Toy Review - GEN-15 DLX Offroad (combiner)

[prjkt]

I think that Hasbro has learnt some lessons from Alpha Bravo and have done a better job with Off Road. While the alt mode colours still evoke Wildrider, the robot mode colours don't, making him look more like a distinctively new character. IMO Alpha Bravo would've been a nicer toy if he weren't so blatantly sporting Slingshot's colours. And judging from photos, it appears that they've done an even better job with Rook, whose colours don't seem to evoke any pre-existing Protectobot in either robot or alt mode. So as far as I can tell, it does seem that Hasbro are paying attention to what they're doing and trying to make improvements along the way, which is most encouraging.

I was comparing photos of Slingshot to Alphabravo, and Wildrider to Off Road, and I was thinking to myself Hasbro did a good job with making the alt-modes match their predecessors colours, while giving the bot modes distinctive colours - Off Road's chest colours and upper upper limbs.

Alpha Bravo got the short end of the stick, with his orange face, although the orange chest and grey head are quite different to Slingshot's colours - so there's still enough to differentiate the two, just not as much as with Wildrider/Off Road

[Tetsuwan Convoy]

Opened mine today and I like it! Gives me a big Ruckus feel to this guy more than a new character. Oh and the tfwiki says something about that too.

Well well well.

Shame that they couldnt get the name, as I like him as Ruckus and think he'd fit in to the Stunticons. Got the comic version, that doesn't feature him at all But it does have a nice bio written up. Oddly though, it mentions that the other Stunticons are hesitant to trust Off Road.

Really?
trust?
Stunticons?
Off all the teams, the Stunticons are the least stable. They all have serious emotional issue, which Motormaster uses to bully them. I doubt they ever trust any of their team mates....

Really nice toy though. These combiner wars figs are proving to be simple and fun, without being too simple.
I approve!

[BigTransformerTrev]

Had a play with him tonight. My thoughts:

Geez - the bio on the back wasn't joking about him using Wildriders colours! Right down to the silver on the hood and the Decepticon symbol off and down to one side. Add that to the red windows and off-black colouring and they really went the WR colour scheme. To be honest if he's a new character I think they should have gone a new direction, even if it threw off Menasors colour scheme a bit. Especially since it seemed all along that they planned to release Wildrider/Brake-Neck .

The robot mode is quite good and...

Opened mine today and I like it! Gives me a big Ruckus feel to this guy more than a new character.

... made me think the same, especially with the hood over the back and the shape of the head combined with the colouring of the face.

Vehicle mode is solid enough. Whilst I do like his hatchet and it looks kinda badass attached to the side of his pickup truck form, I think they missed a perfect opportunity to give him a little turret gun that could have sat in the tray of his truck mode, it would have made a lot of sense by adding firepower to his vehicular form so I don't fully agree with their choice of weapon (a bit like Breakdown getting a sword - he's a paraniod! He wants to do things from a distance, not up close where enemies can look at him ).

So overall not bad, but a toy that cant make up its mind which G1 character its referencing when it didn't have to reference any. I'll be keeping him as part of Menasor and using the Wildrider from the Tak/Tom version for my individual bots display.

[prjkt]

Tray mount turret will come with the Swindle remould

I like that the robot mode colours are fresh, while the Altmode reflects Wildrider, kinda like, "Yeah, this guy replaces Wildrider, but he's also his own bot" type reasoning.

[BigTransformerTrev]

a bit like Breakdown getting a sword - he's a paraniod! He wants to do things from a distance, not up close where enemies can look at him

Actually, thinking about it, I could see a psychotic Breadkdown sitting on a prone enemies chest furiously stabbing them in the optics over and over with his sword and screaming incoherently "STOP LOOKING AT ME! STOP LOOKING AT ME!"

[prjkt]

At least the sword doubles as a rifle...
Which kinda works for his personality - shooting away, then flipping out at the tree next to him and cutting it down.

[shockNwave]

The inclusion of aqua/teal works surprisingly well with Offroad. My only gripe is the goblin green of his face. Another point is that when it comes to carrying weapons in vehicle mode this guy's the best, he has four holes at the back that raises the question as to what kind of variations can be created as he carry's the weapons of the other stunticons.

So I find him to be the best stunticon so far (because I'm yet to open Motormaster).