War for Cybertron Bumblebee review

War for Cybertron Bumblebee will be my first review on da blog. Cool hey?   This Bumblebee is designed on his pre-Earth mode, from the game of the name War for Cybertron.  Its set on Cybertron before the Transformers left for Earth and explains the reasons for their departure.  Its a cool game with some nicely designed characters.

Its a nice figure, although very much a blockformer, in that he folds up and fits within his backpack.  The backpack is the biggest problem with this toy, it kind of dominates it and ruins the look from the back, but considering the shape of the vehicle mode, I can see that there was probably no other way to really doing it.

Plus although I am whingeing about it, it really isn't all that intrusive, however a direct view from the back can be a bit  "rear of car here" looking.

Here you can see the backpack.  From the back it looks much worse.

This figure some with a gun and some flip out blades that are hidden in the forearms under the wheels.  The game character has a short sword, probably equivalent to the size of a roman short sword instead of these two dagger sized ones on the toy.  Again, the short sword would have been a hindrance to the toy and the daggers seem to do the trick fine.

He comes with a small pistol that looks nothing like the any of the weapons used in the game, but it fits nicely into the back of the car mode and can be stashed in the same spot whilst he is in robot mode as well.

"I Cant look!"

He has some nice details on the legs and feet, where the wheels fit in and the face is really well moulded.  The colours are appropriate, although he sports the now apparently standard black details adopted from Movie Bumblebee.  The Autobot insignia on his chest is a bright pink and represents fairly well the glowing effect from the game. I thought it would be cool to have light piping throughout the toy for these highlights, but that would have been really hard to incorporate well and would also have probably pushed the price if production up somewhat. 

Articulation is really well done and he even withstands the 'Kick test' and can balance on one foot whilst kicking with the other.  It looks like his head may have been meant for light piping eyes, but was dropped, due to the different coloured plastics on the back of his noggin'

Vehicle mode

The vehicle mode is a rounded small car design.  It naturally looks very futuristic and not a whole lot like the mode he uses in the G1 cartoon, but it conveys the feeling very well and looks like a believable Volkswagen Beetle from Cybertron.  The weapon can be stored in the back of the car and is held there quite nicely.

Transformation is a bit of a pain as he is a shellformer, so correct panel alignment is needed and once doe, a bit of cupping in the hands and squeezing plates together is definitely required for a tight fit.

Overall, a pretty nice toy this one, he fits well and looks pretty good and is a good representation of Bumblebee.

Here are the rest of the pictures I took.