Cliffbee.com Combat Hero Megatron Toy Review

Individual Review




Name: Megatron
Series: Generation 2
Allegiance: Decepticon
Function: Leader
Alternate Mode: Tank



TANK MODE
Height: 8cm Length: 14cm Width: 7cm

   A purple tank with black camo, a black turret and mid blue treads. He has an orange pneumatic pump on top, also. Aside from the orange it actually looks pretty good. The purple is a fairly dark purple, which helps immensly. He has stickers on either side of the turret featuring orange and purple skull-and-crossbones, and on the underside of the front a sticker with the words "Megatron Rules!" emblazoned in orange. Subtle, no?

   There's a hole atop the tank for you to mount the handgun. I'm not really sure why. It's a tank anyway, and you can attach a total of three big missiles as well. The handgun doesn't add much. The missiles are blue with yellow rubberised tips, one attaches to the turret and the others can slot into retractable brackets on top of the tank. There are wheels underneath the treads, which have chrome painted wheels moulded inside them. The top doesn't swivel, since it breaks apart to become the arms.

   Despite the outbreak of orange, it's a nice tank mode. The pneumatic missile launcher works fairly well and the blue and purple work well together.

TRANSFORMATION TO ROBOT MODE

   Fold down the sides to form the arms, Lift out the pump, slide the missile launcher to the right, flip out the head. Reattach the pump to the missile launcher. Fold down the back to form the legs, fold out the lower legs. Swing down the arms. Position the arms, legs, give him his handgun and missiles if you desire.

ROBOT MODE
Height: 19cm Width: 11cm

   A largely purple robot mode, but with the addition of silver (head, forearms, thighs, groin). There's also the blue missile launcher, now on his shoulder, and some orange here and there. The face is purple with bright pink eyes and a fairly detailed sculpt. Overall it's a fairly blocky figure, but it's also one of the first G2 figures with a concerted effort toward poseability.

   The head turns, the elbows, shoulders and hips have two joints each and the knees are jointed. Despite not having any ball and socket joints, it's a very poseable toy. Of course, with a giant missile launcher on his right shoulder, he'd probably only ever turn his head to the left. He has a slight tendency to overbalance and fall backwards, but it's not too bad.

   He can store the extra missiles on the brackets, now on his arms, if you like. They're rather large and look somewhat strange, but at least you have the option. Combine this with the missile launcher itself and poseability, Combat Hero Megatron was, for the time, one of the best Transformers figures ever made in play value terms. Whilst it doesn't have as many gimmicks as the very similar green Megatron tank of the previous year, it's got a far less blocky robot mode. And better colours.

VARIATIONS

   Released in Europe as "Archforce", who lacked the "Megatron Rules!" graffiti on the front sticker, for obvious reasons.

OVERALL

   A good toy, for the time a downright revolutionary Transformer. The colours could have been better - not that the purple and blue are _bad_, but the orange is and the missiles don't match the toy at all. I give this toy 7.5/10, and most of the points lost are for the colour breakouts

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