Given that he doesn't ever transform into a vehicle in the movie, Shockwave's alt mode is sort of... made up based off of his robot mode design. Sort of like The Fallen, though at least a BIT more recognizable than that guy's in that this is definitely a tank of some sort. An alien tank with an off-center turret, but still definitely a tank. The treads-- particularly on the rear-- are incredibly well-detailed and really help to sell at least part of the "tank" aspect of him, and the little bone-like notches at the very front with little wheels help to make it a bit more recognizable as a vehicle, even if an alien one. I really don't like how off-center the turret is, though (so done because it attaches to one of his robot mode arms), and said turret can't rotate at all-- it can only fire forward. That said, you can push forward on the back end of the turret (also Shockwave's Mechtech weapon) to have two side cannons open up, and-- in a true rarity for Mechtech weapons-- you can actually lock it in its "open" phase by sticking the button into a little tab alcove, so it's a VERY nifty weapon. The blade on the other side of the tank, not so much-- how well is a blade on the back end going to be used in tank mode? Both the gun and blade help to hide all the robot parts that sort of collapse into the middle of this mode, but not very well-- it's still very obvious this is Shockwave's secondary mode, as you can fairly easily pick out chest in the middle, the arms on the back top, and the bottoms of the feet don't mesh very well with the treads they cover on Shockwave's front section. There's also no real back end to this mode-- it's almost completely hollow. The hose, which has almost always been a feature of Shockwave's, is unfortunately rather annoying here, looking rather odd at most of the points you can attach it here (and, if you want to keep it in the same place for robot mode as I did above, the two points where it attaches are WAY too close to each other, making the hose look too long). The hose also has a bad tendency to come off at one end a little too easily-- honestly, even with it being one of Shockwave's signature "bits", the toy would've been better without this piece. As far as the color scheme goes, it looks better than you think purple and gray would-- both are slightly metallic shades of the color, and neither look boring. The bronze, light metallic purple, and gunmetal gray bits help to diversify his colors up a bit as well.
    Shockwave's robot mode is very, very close to his movie model, and is definitely where the lion's share of the design effort went into this toy. Proportionally, he's very close to being movie-accurate-- his chest is just a tad wide and his arms a little short, but those are fairly minor quibbles overall. All of the detailing on Shockwave-- both paint-wise and mold-wise-- is incredible, and just really brings out how evil and skeletal-like this warrior is. From his skeletal "rib cage" in the middle of his chest to his incredibly scary headsculpt which NAILS how he looks in the movie (and with fantastic light piping for the eye, too!), everything just comes together so well in this mode. He has an unusually large number of paint apps for a DotM toy, as well, with the light metallic purple and gunmetal especially helping to make him look semi-metallic overall, particularly in the chest and legs. I do wish his light purple bits weren't quite as "milky" of a color, but that color isn't used much anyways. His articulation is quite good-- he can move at the neck, shoulders (at three points), elbows, at the base of each wrist, and at the hips (at three points) and knees (at two points). Because of his transformation he doesn't have a waist joint, but other than that and some minor foot limitations you can get a great number of poses out of him, particularly since he's so well-balanced. As for weapons, on one of his lower arms you can attach his blade-like weapon while on the other you can flip up his hand and attach his cannon (with its hose attached to his back as well).
    DotM Shockwave has an excellent robot mode, but his vehicle mode is only slightly more recognizable as a vehicle than most of the other movieverse toys with "Cybertronian alt modes"-- i.e., it's definitely Shockwave's robot mode merely folded into a tank-like shape. His hose is also rather annoying and ill-conceived as well. If you are a Shockwave fan or just want to keep him in robot mode, this is a definite pick up-- otherwise, there are several better mainline DotM designs out there.

Review by Beastbot

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