Tag Archives: Robot Mode

Toy Review – Cyberverse Gnaw

Sharkticons.  In G1 they worked for the Quintessons.  In IDW they worked for the Junkions.  Whatever the place in the Multiverse, it always seems to be the fate of the Sharkticons to be the serving class – rotund warriors who turn into savage shark… thingies.

Gnaw is to this day the only named member of the Sharkticon race, whereas even the Junkions have grown their named-character ranks over the years.  But given their appearance in The Transformers: The Movie in 1986 and then in multiple episodes of G1 Season 3 thereafter Sharkticons – and therefore Gnaw – are instantly recognisable to nearly any Transformer fan on the planet.

Gnaw got his first new toy in thirty years with his 2016 Titans Return figure.  It was much beloved, especially since he was so small and cheap that you could by a ton of him!  Well now three years after that Gnaw is taking his first steps into the Multiverse with a bigger (if somewhat similar figure).  So let’s chomp down on Cyberverse Gnaw.

 

Robot Mode

“Call me ‘Humpty Dumpty’ again. I dare you – say it one more time”

Tubby fragger isn’t he!  But he conforms perfectly to how the Sharkticons looked in the G1 show and how they may/probably look when they debut in the Cyberverse cartoon.  The articulation isn’t too bad for a Warrior-Class CB figure, with some actuation in his shoulders, elbows, hips, knees and neck.  With a neckline covered in teeth and a light grey, light blue and pink colour scheme you would be hard pressed to mistake this fella for anyone else.

Mace Mash 

By pushing the shark fin situated in the middle of Gnaw’s Back you make him do a Mace Mash spin, akin to the gimmick that the Cyberverse Acid Storm sports.  It’s kinda fun I guess, certainly aimed at a younger demographic.  Certainly adds more play value than simply pressing a button like on Alpha Trion.  I do like how his mace has a big kink in it, something to give it a bit more visual appeal.

 

Sharticon Mode

“I watch you while you sleep”

Half-Frog, Half-Shark – all ugly!  Yup – he ticks all the boxes.  This is for the most part simply an upscaled version of the Titans Return version, in fact their transformations are nearly identical.  Sadly this Gnaw has no articulation in his arms which is a bit of a letdown as was something they could have been easily included without compromising the Mace Mash gimmick.  But it’s a small quibble, on the whole he looks great. Ugly yes – but great.

 

Worth Getting?

Gnaw’s on parade

Well, I reckon so.  As only the third official Gnaw toy we’ve had in the last 33 years, people would have been over the moon if this had been released before the Titans Return figure existed.  As it is he is worth getting if you are into Cyberverse or the character in general.  Given the $29(AU) price point I can’t see many folk using him to army build. Given his size however, which is half way between the other two official Gnaw figures, he will add some nice variety to your Sharkticon displays.

Baby Shark, do-de-do-do-do

 

Got anything to say about this figure?  Pop it in the comments section below!

 

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Toy Review: Cyberverse Slipstream (Ultra)

Slipstream – the female Seeker fatalle.

Introduced back in Transformers Animated as a female clone of Starscream, Slipstream became very popular very quickly.  Not only having the distinction of the only official female Seeker ever, but also one of a small number of female Decepticons all up.

Fans loved seeing another female baddie and combined with her cool attitude and colour scheme it meant that Slipstream soon started turning up in other Transformers Universes.  In the Aligned Universe via novels, video games and a Timelines figure (recolour of TFP Starscream) and was retroactively introduced into G1 via a Legends toy (retool of Legends Windblade).

Well now Slipstream has shown up in the new Cyberverse cartoon.  Not only was she the main antagonist for the first season of the cartoon, but it has finally after all these years given her well overdue original toy that’s not simply a redo of someone else.  So let’s check out Ultra Class Cyberverse Slipstream.

 

Robot Mode

Aesthetics

I reckon without a doubt this is the best looking Slipstream we have ever had!  Not a recoloured Starscream, not Windblade with an Animated-style head stuck on.  No, this is Slipstream all the way!  The proportions, the colour scheme, the arm cannons, the face with the plum coloured lipstick, she looks exactly like she does on the cartoon.  If it wasn’t for the fact you can see a big purple panel hanging down behind her thighs I’d say she was perfect.

