Name: Ironhide
Series: Movie Tie-ins
Allegiance: Autobot
Alternate Mode: GMC Topkick Truck
Thanks to Goktimus Prime for loaning me Ironhide for this review.
TRUCK MODE
Height: 6.5cm Length: 14cm Width: 5.5cm
A black pickup truck similar to the voyager, albeit smaller. He has charcoal plastic tyres, transparent blue windows, silver painted headlights, a red "GMC" logo on the grille and silver plastic exhausts behind the cab. The taillights are painted red and there's some visible grey kibble under the tailgate. There's a silver outline Autobot logo stamped onto the bottom left corner of the windshield, rounding out a good colour scheme. Heck, it manages colour on the exhausts, something the original voyager lacked.
This is a pretty good truck, overall. The feet hanging out the back (the grey under the tailgate) is his main shortcoming here. The kibbly runningboards are gone now, replaced by a black "drone" which sits on the tray. It's not much more than a black gun on grey legs, but it's detachable so I won't call it kibble. The sculpt is very good, including a grille lattice, the words "ROAD ARMOR" quietly carved under the grille on the bottom of he front bumper, roof lines, door handles & seams, a petrol cap on the left side and indicators on the front bumper.
The wheels turn, but the main play value here is the drone, which is essentially a black block on three grey legs. The legs fold up allowing this drone to become a small block, but it cal also stand on its own as a weapon. The play value is about all we'd expect from a movie deluxe alt mode - as usual, the focus is on realism.
A good vehicle mode which has learned some lessons from the larger toy. There's different kibble here, but the exhausts stand out in a positive way. The paint job & sculpt are good and the drone is a nice little touch, making this a satisfying truck.
TRANSFORMATION TO ROBOT MODE
Fold away the rear wheels, split the tray. Fold up the back edge, fold out the feet. Rotate the panels on the outsides of his boots. Fold up the exhausts, split the roof and pull out to the sides, revealing his arms. Rotate the roof halves on his arms, fold up. Pivot his shoulders out. Split the hood, pull out the chestplate and head, fold away the front wheels & plug the hood halves into the chestplate.
It's a fairly complex transformation, so I've simplified a little.
ROBOT MODE
Height: 13cm Width: 12.5cm
A black & pale metallic blue robot with some bronze painted highlights. While the head and shoulderpads (hood) are black, there's an awful lot of blue here, along with some silver here and there. His eyes are bronze and there's a hard-to-see silver outline Autobot logo on his chestplate. This robot mode is probably brighter than ironhide should be, but at least the blue gives some definition missing on the darker toys of this character.
The bodyshape here is a tad off, but the problems are fairly minor. The shoulder joints are set quite far back, so his arms are pretty much fated to be in a sort of hunched position. The boots & feet are quite wide & stocky. There are some kibbly elements here, especially on the sides of his legs. The face has the same dog-like look of earlier Ironhide toys.
The play value here is good, with the drone able to fold up and plug into the kibble underneath his left forearm as a cannon - matching the blue gatling-gun sculpted onto the kibble on the other side. This clever integration of the vehicle mode's weapon is a great touch. The neck, shoulders and hips are ball jointed. The head is quite limited since it's nestled within the sloping hood pieces. The elbows are hinged with rotators although the effective arm poseability is limited by the position of the shoulders. The wrists rotate, and there are holes in his fists, although there's no handheld weapons here. The knees and ankles are hinged while there are rotators above the knees. The panelling limits the legs quite noticeably. The ankle hinges aren't restricted, thankfully.
A decent robot mode, but the poseability is quite limited and the colours are a little brighter than they should be for the character. The extensive blue helps give some definition here, at least. The weapons are good, even if neither shoot. We can of course detach the drone, giving Ironhide two weapons configurations.
VARIATIONS
None that I'm aware of.
OVERALL
A good toy with a very good vehicle mode and a somewhat limited robot mode. The detailing & attention to detail here is good, but the concept doesn't quite scale down perfectly - the robot mode suffers somewhat. The weapons are clever and there's certainly some innovation here. I don't know that I'd recommend this toy over the voyager, but if you prefer a smaller version of the character, this is still a solid toy - 6.5/10
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