Here I go with a review of the figures that come with release 02, cleverly called Galaxy Version 02 SOS, I assume a nod to SOS Dinobots episode. In the review and wave, I'll be looking at:
- Grimlock
- Inferno
- Grapple
- Cliffjumper
- Dino mode Shiny Grimlock (chase version)
- Starscream
- Mixmaster
- Longhaul
- Shattered Glass Optimus (IDW Optimus as they call him)
Because the joint connections are relatively unhindered the articulation is really good. The joints on these Blokees are:
- Butterfly & ball jointed shoulders.
- Hinged knees & elbows, which have swivels.
- Swivel waist.
- Ball jointed hips.
- Hinged knees with swivels.
- Ball jointed ankles.
- Ball jointed wrists.
So enough of that crap, let's get into it!
I will start off with Grimlock in robot mode.
Since he is already in the piccies, let's check out Cliffjumper,
he has smaller lower legs than the rest of the guys as he is a minibot. As a result, at times, his hands look a little bit too big for him.
CJ also comes with a little blaster and an empty energon cube. The energon cubes I've seen before as Shining Optimus came with one. While it's nice enough, I do wish they'd made them so that they could be easily placed in the hands. As it is, one side is open, and they are smooth. If you want a character to hold one, it's more of a balancing act than anything else.
CJ's face though is a bit odd looking. While robot faces with masks look pretty awesome, the ones with mouths and more human looking faces can look a bit strange. CJ has a gritting teeth face going on, so the poor bugger can't relax.
The paint details on his roof chest are pretty well done and he even comes with a rear wheel accessories for his back, which may or may not be accurate depending on which CJ they are referencing.
I guess that also leads smoothly into talking about Grapple
INFERNO
Ah man, I kinda love Inferno's design. It must be the red. He comes with his nozzle hand for cooling off those horny teens. However that doesn't mean I have any more pictures of him than what you see above. He is the same as Grapple, but in red with a ladder, a nozzle and swoopy things off the side of his head. Pretty pose-able and more likely to go into action poses. Also, speaking of the head, its a bit hard to move, as it is recessed in that thing, but he's a cool dude regardless.
Actually, I do have a few more pictures, but they are linked in with Mix Master
Mix Master
Decepticon Dealer.
A green dude, he's pretty cool. Has a really nice head sculpt and is slightly tricky to put together, in that you have to be careful about when you put piece together as his head is under the spray things. It can be tricky to move his head if you're fingers don't fit too well. I do like his head sculpt though, the masks and robot looks look better than mouths.
He comes with a little radar dish for wrist mounting, which I don't recall Mix Master ever using. It looks like something I think I saw Ironhide use in one episode somewhere, but I'm a it shakey on that, so eh, who knows? If you do, please enlighten me!
To be honest thought, it doesn't matter who it comes with, just that they have supplied some snazzy accessories with them. Look! Inferno's back!
Now that I've broken a bit more into accessories, it's time to look at a guy who came with another, which was almost as baffling why it was included with him too.
Long Haul
Big Dump Truck dude.
Well, he's not that big really, they are all the same size, but the general feeling is there. The tray part of this guy is on a hinge, so you can have it up or down. His design is simple and clear and I found this guy a lot of fun to play with.
Robotty face is great too.
I do really like his chest detail as well. It's good that it was included as otherwise he'd look a bit more generic. Long Haul also cam with an accessory, another odd match. He comes with a welder, often used for robot repairs. I can understand the Constructicons having something like this, but maybe not Long Haul.
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| SO here is a picture of Mixmaster using it. |
I do appreciate these things, the nature of these little dudes makes me want to play with various accessories with them.
I'm also running out of ways to move onto the next character. Hrmmmm.. I guess the next one could do with some fixing of his titty window.
Shattered Glass Optimus Prime
He's a nice looking chap, obviously a recolour of Optimus including option parts, BUT I would like to draw particular attention to some minor details.
He comes with a pointing finger!
Here he is next to Shining Optimus, I rather dig that the Autobot symbol is on opposite shoulders, Shatty has a crack on the other shoulder and his chest window is a new print, not just using Optimus Primes! He also has a couple of extra paint decals on his wrists and here and there.
His purple is also a really good match for the Selects version of Shattered Glass Optimus.
His ion blaster can also have blast effects plugged into it!
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| BLAM!! |
Just like Shining Optimus, Shatty Optimus is pretty good fun. Oh, and the chase Grimlock has shown his shiny noggin' let's check him out!
Grimlock (Dino mode chase variant)
Grimlock here is very shiny. He uses many parts from the robot mode Grimlock too, which I was surprised about. As I mentioned earlier, the chest with dino arms are mounted on robots mode's back, the groin piece with the legs are actually the chest and arms of the robot mode as well. You Plug the chest of the dino into the neck socket of the groin piece. The head is a new piece and the feet are new and joined to ball sockets. The tail is a new piece as well.
He comes with a fair few accessories. A gun for mounting on his back, a flame effect, the intelligence transfer device (minus tube though), and a fish for the few seconds he and the other Dinobots are playing in the puddle at the end of Grimlock's New Brain. I am pretty certain the only difference between this guy and the regular non-chase version is the shiny-ness. I am pretty certain you still get all the accessories.
The helmet can be easily plugged into his head and the flame effect has a port in his mouth.
The gun can be mounted on his back, and ya know, that's cool, but I am pretty certain he would blast the back of his head off...
I guess at the least he can shoot into the sky, to get those flying bastards.
like STARSCREAM!
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| Smarmy bugger |
Starscream comes with his null ray blasters, a nice paint job, extravagance hands and a mini-Megatron!
He can be posed pretty well, but the wings definitely hinder the arm movement, mainly because of the blasters. The shoulder pads have little ball jointed nubs on them for plugging the blasters on, so even removing the blasters would not have much affect.
Megatron comes in three parts and is unpainted plastic. Of course he can be held by whomstever you desire. Even himself!!
His face, I am not so sold on, he has a bastard smirk on his face, but also some whacky emo eye liner going on.
It's kinda there, but also not in a way for me. I think its the line that goes down from the eye that ruins it.
His extravagant hands are great though and really suit him.
Sadly though these Blokees don't seem to be flight stand compatible which is a bit of a bummer for someone like Starscream. They do come with a stand, but their big feet don't really need one and it's a little bit awkward to use. As a result, I've totally neglected to take any pictures of it.
However, I will definitely do it when I go through my next round of figures.
Once again, these guys are pretty neat and whether you like them or not will entirely depend on whether you get a character you like. Probably from this series the one I am least fond of would Cliffjumper (sorry guy), his face is sculpted way too aggressively and his hands always look a bit too big for him. I'm not sure if it's due to the size of the arms or what, but it looks a bit weird sometimes.
I do think they are pretty sweet and will definitely be in for more.
Dammit.
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