By this point, I'd imagine you're pretty familiar with RID2015 Sideswipe's vehicle mode, and for the most part the new 1-step changer mold for 2016 for him doesn't really give you many surprises. The colors are pretty much spot-on with most of his other toys, with a fairly dark red and black being the main colors (and with a metallic shade of black used for the front and side windows-- though sadly as usual, the rear window is not painted). The red paint-- used in this mode on the middle of the front bumper-- is of a noticeably lighter shade, though, which sticks out a little. There's also light blue paint on the headlights. The mold detailing is somewhat sparse, but there's a few angular details, particularly on the front grill. The details on the top rear of this mode are a bit more involved than usual, with things like vents and layered "armor plates" molded in. On the back side, Sideswipe's spoiler is a bit more "sudden" and vertical than usual, but otherwise it's fairly spot-on. On the backside of the rear bumper are molded very simple taillights, though the back bumper itself is pretty sparse in details, with only the tailpipes sticking out of the black plastic in the center of the back end. There's no robot mode extras whatsoever in this mode, which is always a good thing, though because of the transformation there's some obvious angular gaps near the sides of the front hood that can pop up a bit if everything isn't "just so".
    To get Sideswipe to robot mode, you flip down the feet pieces from the bottom and the rest transforms by itself, with the arms twirling around by the shoulders, the top of the vehicle mode rotating back a little, and main body coming up into place with a faux chest plate in front of it. That said, this mode is... it's just terrible. It's difficult to find much positive about this mode. I will say that the mold detailing on the leg, abs, and chest piece is all pretty well-done (even if the whole piece is rather 2-D; if you look at the toy from the side there's a SIGNIFICANT gap in between the front and the back, both are essentially thin flaps with a big gap in the middle only broken up by a black bar that's used for the transformation). On this one detailed front piece, though, the paint is used pretty well, with metallic black on the upper legs and abs, red paint on the chest, and light blue on the faux chest headlights. The rest of the mold has horrible proportions, however. The arms-- though fairly well-detailed in terms of the mold--are far too long with gorilla-like overly large lower arms, and they don't QUITE fold out straight, so moving the arms forward at the shoulder causes the arms to actually point inwards a bit towards the chest, which just looks bad. They're also too flat and 2-D. The head is ridiculously tiny, though at least it has the face painted silver with blue eyes. Even the expression on the face is a bit odd-- as opposed to Sideswipe's usual smirk, his mouth is open a bit, which gives him a look that is kinda... evil? It doesn't look right, regardless. You've also just got basically the entire top of the vehicle mode as a huge buncha flaps on the back, with all the robot mode on a couple of detailed "faux" panels without any actual 3-D mass beyond the lower legs and the shoulders. For articulation, Sideswipe can rotate at the head as well as move forward at the shoulders. Not much, but honestly that's the least of my complaints about this figure, since 1-step changers aren't really aimed at having a lot of articulation.
    The 2016 1-step mold for RID2015 Sideswipe is my least favorite out of all the toys for this design, without question. The vehicle mode is pretty decent-- a couple of obvious cracks in the mode, but that's it-- but the robot mode is just HORRIBLE. It's mostly just a flat panel of 2-D faux robot details, long gorilla arms, and a ton of vehicle panels in the back. Just awful-- avoid unless you're just an absolute Sideswipe completist.
 

Review by Beastbot

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