Saturday, May 31, 2008

Animated Lockdown

The Transformers Animated line is slowly gaining speed here in the country, and already a very tiny trickle of the toys is slowly making its way here. Already my buddy over at Senses Lumines
got his paws on a voyager class Bulkhead which was actually quite nice. So while I was perusing the mall a while ago, I kept my eye out for some of them. I was especially looking for voyager classes, or maybe even a deluxe Prowl. What I found however was also difficult to pass up. Deluxe Lockdown. I've seen him in the show, and in reviews and thought that he looked rather cool, so I decided to get him.




The entire line comes in its own stylized packaging with the cartoon rendition of the toy your buying splashed on the front. I think it works well, but I cant help but think its a little too patriotic with the red whites and blues... But that may be just me...




The back showcases a rather cool rendition of the toy... I have to say the ones on the card backing have additional paint and detail applications making them look better. The actual toys do not really look that well painted... hehehe




After opening the card, I was pleasantly surprised to find that gone are those annoying twist ties! Great!




Here is Lockdown in his alt mode. As you can see he is modeled after some form of muscle car. The spikes and all add to his overall appearance. I would have to say he actually looks cool. Its kind of hard not to pick him up everytime I see him! He also looks a little bigger than your standard deluxe line of toys. Unfortunately without others from the line to compare him with I cant really say.




To begin his rather involved transformation you split apart the sides of the car and bring them down.




You then remove the engine (which later on turns into his weapon) and rotate the sides of the car forward forming his rather long legs. You then stretch them out and rotate into place his thighs which were originally the sides of the hood of the car. You then rotate his feet forward so that he can stand and then rotate his torso around 180 degrees.




From here on you can already tell he is one REALLY TALLL figure! I already removed the rest of his hood which will also turn into a claw weapon for him later on. All thats left to do now is to bring his arms down to the side and rotate his head out from inside his chest.




Here you have Lockdown fully transformed. He looks real cool and menacing. Although not as meaty as the cartoon counterpart, he pulls off the Lockdown look real well. On the ground are the rest of his hood and engine which will turn into the hook weapon and Ratchets EMP device. How it is Ratchets is a long story, short... Lockdown is a bounty hunter who likes to collect parts from fallen foes. He stole Ratchets EMP generator and now has it as a decorative engine in alt mode... Phew!




Here you can see that his kneecaps are not the same color, its because he collects parts from different Transformers, nice to see they added that detail into the toy.




Here is Lockdown equipped with the hook arm and EMP weapon.




As for stability, he may have issues with his ball jointed leg joints, but you can still make him do a kick stance relatively easily. Sadly his arms are really limp... You can't get them to go all the way out due to design.




Lockdown is a cool deluxe figure, and for my first from the line, I would say he is rather cool... Unfortunately there are a few things that detract from perfection...

He's built rather flimsily... Sadly when I first began transforming him his leg popped off! It attached right back but still, I don't feel comfortable when toys pop out of place like that. This is Transformers not LEGO.

Next, whatever quality was put into the voyager class seems to be lacking here. There are a few paint apps missing, and again, with the non clickyness... I like it when transformers are solid and clicky. Although he may be built that way because he is after all a deluxe class figure, I still would have liked some solid feel.

Don't get me wrong, maybe it's just this particular one that's bad. He does feel solid in alt mode and robot mode, but really flimsy in between.

Still a great buy in spite of it all. He looks cool as a car, really menacing as a robot. Let's hope my next deluxe line toy isn't as poppy as Lockdown.

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