Speed Star Soundwave quick review.

I was at the shops with some friends when I saw this guy and remember being a little excited at it when I first learnt of it.  He doesn't transform, but still for $5 I couldn't resist really.  What's he like?

Considering how the Speed Stars seem to be the new name for the old RPMs series and I objected to them due to them not transforming and being ridiculously overpriced, as well as them being based solely on the ugly movie characters, I was surprised to see I wanted this guy.  My justification for this was down to two main reasons.

1. The Vehicle mode is based on the Animated Soundwave's vehicle.
2. The underside of the toy upon which it stands (thereby representing the robot mode) is the War for Cybertron version of Soundwave.

And there you have it.  the toy is essentially a matchbox car with a transformer body moulded into the plastic in the bottom.  It has nice blue paint that covers it smoothly, as well as a nice bit of silver decals along the side of the car.  The 'cassette' aspect is represented via a couple of spool type things moulded into some clear window plastic and he has a nice Decepticon insignia painted onto the bonnet of the car.  Another cool thing that I just noticed is the inclusion of statsitics, Max Speed, horsepower, Ramming power and Armour.  Nice touch!

The car is die caste metal which gives it good weight and aids in the  smoothness of the roll.  Its moulding is pretty good with some nice details, such as the 'power switch' in the roof and the representation of the play, pause etc buttons for the front grill.  All the lines in the die caste match up with any lines in the window plastic.  Overall it looks pretty good, my only real complaint is that the front grill would look much better if it had been painted silver instead of just been left the main blue.

The Soundwave underneath is only painted blue in some parts, the rest of the plastic is a yukky brown, but the moulding is inderniably WFC Soundwave.  You can clearly see his claw scoop thing that the game version has as part of his waist.  It is anturally rather elongated and skinny looking, much like all the other RPM toys that I have picked up to have a look at and put back on the shelf, but generally its a pretty representation considering the limits these toys give.

Overall, I kind of like this, more to due to the fact the vehicle is Animated Soundwave's and the 'robot' mode is WFC Soundwave's more than anything else.  Normally I wouldn't bother with this style of toy as it doesn't transform.  However, when looking at these, a friend asked me 'Would you buy these if they were G1?'  and I had to admit that I probably would.  Perhaps not all, but they would definitle garner more interest from me than most of the movie styles have.