From Newsgroup: alt.toys.transformers

Dave's Transformers Cyberworld Rant: Ultimate Cyber Changers wave 2

Shockwave (Spinosaur)
Scourge (pirate ship)
Autobot Hound (polar transport)

Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/CW/Ultimate2

Technically this is the first "proper" wave, as the first year Ultimate was just Megatron, a Walmart exclusive that was a retool of an older movie
line toy.
Speaking of Walmart exclusives, a headswap of Scourge plus a headswap of Elita-1 (as Optimus Prime and Mirage respectively) with lots of clear plastic are available as a Walmart-exclusive two-pack for $28, which is a decent deal if you don't already have both molds. (I'd have been a little more tempted
if the chest thing had been retooled as well to not be a skull and crossbones but instead be the Matrix.)


CAPSULES

$20 at Walmart, $22 at Target.

Shockwave: Decent elbow-less and kinda hollow big bot, nice modern interpretation mecha-spinosaur. The energon gimmick pieces are pretty bad, though. Mildly recommended, mostly for the novelty of Shockwave as a
dinosaur.

Scourge: It's a pirate ship, man. Although it's not too much more expensive to get a rather better transforming robot pirate ship from Metal Cardbots, there's still a nice novelty effect here as well. Altmode colors
are pretty incoherent, but I doubt this will get a less gaudy redeco. Mildly recommended.

Autobot Hound: Probably the best of the three in terms of being an okay toy that takes advantage of all the gimmicks, although it doesn't have the weirdness attraction of the other two. Mildly recommended.


RANTS

Packaging: same sort of open-faced tray-card as most other Cyberworld toys, just a bit bigger and with accessories held under plastic blisters.
The cards are 9" (22.5cm) wide, 8" (20cm) tall, and the bottom part is about
3" (8cm) deep. Each figure is packaged with its chest strapped open.

Class-Wide Gimmicks: Yeah, the chests are strapped open. One of the gimmicks shared by all three is that their robot chest can pop open on
springs to reveal some sort of energy crystal thing. In the cartoon,
Wheeljack has reverse engineered a boost device to allow safe use of Energon Surges, and apparently the tech spreads. Each of the three has a different variant, with something tied to their theme (e.g. Hound's is surrounded by
ice crystals, Scourge's has a skull and crossbones, Shockwave's is full of
Dark Energon crystals).
The second gimmick, also new to this season, is that each has several clear plastic accessories that can be fitted in either mode, or combined into
a crystal chunk. The packaging gives no hint what the chunk is for, and the instructions don't even mention this combination, but I've read that these
are supposed to go inside the light-up chest compartment of Power Spark Bumblebee.
The third gimmick, which year one missile truck Megatron also had, is
that in altmode they can be ridden by a regular-sized figure (Cyber Changer
or Armored Cyber Changer) with varying degrees of integration.
Glow in the dark paint is used on these too, but that's a season-wide gimmick rather than exclusive to the Ultimate Cyber Changers. And we
continue the design choice of "loads of 5mm sockets and almost nothing to
plug into them," although at least the energon bits address that somewhat.

The instructions continue to be between the folded over layers of the backing card, but unlike smaller packages slitting the tape on the sides
wasn't enough to get them out. Either totally undo all the tape and open the thing up, or slit the tape on the sides and then cut open the top edge.


DECEPTICON: SHOCKWAVE
Zone: Jungle
Altmode: Spinosaur
Transformation Difficulty: 5 steps (not including attaching Energon bits) Previous Name Use: Yes
Previous Mold Use: None
Package Cosells: Autobot Hound and Scourge

Packaging: Two sets of double-ties crossing the chest and another around the lower legs, plus single ties around the wrists and thighs. There's a cardboard block behind the back to help support things. The tail/sword is
held to the left by two ties, and the sail to the bottom left by two more
ties. A blister on the right holds the energon claws, and a blister on the bottom right holds the sail-cover energon bits. A lot of work has to go into freeing everything from the package.

