Name: Overcast
Series: Energon
Allegiance: Autobot
Alternate Mode: Space Cruiser
Thanks to i_amtrunks for lending me Overcast for this review.
SPACE CRUISER MODE
Height: 11cm Length: 23.5cm Width: 20cm
A somewhat disjointed grey, white and navy space ship with some transparent red, Overcast is a repaint of - and looks a lot like Jetfire, since both toys feature white and grey as major colours. The choice of ochre for wing detailing doesn't help, since it brings his colour closer to the maroon used on Jetfire. Anyway, Overcast's upper half is grey and navy while the lower half is mainly white with a spattering of grey. There's a red missile launcher underneath the bridge (at the very front), which holds a single navy missile. The wraparound window of the bridge is also red. There's a silver panel portside which incorporates a spark crystal. There are silver some intake panels immediately in front of the tailfin, which has a raised red Autobot logo (with unpainted relief) on the portside. There are quite a few minor paint apps on the wings and fuselage, which keep things interesting without making much of a dent on the colour scheme itself. The colours used are decent, if a little uninteresting. The similarity to Jetfire is my main complaint, colourwise.
Overcast looks like a grey & navy spaceship that's carrying around a white payload underneath. The top half actually makes for a rather convincing space ship, with nice detailing, credible wings (at 45°) and tail. The lower half doesn't fit into this at all, and there's a huge gap underneath the bridge which frankly looks awful. Granted, the missile launcher fits into this space, but there's still enough room to drive the proverbial bus through there. The colours do bring the halves together better than was the case on Jetfire, although Overcast is still a little disjointed.
There's not too much play value here. The missile fires, thanks to a small white button on top of the fuselage. The missile travels about a metre and the launcher is fairly powerful. Overcast has four independently positionable navy thrusters on the back. I like the fact that all four attach via ball points, but I'm annoyed by the fact that the two larger ones are on the maroon undercarriage. Lastly, there are four grey wheels underneath allowing Overcast to roll.
The top half of this vehicle mode is a really nice space ship, but the lower half is perhaps the worst kibble I've seen. The grey wingtips and thrusters might attach to the maroon section, but otherwise there's nothing especially aeronautical about it. You really have to wonder what the designer was aiming for here.
TRANSFORMATION TO ROBOT MODE
Remove the launcher and set aside. Swing the sides of the white section out to the sides and back to form legs. Fold away the winglets and wingtips, swing down the thrusters. Fold up the ankleguards and collapse the ankles. Fold down the head (which will cause a transformation sound to play, if you've installed batteries), lift out the shoulders, rotate the shoulderpads, fold down the halves of the tailfin and the nose of the jet (the latter onto his back). Swing down the arms and swap out the smaller thrusters for his fists. Give Overcast his missile launcher as a handheld weapon. You'll now have to go retrieve the missile, since the poor positioning of the trigger in this mode makes it virtually impossible to put the launcher in his hand without firing the missile.
ROBOT MODE
Height: 19cm Width: 22.5cm
A more blended mix of the same three colours, Overcast is dominated by white while his chest, shoulderpads and forearms are navy. His face is orange although the eyes are covered by a transparent red visor (which can actually lift up slightly). Again there are quite a few minor paint applications, including a stamped Autobot logo on the right shoulderpad (also visible on the starboard side of the vehicle mode) to offset the spark crystal now sitting on his left shoulderpad.
While the vehicle mode had more potential, the robot mode is better simply because it doesn't have a ridiculous shortcoming. Mind you this is a fairly unambitious robot mode. The huge shoulderpads are a nice feature, but aren't that unique. There's a black claw mechanism built into his chestplate with makes for an interesting pattern. On the downside, his boots are _huge_ (a side effect of the powerlinx combination thing) while the torso is also wide. Perhaps the most annoying aspects of this robot mode is the fact that the panel which contains his head doesn't clip into place - rather it floats just above the torso, and you can see the navy combining junk in the gap. This wouldn't have been too difficult to avoid, but it seems the designer was more worried about the combination than the robot mode's integrity. The combining gimmick is also responsible for the giant boots - and this impacts on just how much undercarriage kibble the jet carries.
The play value is pretty pathetic for a mega sized toy, since so much of Overcast is geared towards combining with the equally stunted Ironhide. The missile launcher is again powerful, but the hard-to-see trigger sets off too easily. The claw on his chest opens and clicks into place, waiting for you to press a button between the prongs which causes it to snap shut. While the idea is good, it's only works in robot mode, which is self defeating. If you like the idea, go and find yourself the cheaper (and much nicer) Skyblast toy. The poseability is mixed. The head doesn't move, but the shoulders can swing and lift out to the sides while the elbows are ball jointed. The hips swing and lift out to the sides while the knees are hinged with rotators. The feet don't really move in a meaningful way however the footprint is huge - a good thing considering how bulky Overcast is. This is probably the only flow-on benefit from the combination gimmick.
It's a very unambitious robot mode but it works _because_ of this. The poseability does allow for some nice poses and there are some nice visual aspects here. It's not without flaws, but at least none of them ruin this mode. I'm really not sure why they bothered putting in the claw gimmick when it's available in this mode only, but hey at least the designer put something different in this mode. The colours diverge more from Jetfire this time, since there's more white - compared to the increased dominance of maroon on Jetfire's robot mode. The colours are also a little more unified on this version.
VARIATIONS
None that I know of, although Overcast is a (more unified) repaint of Jetfire.
OVERALL
While the basic idea of the space cruiser mode is really nice, the huge chunk of kibble on the bottom does a lot of damage. The paint map is better than on Jetfire, so I'd recommend Overcast over Jetfire. The robot mode is okay - but then it doesn't really try that much. The play value is okay, but nothing really stands out. The truth is that Overcast focuses too much of himself on combining with other Energon toys, not leaving much for himself. Take out the combination and shrink him down to deluxe size, Overcast would be worthwhile. Otherwise he's not that compelling - 5/10
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