Dave's PRiD Rant: Deployer Overload

[Dave Van Domelen]

Dave's Prime: Robots in Disguise Rant - Deployers Wave 2

Overload & Backtrack (tank and cannonball)
Blizzard Strike Drift & Jetstorm (redeco in blizzard camo, not bought)

Permalink: https://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/PRiD/Deployer2

Despite quite liking Overload's character in the show, the first wave of
Deployers left such a bad taste in my mouth I wasn't about to pay full price
for more, and even in-package you can tell there's a lot of hollow parts and
lack of articulation. But when Target clearanced Deployers for $9.98, I
figured it was worth getting Overload (still passed on the Drift redeco),
since it's basically $5 for Backtrack and $5 for Overload.

https://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/PRiD/Quatuor1 - Backtrack mold

CAPSULES

$20 price point normally.

Overload & Backtrack: Backtrack mold is pretty good, and I did say in my
review of the four-pack with Blizzard Strike Backtrack that I'd probably get
one more copy of the mold. Worth $10, but not a lot more. Definitely not
worth the $20 originally asked.

Blizzard Strike Drift & Jetstorm: Original deco got an "Avoid" rating,
and I took my own advice on this "as seen in one episode or so" redeco.


RANTS

Packaging: Same as wave 1.

DECEPTICON: OVERLOAD
Altmode: Tank
Transformation Difficulty: 11 steps
Previous Name Use: (Overload) G1, Arm, Classics, TFU, RotF; (Backtrack) Arm,
Cyb
Previous Mold Use: (Overload) None; (Backtrack) PRiD
Mini-Con: Backtrack
Function: Infiltrator, Actor
Motto: "The play's the thing in which to catch the spark chamber of the
king!"

Packaging: Six ties on Overload, one on Backtrack, two on Backtrack's
accessory sprue.

Robot Mode: From the front it looks pretty good, but just about any
other angle reveals massive hollow spaces and tread kibble. There's a cannon
permanently attached to the left arm, so they don't bother making the left
fist open, but the right fist can hole 5mm pegs. There's a bunch of
rectangular slots on the body that look like they should be usable for
connecting stuff, but they're just artifacts of trying to design this with as
few pieces as possible. Rectangular Mini-Con tabs are on each shoulder.
5.5" (14cm) tall and quite sparkly. All of his plastic has at least a
little metalflake sparkle going on, and even some of the paint does. He's a
STAR and must DAZZLE, you see. Mostly medium blue and dark gray with some
silver, orange, and red. The launcher clip and ram, shoulder innards,
thighs, feet, treadchunks in back, and some buttons on his cannon are a
sparkly dark gray plastic. Everything else is sparkly medium blue plastic.
There's metalflake dark gray (slightly lighter than the plastic) paint on the
shoulders, upper torso details, and kneepads. The tall crest of his helmet
is painted orange (slightly chipped on mine), as is the top of his cannon and
some tank mode headlight details on the forearms. Face and abdomen are
silver, eyes and pectoral headlighs are red. The Decepticon symbol code
circle is on the right forearm.
Negligible articulation. The shoulders have ball joints, but the
connection is too high and too far back so that any pose other than "arms
down and maybe a LITTLE out to the sides" looks like his arm is coming off.
The hips are hinged to let the legs spread to the sides for transformation,
so I guess he can do Van Damme splits or try for a Kirby Stance. Knees only
bend inwards for transformation and thus look like broken legs when used in
this mode.
Unlike the other Deployers, they abandoned the idea of using the
launcher in a swing-down fashion in this mode. He can't even fire the thing
in robot mode. But they didn't use the opportunity to give the figure more
meaningful articulation or non-hollow limbs, sigh.

Ski Mode: If you fold out the tank treads in robot mode, he can sort of
ski on them.

Transformation: A little collar panel swings up to cover the robot face.
Spread the legs and swing the launcher down between them, pause to snicker at
the rude joke you just thought of, and bend the lower legs inward against the
launcher. The treads all fold out from the backs of the boots, but first you
have to rotate the arms inward so that slots ahead of the fists can connect
to tabs on the boots. The cannon has to fold out first, and then a dark gray
tab on its underside go into a slot in the launcher base. Now the treads can
peg onto details inside the shoulders, but it's a bit tricky to get
everything folded the right way at the same time.

Vehicle Mode: Well, it's reminiscent of the grid tanks in Tron, with an
off-centerline cannon. And they did gamely add little wheels under the
treads, but the inevitable safety mechanism (so you can't launch a Mini-Con
unless the tab is pushed in, preferably by the toy being flat on a surface)
drags enough to render the wheels moot. Anyway, the tank is slightly wedge-
shaped, narrower at the front than the back because the shoulders can't move
inward. This results in the molded cannon pointing slightly right of center.
If they'd sprung for upper arm swivels instead of putting the swiveling at
the shoulders, this could have been avoided AND the wheel-like details on the
shoulders would actually be wheels (although this would remove the ability to
mount Mini-Cons there in vehicle mode). Ther's an H-tank style gap in front,
but it's meant to be filled by a Mini-Con (which reminds me of the Tau
vehicles and their drone slots from Warhammer 40K).
All in all, though, while it's not as aggressively "cybertronian" as the
other Deployer vehicle modes, it's still pretty much "slap some treads on a
blocky shape and call it a tank" vehicle. At least they sprang for that
panel that covers the face.
5.25" (13.5cm) long and 4.5" (11cm) wide, about the same color balance
as robot mode.
The dark gray button on top of the cannon triggers the Mini-Con
launcher, which is reasonably strong. Sure, it only shoots straight up a few
inches (gotta hold the safety tab in manually to do this), but it fires
rolling Mini-Cons a decent distance. Especially the smooth ones like
Backtrack. The front of the launching ram has a sort of energy cannon
aperture detailing molded on it, so after launching it can be seen as a
spinal mount main gun.
All in all, it does an okay job of looking like a sort of vehicle rather
than a robot lying down and pretending to be a vehicle, but it's not a
terribly impressive vehicle (and the safety tab keeps it from resting flat,
tempted to see if I can glue it in place).

Mini-Con: Already reviewed in detail. Replace blue plastic with silvery
gray, and the shell is more greenish than the teal version in the four-pack.
The accessories are slightly yellowish orange. There's light blue paint on
the fronts of the legs and in the center of the chest cannon. Silver face,
orange eyes (same orange as Overload's crest and cannon).
The "equator" is free of accessories, and Backtrack can be loaded into
Overload (in either robot or tank mode) with all accessories attached.
However, the instructions also point out that the shoulder cannons can attach
to either side of Overload's cannon using a different set of tabs and slots
(a bit tight of a fit).
While it's not as nice-looking as in the cartoon, Backtrack can peg onto
the center of Overload's shoulder. So Overload can carry up to three
Mini-Cons as long as at least one is a Cyclone style cannonball (the launcher
backpack can only deal with spheres).

Decepticon Hammer can fit into Overload's launcher with all accessories
in place, although it's a bit awkward. And with two Mini-Con ports (one on
each wing) it can mount on either shoulder right-side up. Decepticon Anvil
has no problems, but the four-pack version has no accessories to present
issues.

Overall: Eh, a brick, but an okay-looking brick. I don't feel ripped
off for the price I paid (and I probably would still feel ripped off by Drift
at this price), but it certainly wasn't worth $20.


Dave Van Domelen, finishing his first review from the new house.