From Newsgroup: alt.toys.transformers

Dave's Transformers Cyberworld Capsules: Cyber Changers wave 4

Optimus Primal (armored truck)
Cheetor (robot cheetah)
Autobot Jazz (robot polar bear)
Lockdown (robot wolf)

Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/CW/Changer4

Wave 3 was reships and the regular color scheme of Optimus Primal, which
I never saw on the shelf, and now that I have the Energon Surge redeco I'm
not inclined to look too hard for the original. Wave 4 also included redecos of Optimus Prime and Bumblebee, but I skipped those. TFWiki says Megatron is in this wave and not Lockdown, so that might need editing. The assortment numbers of the ones I got have big gaps between Primal and Cheetor/Jazz, then another gap to Lockdown, which suggests that Primal might be reusing his wave
3 assortment or maybe that plus one, and that Lockdown might originally have been planned for a later wave.
Season 2 of the YouTube series introduces the Energon Surge plot device (technically it started at the end of season 1), with Wheeljack plot devicing
a plot device to let the good guys access extra power without it driving them insane. This tends to turn parts of them transparent and glowy, which in the Cyber Changers price point means "torso made of clear plastic, plus glow in
the dark paint."

The three other than Primal have about the same transformation, robot to unconvincing quadruped beast. Primal has 4 steps listed, the other three claims 3 step transformations. All four have cosell images on the cardback showing them sitting in Power Spark Bumblebee's chest (which has a blue LED inside the chest for the specific purpose of lighting up these guys' chests,
I checked in store because I'm not dropping $50 on that hollow brick). Instructions are inside the folded over cardback, as in previous waves.

Faction symbols continue to be rare, appearing sometimes on package art but not in those spots on the actual toy (Jazz, for instance, is shown with a symbol on his shoulder in the art, but not on the toy). They're not totally absent from the toyline, but none of these toys has one. Like the previous waves, these are all about 4" (10cm) tall with ball joint shoulders and hips, hinge knees that snap into place for stable straight legs, and that's it for articulation. No neck, waist, elbows, wrists, etc.


The regular price for these at Target is $10.99, but I got them on sale for $8.79 each. I will not be doing full reviews, just expanded capsules.
All of them run in the low end of mildly recommended at best, but of the four
I got I'd say Cheetor is the most skippable as a mold, and if you already
have the pre-Energon-Surge Optimus Primal don't bother with this one.


AUTOBOT: OPTIMUS PRIMAL
Altmode: Armored Truck (Dump Truck?)
Zone: Jungle
Energon Color: Blue
Transformation Difficulty: 4 steps

The instructions are misleading, everything collapses inward in a single automorph step, but you do need to shove the legs up a little more after the arms cross the chest in order to let the tabs on the arms go into the slogs
on the kneecaps.
Clear blue is used for the torso and the head piece, everything else is dark brown plastic. The robot mode does have gorilla-ish elements to it and the chest is molded in the original Optimus Primal robot mode pattern,
although the paint being replaced by glow in the dark does tend to reduce the resemblance a bit. In addition to the usual plethora of 5mm sockets that are useless with so few accessories in the line, there's a 3mm socket in the back of the pelvis (which is hidden in vehicle mode).
Vehicle mode might be intended to be a super-sized dump truck, the sort where the tires are as tall as a human or even taller. The driver's compartment is interrupted by unpainted clear plastic, and you have to look closely to see that the middle part even has windshields molded on it. I expect this worked better on the original color scheme.
The amusement value of "Munky Trukk" is the main selling point, but if
you can find the original version I think (from pictures) that it looks
better. The Energon Surge gimmick at this size class is kinda meh.


AUTOBOT: CHEETOR
Altmode: Robot Cheetah
Zone: Jungle
Energon Color: Blue
Transformation Difficulty: 3 steps

Standard Cyber Changer quadruped transformation, including the whole bit where it's hard to get it to work until you know the trick (push the pelvis back, don't try to rotate it), pull the rear legs down to go back to robot mode).
Really scratching my head at the color choices here. The torso is clear light blue, but most of the rest of the plastic is white (light gray thighs
and shoulder roots), with some metallic light blue paint to go along with the clear. It really looks like it should be Tigatron in these colors. He does have a tail-sword accessory, and like the other two beastmode toys in this assortment has a 3mm socket higher on his back than the small-of-the-back 5mm socket or the butt socket. The glow in the dark paint on mine was
particularly sloppily applied. Sockets on the backs of the robot hands are purely decorative, they're bigger than 3mm wide (and also bigger than 1/8",
so no Lego attachments).
Beast mode has legs way too long, and all tabbed into fixed positions. Even having elbows wouldn't really help here. The limb lengths look particularly wrong in robot mode, combined with a pelvis that ends at knee level. Making this yellow and blue would've helped a little but not enough.
As noted above, the worst mold of the four, I might even drop it to Neutral.


AUTOBOT: AUTOBOT JAZZ
Altmode: Robot Polar Bear
Zone: Ice
Energon Color: Blue
Transformation Difficulty 3 steps

Not a judgement on the toy, but I really didn't care for the voice
acting on Jazz. Like, the series is not exactly swimming in VA talent, but
he sounds like he should be named Hip-Hop rather than Jazz.
Same transformation as Cheetor, but a lot smoother. Maybe Cheetor has some mold flash inside the joints. No tail accessory, so the long-limbed
bear mode is even worse than Cheetor's cheetah mode in terms of proportions.
On the plus side, at least it doesn't look like it should be someone else,
and the Jazz head is painted properly. A bit more gray plastic, but
otherwise the same basic colors as Cheetor. The drooping pelvis doesn't look quite as bad here, possibly because the backing is gray instead of white so it's overall a little darker.
Not sure why they felt Jazz should be a bear, but at least as a polar
bear he's a cool customer.


DECEPTICON: LOCKDOWN
Altmode: Robot Wolf
Zone: Desert
Energon Color: Purple
Transformation Difficulty: 4 steps


Again, same transformation as the other two beasts, also about as smooth as Jazz's, might need to take Cheetor apart a little if it's possible to see
if there's something I can fix. And, of course, he also has the same long pelvis as those two, but being darker purple plastic makes it less salient.
I needed to push down until it snapped (not the "something broke" kind) when going into beast mode to get the forelimbs on the same level as the
hindlimbs.
They went all in on the cowboy bounty hunter thingm with a bullet-filled belt, a six-shooter-styled blaster (which becomes the wolf tail), cowboy hat, ragged cloak, and spurs. However, it's not just a reuse of the name, the spikes in various places and the right hand being replaced by a metallic
purple hook mark it as a clear reference to the Lockdown as seen in
TF:Animated and other series since then. The dark brown and light gray plastics go together with the purple pretty well, making this feel like the only one that might've been designed from the beginning to have the clear plastic gimmick. Yeah, they're not the usual Lockdown colors, but since the altmode is a wolf, brown works better than green there.
A wolf with a hook hand is a bit weird, and when you add the tattered cloak and a gun in place of a tail, Lockdown is a lot weird. At least they didn't try to make the wolf wear a cowboy hat.
Weird wolf aside, this is probably the best of the wave. The design
suits the character, it's not just "slap the head on" like with Jazz (who has nothing besides the head that feels Jazz-like), and they absolutely committed to the cowboy bit. Still no elbows, of course.


Dave Van Domelen, notes this was more like his 90s reviews tended to
be.

--- Synchronet 3.22a-Linux NewsLink 1.2