No longer a planet-eating planet, Unicron is reborn as a... futuristic tank thingy. Yeah, okay, it's not quite as impressive as a planet-eating planet, but that's the point-- Unicron's gotta grow in power to return to his former self, y'see. It's a very interesting idea, and it's pulled off surprisingly well. The same general color scheme as Armada Unicron is used, with light gray, dark gray, yellow-orange, and purple being the dominant colors. It's not the first color scheme that comes to mind when I think of "evil", but it's definitely Unicron's colors, and to deviate from that now would be pretty odd, and the colors don't outright clash, so I can't complain. Many elements of Unicron's former planet mode are retained, such as the spine-like remnants of the wings on the sides of the tank mode, which can swivel around on a ball joint and are supposed to double as guns, I suppose. The two large claws at the front of the vehicle mode are definitely reminiscent of Unicron's planet-eating claw-jaws in his former form, and look very cool and add a lot of personality to this mode when combined with the red "visor-like" tank cockpit. The final big planet-mode nod involves the Cyber Key gimmick. Normally in the middle of this mode there's a closed circular area that looks much like a smaller version of Armada Unicron's planet "teeth", and when you insert Unicron's Cyber Key into its slot at the rear of the vehicle, the miniature jaws open up to reveal a (non-firing) machine gun-- surprise! A pretty cool and unexpected, if rather simple, gimmick. The vehicle mode also much rounder than other tanks are, one last nod to Unicron's former alt mode. The new tank parts do fit in pretty well either the overall aesthetic as well-- the small treads in the front and two large wheels in the back give Unicron a futuristic, hybrid look, as do Unicron's two guns on the top (as opposed to just one). I do wish, though, that Unicron had an actual rotatable turret piece at the base of the guns instead. The small, non-firing gun left of center can rotate almost all the way around so that's all and good, but the big, main missile launcher to the right of center can barely rotate from side to side at all, which is kind of dissapointing. However, at least said gun can move up and down a fair amount. A few other robot extra problems detract from this mode as well. Even though the bottom of his head serves as a satellite dish-like emplacement in this mode, it's still paintfully obvious that the back of Unicron's robot is just sticking up on the top of the back end of the vehicle. Also, from a low angle, Unicron's robot legs are a bit too obvious on the sides of the vehicle. One other, more minor complaint is that I wish the large wide yellow-orange plastic pieces that make up the main body of the vehicle mode meshed a bit more in shape with the their surrounding parts, just to make the mode look more solid. Still, none of these problems are really crippling for this mode, and it still looks pretty cool-- the fact that he's covered in mold detailing and has a good amount of paint detailing certainly help, as well.
    Unicron's robot mode is the better of the two modes, and looks positively dripping with evil. He's more pointy, lithe, and insectoid than his previous toy, which certainly helps this look. What is really the highlight of this mode (and, indeed, the figure) is the robot face-- it's like Armada Unicron's, but with longer, pointier horns, "battle damage" detailing, and a SKULL for a face, with red optics to boot. And it's all excellently detailed, to boot! Now if THAT ain't evil, I don't know what is... Unicron's wing-gun-bones from the vehicle mode can be detached and used as hand-held melee weapons, which is another big plus, and looks awesome-- however, due to the shape of both the lower arms and the wing-bone, the upper part of the handheld claw weapon doesn't fit all the way into its peg-- however, they're still held fairly stably, so this is a very small beef. Unicron also has excellent proportions, as well as articulation-- he can move at the head, shoulders (at two points), elbows (at two points), waist, hips, ankles, and knees (two points). Given that his gun-backpack isn't so heavy as to offset his balance, and that he has long feet, you can get him into a ton of poses because of this. The gun-backpack also stays out of the way of articulation, and, although I wish the rear wheels could have folded up behind Unicron's main body, otherwise it doesn't detract from the robot mode look at all, but actually makes it look more menacing, what with those two guns poking out from Unicron's shoulders and all that. The only thing that rather annoys me with this mode is that the large flat orange-yellow pieces on the sides of Unicron's legs have pegs that are supposed to attach them securely and keep them from flopping around, but the pegs don't really do their job well, so the leg-plates really don't lock into place much at all.
    Cybertron Unicron, although not quite as good as his predecessor, is still an excellent, original, and very evil-looking new version of the character, with only a few, somewhat minor, flaws. Recommended-- one of the better deluxes from the Cybertron line.

Review by Beastbot

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