Another one of Soundwave's cassettes becomes an Alternator, and this time it's Rumble. Rumble's a Honda Civic, and he's pretty par for the course as far as Alternator's vehicle modes go-- in other words, near-flawless. He's got all the features you've come to expect from Alternators-- adjustable seats and steering wheel, an openable trunk, hood, and side doors, and rubber tires, near-perfect realism. Rumble also has a cool Hawaii license plate with his name on it. There is one thing about this mode that bugs me, though, and that's that Rumble robot head is clearly visible behind the front seats. On a mainline Transformer, this wouldn't be a big deal, but considering that the Alternator's main pull is its unparalleled realistic vehicle modes, this is simply unacceptable.
    Rumble's transformation is really simple for an Alternator, being barely more complicated than most mainline toys. In robot mode, Rumble has rather unique proportions for an Alternator, with large, bulky arms and relatively short legs. Those are also the two problems I have with this mode-- his legs really should have been longer, and though I don't mind the large upper arms as much, he really needs hands, or something. The piledrivers are pretty cool for some rumblin' action, and beyond just moving up and down loosely, they can be locked in place in the upper arms and then a button can be pressed to have them "pound outwards" pretty quickly. There should have been some kind of switcheroo for the lower arms to actually give him hands, though, as having solely piledrivers for arms just doesn't cut it. His mold and paint detailing is great, though, especially the chest, which is definitely an homage to Rumble's G1 cassette tape form. The head is also excellently detailed, though because of the way his chin is slanted in most light it reflects off of that chin and makes Rumble look like he has an odd smiley face, even though his actual mouth is closed and set in a rather serious expression. The color scheme goes pretty well together, with the brownish gray, black, and greenish gold all complementing each other and the dark red color surprisingly well. It's not particularly eye-catching, but it works and is pretty realistic, as an Alternator's colors should be. Rumble has the same back-mounted guns that his G1 form had, thoguh they're smaller proportionally this time around and, since he has no hands, can't really be placed anywhere except on his back. A neat homage, but still an odd placement for guns. Rumble has fairly good articulation-- he can move at the head, shoulders (at two points), waist, hips (at two points), knees (at two points), and backwards at the ankles. You can get him into a fair number of poses, though the fact that the back of his lower legs are mostly hollow make a little less table than he otherwise would have been. His car door "samurai skirt", while pretty cool-looking, also can interfere with movement a tad.
    Alternator Rumble is one of the least impressive Alternators, with a visible head in vehicle mode and some odd proportions in robot mode. He's hardly a bad toy, however, and is certainly one of the most unique Alternators to date, with a nice piledriver gimmick and a nice homage to his G1 self with his cassette tape-chest.

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Review by Beastbot

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