Beast mode is a cheetah. This mode is one of the best Beast Machines beast modes I've seen, with practically no extras. Although his cheetah head doesn't resemble the show version at all, that's okay; I actually think it looks cooler like this. The transparent red and transmetal gold blend in very well, and give Cheetor a nice menacing look without making him look feral, like his Transmetal 2 version did. Also, when you move his head from side to side, his mouth moves by itself! There are 2 points of articulation in his tail, a first in any of Cheetor's various forms. Also, you can bend Cheetor's beast mode body in the middle, which is rare for a transformer. There are, however, a few flaws with this mode. One is that the tail is made of the cheap, bendy plastic, which makes it look less menacing, and it falls out of its hole easily. Another is that the thumbs on his front feet and his flipped-up heels on his back feet look rather odd; Hasbro could have easily made a few alterations to conceal these. The last downside to this mode, as well as the robot mode, is that the detailing on this figure is only so-so when compared with other Beast Machines figures. The spark orb is visible on Cheetor's right shoulder in this mode, although it switches to the left shoulder in robot mode.
    There have been several comments that I have heard on the transformation of Cheetor, and I want to address these first before I move on to the robot mode description. There have been rumors going around that Cheetor's transformation is ridiculously simple; basically, you just do a short head-flip, stand him up, and fiddle with his hands and feet a little. This, however, is not true. The "head-flip" is quite complex- it takes several tries to get used to it- and it involves tinkering with the stomach and chest plates as well. One downside to the transformation process, however, is that Cheetor's beast head and neck tend to snap off easily, and it takes quite a bit of effort to get them back on again.
    Robot mode is very impressive, and stands almost as tall as Optimal Optimus in beast mode! This mode looks much more like the show version than the toy's beast mode does, although there still is more green than the show version. Again, however, the part of the body that looks least like the show's is the most important part, the face. Although it looks a little similar, there are some differences, such as the use of transparent red plastic, chrome gold, and black on the face. Most of the positive comments on this mode are the same as Cheetor's beast mode, such as the moving mouth and slim look. There a bit more downsides to this mode than there were for the beast mode, however. One, and the most obvious, is that it is very hard to make the toy stand up by itself in this mode, as you could probably guess by Cheetor's "chicken-walker" legs. The extension of Cheetor's lower legs in this mode helps the problem some, but not much. Another is that Cheetor's "sword" is little more than his sharp-tipped tail, and looks pretty wimpy when compared with his swords on the TV show. The "sword-swinging" action described on the box is pretty weak as well. You push his extension on his right shoulder in and out to make his arm swing back and forth. It looks more like he's waving his arm, saying, "Yuck, what smells!?" than swinging his sword. Because of this action feature, the shoulder extension always stays to the far right of his shoulder, and makes Cheetor look a little lop-sided when compared with his other shoulder extension- it would have been better if they would have made the left shoudler extension look like this as well to even the balance some. Last but not least, Cheetor's upper body tends to wobble a bit in this mode, as you push his moveable mid-section from his beast mode up into his lower chest area. This tends to get a little annoying after a while.
    An okay mega Maximal; nice beast mode, but watch out for his inability to balance himself in robot mode.

Review by Beastbot

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