Cliffbee.com Rodimus Toy Review

Individual Review




Name: Rodimus
Series: Energon
Allegiance: Autobot
Alternate Mode: Racing Truck



TRUCK MODE
Height: 6cm Length: 14cm Width: 7cm

   An insanely souped up racing longnose truck, Rodimus is mainly claret red, with grey on his grille/snowplow, grey plastic tyres and a grey roof. He has silver smokestacks, metallic blue windows and gold flames on his hood. The overall look is Rodimus Prime on steroids, although despite the obvious and deliberate similarities, this is a different character.

   The cab is a lot bigger than the trailing section, both in height and width, and the front wheels are bigger than the two sets of rear wheels. There is a red spoiler on the back, underneath this are two grey jets and in front are grey moulded intake turbines. There's a powerlinx port on top of the spoiler, not for a Minicon but for his weapon, which is a giant transparent orange missile launcher, which doesn't fit the colour scheme at all. I plan to throw this one into storage as soon as the review is finished. It shoots a solitary orange missile a foot or so, but there's just too much transparent plastic on this thing.

   He has a silver spark crystal on the left side spoiler strut, as well as a small painted Autobot symbol inside a cog on the left door. The hubcaps are painted bronze, as is the front grille.

   Overall, this is a great looking truck mode. The colours work, aside from the weapon, but that's easily removable. Otherwise the only visual flaw is a gap at the back of the cabin where the orange robot hips are visible. While this is not a totally realistic truck, it looks like it could be, and there’s enough detail to sell it - including side mirrors, front headlights, doorhandles, a hitch on the back and ridged tyres that allow him to roll fairly well.

   While there are some flaws, this is a good truck mode. The novelty of a racing truck helps - you have to go back to the Micromasters for the last time there was a racing truck Transformer.

TRANSFORMATION TO ROBOT MODE

   Fairly clever and satisfyingly complex for a deluxe, although not difficult. Flip up the front of the truck to form the robot legs, lift up the roof to form the feet. Straighten the legs out and flip up the kneecaps, fold in the panels behind the smokestacks to form the soles of his feet, and swing out the orange heelspurs. Fold out the waistplate, swing the rear wheels out to either side to form the arms. The head swings up and clicks into position. The forearms have several folding parts, including the fists swapping out for the rockets, which is nifty.

ROBOT MODE
Height: 14cm Width: 13.5cm

   Again largely claret, Rodimus now has gold flames on his shins and chest along with grey feet, kneecaps and forearms and orange thighs and fists. The chestplate has a red stamped Autobot symbol, and the spark crystal is concealed on the inside of his right forearm.

   Like the vehicle mode, there are obvious and deliberate Rodimus Prime elements here - including a yellow crest on his forehead (the only yellow on the toy) and the flames on his chest. The chest and waist are hidden in vehicle mode, but the chest mimics the hood and waist reminds of a front headlight rack. I love how they've done this, it really gives this mode a unified look. He has a silver face and black eyes, which fits in with the whole Rodimus Prime throwback. The rear wheels are mounted on the large shoulderpads, and the front half of the truck is now the robot boots, with the grille being the kneecaps.

   The boots are big, and his feet are huge, being the roof and windshield of the truck. The kneecaps are also big, and hide about 2/3 of the thighs. He also has longish forearms and his head looks quite small, but the big arms and legs do work well together.

   The head is on a limited ball joint, the shoulders swing and the elbows are ball joints. His hips have double ratcheting joints, the knees bend on single ratcheting joints. Posing the knee joints will leave a gap between the thighs and kneecaps, but you just push the kneecaps it. The giant orange heelspurs mean most poses are stable, and can easily be stowed if you prefer, although this limits his stability in certain poses. Overall he has pretty decent articulation, coupled with the ability hold his missile launcher in either hand this makes for decent play value. And then of course, he can combine with Prowl to form a larger robot.

   The odd proportions and poseability limitations mean this mode's not quite as cool as the truck mode, but again the colours work well, and I really like the unified look of lots of truck and fake truck parts being visible.

POWERLINXING

   Rodimus' giant boots make him a terrific set of legs, although the heelspurs aren't quite strong enough for some of the more backheavy combinations. The legs are oddly shaped as combined-mode arms and his head is small, so I'd recommend leaving him as a set of boots, but he can still become an upper half without _major_ problems. The missile launcher is well proportioned for a combined robot - which is the only thing I really like about it.

VARIATIONS

   Black Rodimus Convoy is a limited release Japanese repaint of Rodimus. Checkpoint and BotCon Thunderclash are repaint of Rodimus.

OVERALL

   The truck mode is a good one, and almost justifies getting Rodimus on its own. The robot mode has some flaws, but has enough going for it to make him a worthwhile purchase. The missile launcher truly bites, but it's expendable in both modes, so it doesn't work against him - 7.5/10

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