Sideswipe
(Gravity Bot)
Sideswipe's vehicle mode
is a bit off, even for a Gravity Bot. Basically the whole draw of Sideswipe's
awesome vehicle mode-- at least to me-- was A. painted silver plastic and
B. a really sleek, semi-futuristic design. This Gravity Bot has neither.
Granted, a lot of this is so that Sideswipe can have the automatic Gravity
Bot transformation and mark it as more of a "young kiddy" toy, but still...
this chunky chubby vehicle mode just barely resembles the Centennial Corvette
at all. Not to mention there's some pretty obvious "feet" mold & paint
detailing behind the windows which is a bit of an eyesore, as it clearly
can't double as "vehicle mechanical detailing" like many of the other robot
feet bits peeking out from the vehicle modes of other Gravity Bots. As
far as overall paint detailing, it's a tad on the sparse side. The necessary
details are there-- the tire rims, the headlights, the windows-- but that's
really it. The Corvette symbol isn't painted, and the drab gray just looks
so dull compared to a silver-coated toy. (The shade of metallic blue used
for the windows is pretty darned cool, though.) There's no paint detailing
for the rear headlights or license plate, though.
Sideswipe's auto-transformation
to robot mode is what you'd expect from a Gravity Bot fare, but a small
piece of his car hood also flips around to become his face, which is a
nice little addition to the "sides of the car become shoulders/arms, windows
become chest, back end becomes legs" transformation. The faux chest flap
on the front doesn't quite fold down to be flush with the piece behind
it, but this seems the be the norm for Gravity Bots, sadly. The detailing
on that small chest piece is pretty good, though, ignoring the size, and
the detailing done for the legs is quite well-done in this mode, particularly
for a Gravity Bot (though like all other Gravity Bots, he can't move at
all in robot mode). The head sculpt is also very well-done and accurate
to the movie, and all the mold detailing on the back (bottom of the vehicle
mode), with exhaust pipes and mechanical detailing everywhere, looks pretty
good too. I don't like the overly large shoulders that are standard fare
for Gravity Bots, but Sideswipe's robot arms merely being molded on the
inside of his car door pieces makes a lot more sense for his design, given
that on the standard deluxe toy he has
swords on the back of his hands, which aren't too far removed from the
somewhat pointy car door pieces hanging off his arms.
Sideswipe's robot mode
is about standard for a Gravity Bot-- in some cases slightly better-- but
his dull gray, overly-chunky-even-for-a-Gravity-Bot, and bad proportions
in vehicle mode make him overall one of the worst and most dull of the
line. Really only recommended if a kid really likes Sideswipe but doesn't
have the transformation skills to even be able to understand the Fast Action
Battler version of the character.
Review by Beastbot