Roadburn
(Titans Return)
(NOTE: Because this is a repaint, this is not a full-blown review. This mainly covers any changes made to the mold and the color scheme, and merely compares it to Titans Return Bumblebee. For a review on the mold itself, read the review of Titans Return Bumblebee here.)
Interesting that Hasbro
didn't take the traditional track with a Bumblebee redeco and just do Cliffjumper;
props to them for doing something a bit different this time and doing "Roadburn",
a trademark-friendly name for the G1 Throttlebot Chase, of all toys. Even
better since Chase hasn't had an update since his original toy! Anyways,
as for the toy itself, it's almost entirely red and charcoal black. The
black is just onnne shade above a "pure" black, which I think would've
looked slightly better, but it still does look pretty good against the
red. The red paint matches up quite well with the red plastic as well,
which is another plus. If you look REALLY closely the paint might be one
tiny shade less dull, but that's it. Both colors are broken up pretty well--
there's no one huge area of one color or the other, unless you look at
it from the unlikely angle of the bottom of the car mode. Even in vehicle
mode, a large black stripe goes around the entire bottom to keep it from
being too one-tone. Overall, it's a pretty basic color scheme, but it still
works, particularly for an Autobot. As for accent colors, the headlights
are a pale yellow (unfortunately the taillights are unpainted); there's
a bit of milky gray paint on the front grill; and there's some dark metallic
blue and muddy brown on the head. They're decent colors, but aren't used
enough to really affect the overall color scheme much.
Roadburn has a new headsculpt,
of course made to look like G1 Chase's head, but with slightly more modernized
proportions. His brown face is rather odd-looking with a faceplate that
looks like his mouth is wide open, a fairly prominent nose, and a sunglass-like
visor that I really wish was painted something other than brown. The "helmet"
around the brown headsculpt is painted a really nifty dark metallic blue,
and has several little ridges poking out all over the edges. It's a rather
unique and weird headsculpt, but in a good way-- it'll be difficult to
mistake this guy for anyone else. No other mold changes have been made
to Roadburn.
Titans Return Roadburn
is a nice update of Chase, and a nice change from the usual Bumblebee redecoes.
The color scheme of red-and-black is a bit basic, but it works, though
I wish the accent colors were a bit more prevalent-- and that other Throttlebots
had been made from this mode, too... Recommended over Titans Return Bumblebee,
both because of the color scheme and the considerably rarer character choice.
Review by Beastbot