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This toy is awesome. If you have the Return of the Fallen Bruticus then you HAVE to get these add-ons. No, really. You have to. If you don’t have it, you might even owe it to yourself to buy a Bruticus and get these anyway. Of course, even without the original Bruticus it’s still worth it just because FansProject did such an amazing job on Munitioner and Explorer. Now, to avoid infringement they were called this. Munitioner is supposed to be Swindle, and Explorer is Blast-Off.

It’s way bigger than the Superion Add-on that came out last year. Head-to-head, I’d sat there’s about an 1.5 inches difference in them. If we’re talking about the whole figure there’s a huge difference due to the cannon on Bruticus’ back. It also seems way more poseable and versatile than Superion. Of course, that makes sense since this add-on kit costs $100 (between the Munitioner and Explorer) opposed to Superion’s $50. Even the hands on Bruticus are poseable. Each individual finger has joints.

It comes with an arsenal of weapons. Each individual figure gets heavily armed. And pretty much all of these weapons fit into the alt modes, as well as the combined mode in some way. It’s pretty ingenious how they did it.

Perhaps the only drawback of these figures is the fact that individually they’re so much better than the Hasbro ones that it makes you kind of wish that FansProject had redone all of the figures–Price be damned.

Cutting this review a little short, but once again, FansProject has made a topnotch add-on set that certainly doesn’t disappoint in the least.

Pros:

• Great upgrade set to make Bruticus into an amazing awe-inspiring G1 tribute figure.
• The individual figures made by FansProject are better than the Hasbro ones.

Cons:

• Cost. $50 per piece ($100 total)
• Getting a Bruticus set in the after-market is expensive.

So, I ended up with some store credit at BBTS because I canceled an order. I needed something to waste that credit on because hey!–I can’t wait for it to go toward my other orders, right? I had been looking over the CrazyDevy stuff cause I liked what they were doing with the G1 Devastator. Awesome ideas, but I didn’t have a G1 Devastator. Oh noes! I did have a G2 Devastator that I’ve had forever, though, but the main add-on I wanted (the legs) would look dumb on a G2 Devastator. Well, that changed when they came out with the special version that had silver legs. I guess purple would have technically worked, but eeeh. I think it looks better with silver.

So, the legs for the original Devastator was kind of lackluster. He couldn’t move them all. It was just sort of a plate that held the figures together. There was no articulation with it at all. With the CDMW-02* add-on, your Devastator now has full movement of his legs! That’s right! They can go one-infront-of-the-other! Of course, even as cool as that is he kind of has balance issues now. Getting him to stand on his own was a pain in the ass. I’ll just leave it at that–but it’s still a great addition to the G1/G2.

Also, I’d like to explain with the asterisk is for on the CrazyDevy stuff. It’s their way of differentiating the sets. For the most part, it deals with a difference with the knock-off and the original Hasbro productions. The tooling on the originals pegs (for the forearms where they connect) is a different size on the knock-offs, which means it won’t fit if you happen to have the knock-off version. For most of the other asterisked sets, it’s just a difference in the color scheme from what I’ve seen.

The head for this is a definite improvement. I found it looked kind of funky since I was so used to how the original head looked, but this one is more accurate to what it’s shown as on the show and in the comics. Plus! It has an LED inside of it and you click a switch on the back to turn it on. …I didn’t take a picture of it with the light on, but you can imagine. It looks cool–trust me.

The forearms are kind of a throw-away item. I could have certainly lived without them, but the swivel and give him a bit more poseability that really brings the character to life. Not to mention, supposedly if you use the new fists in the old forearms there’s possibly an issue with them not fitting in correctly. Also, instead of the purple forearms of the original, they’re black–which is more G1 accurate, since they’re supposed to be formed from the treads of the vehicle. Or, at least, that would make sense…

The fists are pretty cool. Again, they’re kind of throw-away since you really don’t need them. Also, it comes with an enlarged version of the gun. It makes sense, since the original has such a small gun for such a big robot. The fingers are articulated, but they work on this odd hook-based system. When I was first moving them, all of the fingers just fell off. I feel they could have engineered that a lot better. But, it’s not a huge deal since once my figure’s in its pose, that’s the way it’ll be for a loooooong time.

So, that’s what I think of the add-ons. There is another add-on that makes his arms swivel a bit more at the shoulder, and replaces the mixing barrel on Mixmaster, but I won’t be getting that at all. The only reason I picked these 4 sets up was because I had the cash to throw around (which I guess is the only reason I buy any of this… but… oh well…) I really can’t recommend this to anyone without very deep wallets or a questionably weird lust for Devastator. It’s great at what it does. It makes a classic toy into what it could have been. But, at the price point of $30+ per add-on, you end up having to pay quite a bit just to improve an old toy. And that’s even if you have the old one. If you don’t, then you’re destined to get a knock-off and then buy the parts, or get the Hasbro ones off eBay … and then buy the parts. If you were to buy all of the sets out right now at $30 a piece (some are more) you’d end up spending $150 to fully upgrade this guy according to CrazyDevy’s idea. It’s just really not worth it to me. And, it’s probably the last piece I’ll buy from CrazyDevy unless they release something REALLY amazing. (And 24k gold wing extensions for Predaking don’t count…)

Pros:

• Great upgrades for a classic.
• Adds some nice touches and gives the figure “mobility”.

Cons:

• COST. OMG. WTF.
• Aside from the legs, it’s all just very minor adjustments and tweaks that make it slightly better.

