Cliffbee.com Gobot Optimus Prime Toy Review

Individual Review




Name: Optimus Prime
Series: Generation 2
Allegiance: Autobot
Function: Autobot Leader
Alternate Mode: Lamborghini Diablo



CAR MODE
Height: 2cm Length: 7cm Width: 3cm

   A matte red sports car, Optimus Prime is no longer a brick red, he's now a brighter red, a vermilion colour. Unlike most of the Gobots in G2, he doesn't have a sparkly paint over the matte plastic. He's got black painted windows, plastic black tyres and gold painted hubcaps. He has yellow tailpipes on the back, but aside from the mufflers, wheels and windows, he's all red - no blue in sight here.

   The moulding detail's pretty good for a toy this size, although he's not quite a detailed as some Gobots since Diablos are inherently sleek. He has door seams, side mirrors, an engine grill behind the rear window, pop-up headlights, taillights, air intakes on the sides and even front indicators. None of these details are painted, which makes most of them subtle, but this is appropriate for a Diablo, and considering that for a $4 toy the paint mask would have invariably been riddled with paint spills, I'm glad they left the details unpainted.

   As with all Gobots, Optimus Prime has front and rear axles, and can roll quite well, and is designed to fit into Hot Wheels tracks. That's about all for the play value, but for a $4 toy I'm not complaining.

   One of the better Gobot moulds, but it doesn't really _feel_ like an Optimus Prime. Still, they could have done worse than a Diablo for him. The moulding detail is good, the vermilion is a little bright for Prime, but is in itself a nice colour, if a little light for a real Diablo.

TRANSFORMATION TO ROBOT MODE

   Pretty simple. Pull down the rear to form the legs, fold down the hood to form the chest, pull out the arms.

ROBOT MODE
Height: 7cm Width: 4.5cm

   Now with a red chest, red arms, white thighs and yellow shins and feet, Prime looks even less like his traditional self that before. Thankfully, they've actually gone and painted his head blue and his face silver. Sure, it's not the traditional Optimus Prime head & face, but the colours do just enough to make him Optimus Prime. Recognition aside, it's a decent colour scheme, and the four main colours work better in combination than you might expect. I do like the fact they bothered to paint his head for the character, none of the three other versions of this mould had their heads painted.

   Like all Gobots, Prime's got a fairly bulky chest, shortish arms and is essentially tri-coloured (blue head aside). Unusually, his chest is not painted, but is the base plastic's colour. The upside of this is that he can't suffer from paint chips, and the downside that he's quite bright, thanks to the combination of yellow white and red. The yellow is a rich yellow, and not a canary yellow, which saves this toy from the garish look many G2 toys had.

   Prime has a red gun, he also has yellow feet formed from the tailpipes of the car mode. There's not really too many other features that stand out here, but I'll mention the feet since they don't protrude forward at all and he has a tendency to fall forward. Play value is limited to the shoulders rotating - standard for a Gobot.

   I'm not sold on this colour scheme for Optimus Prime, but in itself it's okay. I give points for bothering to paint the head blue, but he loses points for the ineffective feet.

VARIATIONS

   His Japanese release had a blue "T" on it's hood. Recoloured as Firecracker (who is almost identical - clear red plastic, unpainted head), Gobot Sideswipe and R.E.V..

OVERALL

   One of the better Gobot moulds, and while I'm impressed they painted his head blue, I wouldn't say vermilion, yellow and white isn't really Prime's gig. I do like this toy, but I like it despite it being an Optimus Prime, not as an Optimus Prime. The mould itself has only one noteworthy flaw in it's stability in robot mode, but that's enough for me to only give him 6.5/10.

"Transformers" and other indica trademarks of Hasbro and/or Takara.