Optimal Optimus

I wasn't going to get this one, due to its large price tag ($40 at KB Toy Works), but after seeing Optimal Optimus in action on the show, I couldn't resist. I must say, he's actually pretty cool (despite the majority of negative reviews I've seen).

First off, OpOp's box is friggin huge. Biggest Beast Wars box as far as I know (though TM2 Megs may be the same size, I've never seen it). However, this mainly accounts for the fact that his gorilla arms are in the air. Speaking of which, his gorilla mode. It's pretty cool I suppose, though it'd have been nice if he had a better look on his face. He looks like he's taking a monster dump (or whatever Transformers do). Also his arm shields have a very large tendency to pop off with no provoking, which, needless to say, is quite annoying. He also have problems with the hunched over Gorilla mode; since his head cannot look up, he ends up looking at the ground.

Transformation is somewhat tricky, but there really is little to be done. Rotate his top half 180 degrees, rotate his blue shoulder blades and screw with his gun which is mounted on a very complicated joint. I'd even go as far to say that the said joint is more complicated than the rest of the robot. Very frail looking too, I'm amazed I haven't broken it yet.

Ah, actually, I think I'll review his two vehicle modes first since they are pretty easy to get to from beast mode. First, ground assault mode. Simple as hell. Essentially you need to lay the gorilla on his stomach making sure the wheels in his chest is outside of his body. Flip the wheels on his legs down and fold out the cockpit and ta-da. I still haven't been able to get the hands all nicely folded up like in the pictures, so I assume this was a mold change, though I can't imagine why.

This mode leaves something to be desired since it almost looks like the designers threw the extra mode in there as an afterthought (same goes for jet mode). Also it has problems staying together, and the wheels either tend to hit the ground or tend to hit other parts of the robot. Yeesh.

Getting him to air attack mode is pretty simple. Just stick his arms out and fold the wheels in. You can also leave them out for landing gear of sorts, though the front wheel makes the jet look kind of stupid, but that's just me. At any rate, this mode really leaves something to be desired as it is (really) the gorilla on his stomach with a few slight mods. Boo.

In robot mode OpOp is actually pretty cool. Here's damn tall (he towers over all other Beast Wars toys), and has some spiffy laser lights for his eyes and guns (though, sadly, the screw on mine is well jammed in there and I can't get it out) and fires two very large, and very clear missiles. Be sure to keep track of these, they're tough to find when they fire off in random directions.

Ahh, so, OpOp has some good stuff going for him, and some not so good stuff. His vehicle modes aren't so amazing, but his robot and gorilla modes are pretty cool and I guess kinda make up for the bad vehicle modes. Also, if you're interested, you can make a pretty cool mech warrior out of him in robot mode if you hide his robot head and flip up the cockpit so it's parallel with the ground. Simple, but pretty nifty.

Okay, so, yes, cool, but worth the price tag? Not really. I paid $30 because I work at the store chain I got it from (25% off), but otherwise I wouldn't have paid $40 for the danged thing. $30 is decent I suppose, though you can get one for $20 or less on eBay, which is even nicer. It's all up to you, really.