Cliffbee.com Deep Cover Toy Review

Individual Review




Name: Deep Cover
Series: e-Hobby exclusives
Allegiance: Cybertron
Function: Special Investigator
Alternate Mode: Lamborghini Countache



CAR MODE
Height: 4cm Length: 11cm Width: 5cm

   A black Countache, Deep Cover has clear windows and a navy blue front bumper. A Ferrari-style logo graces his bonnet. He has headlight & taillight stickers and a big Autobot sticker on the bonnet. Otherwise he's basically all black.

   A very nice car mode. The wheels are chrome, the tyres rubber, all the windows clear - there's even a windscreen wiper moulded onto the windscreen. One thing that this mould has over a lot the more recent Transformer cars is that it _really_ looks like a model of the car he's meant to represent. The back half of the car, save for the spoiler, is die-cast metal.

   There's quite a lot of detail in the moulding. Sure, he's straight black, but as well as the wiper, he has indented air intakes, mounded head & taillights, engine canopy and boot seams. Inside the cockpit there's room for one driver - a Diaclone driver, of course. You can actually mistransform him so that his head is visible in this cavity!

   Play value is limited to rolling on his wheels, which is about as much as you can expect from a car mode, short of a pull-back motor. It doesn't have axles, and hence doesn't roll straight (or very far) unassisted. But Deepcover looks that good that overall this is still a fantastic car mode.

TRANSFORMATION TO ROBOT MODE

   Pull back the engine block, separate it into two halves to form the legs. fold down the front around 90 degrees and then pull out the doors to form the arms. You can them completely fold down the front to become his chest, and swing out the head from under this front section. Swivel up his roof to form the backpack, position the arms, give him his weapons and you're done.

ROBOT MODE
Height: 11cm Width: 7.5cm

   The black is complimented by navy blue and white in robot mode. Deep Cover's still a very dark toy, but now broken by the white. He's got a navy blue head with a silver face. The chest is black, being the front of the car. His arms are silver & red, with tyres on his shoulders and black hands. The waist is white, the groin black. His thighs are white, shins black, the sides of the lower legs are black and the feet silver.

   He's got some blue present on stickers on his forearms and feet. For what it's worth, the stickers in robot mode are metallic foil on the reissues and paper on the original. The factory-applied headlight stickers are paper on both reissues and originals. Foil wears less, but if it curls, you're in trouble. So I guess I'd go with foil, but not by much.

   Deep Cover is the reissue Sideswipe mould, which basically means he has two small protrusions on his shoulders, which serve to lock in the front section in car mode, and his missiles and launcher won't work with original Swiper ones. Or Diaclone Sideswipe parts, if you're lucky enough to have one. Deep Cover is a reissue of the black Diaclone toy Sideswipe is based on.

   The missile launcher itself is navy blue, the trigger black and the missile white, with the front part chrome silver. It shoots about a foot, which is pretty good for a Diaclone launcher. The gun is white. The toy's poseability is limited to only the shoulders, which can swivel 360°. But you can add the missile launcher to it's play value. At any rate, the strength of Swiper in this mode is his display value, as in car mode. Overall, a very good and well proportioned robot mode, with great display value. This colour scheme looks _very_ nice.

VARIATIONS

   A reissue of a Diaclone. Being an eHobby exclusive, Deep Cover is limited to one production run, so variations are pretty much impossible.

OVERALL

   A great toy. Attention to detail, realistic car mode, good colour scheme and quality of manufacturing (metal, clear windows) all work in Deep Cover's favour. Both modes work very well. No media appearances, but a great toy all the same, if you can get one at a decent price, 9.5/10

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