Oh you expect me to take my time over this ? Ah. OK, I come not to praise Armada Nightbeat but to bury it. In a deep, deep hole.
Sideswipe is a blue car with clear orange windows. Now we're in a massive realm of trouble already. Sideswipe as a Transformer is a name I associate with red Lamborghinis. This is just a nondescript car. If any name could be attached to this car then Nightbeat would be better - If the Nightbeat name was available, which it must have been because it's used for the Minicon, why not use it on the car since it looks so similar to the original ? This will cause further problems when a car & robot that look like Sideswipe come to be released..... The robot head can be seen looking out the windows which is a minus point for me. The car has minimal clearance underneath especially where there are two unreachable Minicon ports on just in front of the rear wheels. These are the only Minicon ports on the car, nothing on top, and the gimmick isn't powered by one which is a sin I feel. What we do get is a raised area on the bonnet that when pushed down causes the front & sides of the bonnet to spring out to the sides and then forward. A waste of space to be honest, and one that could easily have been powered by a Minicon port. Slightly better is the small trigger on the rear bumper that when pressed flips the middle of the rear of the car & windscreen over - including the embossed Autobot symbol in the window - revealing a space where Nightbeat can be stored on top of the vehicle using a Minicon port inaccessible to most other toys. The Minicon can be stored inside the car as well if you lock the panel away again and having it placed there won't hinder the gimmick.
TF: Fold the passenger doors back taking the roof with them. Fold the back of the car out to the sides and back to form the legs. Fold the feet down from underneath the car. Fold the front of the car forward and lock into place so the head is looking down. Separate the sides of the front to form the arms and turn out 90 degrees to reveal the hands. If necessary fold the sides of the car back to lock onto the underside of the forearms. Fold the gimmick activating panel down onto the chest which is the same grey as the head.
The robot. Well...... he's got 5mm peg holes which is an advantage over his case brother Thrust (and Cyclonus, Demolishor, Sideways, Blurr & Hoist for that matter !) Horrible kibblicous forearms and legs - and the leg kibble is huge chunks of the transparent orange from the roof and the windows. I suppose you could think of it as oversized holsters because contained within is a clear plastic dagger and gun - which I've lost - which can be combined into a bayoneted gun. He's got horribly thin upper limbs moulded in a nasty clashing bright orange. His elbows are ball jointed but in such a way that the arms will hardly bend at all shoulders that turn and bend to the sides which is useful since the arms won't lie flat against the side of the chest and need to be pointing out to a 45 degree angle. At least the gimmick makes some sense in this mode where you can trigger it using the mechanism on the aside of each arm making the underside of the forearms jump forward like he's punching someone. Going down to the legs we find bending hips that also swing to the sides and nasty sideways bending knees that with a little work and some swivel joints in the right places could have been properly functional. His minicon ports are absurdly placed in this mode too - they are on the knees ! At least they're forward facing. There's an additional port on his back in this mode which powers a new gimmick - pulling down on it causes his right arm to swing up gun slinger style. And you might want to avoid leaving the bike stuck in it's hiding place in robot mode as it ends up between the legs !
Avoid. Worst Supercon so far.....
In Japan Sideswipe & Nightbeat were sold in Micron Legend as MC-10 Stepper with Char
Blue becomes purple and here the embossed Autobot symbol is changed to an embossed 'con symbol.
Somehow freed from the name confusion and what he used name represents, together with the purple and the change of faction, this works a little better as a toy !
Treadshot is a lighter purple repaint of Armada Smokescreen than Oil Slick is. I didn't like the Armada version but somehow the purple works, and works with the slightly more orangey shade of yellow. There's something of a Stunticon theme to this toy - he's got similar colours and vehicle form to Dead End - and I like it much more than the original.
He's mainly black plastic (for blue & grey) with orange flame deco, dark blue (instead of Orange) upper limbs. We've got a head remold, we've lost the punching gimmick - though the post is still there. The extending front of the car panel is replaced by a hotrod engine with a slot for his Earth force chip. The flip up bit at the back of the car now contains a souped up engine/exhaust assembly, which pops off to form a gun.
< It's a nice update of the Armada mould, and it is better but somehow I'm slightly underwhelmed compared to the work done on the other three updated Armada moulds......