Sparkplug

Allegiance: Minicon
Size: Mini-Con
Difficulty of Transformation: Easy
Color Scheme: Flat yellow, light gray, very dark purple, and some black and silver
Rating: 6.1

    Vehicle mode is a sportscar. This mode is very.... yellow... but still pretty good. No robot extras at all, and a nice, solid mold, with lots of good mold "tech" detailing. The paint detailing, though, is another story- there's absolutely none of it in this mode except for the windows- which, instead of being painted the sensible black, are actually painted a very dark shade of purple. Er... what? Since when do cars have purple windows? Anyway, the Minicon port is on the underside of this mode, slightly to the rear of center. The Minicon symbol is smack dab in the center of the car's roof.
    Sparkplug's robot mode wouldn't be that bad, if it wasn't for one glaring problem: his feet look so STUPID. What is he, a clown? 'Cause that's how big and long his feet are. Not to mention the wheels on the bottom of them look a little goofy in this mode, and they cause him to lean forward slightly. Considering how big his feet are, you'd think that his legs would be a little longer to sort of blend the proportions a bit, but they're rather short compared to Sparkplug's big chest and feet. He looks like some kinda dwarf, here. (Well, okay, he's a Minicon, but you get what I'm saying.) Sparkplug has a nice face, but that one patch of silver paint doesn't bring out the good detailing that well- yes, he still suffers from a lack of paint apps in this mode, too. At least his look all right, even if the fists are a bit small... Oh, and Sparkplug has articulation in his shoulders, elbows, and feet. No leg articulation at all, meh.
    Sparkplug has a pretty cool vehicle mode, but his robot mode has very odd proportions, what with the big feet and chest and short legs. He also suffers from a severe lack of paint detailing. He's slightly under average as Minicons go.

Optimus Prime (Super Base)

Allegiance: Autobot
Size: Super Base (~$40 U.S.)
Difficulty of Transformation: Hard
Color Scheme: Light gray, dark blue, silver, brick red, black, dull gold, dark green-blue, and some transparent plastic, white, mustard brown, and red
Powerlinx ports: 13 (2 gimmicked)
Rating: 6.9

*2018 UPDATE/BUYER BEWARE: After several years, the dull gold plastic on Armada Optimus Prime has shown reports of mild-to-moderate Gold Plastic Syndrome (crumbling). Be aware of this when purchasing this toy.*

    Vehicle mode is a futuristic monster truck with a trailer. This mode is decent, but there's two rather major problems it has. For one, the "trailer" is pretty questionable. It just looks like a bunch of panels of... stuff... crushed together into a rectangular prism. Whee. All of those panel-tops coming out of the front side of the trailer don't help much, either, although at least that small machine gun emplacement coming out of the center looks a little cool... The second main problem is that the cab has the golden super robot fists sticking VERY blatantly out of the back. Having the trailer on masks this a little, but if you have the cab by itself... uigh. Besides that, the cab part of the truck itself looks pretty cool, with some nice all-around detailing, and some cool silver "swipes" done on the hood. Prime's got a very wiiide cab, here- in fact, if it were any wider, it would look goofy. The wheels are nicely treaded (albeit smooth enough where they don't roll very well), and they have "Monster Prime Convoy" engraved on them- no doubt his Prime's Japanese name. Prime has very short smokestacks made of clear plastic, which always manage to fall off if you so much as touch them. I cannot TELL you how annoying this gets, ugh. And although the transparent plastic used for the windows is nice, it kinda blatantly shows off the electronics inside... Prime has no gimmicks in this mode, but he does have four static Powerlinx ports on the top of his trailer.
    When you transform Prime into his regular robot mode (shown above), something extraordinary happens- the cab sends a radio signal to the trailer (if you have it switched on), which folds out into a base for Minicons (shown below)! Unfortunately, this doesn't always work 100% of the time on mine- more like 80% of the time- so you sometimes have to "re-transform" Prime to get it to work. I've been told that this has been fixed in later batches of the toy.
    As for the regular robot mode, it's probably the coolest mode of the toy. It's very distinctly Prime-ish, with the standard face, color scheme, and, of course, alt mode. It's also very distinctly original in its design. Nice, broad shoulders give way to big blue fists, and he almost has a samurai-esque "skirt" around his waist. There's also some neat details molded in- open up his grill chest to reveal a MATRIX inside! (No, sorry, you can't take it out.) Prime can hold his main "big" gun in this mode, and a smaller gun made up of his smokestacks. Nifty. Prime also has a cool "talking" gimmick- push down on a tab on his head and his mouthplate moves, heheh. Unfortunately, Prime is rather unarticulated for such a large toy- his head, shoulders, elbows (at two points), and knees can move, but all of them can only move in one direction except for the latter. Not to mention that his legs cannot seperate without triggering the base auto-transformation, which is pretty annoying. He has limited forward-to-center hip movement as well, but it still leaves him rather brick-like for such a large toy. Oddly enough, Prime has no Minicon-activated gimmicks in this mode. He has three Minicon ports on his body- one on the lower part of his left leg and two on his, er, butt- but they're all static. I guess it's to show that Prime doesn't use the Minicons as slaves, but as helpers for his base, I guess.

