Generations Blitzwing (Second Opinion) [uploaded]

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Blackjack
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Generations Blitzwing (Second Opinion) [uploaded]

Post by Blackjack »

Name: Blitzwing
Allegiance: Decepticon
Size Class: Voyager Class
Accessories: Rifle, Sword, Missile

Blitzwing is a personal favourite character of mine, for no real good reason. He’s never done anything significant other than being the sole sane Decepticon in the G1 episode ‘Five Faces of Darkness’. Otherwise, Blitzwing tends to stick in the background, be it the cartoon or the Marvel comics. He tends to fare better in some modern portrayals, getting a quasi-major role in the second Dreamwave G1 miniseries (although that itself is a mess) and being one of the major Decepticons in IDW’s early –ion comic arcs, although he has since disappeared back into the backgrounds.

Blitzwing returned into the limelight somewhat in 2009’s Transformers: Animated cartoon, where he joins the main Decepticon cast. Although his appearances are sporadic, both he and his best friend Lugnut did appear enough to be memorable. In Animated, Blitzwing has a pretty fun gimmick where his triple-changer form causes his mind to be fractured as well, manifesting in three faces which rotate like a Quintesson: namely a serious ‘icy’ persona with a monocle, an angry ‘hothead’ persona with a G1-based face, and a ‘crazy’ jack-o-lantern maniac who shouts random things. It gives an additional fun quirk to Blitzwing.

Now my first encounter with Blitzwing is from IDW’s “Escalation” miniseries, where he shows up… and turns into a tank. Unfamiliar with Transformers lore, I was really, really confused why someone with ‘wing’ in his name would turn into a tank. He even has wings in robot mode! It wasn’t until I read “Infiltration”, which chronologically took place before “Escalation”, where Blitzwing rolls up in tank mode, blows up some evidence about Transformers existing… and transforms into a jet and flies away! I was really, really taken in by this scene, and for that (and having an awesome name) Blitzwing shot up in my personal ‘favourite Transformers’ list.

Of course, they never made a proper Blitzwing toy. The original Generation One toy is an expensive block that turned from a robot into a tank into a ridiculously blocky jet supposedly representing a MiG but really looks more like a paper airplane. Animated gave us a nice Blitzwing toy, but his tank mode is a tiny, chunky mess and his jet mode is full of gaps. It’s a decent toy, but one that does not fit into my Classics Decepticon lineup… the Animated aesthetic is great, but next to Classics versions of Astrotrain, Octane and the Coneheads he just looks out of place.

Now, I’ve been eagerly waiting for Blitzwing ever since I discovered the existence of Classics toys. The Decepticons triple-changers have been a relatively popular sort. They made a rather decent Astrotrain as part of Classics’ first wave in 2006. In 2008 the Classics line’s second spiritual incarnation, Universe gave us Octane (rechristened Tankor due to trademark issues) as part of their first wave. Octane was… horrid, but it was a step in the right direction because that’s one step closer to Blitzwing.

Of course… in 2009 we instead got Animated Blitzwing. It’s okay, they’ll probably make a new Blitzwing sometime soon, no? So I waited, and waited, and waited… it wasn’t until the late 2012 until toy announcements revealed part of the ‘Thrilling 30’ subline of Generations (Classics’ third incarnation), namely the Voyager class toys. I was already excited by the news of a LSOTW-accurate Springer… but the Blitzwing news really hit the jackpot for me.

So I’ve waited for nearly six years for this Blitzwing toy, and I am super-excited when he and Springer came on my doorstep. I opened Springer first, and he was a really awesome toy. Blitzwing… well, Blitzwing is a very controversial one. On one hand, the things it does well, it does really well. On the other hand… the reverse also applies to him.

Jet Mode:
First up… transforming Blitzwing from robot mode (which is going to be covered below) into jet mode has one particularly annoying part. Namely, you’re supposed to push the head into the body of the nosecone (under the cockpit) and swing up the tip of the nosecone over it. Sounds simple enough… except it’s undoable. The spring that the head has to overcome is very powerful, which wouldn’t pose any problem if the nosecone is made of normal hard plastic, since the pegs holding the nosecone halves together would keep the head depressed. Unfortunately, the tip of the nosecone is made out of soft plastic. So it’s near impossible to transform him properly, unless you use a lot of force… which would then cause an unsightly bulge on the soft plastic nosecone. I prefer to remove the head outright with transformation… it’s on a rotating joint, so it’s not difficult to remove.

That out of the way, Blitzwing transforms into a generic fighter jet. Generations gets a leeway by saying that both Blitzwing and Springer are designed after the ‘Fall of Cybertron’ aesthetic, but if Blitzwing’s cockpit and wings are any indication, he’s pretty obviously patterned on a decidedly earthen fighter jet, albeit a non-specific, slightly-futuristic one with a bunch of streamlined parts on top of the hull that I assume is some kind of future engine thing like the one Jetfire has. It’s a pretty awesome look, from the nosecone to the air intakes to the great wings to the booster engines to the… well, everything about Blitzwing’s jet mode is awesome…

Except for one glaring problem. Blitzwing, you see, is kind of like a Y-wing. His hull is nearly hollow in the center except for the tank turret trying to fill the void. It’s really glaring and unsightly (since they already had a similar problem with Animated Bltizwing, albeit with the gap on a different location) although one that is easily fixed… pegging the purple sword with the tip pointing backwards covers the gap excellently. The sword does kind of spoil Blitzwing’s aerodynamic look, though, but it blends in rather well. It’s not the best look, but Blitzwing’s rather futuristic look kind of makes me forgive this one oversight.

