Death's Head
22-08-11, 07:23 AM
It’s another black Optimus! Hooray for silly repaints! Although I like Scourge and my lovely Woolly Mamoth Nemesis Prime, evil Prime's do seem to be a bit of a silly idea, up there with He-Man's Faker. They are completely the wrong colours to be of any use for infiltration, and not terribly convincing as a bad guy by any stretch. Which is probably why the best Nemesis Prime can ever be is a twisted clone of Optimus created by Unicron/ The Decepticons (delete as applicable) for sh*ts and giggles.
Anyway, this is my first Alternity figure. Alternity replaced the popular Binaltech/ Alternators 1:24 scaled line in 2007. I say 'popular', but Alternators stiffed at retail and was heavily discounted at supermarkets and remainder shops. Too complex for younger fingers and loosing out to their target demographic who were more interested in the die cast Japanese Binaltech versions, Hasbro further shot themselves in the foot with poorest assortments of any Transformers sub-line ever (a case of Smokescreeens?! Come on...!). The line died a protracted death thanks to Hasbro's endless recolours of the same five moulds (suprising, coming from them as this kind of cheekiness is normally associated with Takara) Even the late addition of the 'all new' Rumble and kitty cat Ravage failed to stimulate interest. The line was largely done with in 2006, Takara then tried to shore up interest in the concept by taking it to some very unsavoury places with 'Kiss Players'.
Alternity took the realistic licensed vehicles format and scrunched it down to a 1:32 scale, which now placed the toys in pretty much the same size class as your average deluxe toy, but at four times the cost due to the die cast and rubber tyres. By this point, the regular Transformers toys were matching the Alternity line for complextiy, so the thought of paying so much for something so small was a major turn off for me. And the backstory is the most preposterous piece of indulgent fanw*nk I think I've ever read. The sad thing is, the Alternity toys are a suprisingly good bunch of figures. They're nicely detailed and have a sensible use of diecast - rather than use it on the easily chipped body work like the Binaltech line, it's sensibly used on a major part of the figure's body and is thus housed internally in vehicle mode.
Transforming Convoy looks like it's going to be a daunting task, but it isn't. In 2007, the movie line introduced the wretched 'Automorph' gimmick, which partially transformed the figure for you. And so it is with Convoy here. The most complex thing you have to do is negotiate the various twists and turns to form the legs. This latter sequence has clearly been made needlessly complicated purely to distract you from the automorph that sorts out the upper body for you and make you grateful that the gimmick is there, because, man if the legs were anything to go by, then the rest of the figure would have been a real pickle to transform. I don't think.
The resultant robot mode is lovely. Convoy looks awesome. He has a very powerful looking robot mode and I love the wrist mounted blasters (formed from the back of the seats). The only major complaint I have is that he is just too black. The teal parts stand out like a sore thumb and there aren't enough of them to break up the ocean of darkness (I'm so Emo!!!). Whilst it doesn't look bad, it does seem a bit of a wasted effort. You may as well have left him totally black. Some silvers here and there would have been nice to give him a bit of extra zing. Suprisingly, he's not as massively poseable as the Binaltech figures. Sure, he's got the joints in all the right places, but he's not got anything a standard deluxe figure doesn't.
Ultimately, despite how great the figure is (and I do like him, despite the tone and sniping) he isn't anything to particularly write home about and all you're paying for is a really expensive deluxe Transformer toy. The diecast and rubber tyres just aren't enough to justify the expense of the toy, whichever way you look at it.
272273
Anyway, this is my first Alternity figure. Alternity replaced the popular Binaltech/ Alternators 1:24 scaled line in 2007. I say 'popular', but Alternators stiffed at retail and was heavily discounted at supermarkets and remainder shops. Too complex for younger fingers and loosing out to their target demographic who were more interested in the die cast Japanese Binaltech versions, Hasbro further shot themselves in the foot with poorest assortments of any Transformers sub-line ever (a case of Smokescreeens?! Come on...!). The line died a protracted death thanks to Hasbro's endless recolours of the same five moulds (suprising, coming from them as this kind of cheekiness is normally associated with Takara) Even the late addition of the 'all new' Rumble and kitty cat Ravage failed to stimulate interest. The line was largely done with in 2006, Takara then tried to shore up interest in the concept by taking it to some very unsavoury places with 'Kiss Players'.
Alternity took the realistic licensed vehicles format and scrunched it down to a 1:32 scale, which now placed the toys in pretty much the same size class as your average deluxe toy, but at four times the cost due to the die cast and rubber tyres. By this point, the regular Transformers toys were matching the Alternity line for complextiy, so the thought of paying so much for something so small was a major turn off for me. And the backstory is the most preposterous piece of indulgent fanw*nk I think I've ever read. The sad thing is, the Alternity toys are a suprisingly good bunch of figures. They're nicely detailed and have a sensible use of diecast - rather than use it on the easily chipped body work like the Binaltech line, it's sensibly used on a major part of the figure's body and is thus housed internally in vehicle mode.
Transforming Convoy looks like it's going to be a daunting task, but it isn't. In 2007, the movie line introduced the wretched 'Automorph' gimmick, which partially transformed the figure for you. And so it is with Convoy here. The most complex thing you have to do is negotiate the various twists and turns to form the legs. This latter sequence has clearly been made needlessly complicated purely to distract you from the automorph that sorts out the upper body for you and make you grateful that the gimmick is there, because, man if the legs were anything to go by, then the rest of the figure would have been a real pickle to transform. I don't think.
The resultant robot mode is lovely. Convoy looks awesome. He has a very powerful looking robot mode and I love the wrist mounted blasters (formed from the back of the seats). The only major complaint I have is that he is just too black. The teal parts stand out like a sore thumb and there aren't enough of them to break up the ocean of darkness (I'm so Emo!!!). Whilst it doesn't look bad, it does seem a bit of a wasted effort. You may as well have left him totally black. Some silvers here and there would have been nice to give him a bit of extra zing. Suprisingly, he's not as massively poseable as the Binaltech figures. Sure, he's got the joints in all the right places, but he's not got anything a standard deluxe figure doesn't.
Ultimately, despite how great the figure is (and I do like him, despite the tone and sniping) he isn't anything to particularly write home about and all you're paying for is a really expensive deluxe Transformer toy. The diecast and rubber tyres just aren't enough to justify the expense of the toy, whichever way you look at it.
272273