What's this, you say? This vehicle mode isn't at all how Ultra Magnus looked in the show? That's certainly true-- it looks like plans were originally made for Ultra Magnus to be a completely new design, but because of timing/budget issues with the show, he had to use most of Optimus' core model instead, though that didn't affect his 2012 "regular" Prime toys. Still, it's nice to see Magnus with a brand new body of his own, and this version is a heavy-duty truck. The mold detailing is very well done, and he's actually fairly detailed for a Prime toy-- the side ladders and bumpers, the smokestacks, the front bumper, they're all very finely detailed. Magnus' main color of dark blue is a quite attractive shade, being a swirly, semi-metallic color that does not get old at all. That said, he also has plenty of paint apps to break up the dark blue. The most prominent is the silver that's mostly on his midsection, smokestacks, and front bumper of this mode, but there's also a red stripe across the front of the mode, and his windows are painted the light silvery blue that most windows are painted on on TFs. (The front window is transparent light blue, just like his weapon-- it actually looks substantially darker in this mode because of the lack of light piping, so the windows are unfortunately a bit of a mismatch.) Ultra Magnus has one downside in this mode, though, and it's a big one-- his ENTIRE lower robot mode body blatantly makes up the rear two-thirds of this mode. The hips and legs are just all THERE, in plain sight. Granted, his weapon can be stuck in the middle of it to help cover it up somewhat, but it's still far too obvious-- and the feet stick out the back end, effectively ruining the back bumper, as well. Speaking of Magnus' Cyberverse weapon, it's pretty neat, functioning as a "turret" of sorts in this mode with a long barrel. It can be rotated around at the base, and the barrel can be moved up and down as well. Beyond the obvious placement for it on the top middle of this mode, there's also holes for it (or other Cyberverse-scaled weapons) on the sides of this mode, in the silver-painted sections. Putting the weapon on one of these spots limits its rotational movement, however.
    Ultra Magnus' transformation is quite simple-- you just separate and splay out the front and front side sections to make his arms, rotate up his head, and then rotate around and separate the legs. It still looks pretty darned good, though, and makes few sacrifices (which is good, considering how big of a sacrifice the vehicle mode made). The only real beefs I have with him here are that there's big vehicle shell bits hanging off of his lower arms, and the vehicle front-halves that form his wide shoulders also could've meshed with the upper arm shapes a little better. Otherwise, Ultra Magnus' look and proportions are great, with a wide-shouldered stance, a broad chest, and adequately thick arms and legs. His main body is technically just the underside of the front part of the vehicle, but it fits the square proportions so well it's barely noticeable. The color scheme is mixed up a bit more in this mode, with a rather nice swirly shade of gunmetal gray making up his upper arms and upper legs-- although it's gray plastic, it's another semi-metallic shade, and not one that looks boring at all as a secondary color. The more apparent red also works wonders with contrast, and his chest and head are magnficently detailed, both in terms of paint and mold detailing. I do wish that his chest wasn't translucent, but unfortunately that's to make Ultra Magnus fit in with the other 2012 Prime commander-class toys in terms of his "gimmick". There's a port on his upper back that you can plug in a light-emitting weapon from one of the Cyberverse vehicle sets, and it's supposed to light up his chest-- unfortunately, it works just as well as pretty much every other 2012 Prime commander in this respect, i.e. minimally, if at all. The transparent plastic is also used for his shoulder ball joints, which-- given the nature of transparent plastic-- means that his shoulder ball joints are a bit loose, as well. Speaking of articulation, Magnus can move at the shoulders (at two points), elbows, waist rotation, and at the hips, knees, and slightly backwards at the ankles. I wish he had rotational knee movement, but that's being pretty picky at this size class-- he's one of the most-articulated Commander class figures out there. Ultra Magnus' weapon converts into an awesome-looking sledgehammer weapon in this mode, which is a very creative use of it that hearkens back to his Animated version to boot. The sledgehammer doesn't sit all that snugly into Magnus' hands, though, so it can fall out a bit easier than I'd like.
    Prime "RID" Cyberverse Ultra Magnus has a pretty nice color scheme and proportions, some great paint detailing and sculpting, and a great weapon. He's also quite well-articulated, and he WOULD be an unqualified recommendation-- if it wasn't for the VERY obvious lower half of the robot that basically makes up the back two-thirds of his vehicle mode. That's just a huge oversight that could've been solved with a couple of cover-up panels, even if this made the robot mode slightly less aesthetically pleasing. Given that huge oversight, I'd recommend the voyager-class version of this design instead (though this version does have the more attractive color scheme out of the two).

Review by Beastbot

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