A small review for our arrogant blue friend...
Tracks is quite nice overall. It's a good likeness to the G1 original, and the fact they've made the mold suit Wheeljack as well is pretty impressive. Leg articulation is a little limited and the wings get in the way of the arms slightly, but he can still get into some decent poses. The blue plastic used is very deep and consistent and doesn't have the 'milkiness' of a lot of recent hasbro stuff. There's a nifty bit of automorph in the chest that reveals the head and spreads the shoulders. Playability from a kid's perspective is really good, it's a very stable robot mode with good balance, a nice large footprint and no arms or legs prone to falling off too easily. The legs look a little hollow, in the front shin area, this is mainly due to the dual Wheeljack transformation. It's not as flimsy looking as the Straxus ankles, but still robs the figure of some much needed bulk. Similarly, the arms are a little weedy looking - good thing he's brought three guns to the party. Strangely, all three appear to be missile launchers of some sort, which logically could create some problems for him in a tight corridor battle. Tracks probably wouldn't let himself get into that situation in the first place given his personality. The backpack locks into place in a very satisfying way, unlike Perceptor's crappy loose arrangement. It's a shame the shoulder weapons have to be unclipped from the vehicle mode and reattached for robot mode, but again this is a concession made for the Wheeljack repaint more than anything. His face retains the bright-red high blood pressure look of the original, although the overall look of the face is more in keeping with the initial Classics figures, in that the face is very robotic and blank - more recent figures tend to have a lot more personality to the face, Wreckgar, Jazz and Perceptor being a great example. There's a nice dab of yellow/green paint on the inner shoulder that helps to break up the figure's profile too.
Vehicle mode is a mixed bag. Again it's a good representation of the G1 original, while being different enough to avoid any legal issues. The colour in this mode looks really nice, but it's let down by the ridiculous paintwork on the bonnet - to be fair, I always thought the flame on the original was a bit lame too, but it did work in a 1980's context. I can't see anyone spending that much money on a muscle car and then ruining it by painting on a bunch of fluro tribal flame patterns. Actually, I can, but it'd be a massively bogan thing to do which is at odds with Track's personality. Either way, I'll be looking at ways to get it removed - Alternator Tracks looked fantastic without it and I'm guessing the same will be true here. The huge gap in the back of the car is also a big let down, and seems like a massive design flaw. A little more design work could have seen this avoided. It's also disappointing that the car's undercarriage profile is wrecked if the missiles aren't attached. On the positive side, the whole thing locks together quite well and rolls along ok, which again is nice for the kiddies, and he does have brake lights which is more than can be said for Jazz.
The flight mode is a bit of a joke. I can't believe Hasbro went to the trouble of including additional molding to support it, although it could also be used as a weapon-mode of the car if they decide to further repaint the mold as one of the Omnibots. It makes me think of Cybertron Megatron's flying car mode, or Cybertron Prime's flying fire truck, except it's less well thought out than those were. At least they haven't tried to pass him off as a BS triple-changer like they did with Straxus and ROTF Mixmaster. Still, it's a nice reference to the G1 original toy and show regardless.
Another nice feature with all recent figures is double-sided instructions for transforming in both directions, this is a really good move by Hasbro rather than the old cop-out 'reverse order of instructions' spiel, becuase sometimes the way back isn't enitrely the same as the way forward.
Overall I would consider this guy an essential purchase for G1 completists, although if forced to choose between Tracks or Wheeljack, I would probably say that early pictures show Wheeljack to use the mold a little more effectively than Tracks.
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Originally Posted by Lint
. Mine is out by 1mm tops. The roof part is near perfectly smooth but the seam between the car door and rear on one side of the car is slightly gappy. It's almost negligible.
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