Cliffbee.com Trypticon Toy Review

Individual Review




Name: Trypticon
Series: Generation 1
Allegiance: Decepticon
Function: Assault Base
Alternate Mode: Tyrannosaurus rex/City/Battle Station



DINOSAUR MODE
Height: 29cm Length: 38cm (horn to tail) Width: 15cm

   A rather large grey tail-dragging T-Rex, Trypticon is one of G1's biggest Decepticons. In fact he's smaller than only Scorponok. He's motorised and can walk, albeit slowly. Accompanying him are "Brunt", a purple tank and "Full Tilt" a transforming purple car.

   He's mainly grey, with a transparent orange horn on his head, as well as a chromed silver gun on his nose and gold eyes. There's also grey twin blasters inside his mouth. He's got grey limbs, with purple claws on his "arms". He's mainly green down his back, with a grey collar-like neck. He's got a silver backpack which can flip out to reveal twin purple guns (these can flip independently, incidentally). His hips are transparent orange.

   There's a fair bit of play value in this mode. As previously mention, he walks. It's slow, loud and lumbering, but he's still able to walk. At the base of his back is a battery compartment into which you can fit two "C" size batteries, flick a switch next to this and he'll start whirring and walking. For some odd reason the inside of the battery compartment is bright orange, which annoyed me to no end since I got my Trypticon without a battery cover - it looked terrible. Anyway, The walking mechanism limits the posing of his legs, and there are struts which link the legs and arms (so that the arms move up and down as he walks), which limits the posing of the arms, also. His claws can open and close, so he'll grab stuff like pencils or Minicars. There's the previously mentioned cannons on his back, and the guns in his mouth. The head moves up and down and the lower jaw opens and shuts - which reveals the guns inside his mouth. Lastly, his orange horn can fold down and over the silver gun on his nose - which retracts.

   This is a fairly show accurate mode, although the orange bits are gold on the show. There's play value and it looks decent. Aside from the battery cover, and Full Tilt (who can mount on his chest in this mode), missing parts don't really hurt it much. His best mode, in my opinion.

TRANSFORMATION TO CITY MODE

   Remove Full Tilt from his chest, slide in his nose-gun and fold down his horn. Lift up the cannons on his back, rotate the head & neck 180°. Lie him on his back, fold out his sides. Lift up each side and split the legs, there's little switches on his hips that allow them to pop open. Fold the outer parts of the legs out to form extensions of the city. Whilst you can do this before laying him out, it's easier once he's laid down.

   Next, fold down the ramp at the front of the city, lift the twin cannons to vertical to form towers. Extend Full Tilt's mount to form a third tower, mount the turret of Brunt on top of this. On the sides of the central ramp, there's small black discs. Attach Brunt's treads to these, and attach the radar dishes on top of these. On the side platforms there are two purple panels, flip these out to form the helipads. Behind these attach the two remaining piece left of Brunt. Lastly, attach the ramps to the front of the grey side platforms.

   Add any vehicles you want to, such as Full Tilt or small Combaticons/Stunticons. You can also use the supplied black connectors to attach Motormaster and Onslaught in their base modes to the orange discs on the sides of this mode.

CITY MODE
Height: 28cm Width: 58cm Depth: 44cm

   Or more if you attach Motormaster & Onslaught. But I don't have the connectors so I can't measure it. Anyway, he's a rather spacious and spread out city. Essentially he's got a large green central ramp and two grey side panels, with purple helipads, purple ramps and big long grey extensions coming out of them. He has two grey towers at the back, a big purple tower in front of and between them, and various smaller purple towers. This mode has a total of nine attachments, not including the optional connectors for the combiner bases.

   There are quite a few places to stick smaller vehicles. The top of the green ramp, which can launch vehicles down the ramp and onto the floor, the side helipads, as well as the side platforms next to those. Also the two attached combiners can hold a vehicle each.

   There's a bit of play value in this mode, too. As mentioned, you can launch a car off the central ramp, by pressing a button on the back of the base of the big purple tower. There's a power switch on the base of the turret section of this tower, too. If you have a "AA" battery inside, the globe will glow orange. Flicking the switch on his side (with "C" batteries inserted) will set the radar dishes into slow spins.

   All in all, a decent city mode. It's made to look big by the fact it's spread out. It looks more like a large battle station than a city, but it's still cool. There's play value there, too, although this will be hampered somewhat without batteries. The biggest downside is that it will look less impressive and play value will be limited if you're missing accessories. Personally I'm missing the connectors and the radar dishes, so I'm not missing all that much. But being able to use the motor in this mode would be nice.

TRANSFORMATION TO BATTLE STATION MODE

   Fold up the grey ramp at the very front, lift out the guns on this ramp. Remove all the accessories except Brunt's turret. Push in the base of the purple tower, and swivel the turret down to point forward. Fold the grey towers forward and pull out the purple cannons. Fold the extensions (ie fold the legs back up). Flip the helipads back over. Lastly flip down the purple twin cannons on the now shortened extensions.

BATTLE STATION MODE
Height: 16cm Width: 52cm Depth: 39cm

   Essentially an add-on mode, this is pretty similar to the city mode. It's got a total of nine barrels, so it's fairly well armed, but to me it looks less impressive than the city because it's more or less the city half folded up with stuff removed.

   The play value of this mode basically consists of the light-up globe on the central gun and the ability to roll along. It has six wheels along it's central axis - one pair obvious on the front and two sets concealed underneath. It also has ball bearings under the extensions (ie the sides of the dinosaur shins). It rolls okay, although there's a lot of mass to push along. With the rolling action, this mode reminds me more of a giant anti-aircraft battery (since all the guns point up) than a battle station.

   Probably his weakest mode, since it's more an add on than anything else. Not awful, just middle of the road. And it _looks_ like it's been tacked on.

FULL TILT

   Basically a small purple car with black wheels and a silver roof mounted gun, he turns into a purple robot with a silver handgun. Not even the eyes are painted. A few stickers and the tyres are all that stop him from looking like a grape. He's got a pretty poor robot mode, with the lower legs being one piece and no real thighs. His shoulders do rotate though. I say leave him in car mode, so he can sit on Trypticon's chest and whiz down the ramp.

BRUNT

   Nothing more than a way to use some of the city-mode stuff when Trypticon's not in city mode (much like what Six-Gun is to Metroplex. Except it's just a tank. All purple except for the orange light at the end of it's barrel, but it does have small black wheels underneath to allow it to roll. Even less exciting than Full Tilt.

VARIATIONS

   None that I'm aware of. He was remoulded & recoloured in Beast Wars Second as Gigastorm.

OVERALL

   Better than his opposite, Metroplex, but not as cool as his successor, the larger Scorponok. Trypticon has decent play value, is show accurate and has a fairly good colour scheme. His third mode is pretty lame, and he has too many accessories to lose. I've always been a fan of his Dino mode, 7/10

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