Allegiances: Autobot
Size: Deluxe
Difficulty of Transformation to Tank Mode: Easy
Difficulty of Transformation to Robot Mode: Medium
Color Scheme: Red, black, teal, and some silver, clear plastic, dark green, and dull yellow
Rating: 7.3

    Convex is Perceptor's Titan Master, and his robot mode is based on Perceptor's more robotic look on his original G1 toy, what with a faceplate on the headsculpt and all. The rest of Convex's robot mode has details clearly taken from Perceptor, albeit simplified for the size of course, and "squashed and stretched" a bit to fit the standard Titan Master proportions. He's got that indented long recetangular chest, little pentagon and stripe details on the legs that pretty much exactly match Perceptor's, along with some lines along the waist that match that G1 toy's as well. Sadly, like most Titan Masters after Wave 1, he has no paint in this mode-- he's all black, except for the lower legs, which are red. Black is an ESPECIALLY bad color to have unpainted, as it makes all those little details really hard to make out. Plus having just the legs red and nothing else looks a bit odd. As with all Titan Masters, Convex can move back-and-forth at the hips and knees (as one, each leg is bolted together), as well as limited ball movement at the neck and shoulders. In head mode, Convex makes for a pretty solid Perceptor noggin; despite Perceptor having a traditionally round head, the Titan Master arms and legs only stick out a teeny bit from the overall silhouette of the head from a frontal view, and here having the red just on the back end is a positive, as it makes the arms "mesh" with the face portion better. Perceptor's facesculpt is quite spot-on, with a roundish helmet complete with a small crest in the middle of the forehead. He also has a "normal" silver-painted face with yellow eyes and a neutral expression, which rather suits the egghead.

    Perceptor's gone back to his G1 alt mode for this version, being a microscope. This sticks VERY close to being a straight-on G1 update with modernized proportions and better detailing and articulation. I mean even the transformation is (mostly) ripped wholesale; the robot arms are part of the body but rotated upside down, and the legs are obviously just kind of hanging out there at the sides. To me that's the biggest issue with the mode; the obnoxiously obvious legs at the sides. The arms work decently on the sides of the body of the microscope, but there's obvious gaps in between the arms and the interior black sliding piece that comes up the center of the body to form the top black portion which has the scope on it. The arms should have been a bit thicker or this sliding piece should have been-- as is, the body just doesn't look solid enough. The scope itself is very well-done-- you actually can look through it, though of course it doesn't really magnify anything. Turning the silver knob causes the scope to extend or retract, which is pretty cool. There's also several pegs and holes on the scope and on the top of the microscope body behind it so you can have it at several different levels/angles, and can rotate it up and around in basically any direction. The base for you to look at things through the microscope is made out of Perceptor's chest flipped out-- again, just like on the G1 toy. It's kinda weak and should be a bit bigger. Plus, there's no real place for Convex to "pilot" the microsope; the instructions just have you kinda lay him in that clear base piece. There is one peg for a Titan Master to stand on on the top of each of the legs in this mode, but that's it as far as interaction with the guys that form the core of this whole subline. The mold detailing is pretty decent, with several little lines and vent-like details in most places, though it's not extraordinary-- it's a definite step up from a G1 toy, but it's not particularly intricate either. There are a FEW intricate bits, though, like the "targeting" detail on the clear chest base, some small circuitry details on the silver piece near the center of the body, and the faux silver knobs on the sides of the body. The color scheme is pretty straightforward, being mostly red, teal, and black, with red being the most common out of the three colors. Given how many TFs simply have red and black as their main color, adding in some teal looks pretty decent and contrasts quite well against the other colors, even if it's not realistic. There's also some silver on the knobs, in the center of the body, and around the sides of the clear plastic chest piece. For some accent colors, there's a titch of dark green on some line details on the sides of the main body, and some teal, black, yellow, and silver painted details on the sides of the legs which pretty obviously mimic some of the G1 stickers with several geometric shape details. Thankfully, they're actually paint apps and not foil stickers, so big props to Hasbro for avoiding those cheap-looking things on this toy.
    Although it's not mentioned in the instructions, Perceptor does have a tank mode like his G1 toy, and it was highlighted in the initial promo pics for the toy. It's not simply a "fan mode" as there are flip-out tread pieces that aren't used in either of his other modes, as well as a flip-out silver piece in the center. This mode was always weak in G1, and it's pretty weak here as well-- it's the microscope mode at an angle with treads, essentially. The treads ARE a nice detail, though, and the scope makes an okay turret, but it's oddly angled next to the main body. Even on the main body of the tank mode, it's difficult to get a Titan Master to easily sit in there. As with the G1 toy, I mostly just ignore this mode.
    Perceptor's robot mode is definitely where the focus of the toy was-- as mentioned earlier, the transformation is mostly the same as the G1 toy, but the proportions are definitely better. One word about the transformation, though; one of the few differences is that there's a long metal rod that the piece that holds the scope has to slide down so that the scope isn't right in the middle of this mode, and it's a TIGHT fit. The plastic surrounding this metal rod is a bit thin; I do worry about it breaking one of these times; though I have transformed and played with this toy several times and it hasn't happened yet, I'm still a bit wary. Regardless, the end result, with no proportional or kibble problems at all (that is, if you don't consider the scope an extra-- considering how much it looks like a shoulder cannon, I like it). You can rotate it up and back onto his upper back ifyou don't like it blocking his "view", anyways. The rest of him looks like a fairly generic, nondescript well-proportioned robot, as there aren't any really unique details or bits of the alt mode on it. On the plus side, this makes for great articulation-- he can move at the neck, shoulders, elbows (at two points), inwards at the wrists (given that the lower arms are unfortunately hollow), and movement at the hips (at three points), knees, and slightly up-and-down at the toes. I wish he had waist articulation, but otherwise given how well-balanced he is, he can into a ton of neat poses. I will say I wish the clear plastic on his chest was a bit foggy or shaded, though-- given that it's straight clear plastic you can see the bits behind it on the robot chest, which de-emphasizes the mold details you're supposed to see on the front of the chest as a result. Perceptor comes with a sniper rifle (complete with two little stands on the underside if you want to pose Perceptor in a sniper-style prone position-- though the neck can't rotate up enough to pull off that pose, admittedly), which is a callback to his temporary "job" in the IDW comics. The sniper rifle can fit a Titan Master in the wider portion of it near the back, though the rifle doesn't easily store in either of his other modes-- it sticks out like a sore... uh... gun.
    Titans Return Perceptor has a great robot mode with awesome proportions and articulation, but although he's a great action figure, he's not a great Transformer. He's too slavish to his G1 toy when we have much better engineering now-- his microscope mode should have been modernized and made more solid with the legs less obvious, and his tank mode is very weak as well. One of the weakest of the Titans Returns deluxes, taken as a whole package.

Review by Beastbot

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