Review: #294
Name: Blast Off
Brand: Transformers
Allegiance: Decepticon
Line: Generations - Combiner Wars
Year of Release: 2015
Size Class: Deluxe (Wave 5)
Mold Status: repaint of Combiner Wars Quickslinger
COMIC:
Blast Off comes with Robots in Disguise
#11, an issue that was originally supposed to come with Firefly, but eventually
made its appearance with the exclusive Quickslinger. The issue focuses around Starcream, and an
election between him and Bumblebee. Starscream ends up blackmailing Prowl to
eliminate the rest of the Decepticons and it looks like he has the upper hand. There is a political atmosphere to the issue
which makes it interesting as you try and decipher what is going to happen
next. The ending brings back a
character, one who even Starscream is afraid of. While it'll probably make more sense if you
have been following the series, if you're reading this as a one-shot, it isn't
too hard to grasp what is happening.
JET MODE:
Blast Off transforms into a dark brown jet with some purple highlights. Nooooooooo... Blast Off doesn't turn into a space shuttle anymore!!!
While people accepted it better than others, it is such a shame we couldn't at least have gotten a remold to look like a space shuttle. Despite this, Blast Off's jet mode now fits into the theme of the Combaticons better.
Blast Off is a Deluxe sized figure, not too bad in terms of size compared to others. This is also a pretty good jet except for the undercarriage kibble and exposed robot arms.
He is a straight up repaint of Quickslinger, no changes were made to the jet mode.
The weapons can each be stored underneath the wing, giving him some firepower in this mode.
A decent jet mode, the colors take some getting used to, as well as the alternate mode but otherwise quite good.
TRANSFORMATION:
Blast Off's conversion into robot mode is very simple and very similar to a lot of the other Combiner Wars Deluxe figures. The back of the place unclips into halves of his shins before extend and clipping back together again. This would have been quite neat if you hadn't already experienced this with the last fifteen figures.
ROBOT MODE:
Blast Off's robot mode is pretty decent, with some good proportions and a nice paint job.
He carries the wings and the cockpit on his back, since the jet mode was pretty much a folded up robot stuck underneath the fuselage.
The biggest complaint is that he did not get a new headsculpt. While the eyes are correct, the mouth is not. However, using Firefly won't help either because while Firefly has the mouthplate it doesn't have the proper eyes. At the end of the day, the least Hasbro could have done was to give him a new head.
A quick size comparison shows that Blast Off has some height to him but he is quite hollow and light.
A comparison against Quickslinger showing that he is just a mere repaint, very disappointing for a core team member.
His large footprint helps stabilize him in a wide range of poses.
While the colors are accurate, it makes Blast Off come off as quite dark, and seemingly similar to Vortex's.
His weapon is a gun, and it is surprising to see that the handle is unpainted grey, not that it makes much of a difference.
He can hold the gun in either hand as you'd expect, he doesn't have any wrist articulation though.
Still, he has a wide range of joints and can strike some good poses. One of the only complaints is that his hips are grey while his thighs are purple, it stands out so much due to the plastic placement.
His other weapon is the combiner piece which is sculpted to be a twin-barreled gun.
It is a bit large to pass off as just a gun but does a good enough job.
Ignoring who the character is supposed to be, this is a good robot mode.
OVERALL:
Blast Off disappoints, there is no way around this, whether it is the fact that he is not a space shuttle or that he does not have the correct head, there is something off about this figure. Ignoring those two points and you have a solid figure, with a nice color scheme. Needless to say, as he is integral to the Combaticons to form Bruticus, you'll probably want to buy this figure anyway.
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Thanks for reading the review, for other Transformers reviews, have a look at this page.
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As you can guess, Blast Off has two additional modes to accommodate the combining gimmick, while Bruticus will be covered off in a separate review, let's take a look at Blast Off's modes.
First up is the arm mode, using the robot waist and knee joints as elbows. Unfortunately, it seems like his robot arms doesn't have anywhere better to go and makes the upper arm seem a bit busy.
It looks good as an arm although you need to pair it up with a similarly skinny arm to make the combined mode symmetrical.
Leg mode is very solid and stable, the nosecone provides some kneecaps.
The only complaint here is that the hands/feet are unpainted grey plastic which looks kinda horrible. That's all for now, thanks for reading!