Superion

Next on my review list is the ‘Aerial Team Appendage Add-On’ Kit. This add-on is meant for Superion, which was a Target exclusive. Let me just start off by saying, I saw this in stores and laughed at it. It looks so damn stupid as-is. There is literally no reason whatsoever to buy this without the intent of picking up this add-on kit. I have pictures of the original mode of this down at the bottom. It’s just… argh. It’s angering to see something this ‘durpy’.

Needless to say, there was no hesitation to pass on this because I wasn’t as into Transformers as heavily as I am at the moment. I basically just bought the Transformers: Animated toys, and that was it. To buy a toy like Superion would have been a waste of money–not to mention, it’s considered a Movie toy. I hate the movie toys. I’ve never bought one–aside from Superion and Bruticus–when I heard FansProject was making add-ons for these. Kind of a peer pressure buy.

Seeing the pre-order for this on BBTS.com made me think, “Oh, that looks kind of neat. I don’t remember it looking nearly that… Oh. my. gawd… That thing is hideous.” Maybe it was my reaction to how much of a difference this add-on makes that made me want it. It’s like Extreme Robot Makeover. HOWEVER, I’m not too keen on how much this set cost. Supposedly it’s a very limited run, but I find it hard to believe this should have cost $45.

It basically fits together the same way the durpy version goes. The durpy version is supposed to have the limbs alternated. One jet for a leg, one for an arm. One plane for an arm, and one for a leg. It’s able to stand up better like that since the planes are a bit too wide to stand up without the ‘knees’ rubbing, but the way it does the hands and feet looks dumb. This version keeps some semblance of symmetry and has the jets be the arms and the planes be the legs. It can take a much wider stance with the add-on feet, so the ‘knees’ aren’t rubbing together.

What would normally be part of the arms is now the shoulder–which looks great. He’s an all-aeronautical Transformer combiner, so to have jets as shoulders makes sense. What’s normally an arm for the stand-alone flips down and you’re using that ball joint to give him more mobility of the limbs. A ‘forearm’ is placed over that stand-alone, and then a fist is attached at the end into a peg. It works surprisingly well. He also comes with a visor, which helps him looks more like the G1 counterpart. It stands at about 10.5 inches tall–to the topmost point of the shoulders.

I wish I’d have thought to take some pictures of the stand-alone figures with the accessories, but to me that wasn’t the appeal of this. It’s great they made everything fit together and work as one cohesive unit, but the only reason I got this was because it was a combiner that was getting the FansProject treatment.

For those that may have picked up Superion directly from Target, I’m sorry. I feel your pain indirectly–since I basically paid the retail price for it, but on eBay. So, that was $35 spent on the durpy toy. And then $45 to make him look cool. Why does this math not make sense? Don’t get me wrong–It looks so cool. On a scale of 1 to 10, Ultra Magnus would be a 9.5. The Superion add-on would be about a 6–drunk 7–so to speak. The price tag is just too high for this considering how much Ultra Magnus is. I’d have paid $30 tops for this. If it goes on sale on tfsource, or bbts, then go for it. You won’t be disappointed FOR THAT PRICE. If you’re going out to specifically get this toy just to get the add-on (like I did), then you should save your money. Not worth the price unless you’re very into Superion. What’s sad is that when they come out with the add-on kit for Bruticus Maximus, I’ll probably buy that as well. Blargh.

Pros:

• Figure looks awesome with the add-on. Very much so accented by the fact that it looks DUMB AS SHIT otherwise.
• More G1 accurate… If you’re into that kind of thing.
• Fits in amazingly well with the single-vehicle mode as accessories.

Cons:

• Price. $45 is a lot to pay for some appendages, a gun, and a visor.
• The figure is worthless without this add-on.

I got my ‘Pile of Loot’ from “Big Bad Toy Store” yesterday. It was a happy day, so I’ll be posting some pictures and my opinions on each of the things I got.

First on the agenda is ‘City Commander’ Ultra Magnus. As I said in my preview, I was really stoked to see this. All of the previews I watched made this seem very cool. It did not disappoint. Well, maybe it did disappoint some. I kind of imagined it would be a little bigger. With all the armor, it comes to 8.5 inches tall–to the top of the shoulders. It’s about the size of a normal ‘Leader’ Class figure. Really not all that big of an issue to me, but I was expecting something more of the size of the original Ultra Magnus trailer.

For the price of right at $90, it’s kind of worth it if you’re really really into Transformers, and already have an Ultra Magnus sitting around. With the re-release of this add-on, the eBay market is now averaging around $40+ for just the figure. So, all-in-all, it makes this figure ~$130. So, honestly, you’re not going to get this figure unless you’re really into Transformers to begin with.

It’s kind of a shame that Hasbro didn’t make some kind of add-on like this themselves. It would be much cheaper if it wasn’t being made by a third-party, but at the same time, I don’t think Hasbro would listen to the fans as much, or at all. The original add-on didn’t include the missiles for the shoulders, or the white, transforming gun for both modes. Fans pointed out it would be much more G1-accurate if he could have missiles and a gun, so FansProject did an addition to their add-on that updated their original.  Pretty fancy, and shows that they listen to what people say. After all, they are getting $$$ from us, so it only makes sense they should listen. Good for them. So, to break it down… even though my cons will outnumber the pros, the pros are far greater if you’re a Transformer fan.

Pros:

• A very cool re-imagining of the G1 version.
• Collectible third-party add-on.

Cons:

• You have to have an Ultra Magnus to start with.
• The price is a bit steep at $90.
• Not as big as I’d hope for the price tag.