Knight Morpher Commander KM-01 Review

Posted in custom, knight morpher commander, optimus prime, review, steampunk, toy, Toy Reviews, Transformers on April 9th, 2010 by VitaminZinc
IMG_0475
When I first saw pictures of “Knight Morpher Commander,” I couldn’t help but think how cool this looked. It’s based off “Hearts of Steel”–which is a comic about Transformers from IDW Publishing. It’s an elseworld of the Transformers universe if it happened in the industrial age instead of the modern day. I’ve never actually read it, so I don’t have a lot to compare this to. However, Optimus Prime never actually appeared in this comic (so says the internet… Gotta be true, right?), so it gave the creators of this toy a lot of room for creativity.

This figure is very steampunk in nature. So, if you’re into Transformers, and if you’re into steampunk, then this was made just for you. It’s a steam train, and it’s Optimus Prime. In his robot mode, he’s got a kind of medieval vibe–hence the “Knight” part of his name. A part from the cannon inside of the trailer pulls out and forms his lance. And one of the walls from the front of the trailer can fold out and make his shield. The transformation is fairly simple, but it works. I didn’t feel cheated by the simplicity of it at all. I didn’t even need to refer to the instructions either. By the way, included in the same baggie as the instructions is a visor piece for him. It makes Prime extra “Knighty.”

I like the fact that the trailer section is a decent homage to the G1 series and that it has a gun inside. It’s sort of like Roller–minus the car thing. I think they could have upped the ante a bit by putting a Roller-like vehicle inside that was a hand-cart. Just for lawls. It does come with a Matrix of Leadership, which is removable. I thought that was a nice touch. The part that comes out to form the lance from the cannon is oh-my-god-fragile feeling. The plastic that this whole toy is made of feels like the same grade of plastic as a Gundam model. So, it’s very thin, light, fragile plastic. The tip of the lance is cool and all, but I didn’t want to have this out longer than it needed to be. I was especially wary of putting the cannon back together with the lance inside. I’m actually afraid of breaking this toy. …and that was a sensation that stuck with me throughout my entire experience with it. I almost feel like displaying it in any way, aside from safely in the box, would expose it to the dangers of breaking.

The paint apps are decent, but nothing I couldn’t have done myself. There’s a few mishaps here and there, which makes sense since it’s a custom mass-produced piece. The thing I don’t like is there’s obvious signs of when they molded this toy and broke it away from the frame or whatever. Well, that’s what it looks like to me, anyway. It’s got the whole “I got this gundam kit and I really wanna put it together quickly” feel. Like, which small stabs on pieces, or slight indents where too much was taken off. Basically, the same thing that happens when you pull any plastic piece of a model away from the frame. It seems tacky.

There are a lot of very small things wrong with this figure that kind of ruin the overall experience for me. I still like the toy, but I don’t think it was worth what I was charged for it. This could be me being spoiled by Fansproject, though, so don’t mind me. I really am not a fan of the color of the cowcatcher. I understand that some trains in that time period were very bright. I wish this one wasn’t. I think it looks dumb this way. In fact, I kind of wish they’d have made it silver. The red just doesn’t make sense to me.

Pros:

  • Original Steampunk Design
  • Easy to Transform

Cons:

  • Price ($85)
  • Quality of plastic seems a bit fragile.
  • Paint application is a bit hit-or-miss.

Final Verdict:
There’s nothing about this that screams “GOTTA HAVE”. It comes down to “Do I like this character? Do I like this design?” For this toy, it has to be both, otherwise you’re probably not going to feel justified in the least with spending nearly $100 on this thing. As far as the quality of materials goes, it doesn’t feel like $100 toy. For a casual fan, I’d certainly say for you to pass this.

Fansproject Warbot Defender ("Springer") Review

Posted in custom, defender, Fansproject, review, springer, Toy Reviews, Transformers, warbot on April 7th, 2010 by VitaminZinc

IMG_0492Warbot Defender is a custom Transformer by Fansproject. They’re the same customizers that made the City Commander (Ultra Magnus add-on), and the Aerial Appendage Add-On (Superion Add-On). I have to say that I’m amazingly impressed by this figure. Well, that is, after I spent 30 minutes trying to figure out the damned arms. But, I will get to that later.

