Protectobot
Groove (Deluxe; Combiner Wars) [Online Retailer Exclusive]
TakaraTOMY took the initiative in creating a deluxe-sized Combiner Wars Groove to complete the "traditional" Protectobots team in terms of limb placement (as opposed to Hasbro's initial Legends size toy, which took scale into consideration a bit more). As an exclusive online release, Hasbro decided, "Why not?", and released the mold stateside as well. In vehicle mode, Groove is a police motorcycle, and by and large has pretty good proportions, looking like the same general motorcycle Groove was in G1, but modernized a bit (and of course, enlarged to deluxe size). The windshield might be just a TAD undersized, but that's about it as far as prportional maladies go. There are two VERY obvious robot extras, though-- I mean, the arms are just hanging down under the front section of this mode. They connect via tabs to keep them in place, but no real attempt is made to hide them, which is unfortunate given how nice the rest of the mode looks. Groove's color scheme is mostly white and black-- certainly an acceptable and realistic color scheme for a police motorcycle. His hand/foot/gun accessory is also black, with some neat "rotary machine gun" details on the front. It plugs in only on top of the front section of this mode, so it looks "off" a bit in terms of where it's located, but otherwise it looks pretty good. By itself, a white/black color scheme would be pretty boring, but there's a lot of paint apps on Groove to keep any large area from looking boring. He's got silver on the upper and lower arms, on the wheel hubs, in the middle of the "bulk" of the vehicle, and a few other minor areas; a nice metallic gunmetal gray on his rear-mounted guns, red taillights, and "POLICE" symbols near the back end. The best parts about this mode are the various colored transparent plastics; the blue windshield looks pretty good, and there's a VERY well-molded, detailed headlight setup painted in silver underneath the front, which has a clear plastic "shield" in front of it. There's also some detailing behind the transparent pale red lights on the sides of the windshield, and that same red on the top of the guns as well. The mold detailing is pretty decent on the robot arms, wheels, and aforementioned headlights, but it's otherwise fairly basic-- which is approporiate, given it's supposed to be a rather smooth motorcycle. Of one last note is that a kickstand piece flips down from the bottom of one of the lower arms, so Groove can stand up by himself in this mode somewhat stably.
Groove's transformation to robot mode is pretty familiar to those who already have a fair number of Combiner Wars molds (especially the jets). The back end folds out and splits apart to become the robot legs, the arms fold out from the sides, and the front part of the vehicle mode folds back behind the upper back. It's pretty simple, but effective. Groove's proportions in this mode are also pretty solid, with arms and legs that look pretty well-proportioned from any angle, and the back wheel folded into two halves that stick on the sides of the lower legs pretty firmly. My only complaint in this mode regarding kibble is the motorcycle windshield and front wheel on his upper back; it sticks out behind his body quite a bit and looks odd from a side view, though you can fold in the wheel a bit so it doesn't stick out QUITE as much. At least it doesn't get in the way of movement, though. In this mode, a dull mustard gold is added to the color scheme-- on Groove's chest and waist in particular, with some rather square, angular details on his otherwise flat chest. I'm not fond of the "mustard" tint; I think a straightforward metallic gold would've looked much nicer. There's also some silver paint apps on the upper legs, and a well-detailed headsculpt with a black "helmet" and a yellow-orange face with some nice transparent yellow light piping for eyes (this version goes for seperate eyes compared to the Legends class' visor). The various vent details on the arms also add a bit more to this mode in terms of mold detailing than was visible in motorcycle mode. Groove has the problem(?) of having three weapons but only two hands to hold them in; thankfully, the two side guns can plug into each other, albeit not in a way that allows them to stay "level" with each other-- one's always going to be down and to the front of the other, but it's better than no weapon combination. For articulation, Groove can move at the neck, shoulders (at two points), elbows (at two points), waist rotation, and movement at the hips (at two points) and knees. Thus, he can get into a pretty good number of poses, though the elbow ratchets are a bit shallow and those joints a little loose-- this appears to be a widespread problem, unfortunately, though they're not outright floppy.
