|
Re: Unite Warriors Bruticus review
While I like that Takara wants G1 accuracy by creating a shuttle Blast Off, I can't help but feel that it's not a well-done figure. The shuttle mode looks too wide and flat to me, making it seem horribly deformed. The fact that the cockpit is so wide makes for a pretty big chestpiece in robot mode and a wide knee in combiner leg mode, which I find to be an eyesore. I also don't like the thrusters on Blast Off's robot mode feet. Blast Off also has a pretty dinky gun for a hand weapon. I do think he looks fine as a combiner arm, since the wide cockpit isn't seen head-on, unlike in the figure's other modes. I do, however, like the fact that Blast Off can do Rook's "hulk hands" trick and still be able to hold hand weapons normally, by virtue of having both forward facing and "normal" 5mm ports in his hands.
It does, then seem somewhat baffling to me that a figure which made for such a bad Blast Off, makes a pretty good Strafe when retooled. The figure really shines as Strafe in both robot and vehicle modes, which makes me think that Strafe was designed first and Blast Off was conceptualized to get another use out of the mold (which is not farfetched considering how much effort Takara is putting into Computron, compared to their past Unite Warriors sets). I passed on the Unite Warriors Bruticus given that I thought Blast Off was fine as a jet (wished they used Fireflight's head rather than Slingshot's though), and I didn't like the Takara Blast Off. In that sense, I guess my only interest here was to see the figure's base engineering so I have an idea of what to expect for Strafe (which I will be getting). In all though, I don't think the figure itself is bad, just that it doesn't work as Blast Off.
|
