650 I Will Risk No Harm To It.

I have been searching for new Transformers action figures for some time now.  None of the local stores have stocked anything new in a while.  Which really isn’t that big a deal.  I don’t like the movie figures for the most part, but I am aware of other options now.  Options like figures based on the new video game…  that I won’t get to play for probably 5 years…  but still, they aren’t based on Micheal Bay’s design abortions.

When I visited my friends earlier in the week I had occasion to visit the Target and actually see these toys.  There were also other toys I wasn’t aware were available yet.  The War For Cybertron guys were cool and everything, but I own, like, 150 Optimus Primes, and the only Bumblebee I feel I’ll ever need. (Universe Classics)  If I was swimming in money these guys still would end up lower on my list than a lot of other things.  Really, they looked cooler and bigger in the pictures online.  I mean, Bumblebee looks like he might even be taller than the Prime.  Which isn’t that big a deal.  Scale and Transformers are not friends.  I’m just saying.

Anyway, those two lost out because there were guys there that I don’t have other versions of, or at least haven’t had a new version of since the 80s.  I got a sportscar guy called Drift, who has 3 bladed weapons.  There’s even places on his person to store said weapons.  That’s a cool feature.  It sucks having to sit stuff to the side when they aren’t being held.  There’s a lot of panels in awkward places when he’s a robot, but you can still get him into some pretty dynamic poses.  He looks like he could take Bludgeon if he had to.

I also got  Huffer with Caliburst.  I don’t know if there’s a show going to be connected to these guys, but they seem to be part of Hasbro’s new idea wave for this year, or whatever.  Calliburst is a Minicon that transforms into 4 “different” modes.  Mostly he just contorts and sticks to Minicon pegs.  I have no problem with this.  I like Minicons.  I have a bucket of them, so I can mix and match.  I’m glad they haven’t ditched the concept so there’s a reason to have the old ones around still.  I prefer the ones that turn in to weapons because they remind me of Targetmasters.  The wild thing about Caliburst is that he is a Minicon that has Minicon pegs on himself.  So you can make a superweapon if you have a mind so to do, and I do.

My Caliburst was put together wrong so he won’t transform the way he’s supposed to.  His knees are on backwards.  Normally I would fix it myself, but it’s metal pegs through plastic holes which can only end in tears.  It doesn’t ruin him per se, so I can cope.  Production errors do seem to be on the rise though.  Of the few I’ve purchased in the last year almost all of them had a part stuck on wrong, or some other flaw.

Huffer seems to be at least sort of an homage to his G1 namesake.  He’s a commander bot, or something.  Whatever they call it, it means that he can use drones to become a gestalt robot.  There’s an extra head in his torso in case the opportunity presents itself.  I have no drones to make this happen, but I’m glad that the option exists.  I’m not anti drone.

His transform is simple but cool.  He becomes a very solid little semi.   With Caliburst stuck on a certain way he looks kind of like a wrecker.

27 Comments

First! also i never collected Transformers, but i had a crap-ton of old-ish broken ones that were hand-me-downs. one was a plane, it was blue and gold (mostly blue) and it ended up transforming into a guy with a huge cannon on his right arm, the other arm is broken.

When you say “plane” what sort of plane are you talking about? Like a f-15 esque jet fighter, a Turbo-prop commercial plane, a Bi-plane? There were a lot of planes in the Transformers line.

Wait, did he INSTANTLY switch games? How much time has passed? I CRAVE KNOWLEDGE! YOU MUST GIVE IT TO ME! I BEG OF YOU!

Why would he have to switch games? Donkey Kong is in Mario Kart.

I thought he was “being mean to the monkey”, which to me did not imply a racing game.

I guess maybe I’m just derping out, because I didn’t even think of that.

Ahh, Drift. He’s… Special.

IDW publishing has the comics license for Transformers, and amongst all the other stuff they were doing.. They created Drift.

When they introduced him- And here’s the funny thing, they introduced him like a sports star or something, he didn’t just show up in the comics; Press releases and everything- They literally said ‘We wanted to make a character like Wolverine.’

You know, impossibly awesome, manages to be on all four teams when the big group splits up and goes to the four corners of the earth, multiple mysterious pasts that may or not be fabricated so that if someone explains his past, there’s explicitly a Shadowy Cabal Of Shadowyness going ‘OR IS IT?’ and laughing madly on the last panel.

So, yeah, they hyped him waaaay out of proportion. To the point where we knew the toy was coming for more than a year because IDW wouldn’t stop with the ‘Dude Hasbro’s totally making a toy of Drift because he’s so awesome and you should love him!’ (Also, toy creation cycles are long, with nothing to show until the end, so for a year or more, IDW sounded like they were speaking from their rectum, which didn’t help. And then suddenly oh hey toy.)

… And then he showed up in the comics and… didn’t do much. Especially since quite a few people were saying ‘I’m sick of him already!’ before he even showed up in the comics.

So… Drift, as a character? Kind of a joke.

Toy? Awesome. But he’s still gonna be a bit of an ironic toy. (At least I know you still love me, picture of Shane McCarthy.)

It’s hard to see from the pic you have posted but it looks like my Caliburst is assembled the same way – his knees are double jointed so it shouldn’t matter too much.

Also, if you have the new Sea Spray, Huffer and Caliburst look awesome riding in his cargo bed.

You can’t tell from the image, but his hips are constructed in such a way that they can’t be rotated into the positions shown in the instructions.

I haven’t seen Seaspray anywhere. I’d like to get that one though.

I happen to have Huffer and Caliburst myself, and I think I might have a very simple solution to your problem: While I can’t say for sure about yours, I know my Caliburst’s legs can bend up to 90 degrees in either direction, as I think they’re meant to. I remember they resisted a little bit when I first got him, but they bend either way very smoothly now. Regardless, even if yours can’t do that, you can simply pop off his legs and put them on the opposite ball joint. I’ve even tried this on mine just to see if it works, and it does. Nothing gets in the way and it looks great. Hope this helps, Crave.

I hate to stress joints because it’s really easy to snap them if you apply too much force. The hip joint is clearly to large on one side to be rotated the way the instructions show. I tried it several ways and it just won’t have it. It seems to be formed that way so that it braces itself when it’s assembled as shown. I switched the legs around at one point, but he looks odd with his feet on backwards. I actually like my solution because I can make the sweet quad gun.

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