Death's Head
18-10-11, 07:15 AM
For his fifty third deluxe toy, Bumblebee rolled out as part of the Hunt For The Decepticons line with a further attempt to better capture the look of the CGI model. For this outing, Bumblebee got a whole new mould with new tooling and play features – including the titular ‘battle blade’ that gives the toy its name and differentiates itself from the sixteen ROTF deluxes we’d just had.
Whilst you have to go a long way to beat the initial ROTF deluxe, this new Battle Blade version comes very close to topping that toy. The robot mode tries that much harder to replicate what’s seen on screen. There are a number of improvements over the ROTF version, the better attempt to get those doors and front wheels pegged to the character’s back, the arms are a little stockier although as with the Cannon Deluxe they are perhaps a tad too short. The fixed wrists are disappointing and one area that could have used some improvement, I liked that the ROTF toy could move his hand so he didn’t look like he was fixing to pick up a really big invisible box or impersonating a crab. A flick of a tab on his left arm reveals his axe/ blade weapon which is nicely rendered in translucent blue. This is very cleverly engineered to tuck away neatly when not used. His right arm also converts to his familiar cannon. Whilst it’s a great effort to have this included, the yellow of the barrel draws your attention to the compromise made to include this – it’s a little feeble looking and clearly made up of a rearranged arm. Unavoidable, as the yellow has been thrown in to have the retracted weapon disguised amongst the other crumpled car parts on his forearm, but I feel it would have looked better rendered in grey. The flip down Battle Mask is a welcome addition, however it is very tightly attached to the robot head meaning flipping it forward is a bit of a job, but it looks better than those previous ‘masked’ deluxe figures that represented Bumblebee’s warrior look. The crumpled chest is also not quite as good looking as the ROTF version – it slopes down a lot further giving ‘bee a ‘saggy boobs’ look. I like that the designers have worked really hard to make this an ‘ultimate’ deluxe figure, but perhaps they’ve tried a little too hard and there’s the feeling that this figure would have worked better with the space afforded to the Voyager scale.
Getting Bumblebee into his vehicular configuration is more involved than on previous versions, thanks to the stripping out of the auto-morph system and you have to be careful to get the head angled just right, or it gets forced off the ball joint as the various panels that make up the bonnet align. As ever, Bumblebee is a Chevrolet Camaro and still looks great.
Whilst the figure goes to great lengths to mix in some excellent play features and design elements, the figure does feel too busy for this size class but maybe that’s the fault of these complex CGI designs where most of the on screen figures rendered in this size class has some points of dissatisfaction. For my money, whilst I like the effort involved, you still have to go a long way to beat the ROTF figure.
100810091010
Whilst you have to go a long way to beat the initial ROTF deluxe, this new Battle Blade version comes very close to topping that toy. The robot mode tries that much harder to replicate what’s seen on screen. There are a number of improvements over the ROTF version, the better attempt to get those doors and front wheels pegged to the character’s back, the arms are a little stockier although as with the Cannon Deluxe they are perhaps a tad too short. The fixed wrists are disappointing and one area that could have used some improvement, I liked that the ROTF toy could move his hand so he didn’t look like he was fixing to pick up a really big invisible box or impersonating a crab. A flick of a tab on his left arm reveals his axe/ blade weapon which is nicely rendered in translucent blue. This is very cleverly engineered to tuck away neatly when not used. His right arm also converts to his familiar cannon. Whilst it’s a great effort to have this included, the yellow of the barrel draws your attention to the compromise made to include this – it’s a little feeble looking and clearly made up of a rearranged arm. Unavoidable, as the yellow has been thrown in to have the retracted weapon disguised amongst the other crumpled car parts on his forearm, but I feel it would have looked better rendered in grey. The flip down Battle Mask is a welcome addition, however it is very tightly attached to the robot head meaning flipping it forward is a bit of a job, but it looks better than those previous ‘masked’ deluxe figures that represented Bumblebee’s warrior look. The crumpled chest is also not quite as good looking as the ROTF version – it slopes down a lot further giving ‘bee a ‘saggy boobs’ look. I like that the designers have worked really hard to make this an ‘ultimate’ deluxe figure, but perhaps they’ve tried a little too hard and there’s the feeling that this figure would have worked better with the space afforded to the Voyager scale.
Getting Bumblebee into his vehicular configuration is more involved than on previous versions, thanks to the stripping out of the auto-morph system and you have to be careful to get the head angled just right, or it gets forced off the ball joint as the various panels that make up the bonnet align. As ever, Bumblebee is a Chevrolet Camaro and still looks great.
Whilst the figure goes to great lengths to mix in some excellent play features and design elements, the figure does feel too busy for this size class but maybe that’s the fault of these complex CGI designs where most of the on screen figures rendered in this size class has some points of dissatisfaction. For my money, whilst I like the effort involved, you still have to go a long way to beat the ROTF figure.
100810091010