(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 Generations Sergeant Kup. For a review on the mold itself, read the review of Generations Sergeant Kup here.)

    Hoist follows his Machine Wars version in looking vastly different from what you'd generally consider to be Hoist, with his color scheme primarily black and dark fuchsia. On the original MW toy, there was way too much black, though, which resulted in a boring-looking toy; not so on this version. A lot of the fuchsia comes out in robot mode, and it goes pretty darned well with the black (which is a swirly, semi-metallic charcoal shade of the color; all things considered, it looks a bit more like a black "finish" on a truck than regular black plastic). It's also quite an original color scheme. To really make Hoist pop, though, the Botcon folks extended the original MW toys' orange-and-red striping across the entire sides of the toy and through the hood, dividing it roughly into thirds. In robot mode, these orange-and-red paint apps end up on the sides of the chest; combined with a similar paint app on the center part of Hoist's waist, this rather ingeniously makes it look like Hoist is wearing suspenders and a belt in robot mode, which is perfect for his character. He's also got similar paint apps on his knee caps, to give the legs some color. There's also some silver paint on the real windows on the truck and the fake windows on Hoist's robot chest, both of which look pretty good as an accent color against the other shades. (A slight oddity is that Hoist's silver paint on his truck windows is on the INSIDE-- this actually fits with his original MW toy, though.) There's also some silver on the backside of the headlights, a fuchsia front bumper, and some red paint on the tailights. In fitting with the original toy's "Wilk and Son Towing" emblem, Hoist has a curvy "W&S Towing" emblem near the back end of each side of the truck, and it looks pretty good.
    Hoist does have a new headsculpt, though it's one of the weakest parts of this toy; the actual details themselves are solid enough, but beyond a faceplate, the four little dots on the forehead, and the little fuchsia stripe down the center, it doesn't look like MW Hoist's head. No visor or rounded top. This facesculpt was definitely made for his fellow Botcon exclusive Electro first. Additionally, in an unfortunate assembly error, Hoist's shoulders are on the wrong sides, which is not easily fixable unless you're comfortable pulling out pins. It's generally not that big of a deal-- he's still a fully functional toy-- but his arms do look slightly more awkward because of this.
    Hoist is about middle-of-the-road for the Botcon 2013 boxset. It's a good, solid deco on a good mold-- with some ingenious "suspenders" paint apps-- but the head is ill-fitting for the character, and-- even though the fiction explains it-- the lack of being an actual tow truck is another strike against the toy actually looking enough like MW Hoist. The color scheme is awesome, but the mold suitability is a bit questionable.

Review by Beastbot

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