Name: Silverbolt
Series: Beast Machines
Allegiance: Maximal
Function: Tracker
Alternate Mode: Condor, apparently.
Thanks to Goktimus Prime for loaning me his Silverbolt for this review - mine is sealed.
BEAST MODE
Height: 10cm Length: 3.5cm Width: 18cm
A red and yellow bird of prey with transparent purple wings. Apparently. Silverbolt looks vaguely like an eagle hatchling, with arms rather than wings and a giant head. He's meant to be a condor, but the arms (which are his robot legs) don't attach to the purple wings behind them at all. The three colours don't work so well together, since each is a dominant colour in itself. A duller purple might have worked, but as this guy is done the colours aren't so good. The detached arms might have looked slightly better if they were the same colour as the wings. The head is transparent purple with a big gold beak and an orange Maximal spark crystal on top.
This beast mode is so bad that Silverbolt was actually sold in robot mode (the only carded BM figure to be sold that way). The arms look very much like arms and the overall shape of the body is more humanoid than birdlike. I don't really see a technorganic bird here - just a vaguely organic thing with four clawed feet and a hatchling's head.
There aren't any gimmicks here, and while there's some poseability in the limbs, he looks stupid in any pose. The arms can move around quite a bit, but you'll want to leave them as close to being flush with the wings as you can.
There's actually a an 'unofficial' griffin mode possible, which is actually suspected as being the original concept for this toy - and it's about fifteen times better than the laughable condor configuration. It's really just the condor on all fours, and looks more natural despite the condor head. Which is saying something.
Three flavours of crap. The colours are awful, the bodyshape is crap and the arms are terrible. The griffin configuration is the best part of this mode, and it's not actually official. This ranks as one of the worst beast modes I've ever seen. Which is why I never opened mine.
TRANSFORMATION TO ROBOT MODE
Pretty simple and unconvincing. The arms fold down to form legs and the legs become arms. The waist rotates and the beast head becomes his belly. The robot head, which was semi-hidden inside the bird's tail, simply rotates. The wings detach and fold together to form a large weapon.
ROBOT MODE
Height: 11.5cm Width: 7cm
Again a mess of yellow, red and transparent purple, although now Silverbolt has some silver on his chest and head (which are both purple). I don't think much of the transparent head, and this looks nothing like the previous incarnation of the character. The colours again suck, although at least the spark crystal is on the front of his torso.
This _is_ Silverbolt's better mode, and while it's still kinda lame, the beast mode is so awful that the robot mode ends up being something of a relief. The robot mode does manage a technorganic feel, but there are some awkward moments. The hands are the beast feet and they look like feet, while the feet look like bird feet (even if the bird feet don't look like bird feet).
This figure is moderately poseable, with ball jointed shoulders, elbows, hips and knees. The knee balls can't go back, so they've added a set of hinges. There are also hinges on his shoulders and ankles. There are no heelspurs and with only hinges on his ankles, the range of stable leg poses is limited. The weapon looks like a giant wing - I suspect it's meant to be a knife or slashing weapon. Oh, and it's far too heavy for Silverbolt to hold (especially with his dicey feet).
While this is Silverbolt's better mode, it's still a pretty bad robot mode. The hands look like feet, the transparent head is just plain bad and the weapon is a poor way to hide a bad set of wings. And this was the main selling point of the toy.
VARIATIONS
None, thankfully.
OVERALL
Every now and then a "must-have" Transformer comes along. And then there's Silverbolt. This thing is downright awful. The colours, the beast mode, the robot mode and the weapon are all bad. I'd recommend avoiding this figure if at all possible - 1/10
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