Laserbeak
(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 Combiner Wars Buzzsaw. For a review on the mold itself, read the review of Combiner Wars Buzzsaw here.)
This mold first came
out a bit "early" in Combiner Wars, but now it's out in the Titans Return
line proper as the more popular of Soundwave's two birds, Laserbeak. Like
Laserbeak, the main color on this toy is black, and he's got some red that
really contrasts excellently against the black-- unfortunately, this red
is only really visible in bird mode, on the fold-out wing bits and on the
back of his neck. There's also some silver on the "vents" at the bottom
area of the smartphone, as well as some silver on the beak, head crest,
and bottom of the feet. As far as unique colors, the eyes are yellow and
there's a nice shade of glossy dark purple that's used in the center of
the bottom of the smartphone mode, and which looks excellent against the
silver-- unfortunately, such an awesome color is used nowhere else. Because
of just the overwhelming dominance of black in all of Laserbeak's modes
(but especially his smartphone and vehicle modes), he ends up looking a
lot more boring than he otherwise would have, unfortunately. Now, the stickers
used on the smartphone screen COULD have been used to negate this somewhat,
but unfortunately the screen stickers are mostly black too. That's not
to say that they don't look good; the stickers have a nice "graph" look
to them, with red lines used for the graph and silver on the background
of the small on-screen labels. It has the usual little "smartphone symbols"
on the top like wireless signal strength and the time, but most of the
rest looks more like Laserbeak's spying readouts-- he's got "soundwaves"
being recorded, some little dots on the graph that are labeled "Intercept",
a "Playlist" next to an icon of his G1 cassette form, an "anti-Autobot"
Spyware icon, and of course a Decepticon emblem in the middle. It's all
quite creative; I just wish it didn't blend in so well with the rest of
the smartphone mode.
No mold changes have
been made to Titans Return Laserbeak.
Titans Return Laserbeak
is the better of the two releases of this mold, mostly because I'm not
a fan of the yellow and gray on Buzzsaw. Laserbeak's black looks great
when it's contrasting against the red (and to a lesser extent the silver),
but he doesn't have enough of these other colors to make him visually interesting--
even his smartphone screen stickers are mostly black (which unfortunately
can scratch off a bit on the edges as well). If you absolutely must have
more minions for Titans Return Soundwave, you really don't have many other
choices, but it's a very below-average mold with a boring color scheme;
there's many versions of this character that have much better toys.
Review by Beastbot