Outback's alt mode is
a 4WD offroad vehicle. Especially for a Minibot, this mode is pretty solid,
with the proportions pretty close to realistic and no extras to speak of.
It's a pretty well-built little alt mode, as well; it's hard to see someone
breaking this toy in this mode without an absolutely obscene amount of
force applied, as nothing feels the slightest bit weak structurally. The
mold detailing is pretty decent, especially by G1 standards, with headlights,
the grill, side windows, door handles, side steps to the doors, and even
a "tied pack" on the back end. There's also a neat turret gun on the top
of his spare tire on the roof, which can rotate in place and also be detached
to form a handheld weapon-- unfortunately, Outback's robot hands have no
holes for said weapon, so it can't really fit in his robot mode, which
is really weird. As for the colors in this mode, Outback's mostly tan,
which is of course fitting both for the vehicle and for a toy with his
name. The main other color in this mode is black on the tires, front window,
middle section of the front hood, and the spare tire/gun emplacement. There's
a titch of dark brown on the center bottom portion of the front and back,
but its use is minor in this mode. There's also some chrome silver on the
front grill and wheel hubs. All in all it's a nice, though basic, color
scheme. I wish the side and rear windows were painted black, not only to
fill in those details but to break up the tan there. Unfortunately, all
that's there is a painted Autobot symbol on one side and an allegiance
rub symbol on the other.
To transform Outback
to robot mode, pull out the sides and rotate them up and around to form
the arms, then rotate the bottom portions down to become the legs. This
mode looks fairly awkward-- but the worst are the legs. My word, those
are AWFUL legs. They're the bottom of the sides, basically folded out into
long sticks at the sides of his waist with no real feet. Only small sections
of the soles sticking inward keep Outback steady at all. At least they
make him basically the tallest Minibot. The arms are separate silver and
chrome silver pieces inside the panels that form the sides of his vehicle
mode-- not just molded into the sides of the vehicle, as is the case with
many other Transformers toys. I appreciate this, though they're still 2-D
and flat, and a bit small proportionally when compared to the body. The
robot body is mostly just the bottom of the vehicle mode, and as such is
a bit large, though not to an egregious extent considering Outback's head
is basically "molded into" said body, without any real neck. Granted, this
is the case for a lot of G1 toys, but I don't think that makes it a good
look. At least the head section is smaller than the body. There's lots
of simple geometric shapes on the body and sides of the neck, and the silver
head
has a fairly flat top, a large blue visor, and a silver "regular" nose
and face with large chinguards-- it looks pretty good for a G1 facesculpt,
all things considered. There's also two small stickers on his chest and
pelvis with some simple square shapes and robotic details. With the body
almost all dark brown in this mode, it helps make the color scheme a bit
different than the vehicle mode, with a more complementary scheme that
I like a bit more than just black & tan-- though of course, it's still
fairly basic. Outback is more articulated than your average G1 toy-- he
can move back-and-forth at both the shoulders AND hips. Oooo.
Outback's vehicle mode
is incredibly good and solid for the size with a nice color scheme, but
like with many G1 toys, the robot mode can get a bit iffy, especially with
proportions. The legs are absolutely awful, and he has no neck at all,
with his head basically his entire upper body. I also love his accessory
in vehicle mode, but it's a real shame he can't hold it in robot mode.
A bit on the weaker side of the Minibots overall because of his odd robot
proportions.
Review by Beastbot