Smokescreen's alternate
mode is a racing car, complete with "38" numbers on his sides, in an homage
to the G1 character of the same name.
Other than the general alt mode, the 38s, and a few other minor details,
though, Prime Smokescreen is largely his own guy. For one, his main plastic
color is a moderately light milky gray-- a pretty dull color honestly,
though not as bad as a lighter shade of the same color. What's odd about
this is that this is inaccurate to how Smokescreen appears in the show;
he's clearly white on the show in the places where he's gray here, which
definitely removes something from this toy. White would've contrasted better
with the nice blue stripes that go from the center of Smokescreen's front
and splits into two different lines on his hood, along with blue paint
surrounding his rear wheels. There's a bit of red checkering on the sides
to add a bit more color variety, and the silver headlights and dark metallic
silvery blue paint used for the windows look decently good, too; again,
it's just that they'd look even better against white. The wheels-- and
some small robot mode parts that aren't particularly visible in either
mode-- are also an "impure" charcoal black, which doesn't look as good
as a straight black-- it looks a bit "dirty", and not in a good way. The
proportions on this mode are great, though, looking about as close as you
can get to a real-life car without running into licensing issues (and in
keeping with Prime's slightly stylized aesthetic). He also has no robot
mode extras in this mode whatsoever, always a plus. Smokescreen's mold
detailing is fairly sparse in this mode, being the sleek racing car that
he is. There's some pretty cool mold detailing on his front and back bumpers,
and some nice unique design elements there-- it's a shame that neither
are painted (the only complaints I have about the lack of paint in this
mode.) Smokescreen comes with a sort of bayonet weapon with a chainsaw
in place of a regular blade on the bottom-- it's a pretty cool weapon,
though he does share it with several other Beast Hunters legion toys. In
addition to having a port on the top of this mode to store his weapon or
other Cyberverse-compatible weapons, Smokescreen also has a port in front
of both of his rear wheels for additional weapon storage.
I have mixed feelings
about Smokescreen's robot mode. On the one hand, the doors-behind-the-shoulders
look is replicated very well here for a Legion-class toy, his upper legs
and knees are well-proportioned and well-detailed, and the way his chest
splits apart is also fairly show-accurate for such a small toy, even if
when compared proportionally to his headsculpt, it's a bit large. His roof
also folds behind his back and out of the way quite well. However, Smokescreen's
arms really bug me-- not only are they rather puny proportionally, but
they're supposed to connect via a very shallow tab to the wheels on the
sides of his main body, and the connection is weak at best, non-existent
at worst. Given that his only place of articulation on the arms is at the
shoulders right next to those very tabs, this means that his arms come
unpegged ALL THE TIME, and it's quite annoying and my biggest beef with
this design. His feet are also way too big and floppy, with fairly big
chunks of the rear of his car mode on the side of said feet and noticeable
gaps in between his ankles and feet. Granted, this does help with his stability,
but it looks pretty bad, especially compared to his relatively skinny legs.
Smokescreen's headsculpt-- while well-painted with silvery blue eyes and
a silver face-- is also a bit off, with the headcrest not as pronounced
as it should be and his face just looking a tad "off", particularly in
the eyes. At least most of his car paint carries over to this mode, so
that Smokescreen doesn't look bereft of paint here, either. For articulation,
Smokescreen can move at the shoulders, hips, and back-and-forth at the
ankles. Some elbow and/or knee articulation would've been appreciated,
but then again this is pretty much par-for-the-course for a Legion class
toy. As you'd expect, Smokescreen can hold his own weapon or any other
Cyberverse-scale weapons in either of his hands in this mode.
Prime Cyberverse Smokescreen
has a pretty nicely-proportioned vehicle mode and a good amount of paint,
but he has some major issues with his shoulders/upper arms in robot mode,
along with an "off" headsculpt and big doofy feet. Add to that that he's
gray as opposed to the show-accurate white, and I'd recommend getting the
deluxe version of Smokescreen over this version, unless you or the person
you're buying it for absolutely can't deal with a transformation that's
any more complex than basic.
Review by Beastbot