As with the other Remote-Controlled
Prime toys, Knock Out's vehicle mode is a bit "superdeformed", particularly
when it comes to how the front portion is proportional to the back portion;
the front third or so of the vehicle has been compressed quite a bit to
fit in with this subline's transformation gimmick, while the back section
has been bulked up quite a bit both vertically and horizontally. Knock
Out also has an exposed engine on this version, to fit with whole "radio
receiver on top of the car mode" bit. The mold detailing and overall look
of the mode is quite curvy, even for Knock Out, though since his car mode's
already rather curvy already, it fits in better with the superdeformed
look better than the other figures in the line here. One big plus about
this mode is that-- finally!-- it actually HAS Knock Out's yellow paint
apps on the sides-- at least on the wheels. The sides between his wheels
are so short and small on this toy I suppose it's not really worth giving
that tiny area a more complex paint app than a silver paint stripe, but
the yellow on the overly large wheels goes REALLY well against the other
colors-- a dark dull red, dark brown, and silver, mostly, with some black
windows-- and makes what would be otherwise a dull color scheme pop quite
a bit. This is what was needed on the mainline
deluxe toy desperately, and I'm glad it made onto at least one version
of Knock Out. The paint overall is just superbly done, and there's a lot--
one of the highlights of the toy, in my opinion.
Like all of the
toys in the Remote Control assortment, Knock Out also comes with a small
remote. What's quite interesting about this remote is that it can be set
on three different frequencies, with a slider on the side to select the
one you want to use; the toy also has a corresponding slider on the bottom,
allowing you to set it at the "I", "II", or "III" frequency. This allows
three different people to control the three different toys in this assortment
separately and at the same time! Knock Out's remote has some nifty "armor
panel" detailing on it and is largely a shade of milky light gray that's
blah and way overused on TFs, though at least that's only on the remote.
The bits of dark red and purple on the buttons and the Decepticon symbol
near the top of the remote help to give it at least some visual interest,
at least. The remote itself is quite simple, though-- don't expect to get
your Knock Out toy to do anything spectacular. There's a "conversion" button
that will have Knock Out transform from his current mode to his other mode
(accomplished by either having the front two-thirds of the toy spread out/collapse
together and rotate up or down, depending upon which way you're transforming
him). The other button causes the toy to move forward-- no other directions
are available, though in actuality Knock Out moves forward at an ever-so-slight
angle, so he'll slowly turn to face another direction. That said, the lack
of other directions for him to move is my big beef with this aspect of
the toy. In vehicle mode, because he's got all four wheels on the ground,
Knock Out will move forward fairly steadily, even on some carpet-- however,
because he's only on his rear wheels in robot mode, he can get "caught"
on carpet a bit easier there.
Knock Out's robot mode
follows the rest of the subline in terms of having weird robot proportions.
His lower body is a big curvy stump with wheels on the sides and two little
feet on the front. Knock Out's robot head sculpt is quite well-done, if
a bit overly simplistic even for Prime aesthetic detailing-- the lower
section, in particular, is a bit too skinny, like there's no neck behind
his chin or something. A milky grayish brown plastic also makes itself
known on many of the interior parts of this mode, which is an okay color,
though a straighter brown would've looked better, methinks. Continuing
on with his proportions, the chest sits too far forward and is overly fat,
and his arms are very two-dimensional, with only their placement and the
silver-painted fists at the end of said arms making it obvious that they
ARE arms. The car roof also sits fairly plainly on Knock Out's back, though
compared to all his other proportional maladies this kibble is pretty minor.
For articulation (ignoring his remote-controlled movement), he can rotate
his upper body to the right (but only right), and you can push back his
arms a bit, though they're spring-loaded which means that they pop right
back into their default position as soon as you let go of them. All of
this odd articulation, though, is for what I think is the coolest part
of the toy-- the way Knock Out "walks" in this mode. Unlike in vehicle
mode, Knock Out doesn't simply roll forward when you press the corresponding
button on his remote-- no, as he's moving forward, his upper body will
swish from side-to-side, his arms swinging appropriately, like he's "walking"
(even though his lower body stays inert if you don't count his wheels).
It's a pretty neat and addictive gimmick that it took me surprisingly long
to get bored with.
Remote-Controlled Knock
Out has the major downsides of the other toys in this assortment-- namely,
a superdeformed vehicle mode, really odd robot proportions, and very limited
articulation-- but he has some pluses that the other toys don't. Namely,
his paint job in vehicle mode is quite well-done, with him finally getting
some yellow in there, and his robot mode looks visually interesting as
well. The curvy nature of his vehicle mode already means it fits being
superdeformed better than the other toys in this assortment to boot, and
because of these two pluses this is my favorite of the Remote-Controlled
toys.
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Review by Beastbot