(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 the DotM deluxe Sideswipe toy. For a review on the mold itself, read the review of the DotM deluxe Sideswipe toy here.)

    It may not be immediately obvious to those who aren't familiar with the character-- particularly given the different name, different alt mode, and different personality described in the bio-- but Darksteel here is actually an homage to Beast Wars Quickstrike! (Why he isn't NAMED Quickstrike-- since there's nobody else in the movieverse already named that-- is anyone's guess.) The colors are roughly reversed from BW Quickstrike's, however, with a dark brownish black being the dominant color (particularly in vehicle mode), and a dull (non-transparent) mustard yellow being a secondary color mostly visible in robot mode. The mustard yellow looks surprisingly good against the brownish black in this rather original scheme, and the latter color itself looks a bit more metallic and interesting than a regular black. Heck, in car mode, it looks very close to how an actual car's finish would be, which is a big plus for me. The optics and car windows (i.e., "eyes" in vehicle mode) are a translucent light red just like on Quickstrike, and the really cool-looking curved metallic bluish green designs on the vehicle mode look almost ripped from parts of Quickstrike as well. The teal works quite well against the brownish black, though it looks particularly good near the mustard yellow-- I wish there were more instances of those two colors "colliding" on this toy. There's a couple of other incidental colors that are mostly either there to blend in with the other plastic/paint colors-- like the dull blue-green plastic and dull metallic gold paint found on the robot chest-- that serve as nice additions, but don't add anything to the color scheme themselves. There's also a tad of silver where needed, on the front grill and wheel hubs.
    Darksteel has a new head, loosely based on BW Quickstrike's. However, this one emphases the wrong features of Quickstrike's head, making Darksteel look rather... well... doofy. His head has overly large/round eyes, and together with the odd "mustache"/painted fangs on his robot mouth, looks really odd, like he has a goofy smile. The "cobra"-style head crest still looks great, but since they were homaging Quickstrike I wish they would've gone for a straight-up Quickstrike head, here-- it's not like his head would look out-of-place on a movieverse toy. This other headsculpt doesn't quite cut it, and is my biggest disappointment with this redeco homage. Darksteel also comes with Starscream's Mechtech weapon-- with the claw on one of them painted red to look like Quickstrike's "tail stinger", in a rather brilliant twist. This is especially cool given that in vehicle mode, if you attach both weapons together, you can extend the weapons out to look quite a bit like a "tail", ready to strike! Wonderful use of paint, there.
    For the most part, Darksteel is a pretty great and very unexpected homage. Not everything works (that HEAD), but the nifty coloring and awesome use of Starscream's Mechtech weapon as a "stinger" make it a cool redeco regardless of whether you like Quickstrike or not. Unfortunately, the mold is only medicore, but if you're a Quickstrike or Corvette Stingray fan, I'd still recommend it, even if you already have this mold's previous "vanilla" release as Sideswipe.

Review by Beastbot

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