Cliffbee.com Wal*Mart Wedge Toy Review

Individual Review




Name: Wal*Mart Wedge
Series: Transformers Universe
Allegiance: Autobot
Vehicular Mode: Bulldozer
Note: I don't actually have the original Wedge - I have Build Boy, the Car Robots equivalent, and so I reviewed Build Boy previously. For ease of comparison, I will refer to the original as Build Boy.



BULLDOZER MODE
Height: 5cm Length: 9.5cm Width: 6.5cm

   A yellow bulldozer with black treads and a black roof, Wedge has a big Autobot logo stamped on his roof while the cabin windows are a dark transparent blue. There are random silver markings on the front, which look pretty stupid. The treads feature a nice brown "dirt" wash, which is a wonderful idea. I can't say this colour scheme improves on Build Boy, despite the wash, because of that stupid silver. Orange and yellow are both about as realistic as each other, anyway.

   It's a details and well moulded dozer, the pneumatic arms look good, although they're yellow when black might have looks a little better. There's no real play value other than four small black wheels underneath - the shovel doesn't move.

   Despite the random silver outbursts, this is a nice dozer mode. The sculpt is great and the colours are generally good. There's not really any kibble here, which really makes a difference. Sadly the roof panel on mine doesn't always stay closed - this may just be a one off defect or actual mould degradation.

TRANSFORMATION TO ROBOT MODE

   Split the two halves of the shovel and fold them right back. Then fold the treads upward (they should still face out, but be higher up on the sides of the dozer). Remove the black shield concealed under the shovel and fold the two halves of the grill forward. Grab the sides of the front and pull them apart. Twist them backwards to expose the thighs and fold down the shins. Fold the feet up. Pull up the shoulders (the rear halves of the treads to which the shovel halves are attached), twist the lower halves to form the hands. There's a little panel on his back, flip it down to reveal the head and then flip the head up and then flip the panel back up. Lastly the shield becomes his gun (which is actually poseable).

ROBOT MODE
Height: 11cm to the head, 16cm to the shovel halves. Width: 8cm body, about 15cm shovel halves (this will vary depending on the arm positions)

   A yellow and black robot, Wedge has a black on his chest, kneecaps, upper arms and feet while the rest is yellow. There's a lot of silver paint here, but those random outbursts have gone, thankfully. His face is silver with midnight blue eyes (something shared with his teammates), the Autobot logo is central on his chest. The colour scheme here looks really good - not necessarily better than than of Build Boy, but surprisingly different considering how close to one another yellow and orange are.

   The big faction symbol on his chest looks great, and is well positioned since unlike those on his teammates the mould was meant to wear it (Hasbro retroactively added them on the other three). Proportionately, it's huge, since it's intended for Landfill. The other aspect that stands out are the huge shoulder pads formed from the two halves of the shovel. I wouldn't really call them kibble, since they stay out of the way and make a great feature.

   Wedge can do Hot Spot's trick of using the gestalt head in his robot mode (it's inside the cabin on his chest). Wedge is very poseable, lacking only wrist and ankle joints really since his shoulders, elbows, knees, hips are all ball joints while his head turns. The only real shortcoming here is a lack of heelspurs, which limits his range of poses. The two barrels of the gun are independently targetable (c8



   A nice robot mode which is on par with the original, the black, yellow and silver work very well while the Autobot logo looks great. I like the shovel on his shoulders, the gun is clever and the poseability good. I'd have liked heelspurs, but otherwise this is a great robot mode.

VARIATIONS

None that I'm aware of. Sold in a boxset with Grimlock, Heavy Load and Hightower at Wal*Mart stores. This boxset also made its way to Target in Australia.

OVERALL

A really good mould with great robot mode colours and solid vehicle mode colours. I would still recommend the original over this, because the random silver paint on the dozer mode is kind of annoying, but this mould is good enough that either version is better than nothing. I'm not sure that the boxset is worthwhile as a repainted set, but this one is a good repaint. He's a small deluxe, but in the pack that's not so much of an issue. Good colours, good poseability and good detail - 8.5/10

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