Transmetal Toy Reviews

(some of these pictures of these toys were borrowed from Dave's or Ben Yee's Sites)

Scarem (TM2)

Scarem's beast mode is pretty tight. The dark bue Transmetal pieces on this bug are very finely sculpted but I guess you can probably see that for yourself in my humongous pics. Finally, a bug who can stand on it's own two feet, well 6 actually. All the colors look pretty great together. He's got a Rampage thing going with his beast eyes on the side of his head. He is one pretty good toy, for once I see nothing really wrong with a beast mode.

Scarem's robot mode is much like his beast mode: practically flawless. He has an imposing and creepy sort of look. There is hardly any beast kibble lying around in the way on this toy, the two beat legs that don't form the robot legs just swing back behind his back. I don't usually care for non-hands but this guys big, large claws look awesome. Unlike the deluxes I have, this bot's eyes are actually normal. The design on his chest is pretty cool, the spark is housed just inside, with decorations around it, making it look like a vital part of his system. This is a great toy, one of the best regulars to come around in a while

Ramulus (TM2)

Ramulus' beast mode is excellent, great, and fantastic. The transmetal red looks beautiful on his back, legs, and face. The spark piece of a Maximal logo showing through on his forehead is a nice touch. Ramulus seems a bit more symmetrical than Dinobot or Cheetor. The blue and grey on his legs, belly, and one of his horns seem to work well with each other, along with the brown. His horns are very nice. They're long, can be adjusted upwards, and has some very nice ridges. The only irksome thing is that his head is stuck looking down. Overall, Ramulus' beast mode rocks, beating out the other transmetal 2s and possibly a lot of other Beast Wars figures before him.

Ramulus has got one of the best robot modes of the Beast Wars figures to date. He looks like a total badass. I feel he could stare down Depthcharge, the resident Maximal badass. With those long pointy ears sticking up from his head aand the expression on his face, he kind of reminds me of Wolverine from Marvel. He's got one mean looking growl and giving you the evil eye, squinting one of them.Using the ends of those transmetal red beast legs as shoulder pads looks awesome, as well as the transmetal running down the sides of his chest. I lov the design on his chest, with the blue strides and the green circle in the center and the mechanical claw-like things on the side of his hands are great.

Ramulus is great in every way I could want, he is definitely one of my most favorite Beast Wars figures.

Dinobot (TM2)

Dinobot looks like a vicious, raptor fossil, clearly dinstinguishing him as Pred allegiance this time around. His magenta Transmetal pieces have great detail, each is slightly different, and are placed well on his hips and head. The whipping rubber tail is kind of a nice gimmick. His mouth is movable and an inner jaw is revealed inside. One downside is the slight restriction in posability on his feet and arms caused by the tubing. Great beast mode if you're not too irked by limited posability, it doesn't seem to bother me though.

Dinobot's robot mode is pretty good, there are a few things wrong here though. His face looks pretty close to the cartoon, except that Borg eye. I'm not too crazy about the eye but have grown to accept it. His arms are too long but I remedy that by bringing it up at the joint, it loooks a lot better. His shoulder pads are kind of high but I don't necessarily consider that a bad thing. His tail can't be used as anything, it doesn't mention it in the instructions but I just take it off and set it aside, he looks better to me that way. Like the original, his beast head still stays on his chest. a pretty good robot mode but not great.

Cheetor (TM2)

Excellent beast mode, I was a bit skeptical when I first saw him on the Internet but this mode looks great.I'm glad to see some fur on Cheetor again, it's finely sculpted.I think his beast face looks the way a toy carrying on a Cheetor name should; smooth, calm, and a bit inexperienced. When I first saw the pic on the Toy Mania site I thought god no, don't put a missile launcher on his back. It looks ultra gear though. I like the end of the tail, which kind of looks like the end of a paint brush. Now just a few little irksome things. The transmetal on his legs is only on one side, the other doesn't have it. That appears a bit strange if you look at him whole. I would have rathered those things jutting out the back of his front legs be plastic but they're rubber.

Now for the somewhat lame attempt at a third mode. For his attack mode you raise up the missile launcher and the transmetal piece at the bottom of his front leg comes forward to act as a what the instructions say is a shield. Whoopee! It looks okay but I wouldn't really consider it a mode. The supposed shield seems pretty small to protect him and oh wow, I raised launcher the a few notches.