Also, while the packaging advertises the ‘opening cockpit’, this is not possible in the toy itself. The joint is there and the cockpit works fine… except in jet mode, because the soft plastic will get in your way, and if you force the issue it’ll probably warp.

When transforming him, the main wings have these little pieces that swing out and give his wings a fuller feel. It’s just a little detail that made me really, really like the toy. Oh, if only there were less problems with his toy…

Blitzwing is mainly purple and beige, with several parts being detailed in gray. The rims of his main wings are painted in red, his cockpit is clear orange, and several parts being cast in a slightly lighter shade of purple. Including the rubbery nosecone…. which simply stands out as looking really out of place next to the darker tone of the hull.

Still, I can’t really complain since I really, really like this mode, warts and all. Everything clips together nicely into a very cohesive and distinct shape. It certainly looks a whole lot like a proper fighter jet than the random triangular block the G1 toy turns into, or the jet-with-tank-treads that the Animated incarnation turns into. A really great jet mode that highly improves upon the Animated version... although not one that’s pulled off perfectly. The Y-Wing gap really bugs me.

Tank Mode:
Transforming Blitzwing from jet to tank is simply fun, and, for me in particular, is the key defining moment that made me decide that I really, really like Blitzwing’s designers. Transformation is simple yet pulls of a highly distinctive (if not very convincing) tank mode). Generations Blitzwing’s tank mode is very, very distinct from the jet. Taking Animated Blitzwing as comparison, the jet has giant tank treads on its side and is very chunky, whereas the tank mode is very small and is obviously a folded-up jet.

Generations Blitzwing, though? Other than the folded-up tailwings on the rear of the turret and the jumble of tailwings and robot feet on the back (which really can be passed over as some kind of futuristic kibble), there is no indication he turns into a jet at all. The wings fold into the sides of the tank very, very neatly, and he really gets the tank thing down. His turret rotates, there are additional tank treads that fold out to complete the shape, and additional pieces fold out from his crotch to fill out the front. There is a lot more steps involved than I thought, but it’s fun and not unnatural to do. Pegging the robot legs into the main body takes a little more effort than I’d like to wiggle the latches in, but otherwise there’s no major problem… transformation would work better after you do the fix, detailed below.

Goes without saying that Blitzwing probably isn’t modeled after a specific sort of tank, except maybe the kibble on his main body.

He’s still predominantly beige and purple, although the beige takes more dominance here. Don’t really like the layout with purple slapped all over the turret, but it’s a minor complaint.

The tank turret rotates around (although it can’t angle upwards unless if you pull the turret straight out of the cradle of the transformed robot-arms, which looks stupid), although I think the rotation joint is a wee bit too front for a proper turret. Indeed, if you move the turret around too much, you embarrassingly reveal the jet nosecone sticking out towards Blitzwing’s rear end. It’s ugly and ruins an otherwise smashing tank mode. It’s not too difficult to have the excess robot feet and tailwings move around a little and cover this gap, and it’s a shame they didn’t do that. No, instead they just hang off the back, leaving a gap in the center.

Blitzwing’s sword and gun can peg onto the 5mm posts, but I usually leave the sword aside. Pegging his gun on top of the turret really looks great, though, evoking real tanks which usually have smaller machineguns on top of the turrets. I really like the cannon, by the way. Instead of a button, you fire the missile by depressing the front (brown) end of the barrel, which then launches the missile. It’s a great and different way, looks like a real tank’s recoil, and has the additional bonus of having the missile not poke out conspicuously when plugged in. Really digging the cannon.

I think that other than that awesome feature of the cannon, the tank mode is kind of weak. It is distinctively a tank, and the transformation is wonderful, but it’s pretty messy and the tank turret is a jumble of shapes that barely resemble a turret. The hodgepodge paint scheme doesn’t help either, with the purple and beige kind of just out there instead of being cohesive like the jet or the robot. It doesn’t really hold together well without some force as well.

It’s really amazing how Blitzwing gets two very, very distinct alternate modes down without compromising either (Animated Blitzwing; Universe Octane) or having both modes look somewhat similar (Generations Springer; Classics Astrotrain). Of course, the tank mode isn’t perfect, but the sheer fact that he’s a triple changer that turns from a tank to a jet to a robot counts for something. It’s a shame that the tank mode is kind of underwhelming, cannon aside.

Robot Mode:
I have to confess that I transformed Blitzwing straight into his two alternate modes straight out of the box and didn’t really get into exploring the robot mode until sometime later, being distracted by his other modes and the joy that is Springer. At this point, I thought that the only problems the toy had is the head spring, and that the shoulder-problems the internet is clamoring about is exaggerated. Well… am I wrong. But we’ll leave that for last, because I’m going to talk about the good parts of the robot mode first.

I am not ashamed to deny that Hasbro really knocked this figure out of the park in terms of design. Glaring problems aside, Blitzwing’s robot mode is truly marvelous. It isn’t as proportional as Springer’s, and I will always be bugged by the fact that the knees are so high, but it’s very necessary to store the tank treads and jet wings, so I let that slide. He’s kind of gangly, but otherwise he’s a very, very faithful update to the G1 toy… minus the blockiness. Everything the G1 toy had is replicated faithfully here, up to the paintjob and kibble placement… something that really impressed me, considering neither Astrotrain nor Octane bothered to homage the original with such detail (then again, they didn’t have the mass of a Voyager toy to work with).

