Who'll Be The Next In Line?

One of the best things about the Classics line was the lack of re-paints. There were only 3, so I shall review them in one hit.

First up is Ultra Magnus. I remember when UM was a distinctive character, but all that went out of the window a few years ago when he became an easy repaint choice for Hasbro. UM benefits from being a repaint of a great mould, but frankly, the deco is pretty uninspiring. Essentially white with blue trim, the one ting I actually like is that he has two Autobot badges tampographed onto his shoulders.

Ultra Magnus came in a two-pack with Skywarp. Again, an easy re-paint (Thundercracker and Sunstorm to follow for Classics/Universe 3.0 perhaps?) Skywarp pretty much follows the original toy scheme. I have to say that the pink/purple paint used on this toy doesn't do the best job of covering black plastic. I have to say that I actually prefer this toy to Starscream.

Finally Cliffjumper, which I find to be the weakest of the three re-paints. The actual mould works quite well as Cliffjumper, but it would have been nice if Hasbro could have produced a new accessory that transformed into a large gun. Also the silver scratches (?) deco for the vehicle mode is atrocious!

Rock the Casbah

Well, I apologise for my tardiness! A bit of a delay getting 'round to this, a review of yet another excellent figure - Mirage. Yes, I know, these reviews are getting to be a bit like a stuck record (don't worry it won't be long till I get to 2.0/Universe)

Mirage, as with most of the original Classics line, is a character that first appeared in the first year of G1. I never owned the original toy, so I have no memories (fond or otherwise) of the original. Mirage is, however, a character that I have always felt was criminally underused in both comic and cartoon.

A aristocratic spy with no particular affinity to the Autobot cause, Mirage strikes me as a character with bags of internal conflict for a writer to exploit. Perhaps his time will come.

In time honoured fashion, I shall begin with a review of the vehicle mode. Mirage used to be a 1970s F1 race car, now he's a generic race car that looks quite a lot (but not the same) as a F1 race car (or Indy car for you Yanks). There's not a lot to say about the toy as such - it's a toy car, it has 4 independent wheels (no suspension). You give it a push, it rolls across a flat surface a fair way.

As far as the deco is concerned, Mirage is blue and white as has always been the case, and he still sports the number 26. The adverts tampographed to the toy offer a few nice homages - to the Autobots' human friends and the robotic race wiped out by Unicron early in the animated Transformers movie.

After a very satisfying transformation, Mirage stands as a willowy, yet powerful looking robot. This toy must also be one of, if not the, most poseable Transformer yet. 14 points of articulation. It doesn't sound much, but you can get some fantastic poses out of this toy. A nice touch is that the nose of the car becomes Mirage's pistol, which seems a fitting weapon for a sneaky spy.

Flamin' Groovies

So, continuing our countdown of the Classics Line, we reach Rodimus. Or Rodimus Major. Or Hot Rod.

Hot Rod is a reasonably interesting character; while Bumblebee is kid-friendly, Hot Rod is the rebelious teenager who'll come good in the end. And of course, he likes fish. As with most of the Classics line, this toy is a high-quality representation of the character. So without further waffle, let's, take a look at the car mode.

Hot Rod first appeared in the 1987 Transformers Movie, and as a character from the 'future' of 2005, transformed into a futuristic car. Classics Hot Rod shares all of the design features from the original toy: the bright orange spoiler, bonnet mounted engine block, exhaust pipes running the length of the car (reduced from 3 to 2 on each side) and the fiery design elements. What you can't see from the picture is that Hot Rods gun attaches to the underside of the car replicating an exhaust and the missile for said gun is designed to replicate billowing smoke and flames.

In robot mode, Classics Hot Rod captures all the elements of Hot Rod you'd expect. The bonnet forms the chest, exhaust 'guns' on the forearms and the spoiler appears as 'wings' on the robots back. Classics Hot Rod adds a couple of new features - yellow 'horns' have been added to the head, as a Jimmy Hill chin, which rather takes away from the youthful essence of the character.

A rather nice addition to the toy concerns the left hand, which features a flip-out circular saw - an homage to Hot Rod's undersea escapades in Transformers The Movie. Another nice feature is that the gun can be attached to the robots back, replicating a rocket-pack.

I have two small criticisms of Hot Rod. One is that there is less articulation when compared to other toys in the Classics line (but not so much that it's a problem), a related criticism is that the hip area is a sod to position. The legs can be moved independently, but are also attached so that they move together. The panels that appear there, I find, also get in the way.

