Name: Bluestreak
Series: Siege
Allegiance: Autobot
Alternate Mode: Cybertronian Sports Car
CAR MODE
Height: 3cm Length: 12cm Width: 5cm
A matte silver car with a black painted hood & smoky transparent windows. Bluestreak has black plastic tyres, silver painted hubcaps and silver painted headlights. Bluestreak has a red Autobot logo stamped on the front of his hood and a red taillight bar at the back. This colour schemes instantly recognisable as G1 Bluestreak, although the black hood means it's more Cartoon Bluestreak than the G1 toy colours. It's a good looking colour scheme with a paint job that feels generous enough.
For the most part, the lines of this car feel like Bluestreak could be an Earth vehicle. He lacks side windows, with the doors sort of wrapping "up" where the windows would be. The clear plastic of the rear window - which has a rather attractive painted detailing underneath - flows up to the roof. Aside from the odd roof & window shape, the rest could be a real car.
Play value is about what you'd expect of a Siege car - the wheels roll freely and there's two places where weaponry can be attached. There's a single hole on top of the roof into which his guns can be plugged, and two semi-circular holes on the hood where weapons can also be attached. His silver gun can only plug into the roof, but he also comes with two smaller grey guns can plug into the hood or combine to plug into the roof. The silver gun also has a hole on top, so you can combine them into a single, compound gun for the roof. His doors can actually open, but it's really just for transformation and only reveals his forearms and other junk.
A reasonably straightforward car mode with useful, elegant weapon options and a colour scheme that really says, "Bluestreak". I'm not the biggest fan of the Cybertronian shape, but then that's Siege so I'm not complaining.
TRANSFORMATION TO ROBOT MODE
Open the doors, pull the rear out to unfold the legs. Flip out the feet and heelspurs, split the feet and rotate the waist. Swing the arms out from underneath then rotate them out to the sides. Pull out the roof (and front of the car), rotate out the waist section hidden behind the front of the car. Push the centre of the hood through the hood itself. You'll then be able to collapse the roof back in, pushing that central panel into the core of the bot, clipping the waist into place. Swing the arms down, position them and attach weapons as needed.
ROBOT MODE
Height: 13cm Width: 12cm
The colour scheme here - and layout - is again very much G1 Bluestreak. His head, much of the chest, feet and hands are grey while his face is silver with blue eyes & Bluestreak's signature red horns. His elbows, waist and thighs are red while the shins are the transparent rear windows. His shoulders and groin are gunmetal grey and his forearms and centre of his chest are black. The chest is the front of the car, in traditional Bluestreak style - complete with that Autobot logo.
I love this robot mode as they've absolutely nailed this as G1 Bluestreak - one of my favourite characters. It's just dead on. From the chest to the doors behind his shoulders to the shoulder cannon (option) to his head. That said, he's a little slender through the waist - the sides of the area are gappy. This is the only real flaw here though.
Poseability is good & hard to fault. The head and waist turn, his shoulders, hips, elbows and knees all have hinges and rotators. His ankles are hinged along with the heelspurs, and he has ankle tilts. His wrists rotate, to top this off. Aside from a ball jointed head, there isn't anything else we could ask for here.
His silver gun - the handgun - can of course be held in either hand, and can also plug into holes on the top of either shoulder. The grey guns are designed to clip into the hood holes; which are now situated behind his head. You've even got two options - lay them down so they lay flat across the back of his head, or stand up with a gap behind his head. I prefer the former just because it "flows" better, but both work well enough. If you lay them down, there are holes on top of them to attach the handgun... if you feel the need. These two shoulder cannons can still be combined and plugged into his hands, the shoulders or on top of the handgun if you wish. The best part about all of the above options IS the fact we have so many options, and all of them work.
A great robot mode, with the only real flaw being the slenderness at the back of his waist area. It's hardly a big deal though - just not quite ideal. He has great poseability, good weapon options which all work well enough and he is very much the G1 character, from top to bottom.
VARIATIONS
None that I'm aware of. He shares the mould (if not the weapons) with Prowl, Smokescreen and Barricade.
OVERALL
A fantastic Siege toy. They've nailed the character everywhere they possibly could, given him useful weaponry in both modes and his paint job is detailed enough in both modes (along with the sculpt, where appropriate, incidentally). Play value is all we'd hope for in a deluxe, rounding things out strongly. The only negative here is the minor gappiness behind his waist but I'm nitpicking really. Oh, and there's none of that battle damage which holds back some Siege toys. If you like Siege... or the character, I'd strongly recommend Bluestreak - 9.5/10
|
