Rescue Bots Game System - transformers is going skylanders

[drifand]

Fail,

The figures are no where near Skylanders quality art form.
The capsule restricts two players possibility.
The game really looks like crap.

[griffin]

Had a minute to take a quick pic....



(no point in starting up a whole review topic for this, so I'm posting it on the news posting)

The Beam Box is definitely a cheap thing, that is really aimed at kids under 5.

As I had suspected when I saw the figurines in photos, they are not like Skylanders which have the character "program" inside the figurine... these are just a bit of cheap plastic, that shouldn't be more expensive than a Legion class figure - BUT ARE!
(Legions are US$6, these are US$7).

When I got the Beam Box unit, I noticed that it had four tabs inside where the figure goes, so I guessed that the entire game and characters are already inside the unit, and you access the other 5 characters by locking down one or more of those 4 tabs.
Recently getting Heatwave, you can see in the photo above that he has a single grey tab underneath on the left side (not the red things) that will match up with one of the tabs on the unit. So... if there aren't any photos online of the bases of the other four figurines, it should be possible to eventually work out how to access the other four characters, by sticking something under the Optimus figurine to lock down the right tabs to access them.

Unfortunately, it also means that this unit's game can't expand beyond the six characters, because they are the only ones on the intro screen (each lights up when their figurine is inserted).

The game itself is very basic, so maybe it would have been a waste producing more characters to collect and play, as the under 5s who would be interested in this, probably wouldn't be too concerned about replaying the same mazes just because they have other figurines to plug in.
The only incentive to getting the other figurines is that there is one unlockable activity within the game for each figurine. The main maze and several activities are all accessible with any of the six figurines... but your character animation and phrases change with each figurine.

Figurines are...
Optimus - comes with the unit.
Heatwave, Bumblebee, Chase, Boulder - Wave 1
Blades - Wave 2

A couple flaws - it requires batteries (it doesn't plug into the wall... which could have been intentional to allow it to be sold in other countries). The controller uses infra-red, so you have to keep it pointed at the sensor on the front of the Beam Box. And it is just a single player game, that doesn't look like it can reset itself when you've completed levels. (you can replay levels or activities, but it might put off kids that want to "start" the game fresh themselves if someone else had been playing it first)

[Tetsuwan Convoy]

Soundwave looks unimpressed....