(NOTE: Because this is a repaint, this is not a full-blown review. This mainly covers any changes made to the mold and the color scheme, and merely compares it to the original Combiner Wars Optimus Prime toy. For a review on the mold itself, read the review of the original CW Optimus Prime mold here.)

    As has tended to be the norm for the character in more recent times, Motormaster uses the same base mold as Optimus Prime-- but this time around, not just a straight redeco, but a VERY highly remolded version. The same basic structure of all modes and transformation has been kept the same for Motormaster, but with the exception of the legs and a few other minor pieces like the hands, nearly every other piece has been remolded to give Motormaster a meaner, more angular look, particularly in his truck mode. The angular wind vanes, the sloped front grill, the VERY square back halves/combiner chest with "rivets" molded in, the combiner crotch piece-- it's pretty much all diagonals and hard angles, which certainly fits Motormaster's "brute force" approach. In robot mode he's got a more angular chest with little greebly "mechanical bits" around his upper abs and upper chest. Motormaster's headsculpt is pretty much spot-on, fitting his G1 "head-in-a-box" sculpt while not making it look too awkward. He's got a character-appropriate, no-nonsense look on his face. His new headsculpt for his combiner torso mode-- Menasor's-- isn't nearly as great. It's too... round, for lack of a better word. The head should have been more angular and a bit wider to fit in with the rest of Motormaster's sculpting-- same with the horns, which look great outside of being a bit too "smooth". The interior of the combiner chest when opened up looks awesome, with a round "spark chamber" and a bunch of molded-in "circuitry" lines leading to it-- if it wasn't for how hollow it looked without Blackjack in there, I'd leave it open in combined mode. Motormaster has a different weapon than CW Optimus Prime, with it being a sword-shaped blaster and a small sword that-- surprise!-- combine into a large sword for Menasor to wield. The two halves of the sword clip together fairly securely behind the truck mode for storage. As far as mold tolerances, Motormaster's joints are very much the same as Optimus'-- including, unfortunately, that the ratchets in his hips are slightly "off", with it impossible to get both legs completely straight with each other, at least on the intial release. This was fixed on later releases of Motormaster.
    As far as colors, Motormaster is mostly gray-- and unfortunately not a metallic gray either, but a rather blah milky gray. (The exception is the combiner chest, which has some nice dark metallic gunmetal gray paint.) Thankfully Motormaster's gray is not light-- milky light gray is the worst on TFs, at least for me-- but it, along with the black, makes for some rather bland main colors. The purple really helps a LOT, whether it's the light metallic purple on the windows in vehicle mode or the darker purple on the robot mode or the pastel purple on Motormaster's square face. That said, although there's an adequate amount of purple amongst all the black, silver and gray in Motormaster's robot mode, in vehicle mode there isn't quite enough of the light metallic purple for my liking. There's also just a tad of (VERY) dull metallic gold used for the headlights, which looks okay, but they really should've used a lighter shade of the color for better contrast. Also-- as has been the case traditionally-- Menasor's head has nice light red eyes, to emphasize how eeeevil he is.
    Motormaster is much more than just a Combiner Wars Optimus Prime redeco, with nearly the entire toy remolded to look more angular and Decepticon-y. (The beefy proportions in robot mode also suit him a little better than Optimus.) His robot mode headsculpt is also great, though his Menasor head looks slightly "off". As much as I love the more angular, dynamic remolding, however, Motormaster's color scheme of mostly gray and black is pretty dull. The purple saves it a bit, but generally I'm not a fan of his color scheme, which is the only reason he doesn't rate above CW Optimus Prime in my book. Still, if you want to make CW Menasor... well, you don't really have any other options, do you? And it's not like he's a TERRIBLE toy by any means, just the weakest torso mold in the line in a generally bland color scheme (G1-accurate or not).

Review by Beastbot

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