Jet black hair and plum lipstick – I AM the emo girl you lusted after in High School

Articulation

Knee’s are for the weak!

Of course, while her looks are great, her articulation is not.  No knee articulation, no neck and head movement and the few places where she does have articulation (hips, shoulders & elbows) the movement is quite limited.  So unless you want her very purposely striding somewhere or doing the splits, you will feel let down here.

So glad I’m not a Malebot right now!

 

Jet Mode

Aesthetics

Once again, you can tell this figure was meant to be Slipstream from the start, the jet mode looks just like it does on the cartoon.  Whilst a tad plain for my tastes, it certainly does the job of recreating the onscreen look.  She has landing gear that pops down but the cockpit is simply painted on.  The only real letdown to this mode is the very visible hands from the robot mode, it would have taken so little effort for the designers to make them fold into the hollow forearms.

Sonic Swirl

WTF?! Well I suppose….. no seriously – WTF?!?

Sigh… look, I understand why these gimmicks get put in.  While I as an adult would prefer they get left out so as to put more effort into the rest of the toy, they are very appealing to little kids. My 6 and 4 year old had great fun squeezing the jets guns together to activate the ‘Sonic Swirl’.  My question is – what the hell is the sonic swirl supposed to be?!  It makes some panels pop up off her wings and flip behind her to briefly twirl.  But why?  It can’t be propulsion, she is already a jet.  As it’s sonic, maybe it causes some kind of noisy vortex behind her to deter pursuers or something?  For me it just seems to be a bit of useless gimmickry that the toy could have done without.  But yeah, I guess I’m not the key target demographic.

 

Ultra Class Slipstream, worth getting?

Hey – I look better than Starscream at least!

Depends.  Aesthetically she is by far the biggest and best looking Slipstream figure we have ever had from any continuity.  Articulation wise she isn’t much better than the KRE-O version.  The vehicle mode looks great but has a couple of glaring issues.  That combined with the very simplistic transformation (9 steps) means that your more serious Transformer fan will happily bypass her. But for young kids, Cyberverse fans or Slipstream & Seeker fanatics (which I am) she is worth shelling out some bucks for.

 

Got anything to add to the review?  Pop it in the comments section below!

 

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Exclusive Card Reveal: Private Stakeout – Transformers TCG

A few months ago, bigangrytrev.com was privileged enough to be given an exclusive reveal for the new Transformers Trading Card Game. In that instance it was Dirge and Defensive Driving from the Rise of the Combiners cards.

Well now courtesy of Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast, we have been given another exclusive reveal. And this time it is from the latest iteration of the game – War For Cybertron Seige.

For those unaware, the current Transformers Generations toyline for 2019 is indeed War for Cybertron Seige and indeed it appears many of the upcoming cards will be based on said toyline. The exclusive card reveal we get to do today is definetly based on one of those toys, a Micromaster character who hadn’t had a new figure for nearly 30 years – Private Stakeout.

Coming in at 4 Stars, Stakeout – whose roles are Infantry and Communications – doesn’t appear to be the most powerful of characters, but then as a Micromaster he isn’t expected to be.  But this little Autobot can still prove quite useful.

 

Patrol Car Mode

 

3 Attack, 5 Health, 0 Defense

The artwork from this has been taken from the Siege packaging for Stakeout, which I quite like as I’m really enjoying the more gritty artwork that has been accompanying this line. In his Patrol Car mode, Stakeout has only 5 health and absolutely zero shielding. However this sneaky little bot has got that covered. Despite appearing quite vulnerable, his skill is Stealth, which means that unless every other one of your Hero Cards has been KO’ed by your opponent, any attack on this card while it is untapped can be deflected onto another one of your characters, keeping him safe from being killed before he can even get in the fight.

 

Robot Mode

 

2 Attack, 5 Health, 1 Defence

Once again, the artwork has been taken from the great packaging art of the new toy. In robot mode Private Stakeout sacrifices one of his attack points in order to get at least a bit of defence going. But once again, it’s less his stats that are important bur rather his special ability. Stakeout has the ability to, via you sacrificing one of your white-square cards, to flip another Hero Character Card to it’s other mode. This can be invaluable depending on who you are flipping. For instance if you have another character who has a lot more health and defence in one of its modes and is near death, you can flip it to its more resilient mode in order to survive your opponents next attack on you.