Articulation wise, Blitzwing is decent for a Voyager class. Not great, but decent enough. He’s got ankle, knee and thigh joints, his head turns around 360 degrees (although do not ever try and push his head in when it’s not looking forwards – it will get stuck), he’s got two elbow joints on each arm, his wrist can rotate and his shoulders are double-jointed with a hinge and a rotational joint as well. Although, as described below (soon, dear readers. Soon) the shoulders aren’t likely to work perfectly. It’s a decent range of articulation – not as much as many Voyager class toys I own, I’m afraid, but he’s well-balanced enough and comes with some accessories to strike some awesome poses.

Blitzwing comes with a relatively decent-sized rifle (a ‘Gyro-Blaster Rifle’ according to the crazy 1985 bio) and a light purple sword which I really like. It’s supposed to be an ‘Electron Scimitar’, but scimitars are curved and Blitzwing’s sword is just a sword. Both the sword and the gun are nicely detailed, and fit in very well in Blitzwing’s hands. Kind of small compared to Springer’s massive sword and missile launcher, but he still looks great with them nonetheless.

Blitzwing has a predominantly purple torso with a cockpit in his chest like a Seeker and chest detailings similar to the stickers the original Blitzwing toy had. The cockpit isn’t as predominant on the original toy, but both Transformers Animated and the IDW comics redesigns all have placed the cockpits on his chest, which I think is a smart move since it nicely fits the yellow helmet. His shoulders are beige with purple wings sticking out and pointing down – again, similar to the G1 toy, albeit with a lot less brick-like proportions. Beige lower arms, purple hands... and tailfins and jet afterburners form the feet… except that they actually do form actual feet instead of just awkwardly supporting Blitzwing up. He’s got the tank turret sticking straight up from his back, again a call-back to the G1 toy.

Blitzwing’s colour scheme is less haphazard here, with beige and purple all mostly being concentrated to some spots instead of being all over the place like in the tank. He’s got more gray, and black features dominantly on his lower legs. He’s got some silver and vermillion detailings on his chest, and his helmet is a striking yellow, again a homage to G1.

There are some Animated influence seeping in, however. The jet cockpit being much more Seeker-like and prominent being one, the face-swapping gimmick (covered below) being another, and most notably the tank treads making up the lower legs. It's a great amalgamation of the two, taking some cues from the Animated version yet still staying faithful to the G1 design.

And now, the face-swap design inspired by the Animated character. I really like Animated, and having this feature on him is a huge plus point for me. Unlike the Animated toy which has the face spin horizontally, Generations Blitzwing has the faces spin vertically. And the face sculpts are pretty decent, with each face being G1-ified (i.e. less outrageous chins). I find the icy, monocled look the one that fits the toy least due to the light purple being kind of odd among Blitzwing’s colour scheme, and both the angry and crazy faces fitting the overall colour scheme much more cohesively. Still, all three faces look great… although the fact that they turn vertically means that the ‘angry’ face has a second, black-coloured chin and the ‘icy’ face has an additional gray chin due to the backs of the other faces being visible. Shame.

The 'angry' (G1-based) head looks a bit... odd for some reason. Maybe because it's very two-toned and lacking in details? Dunno why they sculpted such a stone-faced expression onto him.

One big problem that is apparently rampant (but one which my toy is miraculously exempt of) is the fact that the face-changing gimmick doesn’t work due to excess paint on the inside of the helmet. Why they have to paint the inside of the helmet I do not know… maybe they dipped the helmet piece in paint? In any case, the extra paint essentially neuters the face-swapping gimmick, and you need to disassemble the head and trim the paint off, maybe with the aid of a freezer to help freeze the paint. It’s really stupid that this went past the QC lines, although since I do not have that problem I can’t really comment about it.

What I can comment about, however, is the problem that plagues the shoulders. It’s something that’s so fundamentally obvious and stupid that I cannot believe this went past the prototype stage, let alone be prevalent among every single copy of Generations Blitzwing. The tabs that are meant for the shoulder assembly (which are on a mechanism made out of several thin, loosely-hinged plastic) can never lock into place with the tab on the front end of the chest. Why is this? There is excess plastic on the front and rear halves of the torso piece. The fact that the tank treads on my copy can only peg in on the top and not the bottom supports this. It’s really very stupid.

See, these purple parts that refuse to peg are supposed to be immobile, and be an anchor so the tan bits of the sholders can rotate and the gray bits of the upper arm can pivot, giving Blitzwing awesome shoulder articulation. In theory, anyway.

The entire shoulder assembly simply just flops around weakly, and any attempt to even move the shoulder will bring the purple bits that are supposed to fill up the chest with it. It’s variable in how rampant the problem is, but your copy of Blitzwing will most certainly have it. And sometimes the problem is worse on one shoulder than the other.

There are like seventy Youtube videos out there telling you how to fix this problem. And generally there are two methods to fix this. The lazier one is to put material like Blu-Tak on the back of the shoulder pieces, but I tried this and it didn’t work very well. It made one shoulder kind of bearable, but the other is still as loose as ever. Besides, it really looks hideously ugly.

The more commonly recommended method is to disassemble Blitzwing’s main body, sandpaper off the excess parts like this (image courtesy of someone over at Allspark), then reassemble him to get what Blitzwing should be designed to be like. In theory, pretty simple.

