Cliffbee.com Blaze Toy Review

Individual Review




Name: Blaze
Series: "European" Generation 2
Allegiance: Autobot
Function: Hitman
Alternate Mode: Racing Buggy



BUGGY MODE
Height: 3.5cm Length: 8.5cm Width: 4.5cm

   A transparent blue racing buggy with an enclosed cockpit, purple plastic wheels (as you do) and a giant neon green spoiler on the back. Classical garish G2, Blaze has gold painted windows which look a little strange on a transparent car - you can see through the car but not the windows. The colours are terrible, but he probably has the best colour scheme of the G2 Sparkabots (the Decepticon ones were called Sparkabots). There are black and yellow striped stickers on his doors, they're not the same as the stickers used on Fizzle, his G1 Counterpart. The rubsign indent Fizzle had is still there, with a black sticker sporting a fluorescent red and yellow G2 Autobot insignia. A fluoro allegiance symbol doesn't help with the whole robots in disguise thing, but he's transparent blue and neon green, so who cares, right?

   There's no rear window, since the rear houses the spark gimmick, but I doubt the driver would be able to see past the spoiler. It really is huge - I suspect this buggy would actually be a failure as a racing buggy since they tend to race around tight corners and if the airflow caught under Blaze's spoiler on a corner he'd flip. It looks okay, mind you, so it's not really a problem.

   The whole point of the Sparkabots is the sparking mechanism. There's a rubber tyre underneath Blaze, separate to the plastic wheels, and if you roll him along with some downward force flames will shoot out of a small hole at the back of the car - about 5 centimetres. This doesn't work on mine since the rubber tyre is too soft and doesn't grip onto it's wheel. Assuming yours works, you generally have to push a few times to get the gimmick working, since the friction that makes it work is reliant on heavy resistance and it won't work if there's not enough friction. There's a flint (the same as lighter flint) inside, which will eventually wear down, which provides the sparks. More likely to actually wear down is a white gear that transfers the tyre's motion to a flint wheel. A lot of second hand Sparkabots have worn mechanisms.

   The whole point of this mode is the sparking mechanism, and while it's kinda cool, it is rather prone to wearing out. The colours, as mentioned, are shocking, which ruins any real appeal the sparking mechanism might give Blaze's car mode.

TRANSFORMATION TO ROBOT MODE

   Extend the rear to form the legs, fold the front section over onto his back, stand him up.

ROBOT MODE
Height: 7.5cm Width: 4.5cm

   The robot mode is neon green, with the transparent blue limited to the arms only. Blaze has a crimson face, adding to the random bright colour choices. Being a darker shade than the neon green, the crimson hides the moulded detail of his face, which is actually fairly good.

   There are no stickers visible on this robot mode. The chest (which is a solid piece, along with the face and thighs) has three screws visible, which looks pretty poor - even a single Autobot logo covering the screw on the centre of the chest would have done wonders for this robot mode, although it'd no doubt be neon of some sort. There are a total of five screws visible - the other two are on the feet. As mentioned, the thighs are a solid piece, part of the chestpiece. There's no gap between the legs at all, in fact, and the thighs are about 1/4 the length of the shins. Add to this the overly long arms (they come down to his knees) and the proportions are pretty bad. The shins have to be a single piece since they house the spark gimmick, but longer thighs would have really helped.

   The only play value in this robot mode is the fact the shoulders swing, but this is not enough to save a bad robot mode. The abundance of neon green is not a good thing, in fact none of the colours really match each other. Bad proportions, bad colours, bad robot mode.

VARIATIONS

   A recolour of Fizzle, as mentioned, who was sold only in Europe and Australasia. Curiously, Blaze was the only G2 Sparkabot with a new name - the others had the same names as their G1 counterparts. Blaze's card featured Sizzle's card art, however.

OVERALL

   My least favourite Sparkabot mould, now in random neon colours. Blaze does have the best colours of the G2 Sparkabots, and since he sports a new name, if you only get one G2 Sparkabot, get Blaze. Having said that, it's easy to see why Hasbro USA passed on this line, leaving Blaze to be limited to Europe and Australia. I got him for free, and that's about what he's worth - he's only really worthwhile for the sake of having a G2 Sparkabot - 2.5/10

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