Toy Review - Age of Extinction Lockdown (One Step Changer)
LOCKDOWN
Series - Transformers
Sub-line – Age of Extinction
Size/class - One Step Changer
New/remould/redeco – New
Wave – 2, 2014
Released here - June 2014
Approximate Retail Price - $20
Approximate Size – 11cm to top of head, 12cm including back kibble
Allegiance -Decepticon
Alternate mode – Lamborghini Aventador
Main Features/Gimmicks – One Step Change!
Main Colours – brown, silver, grey
Main Accessories – you kidding me? :p
Images
On card
Robot mode
Vehicle mode
Undoctored close up of robot
Undoctored photo of vehicle mode
The vehicle mode is a fairly cheap looking Lamborghini Aventador. The front windscreen and part of the front windows (which connect to the wing mirrors) are solid plastic painted silver. The rest of the side windows are open, revealing the robot innards. The rear slatted window is painted blue. The wheels are completely black (no painted hubcaps), which isn't at all surprising considering that Hasbro aren't even painting the hubcaps on Voyagers (:rolleyes:). The overall design of the car is okay for what it is. Due to the nature of the gimmick, the panels don't sit completely flush in some areas, most notably along the centre of the rear window, and the shape of the rear of the vehicle is caved in, giving the appearance that someone has just rear-ended a $795,000 car! :eek: :p The rest of the vehicle is brown with a purple Decepticon insignia on the bonnet.
The transformation is, as one would expect, entirely dominated by the One Step Change gimmick which works by pressing a panel on the windscreen. The gimmick is super sensitive. When I opened the toy and cut the plastic tie, the toy immediately sprang into robot mode. That tie seemed to be the only thing holding it in vehicle mode inside the blister pack! :eek: So transforming this toy from vehicle to robot mode is easy enough, but transforming it back to vehicle mode can be incredibly fiddly (and relatively time consuming, thus pretty much defeating the purpose of being a one-step changer! :rolleyes:) as you frustratingly attempt to get this sucker to stay in vehicle mode! It's doable, but it's not nearly as straightforwardly simple as it should be! I find that squeezing the front part of the vehicle really really hard helps... most of the time. :o
The robot mode is mostly a fairly good translation of the screen model, but of course, this is helped by the fact that it's a complete shellformer. The head is sculpted with Lockdown's visor down. The arms, legs and back all carry big vehicle panel kibble, as one would expect. This toy has a whopping TWO points of articulation (the arms can move forward at 45 degrees... oooh! :p).
Overall
Even at Big W's toy sale, I've paid the price of a Basic Class figure ($15) for what feels like a Happy Meal toy. I know that this toy is aimed at younger kids, but a child would be even more frustrated trying to get this toy to stay in robot mode (my 5-year-old got bored watching me try the first time :p)... I don't see this toy eliciting long term sustained interest from even a small child; they'd likely get sick of it after a couple of hours (or even minutes). My daughter took no interest in this toy, opting to play with Voyager Hound instead. :p Not recommended.
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