Soundwave
Soundwave's bat mode
looks decent, but only from one angle (the angle shown in the picture above).
From any other angle except head-one, Soundwave's bat mode looks... broken
up. His wings aren't connected as one piece- in fact, the wings consist
of only flaps of plastic extended from from his midsection, the underside
of the alligator hands, and a small panel attached to those hands that
flips out to conceal the gap between the two different wing pieces from
a head-on view. From any other angle, it basically looks like the bat hands
hands, and is extending them in a "I don't know" gesture, with a bunch
of flaps of skin hanging off of him. This is the poorest feature of this
mode by far. To have a mode that only looks "solid" from one angle does
not say that it's a good design. One may also notice that this toy is rather
small for a deluxe- in fact, it's almost the size of a basic! I'm glad
this downsizing of the deluxes wasn't a permanent trend... The yellow markings
on the bat's stomach and wings are rather odd in their placement- since
when does a bat have markings like that?! The face is rather cartoony in
appearance as well. Frankly, this mode looks more like some sort of winged
monster than an actual bat. Thankfully, his wings can move a bit to "flap"
in this mode, but it's still rather pointless since his wings are made
up of two completely separate pieces each. Soundwave's robot head is visible
in this mode, and at a rather humorous location- press a tab on the back
of Soundwave's bat head, and his mouth opens up, showing the robot head
inside! Hilarious! One can almost image a "robot mode" consisting of the
robot head in place of the bat head for the bat mode. The robot head itself
looks to be in pain, and for good reason- there's damaged detailing on
the robot head as well. Rather interesting, and demanding a backstory.
Another clue that Soundwave is a robot in disguise is that, if you pull
down his chest panel in this mode, a bunch of robotic detailing is shown
underneath! Neat! The Mutant allegiance symbol is visible in this mode
on the aforementioned chest panel.
Alligator mode is much
better than the bat mode, and is convincing from all angles. There's a
rather obvious proportion problem in this mode, however; the front feet
are HUGE when compared with the back feet! It would have been better is
Hasbro had made this a bit less obvious and made the front feet a tad smaller.
The front feet are also so large that the shoulder ball joints can't hold
them up, and tend to sag a bit without support in this mode. Also, a bit
more paint detailing in this mode would have been appreciated. Although
the mold detailing is great, with scales and veins molded right in, the
paint detailing is scarce, consisting only of some of the back scales,
the back claws, and the crocodile eyes. Some painting on the front claws,
the teeth, and more of the back scales would have made this mode more catching
to the eye. The movement in this mode is good, however- the legs can move
in three places each, and the tail can move in two as well. Although it
looks like it can, the alligator mouth cannot move unless you unhook the
stomach panels in this mode. Hasbro could have easily fixed this, which
adds to the "unfinished" look in this mode.
A rather mediocre toy
all around. With a bit of tweaking, this could have been a better toy,
but as it is, I only recommend this toy to completists or people who are
interested in the whole "Beast Mutants" concept. Otherwise, it'd be wise
to skip Soundwave.
Review by Beastbot