    Speaking of the base mode, well, there it is. And no, you're not seeing things- it looks like a bunch of splayed out panels, which is exactly what it is. Hardly a convincing "base". But then again, trailer bases rarely are. Anyways, appearances aside, this thing's got gimmicks galore. It's got some static Minicon ports here and there, but two actually do something- the one under the mutli-level part of the base, if you slide the Minicon attached to it backwards, activated a firing sound. Why, I have no idea. So, um, moving on... If you place a Minicon on the gray Powerlinx port behind and to the right of the multi-level platform, a little gun pops up a couple inches away! It rotates around, and it's cool. On the "leg panel" part of the base, one of the legs has a missile launcher that rotates up and can fire a missile. The other one can't do become a missile launcher, presumably because of cost-cutting measures. As for the other two "wings" of the base, both of them have a chamber that you can store Minicons with wheels in, and them launch them out via a lever (well, in one case, on the other case you just open the door and push it out). Speaking of which, for a $40 toy, this sure does have an awful lot of cost-cutting measures in it... Anyway, the top floor of the multi-level portion of the base has a flip-out platform with a machine gun on it, with a little place for you to put Minicons on it. Or rather, you COULD put Minicons on it, if the thing didn't sag under their weight and have them fall to the ground almost every time because of it. *sigh* Oh, and you can put Optimus in the middle of this thing and attach his gun to the top of the platform. Press down on a buttom next to a transparent read-out display at the center of the base, and a "chhhtransform" sound will emit from the base, and a light will blink.
    And now, transform the Optimus' regular form into the top part of the Super robot form, and the trailer will automatically change into... pants? Yes, the trailer transforms into pants for Prime! Well, okay, so the auto-transformation doesn't work that well this time... it usually gets stuck, so you have to manually hold it up while it the trailer completes the transformation... and only the auto-transformation only works about 30% of the time on mine, although I've been told that it's been fixed in later releases... and, oh, yeah, the thing FALLS APART WHEN YOU CONNECT THE REST OF PRIME TO IT. Yes, that's right, this whole freakin' huge trailer is only kept together by two little tiny pegs, so the thing collapses in on itself if you try to connect the cab portion to it without holding the trailer together manually as you do the link up. And if you do much of anything with Prime in this mode, he collapses in on himself as well. So you're pretty much stuck with a bad-looking statue in this mode- and statue it is. His legs can't move at all, and neither can his waist. His shoulders have VERY limited movement, as well. So basically only his head and elbows have unrestricted movement. How fun. Well, once you finally manage to get Prime stable in this mode, you realize something- it's not worth it. Prime looks like crud. His legs are immovable wide blocks of stuff, and he has a huge hollow place in between the two parts of his upper back. His shoulders aren't solid-looking at all, and his regular robot hands just stick out of the back unceremoniously. And although is light-up fist gimmick works by pressing the buttom on his right shoulder, it can't light up the Star Sabre all the way, which is what it was DESIGNED to do. Although it does light up his guns alright... And if you press the Autobot symbol on his chest, one of three things will happen: 1. He'll collapse in on himself again because you touched him. 2. Nothing will happen. 3. Occasionally, a "transform" sound will activate, but this only happens if you have everything juuuust right and you make sure not to put too much pressure on poor ol' delicate Prime. So, um, there goes that gimmick.... Well, at least Prime's face and arms look cool. That's all I really can say positive about this mode, though...
    Poor Armada Prime. Great idea, bad carrying out of said idea. The auto-transformation gimmick may be fun to watch a couple of times, but you'll quickly find out that it is NOT worth it. Every single mode of this toy suffers from it: The vehicle mode has a cruddy-looking trailer; the base mode looks like a splayed-out pair of pants; the regular robot mode has poor articulation because of the various buttons and transformation sequences needed in it to produce the auto-transformation of the trailer; and don't even get me started on the super robot mode. At least his mold and paint detailing is great, and his regular robot mode is pretty good if you ignore his limited articulation. I expected a toy with FIXED problems when I pay $40 for it, and I didn't get it with this one. Unless you really like the auto-transformation gimmick or his combining ability, I'd get the smaller Super-Con version instead.

Review by Beastbot

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