Robot Mode: Well, it's recognizably Shockwave, only his left arm ends in
a Spinosaur head rather than a cannon, and there's more white than usual. There's stumpy beast legs on the thighs and ankles (more recent Spinosaur reconstructions give them rather short legs compared to the version seen in Jurassic Park). While the big rubbery cable is missing from this version, there's a bunch of cables molded onto the left arm, preserving the motif.
The Spinosaur sail defaults to being attached to a special socket behind the right shoulder rather than on the right shoulder itself, so you can transform the toy without having to remove it. The beast tail is held as either a gun
or a sword, but does need to be removed for transformation.
About 7" (18cm) tall at the head, a little higher at the various
shoulder stuff. A mix of purple, blue-purple, deep magenta, and white with a yellow cycloptic. Vibrant purple plastic is used for the head front, chest front and back, arms, and boots. A more blue-purple plastic is used for the back of the head and collar, pelvis, and feet, plus the chest-gimmick trigger below the chest. The shoulder roots and thighs are white plastic, and the
sail and sword are magenta plastic. All of the energon bits are clear purple (mmm, grape). When the chest is open, most of the interior stuff is also
clear purple plastic.
The "face" is painted black with a gloss bright yellow optic, and UV
light on the face reveals a lot of molded detail where the black paint is
thin. The biceps are painted white, the vents on the chest are painted magenta. The beast eyes on the left arm are also yellow. There's glow in
the dark white-to-green paint on the claws of the larger energon pieces, no paint on the rest of the energon bits.
Kind of a mess with all the energon bits attached, and there really
aren't enough unblocked sockets to allow for a better configuration.
Frankly, this is the worst at having energon bits in either mode and the
least convincing ride-on mode, so I think this set of bits just gets to stay
a crystal full time. Just mount it on the left shoulder to balance out the sail on the right shoulder. The small claw/gun dark energon bits have deliberately super-short pegs, so it can be difficult to keep them in place anywhere in either mode, which is another argument in favor of crystal mode.

Transformation: Mostly just bending the figure over so the head retracts and lifting the arms together, but you need to get several joints in just the right places to let you peg the arms onto the backs of the legs and stabilize things. I initially missed that the toes point down as well, which helps the appearance a bit. Then add the sail and tail, season to taste with energon bits. The front claw pieces don't so much go over the existing foreclaws as they go next to 'em.

Altmode: Basically this looks like a crocodilian cosplaying as a dimetrodon...remove the sail and it basically looks like thin-nosed alligator (although the sword-tail still looks more spinosaur than croc). On the plus side, it looks very little like a robot folded in half, which is good considering it is a robot folded in half. As is true for this whole assortment, it's absolutely covered in 5mm sockets, plus some 5mm pegs on the sail specifically for attaching energon bits.
9" (23cm) long in basically the same colors as robot mode, but with the robot face hidden and the white plastic de-emphasized. The only beast- specific paint is on the eyes, although the white upper arms and magenta
chest vents are visible. No paint on the teeth. With the sail in place, the chest can't open. The only articulation is the opening jaw.

Ride-On Configuration: Move the foreclaws to the sides of the sail,
where they provide grip handles, and move the hip gun pieces to the front
hips to get them out of the way. The figure straddles Shockwave's tail and grips the pegs on the undersides of the claws, which works okay, I guess.

Crystal Assembly: Put the claw pieces front and back together like
they're in the package, then face them together bottom to bottom. The sail pieces attach above and below this into a fairly solid chunk with the glow in the dark claws forming something that looks like a weird mouth.

Overall: I wonder if this one was designed before the energon piece gimmick was finalized and then got slightly modified to bear it, because it really does work better as a toy in both modes without the purple cruft. It doesn't even have a particularly good ride-on mode.


DECEPTICON: SCOURGE
Zone: Water
Altmode: Pirate Ship
Transformation Difficulty: 2 steps
Previous Name Use: Yes
Previous Mold Use: None
Package Cosells: Autobot Hound and Shockwave

Note, there's actually a Decepticon symbol on the sail, so he's not a third faction pirate.

Packaging: Two sets of double ties cross the chest, another two double ties on the thighs and ankles, and single ties on the wrists. There's a cardboard block in the small of the back to keep the transformation joint
from bending. Two ties hold the sword to the left of the robot, two more
hold the sail on the bottom on the right (cutting one is enough to get it
out), and a blister taped to the right of the robot holds the energon bits.
The arms on mine weren't snapped all the way onto the shoulder roots, I had to finish the job. At least the ties kept them from falling off
entirely.

Robot Mode: Yarr, very piratey and generally nautical. The head is
molded with a pirate captain hat (bicorn style), plus an eyepatch on the left eye and a molded mustache and beard. The torso has a lot of ship hull
details and molded (but not painted) chains, while the shoulders and boots
have details that split the difference between fish fins and sails. The main sail is used as a sort of shield/cannon weapon in this mode, and the energon bits have a "fins and scales made of crystal" vibe to them. While the other two in this wave look like their chests should stay closed except for special occasions, the big ship prow sticking out in front is a bit awkward and the robot looks better with the chest opened up to reveal the skull and
crossbones with dark energon crystal shards emanating from it (and some
regular energon directly around the skull, the chest interior clear plastic
is all light blue but mostly painted over with purple).
6.75" (17cm) tall in a rather Seacon-reminiscent combination of dark purple, turquoise blue, and seafoam green. Turquoise blue plastic is used
for the chunk that's most of the torso as well as the head (none of these
toys have turning necks). The chest trigger, pelvis, and thighs are seafoam green plastic. The inside-of-chest clear plastic is clear light blue while
all the other clear plastic is purple. The rest of the toy is dark purple plastic.
The face and parts of the prow/chest are painted silver, with a red eye and violet on the hat front and eyepatch. The sail is almost entirely
painted seafoam green (more green than the plastic) with a dark purple Decepticon symbol printed on it. The cutlass has white-to-green glow in the dark paint down the center of the blade. As noted earlier, most of the clear plastic inside the chest is painted purple, but the crystals immediately
around the skull and crossbones are left unpainted clear blue.
Ball joint shoulders and hips, hinge knees, that's it for articulation. Loads of 5mm sockets as normal forthis assortment, and the hands are molded with open palms but rather than trust a 3/4 circle to hold pegs, they just
have rings closing off the grips.
The dark energon bits are okay, making for big shoulder flourishes and boot side chunks.