However, in practice, it is really much more frustrating that it seems. Now I am a beginner in kitbashing, and had literally never attempted to do anything of this sort before. It took me a lot of tries to sand off the right parts, and it took me a while that to test out the hinges I need to re-assemble the screws and peg Blitzwing together again. And he still didn’t fit. And I simply cannot believe how much plastic I have to sand off and sand off and sand off… and he still couldn’t work. All other guides and reviews out there only say things like ‘he works like a charm after the fix’. No one ever said how frustrating and tiring this thing should be.

And after umpteenth sandpapering attempts, while his left shoulder does work now, his right shoulder still refuses to click flush. I just don't- it's really bloody frustrating, you know?

And you know what? I shouldn’t have to do this at all. I paid for good money for Blitzwing, and this is a mass-retail product meant to be complete. One or two problems, yes, but such a glaring and obvious mistake should really be flagged down before the toy entered mass production. A customer shouldn’t really be expected to take apart and modify a toy like this… not everyone has access or the skill to modify a toy. I admit that it's partly because I’m very inexperienced in kitbashing or whatever, but my point still stands.

The shoulders, however, are just one of the myriad problems that plague Blitzwing, and the frustration and anger I had to experience in fixing that one problem doesn’t do the toy any favours. I’m sorry, Blitzwing… I really like your design and the thought put into you, but there’s just too much wrong with you that I can’t really consider you a good toy. As a buyer, one really must do a lot of modifications before Blitzwing can really achieve his actual quality, which is a shame… executed properly with good QC and good plastics, Blitzwing would be as good as Springer. As it is, though, he’s a really good design executed in a very piss-poor manner.

Marks out of ten for the following:

Transformation Design: 6/10 Transformation design is pretty ingenuous... on paper. Granted, Blitzwing switches forms from robot to tank to jet very smoothly. I really, really wanted to give him a higher score. I particularly like how the panels on the crotch open in tank mode, how additional tank treads slide out, how there are extra panels to build the wing... but then I remember the various problems that plague his transformation. The big Y-Wing gap in jet mode, the weird-looking tank turret assembly, the gap on the tank’s rear, the stupid head-refusing-to-depress problem… it’s certainly a step up from Animated Blitzwing, but he’s still got a lot to improve on.

Durability: 6/10 Blitzwing’s entire rotating platform on his back is made out of softer plastic, so that can warp with some barbaric handling, but that’s not the main concern. The nosecone is made out of rubber, and if you keep forcing the head down, the force from the powerful spring will put a lot of pressure on the nosecone. Anyone who attempts to open the cockpit in jet mode will put stress on the rubber nosecone as well. The kibble bits on his wrists also tend to pop off, and I’ve talked about the face and shoulders in the review proper. With proper handling, Blitzwing can last for a long time, but he’s got a lot of QC problems.

Articulation: 4/10 Blitzwing is decently articulated, but not quite enough on par of a Voyager toy. He’s missing a waist joint because of his transformation, and his head isn’t quite able to look up at down, and neither can his tank turrets. Turning his head… well, let’s hope you remember to remove or align his head when you try to transform him, otherwise the head will get stuck and it will be extremely troublesome to pop it back out. And then there’s the shoulder problem, which is really stupid.

Aesthetics: 9/10 I really, really liked how Blitzwing turned out. He’s near-perfect in robot mode once you get over his high knees. Everything simply evocates G1 Blitzwing, yet is done in such a way that makes him not look like a bricky blocky mess. The Animated influences works like a charm, and the result is very well done. The alternate modes are a wee bit more iffy, especially the tank mode... but, well, Blitzwing makes a great display figure in robot mode but a crap toy to play with, and it’s vice-versa for his alternate modes – excellent toys but not the modes you want to display him in.

Fun: 7/10 Even with the shoulder problem, Blitzwing is really, really fun to play around with. He’s a really fun transformer, and I really had fun with him. Modifying him, on the other hand… is a horrid, horrid business for me personally, and to anyone who does not like to kitbash figures. Not everyone can kitbash.

Price/Value: 2/10 He is an awesome toy that by rights should be equal to the greatest of what the Voyager class can offer – he is around Springer’s quality in design, but the simply awful quality control really hurts the value of this toy. I paid a lot of good money for this toy, and he’s really expensive… the fact that such glaring oversights were found in every sample of the toy is simply inexcusable.

Overall: 3/10 Blitzwing is a toy that I cannot recommend highly unless you are willing and confident enough to fix him. I, personally, had Blitzwing unmodified for a month or two. While the work of the designer team that made him is simply fantastic (he's certainly a step up from past triple-changers or past Blitzwings in terms of design cohesiveness), Blitzwing is a prime example of how a simple problem can bring down the enjoyment of a toy… and Blitzwing doesn’t have just a single glaring problem. He has several. Shoulders being a horrid floppy mess, head refusing to peg down for transformation, soft plastic for the nosecone neutering the cockpit and head transformation, gap in jet mode, gap in tank mode, turret looking like a mess, high knees… any one or two of these problems would’ve been forgivable, but they all compound to make one hell of a mess. It really is a shame to this gloriously designed mold. I would happily recommend any future releases of this mold with a score of 8 or 9, but I cannot honestly call this toy good. Cursing for four hours while sanding a toy is not something that I, or any buyer, should do to enjoy a product he bought. The modified Generations Blitzwing I own kind of rock since it eliminates one of the major offenders… but the retail Generations Blitzwing, which the subject of the review here… simply isn’t worth your consideration unless you’re prepared to fix him.
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Blackjack
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Post by Blackjack »

I believe I am fair enough to this figure. I postponed reviewing him partly because I waited until I'm confident enough to fix him, and partly because I keep searching for reasons to justify ramping his scores up... I really, really like this toy, but he just is kind of terrible.

