Runamuck
(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 Armada Sideswipe. For a review on the mold itself, read the review of Armada Sideswipe here.)
Runamuck is a homage
to the G1 character Runabout, who was part of a group of two near-identical
Decepticons called Battlechargers. Runabout was a black car, while his
parner, Runamuck, was a white car. Obviously, Hasbro would've named this
new version Runabout if they could have because it's a black car, but I
guess the name was already copyrighted or something. Anyways, the new remolded
head is a very faithful replica of G1 Runabout's head, and looks pretty
good. There are two other areas that have been significantly remolded on
Cybertron Runamuck when compared to Armada Sideswipe. The most significant
is that the button on the car hood that, when you pressed it, would elongate
the front part of the car into a "dragster-esque" configuration has been
replaced with a Cyber Key slot that does the same thing. The Cyber Key
slot is cleverly disguised as an engine, and has lots of good detailing
on it. There is a downside to this remolded gimmick, however-- the Cyber
Key has no use whatsoever in robot mode because of the gimmick's configuration,
and if you insert it in Runamuck's chest slot where the engine is in robot
mode, it has to be inserted upside down, which looks a little odd. Also,
in car mode, the pieces connect to the engine-Cyber Key slot in such a
way where it's nearly impossible to re-connect the front halves of the
car together when they're in their "dragster mode" position, as they're
at a very slight angle from each other, so the peg that's supposed to connect
the two halves together in their dragster configuration doesn't. The front
window pieces also don't slide into their tab behind the engine very well
either-- it makes the whole car mode feel a little less "together". More
time should have been spent to fine-tune the new engine-key-slot piece
so it connected better with its surrounding pieces. The other significant
remolding job done is that the mold's Minicon, Nightbeat, has been replaced
with a rear engine piece that doubles as a gun in robot mode. It looks
pretty cool, especially when deployed in vehicle mode, and I prefer it
over that crummy Minicon Nightbeat any day. The Minicon ports on the rear
flip-out section of the car mode and on the robot knees are still present,
however. The Minicon port on the upper back of the robot mode is also present,
but it doesn't activate a "punching action feature" anymore. Armada Sideswipe's
bayonet-gun pieces have also been removed from the mold.
As for the color scheme,
it's definitely the best this mold has had-- although a normal black would
have been preferred to the charcoal black, it's still a nice main color.
The flame deco job on the sides of the car looks really cool and adds a
bit of flair to the vehicle mode, and the orange used for that and the
windows goes pretty well against the black and gray. There's also plenty
of different-colored paint apps all over the figure, and they all make
great accent colors. There's even several colors that are only used in
one small area, which I always appreciate as it seems to show that the
designer paid more of an attention to detail.
Cybertron Runamuck has
a great color scheme and is a nice homage-- I like the new engine gun,
especially. However, it's still one of the worst mainline Transformer molds
in the past couple of lines, and the remolds haven't changed that. The
way the remolded engine-Cyber Key slot doesn't fit in very well with its
surrounding pieces is also a bit of a downer. It's my personal favorite
of the four paint jobs this mold has gotten, but it's still not worth your
money unless you're a completist or just a big Runabout/Runamuck fan.
Review by Beastbot