Sideswipe's sportscar vehicle mode is a bit questionable as a one-step changer. Granted, Sideswipe's alt mode on the show is a bit flat-topped, but this mode is REALLY flat-topped. The "body"-- i.e., how high the front hood and the doors go-- makes up about 80% of the height of the car mode. There's barely any height between the bottom and top of the window-- it looks pretty unsightly. Additionally, the robot feet are fairly obvious on the back end, though because Sideswipe has a spoiler it's not as obvious as it could have been. Due to the transformation, there's also a unsightly series of ridges on the front hood. Otherwise, the proportions of this mold are alright. The main color is a fairly milky, straightforward red with black tires, windows, and a bit of the front grill black plastic as well because of the mold breakup. And... that is IT. That's pretty disappointing-- of course, as a RID toy Sideswipe doesn't have a whole lot of mold detailing along the top front area of the car, but he's got those Japanese symbols near the rear windows, headlights, taillights-- all of which are begging for some paint. He just looks dull as-is.
    Sideswipe has the "switchblade" transformation that was first pioneered on AoE 1-step Drift, where you take the back end and rotate them down like a pocket knife to become the legs, while the front section flips around to become the chest and the arms and head are revealed. As is typical, the major downside to this mode is that the outside of the legs are hollow, and extend practically up to the neck, with the chest flap only covering up this fact from the front-- thus, it's highly recommended you only look at this mode from a frontal view. There's pretty much no mold detailing on the inside of the hollow legs, just a couple of bars to keep the plastic structurally sound. Ignoring that huge issue, he looks pretty good; the arms are pretty show-accurate and have nice metallic bronze blades deployed, and the chest is molded in with all the propoer details, along with red paint on the chest and light blue faux headlights. His waist and leg details are largely accurate, and the head with its "gelled-up hair" look is accurate, with a silver face and blue eyes. There's little black faux car windows behind said head. With all the added black on the arms and waist-- along with the bronze, silver, and blue accents-- this mode doesn't look nearly as boring as the vehicle mode and looks pretty good color-wise. As far as articulation-- he can only move at the shoulders at two points, but it's a one-step changer, so articulation isn't what you're looking for here.
    The switchblade transformation on the one-steps is one of my favorites, despite having the big hollow oversized legs in robot mode. Sideswipe-- for a one-step-- looks pretty good in robot mode. In vehicle mode he really suffers on this version, though, as he's too flat, has very little paint, and the feet are too obvious. I think overall out of the various RID Sideswipe 1-steps this one has the best robot mode by a hair, but the worst vehicle mode.
 

Review by Beastbot

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