Great robot mode, to transform to the robot mode was a more complicated transformation than I thought it would be. The spark crystal is like a green-filled circle with a Maximal emblem inside. The emblem is put inside, it's not an image like the old ones. It's found under the piece of transmetal on his right leg. His robot face looks pretty much like a cat other than the fact that he has that diamond in the middle of his forehead. His gun will fall out of his hand if you don't position his movable thumb right. The launcher can fire the missile a so-so range.The launcher itself looks cool with the transmetal purple covering the middle and looks pretty well with the grey at the ends.The chest area looks pretty neat with the robotic parts showing through the fur on each side, with that big red circle on the right side.

All in all a great figure, so long as you don't bother too much with that lame attack mode. It reminds of the old toys with the suggested battle modes.

Optimal Optimus

Beast mode is pretty huge and awesome. He is about the same height as Ultra Primal is in robot mode. I really like the Maximal symbols that are on his arms, they look cool. His missile backpack thing can come down and lay over his shoulders. If you pull back on the end of the backpack the missiles will light up and his beast eyes will become orange. The wings on the back of his legs do a fine job supporting him. The beast head looks pretty good, I like the growl here, it almost suits him. Nobody seems to like the colors but I think they work out pretty good. He is 7 and a half inches in beast mode. I really like this mode, it looks excellent.

The ground assault vehicle mode looks fine. I wish the hands didn't have to be used in the vehicle modes, but it looks alright.The backpack is on top with the cockpit piece right underneath it. The missiles still light up if you pull the end of the wheel backpack. The hands are put together in the front. The large wings are put to the sides. The missile holders are flipped down to reveal wheels and the beast head is flipped in and a large front wheel is pulled out. It looks good but not extremely good or excellent.

The air assault mode is pretty good but not a lot different from the groun assault mode. You just turn the large wings to a flat 180 degree angle, pull the back wheels back up, pull the cockpit down below the missile launchers, have his arms straight right in front of him, flip his large wheel back in and flip out his beast head. You can hardly see the beast head and only the back of it. Not too much different but it does look like a flying mode instead of ground. Looks good but also does not look excellent.

The robot mode looks excellent. It looks like they kind of got old Primal's head back but in different colors and with a mouth. Getting rid of the exploding armor off his arms and putting it up on his shoulders frees up his hands and arms a lot and it looks good on the shoulders and him even taller. The movable hands are excellent, he can hold regular Beast Wars in his hands and larger figures by their legs or arms. If you pull the back of his missile backpack in this mode, his robot eyes light up green and the missiles again light up red. The transmetal blue on his legs and the transmetal maroon on his arms look good in this mode and all others. He is 9 and one fourth inches in robot mode from foot to head. I have seen season 3 pics of him and he looks completely the same except for a few facial features, such as there isn't that little blue triangle going almost to his mouth and there isn't blue between his two eyes but still this toy is extremely huge and extremely excellent.

Depthcharge

Man this dude is HUGE in beast mode! From head to tail he towers over Optimal Optimus and is about the same size of him from fin to fin. The great big gold transmetal beast head of his looks awesome. All the colors go together very well on him. The blue is a bit darker than the pics from the cartoon have shown. His wings are very cool, there are two flaps, making his wings adjustable some. This is probably my beast mode pic of the year.

The space cruiser mode though is not quite as impressive. Just pull the wings up, extend them to the side, and then turn them up. It's pretty good, he still retains that large, awesome looking transmetal beast head. His wings can go around the full 360 degrees. It's not as bad as maybe another transmetal's vehicle mode.

The robot mode is fantastic. He's got kind of a more complex Silverbolt transformation. First transmetal I've seen with transmetal bot hands, it's cool. He also has transmetal below and above his kneepads and right below his head. He is again a carbon copy except the darker blue. He's got one of the best color schemes of the year. He has his shark missile launcher with two missiles, his cutlass which comes from the end of his tail, and 7 discs which he shoots out his stomach. The beast mode is to die for, the robot mode looks just as good. The vehicle mode is the only thing that partially isn't great but I was definitely not disappointed.

Rampage

This beast mode is an exact replica of our favorite bad-ass crab. He's got that big transmetak red 'X' going across his back, surrounded by the transmetal orange. He has claws big enough to hold Silverbolt in them if you want to recreate 'Bad Spark' or any deluxe or smaller. His face has got his purple antennae and his green eyes on the sides. I sure wouldn't want to meet this bad boy crab on the beach.

This is by far the best vehicle mode a transmetal has had yet. He's ready to kick some ass and break through any barriers that get in his way with his triple-barreled missile launcher. Those real rubber tank treads are just awesome. The pnly thing is that this is where the toy gets his difficulty from me. You have to line up the rubber with the wheels, get the treads to grip the ground, and other things. This vehicle mode is the best but a little hard.