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Comparisons with the Animated toy:
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Cockpit gimmick. Note the soft plastic giving way.
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Jet mode without a sword. Looks half-decent from this angle, actually. Should take an overhead picture to see how ridiculous it looks. EDIT:
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With his triple-changer buddies. Blitzwing isn't as horrid as Octane, but even with his shoulders fixed I still think he's only still as good as Astrotrain... that is, fairly decent but plagued with all sorts of other problems.
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Cal
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Post by Cal »

I suppose this sort of review was inevitable. Blitzwing is one of the most controversial toys this year, and for every good review out there, there's always a bad one that follows. I can't help but think my review galvanized you into writing this a month after you first staked your claim, and your rant that you shouldn't have to fix Blitzwing somehow feels directed at me. :p

But whatever. I still love my Blitzwing, and it's a shame the shoulder fix bugged you a lot more than it did me, even though it took just as long. BTW, you said you still have trouble pegging in the tank treads, but I covered that aspect in my review:
The treads have several notches on the ankles; you need to extend them fully when swinging the front part out, but you have to push them back down one notch in order for the pegs to fit securely into the chest.
Also, I'm shocked at the final score. In my review you said "even with the shoulders fixed I'd give him an 8 maybe a 9 at the most", so why a mediocre 3 if you already fixed yours? And better yet, why give a future release a score of 8 or 9? Even if you hate the robot mode, a score of 3 seems awfully harsh when Blitzwing manages to get its alt modes as distinct as Springer's.

Maybe I'll review Springer next and give him a crushing score. :devil:

PS. Your hyperlink in the review is messed up again. Why are all your links wonky, BJ?
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Blackjack
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Post by Blackjack »

First up... no, my claim that Blitzwing needs to be fixed wasn't directed at you... Not specifically anyway. There are a rather large amount of positive Blitzwing reviews who mention sanding in a passing (including the draft that my review used to be).

The reason why I posted my review a month after my claim? Lots of real-life stuff going on, including finals. I study medicine, and the finals here is a fair deal much more grueling than sandpapering.And, well, I basically lost an entire month to finals. Reviewing Blitzwing would take up a relatively huge chunk of my time, especially since I have to fix the toy first -- which took much more time because I don't have much free time. Review writing isn't exactly my main priority. On top of it, I finished the Combaticons first, and since they were shit as well they weren't exactly inspiring to talk about.

As I said, 'the problems all compound' together. If it was only the shoulders, he'd go from 9 to 7. But then there's the unfixable head problem, making him drop from 7 to 5, then so on, then so forth.

I'll admit, after fixing the shoulders he's a solid 6 or 7, but this review isn't about the kitbashed Blitzwing I own, it's to help potential buyers to see if they should buy Blitzwing they find at retail. None of this is a personal attack or whatever at you; I would've written this review myself even if you hadn't shown up. You are welcome to bash Springer if you find any faults about him.
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Blackjack
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Post by Blackjack »

Links fixed, I put 'http://' into the html which read as an additional http tag.

Friendly note: Not everyone tend to read posts up above after they replied, and editing your post after I replied is kind of ensuring that one last PS is likely go get ignored, no?
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Skyquake87
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Post by Skyquake87 »

I think this is a perfectly fair review. I didn't think Blackjack was directing this at any one individual, it certainly doesn't read that way at all. I like how its at pains to say 'I do like this toy, but its such a mess that you really shouldn't bother.'

I am puzzled why some consumers think its perfectly acceptable to pay £40 (roughly what Blitzy cost on import, although most places are now slashing the price to around the average for a domestic UK Voyager release) for a toy that then requires you to fix up Hasbro's goofs. This shouldn't have got into production with that many flaws. Really, these things need to be sent back to Hasbro rather than kept and fixed up. It's not acceptable. It's like buying a car and finding the handbrake doesn't work. Yes its 'just a toy', but that's all the more reason this stuff should be right from the get-go. I can't see this one lasting in the hands of a child.

I've often wondered why third party stuff is becoming so popular, but if this is the best Hasbro can do, then any flaws in a bootlegger's product can be excused by the limited production runs, resources and so on behind them.

Also : after your Bruticus review with the trio of terror, we get to see what a disappointing fumble these updated triple changers have been. I'll stick to the originals :)
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Warcry
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Post by Warcry »

Blackjack wrote:I'll admit, after fixing the shoulders he's a solid 6 or 7, but this review isn't about the kitbashed Blitzwing I own, it's to help potential buyers to see if they should buy Blitzwing they find at retail. None of this is a personal attack or whatever at you; I would've written this review myself even if you hadn't shown up. You are welcome to bash Springer if you find any faults about him.
I went back and forth on the issue a bit after I fixed my own Blitzwing's shoulders, but in the end I agree with Blackjack about this. I like my Blitzwing now that I've fixed him (a 6 or a 7 is about where he'd fall in my books) but my Blitzwing isn't the official Hasbro Generations Blitzwing anymore. I eventually decided that recommending Blitzwing and marking him based on his post-fix state is about the same as if I decided to review RTS Jazz and give him a 10 in the Aesthetics column because he looked great after I spent several hours painting the parts I wasn't satisfied with. It wouldn't really be an honest picture of the product that people would actually be getting off of store shelves if they went and bought it based on the review -- or at least, that's how I see it. If other folks feel differently, well...that's why we have multiple reviews of controversial toys like this.

