Beast Machines Blast Charge
Somehow the local Walmart had one of these left. Somehow. Even all the mega Megatrons are
gone (and they had a ton of those), but Blast Charge remained. I wasn't gonna buy it
at first, and I didn't, but it sat there for a couple months (at least), so I finally decided
to give it a home.
Blast Charge follows Tankor as a bulky military vehicle. However, he looks like he'd be
faster than Tankor since he had wheels instead of treads. However, the wheels don't roll all
that well. At first I thought it was because his robot arms scrapped the ground, but it's
just because they aren't all that great as wheels. Too much friction (especially the rear wheels,
which have springs inside them) makes for bad wheels.
Blast Charge also has a few gimmicks in vehicle mode, and, get this, they don't get in the
way of the mode! First one is a simple rotating turret when you spin a wheel on the rear of the
vehicle mode. Next is the missile firing mechanism (more on that in a second), and finally you
have an extendo front thingie which makes the front of the vehicle (the chrome part) extend forward
and bend to the left and right. It kinda reminds me of deluxe Jetstorm's cockpit.
Ah, and the missile launcher. Well, he comes with three missiles, and they each fit into a
hole in the gun, but there's only one trigger and only one fires at a time. Not only that but the
two side missiles will never fire. Harsh. Just kinda annoyed me, though there's less of a chance
of them getting launched into some place where only they can fit (as missiles often do), though the
trigger isn't very touchy, so I would have liked to have three.
Transformation is actually pretty hard. I attempted it without the instructions and it took
me a bit longer than I expected and a bit of fumbling before I got it to set right. The transformation
is probably the best part of the toy in fact.
You get a somewhat weird looking robot in the end. He has a huge torso (and a bulky backpack
to match). Add to that his skinny, non-threatening arms, and his very odd looking feet (the designers
opted to make the wheels into his feet rather than having them reside as kibble), as well as his
gun sticking out of his chest, and you get somewhat of an eyesore. Actually, in hindsight, if I
had known his gun would stick out like that (they do a very good job of hiding it on the card),
I wouldn't have bought it. They could have easily made it fold down or detach as well (which would
have made a neat hand gun), but as it is now it looks kinda dumb.
If you want to get rid of it there's a few things you can do. The easiest thing is to
simply rotate the turret when he's in vehicle mode to point behind the vehicle, that way the turret
ends up at his back in robot mode. However, his vehicle bumper gets in the way and he ends up
facing down a little. The other thing you can do is completely remove his head (it pops right off)
and push the turret back. However, taking off his head whenever you transform him can get to be
annoying. What I recommend is taking off his head, then taking off the turret (it's tough to
do, but can be done) and reinstalling it the opposite way. That way you can fix it using the
first trick and his head won't look down if the turret it behind him.
There's also a third wheeled mode which really isn't that good. You unfold and position his
legs do they form wheels for him to roll on. In this mode he succeeds in looking like a gimp.
I don't like it all that much.
Anyways, all in all Blast Charge is somewhat of a disappointment. His ugly robot mode, bad weapon, and
weird chest (and legs) make me kinda wish I'd kept my $7.50. Meh. Can't win them all I suppose.
