Cliffbee.com Onslaught Toy Review

Individual Review




Name: Onslaught
Series: Generation 1
Allegiance: Decepticon
Function: Combaticon Leader
Alternate Mode: Flatbed Military Truck



TRUCK MODE
Height: 5cm Length: 23cm Width: 4cm

   A dark blue and olive green truck, Onslaught's in keeping with the subdued mood of the Combaticons as a set. Basically, he's blue, with some green on the sides and on the rear-mounted cannons. He's got silver cannon barrels and black camouflage on the front. He has black plastic wheels and black plastic grills (the robot fingers) on the front. Oh and a rubsign indent with rubsign on the left of the cabin.

   Colours aside, the best word to describe Onslaught's truck mode is "long". So long, in fact he comes mistransformed in his box. The back half of the truckbed is bare, and you can put a small Combaticon there quite easily (although Blast Off is way out of scale). You can remove the twin cannons from the front half to give him even more flatbed space - allowing you to fit two smaller guys on his back. I can't remove mine - I glued it on as a kid. I don't mind, though, because I think he looks better with them on.

   The twin cannons on his back can shoot forward or point up, they swing to about 88 degrees, so not quite straight up. He's got five sets of wheels (one in front, two rear, two middle), and can roll pretty freely, although he wont roll very far on these hard, ridged, plastic wheels.

   Lastly he has a base mode, which basically consists of splitting the rear of the truck, placing a ramp (supplied specially for the purpose) between the halves, swinging the cab halves to the sides and placing the twin cannons over the exposed robot head. It's not really much to get excited about, though it can be attached to Trypticon if you have him. The Japanese issue of Onslaught is better in this mode, because it has a launcher mechanism to shoot a small Combaticon down the ramp.

TRANSFORMATION TO ROBOT MODE

   Flip the rear section up, then pull the folded part down and separate the halves. Fold the sides of the cabin out and down. Stand him up and pull out the fists. Attach the chestplate and give him his handgun. It's a simple transform but it works.

ROBOT MODE
Height: 19cm Width: 8cm

   Onslaught's robot mode is again dark blue with splashes of olive green, and again silver and black are in the mix. The arms and lower legs are blue, the thighs, head & fists are black, the groin is olive, the waist silver and the chestplate blue.

   Tall and a tad on the lanky side, as you'd expect from a truck toy, it's also very boxy. But it looks pretty good. In fact I leave off the chestplate, because I think he looks better without it. Mind you, I have the metal chested version and the plastic version looks better _with_ the chestplate IMO. The dual cannons are on his back in this mode, and they look pretty good there, even though what you see is the hollow undersides.

   His poseability is, like Vortex and Blast Off, in his arms. By virtue of three joints in each shoulder, you can do a lot with his arms. The joints are pretty rigid, too, thanks to them having to support the weight of Bruticus' arms. The head can turn 360 degrees, which is unusual for a G1 toy. The turning head _isn't_ needed for his transformation, either, unlike most G1 toys whose heads turn (eg Blaster, Spinister & Hun-Grrr).

   I can't really nail down any serious negatives in this mode, and there's a fair few positives. It's a tad dull, but dull is better than the garishness of a lot of toys (like the G2 version). The hollow undersides of the dual cannons might be considered a negative, but fail to really hurt Onslaught's robot mode.

VARIATIONS

   There's both metal & plastic versions of the original release. There's the Japanese version with the launcher on his back (I have no idea what material it's chest was made of). The Classic, which has a plastic chest, had the rubsign indent removed. Then we have the G2 release, Great Cannon from Battle Gaia as well as Dreiler/Mega Octane from Car Robots/Robots in Disguise, all of which use Onslaught's mould.

OVERALL

   Simple, but everything works. He's got play value in his base mode, he's got good poseability for the time, and both modes look pretty good. He's a cartoon character, albeit not a major one, so there's another reason to get him. And of course you can't really make Bruticus without him. Without too much wrong with him, I give Onslaught 8.5/10

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