I bought Blitzwing knowing full well what was wrong with him, and knowing that I'd be able to fix it if I so chose. But I've got kitbashing experience, and I enjoy modding toys. Joe Average Consumer doesn't, and probably won't do it. Blackjack's review speaks to people like that, while Cal's original review speaks more to people like me. In this case I think it's really helpful that we've got a review from both perspectives.
Skyquake87 wrote:Also : after your Bruticus review with the trio of terror, we get to see what a disappointing fumble these updated triple changers have been. I'll stick to the originals :)
It's really a shame how poorly the latest round of Generations has turned out. Although I found a couple of the FoC toys were decent, I don't think any of them could really qualify as good. The only toy in the new series so far that I'd recommend is Springer, who really is quite good (though I don't love him as much as Blackjack did). Since he's not FoC, I hope that means that the new batch of IDW-based toys will be better than the game designs turned out to be.
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Post by Skyquake87 »

I think its clearly down to the global downturn and a noticable change in the foibles of current toy manufacturing. Both Generations and the 'main' retail lines have their faults. I just don't think that at the moment, Hasbro are as capable of supporting two retail lines as perhaps they have been in the past. I were Hasbro, I'd scrap Generations and concentrate on making the kid focus line as good as it could be, fans are too fickle to bother catering to and they're losing business to these third party hanger-ons anyway. The other way to handle Generations would be as Classics was originally - in the down time between major ongoing lines. That way, they'd perhaps turn out a bit better.

I'm tired of buying substandard product from Hasbro. It's such a shame, as they have some great ideas that all fall apart in the end result.
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Post by Cal »

Blackjack wrote:Links fixed, I put 'http://' into the html which read as an additional http tag.

Friendly note: Not everyone tend to read posts up above after they replied, and editing your post after I replied is kind of ensuring that one last PS is likely go get ignored, no?
Link fixed? It's still not working, BJ. Whatever you're doing is inserting that "xn" at the start of of address. Why does this only happen with you?

And FYI, I had left the review window open when I edited my post, so the page was not refreshed with your reply. Besides, you noticed my PS anyway. :wave:

Skyquake87 wrote:fans are too fickle to bother catering to and they're losing business to these third party hanger-ons anyway.
I think third-party lovers are looking at those toys through rose-tinted goggles. I just got iGear Cogs and Bushwacker and they are far more problematic than Blitzwing. Maybe I'll get around to reviewing them.....
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Post by Denyer »

Cal wrote: inserting that "xn" at the start of of address. Why does this only happen
http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc1738.html

Widespread due to people copying and pasting to/from applications that replace quote and apostrophe characters with "curly" ones, most commonly Microsoft Word.
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Post by Blackjack »

Skyquake87 wrote:I like how its at pains to say 'I do like this toy, but its such a mess that you really shouldn't bother.'
And I really do. I really think this dude is very much well-designed, and if the repaint was someone that made sense (Flywheels, Overlord at a stretch) instead of Doubledealer, I would've toted it a lot in my review.
Skyquake wrote:Also : after your Bruticus review with the trio of terror, we get to see what a disappointing fumble these updated triple changers have been. I'll stick to the originals :)
Springer is not a disappointing fumble. He's of good quality, and he's a great mold. Still, one out of so many Generations figures isn't that stellar.

Blitzwing suffers from QC, yeah, but design-wise he's a step in the right direction. Bruticus, on the other hand, are poorly (I'd say hastily) designed crap whose only saving grace is being able to combine into a coherent gestalt.
Warcry wrote:It wouldn't really be an honest picture of the product that people would actually be getting off of store shelves if they went and bought it based on the review -- or at least, that's how I see it. If other folks feel differently, well...that's why we have multiple reviews of controversial toys like this.
This.
Warcry wrote:Joe Average Consumer doesn't, and probably won't do it. Blackjack's review speaks to people like that, while Cal's original review speaks more to people like me. In this case I think it's really helpful that we've got a review from both perspectives.
Also, this. I think I kind of made it clear in my review that for people who have the capability and experience to kitbash will easily get a great, decent toy (albeit the head problem and the rather holey vehicle modes still persist) but for Joe Average Consumer, or someone whose only experience at modifying toys are cutting off missile ends and painting...
Skyquake87 wrote:I'd scrap Generations and concentrate on making the kid focus line as good as it could be, fans are too fickle to bother catering to and they're losing business to these third party hanger-ons anyway. The other way to handle Generations would be as Classics was originally - in the down time between major ongoing lines. That way, they'd perhaps turn out a bit better.
Cal wrote:I think third-party lovers are looking at those toys through rose-tinted goggles. I just got iGear Cogs and Bushwacker and they are far more problematic than Blitzwing.
Mmm, as someone who avoid third-party toys like the plague, I really think Skyquake is being too harsh here. True, Hasbro seems to be on wobbly ground since... Dark of the Moon, I think? Waffling between downsizing deluxe class toys (DOTM, P:RID, early Generations) or keeping the classic larger size (First Edition, some of the Beast Hunters, some later Generations), downsizing the Scouts class into Commander class and shoving it into Cyberverse, introducing new size classes and two-packs and whatnot, a noticeable change in design aesthetics and plastic quality...

