Toy Review: Generations Hot Spot
Hot Spot
Series - Generations
Sub-line - N/A
Size/class - Voyager
Wave - ?
New/remould/redeco - Redeco of Universe Inferno
Released here - Sinophone market exclusive
Approximate Retail Price - ?
Approximate Size - 18cm
Allegiance - Autobot
Alt-mode - Pierce Contender fire engine
Main Features/Gimmicks - Missile launcher
Main Colours - blue, black, silver
Main Accessories - missile
Stock image
Note that the robot mode is incorrectly transformed in this image, which I'll elaborate on more later. I won't harp on too much about the design of the toy itself; it's yet another use of the Universe/Henkei Inferno mould which I'm sure almost everyone is familiar with, so I'll focus on what's new. For anyone unfamiliar with the mould, here are links:
Inferno - dirge's review
Grappel/Grapple - review thread
Spark/Pyro - dirge's review
Artfire - review thread
A fairly straightforward homage of G1 Hot Spot, the toy is predominantly Smurfy baby blue; but it works well for this character considering the colour of the G1 toy/character. :) The windows are all black which on one hand is another homage to the G1 toy, but on the other hand isn't nearly as nice looking as the transparent windows on the previous versions of this mould. I would've preferred to see perhaps black tinted but transparent windows (similar to how Spark's windows are tinted red). The cab sides have fireball and Autobot logo tampographs which look nice. The upper headlights are painted white while the lower headlights are amber; this is an interesting touch as previous versions have only ever painted the lower headlights and left the upper ones silver along with the rest of that grill section. Another neat feature are the windscreen wipers which are painted silver; all the previous versions have unpainted wipers. The robot mode adds more black to the overall colour scheme with the thighs, toes (which also have silver on the top of the feet) and fists. Blue fists would technically be more G1 accurate, but I think the black fists actually look better as they help to offset all the blue. The shoulders are nicely decorated with red lines in a similar fashion to Grapple, and the strobe lights are transparent red.
Hot Spot features an entirely new head which is designed to resemble G1 Hot Shot of course. The eyes are red, and for some reason they've made the faceplate silver (whereas black would be more G1 accurate). Again I imagine this was to help offset the black and it looks fine. My main gripe about the robot mode would be the forearm panels which need some kind of paint apps to help break up the blue. Having said that, Universe Inferno, Grapple and Spark have the same issue. Henkei Inferno looks the best in this area with chrome silver decos on these panels. Artfire's is red which does arguably blend with his red forearms, but it also has white sides due to the other side (visible in vehicle mode) being white, which incidentally (if not intentionally) helps break up the red.
But the forearm panels do have one really nice feature which previous versions of this mould doesn't; they can rotate 180 degrees! This really helps the look and functionality of the robot mode a LOT by getting the panels out of the way of the hands. So clearly however was in charge of retooling this mould didn't simply slap on a new head, but also cleverly thought about a simple way to improve part of the robot mode. :D The toy is packaged in robot mode without these panels turned around and apparently it's not mentioned in the instructions. I only found about it when looking at TFwiki just now for the link to the stock image! :p
Speaking of the head, it has the same anomaly as Grapple in that there is clear light piping for the eyes, but the eyes are painted red which renders the light piping useless. Hot Spot is no means the only toy to do this, but it strikes me as odd that HasTak would still continue along this trend. The black missile launcher blends in too much and needs to be offset by another colour, like the chrome silver on Henkei Inferno or even the blue on Spark. The black just blends too much, which I also felt was a weakness on Universe Inferno (part of the reason why I bought Henkei Inferno instead).
Now for the big question -- is it worth it? For me personally, not worth paying full RRP simply because I already have Inferno, Grapple, Spark and Artfire -- this is the fifth version of this basic mould that I now own! Consequently it was never a toy that I would have been bothered importing. I only got this toy because I happened to find it while travelling overseas at a cheap price (approx. AU$22). But that's not to say that this toy isn't worth paying full Voyager RRP for. The Inferno mould IS still a reasonably good design; sure, it has its flaws and these are carried over to this toy too, but it's by no means a terrible Voyager IMHO. So for me I would say "Only if (cheap/easy to get)," but I do know that it's based on my own highly subjective standards because I've got so many versions of this mould already! :rolleyes:
