Toy Review - Generations Sergeant Kup

[Lint]

I'm a fan of this Kup! His transformation is intuitive and satisfactorily complex (which is a hard ask in this modern age of fiddlyness) and his bot mode just screams of old school badassery. I am a fan of more non-pistol weapons (particularly long ones) so his musket/shotgun/rifle scores points as well. Play value is a great, he is quite poseable and very stable and the rifle can mount on the cab turning him into a mobile weapon's platform. I also really like his headlights. Quality!

My only two minor gripes are:
The face, although it looks like Kup, his screaming like he's on fire really doesn't fit the character.
His alt-mode pickup truck mode, while a realistic equivalent earth-mode isn't really instantly recognisable as Kup. They could have been a bit more adventurous and tried to emulate the G1 colour scheme, but this would have arguably ended up with bad results

[griffin]

Toy Review - Sergeant Kup

Series - Generations
Sub-line - N/A
Size/class - Deluxe
New/remould/redeco - New
Wave - 6
Released here - Expected here April 2011 (released globally January)
Approximate Retail Price - $25-30
Approximate Size - 15cm
Allegiance - Autobot
Alt-mode - Pickup-truck/Ute
Main Features/Gimmicks - none
Main Colours - Aqua-green, grey, black
Main Accessories - gun

[kaiden]

+great alt mode
+transformation is not boring
+perfectly fits the igear box carrying replacement heads.

-horrible looking head - yoda like.
-cygar-less
-horrible elbow design - it goes one way and then needs to go another way...
-door panels stuck on forearms are annoying - would have preferred them going to the back like the hood.
-hands cannot grab the shotgun barrel (for a more cool pose)

[GoktimusPrime]

+perfectly fits the igear box carrying replacement heads.

I don't think HasTak engineers had this in mind when designing the toy. It's more likely that the 3rd party heads were designed to fit with this toy.

-horrible looking head - yoda like.

The "Yodaness" I don't mind so much. I think they were trying to make him look old, which even the original G1 toy had on the facial sculpt. Cos ya know, metal skin gets saggy. But what does bug me with the face sculpt is the open mouth. It looks a lot like Pat Lee's trademark "dull surprise" expression. Either that or he just had a cyberferret run up his tailpipe.

-cygar-less

I don't blame HasTak for that. The majority of people buying these toys are parents of young children and Hasbro probably didn't want to risk upsetting them for potentially trying to push smoking on their kids. But the photo on the back of United Kup's card (which I saw in person the day before yesteday) shows that Kup was meant to have a cygar in the earlier stages of the toy's design; but a decision was made later on to opt out of it.

Maybe that's why his mouth is open, to accomodate the Cygar... and without the cygar he just looks stupid. Just a theory.

-horrible elbow design - it goes one way and then needs to go another way...

Yeah, it's not great but I don't mind it too much. Scourge's shoulders bug me more.

-door panels stuck on forearms are annoying - would have preferred them going to the back like the hood.

Yeah, that bugs me a bit too -- but it's not a huge deal for me. I guess they thought that he already has enough back-carrying kibble as it is. Because a good portion of his chest is faux, he inevitable ended up being a bit of a shellformer. The alternative would have been to incorporate more of the vehicle mode into the robot mode, but then he'd possibly look less G1 like.
<shrug>

-hands cannot grab the shotgun barrel (for a more cool pose)

He can hold the shotgun barrel, but yeah... he can't actually grip it properly.

The front wheels don't properly "lock" into place - you just have to kinda position them there, which kinda bugs me as during rigorous toy play they can sometimes get knocked out of alignment and not roll straight (or roll at all).

[kaiden]

The front wheels don't properly "lock" into place - you just have to kinda position them there, which kinda bugs me as during rigorous toy play they can sometimes get knocked out of alignment and not roll straight (or roll at all).

actually they do sort of. behind the wheel theres a rectangular indent which semi-locks onto the grey-rectangle flat side on his shoulder.

just rolling it on the floor now and it seems to roll fine.

as for my review, it was just personal opinions really with a bit of sarcasm thrown in (igear box :P)

[i_amtrunks]

While not based on a real ute, I personally found Kup a far more enjoyable and sensible homage to his G1 namesake than Alternator Prime.

Great transformation, nice colour that is close enough to the original and a very solid figure. Head is not perfect, but I think it does try to capture the character. Well worth every cent spent on him.

[Soundwarp]

I must have him

[Bumbleb33]

Really nice figure, solid and highly poseable
Pictures do not do him justice enough. Plus he's teal, how many teal figures do we honestly get?!

[Doubledealer]

It's all about the igear heads for me, without 'em it's just not Kup. With 'em, pure win! My preference goes to the eHobo release but the Generations one is certainly no slouch either

[Soundwarp]

The more i see this guy the more i want it