 

Teams Private Stakeout may be useful on

Stakeout is most definitely a supporting character. With 4 Stars he is designed to fill out a team full of stronger/higher star ranking characters where you have already used up to 21 of your 25 star limit. Stakeout will be most useful in a team with characters where it is imperative to be able to get that extra Hero Card flip in so as to facilitate either attack or defence. This suits Stakeout in the grand scheme of the Transformers universe; Micromasters are small, not particularly powerful in of themselves and are often used to support bigger robots. For instance in the new toyline Stakeout combines with Red Heat to form the “Binerboost Salvage Blaster”, a gun used by regular sized bots.

 

So I hope you have enjoyed another Exclusive Card reveal from bigangrytrev.com. Many thanks to Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast for the chance to show this card to the world, which will be available when the Transformers TCG War For Cybertron Seige sets get released on June 28th 2019.  Also check out the reveal over on Life…With Sprogs to see another new card – Searget Skrapnel.

 

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Toy Review – Masterpiece Shockwave

Ah Shockwave, the guy that many adults – who liked TF’s but weren’t nuts about it – could never remember the name of because it sounded too much like ‘Soundwave’.  To the true TF nut, he was a big purple fragger who psychologically was a mixture of Spock from Star Trek and Brute from Shakespeare – he will stab you in the back if he thinks it’s logical to do so.  Or since he turns into a giant space laser, he will just blow you up and whatever planet you happen to be standing on at the time.

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Series – Masterpiece
New/remould/redeco – new
Wave – MP-29
Approximate Retail Price – 16800 yen
Approximate Size – 25cm
Allegiance – Decepticon
Alt-mode – Laser Vulcan
Main Features/Gimmicks – Light up guns
Main Colours – Purple, grey/lilac
Main Accessories – Mini Shockwave, backpack/stand, opaque fist & salute hand, clear plastic fist, salute and gun hand

Giant Space Laser Gun Mode

Wow – it’s really long!  That took me somewhat by surprise but considering I have the G1 Shockwave toy and have seen every screen appearance Shockers ever made about a hundred times I should have expected it.  I think this figure is beating out my G1 Shockwave and G1 Sixshot for the biggest Transformer Gun in my collection (no I’m not counting movie ones that just went from vehicle to hollow blaster you put your hand in).

Length aside, he has girth too.  Very solid feeling though because of the relatively light plastic he is not all that heavy.  Also the barrel is that nice wide hexagon shape that seems peculiar to Shockwave’s weapon mode.  So between length, girth and width Shockwave feels very secure in himself in weapon mode and along with the lovely lilac colour it makes him a perfect Masterpiece present for the ladies.  His dimensions certainly makes a lot of the Targetmasters feel inadequate about themselves at any rate.

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Robot Mode

We have had quite a few nice Shockwave toys over the years, even those that were not brilliant in alt-mode tended to have some good looking robot modes.  This is a great looking Shockwave and much like MP Ratchet whom I opened the other day the most faithful representation of the G1 cartoon character we have had.  Everything is there from the see-thru chest, the laser barrel on the left arm, the power conduit going from that arm to his back, the ears/antenna, the cyclopean eye – everything is just right.  You would be hard pressed to find fault with him, especially with the myriad of different hand attachments he comes with, the light up features and even the mini-version of himself he used in one episode.  Add to all this the spot-on colour scheme, proportions and poseability and he is a winner!

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Transformation

One of the most straight forward Masterpieces I have tackled in a long time.  One could argue that he turns into a gun with arms as the barrel and legs as the grip so he should be straight forward but Megatron could be said to be similar and transforming that MP was a nightmare!  You can do this guy easily without the instructions.  Easy, but not annoyingly so, you will be getting your money’s worth.

Overall

Well we finally have the all the big time commanders from Season 1 & 2 – Shockwave, Soundwave, Starscream and Megatron in Masterpiece form so there is plenty of battle scenes awaiting you collectors to have fun with!  Given the relatively cheap materials Shockwave is made from I think that the price he goes for is a tad exorbitant but I have zero buyers regret.  You want a great version of that one-eyed, one-handed, logical-to-a-fault Military Operations Commander?  Well you got it!

Space Cop

Space Cop