Overall, Hot Rod is yet another near masterpiece in the Classics line.

78 Stone Wobble

This is likely to be one of the shortest reviews I'm ever likely to write, or you to read. Classics Ramjet was based on the Starscream mould, with a few changes. So pretty much anything I mentioned about Starscream is still applicable.

The plane mode does a good job of replicating G1 Ramjet, particularly those red delta wings and the extra jet engines. The colour scheme pretty much follows the G1 toy, with the addition of a dash of gold, and looks... reasonable. You're never going to see a military jet painted like this, but then it's a made up jet so who cares? I have two criticisms; I think the nose is too short and the wings too narrow. Hardly disasterous.

In robot mode, the toy replicates the 'conehead' look the character had in cartoon and comic. I like the understated colour scheme of white and grey, but I'm not so sure about the gold. Mind you, it's not terrible, Ramjet has been in ill served in the last few years (Universe Ramjet, I'm looking at you). Because the wings form part of Ramjet's legs rather than his back, Ramjet actually has a better range of movement than Starsream. I'll quickly mention the missile launchers. The missiles are obviously meant to evoke the bombs that came with the original Ramjet toy, and work reasonably well in jet mode. They look pretty awful in robot mode. It would have been nice if Hasbro could have supplied a pair of the cannons from Starscream (and vice versa), so that the missiles could be changes for each mode.

Is this an improvement on the 'standard' version of the mould? No.

The Locomotion

Trains and Transformers do not mix. Don't believe me? Count the number of Transformers you own that change into trains. Yep, that's right. Not very many. While the Japanese love the things, here in the west trains seem to get a rough ride. If you want to ride on one (in the UK), you have to pay a small fortune, so that you can stand for the majority of the journey, and the chances are that the rail network doesn't even go to the place you want to visit. Japan, of course, has the bullet train.

Given the popularity of trains in Japan, it's no surprise that they crop up every now and then, but as a rule train Transformers are a little disappointing. Japan got a whole special team that combined to form Raiden, but I'm not sure anyone but completists really missed out. There was a Japanese Micromaster combiner team that made it to the western world during the Unicron Trilogy years, and again, they weren't much kop. And then there's Rail Racer, from Robots In Disguise. Rail Racer, I must admit, is probably my favourite 'combiner,' but the three individual toys aren't the best. This leaves Astrotrain. The first Triple-Changer I ever owned, Astrotrain always had a special place in my heart. Unusually for a Triple-Changer, both shuttle and train modes were pretty convincing. So, when it was revealed that Astrotrain would appear in the Classics line, I was pleasantly surprised.

First of all; shuttle mode. The more successful of Astrotrain's alternate modes. First of all, it looks, generally speaking, like a space shuttle. Always a good start. On the plus side, there's a retractable nose wheel, and a place to store Astrotrain's rifle on the underside of the shuttle. On the downside... Well, where to start? There's the tiny tail (at least there's a logical reason for that), there's superfluous wheels everywhere, and there's two halves of a train whacked onto the side of the shuttle. If your feeling generous (and I am), you can imagine that these chunks of train are, in fact, fuel tanks. If you're feeling generous. Bare in mind that this is far better than the train mode.

I don't like to criticise unduly, after all, I'd be pretty damn hopeless at designing toys. But, is this a train? No. It's a random selection of bits of space shuttle, folded into a rectangle, with the front of a bullet train stuck on the front. This is, by far, the worst Transformers alt-mode in a very, very long time. In my opinion it's worse than Universe Octane (look out for that review...). Personally, I'd rather have had an 'Astro' without the 'Train.' but then, it'd have been Blast Off.

Last, but by no means least, the robot mode. Which is great. I really, really, like Astrotrain's robot mode. It moves the toy from being average to quite good. I like the way the train mode kibble becomes arm shields and shoulder pads. I like the nods to the old Astrotrain - wings where they should be, rocket boosters as a back pack and the chest shield (that stunted tail was worthwhile after all). Astrotrain has a great range of movement, with 13 points of articulation, allowing some fantastic poses. And, unlike a lot of Classics/Universe figures, Astrotrain is armed with a good-looking rifle. Not a pistol, a RIFLE!. Not enough Transformers come with a big gun. It's a fact.

I must close this review by admitting that, in spite of the drawbacks mentioned above, I like this toy. It is certainly my favourite Decepticon from the Classics line (mind you, there weren't many to choose from), and including Universe, gives Cyclonus a run for his money.