Lockdown's vehicle mode is one of the most chibi-fied of the Bumper Battlers, which extremely exaggerated proportions even for a toy from this subline. The windows are high proportionally, the bumper's huge, and the rear half of the car is much wider overall than it was on the deluxe toy, with no "skinnying out" of the car in the middle. Still, for the kiddie aesthetic that the Bumper Battlers have going for them, it works. Being an Animated toy, the mold detailing is fairly minimal, though like most other Bumper Battlers, Lockdown has plenty of paint apps in vehicle mode to keep things from getting boring-- the light green near the front and the silver tailpipes and spikes look particularly nice against the black, as do the light metallic windows, which not only look fairly "window-ish" (Boy, I'm making up words all over the place in this review, aren't I?), but also make Lockdown look a bit more eeevil given the color. I also love Lockdown's name imprint on the rear sides of his vehicle mode-- the "N" looks like upside-down devil horns, which of course is appropriate for Lockdown. That said, the rear part of the vehicle mode could use a few more paint apps-- particularly on the rear window and the rear bumper (where only the taillights are painted). Like all Bumper Battlers, pressing down on the Decepticon symbol on the front of Lockdown's vehicle mode will activate anywhere from 1-4 sequential sound effects which are played out in a semi-randomized manner. There's a ton of different ordered sound effects you can get out of the toy, and they're never played in a manner that doesn't make any sense. I'm pretty sure it's not actually Lance Hendrikson doing the voice for Lockdown for the toy, but it's someone who does a darned good impression of him, at least. Here's a list of all the different sound effects I got out of Bumper Battler Lockdown after a couple dozen button/bumper presses (though again, with the vast number of different random ordering of sound effects he has, I may have missed a few):
-Transforming sound
-Engine revving sound
-Crashing sound
-Tires squealing sound
-Growl
-Grunt
-"Grappling hook deployed" sound
-"Grappling hook hitting something" sound
-"They call me Lockdown."
-"I'm a bounty hunter."
-"You're going down." (sometimes followed by "Autobot")
-"Who's gonna stop me?" (sometimes followed by "You?")
-"You couldn't stop an oil leak."
-"That all you got?" (sometimes followed by "Autobot")
    As with all Bumper Battlers, Lockdown's "robot mode" merely involves pressing in on the front bumper, which lifts up the top part of the vehicle mode to reveal detailing of the upper half of his robot mode on the under side (and also activates a few sound effects in the process). The mold and paint detailing is very well-done on Lockdown's "robot parts"-- all of the relevant details are there, from the silver face markings to the spikes to his chest detailing-- but it's made up of a relatively small piece of his vehicle mode, so it looks rather crammed into its space. In addition, none of Lockdown's robot parts can move at all-- no head or wrist swivel, nothing. One cool detail, however, is that the large unpainted portion of the vehicle mode that shows up underneath the robot mode panel that pops up for robot mode actually has some pretty cool mold detailing on it-- there's intricately detailed bolts, chains, and a skull shift-stick wedged in there, and it all looks really neat and is a nice touch.
    Overall, Bumper Battler Lockdown is about middle-of-the-road as far as Bumper Battlers go-- as expected, he's got a very nice color scheme and quite a few paint apps, but his robot mode detailing is rather squished in. Still, if you've got a little 'un who likes Animated but isn't old enough to transform the big boy toys yet, and he loves Lockdown, well, it's a match made in Heaven. Or at least Purgatory.

Review by Beastbot

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