TLK Berserker

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Skyquake87
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TLK Berserker

Post by Skyquake87 »

Name : Berserker
Allegiance : Decepticon
Function: Raging Destroyer


Bio: Berserker is a seething ball of destructive energy, his lust for violence constant and irrepressible. Anyone and anything that gets in his way is torn to shreds, leading his allies and enemies alike to give him as wide a berth as possible.

By some miracle, the humans captured him and he's been constantly struggling against his restraints, spitting out the most graphic threats imaginable, which have led to stronger restraints, which make Berserker even angrier...and the cycle continues. Naturally, Megatron wants this maniac back in his ranks, but he knows it's a tall order.



Berserker was a slobbering angry wretch who popped up for a few frames in The Last Knight. He didn't do anything other than growl and look horrible, but that seems to have been enough to get him a toy. Probably so the three 'Dreads' from Dark Of The Moon could finally be immortalised in plastic. I picked him up as he was on clearance and I thought my Last Knight Decepticons could use another chum, seeing as Hasbro only did three other Decepticons for the line. It's not the best decision I've ever made.


Robot mode: The robot mode is pretty nice, this sort of horrible looking Predator-like creature, all hunched up with great big cloven hooves and horrible looking hands. He wields a couple of nasty looking spiked barbs (sadly made of rubber, so they're warped out the package and look less threatening. Like an inflatable cactus) and has some nice colour choices, throwing in some oranges and a big red X on his chest (although I do think this looks rubbish, like someone's just been marking remainder stock with a felt tip). Where the figure comes undone is in trying to pose him or do much with him. He's awkward and quite messy, not helped by having all this vehicle guff hanging around his back, like someone's thrown a shed at him. The parts on his forearms like to fall off, because despite being integral to the vehicle mode, they're not actually fixed in place. Yaay.

Alternate Mode: Berserker, like the other Dreads, is supposed to be a Chevrolet Suburban. An innocuous sounding name for a shady looking government goon-mobile. I say supposed to be, because this thing is an absolute wretch to transform. The figure is essentially a shell-former, with the vehicle mode parts unravelling to be clipped and pegged up over the folded up frame of the robot. The small space the robot has to occupy, coupled with the pressure the long rubber chain hair puts on the thing, mean none of the panels want to properly peg in place. Those parts hanging off his arms? Fall off every time. The figure has all the same problems as Bumblebee, just magnified. It's a frustrating mess that just makes me want to throw the thing very hard at a wall. Thanks, Hasbro.

Marks out of ten for the following:

Transformation design: The idea and intent is there, but things like tolerances and physics have been ignored to make a crumpled mess of a sequence that's absolutely no fun. Part of the problem is caused by a design style that reduces Transformers to little more than Matchbox's old Parasite line. 1/10

Articulation: Nixed by a fawn-like robot mode, the best you can do is wave his arms about. The head's too restricted by his fabuolous flowing locks and is too flat to look dynamic from any angle other than face on. The legs have articulation, but due to how they've been engineered for transformation, can't really do much. 2/10

Durability: I've crumpled him up enough times to know nothing's especially fragile, which is a bloody good job, the thing's so damn irritating. Those rear mudguards are going to get lost though. Why weren't these fixed in place? What was the reasoning behind this? To save on glue? 5/10

Fun: No fun. 0/10

Value/ Price : The clearance price of £8.99 would normally feel like a good deal for a Deluxe in this day and age. As it is, I wish I'd just have bought some beer. At least then I wouldn't have felt bad about pissing away my money. 3/10

Overall: There's no escaping that, as with Dark Of The Moon's Crankcase, a cool looking monstrous robot has utterly failed to translate well into plastic. Part of that is down to the source material, as I can see the Dreads are some of the more complex movie designs. The rest of it is down to the relentless downsizing, cost cutting, shrugging and over-simplification. All that engineering ingenuity present in the movie toys from 2009 has just gone now. Whilst some of those older figures were complex and presented a challenge, they at least worked. This is just awful. 2/10
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