cdm72's Full Review: Armada Super Cons Transformer: Optimus Prime
My youngest son became a Transformers fantastic in 2002 when he was five and it was one of the proudest days of my life as it meant I’d hopefully have someone to whom I could pass my own collection--all lovingly boxed and put away--when I died.
That was the year the Transformers made their big comeback. They were a huge deal when I was younger, but eventually they pretty much faded through most of the 90s, resurfacing finally with BEAST WARS, then BEAST MACHINES, but even as good as those series were, the figures were never much to brag about and the Transformers mythology just couldn’t seem to catch on again like it had in the 80s. Then TRANSFORMERS ARMADA was released and it was like a floodgate had been opened. The Cartoon Network series seemed an immediate hit and the toy aisles were once again packed with my favorite toy, those awesome robots that turn into cars.
I remember the day I bought my son his first Optimus Prime. He’d done something particularly good, I don’t recall what, but I decided he deserved a reward (which I could also enjoy). There were several options on the store shelf, but as a longtime Transformers fan, I knew the one most in-demand was the leader of Autobots: Optimus Prime. I grabbed the first one I saw, took it home for him, and he loved it. That figured turned out to be the slightly smaller less-frills version, but it still underwent years and years and years of play. Seven years later, the figure still stands strong and is, I’m happy to say, intact.
Optimus Prime is the leader of the heroic Autobots and throughout his many incarnations, the most popular is his semi truck alternate mode. Other versions have seen him as a fire truck or a gorilla (Beast Wars), but definitely the one designers return to most often is the semi. This version follows that pattern, but with a few changes.
While traditionally Prime had always been portrayed as changing into a flat-nose cabover model, the Armada version went with a bulkier extended nose conventional cab. While I had my reservations at first, one look at this thing from the front reveals a pretty menacing façade. Unfortunately, that’s where the threat ends as, viewed from any other angle, the lie becomes more and more clear. Where Generation 1 Optimus Prime looked like a truck, Armada Prime looks like a sad imitation of something that could be a truck.
Keeping with the traditional red and blue color scheme, the portion of the truck which becomes Prime’s legs--the rear blue portion where the trailer mounts--is way too bulky in his truck mode and his silver feet are sticking out from the back. His blue forearms are folded up and mounted onto the side of the red cab. Whether these are meant to be part of the cab or are meant to act as smokestacks, I don’t have any idea (he comes with detachable silver smokestacks that clip onto his forearms, and then promptly fall off again). If they’re supposed to be part of the cab, someone should mention to the designers that the half-inch they stick out from the sides of the cab kill that illusion. In fact, if you’re looking at this figure in its truck mode, it becomes pretty obvious from the first glance that, if this were a truck, it would be impossible to get into. There are no doors. Oh, there’s driver’s and passenger’s side windows, but they’re extending into the wheel well with no visible doors at all on the figure. Basically, the truck design is just downright poor, with visible elbow joints and a strange kind of skirt on Prime’s midsection just behind the cab. It’s simply not good news with this figure.
The transformation is incredibly simple. You swing those little feet at the back of the truck down and he stands right up. The legs do come apart for better posability, but just for standing the figure it’s not necessary. From here you fold the truck’s grille down away from the front of the truck and onto the front of what is now the standing Autobot to form his chest. Doing this also reveals Prime’s head, which is housed in a compartment under the hood, enclosed by the shoulders which fold down on either side once the forearms are folded down from the sides of the cab. Sliding the blue forearm section back reveals Prime’s gold-painted hands hidden within. Easy-peasy. You’ve got yourself an Optimus Prime.
I was glad they stuck with the traditional color scheme since just about nothing else about this figure will tell you right away it’s an Optimus Prime. The head is also carried over, but that’s to be expected; Prime’s face is such a recognizable design, you’d almost have to have that familiar visage in order for newcomers to this line to be able to tell who it was.
The great trick with the Armada figures were the mini-cons, smaller robots that accompanied each figure, had its own alternate mode, and when combined with their larger partner, unlocked hidden abilities. This smaller Prime came with a silver jet named Over-run.
Transforming Over-run from his jet mode to robot mode revealed one of the worst robot designs I’ve ever had the displeasure of witnessing. The rear of the jet formed the legs, as expected, and the arms were folded up under the jet, so unfolding those from the body gave him arms, while folding the nosecone down revealed the head. Problem was, the nosecone only folded down 90 degrees, so the standing robot had this long, awkward-looking protrusion on his chest. The entire figure just looked like bad decision after bad decision. And attaching it to the post on Prime’s back wasn’t much better as the only thing it unlocked was a silly punching mechanism in the Prime figure. Whoopty do.
On the plus side, Over-run also transformed into a gun for Prime to wield. Of course it looked like he was brandishing a very tiny jet plane with its wings folded up, but whatever.
As a starter model, the Armada Optimus Prime isn’t a bad figure. It doesn’t hold up well to repeated transformations. The arms on my son’s figure are so loose they almost refuse to stay put in robot mode. And the shoulders . . . you basically have to just take the arms off the body to rotate the joints to where they need to be, and then reattach them because they’re so stiff. Also, the hip joints swivel for some reason (the entire torso will rotate 180 degrees if you want it to, which is pointless since its not necessary for transforming and only makes fitting it into truck mode make the entire thing look a little warped because you can never get it completely straight). But like I said, as a starter, this one will suffice. And in robot mode, it does look pretty cool and is way more posable than the original Generation 1 Prime. In fact, this Prime’s robot mode is just overall pretty awesome. It’s only unfortunate the alternate mode couldn't be as well.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 10 Type of Toy: Action Figure
Age Range of Child: 9 Years or Older
Includes : Optimus Prime and Over-Run Mini-Con figures plus bonus comic book For age 5 and up, Recommended age group: 6 - 10 years, Manufacturer: Hasb...More at Amazon Marketplace
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