Toy Review - Age of Extinction Grimlock (Voyager)

[GoktimusPrime]

Grimlock
Series - Age of Extinction
Sub-line - Generations
Size/class - Voyager
New/remould/redeco - New
Wave - 1
Released here - May 17 2014
Approximate Retail Price - $50
Approximate Size - 18cm
Allegiance - Autobot
Sub-Group - Dinobot
Alt-mode - Robotic Tyrannosaurus Rex
Main Features/Gimmicks - Snapping jaws
Main Colours - Bronze, silver, black
Main Accessory - spiked club x halberd polearm

Images

Stock photo

In box












Appearance
The beast mode is a robotic Tyrannosaurus Rex; like the other AoE Dinobots, it's stylised with horns from the top of the head. :/ Umm... okay. The weapon attaches to the tip of the tail and secures quite well, but looks kinda weird. Like Scorn, quite a bit of Grimlock's robot mode is visible in the beast mode, making it frankly look incomplete. The first time I transformed it I was left thinking, "What? Is that it? That can't be it - it's not finished!" If you thought Scorn was bad in this department, Grimlock is a whole lot worse. Continuing on with the theme of having robot modes that resemble feudal warrior's armour (Slug = Knight, Scorn = Crusader), Grimlock's armour resembles Samurai armour. It's the most 'armoured' and least 'fossilicious' looking robot mode compared to the other Dinobots. The toy is predominantly bronze with black and silver highlights throughout. Both the robot and beast modes have jade eyes, and the robot has a red Autobot logo on his solar plexus. While the toy looks already from the front, it's not so great from behind, especially on the bum where the lower jaw of the Dinobot head just dangles there like he's just... never mind, let's keep this clean. The dino feet that dangle from his wrists just look really cumbersome. And of course, the feet look like Elf Shoes.

Transformation
The way that the shoulder & bum kibble transform into the beast head is rather interesting, but the rest of the transformation is pretty pedestrian; it's like the engineering of a Deluxe figure that's been blown up to Voyager size... and price.

Pros
+ No rubbery parts, so all tabs are able to lock in properly.
+ For the most part the colours work quite well.
+ 17 points of articulation
+ Jaw chomping gimmick is fairly unobtrusive.
+ The pole arm can be held 'upside down' with the club head removed to make it into a halberd weapon.

Cons
- The transformation and design are really simple for a Voyager Class toy; really more like Deluxe level of engineering. Totally not worth paying $50 for.
- The pole arm can only be held by a handle that protrudes from the shaft beneath the club's spiked head. This makes it a rather impractical melee weapon, as there just isn't any sufficient reach for the club head. It looks more like he's holding a big spiked coffee mug. The aforementioned halberd mode doesn't have much reach either considering Grimlock's size. It looks more like a cattle prod.
- The massive dino feet that just sit there on the wrists just look ugly.
- So do the horns on the head, which serve no real purpose and detract from the look of the beast mode, even as a mechanical beast. One of the cool things about the G1 Dinobots was that, being mechanical aside, they attempted to resemble the dinosaurs on which they were based. T Rexes don't have horns, thus neither did G1 Grimmers, but AoE Grimmo does. Be sure to lift these horns up in robot mode, otherwise they obstruct the robot's head/face; and in dino mode, swing the horns down so that the dino mode doesn't look like a big dog (as you can see in my second photo above).
- There's only one small peg that's meant to hold the feet together when transformed to dino mode. This peg either needed to be bigger, and/or they needed to add another peg to help keep the robot legs/feet together in beast mode (as they form the tail).

Overall
This is one of the worst Voyager figures I've seen since Grimwing... it is just so basic in design and feels cheap for a toy of this size and price point. Not recommended. But if you are going to get this underwhelming figure, be sure that you are not paying full RRP for it.

[Omega Metro]

From what I have seen of other reviews and pics, I'm loving the robot mode. I'm unsure about the Dino mode as it does look cheap and those teeth look ridiculous. I wouldn't pay $50 for it either. But I do want it. And anything with a simple transformation is a blessing.

[GoktimusPrime]

And anything with a simple transformation is a blessing.

I don't necessarily have a thing against simple transformations --- there have been some really nice toys with simple transformations, e.g. Flipchangers. If this toy were being sold for $30, I'd be lauding it. But the design simply does not justify $50 -- the pre-order price for a Masterpiece Autobot car!

[kurdt_the_goat]

Not intending to take a dig at you Goktimus, but couldn't you have just watched a video review before buying some of these toys and being so disappointed?

I know like some others you have a huge collection and being a longtime fan, would want to pick up some of the latest offerings, period. But since you mention price so often, i would have thought you'd be way more selective!

For me, i'm not phased by higher price toys that i know will be good (pedigree or from watching a review), because i'm happy in the knowledge that the money's better spent than it would be on most of the 'general consumption' toys that end up like this!

[KingGrimlock]

I like the design and the direction theyve tried to go with Grimlock, this figure is a decent representation when you compare it with other recent Grimlocks. Take a look at FOC and masterpiece Grim, both of them also have the Legs turn into the arms and tail become the legs and feet as well as having part of the head fold down onto the back. To me this has a surprising amount of elements from other Grimlocks and I welcome it to my dinobot collection.

[Zommael]

This is annoying me now, and since I read Ben Yee's review of this toy this morning I can finally respond to it:

THEY'RE NOT ELF SHOES!!!! They are stylised sabotons, a fairly common piece of medieval knights' armour. There were even loosely-applied rules about how long the sabotons could be in Medieval France, based on social class. Of course, they didn't typically point up the way they do here, but that presentation of this particular piece of armour is fairly common in pop culture, and no doubt has been chosen to add to the knight effect for that reason.

So please stop calling them elf shoes. Please. For the children.

[Omega Metro]

I'm tossing up between getting the Voyager OR Leader Grimlock. Need to do more research before I buy.......and maybe watch the movie.

[MayzaPrime]

I voted no, and the only reason is cause I went for Leader Grimlock rather that Voyager Grimlock.

[liegeprime]

Hopefully when I go OS next month, it's been released there and are priced much less than what they are tagged here. We always get overpriced retail anyways. I'll just take my chances on getting this one over there...

[GoktimusPrime]

Not intending to take a dig at you Goktimus, but couldn't you have just watched a video review before buying some of these toys and being so disappointed?

I know like some others you have a huge collection and being a longtime fan, would want to pick up some of the latest offerings, period. But since you mention price so often, i would have thought you'd be way more selective!

I personally didn't pay full price for this figure (or any of the AoE TFs so far), but I'm always mindful of what the full retail price is meant to be whenever I review a toy, since that's what HasTak are expecting the average consumer to pay for the toy. I want to collect a toy for each of the movie screen characters. I decided to get Voyager Grimlock because I reckon the Leader figure will be even worse value for money. Typically the bigger and more expensive the toy, the worse value it becomes, as discussed in the Sub-Deluxe Figures thread.