Transformation: Similar to Shockwave, put the robot in a t-pose with
boots pegged together, then bend backwards to make the head retract
(partially) and peg the arms onto the backs of the legs. The sail can technically be left on the same peg in robot mode that it uses in vehicle
mode, but it looks dumb that way.
Unlike the other two, you can leave the non-sword energon bits in place during transformation, just rotate the ones on the shoulders without removing them.

Altmode: Like the other recent transforming pirate ship (Steel Hook from Metal Cardbots), there's only one kinda puny sail on this ship, although the thrusters molded onto the sides of the boots provide an alternative
propulsion method. While the colors are pretty chaotically mishmashed, the molding does continue the ship hull look all along the sides, and there's
even rear cabin windows molded onto the heels of the robot boots. Heck, there's some cannon ports on the sides near the front (which are blocked by
the arms in robot mode). Single sail aside, some pretty good attention to detail in the mold, if not well-served by the color scheme. (A more uniform color like G1 Scourge or "Black Convoy" Scourge would work a lot better here,
a black ship with teal and red trim would be very nice.)
7.25" (18.5cm) long with the dark purple mostly in back and turquoise in front. No plastics or paints visible that weren't also visible in robot
mode. The default location for the sword is atop the foredeck to extend to bowsprit into a stabby ramming weapon. There's a decent section of flat deck behind the sail, which is enough room for some of the Cyber Changer beast
modes to stand (the tails on some mean they'd have to be sideways to fit). There's a smaller deck space in front of the sail, big enough for a Lego minifigure or a Micromaster.
The chest can open up in vehicle mode, which reminds me of a "ship that eats other ships" from that one James Bond movie.

Ride-On Configuration: Shift the large crystal plates to either side of the sail so that the 5mm pegs at one end of each become grips. The figure
can stand comfortably on the rear deck, it's nice and flat, just using the crystals as handles. Note, if the Cyber Changers had wrists or any ability
to turn their forearms sideways, you wouldn't need the crystal chunks, a
figure could just hold onto the sides of the top spar.
The weird way the sail is connected does leave it prone to popping off when trying to set this up.

Crystal Assembly: The large crystal plates peg onto the sides of the sword, and the small plates peg onto the outsides of that. Exact orientation is kinda a matter of flavor, but the blade should come out of the side
opposite of the pegs that go into the sword hilt so that some of the blade is down the middle, making the overall chunk a little more compact. It relies
too much on a single peg per side to hold together, so it's not as stable as Shockwave's.
There's no real way to connect the combined crystal to either mode, as
the few exposed pegs are hemmed in and there's no sockets on the outer surfaces.

Overall: I'd have preferred it in somewhat less "G2" (really, late G1) colors, or at least done in a way to present a more unified ship mode scheme, but it's a decent pirate ship Transformer given the required gimmicks.


AUTOBOT: AUTOBOT HOUND
Zone: Polar
Altmode: Tracked Ice Transport
Transformation Difficulty: 2 steps
Previous Name Use: Yes
Previous Mold Use: None
Package Cosells: Scourge and Shockwave

Packaging: Two sets of double ties crossed over the open chest, another double tie across the shins and one across the ankles. Single ties hold the wrists. There is a folded up cardboard block on the spine to keep it
steady. The energon hammer (Wreck and Rule!) is held in the lower left by crossed ties, a blister on the bottom on the right has the front treads, and the rest of the energon bits are in another blister on the right about middle height. The front treads need to be attached, but it's easier to do so in vehicle mode.
The art shows him with a white chinstrap beard but the toy just has the whole face silver and the beard is a lot less obvious in its molding.
There's other furry bits that are painted white in the art but not on the
toy.

