Rampage's alternate mode
is a bulldozer. Unlike in the movie, however, it's mostly yellow-- hardly
an inappropriate color for a bulldozer, but inaccurate nonetheless. The
proportions on this mode are pretty solid, with no real robot extras to
speak off-- however, some parts can be a bit stubborn to get exactly into
place, such as the "claws" at the back end and the legs on the underside
of this mode. The mold detailing is one of the best parts of this mode,
with gears, rivets, and the like molded in practically everywhere on this
figure that it's applicable. The drivers' seat area has transparent red
plastic, but it's too dark to tell if there's any mold detailing inside
there. There's also a few silver paint apps on the shovel and front vents,
but for all his mold detailing, Rampage has very little paint detailing
to highlight it, which is a real shame, especially since he's almost entirely
yellow. Although realistic, it also makes him look very dull. The treads
are real rubber, though they can't actually rotate around for transformation
reasons. His shovel can move up and down slightly, though, as can the pistons
behind them. It's not a huge range of motion, though.
Rampage's transformation
is highly unorthodox and unusual, so it make take even an "experienced"
Transfan a few tries to get it right without instructions. The result is
certainly an equally unorthodox robot mode design, however-- Rampage has
four insect-like legs and large whips made from his rubber treads hanging
iff his arms. He has little "chest" to speak of, as well, most of that
area instead consisting of his pistons from vehicle mode. Whether you like
this mode or not will depend almost entirely on whether you like the extremely
unique look of it or not. Me, I think it looks a bit messy, like Hasbro
couldn't quite decide what to do here. His tread whips are really unwieldy
and come out of their "slots" in between the claws pretty easily, though
if you pose them right they can look pretty cool. His pistons don't lock
into place very well either, and tend to flop around a lot. His front two
legs look decent enough, but due to the third transformation mode (discussed
shortly), they can't really pose very well, with the rubber joints on the
hips and knees exerting a slight pressure downards on the lower legs, sort
of essentially forcing his legs to remain at least somewhat straight. (His
overall articulation is pretty bad-- he can move at the neck, shoulders
(at three points), at the base of his claws [with two of the claws being
attached at the same joint], the waist, hips, and knees. Though that sounds
better than it is, given what I've already told you about his front two
legs, and his much his arms and head bang into the pieces around them.)
His back legs are pretty cool, though they're not movie-accurate and I
wish they weren't so far back-- it's a bit too obvious they're essentially
"stabilizers" for his robot mode. Although Rampage still suffers from a
severe lack of paint apps in this mode, the more visual usage of the milky
gray plastic, along with some silver and gunmetal gray paint apps on his
face, waist, and legs, help to make him look at least a bit more varied
here. I also really like his face sculpt-- it has really crisp details
and carries a very evil, slightly insectoid look that many of the movie
Decepticons have.
Rampage has a third
"jackhammer" mode, which is essentially his robot mode with the back legs
folded up and the front legs pegged together and hooked into his chest
pistons to form a "pogo stick"-like form. Pushing down his legs will cause
the relevant parts of the pistons to push upwards, and when you release
that pressure the "pogo-leg" will pop back out to its fully extended form.
It's kinda fun for a little bit, but honestly it looks pretty darn goofy,
makes it impossible to stand him up by himself, and is a pretty poor imitation
of his serpentine lower body from the movie. I barely ever transform Rampage
into his jackhammer mode, despite the minimal effort required to switch
him between this and his "normal" robot mode.
RotF deluxe Rampage
has a great vehicle mode, but unfortunately his robot mode suffers from
a "we can't possibly replicate this in toy form" movie design, and is just
generally an unposable, undetailed mess with a transformation that just
isn't worth it. Not recommended-- though if you do really want one version
of Rampage, I'd get one in his proper, red coloration instead.
Review by Beastbot