Armorhide
(Cybertron)
Armorhide's vehicle mode
is a truck cab. This mode looks pretty good, with spot-on proportions and
wonderful paint detailing-- using two different colors for the headlights
on such a small toy is unexpected, but appreciated. The silver steak paint
apps on the sides and top help to break up all of the blue on the main
body of the truck rather well. The mold detailing of bolts and panels on
the truck body also looks pretty good as well, in addition to the rugged-looking
tires and the many vents on the front side. The color scheme of blue, gray,
and white goes together very nicely, and it's not so overdone as to be
boring, either. There are a few minor robot extras in this mode, however--
for one thing, it's rather obvious that the truck bed are the robot arms
joined together, as you can see the fists and the ball joints used for
the elbows quite plainly, and also there's a bit of a gap between the truck
bed and the main body of the truck. In addition, it's rather obvious that
the tow-crane hanging from the rear of the truck is the gun in robot mode.
One thing that IS good about the gun/crane, however, is that it can hold
Armorhide's Cyber Key when it's not in use-- definitely a feature far more
Cybertron figures should have.
One quick note about
Armorhide's transformation-- there's a step that the instructions don't
mention. After you unfold the legs, slide the lower leg halves outward
at the knees- this helps the legs look a little better.
Armorhide's robot mode
isn't quite as good as his vehicle mode, but it has some very good positives--
he has good articulation for one, as he can move at the head, shoulders,
elbows, hips, and knees, and nearly all of these are on ball joints. Given
that he has no back kibble or anything like that, you can get a good number
of poses out of him. His head sculpt is also superb, and very detailed--
in fact, it's a near-duplicate of G1 Huffer's head, and given the similar
alt mode, Armorhide is probably an intended homage to the aforementioned
G1 toy. Armorhide's gun looks fairly cool (now that it's not trying to
pass itself off as a tow-crane arm), even though it doesn't fire any missiles.
My main problem with the robot mode is the discrepancy in proportion between
his head, chest, and legs-- his head is way too small in comparison to
his large, boxy chest, and his legs are too short proportionally, though
this last "problem" may have been intentional to give Armorhide a "angry
tough midget" look to him. Still, I think he would have looked much better
with normal-sized legs to help take some more of the mass away from his
big boxy chest. The thing about Armorhide that really shines when compared
to other basics, however, is his Cyber Key gimmick, which is the best out
of ANY of the Cybertron basics I've seen so far. Plug his Cyber Key into
his backside and the grill on his chest flips open, revealed a chest FILLED
with missiles! Granted, the missiles can't fire, as that would be impossible
to implement that many firing missiles on so small a toy, but it still
looks really really cool, and is a nice "surprise!" weapon. (You better
hope Armorhide doesn't get a penetrating torso shot during a battle, however...
KABOOM!)
Armorhide's Cyber Key
gimmick is really cool, even if it's simple, and he doesn't have any HUGE
downsides, but he does have a few proportion problems in robot mode and
a few visible extras in vehicle mode. A good basic worthy of your purchase,
though I don't think he's quite as "OMG BEST BASIC EVER!" as many other
Transfans do.
Review by Beastbot