Ironhide
(Botcon 2005 Exclusive)
(NOTE: Because this is a repaint, this is not a full-blown review. This mainly covers any changes made to the mold and the color scheme, and merely compares it to Energon Tow-Line. For a review on the mold itself, read the review of Energon Tow-Line here.)
G1 Ironhide's back, and
in a new form! The Tow-Line mold was practically meant to be Ironhide from
the get-go, and now it finally has a chance to be. This is doubly cool
for Ironhide given that his G1 toy never had a proper robot mode, just
a van folded open into a "battle station". Besides just a straight repaint
of Tow-Line, Ironhide also has a new head, with some very good mold detailing
and a nice, G1-accurate silver face. There's a little head crest design
on the forehead, but it was clearly meant to be used on the Autobot
Ratchet repaint exclusive at the same convention, so it's not painted
and not very noticeable on this toy. The color scheme of gray, red, black,
and blue is also very G1-accurate. However... and this is a big "however"...
there's definitely too much red, and not enough accent colors. His trailer,
except for the middle section and the tread-feet, is almost entirely red.
His robot mode isn't as bad, as he does have a decent amount of gray paint
detailing. Still, he really needs another main plastic color besides just
all that red, since most of the other colors used to break up the red a
little come from paint apps. It's especially bad in vehicle mode, where
only a little gray stripe breaks up all the red on the sides. Also, I'm
not sure if this is a side effect of slow mold degradation from re-uses
for production or not, but the piece on the back of Ironhide's robot mode
that holds the two halves of his body together isn't as tight as on Tow-Line,
so his chest may flap around slightly. It's not too bad, but it is worth
pointing out.
It's nice to see this
mold get made into good ol' Ironhide, but looking at the toy from a purely
color-combo standpoint, I can't in good conscience give Ironhide a higher
score than Tow-Line. This toy simply doesn't have enough different colors
on it to make it really visually interesting.
Review by Beastbot