Booster
X10
Booster's alternate mode
is a portable micro mp3 player and a headphone. It's just about the right
scale, if slightly wider than an actual micro player would be, but overall
proportionally this mode is perfect. There's no robot extras whatsoever,
too, which is always nice. The light red and black color scheme isn't very
original, but it does go together very well, and the silver and transparent
orange make great accent colors, so no problems there either. I do have
to admit that, as flawless as this mode is from a design perspective, it
is rather boring. None of hte large buttons on the front of the micro mp3
player can be pushed in, and unlike on the the other Real Gear toys, Booster
doesn't have a fake "display screen" paint app, just a transparent orange
window that actually shows you just the bottom of the bird head and neck.
That's really a bummer, as if only that had been covered up with a nice
fake display screen, this mode would have been much better and more convincing,
in my opinion. I'm also minorly irked that the headphone can't attach to
the mp3 player portion of Booster in any way in this mode-- maybe being
attached to the mp3 player portion by a "cord" of black string would have
been preferable to it just being a seperate piece completely.
Booster's bird mode
is where it's at, though. Not only is it a completely different "robot
mode" than the other Real Gear toys, making it more unique, but considering
the overall aesthetics and color scheme, it's definitely a homage to G1
Laserbeak, a bird who transformed into a tape cassette. There's also
no real alternate mode extras that don't fit seemlessly into the look of
this mode-- the halves of the mp3 player "shell" make great wings, as does
the bottom third of it make a great "tail feather" piece. Making the headphone
a big back-mounted gun was also a really cool idea as well. The detailing
on the bird head is pefect, with the gold eyes slitted and making it look
rather evil. Using the transparent orange plastic for the feathers also
gives Booster a bit of a "fiery" touch, which is pretty darn cool, too.
The bird proportions are also pretty accurate, too-- small feet, large
wings, etc. Booster's articulation is also rahter good for a toy of this
size and shape-- he can move at the base of the neck, the upper legs, the
knees, the ankles, the base of the wings (at two points), and about halfway
up each wing. That last point of articulation is rather limited, though--
the wings can fold up, but they can't open farther than they're shown in
the picture above.
Booster X10 is a great,
unique Real Gear toy with an AWESOME bird mode. His somewhat dull, unconvincing
mp3 player mode (with no display screen!) is the only thing keeping him
from getting a "must buy" rating of 9.0+, though even then the mp3 player
is perfect proportionally and has no bird mode extras at all.
Review by Beastbot