ROTF Ratchet mini-review

Added mini-review for ROTF deluxe Ratchet. Not to mention a page for ROTF reviews! The page may eventually turn into a catch-all for any movie-themed toys (2007 movie, Hunt for the Decepticons, and so on).

And no, I'm not going to do a front-page update for every single mini-review, but probably will whenever I add a new page for a different toyline.

This is what I'm...wait, no, nevermind.

No, this isn't real. The real Botcon Clench will be much cooler.


Is it weird that I actually don't think this looks that bad?

This is what I'm going to drop $300 on - part III.

Well, here's Streetwise. Well, not really. He's now called Streetstar (sounds like his dancer name, I guess). Like Breakdown, Streetwise (I'm going to stick with the original name, thanks) started off as a G1 character, one of the "Scramble City" combiner limbs who, along with his fellow Protectobots, was supposed to be repainted for G2. This never happened for whatever reason, so we're getting another G2 toy that never really was. Which is pretty cool.

However, I'm not too excited by the character. I've never really cared for the Protectobots in general. Streetwise, to me, has always been, simply, That Other Autobot Police Car. He's the poor man's Prowl. He's especially so now, since he's repainted from the Universe Prowl mold. And the colors, while accurate to the proposed G2 repaint, really just make him look like Stealth Silverstreak.

It's not all bad, though. He looks pretty damned sharp in car mode, which also has the awesome combo G2 Autobot sigil/police sheild that was exclusively on Streetwise, not unlike movie Barricade's Decepticon police sheild. Also, I don't own any version of this character, so it may as well be the Botcon version that I can sell for decent money if I really don't want him down the road. And, as I kind of mentioned, he'll do well as Breakdown's opposite number.

Mini-reviews

I'm now undertaking a project on this site that's going to take a long while to finish. I'm writing mini-reviews on each of the toys listed in my collection, starting with Energon Cruellock, Sharkticon, Universe Bonecrusher (Target version) and Classics Ramjet. Each line (well, roughly each line) will have its own page. They will all be linked to this main page and to each other. Each review will specifically list the toy's faction, size class, time of release, and accessories along with the actual mini-review paragraph.

Wish me luck!

Oh, and while I'll do a full post once actual toy pics are shown, the Botcon site has put up artwork of Clench, who's an awesome remold (new head) of Universe Onslaught, just like I wanted. Slammin'.

edit: Breaking news!
Turns out they are making a Rapido repaint for Botcon! Awesome! Of course, it's a crappy pic missing the head section, so we don't know if there's a head remold or not. Then again, the pic is of the toy in alt mode, so even if the piece was there, we couldn't see the head. So, while this means that after Botcon I'll own five (!) version of this mold, I'm pretty happy that one of them is based on one of the most fun little toys I got in 3rd grade. Oh, this reminds me - I need to do part 3 in the Botcon post series.

...man. It's been a big week.

Me and my wife's second child was born this past Monday morning!

She's a little girl and was born with 6 lbs and 0.8 oz and is 19.5 inches long. She's a fantastic little child and our son, who'll be three next month, seems to be adjusting to her pretty well. It was a Cesarean delivery, too, and my wife is recovering and a pretty good pace. We got to leave the hospital around 10:00 on Wednesday morning, but we had to drive all the way to our pediatrician (almost an hour) so we could go ahead and get the appointment out of the way before bringing her back home. I've taken the whole week off and will be going back to work on Monday, but my wife will be staying out for several weeks. Which is nice; when our son was born, her job at the time didn't allow here to take but maybe a week and a half off!

So, as you can imagine, we've been pretty busy around here.

In transformer related news, my wife had purchased ROTF Lockdown for me as an Easter gift, which was greatly appreciated. I also used some spare money to get a few things off ebay to fill in some gaps in the collection.

I got:

Universe Battle for the Cyber Keys Sam's Club exclusive 5-pack

Legends of Cybertron Red Alert, Leobreaker, Evac, Scourge, and Jetfire.

Also, I nabbed the one ROTF Evac at the local Kmart (that was a surprise, let me tell you). I just couldn't resist the newness of him...even the red Rampage repaint looked tempting, but I'm holding off for the new-mold, non-combining Legends version of him.

This is what I'm going to drop $300 on - Part II.

Well, G2: Redux has gotten even more eye-searing, and we're only 2 toys into the set!

This here is Generation 2 Breakdown. Like of the early G1 toys, this guy (and the rest of his group, the Stunticons) were set to receive ridiculous G2 repaints. However, THe G2 Stunticons were never produced in appreciable amounts, and only Breakdown got any sort of real release. Apparently, he was the very first Botcon exclusive back in 1994 (when G2 was still current, and I was 11!).

He's repainted from the Universe Sunstreaker/Sideswipe mold, although obviously with an all-new, great and totally accurate head mold.

I am disappointed that we haven't see Pyro/Spark's bot mode (not officially, anyway), as there is some doubt as to whether or not he too will receive a head remold (and he, like Breakdown, really needs one).