Cliffbee.com Siege Red Alert Toy Review

Individual Review




Name: Red Alert
Series: Siege
Allegiance: Autobot
Alternate Mode: Cybertronian Sports Car



CAR MODE
Height: 3cm Length: 12cm Width: 5cm

   A bright white car with a black cockpit, black plastic tyres and red painted hubcaps. Red Alert has silver headlights and a red stripe running down the middle of his hood. Inside this is a white "badge" with a red Autobot logo inside that again. His sides feature black painted areas and patches of black "unpaintable" plastic above these - they blend into the black canopy well - certainly better than the same black panels on Sideswipe who shares the mould. There are red stripes along the side from the lower doors, rising above the rear wheel wells. He sports a white & red stroberack on the roof.While the canopy (as opposed to windows and a roof) define it as Cybertronian, it has the general lines of a Countach, so it's also clearly the Autobot's resident paranoid. The red used here is darker than we usually see on Red Alert toys but still works well. It's interesting to note that while Sideswipe's red plastic was matte, Red Alert use a vibrant glossy white. The sculpt is pretty good & includes unpainted taillights & air intakes. Notably, there's no rear spoiler.

   Red Alert rolls well enough on his wheels; and the rest of his play value comes from his two accessories. The strobe rack can detach and both it and the gun can attach to the rood of holes on the sides in front of the rear wheels. Okay, I'm not sure you'd want to attach the strobe rack to the sides, but it's nice we get the option of plugging the gun into the roof it we want to.

   He handles the black panels on the side much better than his mould mate Red Alert, so if anything I feel he looks better in this mode than Swiper. This really does look like a Cybertronian Red Alert & really works as the character despite the darker than usual shade of red. A great vehicle mode.

TRANSFORMATION TO ROBOT MODE

   Remove and set aside the gun, for now. Lift up side panels (it is important you do this first or you can break them!). Unclip and open the shin panels underneath the rear, allowing you to unfold the boots. Flip out the feet, close and reclip the shin panels. There are panels at the back of the knees which ideally you'll swing away (but this will happen as soon as you bend the knees regardless. Rotate the waist and swing out the waist piece. Swing the arms out and pivot them out to the sides. You can them tuck the side panels in and bring the arms back down; unfolding the elbows and swinging the fists out. Fold the hood down to form the chest (bringing the waist with it), attach his weapons as you choose.

ROBOT MODE
Height: 9cm Width: 13cm

   A mostly white robot mode. The white and red hood form his chest and there's further red on his waist. Red Alert has black glossy paint on his shins, his fists are also black. His face is silver with blue eyes. The forearms and thighs a very slightly off white matte plastic which blends well with the majority white plastic. His feet and the Autobot logo is prominent on his chest. This colour blocking is G1 cartoon Red Alert through and through. There's a silver "battle damage" paint platter on his shins, which I do not like at all, but as it's over that black paint I've just left it there rather than risk damaging the black gloss (which I inevitably would). I love everything about this robot mode aside from that splatter.

   Red Alert's play value is rewarding for a deluxe. The black gun works well as a handgun and has a 5mm port at the hilt so you can plug the strobe rack in to make an axe which he can wield in either hand. While I prefer the hand gun to the axe, it shows the designed really thought about the weaponry - an axe for a bot that turns into a Fire Chief's car! His accessories can plug into holes on the outsides of his forearms and shoulders. That blast point on his chest is joined by one on the left shoulder. It's not a feature I use since the Battle Masters don't interest me whatsoever but while these blast points are ubiquitous in this line, they're all very unobtrusive.

   Poseability is very good here. His neck is ball jointed while the shoulders, elbows and hips all have two planes of rotation. His knees are hinged with rotators enveloping the hips and his waist rotates. The ankles feature tilts and there's a little give in the ankle transformation joint giving the feet some toe pointing movement. The only "missing" aspect really is rotating wrists, but I'm not critical of that given that his hands need to swing in for transformation.

   A very good robot mode and one I feel the designer got right when it came to compromises. The weaponry is clever and both options work well.The poseability is both great and the few missing elements are understandable at this pricepoint, although it's one of the cases in Siege where the battle damage is splatter than can't be easily removed. This bot mode is very much Red Alert.

VARIATIONS

   Red Alert is a slight retool of Sideswipe. There are no variants I'm aware of.

OVERALL

   My only complaint about this toy is the battle damage. Thankfully while it can't be removed it's not the hyper-visible mess than we saw on some (Apeface springs to mind). Otherwise Red Alert is excellent. The designer has mad the right choices & really put thought into him. Good plastic choices & two attractive modes; useful weaponry and two attractive moves that both really capture the cartoon Red Alert despite the vehicle being Cybertronian. I'm also impressed with how they've used different whites to differentiate him from Sideswipe & would recommend both if that works within your budget - 9.5/10

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