIGH OCTANE BUMBLEBEE
Black Bumblebee is so ugly. They never should have made this toy. He's a horrible pegwarmer! My store is totally out of One-Step Optimus Primes and Prowls and Rollbars and Grimlocks and yellow Bumblebees, but there's tons of black Bumblebees. If he'd been yellow, he would have sold like crazy. Anyway. Rather than copying the yellow Bumblebee toy, which transforms a bit like GoBots Destroyer, this one uses the Drift-style transformation where each entire side of the car wraps around to form a leg. There's lots of room inside his hollow legs for the robot arms and some weaponry, so this edition of Bumblebee is packing a gun-arm and a metallic blue blade. The entire front of his robot mode is a faux panel formed from the inside of the hood-and-windshield plate, and amusingly, the robot chest, which is sculpted to look like the front of the car, has a LOT more yellow than the actual front of the car does. You can transform the toy very quickly between both modes, as long as his arms are lined up so they'll tuck away into his leg-grooves. It's just such a shame about the black.
AUTOBOT HOUND
Hound's vehicle mode is perhaps less successful than some of the other One-Step toys. Due to the way they designed him, he's quite obviously the top half of an APC riding on a pair of robot legs. Also, his robot hands are quite clearly and obviously hanging off the back of the vehicle. There's also a scale issue; he had to fit in the One-Step packaging, which means he's more or less the same size as Bumblebee. His transformation is "backwards" so that he's facing the opposite direction as a robot than he was as a vehicle. This also means that all the surface details for his robot arms and chest are tucked away and hidden within the APC shell, so the detail is pretty close to his CGI model. (There was a missed opportunity to do something asymmetrical here, like slinging an ammo belt across his chest, that wouldn't interfere with the transformation at all.) His arms are made out of missiles and ammo belts. As with other Hasbro versions of the character, there's no cigar in his mouth. Also, like the Voyager-class Generations toy, he's not really fat enough. The shoulders and head are articulated. Not really a bad toy, but not nearly as impressive as the Voyager version.
AUTOBOT DRIFT (CAR)
I'm not sure why Drift is such a pegwarmer. Both the One-Step and the Generations versions sell so poorly. (At my store, the only Deluxe toys we have are Drift and Hot Shot/Tracks. Well, and Rattrap, and Tankor.) He shares a transformation with Prowl and High Octane Bumblebee, so that the sides of the car end up nearly touching each other to form the legs, and the windshield and roof flip over to reveal the robot chest details. The chest panel won't stay all the way down on my toy. In lieu of swords, he's got a blade attached to each forearm. The toy generally suffers from a lack of painted detail (his arms are entirely grey with some very sparse electric blue detailing; the robot chest is the same way) but he's not completely terrible.
AUTOBOT DRIFT (HELICOPTER)
This is the only helicopter version of Drift I'm ever going to own, since I have no intention of buying the Voyager toy (which wasn't even designed to be Drift in the first place). I have no idea what his helicopter CGI model actually looks like, but I imagine this is reasonably close. He's got the GoBots Destroyer style transformation, where he's already standing on his robot legs, even in vehicle mode, and the whole vehicle just "scissors" into robot mode. I like the robot styling of the helicopter toy much more than the car version, since this edition actually has the samurai armor on his arms and legs. The only major way in which the toy fails is that his robot face is completely flat. The robot head presses right up against the back of the helicopter canopy in vehicle mode, so I guess they figured protruding facial features were bad. There is seriously no depth to his face at all. Look at him from the side and his face totally vanishes. Still a better toy than Driftcar, though.
Oh, and every single one of these guys has that same weird little metal disk embedded in his foot. I assume this has got something to do with the functionality of Chomp and Stomp Grimlock (the Optimus Prime figurine that came with that absurdly overpriced toy also had a metal disk in his foot, which activated some of the gimmicks). This functionality has never been mentioned in any packaging or instructions that I've ever seen though.
Zob (amused that the "Chomp and Stomp" trademark is being recycled for the Jurassic World toy line)
banzait...@gmail.com
May 17, 2015, 10:47:04 AM5/17/15
to
> I have no idea what his helicopter CGI model actually looks like
Am I reading to much into this statement to think this means you did not see the movie??? Surely not.
> This is the only helicopter version of Drift I'm ever going to own, since I have no intention of buying the Voyager toy (which wasn't even designed to be Drift in the first place).
-Banzaitron
Zobovor
May 17, 2015, 12:52:59 PM5/17/15
to
On Sunday, May 17, 2015 at 8:47:04 AM UTC-6, banzait...@gmail.com wrote:
>> I have no idea what his helicopter CGI model actually looks like
>
> Am I reading to much into this statement to think this means you did not see
> the movie??? Surely not.
No, it's not that. I saw the movie, but there weren't any really clear shots of his helicopter mode, and I can't seem to find pictures of it online. (I haven't gotten the DVD yet, either. One day, I'm sure.)
>> I have no idea what his helicopter CGI model actually looks like
>
> Am I reading to much into this statement to think this means you did not see
> the movie??? Surely not.
> I'm not suggesting you run out and find this toy, but if you don't have
> Skyhammer, it would be worth consideration.
Zob
Zobovor
May 19, 2015, 12:42:02 AM5/19/15
to
On Saturday, May 16, 2015 at 5:42:22 PM UTC-6, Zobovor wrote:
> the windshield and roof flip over to reveal the robot chest details. The chest
> panel won't stay all the way down on my toy.
Apparently all the Driftcar toys like this, I've since discovered. Not sure if I feel better or worse about it now.
> the windshield and roof flip over to reveal the robot chest details. The chest
> panel won't stay all the way down on my toy.
Zob (I was expecting a giant car)
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