Toy Review - GEN-2015 DLX Rook

[Handsprime]

His face looks like an American Football player helmet

American Football player Transformer? STOP EVERYTHING THIS IS A MUST BUY

[UltimateGalvatron]

American Football player Transformer? STOP EVERYTHING THIS IS A MUST BUY

Sure, Rook's got the look, but for an actual American Football Player....

I think you're looking for Eject...

[Handsprime]

So I picked him up today and already I'm having fun.

Yes he does have that footballer appearance, but there's nothing wrong with that. Sure his hands are weird, but who doesn't like weird Transformers?

However, the highlight is what you can use him for. Due to how his vehicle mode is designed, it can be used as a foot for any combiner. In fact since Rook looks like a footballer, you could buy a few and create a Transformers football team!

OK so that's not canon, but I don't read the comics so whatever I think is best for the figures, is what is best.

8/10

[BigTransformerTrev]

In fact since Rook looks like a footballer, you could buy a few and create a Transformers football team!

OK so that's not canon

Depends, most of the world refers to soccer as football and Krok was a mechasoccer player so a TF football team sounds pretty canon to me

[Deano85]

He's a little bulky as an arm, especially compared to Blades (probably the slimmest CW deluxe so far) but otherwisw I've got no issues with him.

If you have his backpack like in robot mode then just angle the arms back towards it you can get a slimmer arm mode. Much better than the stock transformation.

[Dimi194]

I think this is my fav of the Portectbot limbs; the blockiness is a nice contrast to Blades, and I love the head sculpt and ankle tilts! A very good DLX figure.

[UltimateGalvatron]

Yeah he's grown on me.

[Lint]

I don't see what the big fuss is about, he's a pretty ok figure but nothing overly special. The front fist facing peg holes are cool, but I find myself wishing he has normal fist peg holes as well. The stupid senior citizen nifty nabber accessory really bothers me as well. Mind you he's only my second combiner wars deluxe so far (the other is Alpha Bravo) so I haven't yet had the opportunity to be let me down by the rest of the team

[Zommael]

Of the four deluxe Protectobots, I think Rook is actually the best. He's full of nice touches which make him feel just that little bit more special, such as the ankle tilts. The sculpted detail is nicer on Rook than the others as well, and shows up quite well against the bright white background. I also like the fact that he has a small Autobot symbol on his head - I'm a big fan of subtle, perhaps hard to notice, faction symbols. I find the transformation intuitive and fun.

I was particularly impressed by the transformation to leg mode; it is possible to just stick him in as a leg in vehicle mode, but that makes him significantly longer than other combiner limbs which causes problems, so he can be transformed in a similar way to the other car limbs whereby part of the car swings downward. The fact that this isn't immediately obvious but goes together so well when you do find it, and that it matches the other limbs, is impressive to me.

In robot mode, I find I can't resist giving him Hulk hands. That's okay because it means First Aid gets his fork accessory, which at least looks a bit more like a medical or repair tool than a damn axe (the axe is for amputations. First Aid mostly does amputations. He's feared on the battlefield - by his own side). There's no denying that these hands are a bit weird, but for a line like CW where many of the weapons have 5mm pegs on the back as well as the bottom, they work reasonably. I'm hoping Hasbro move on to figures with weird legs soon, as we now have Megatron with weird shoulders, Optimus with weird elbows, and Rook with weird hands. The fact that he can use the combiner hands is a big plus, and while they're definitely big, they're not totally disproportionate - I like the idea of Rook improvising the Hulk hands combination in some situation to go totally on the rampage. The fact that his hands still have fists sculpted into the top of them is a nice touch, as is the fact that the ports aren't just 5mm holes but instead have some detailing on the inside that makes them look more like technical attachment sockets.

Like Alpha Bravo before him, Rook is a new member of his team, but that shouldn't cause old school fans to reject him, because like AB, Rook is a great figure. Where he differs from AB is in actually being the best member of his team, free from the tendency to get in his own way that the Stunticon moulds and their derivatives have, while AB just loses out to Firefly as best Aerialbot. Rook belongs in any modern TF collection, even if you're not trying to complete the Protectobots, just because he's a damn good figure.