Railspike
(Rail Racer Part)
Vehicle mode is a bullet
train. This mode is pretty nice overall, with few extras- the only obvious
ones being his robot feet on the back of the train. He's slightly small
for a Mega, but still within an acceptable limit. The window on the front
of the train looks really cool, with a nice mix of transparent blue-green
and light blue plastic. There's an Autobot symbol on one side of the train,
and "500 Cybertron" marked on the other side. Nice touch. However, there's
one thing about this mode that bothers me; the weapon attached to the back
of the train (used to hook on to the front of other Bullet Train members)
is connected to the rest of the train via a long rod on the bottom; however,
Hasbro, for some odd reason, molded on an extra little bit to this rod-
I guess to comply with safety standards in the U.S. or something. However,
with this little bit added on, the weapon just... doesn't... fit! To get
it to fit, you have to separate the back halves of the train a bit, and
the large cracks in the train mode don't make it look that good. And the
thing that bugs me about this, is that this could have been fixed very
easily!! Grrr.... He has a hole on the bottom in the front to link up to
other Bullet Train members, too. That's a neat feature, hooking them all
up like that.
Robot mode is pretty
nice. The only real problem I have with it is that the Rail
Racer gestalt's head is Railspike's chest in this mode, and it's pretty
obvious from any angle except a head-on one. There are also several bolts
on his chest and upper arms that are in plain view, which detracts from
the overall appearance a bit. Another, rather minor, problem with this
mode is that Railspike's upper legs have an odd joint in them (used for
Rail Racer's arms in gestalt mode) which takes away what should be ball-joint
knee posability in this mode, something one would expect in a Mega-sized
toy. Still, it's no big deal. Railspike's train "extras" are used wonderfully
in this mode, and really complement it. Parts of the sides of the train
become a samurai-style "skirt" for Railspike in this mode, which adds a
bit of a serious character to him. His large shoulder pads (made from the
front halves of the train) also have some missile launchers molded into
them (they don't fire, however), which adds to his look as well. His head
is wonderfully detailed, as it looks like he has a miniature version of
the front of his train mode on top of his head! Nice touch! His weapon
can also light up in this mode by pressing a button on it- this is the
first toy of this size released in a long time that has electronics in
it.
Forms the chest, head,
and arms of Rail Racer.
Railspike is a pretty
neat toy, but he has a few rather obvious flaws that keep him from getting
a 9.0 or above- namely, his Rail Racer head/chest in his robot mode, and
the problem with his weapon storage in vehicle mode. Still, recommended.
Review by Beastbot
*Pictured above is the "unpainted windows" variant of Railspike, which was only seen during the first batch released into stores. Soon afterwards, Hasbro painted the train windows light blue, and this makes the train mode look a little better, which is why the painted windows variant gets a slightly higher rating.