Optimus Prime finally makes his debut as an Alternator, and as a Dodge Ram SRT-10 pickup truck! This is definitely the largest Alternator to date (though it's still in the $20 price range)-- it so big, in fact, that even with a widened bubble, it still just barely fits in the package. Of course, considering that he's a pickup truck in the same scale as the Alternators, this larger size is certainly expected, but still appreciated. The truck mode has a very realistic, yet still somewhat "Prime-y", color scheme of red and black. It's nothing too exciting, mind you, but you can't really expect too many colors on a realistic vehicle mode. Prime has all the features you've come to expect from the Alternators line-- adjustable seats, movable steering wheel, the two wheels move as one, and the like. The flap at the rear of the truck bed can also open up, though the thin plastic rims above said flap somewhat limit what you can slide in there. It's still a cool feature, though. One thing that does bug me about this vehicle mode, however, is that it's EXTREMELY hard to get everything to fit together just right. Either the side doors don't quite mesh up with the sides, or the trunk and front bumpers don't fit seamlessly with their surrounding parts, or both. It does get rather aggravating.
    In robot mode, Optimus Prime looks like little more than a mess, quite frankly. His face sculpt looks very good, and his rifle looks very good and has an original transformation. Oh, and the added blue really helps the color scheme and makes him look more Prime-y than he did in his vehicle mode. That's about where the positives end in this mode, sadly. The lower legs are way too long and thick compared to the upper legs-- Optimus does have good articulation in the hips and knees, but those joints are so close together he might as well have just had articulation at one point or the other. His chest piece also doesn't lock into anything at all, and the grill piece in front of the waist both inhibits waist articulation and is oddly flipped backwards so that the unsightly bolts on the backside of the piece are visible instead of the nifty truck grill. The sides of the truck hood and the front bumper pieces also just hang off the top of the shoulders and don't clip together to look like anything solid, and the doors on the sides of the arms are too wide to really work at accentuating the mode. The actual shoulders themselves are too tiny when compared to the larger lower arms, and although Prime has two points of articulation in the shoulders, two at the elbows, and one at the wrist, all the kibble on his arms severely limits that movement. The major points of articulation Prime has that AREN'T inhibited by kibble are the usual "index finger as one piece, the other fingers as another piece" Alternator hand articulation, and his head, which can swivel from side to side.
    Beyond the fact that he's the biggest Alternator to date, Alternator Optimus simply doesn't live up to the great toy a leader should be. In fact, though he has a nice vehicle mode just like all of the toys in the line, his robot mode is actually the poorest of any of the Alternators to date! Not recommended unless you're an Optimus or a Alternator completist.

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Review by Beastbot

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