Price: $20 (U.S.)
Overall Rating: 6.7

(NOTE: Because this set is a repaint, this is not a full-blown review. This mainly covers any changes made to the set and the color scheme, and merely compares them to Energon Rodimus and Prowl. For a review on the Rodimus-- Checkpoint's mold-- read his review here. For a review on Energon Prowl-- SWAT Prowl's mold-- read his review here.)
 

Checkpoint

Allegiance: Autobot
Size: Deluxe
Difficulty of Transformation: Medium
Difficulty of Powerlinx Transformation: Medium
Color Scheme: White, black, gray, and some transparent orange, silver, light orange, red, bright yellow, dull blue, and glossy dark blue-green
Powerlinx ports: 2 (1 of them on gun)
Individual Rating: 7.5

    Checkpoint is a truck painted up as a SWAT vehicle-- which is appropriate, given that this is the Autobot SWAT Team, according to the box. As you'd expect, white, gray, and black are the main colors, and although it's not a bad color scheme, it would be rather boring by itself. Luckily for us, Checkpoint's got oodles of paint apps- some nice red and blue headlights, a (BRIGHT) yellow and black "caution" stripe pattern on the sides of the hood, and a SWAT decal printed on the rear fender, among other paint apps in vehicle mode. In robot mode, the colors mostly carry over, with a few more caution stripes on his chest, in addition to an Autobot symbol that is takes up half of the chest. (Read: TOO BIG.) Nearly all of the paint apps are different from Checkpoint's predecessor, Rodimus, which is quite surprising for a store exclusive. I like it when effort is put into exclusives-- it's a nice change when compared to many of the more recent exclusives. Overall, it's a nice scheme, with only a few small problems (the overly large Autobot symbols and the almost neon yellow), but it doesn't quite measure up to Rodimus' awesome orange, red, and gold scheme.
    No mold changes have been made to Checkpoint, so he can still Powerlink with Prowl and all that jazz.

Prowl

Allegiance: Autobot
Size: Deluxe
Difficulty of Transformation: Easy
Difficulty of Powerlinx Transformation: Medium
Color Scheme: Black, white, pale tannish gray, gray, and some light orange, silver, transparent dark blue, transparent aquamarine, and transparent fuchsia
Powerlinx ports: None
Individual Rating: 5.9

    SWAT Prowl has a color scheme that is a bit of a throwback to G1 Prowl, who was a police car. The black and white, again, work rather well with the toy, with there being a pretty decent amount of paint apps to keep those two colors from getting boring. Some of the paint apps are even decals, such as the "headlight" paint apps put on the front bumper of the vehicle mode. However, unlike Checkpoint, Prowl is only a partial repaint-- many of his robot bits, such as the upper legs and head, are colored exactly the same as they were on the previous form of Energon Prowl. And they're rather plain colors, so it's not like I'm particularly enthralled that Hasbro kept the colors. Many of the paint apps, even if they are different colors, are still mostly the same as they were on Prowl's previous version too. It's not nearly as bad as many of the Universe exclusive repaints, but it still shows a bit of laziness on the designer's part. Still, the black and white color scheme does fit a bit better on the toy than the previous Prowl's blue.
    No mold changes have been made to SWAT Prowl.

    An Autobot SWAT Team is a nice idea-- unfortunately, neither Checkpoint and Prowl are taken from particularly good Energon molds. Checkpoint himself is a nice, original repaint, but he doesn't quite match up to Energon Rodimus. SWAT Prowl is slightly better color-wise than his predecessor, but it still doesn't erase that fact that it's the worst mold of the Energon line. Even though the colors do certainly mesh better on these guys when they're Powerlinked as opposed to their previous paint jobs, I'd still, overall, recommend Energon Rodimus & Prowl over these guys. But even then, there's quite a few Transformers molds that are more worthy of your hard-earned dollar than these two.

Review by Beastbot

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