Cliffbee.com Combiner Wars Streetwise Toy Review

Individual Review




Name: Streetwise
Series: Combiner Wars
Allegiance: Autobot
Alternate Mode: Police Car



POLICE CAR MODE
Height: 4cm Length: 13cm Width: 6cm

   Am off white sports car with charcoal painted windows, Streetwise has extensive blue on his hood, front fenders and doors with "POLICE" in unpainted off white on the front and sides. His headlights are painted silver while there are red outbursts on the back (robot knees) that work well as taillights. The front bumper is painted gunmetal and there's a big Autobot logo on his hood. There's a red painted stroberack on his roof and he has large black plastic wheels. He's an extensive retool of Dead End - to the point where they mostly just share engineering - but the shape of the headlights do kinda give it away. The colour scheme here is fairly faithful to the G1 version, although the blue painted detailing is new here.

   While there's a lot here that is Streetwise, there's a lot that isn't - to the point where you may not look at it and think, "Streetwise". It's clearly not Prowl, either (or any of the less prominent G1 police car bots). The off white _is_ Streetwise though, so yeah it does work well enough as Streetwise. And it's a convincing enough police deco. The sculpt is good, with detailing in the headlights, a fuel cap on the left rear fender, doorhandles and other details.

   Play value is about what you'd expect of a Combiner Wars car - the wheels turn and there are attachment points for his weaponry. Streetwise comes with a black hand/foot piece that is meant to double as a gun when he's not combined and as usual, it doesn't look very good attached to this car mode. The other weapon he gets is a triple barrelled gun, done in gunmetal. It can attach to holes behind the front tyres or onto a hole on his roof... it works well in either spot, and it's one of the better Combiner Wars weapons.

   This is a good police car mode with nice sculpting, a good weapon and it looks like a police car, rather than a repaint (well, retool) of a Stunticon. While the colours aren't 100% Streetwise, this car still works as Streetwise.

TRANSFORMATION TO ROBOT MODE

   Unclip the undersides of the rear, fold out. Swing the back end over to form the boots; separate his boots and fold the undersides back in to form his shins. Press down on the centre of his roof to lift up the windshield and fold back. Unclip the front and pivot down to form his backpack. Fold down the chest plate, pivot up his arms, swing the fists out from within his forearms. Rotate the waist, give him his muffler-club and you're done.

ROBOT MODE
Height: 14cm Width: ~7cm (depending on pose)

   An off white robot with a black upper chest, black on his shins, red on his forearms, groin and knees. His face is silver and the sculpt is quite detailed while the eyes are blue. His chest and the outsides of his antennae are red. There's an Autobot logo on his chest. While the car mode isn't quite so obviously Streetwise, this robot mode is unmistakable. His head sculpt & paint deco is very much Streetwise while the black upper chest is the G1 windshield. G1 Streetwise has red thighs and while they're white here, the red knees resemble the tiny thighs of the G1 toy. I'm not quite sure why they gave him red forearms which matches neither the toy or cartoon - possibly a colour balance thing - but it looks fine and overall, this is an attractive robot mode.

   Poseability is fairly standard for Combiner Wars. Ball joints shoulders and hips, although his neck joint is a rotator unlike the ball joint of Dead End. The feet are fixed in that slightly-spread pose. His ankles and wrists don't move but he gets a waist joint as part of his transformation. The gun can be wielded here and it works just as well as in police car mode. It doesn't quite match his black gun from G1 but it's a great weapon so I really don't mind.

   A great robot mode that oozes Streetwise. The poseability is good (if not great) with a nice gun and it really doesn't feel like a retool. The false window on his chest is very well done and the head sculpt is fantastic.

VARIATIONS

   The Unite Warriors version has a different paint job, it's more G1-cartoon-accurate in colour layout, but it's grey rather than his usual off white - so for mine it feels _less_ character accurate.

   There are quite a few versions of this mould (Dead End came first) - Brake-Neck (aka Wildrider), and the G2 version of the Stunticons - use the basic mould. More significant retools include Prowl, Smokescreen, Dust Up, Lightspeed, Unit-3 (BotCon 2016), Bluestreak & Flowspade.

OVERALL

   A robot mode that's very much Streetwise, a police car mode that doesn't jump out as Streetwise but still suits him quite well and a great gun. Visually, the colours work well in both modes, and I just adore the detail in the facial sculpt. On the strength of the robot mode alone I can recommend this toy. While he's hardly a high profile character, this is an excellent revisiting of the character. My only real complaint is that he doesn't have a ball joint in his neck - given that Dead End had one - 9/10

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