Decade-old toy review: Beast Wars Rampage
Just unboxed the last of my toy order from four months ago. I saved the biggest for last.
Beast Wars Rampage is a fairly hefty chunk of partially-metallized plastic. At 19cm to the top of the shoulder (claws can be arranged to make his backpack taller), and at least 21cm across the shoulderpads, this is a major handful.
The crab mode is OK. The four forward legs are fairly well articulated and sized. The back two not so much, as they hang off a stiffer set of panels which take the strain of the treads in tank mode. The rotating gun action is quite fun, but it would have been nice to be able to disable the auto-launching action of the missiles when the gatling barrels spin. I think I'll be keeping the missiles and handgun in their storage niches in the claws, for the most part. He's very front-heavy, though, toppling forward onto his claws at the least provocation.
The tank mode is a technical triumph. To the best of my knowledge, it was the first Transformer with working tank treads - and the tread mechanism isn't a single piece, either; it actually does transform. Definite kudos to the designers there. Additionally, the crab legs tuck away quite neatly, becoming visual representations of suspension/framework components of the treads. They don't peg into place, which is mildly disappointing, but it's not a dealbreaker. The tank mode is absolutely the highlight of the toy, even though the instructions are extremely vague about exactly how to get the front claws positioned correctly (bend all the claw-limb joints at ninety degrees and then 'open' the large half of the claws as far as it will go - there's another joint in there). I do feel, though, that the smaller half of the claws could have had something more interesting done with them other than sticking out to the sides like awkward minesweepers. But that's a minor issue.
The robot mode is... something of a contradiction. The core robot is well-proportioned, has a fair bit of articulation for the times, looks appropriately creepy and has the whole carapace-armour thing going on. So far, so good.
However, it suffers from one of the worst cases of kibble attack I've ever seen. All of the crab legs and claws, and half of the crab shell, are extraneous. None of it is packed away, or pegged somewhere out of the way. Each robot forearm sports a pair of crab legs which are proportionally enormous, can't fold up neatly, and are no use except perhaps as a giant set of pincers. The shoulderpads are wider than the robot is tall, can't be swung back or up, and have the other two crab legs on their ends. The giant crab claws trail down the robot back almost to the ground, unpegged, and aren't really a comfortable fit no matter how their attached joints are twiddled.
On the plus side, the smaller claw segments with their attached missles and whatnot can be positioned either trailing down the robot back, or in a number of poses sticking up over the robot shoulders like a Jetfire homage. (They could probably even be rotated to point forward over the shoulders. Edit: they can, at the same time pulling his crab claws out of the way of his arm movement and giving him a twin-turbine backpack/backdrop. Nice!) The tribarrel cannon does actually fit into the robot fist (although not how the instructions show it - there's a smaller peg on the side of the cannon for this purpose). And in robot mode, even though he's standing on his big toes and heel spurs only, he's surprisingly stable considering all the crab parts hanging precariously off him.
Having heard the problems people had with getting his tank treads packed away in non-tank modes, I paid careful attention to them while prying them out. So if you have a BW Rampage with treads hanging out everywhere, here's how to tidy them up:
Pull a loop of the tread out and away from the claw tip, letting the longest visible line of tread run straight from near the claw tip back past the big silver wheel decoration at the claw joint (just touching it). Make sure the tread is slightly taut, but not stretched. Then place a finger on the tread near where the translucent orange plastic 'stripes' are closest to the silver wheel, and pin the tread down. Fold the loose loop of tread over the top of your finger and press it into the rest of the track, pushing all three layers down into the tread storage bay (remove your pinning finger as you do this).
Looking at him again, his shoulderpads are pretty funny. It's like he's automatically clearing space for himself on a toy shelf. "Make way for my glorious presence!"
Beast Wars Rampage is a fairly hefty chunk of partially-metallized plastic. At 19cm to the top of the shoulder (claws can be arranged to make his backpack taller), and at least 21cm across the shoulderpads, this is a major handful.
The crab mode is OK. The four forward legs are fairly well articulated and sized. The back two not so much, as they hang off a stiffer set of panels which take the strain of the treads in tank mode. The rotating gun action is quite fun, but it would have been nice to be able to disable the auto-launching action of the missiles when the gatling barrels spin. I think I'll be keeping the missiles and handgun in their storage niches in the claws, for the most part. He's very front-heavy, though, toppling forward onto his claws at the least provocation.
The tank mode is a technical triumph. To the best of my knowledge, it was the first Transformer with working tank treads - and the tread mechanism isn't a single piece, either; it actually does transform. Definite kudos to the designers there. Additionally, the crab legs tuck away quite neatly, becoming visual representations of suspension/framework components of the treads. They don't peg into place, which is mildly disappointing, but it's not a dealbreaker. The tank mode is absolutely the highlight of the toy, even though the instructions are extremely vague about exactly how to get the front claws positioned correctly (bend all the claw-limb joints at ninety degrees and then 'open' the large half of the claws as far as it will go - there's another joint in there). I do feel, though, that the smaller half of the claws could have had something more interesting done with them other than sticking out to the sides like awkward minesweepers. But that's a minor issue.
The robot mode is... something of a contradiction. The core robot is well-proportioned, has a fair bit of articulation for the times, looks appropriately creepy and has the whole carapace-armour thing going on. So far, so good.
However, it suffers from one of the worst cases of kibble attack I've ever seen. All of the crab legs and claws, and half of the crab shell, are extraneous. None of it is packed away, or pegged somewhere out of the way. Each robot forearm sports a pair of crab legs which are proportionally enormous, can't fold up neatly, and are no use except perhaps as a giant set of pincers. The shoulderpads are wider than the robot is tall, can't be swung back or up, and have the other two crab legs on their ends. The giant crab claws trail down the robot back almost to the ground, unpegged, and aren't really a comfortable fit no matter how their attached joints are twiddled.
On the plus side, the smaller claw segments with their attached missles and whatnot can be positioned either trailing down the robot back, or in a number of poses sticking up over the robot shoulders like a Jetfire homage. (They could probably even be rotated to point forward over the shoulders. Edit: they can, at the same time pulling his crab claws out of the way of his arm movement and giving him a twin-turbine backpack/backdrop. Nice!) The tribarrel cannon does actually fit into the robot fist (although not how the instructions show it - there's a smaller peg on the side of the cannon for this purpose). And in robot mode, even though he's standing on his big toes and heel spurs only, he's surprisingly stable considering all the crab parts hanging precariously off him.
Having heard the problems people had with getting his tank treads packed away in non-tank modes, I paid careful attention to them while prying them out. So if you have a BW Rampage with treads hanging out everywhere, here's how to tidy them up:
Pull a loop of the tread out and away from the claw tip, letting the longest visible line of tread run straight from near the claw tip back past the big silver wheel decoration at the claw joint (just touching it). Make sure the tread is slightly taut, but not stretched. Then place a finger on the tread near where the translucent orange plastic 'stripes' are closest to the silver wheel, and pin the tread down. Fold the loose loop of tread over the top of your finger and press it into the rest of the track, pushing all three layers down into the tread storage bay (remove your pinning finger as you do this).
Looking at him again, his shoulderpads are pretty funny. It's like he's automatically clearing space for himself on a toy shelf. "Make way for my glorious presence!"