Beast Machines Obsidian
Well, originally I was planning on buying the upcoming RID repaint of Obsidian, but once
I saw the color scheme, which was oddly cowish (as in, it reminds me of a damn cow), I decided it
would be better to pick up the original green color schemed one. I saw an auction on eBay that also
included Scavenger and Mirage and snapped it up. Joy.
So in vehicle mode Obsidian is a Osprey VTOL copter plane thingie. Well, not exactly, as with
all Vehicons, he's stylized a little, though it's still pretty close to being a VTOL aside from
the stylizing. As I pointed out the color scheme is shades of green with blue and orange accents.
The upcoming release, while it will probably be easier to find, will be white and brownish (desert camouflage) with
light orange, almost yellow transparent parts (check out the review on BWTF for the
skinny, Ben got one before the release). That said, on to the real reviewing!
Okay, so vehicle mode is pretty cool looking. Of course it has the odd Vehicon thing where it
looks like it has eyes and a head, and his head even moves around. Actually, the instructions don't even state it,
but you can extend the entire cockpit out in a very Jetstorm-esq move. And it's actually a lot
more poseable than deluxe Jetstorm's cockpit is. it can look in any direction, though it
has troubles with left and right, plus it can rotate and the inside part of the cockpit
can also rotate. To add to that, there's a nifty little gun thing that's on a hinge joint, plus it
can aim pretty much any way thanks to the cockpit. Sweet stuff.
Another part worthy of your time in vehicle mode is the rotors. They not only spin, but they're
mounted on ball joints so they can rotate completely around and even shift outwards and inwards a bit as
well. Ah yes, and they fire! That's neat, I think. They work like Mirage's missiles with the
'push a ball through a small hole' thing, but they're pretty heavy and not very sleek, so they don't
fire very far, but, that's not really a complaint. Vehicle mode is quite cool.
Transformation is the simple. The simple. Yes. Essentially, grasp the wing and gun mechanism (that turns
into his arm) in one hand, then grab the tail and pull down on it. A little gearing mechanism
will fold him right in half and do the majority of the transforming for you. The only thing you
need to do is unfold the arms, position the head and fiddle with the feet and legs a bit.
In robot mode you have two choices. You can go for the legged mode, or the more show-accurate
hover mode. Yep, he's got a hover mode like Jetstorm, only Obsidian can stand in his hover mode. Hover
mode is way better than legged mode, if for no other reason than his legs, frankly, suck. They're
very thin and out of place, and not very poseable. Actually, come to think of it, none of him is
overly poseable. He has some nifty elbows, but his shoulders are severely limited by the nature of the ball joint
as well as the wings positioned only a few millimeters above his shoulders. His head is pretty poseable, so there.
Also the rotor missile things still work in this mode, and you can even aim then forward for some
nasty hand to hand combat. I suppose he has to though, since he doesn't have any hands. Of course, he has the
most suitable replacement for hands in the Transformers universe. Guns. Cardinal rule, if you don't have hands,
you'd better have some kind of gun on at least one of them to make up for it.
By the way, pushing his rotors forward throws off his center of gravity a little, but the big foot spurs made by
the rear rudders (or whatever the official name is) are pretty good at supporting him. Also odd is the big
piece of kibble sticking out of his back. It would have been nice if they had made this fold down, but you
can't win 'em all I guess.
All in all, Obsidian is a pretty cool toy. Grabbing one on eBay (or an online store) will probably set you back
around $7 before shipping, and he's worth it, but you may want to wait for the RID repaint if you can
stand the color scheme as it'll only set you back five bucks. All in all a nifty toy though.
