Beast Wars Neo Bazooka
Okay, I'm finally going to do it. I'm going to review Bazooka. I got him on Friday
from Big Bad Toy Store along with four others, but I was scared to review him since it would
mean I need to transform him out of beast mode. I've done so twice and each time getting
him back took longer than it should have for such a small toy.
But first, beast mode! Okay, Bazooka is an Ankylosaurus, which I remember being
my favorite dinosaur back in like first grade. I had a red one made by Playskool which I
took with me everywhere. I had others of course, but this one was my favorite. When I saw
there was a Transformer with that as an alt mode, I had to get it.
Of course there's not much poseability in the way of beast mode. But then again, how
many Transformers are there with poseable beast modes? Besides, what could they give him, a ball
jointed tail maybe, but that's about it. Annoying however, is the preposed position he's in.
Like Cybershark 2 he's got a perpetual 'turning left' thing going for him. He pulls it off
better than Cybershark 2 however, probably because he doesn't flop apart when you put him on
the ground.
Amazingly enough, this basic has two action features. The first one kind of sucks though.
There's a dark gray spike on one side of his face, and if you push forward on it his mouth
opens. The problem is it's not executed too well. First off his mouth opens maybe two milimeters,
if you're lucky, and second his head isn't pegged into his body in any way, and pushing that
lever is a nice way to dislodge it all.
The second gimmick is beter. Push up on his tail until there's a click, then push down on
another gray spike his back (actually it's more of a 'pull out' action) and his tail will
swing down and clobber whoever happens to be under it. Neat. In this mode his tail also
holds his weapon (an axe) which actually becomes one of the spikes on his tail.
Ugh, now I have to transform him. I would do everything out of memory, but I still haven't
taken a picture of robot mode. Oh well, here goes. Okay, essentially there's not too much to
getting him from beast to robot. Like Mach Kick you just break open the beast shell and position the
robot parts. The problem is getting him back to robot mode. I'll get into that later though.
Now, if you thought Mach Kick was a shell former to the extreme, you haven't seen anything
yet. Mach Kick at least has his shell break up into bits that could be considered armor, but
Bazooka just has his beast mode shell break and half and then they hang off his back. In fact,
the only integral parts of his beast mode that come into play for robot mode is one of his rear
legs which houses his right hand (and becomes his right forearm) and the beast head which becomes
his hand, as seems to be the trend with a lot of dinosaur TFs.
Robot mode is pretty cool looking, but it doesn't look overly robotic. In fact there's
little mechanical detailing anywhere. There's a honeycomb design on the inside of one of his
shells, but that's about it. He is quite poseable, however, I wish his robot head was able to
turn a little more. As it is there's some stuff in the way which only allows him to look a few
milimeters from side to side. Also the ball joint his head is on is kind of fickle and it can
fall back into his cavernous backside.
Bazooka is also pretty tiny. While his beast mode looks to make him to be bigger than a
basic (a deluxe that's really pushing it), his robot mode is no taller than Stampy, but with
chunks of Ankylosaurus hanging from his shoulders.
Okay, now to transform him back. Let me time myself. My clock says 4:50 right now, so
I'll transform him and see. 4:54. Hm, only around four minutes. I must be getting better.
Though that's still quite long. Crap, I didn't do it right. Back to the drawing board. Sheesh.
Well, I suppose you get my point. Anyway, the problem is it's not really so much a transformation
as it is a 'shove his limbs inside the shell and hope it all snaps together right' thing. I dunno.
Still, his robot mode looks cool, as does his beast mode if you can get him back into it.
Overall, he's cool, he just loses points for the pain in the ass factor. I wouldn't pay
more than $10 for one though.