Here is the man, Rampage! Looks almost identical except that the horns on his face and sticking out of his head are caramel instead of white. Better run for cover, he's now got the triple-barreled missile launcher in one of his hands and a shotgun in the other. The shotgun looks kind of tiny compared to the missile launcher but make no mistake he's got ammo and is ready to kill. This is probably the most frightening mode, this guy doesn't look too sweet and I don't think you should lurk around a guy wit that much firepower in his two little hands. All around a stupendous figure, one who definitely lives up to his name.

Optimus Primal

Optimus Primals' beast mode is a pretty good replica of the cartoon and looks good but I would have liked him to not be growling. He hardly has it like that in the cartoon, they should just have his big, closed lips.

The hoverboard vehicle mode is cool but it would have ben better if his feet could turn around to make him face the front, instead of just his waist. Also, his gun that acts as the hoverboard's jet is all the way down and touching the hoverboard in the cartoon and is all the way up by his leg on the toy.

His robot mode looks really good. He looks the most like his show counterpart in this mode. He has all the right weapons, although I have never seen Primal fire one of the clubs out of his gun. I would have liked a spring or something in the gun to launch the clubs farther too.
All the inconveniences I mentioned are tiny and Primal is a great toy. He looks almost exactly like his show character in all modes.

.

.

Megatron

Megatron's beast mode is pretty great. I like the head, it looks fantastic, an exact replica of the cartoon. All the other parts of his beast mode are real close too. The only big problem with this mode is that you can see his arms from the front but nontheless the mode looks pretty awesome.

The turbine jet thruster mode looks almost the same as beast mode, just flip the tturbine thrusters up. What would have been a plus is if the turbine thrusters could rotate like in the cartoon. Still pretty good though.

The robot mode looks great, really close to the real thing, except that the head-like thing on his chest isn't all purple and the little claw-like things on the side of his face aren't red. Those things would be great if they had included them on the toy. Those two things don't bother this mode a whole lot though and I consider this a great mode and him a great toy.

.

Scavenger

Great Beast Mode! Nice use of transmetal pieces and keeping the beast head looking almost like a fireants'. Unlike some people state, he can stand on his beast legs. The horns sticking out of the abdomen isn't much of an eyesore to this mode, it's pretty fantastic all around.

Interesting and cool drill mode. It almost looks as if he is ready to go drill underground. The beast legs aren't too much of an obstruction as one might think, they can stay pretty much out of the way. His wheels in this mode look pretty awesome and suit it well.

Fantastic! I especially like the way his whole robot mode except his hands come from underneath the abdomen. His paint scheme is done very well, he looks perfect. He looks like one maniacal, kicka*s dude. Some people complain about lack of arms but I think it suits him well. Wanna shake hands? His beast legs tend to get in the way but not too much.This is one of my favorite Beast Wars figures this year.

>



Rattrap

Rattrap's beast mode looks great and pretty exact to the one on the show. One of the few problems is that you can see some of the lower part of his robot mode underneath the front of his beast mode. I wish Hasbro/Kenner wouldn't have this obsession of growling and have him growling on the sides of his beast mode mouth. Some people complain about the hand sticking out of his butt holding the tail, but it doesn't even really get your attention, unless you are paying close attention to him. Not too much wrong here, looks really good and a lot like the cartoon.

In his dragster mode, not that much is changed, all the minor inconveniences from beast mode are still there. It does somewhat resemble a dragster except the tail and resmbles a scorpion somewhat, hunched over and with the pointy end. It looks good, resembles the show's pretty much in this mode also. I like it, it's a pretty good vehical mode.

In robot mode the first thing that hit me was the head. Again with the terrible growling, the head and thing on his chest also didn't look quite right bright orange, and the backpack doesn't rotate around like the cartoon.The rest of his body looks pretty much like the show. This mode probably had the most things unappealing to me.

Cheetor

Cheetor's beast mode is a good replica of the show's. He's got all his transmetal stuff in the right place and his head looks exactly like the it does in the show. He's practically a clone in this mode except I noticed that on the cartoon the spike on his tail is facing upward but it isn't really made to fit like that. Very good job on his beast mode, it is excellent

Not a lot of different things to say different from the beast mode. He still looks a lot like the cartoon and the tail thing is still not right but the jets look exactly like they do on the cartoon. Another well done mode.

