Toy Review - Age of Extinction Autobot Drift (Voyager)

[GoktimusPrime]

Autobot Drift
Series - Age of Extinction
Sub-line - Generations
Size/class - Voyager
New/remould/redeco - Redeco of Dark of the Moon Skyhammer
Wave - 2
Released here - September 2014
Approximate Retail Price - $50
Approximate Size - 17cm (up to shoulders)
Allegiance - Autobot
Alt-mode - Attack helicopter gunship (Eurocopter Tiger x Mil Mi-24 hybrid)
Main Features/Gimmicks - swords can combine
Main Colours - lots of navy blue, electric blue & gold
Main Accessories - x2 swords, x2 missile pods

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This review looks on the changes made the mould. For a more comprehensive focus on the original mould itself, please see the DotM Skyhammer review thread.
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This toy is a repaint of Skyhammer, which works surprisingly better than I thought as Drift in both robot and helicopter modes. The fine line detailing of light blue on the forearms really do help exude the 'samurai' look for Drift. I personally would prefer a proper triple-changer toy for Drift (in the same vein as Generations Springer), but short of doing that, I think that Hasbro's made a good choice in using the Skyhammer mould as the 'nearest fit' for Helicopter Drift. This redeco doesn't feel nearly as "forced" as I thought it would; I wasn't really expecting to like this toy nearly as much as I actually do.

Okay, the robot doesn't sport Bugatti Veyron kibble -- but screen-likeness aside, it's a great toy. Deluxe Drift carries a lot of the car mode on his back in a folded up backpack, which is cleverly designed, but was necessitated by the fact that Drift has so little vehicle kibble in robot mode on screen. As a redeco of Skyhammer, Voyager Drift is using a pre-AoE mould created back in the day when the live-action movie aesthetics weren't so counter-intuitive to toy design. And furthermore, Skyhammer was never a screen-character to begin with, so toy designers had full reign to create this fantastic mould, unfettered by being slave to a screen model.

Now I don't know if this was an intentional part of the design or a happy accident that's resultant from mould degradation, but some of the parts are looser and a lot easier to move around and transform than Skyhammer (e.g. popping the rotor blades in and out etc.)! One thing about Skyhammer is that a lot of his parts are really tight and need excessive force to move. This issue has become greatly reduced in Drift, but never to the point where anything is too loose or floppy (as is often seen in other mould-degraded figures, e.g. Cloud Megatron). So whether by design or by accident, the result is a more user-friendly figure.

I prefer the sculpting on the Voyager's head, mostly because the "duck face" isn't as pronounced on this version. Also, there are fine-line blue accents on the side of the 'helmet' which looks really nice. The electric blue isn't metallic like on Deluxe Drift, but I do really like the choice of gold that they've used on this toy. The swords also look really nice with air-brushed gold decos on the sides of the blades. Thanks to the 5mm port system, these swords are also compatible with Deluxe Drift and looks great on him (Deluxe Drift's swords are more downsized to make them stowable in car mode).

Overall this toy exceeded my expectations, and despite my initial hesitation, I would actually recommend getting this figure. I personally got it on sale at TRU, however I'm sure there'll be more sales coming up as the holiday season approaches.


PICTURES

Comparison with Skyhammer





Comparison with Deluxe Drift







Deluxe Drift holiding Voyager Drift's swords

[Zommael]

I got this a few weeks back when I was down south, and I pretty much agree that it's an awesome version of the toy. I don't have the Skyhammer version so this was my introduction to the mould. Overall I like it very much, but find the articulation in the legs a bit weird. I am however a big fan of the detailed transformation, nice paintjob and colourscheme (blue and gold is always a win), and headsculpt which retains the samurai styling.

One thing to note is that there are actually three different possible configurations for his swords: twin swords and broadsword are both documented, but the two halves can actually join together opposite to each other to create a longer "twinblade" type weapon vaguely reminiscent of a helicopter's rotors. I present have mine displayed like this and enjoy the versatility of the weapon very much.

I think it's an improvement over Skyhammer, from what I've seen, because of the added weapon and the addition of the samurai theme which distinguishes Drift from other bots.

[Sinnertwin]

i really wanted to pick this guy up from Amazon along with a few others, but we all know how that turned out.

[liegeprime]

i really wanted to pick this guy up from Amazon along with a few others, but we all know how that turned out.

There's two of these at Blacktown Kmart, Sinnertwin. Grab one while it'still there.

[Sinnertwin]

There's two of these at Blacktown Kmart, Sinnertwin. Grab one while it'still there.

Thanks, LP, we have him at work too, but $49 is a bit more than i wanted to spend on him, considering he's $17UsD on Amazon

[GoktimusPrime]

It's currently $40 at TRU.

[BigTransformerTrev]

Since I already have the Skyhammer mould and an AoE Deluxe Drift I've decided to bypass this figure and just grab the one step changer while it's on special so I have his copter mode. I'll buy a voyager if him if ever they can be bothered to do a proper triple changer.