SIDESWIPE

TRANSFORMERS WAR FOR CYBERTRON: SIEGE (HASBRO)

In my trek into the world of Transformers, I’m kind of making my way through all of the standard classes.  I looked a Voyager Class first with Optimus, then followed that up with some Leader coverage with Magnus and Shockwave.  With the second wave of Siege product hitting right at this very minute, I’m going back and doing a little bit of catch-up, and jumping into the Deluxe Class with today’s focus, Sideswipe!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Sideswipe is one of the four figures in the first Deluxe Wave of War for Cybertron: Siege figures.  Like the rest of the line so far, he’s heavily influenced by his G1 design, which is really about as prominent as Sideswipe gets.  In his robot mode, the figure stands 5 inches tall and has 20 workable points of articulation.  Where many of the Siege figures are worn-in and battle-torn, Sideswipe’s robot mode is actually pretty clean and slick.  There’s some definite polish to the sculpt, and a lot of people have brought up that he almost looks like a mini-Masterpiece figure in this regard.  Still, as a lower price-point figure, there are some hollow sections of construction; the legs form in a way to conceal them, but the arms are just hanging out there.  Fortunately, the off-white plastic somewhat masks this issue, so he doesn’t end up looking too cheap. Sideswipe has a little bit of back-kibble where the roof of the car folds up on his back.  Like Optimus, it’s clearly there, but it’s svelte enough to not really ruin the figure’s silhouette.  Sideswipe’s original figure turned into a Lamborghini.  They obviously don’t have many of those around on Cybertron, so this figure instead turns into a slightly more generic Cybertronian sports car.  It’s not actually too far removed from Sideswipe’s usual alt-modes, but it fits the overall aesthetic of the line pretty well.  Sideswipes transformation into alt-mode was definitely the easiest of all the Siege figures I’ve picked up.  It’s quite intuitive, and not as involved as some of the others, making swapping him back and forth a rather easy endeavor.  Despite the simplicity of the transformation, the alt-mode is still a very nice piece in its own right.  It matches the robot for sleekness and holds together well.  Sideswipe is packed with two blasters, the W-10 Photo-Pulser Proton Launcher and the W-5 Gyro Blaster, which can be combined into the RR Gyrofuse Axleswitch Hyper-Blaster.  They can be held in his hands, or mounted on his shoulders, depending on your fancy.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Sideswipe was almost my first Siege figure.  When All Time first got in the deluxes in December, I came very close to buying him, but he ended up selling before I had the opportunity.  When the second round of them arrived in January, I had already gotten Optimus, but I felt like maybe the moment had passed.  You know, like a fool.  He ended up coming home with me a few weeks later, because I just kept finding myself looking at him.  I’m glad I bought one, because oh boy is he a nice figure, and a nice car.  I think this is the most I’ve enjoyed both forms of a Transformer.

As mentioned above, I picked this guy up from my friends at All Time Toys, where he is still currently in stock here.  If you’re looking for Transformers, or other toys both old and new, please check out their website and their eBay storefront.