The price on this figure is $85 or something like that. Plus shipping. So, it’s a bit expensive for the average Joe to pick up. To those that are used to the higher prices of custom toys, and know how much these things go for in the after-market when they’re all sold out, then you know it’s worth the $90. Of course, that being said, I’m sure that BBTS will never run out of these and it will always be that price and will go on clearance and I’ll be sad and out of money I could have saved. Cause that’s just how things go with me. (Seriously, I’m supposed to be saving cash for Botcon in roughly 3 months. Holy shit!)

As far as the quality is concerned, this is a very very VERY nicely done figure. I have to give props to the QC team for Fansproject. On my particular figure, everything looks perfect. There’s no smudges, no badly applied paint, or issues whatsoever. This looks like a professionally painted figure. The box it even comes in looks amazingly professional. It’s much like the Alternity figures plastic boxes. You can open it, mess around with it and then put it back in the box and feel okay about it. (Although some people love to keep their toys in the box… I don’t know how, but they do it…)

The toy itself is an obvious likeness of the G1 character ‘Springer’. Hasbro probably isn’t ever going to go back to that figure, so Fansproject felt the need to give this classic figure a worthy representation. He was an Autobot triple-changer. Robot mode, car mode, and helicopter mode. The car mode on this is more likened unto a tank, which is an acceptable change. And, just like the G1 version, the vehicle modes are very Cybertronian.

Out of the box, you get it in robot mode. You also get 2 pistols and a collapsible sword/copter blades. The guns feel very solid and like they’ll last forever. The blades, however, are a bit on the thin and flimsy side. I feel like they could break at any moment. So, I’ve been treating them with a lot of caution.

There’s a short comic that gives the ‘story’ of this guy, and then it goes into a comic-style set of instructions on how to transform him. The instructions really didn’t make sense to me at all until I figured out how the pieces were supposed to be. Then, it was just a matter of moving things around til they fit in place. Let me mention, the only issue I had was with the arms. There’s so many swivels and such required for the transformation that it can get a bit confusing. Especially since the shoulder sits on a double-hinge sort of thing. If you pick this toy up, maybe that’ll help you to some degree and save you some time.

Size wise, it’s about 6 inches tall. About the size of a deluxe-class figure. It fits in very nicely with the size of Ultra Magnus’ City Commander Armor, as far as scale goes. It does have some issue standing up, which I think could have been fixed by adding a heel of some sort. But, if you pose him right, it’s not an issue. He just can’t be standing straight up or he topples. This figure also has die-cast on him. Which, when I heard about that, I was very worried. I had some flashbacks to Alternators and how scratched-to-hell they would get. Ugh. BUT, you really can’t tell which pieces are die-cast on Defender at first glance. I assume they added the die-cast to balance it somewhat. I’m not really sure, but it works. I can’t complain about it. Btw, the die-cast pieces are the chest and the tail-fins. In helicopter mode, the tail-fins click together to form the… tail… obviously. But, there’s luckily a piece of plastic between them to keep the metal from rubbing together.

Pros:

  • Accurate representation of Springer.
  • Solidly built and painted toy (as is always the case from Fansproject)

Cons:

  • Price is a bit high at $85 (but so worth it~)
  • Blades are kind of thin.

Final verdict:
I really like this figure. I think it’s a very good tribute to “Springer.” Despite being a custom, I don’t feel like I’m going to break it, which is a plus. If you’re a fan of the G1 toys or of the character of “Springer,” then I think this is a solid buy.

‘Aerial Team Appendage Add-On’ Kit for Superion

Posted in add-on, custom, Fansproject, figure, review, superion, toy, Toy Reviews, Transformers on November 18th, 2009 by VitaminZinc
Superion

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.

‘City Commander’ Ultra Magnus Add-On

Posted in add-on, city commander, custom, Fansproject, figure, toy, Toy Reviews, Transformers, ultra magnus on November 18th, 2009 by VitaminZinc

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.