BEAST
MACHINES: TOY REVIEW
Name: OBSIDIAN
Allegiance: Vehicon
Function: Aerial Combat
Machine Mode: Helicopter
Price: 14 AUD (I bought this toy from Uncle Pete's,
whereas my other Beast Machines figures were purchased at Grace Bros)
MACHINE MODE
Length: 11.5 cm
Looking like something that flew out of a Mecha factory,
Obsidian is a fairly decent figure for its point size. The missile packed
launchers on the sides accompanied by the rounded cockpit (with "eyes"
to give it personality!), this vehicle looks like something that could've
been in a Japanese animé. The vehicle body is primarily metallic
grass-green with dark blue camouflage decos on the wings and cockpit. The
tail, underside and rotor engines are a darker more metallic olive shade
of green. The missiles and two headlights are bright orange and the rotor
blades, tail fins, cockpit and "eyes" are transluscent orange. The rotor
blades have a funky design... but not too funky (unlike Optimus Primal's
shuriken - what were they thinking with that thing?). Press a button
on either rotor engine and the blades launch as missiles. I don't see why,
as I imagine the helicopter would then come crashing down to the ground
without any rotor blades to lift it. Another thing that struck me as being
odd is the absence of a tail rotor. Normally a helicopter should spin wildly
out of control without a tail rotor to counter the spin of the primary
rotor. However, the sculpting of the right rotor blade suggests that it
spins counter-clockwise, whereas the left blade looks like it's supposed
to spin clockwise. Would this compensate for the lack of a tail rotor?
(sorry, my knowledge of physics is not up to scratch)
Oh, the cockpit can also move slighty slide to side.
Coupled with a gun underneath it which can move up and down. Cool!
TRANSFORMATION TO ROBOT MODE
To nobody's surprise, the instructions on the back of the
card are next to useless. Ignore them and print this out instead.
This thing is a semi-flip changer. Grab the dark-green tail and undercarriage
and bring it down. The cockpit will automatically swing down and the robot
head will automatically come up. You may need to swing the tail fins down
a little bit for support. Swing missile launchers out to form robot arms.
The head can be position either between the shoulders or on top of the
chest to make him look like a hunchback, a-la-Transmetal
2 Spittor (Igor!)
ROBOT MODE
Height: Just over 9 cm
Points of Articulation: 13
This robot looks like he could kick some serious arse!
He's one of the few handless Transformers that actually impresses me (which
is a rarity indeed). I guess you just can't argue with a dude who has ten
heat seeking missiles for hands. And having rotor blades for shoulders
doesn't look quite as bad as I thought it would (mainly because they're
not the shoulders, they just hang off the shoulders; if it really
bugs you, they can be tucked underneath and behind the shoulders...
sweet...). The head also looks pretty wicked. There's a dark green grill
for a mouth/nose and the eyes are transluscent orange with the neat light
piping gimmick. There's some neat bright orange decos on the forehead and
top of the head. The cockpit gun is a tad phallic (yeah, baby, yeah!
- *ahem*) and the feet are a wee bit too thin for my liking, but they provide
plenty of support for the toy, so I no complain.
SPARK CRYSTAL LOCATION
(in bad stereotypical Austrian accent) "Back of da choppa!"
(actually, it's on the back of the robot, but he's a chopper...)
OVERALL
Destroid me baby, this is the Shaguar of Beast Machines,
yyyeeeaaahhh...
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