Dinobots Striker
I won't go into the history on the brief Dinobots line, as I've covered it before with the
others from the line I reviewed, so we'll just get to the review then.
Okay, well, as can be expected, Striker (who is the only member of the Dinobot line to not
have a horrible name, well, Airraptor's was cool, so one of the only two) is a stegosaurus. And a
very cool one at that. He's brown with red plates and all the robot bits present are a light
blue. Not overly poseable, but his front legs are pretty mobile with hinge knees, ball shoulders and
an upper leg swivel. His rear legs are mounted on a ball joint, and they also have a knee, but it's all
hindered pretty well by the beast mode sides and the feet, which fold up into the back of the rear legs
like Triceradon's, only less elegant (heh, never thought I'd call Triceradon elegant). The plates
on his back only can shift back and fourth a little, but not too much.
All in all I like beast mode a lot. Stegosaurus was always one of my favorite dinosaurs, and it's nice to
have one that's more accurate and less robotic than Snarl, the original Dinobot Stegosaur. Of course, he's
not completely accurate; his head is a bit too large and his tail spikes are way too short, but other
than that he's cool, and I have really no complaints about it. Even the robot kibble sticking
out of his legs doesn't bother me that much.
Oh, by the way, for some reason the designers felt it necessary that his robot mode loin cloth
hang down from a rather inappropriate place in beast mode. Needless to say, Striker is a boy.
There's an undocumented third mode which comes from his Japanese version, named Saberback. It actually
works better with Saberback, given the color of the plates, but you can still pull it off with
Striker. What you do is pop the tail off it's pegged spot, push the spine up so it's perpendicular to
his back. Then push open the trigger (it looks like a plate) until his tail snaps open (and stays). Position it
how you want. Yeah! A dinosaur with a giant flower growing out of his neck! Not very
impressive, and nowhere near as cool as Triceradon's corpse mode. Ah well.
Transformation is nifty and fun, and nice and complex. However, everything is set up so you
can figure it out without the instructions or even looking at the card. One of my friends, who isn't a
transfan was able to figure most of it out herself with no assistance from me, which just goes
to show how well everything fits together once you crack open the beast shell.
Robot mode is very cool and has a sort of Aztec thing going on (right down
to the head dress made of his back plates). He also wears the stego skull around his neck, which is a
neat touch (the skull kinda freaked me out the first time I saw it, as in beast mode is resides pretty much
in the head of the dinosaur). His poseability is also very nice, with excellent arms (ball shoulders,
upper arm swivel and a hinge elbow). His legs are a bit more limited as the thigh ball joints are a
bit limited and he lacks upper leg swivels. Also his ankles are hindered by his odd, snowshoeish
feet.
Also, where many Beast Wars Neo toys (that's what line Saberback came from) had major problems
in robot mode with their beast kibble (Bazooka, Mach Kick, Big Convoy are just the ones I have, and I'm
sure there are many more), Striker's actually adds to his look. His beast ribs hang at his hips, which
is very common practice, and the rest of his beast sides (including the head) rest at his shoulders and
extend far above his head. Now, that may sound sort of weird, and I'll admit it is, but it works
quite well. Very neat looking.
Also Striker can hold his tail/flower thingy as a weapon. It's not very threatening looking, though it
does snap shut with some force, so I suppose Stampy isn't a big Saberback fan, but that's his
problem.
All in all, Striker is a very cool toy. His beast mode is stellar, his robot mode very cool, though it
has a few poseability issues in both modes, but I can overlook that just because I like his robot
mode a lot. Flower mode is weird, but it doesn't take anything away from it. Overall, if you
can find one, then pick it up, he's very cool.