(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 Cyber Battalion Prowl. For a review on the mold itself, read the review of Cyber Battalion Prowl here.)

    When Hasbro makes a toy of Prowl, you can be pretty sure they'll eventually redeco/remold into Bluestreak and/or Smokescreen. For Cyber Battalion Prowl, though, they went with a fairly big-name TF character that I wouldn't have expected; Sideswipe. Sure, Sideswipe's a car, but Sideswipe's chest has almost always had the car hood pointing down for his chest, not forward. Kinda surprising he was picked, but the end result certainly stays very close to Sideswipe's traditional, rather simple color scheme-- all of his plastic is either white, black, or red, with the red being a slightly lighter shade than you'd usually find on one of his toys. It still contrasts excellently with the black, and the white works well against both. The black is used on the car windows, wheels, parts of the front grill, and robot head, waist, shoulders, and fists. Red is saved for pretty much the other "vehicle-exclusive" parts-- making the car mode very red indeed-- while the other "robot-exclusive" parts are white, making for a pretty varied color scheme in the latter mode. He does have some silver paint on his face and light blue paint on his eyes, but that's it as far as other colors. Thus, despite the three main colors being varied up, I would've liked at least a bit more accents thrown in the mix-- like silver or yellow on his headlights, for example.
    Sideswipe has three mold changes made when compared to his predecessor Prowl. The front section of the vehicle/chest has been changed, with the grill being the most obvious change-- it's now less "smooth" of a grill, with the top of the front and the bottom both jutting out a bit, and the portion near the middle actually furthest "back" on the chest/grill. There's two sets of two headlights molded into the top side portions of the grill and painted white, while a "U"-shaped vented grill covers most of the distance between them, and then there's a black rim on the bottom. It looks good, and works well on a Lambourghini, but on this generic car not quite so much-- I prefer Prowl's more traditional grill. Sideswipe, of course, has a new headsculpt, and it's spot-on in all respects. Perfectly proportioned, nice, sharp details-- just like the G1 animation model plopped onto this toy. He's got the "normal" face, side chin guards, small antennae on the sides, and large, slanted forehead piece. Finally, the sirens have been removed from the top of the car/feet, making Sideswipe appropriately a more "normal" car than Prowl.
    I'm a bit conflicted on Cyber Battalion Sideswipe. On one hand, I think his overall color scheme-- though simple-- looks good, especially in robot mode, and outdoes Prowl's. On the other hand, the style of car and the grill jutting forward on the chest isn't how his G1 design has been depicted, so I felt this was a wasted opportunity to do one of the MANY other G1 bots who have the car grill on their chest in a manner akin to Prowl instead. Still, overall I think he tops Prowl slightly in the looks department.

Review by Beastbot

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