Robot Mode: This is reminiscent of Transmetal toys from almost 30 years ago, in that there's lots of beastly details on the robot mode, perhaps intending something like a yeti or sasquatch. In addition to the frosty
beard and lower-jaw fangs on the face, there's fur molded on the forearms and shins, even a little on the thighs. The hands end in claws, and the feet
have three big clawed toes. (They use the same trick as Scourge on the
hands, with 5mm socket cups held in the otherwise open hands.) I might actually paint the furry bits white to see if that improves the looks. The energon bits are ice-themed, including a snowflake motif on the bits that go
on the shoulders. He has arm-mounted Wolverine (as in Logan, not the animal) claws, and I guess he's a Wrecker in this continuity since he has a big
hammer (which has 5mm sockets on both faces so 5mm peg Fire Blasts can go
there for impact effects). I'd say he looks better with his energon bits in robot mode than either of the other two.
6.5" (16.5cm) tall at the head, in mostly darkish green and white, with some light gray and black in the mix. Dark green plastic is used for the
head, collar area, chest trigger, arms, and lower legs. The torso and chest doors are bright white plastic, while the energon bits inside the chest are
the same light clear blue as the external energon accessories. The shoulder struts, lower spine, lower torso, and thighs are light gray plastic. Black plastic is used for the tread pieces, which in this mode are on the torso
sides and outer faces of the boots.
Dark silver paint is used for the paint (beard included) and much of the center chest. The goggle lenses and a strip across the collarbone are a dark gold (not sure if the collarbone bit is supposed to be a window or a
headlight thing). There's a red Autobot symbol printed on top of the collarbone area, and the claws on the energon bits are painted glow in the
dark white-to-green.
Ball joint shoulders and hips, knees are hinges that snap into straight position for vehicle mode stability. Plenty of 5mm sockets, even with
several of them occupied by the tread pieces, including an odd one on the
back of the left forearm that's used in Ride-On mode.
The interior of the chest looks like a sort of frozen Matrix, similar in shape to Wheeljack's stabilizers from the cartoon but surrounded in ice crystals. Oddly, the pieces are all painted light blue, rather than just leaving the clear blue plastic alone. In addition to the ice crystals,
there's teeth above and below the center of the middle piece, another beast element.

Transformation: Yeah, another "T-pose and bend double backwards," transformation, although the head folds into the chest rather than sinking straight in. The energon pieces need to be removed for transformation, and
the arms are not geared to automatically swing back unlike on the other two
(or mine is broken/missing a bit).
The shoulder energon bits go on the rear treads, the claws go on the
front treads, and a 5mm socket on the face of the hammer goes on a 5mm peg that's next to that 5mm socket on the back of the left forearm.

Altmode: So, it's kind of a mobile arctic research base or command post
or something, with details that suggest it's about the same scale as Hot
Wheels cars or Blokees Wheels. There's only a little bit of robot mode fur visible on the sides (something the package art makes clear), it's otherwise all vehicle. There's a winch in front, and a molded railing around the deck
in back (which admittedly is very hollow, it'd need some filler bits to make
it safe for humans or even Micromasters). The treads are rounded triangles that have the longest sides on top and the middle-length sides on the surface (there's no wheels inside them, just little nubs to slide on). The shortest sides are facing forwards and down on the front treads, backwards and down on the rear treads, suggesting it's meant to be able to go in reverse as easily
as forwards. That's good design for an all-terrain vehicle.
Not counting the claws, the vehicle mode is a solid 6" (15.5cm) long,
the claws add a quarter inch (half centimeter). Mostly white in front,
mostly green in back, and a lot of the gray plastic is on the underside and de-emphasized. The panel behind the robot head is now the center of the
cabin roof, and some molded but not painted windows on the sides near the top of the cabin suggest that the gold strip is indeed a window (which makes the dark silver bits in front a grille or maybe observation windows). No new plastics or paints.
The chest can open up in this mode, although with the claws in place on the front tracks the doors can only open up by 90 degrees instead of fully.
Not sure if it's going to bite opponens or blast them with an ice beam, but it's definitely got the vibe of an anti-kaiju weapon. Loads of accessible
5mm sockets even if you don't remove the treads (the rear treads can be
removed as well, if you want to fiddle with the appearance).

Ride-On Configuration: Put the big energon crystals on either face of
the hammer head and put the end of the haft into a 5mm socket along the centerline near the back, with a figure standing on the rather hollow "pickup bed" behind it. Leave the claws on the front tracks. There's enough flat space for most small figures to stand there comfortably, with the handles securing them in place.

Crystal Assembly: Put the claws on either side of the hammer haft
pointed down the handle length, then put the big crystals on the hammer faces in a similar way to ride-on mode handles but rotated 90 degrees and using the other pegs on the crystal shields.

Overall: I almost didn't get this one, but it's probably the best of the three in terms of expressing the gimmick while also being a decent (if
bricky) toy.


Dave Van Domelen, probably put way too much effort into these reviews despite leaving out a lot of the details he usually includes.

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