Shockwave. FOC–ing good!!

LOOK INTO MY EYE!

Whee! The final of the Fall Of Cybertron trio from series one thankfully happens to be a bit of a corker.  He is a “Revealer” class size, which is the new version of Deluxe, named so because as you transform them, their heads pop up in some funky way.  Both Jazz and Optimus are a bit boring in this respect (and hinder the toy a bit as well), but Shockwave’s actually works quite nicely and due to his large chest, it isn’t that destructive to the rest of the toy.

Anyway, that’s enough of an introduction, lets have a closer look at this short-packed chap from wave 1 of the new Generations toys!

Usual blister packaging.  Once again, nice G1 looking tech specs and reasonable bio.  I just gave the box a good look-over and noticed they haven’t indicated the class size on it.  Hrrrm.  Shockwave is sealed in robot mode and he still looks a bit small.  I’d say he stands about the same height as Soundwave from Prime.

Vehicle mode.

His vehicle mode is a “Cybertronian Mobile Artillery Mode” apparently.  Well, that makes sense, after all G1 Shocky could achieve space flight as his gun mode.  It looks very nice I think, there is enough in there that looks like Shockwave and it looks close enough to the game model used in War For Cybertron (and hopefully Fall Of Cybertron).  It’s not exact, WFC Shockwave has a round jet on the back, and due to the arms becoming the jet for this one, the toy’s are square.

I really like this vehicle design, it reminds me a lot of the vehicles in Wipeout 2097 (and the rest of the series) with it’s sleek look and slight wing design.  You can see the trademark Shockwave chest standing proud on the back and of course it has a large laser blaster on the front.  Very nice.  Underneath is a bit robotty, but that is often a problem with sleek plane vehicles .

Part of the nose of the jet and gun are formed by the robot mode weapon, so don’t go losing it or else you will have a large gap in the top.  As it is the three barrels of the gun (without the laser modification) still leave small gaps in the nose.

There is nice generic lined sculpting over the mode and the sliver paintwork is pretty good although I have smudges on one wing.  Nothing too horrific I will admit.  I will say this, Shockwave has the best Cybertronian mode of the first three in my opinion.

Transformation is simple and intuitive.  The elbows and shoulders are a little fiddly in the way they are hinged, but you just need to be a little careful with them.  At least they allow for good articulation in robot mode so I think it is a decent trade-off.

Robot Mode

As you can see, he has a big chest and skinny legs.  The laser gun can be mounted onto his back for storage, but it does make the back look excessively large.  The gun can be held in his fist, or as a better option, fold the fist away and place the gun over the hand and it becomes part of his arm.  THAT’S more like it!!

The gun is nicely sculpted with some fake hoses and clips very strongly on his fore arm.  getting it off can be tricky but it  looks fantastic.

The large purple laser thingo is a cover over the gun and once removed it looks very similar to the X-9 Scrapmaker gun from WFC (which was a mini-gun for all intents and purposes) and can be used with other figures.  Other FOC weapons can be used as well if you want a gun-slingin’ Shockwave.

The legs and waist are nicely detailed and have crisp paint applications.  The Decepticon insignia is small sexy and exciting and the pinky red translucent plastic is different to the G1 colours, but appropriate for the source material.  I.E the game.  It has nice lined, tech details sculpted in there.

Articulation is pretty good with ball joint at the hips, hinge and swivel at the knee, hinge and ball jointed elbows and a swivel at the neck.  The toes have a hinge, but it folds the wrong way to be any good during robot mode.  His waist is a solid piece with the torso, which suck as waists are great.

The head is great!  The surround area is pretty damn good as well.  He has a bunch of hoses sculpted around the shoulders by his head.  The ears are long and nice and his one eye has some FANTASTIC light piping.  It has a big broad area in the back of the head allowing light through easily, so even in relatively low light his eye glows menacingly!  I love this!  Of course his whole head is one eye, so no mouth, but some nice looking forehead( ? ) details.

Just went a bit crazy trying to see how bright I could make his eye!

Aaaaaaw Yeah! That is some awesome light piping!  LUUURVE IT!

Other details are good and just like Jazz there is a lot of general sculpting done on his body.  Hmm, I will refer to this as ‘ambient sculpting’ from now on.  He even has a spine.

I kind of want a bit of light piping through his chest piece, but that would have been tricky to pull off without a large gap in his back.

SO I guess my final thoughts on this guy are; he is pretty damn good fun!   Cool light piping, good articulation, a great homage allow me to overlook the small size of this ‘deluxe’ toy.  I think, had I started with Shockwave first and then opened Prime and Jazz, I would have been horribly disappointed, as Shockwave is by far the best figure out of the three.  About the only real complaint is his small stature and lack of waist articulation which is due to the gun plugging in there for vehicle mode.

And that is where part of the the love starts.  The vehicle mode is ace!  It represents Shockwave very well and allows him to fit into the WFC/FOC story (and be a playable character) very well.  Kudos go to High Moon studios for their cool designs on the Transformers in the games and Hasbro/Taktom fro managing to make this one in particular a pretty well done toy.  It’s a shame that Shockwave is only 2 to a box as that will make him harder to get, yet he is definitely the best.  Find one, no matter the cost.  But not via scalpers.

Oh and to illustrate the size here is a shot with Animated Sentinel Prime,  remember that Sentinel was a figure of smaller stature, but fairly wide for a deluxe.  In the next photo, he almost looks like a voyager class figure next to the FOC ones…  yet they are all deluxes….


Sadly the photo doesn’t quite get the feeling across that it has in real life.

Ok, Last try.  Just the two of them.




*edits*

After having a little mess about, I managed to create a hand laser blaster mode with him.  Sadly though it doesn’t use the chest piece as the barrel, but it looks pretty good if I do say so myself.

All it is is having the chest piece halfway to vehicle mode and positioning the  arms and shoulders as the sights/aiming bit of the pistol.  Doesn’t look too bad!