Sideswipe's vehicle mode is pretty darned good, and the most accurate out of all the RID2015 Titan Changers' vehicle modes. Really, in terms of overall proportions it's right-on everywhere. The only extras are pretty minor-- on the back end, you can see the knees a bit because the lower half of the back bumper is missing, but from most normal views this isn't particularly obvious. There's also just a titch of Sideswipe's "hair" sticking out in front in the middle of the front bumper, but again, pretty minor and it just looks like an extra little spike in the center. All of the necessary mold details are present, such as the vent-like details near the back, the little spikes on the side doors, door handles, the RID2015-typical trio of divots on the sides, angular headlights and taillights, the front vents... it's all here. Unfortunately, due to this being a "budget" toy, it's pretty much all not painted, either. The basic color of being a fairly dark milky red is here on the plastic, and the tires are a charcoal shade of black. The black would've looked a bit better as a darker, more "pure" shade, but the basic color scheme is intact. The only paint visible in this mode is metallic charcoal black, used for the front windshield and most of the side windows. (Oddly because of the breakup in plastic, the very front area of the side windows-- near the side mirrors-- isn't painted, which looks a bit odd given how the windows just suddenly go from black to red.)
    To transform Sideswipe to robot mode, you just pull out the sides to form the arms and then rotate around the rear two-thirds or so of the car mode to form the legs. Just like most other Titan Changers, Sideswipe's legs are waaaay too long in robot mode-- likely just so he can look so big inside the box. It really looks awkward, especially since his lower legs have basically no feet-- there's LITTLE wedges on the bottom, but they just barely poke out of the rest of the car mode details. The main body and upper legs look pretty solid (well, from the front-- from the back everything is hollow, which is how they get Titan Changers so big for the price), with all the necessary mold details in there, such as the faux car hood, waist "armor", and angular details on the upper legs. Unfortunately the headlights on the chest are unpainted, but the waist and upper legs have a decent amount of metallic black paint to help break up the red. The headsculpt is also spot-on, with Sideswipe's usual pointy hair and smirk. There's silver paint on the face and moderately light blue on the eyes as well. The arms are pretty weak overall-- there's not enough "substance" to them, especially compared to the rest of the figure. The lower arms are too skinny and short, and the halves of the front bumper on top of the shoulders are a bit annoying and can hamper articulation slightly as they can interfere with the windshield piece behind Sideswipe's head when moving them. (For articulation, he can move at the shoulders (at two points) and back-and-forth at the knees, though because of the transformation the knees can't lock in place. It's a Titan Changer, articulation isn't really the point of these.)
    Titan Changer Sideswipe is okay if you accept the inherent limitations of the subline-- that is, really long legs, not much paint, not much articulation, and being super hollow on the backside. I think he's a bit better than Bumblebee but not as good as Prime, to compare him to the other RID2015 Titan Changers. Nice for a cheap toy for a kid, but otherwise unless you're a completist this is an easy pass.
 

Review by Beastbot

Back to Robots in Disguise (2015) Index