But I can't deny that while Hasbro is on rocky ground, they're still perfectly capable of producing good toys. The Fall of Cybertron batch may not be the most stellar of Hasbro's recent output, but I am generally satisfied with their Transformers Prime products in terms of quality.

I know we're not having as great a selection of molds as compared to the heydays of Universe or the 2010 Goldbox/Generations dual line, but Hasbro's still producing good toys. Springer, for one. And I quite like Kickback and Shockwave, although their alternate modes are really quite sub-par. I've been hearing wonderful things about FOC Starscream and the new Legends class toys as well.

It's just a shame Hasbro hires monkeys for quality control, and whoever allowed Blitzwing to get out with two major aspects of his transformation mis-assembled should bloody well face the music.

I'll admit Hasbro's on a rough patch, but like Cal that doesn't mean that third-party toys are always better. I can't really speak for any of the third-parties, not owning any, but I'd take Hasbro's version of Springer over Guardian whatsits any day. And for all the problems a $50 Bruticus has, it's not worth shelling upwards to, oh, around $400 for a better gestalt.
Denyer wrote:http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc1738.html

Widespread due to people copying and pasting to/from applications that replace quote and apostrophe characters with "curly" ones, most commonly Microsoft Word.
Gotcha, D. Link should work now.

Curse you, Microsoft Word!
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Post by Denyer »

Quite fond of Generations Brawl, personally, and have ordered loose examples of Onslaught and Swindle. The Takara paint jobs do a lot to improve average designs.

If you're after an editor that includes a spell checker, there's one in Notepad++ as standard now. Easily my favourite editor out of many I've tried over the years. (NoteTab, jEdit and Programmer's Notepad all stayed in rotation for extended periods since they have regex support that doesn't suck.)

http://notepad-plus-plus.org/
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Post by Warcry »

Skyquake87 wrote:I think its clearly down to the global downturn and a noticable change in the foibles of current toy manufacturing. Both Generations and the 'main' retail lines have their faults. I just don't think that at the moment, Hasbro are as capable of supporting two retail lines as perhaps they have been in the past. I were Hasbro, I'd scrap Generations and concentrate on making the kid focus line as good as it could be, fans are too fickle to bother catering to and they're losing business to these third party hanger-ons anyway. The other way to handle Generations would be as Classics was originally - in the down time between major ongoing lines. That way, they'd perhaps turn out a bit better.

I'm tired of buying substandard product from Hasbro. It's such a shame, as they have some great ideas that all fall apart in the end result.
I think you're barking up the wrong tree here. The FoC Generations toys aren't bad because Hasbro don't know what they're doing, or because of cutbacks because of the economy or anything like that. They're bad because High Moon's video game designs (a) are horribly ugly and (b) cheat so much with the transformations that it's very difficult to get a working toy out of them. I don't think Hasbro could have done any better without turning the toys into ROTF-esque kid-unfriendly messes.

We've seen basically none of the post-FoC Generations other than the triplechangers, and we can't really judge a whole line on two toys. I'm hearing nothing but praise for the new stuff from people who actually saw it at BotCon, so I've got high hopes that this set will turn out better.
Cal wrote:I think third-party lovers are looking at those toys through rose-tinted goggles. I just got iGear Cogs and Bushwacker and they are far more problematic than Blitzwing. Maybe I'll get around to reviewing them.....
I've come to the realization that vocal, hardcore third-party fans are the same as the people who were vocal, hardcore Takara fans in the early 2000s -- they don't actually like third party toys as much as they like bashing Hasbro, so they blindly praise anything from non-Hasbro sources.

If the boring, generic Warbot Defender, the highly flawed Giant and Hercules or the actually really ugly City Commander were Hasbro products, they'd be roundly slated for being sub-par. But since they're made by third parties "sticking it to the man" and stealing Hasbro's IP, apparently they're awesome and the people who make them are heroes...
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Post by Blackjack »

Denyer wrote:Quite fond of Generations Brawl, personally, and have ordered loose examples of Onslaught and Swindle. The Takara paint jobs do a lot to improve average designs.
I'm kind of disappointed with Brawl mostly because he's got such a heavy backpack and looks so spindly. Swindle is pretty decent. A better paintjob does make me appreciate the two G2-styled ones I own better than if I had gotten the retail ones.

Onslaught is pretty much horrid, though, whatever you do to him.
Warcry wrote:They're bad because High Moon's video game designs (a) are horribly ugly and (b) cheat so much with the transformations that it's very difficult to get a working toy out of them.
And not to mention the fact that the designers still needed to make them transform and combine. Onslaught alone would be a challenge to make into a toy, let alone having him transform into a stable torso enough to support a gestalt larger than a Leader class toy... a gestalt that still needs to have articulation.

Vortex's design is ridiculously complicated and very toy unfriendly. Also, I really think that the robot modes for Onslaught, Blast Off and Vortex look horrid and ugly. Vortex's look is actually improved by the much more streamlined toy.
Warcry wrote:We've seen basically none of the post-FoC Generations other than the triplechangers, and we can't really judge a whole line on two toys.
And the two toys are really 'awesome' and 'would have been awesome if Hasbro's QC weren't sleeping on the job'.
Warcry wrote:I'm hearing nothing but praise for the new stuff from people who actually saw it at BotCon, so I've got high hopes that this set will turn out better.
By looks alone, at least Skids, Rhinox, Waspinator, Cosmos and Swerve look like decent toys that might give some of the best toys in my collection a run for their money.