This is the one mode that doesn't look as much like the show. His nose and chin isn't yellow as it is in the show, as is the chestplate. This dampened the look, as I like the toys to look pretty much like the cartoon. Plus, how often has anyone seen Cheetor growling, NEVER or possibly a few times. They decided to make carefree Cheetor a war machine. He can make that beast head gun but only if you put his hands in the middle of his chest close together. I'd have liked it at an angle like the show. Like Rattrap, one of the turn off modes for me but it still is a very good toy.

Rhinox

Very good beast mode, the back legs may be a bit skimpy though compared to the front ones which are pretty big. The blue transmetal on his back works pretty well and I love the beast head, it looks pretty menacing and awesome with the serrated horn and the whole look. Very cool and menacing mode, fits Rhinox good.

His tread all-terrain vehicle mode looks pretty cool too. He's got treads where his back feet were ans some kind of flat panel things under his front feet. He looks ready to lift a Pred up on his horns and give him a fast paced ride of his life and then throw him off of him and then go roll over him, crushing him. Keeps the good menacing look I love on this toy.

Cool robot mode, they make Rhinox look rock-hard and very buff. I don't know if I like the way he's kind of smirking and his face looks like it has the jollyness of Rhinox. The helmet looks kind of similar, still having sime of those ridges and the colors look good. He kind of looks jolly and scary at the same time. I like all the modes on this toy, I've heard other people complain but I think it's a pretty good Rhinox.


Airazor

I really love her beast mode. Lots of brialliant colors mixed very well together. I like the orange-red accents on the eyes, wings, and tail. The yellow and blue fit pretty well together too. The transmetal silver with a hint of violet looks very well too. I really admire the beast mode.

The pontoon mode looks okay but it is pretty flimsy. I'd like it if it was probably a bit more stable but she just falls on them. Color- wise it works but structurally doesn't. Not too good but not terrible either.

Looks like a good robot mode. People complain about a lack of colors but there's enough and it works. This one does look a bit more feminine, don't know about the head but it looks as though they've gave her a chest this time around. Isn't very stable, unless in the shield mode that looks pretty awesome. Just close the transmetal parts over her chest to form it. I really like the robot mode, I don't know why other people don't.

Tarantulas

The beast mode is a perfect clone. What more can I say? You watch the Beast Wars show, right? It looks like the show's beat mode. Orange transmetal on his back and some on the spider head. He's got black on his head his and his sides. He's got green eyes, and some green on his back on top of the purple. He's got purple legs and a kind of circular purple thing on top of the transmetal orange on his back. I really like it, his creepiness rivals the show's Tarantulas.

The vehical mode is awesome, again a clone of the show. Just pull out and turn the front wheel straight and pull out and twist around the big back wheel. Now, you've got a wicked spider on wheels, cool.

Robot mode looks really close too except for a small few details. He has two yellow eyes, he's supposed to have a uni-eye and his arm is supposed to be all purple. He looks very close though and as cool and wicked as the real Tarantulas


Waspinator

Waspinator has got a very good beast mode. The gold and black look absolutely excellent with each other.The translucent blue wings with the gold touches looks absolutely beautiful. The red works very well with the whole scheme too. He resembles the original to a degree too.

The jet mode is awesome, he does a good job as a jet too. He's got a cockpit and wings and tail wings too. He does a good Wasp- jet realistic job, it rocks. I can see him zooming past all the other Preds to go do the menial tasks Megatron gives him but not enjoying it very much.

In robot mode, he's still got a head that very much resembles Waspinator. He's stilll got the wasp head on his chest. He does a very ggod resmblance except the transmetal him has a cockpit hanging down from the head, an extra two wings and the legs don't stick out from his hands but instead his legs and head. I very much like all the modes and the portayal of him as a transmetal. They did a good job of keeping Waspinator Waspinator.

Terrorsaur

Terrorsaur's beast mode is wicked and very cool. I like the way the purple is so smooth looking on him.The purple, gold, and green all look pretty well together and the maroon looks pretty good too. I think they did a way better job on the pterodactyl head this time around with the long beak and how the back of the head comes resembles a ptero crest.. Beast mode looks cool

The jet-like vehicle mode looks okay. I like the back part opening to reveal the engines but I'm not too sure about the supposed to be spikes that are flipped out. Pretty good but people have been devising better.

The robot mode looks good. They kept his face looking pretty much like the original except with the different colors and a more curvy crest on the top of the robot head. There are many different colors but they all look fairly well together. There is tan, maroon, green, purple, neon green, red, and gold. Instead of having the tail of the ptero on his chest this time, he has the beak. Good robot mode, still resembles Terrorsaur fairly well.

Email: beastwarsrage@hotmail.com