BEAST WARS: TOY REVIEW

Name: INJECTOR (publicised as Aquasting, but name was changed at the last moment for legal reasons)
Allegiance: Predacon
Function: Air Commander
Beast Mode: Lionfish + Hornet = something stupid
Average Price: 25 AUD

 

BEAST MODE

During this review I will be referring to Injector by his prototype name, Aquasting. Not only to be annoying, but because I almost always refer to him as Aquasting.

His beast mode is about 180mm long from horn to tip of sting and he has a maximum wingspan of about 230mm. He’s about 100mm tall, depending on how you pose his legs or head.

Good points: unlike most insect-mode TFs, Aquasting can stand upon his own legs without his belly dragging the ground. Bad points: Aquasting doesn’t HAVE an insect mode. He’s half hornet, half lionfish. He’s neither insect nor fish. What he looks like is someone’s been  trying to stuff a fish using a tiger and only gotten halfway. His wings have nice detailing, but that’s about it.

He has about 12 points of meaningful articulation, including legs, mouth, wings and back-section (abdomen, technically, though it’s hard to tell). He has two main gimmicks in this mode; he can fire out his stinger-missile (it actually fires QUITE far, one of Aquasting’s saving graces) and he can… um… head-butt. Press a button and his head dislocates, and he tries to stab someone with his  ‘poison spines’. It’s probably the lamest gimmick to be seen on a Transformer since they brought out Transformers that weren’t able to transform.

Aquasting’s beast mode is truly UGLY, something that only the Fuzors, in all of Transformerdom, can have said about them. He’s ugly, ugly, ugly. This is probably one of the worst.
 

TRANSFORMATION TO ROBOT MODE

Remove the top of his abdomen (it becomes his gun) and pull what’s left apart and down to form his robot arms. Then manoeuvre his beast-wings out of the way somewhat. Spin his ‘head’ around, then pull the top jaw down to reveal his robot face. Then turn his waist around (and then turn the legs around) and there you have it, the ‘help! my head is being eaten by a fish!’ robot mode.

ROBOT MODE

How can I describe Aquasting’s robot mode? It looks like someone’s cut open a fish and the poor animal’s lunch has spilled out (and become the robot’s body). His head is literally about the same size as the rest of his body.
 
This guy is UGLY. He’s about 180mm tall, and about 85mm wide (not including wingspan, which could take it up to about 270 to 280mm). With 4 meaningful points of articulation in each limb, spinning waist and a neck and moveable jaw he has a total of about 19 points of articulation. However, at least on my toy, his knees are incredibly tight, which makes his legs pop out of their sockets every time you try to move them. I think this is a design fault, not a problem exclusive to my toy.
 
The really big problem (apart from the fact that he’s butt ugly) is that he’s too top-heavy. His wings can be used to help balance poses, but tend to slowly slide out of place under the weight of his big-whopping head. He can still use the head-butt feature in this mode… but it’s even lamer still here, because his head can’t butt forward any further than he can bite.
 

OVERALL

This toy is one people will buy for one of two reasons.
A): You have money in your pocket, you’ve bought all the other toys on the shelf, and you WANT a new Transformer. Or
B): You're curious as to whether it's as bad as people say it is.
 
Remember: you DON’T have that much money, and it IS that bad.

This is probably the only toy I’ll do this for: F, plain and simple.

This toy review was written by Andrew Sorohan.

BEAST TRIVIA

Lion Fish

Also known as a turkey fish or fire fish. The lion fish is any of several species of showy Indo-Pacific fish of the Scorpaenidae (scorpion fish) family. Lion fish are noted for their venomous fin spines which are capable of producing painful though seldomly fatal puncture wounds. They have enlarged pectoral fins and elongated dorsal spines. Each species also bears a particular pattern of bold, zebralike stripes.

When disturbed (for instance, if you had a lion fish a fish tank, and you pressed Injector up against the glass), the fish spreads and displays its fins and if further pressed (eg: you proceeded to transform Injector to robot mode), will present and attack with the dorsal spine ("Die, ye abomination!").

The most famous species is the Pterois volitans. It is striped with brown, red and white an grows to around 30 centimetres long.

Bibliography: Encyclopaedia Brittanica

Hornets

Members of the family Vespidae of social Hymenoptera; colonies annual in cool climates, fertilised females (queeens) being the sole individuals to overwinter, males and workers having perished.
Most Vespidae (which also includes wasps) construct a nest made of "wasp-paper" or soil particles. They feed their larvae upon other insects, portions of which they have previously masticated. The role of wasps and hornets as predators is extremely beneficial. The Vespidae also feed on meat, nectar and ripe fruits.

Bibliography: HYPP Zoologie en ligne

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