Bumblebee, Megatron, Orion and Trailbreaker don't look half-bad either, although the latter two are kind of underwhleming. Will have to own them to decide.
Warcry wrote:If the boring, generic Warbot Defender, the highly flawed Giant and Hercules or the actually really ugly City Commander were Hasbro products, they'd be roundly slated for being sub-par.
To be fair, I actually liked the look of the City Commander. But with the price they're asking? I really, highly doubt Hasbro can't do a better job with the same asking price. A lot of third-party stuff looks great, but it's nothing Hasbro can't churn out if they have the luxury of selling toys that are smaller than Deluxes but cost more than Voyagers.

Not saying Hasbro is infallible; this review is proof of that... but neither are Takara or third-party stuff.
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Post by Skyquake87 »

Warcry wrote:I think you're barking up the wrong tree here. The FoC Generations toys aren't bad because Hasbro don't know what they're doing, or because of cutbacks because of the economy or anything like that. They're bad because High Moon's video game designs (a) are horribly ugly and (b) cheat so much with the transformations that it's very difficult to get a working toy out of them. I don't think Hasbro could have done any better without turning the toys into ROTF-esque kid-unfriendly messes.

We've seen basically none of the post-FoC Generations other than the triplechangers, and we can't really judge a whole line on two toys. I'm hearing nothing but praise for the new stuff from people who actually saw it at BotCon, so I've got high hopes that this set will turn out better.
I was thinking more in terms of the weird, papery feeling lightweight plastics, lack of finishing and so on. I agree that the WFC/FoC toys would be difficult to translate anyway...so perhaps Hasbro shouldn't have bothered?

And that is fair point that I can't judge an entire line on two toys. Nor was I trying to , sorry if that wasn't clear. Springer I did ask what the quality of the plastics was like because he does look great, likewise Blitzwing also looks pretty neat, but seems to have a lot wrong with - things that could perhaps have used a little more time and attention paid to them.

I'm just at a loss as to why across DOTM, Prime and FoC Generations, the end product has been lacking. And why minor nobodies seem better turned out than the core cast (cf. DOTM Air Raid, Prime Dead End).

@Blackjack, i was refering to the Decepticon TCs in your pic. I must be clearerer in future :)
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Post by Warcry »

Skyquake87 wrote:I agree that the WFC/FoC toys would be difficult to translate anyway...so perhaps Hasbro shouldn't have bothered?
You know...I'd agree with that. It's probably an avenue they shouldn't have gone down, and they really shouldn't have stretched the releases out for a year after the release of the (pretty generic and not especially popular) game that the toys are based on. But I can understand why they did. When they made a handful of molds based on WFC, all I heard for months on other boards were people saying they wanted more, and griping that Starscream/Sideswipe/whoever didn't get made. Hasbro saw what they thought was a huge demand for the toys in the collector market, but I don't think they realized that much of that "demand" came from people who wanted to bitch about Hasbro not making the toys, not people who actually wanted to buy them.
Skyquake87 wrote:And that is fair point that I can't judge an entire line on two toys. Nor was I trying to , sorry if that wasn't clear. Springer I did ask what the quality of the plastics was like because he does look great, likewise Blitzwing also looks pretty neat, but seems to have a lot wrong with - things that could perhaps have used a little more time and attention paid to them.
Gotcha. I understand.

Springer's plastics (and Blitzwing's too) are pretty good quality as far as I can tell, definitely better than most of the FoC stuff that I've seen. Both have a lot more heft to them than, say, Soundblaster, who seemingly weighs as much as an old Scout.
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Post by Skyquake87 »

That's the problem with appealing to fandom...you're on a hiding to nothing trying to please us!

You know, the more I look at Blitzwing, the more it looks like the Animated version has been Classics-fied in the same way Lugnut was a few years ago.
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Post by Blackjack »

Nah, face-swapping gimmick and cockpit chest aside, Generations Blitzwing is G1 Blitzwing given proper proportions. Bring up a picture of G1 and Generations Blitzwing side by side and pay attention to where all the kibble and stickers in G1 are... Generations Blitzwing is exactly like RTS Jazz in that it's basically given the G1 toy proper sculpting instead of stickers and proportional limbs instead of blocks. Even the tank treads-for-feet stemmed from G1 Blitzwing first, although the Animated design made it much more prominent.

The key parts of Animated Blitzwing's physique: giant shoulders with circular things, twin tank barrels on his back, large dagger-like wings pointing down from his back (shoulders, admittedly, in toy form), German pilot helmet thing, a severe lack of yellow...
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Post by Rack 'n Ruin »

Blackjack wrote:Even the tank treads-for-feet stemmed from G1 Blitzwing first, although the Animated design made it much more prominent.
G1 Blitzwing's feet are made up of his jet mode thrusters and tail fins, with no tank treads involved (Based on the toy, at least. Can't be bothered to look up his cartoon form/s).

I can definitely see many Animated features in Gen Blitzwing. (e.g. the shape of the jet nose & cockpit area). I would say Gen Blitzwing is an attempt to amalgamate the two designs almost 50:50.
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Post by Blackjack »

I was under the impression that the tank tread stickers were on the sides of the G1 toy's legs?

If I'm inaccurate then the legs take a fair bit more from Animated's design, though...
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