Beast Wars Quickstrike
Got this guy in the mail today, and the little guy sure is cool. First off, I have to
say that Japanese toys are way cooler than US ones. This version comes in a box (instead of
on a card) and has a hologram card with it and all kinds of spiffy pictures and stuff. It's
really quite cool.
Anyway, the Fuzor line was a brief and only semisuccessful branch of Beast Wars. Quickstrike
is tough to find and pretty expensive these days because he was the only one along with Silverbolt
to actually appear in the show. He's a basic toy (the smallest available and the one with the
least amount of features), but the coolness is not basic.
In beast mode Quickstrike is mostly a scorpion with the exception of his tail. Where
there would normally be a stinger there is now a cobra head. The major problem with beast
mode is that the beast legs do absolutely nothing, so Quicky ends up flopping around on his
belly. Also, it's just a preference, but the scorpion claws don't rotate, but it's really
not too bad, I've just been spoiled by Scorponok.
His transformation is simple and complex at once. His claws become his feet and his
scorpion legs and cobra head become his arms and 'hands'. Nice to know that his scorpion head
ends up being his robot ass (making him a butthead) as well.
The weird thing is that his cobra head and tail are quite massive. The new arm has
seven ball and socket joints and is longer than the robot is tall. This means he can't
do much with it unless you fold it up a bit. Also it's good to see his feet are large enough
to support him when you stick the cobra head out. Even though he lacks a real hand, he's
still pretty cool, and his massive orange scorpion legs hand works well enough, tough I doubt he'll
be able to ever type himself.
Quickstrike's lone gimmick is the water reservoir in his cobra head which squirts water when
you squeeze it. Pretty cool to have, though it's not like he needed it all that much more
to make it a better toy, it's already quite kickass. Definitely worth the buy.
