Phil's Beast Machines Spystreak,
Robots In Disguise Nightcruz
and
Transformers Universe Fireflight Review


Beast Machines Spystreak

In 2001 I wrote this when I got the original Spystreak" disappointed. Olive green and rust brown/red doesn't work anywhere near as well as the black and gold on the promo material :-( The scissor gimmick is hard to operate on mine in jet mode and I can't get the missiles to fire because of it. Reminds me a lot of the Cyber and MW jets in TF and robot mode, and the chest plate looks so much like the chest of one of the new microman toys advertised on the car robots leaflets. The posability of the arms is limited by the weapons being permanently attached to them and the weapons being large and clashing with other things....."

Spystreak is a Battle for the Spark Beast Machines toy - all of these have the figure's spark being the trigger for a gimmick. Spystreak is a blackbird style stealth jet. Initial pictures appeared to show in as black with gold shoulder and upper legs in robot mode - this picture is used on a competition flyer given away with some of the Beast wars videos in the UK. When the toy came out it turned out the black was a dark mucky olive green and the gold was a rusty red. (The tail fins and missiles are done in a clear yellow green) This immediately detracts from the vehicle mode by displaying it in the wrong colours. In this mode pushing the spark forward should cause the sides of the jet to open up like scissor blades and for the missiles to discharge. However the missile section doesn't quite mesh with the scissor section well enough causing it to be very difficult to fire the missiles in this mode.

TF: Fold the tail fins out to the side. Pull the wings away from the side of the vehicle and fold out behind it with the wings pointing down. Look at the underside of the plane and fold out the feet and heel spurs. Pull forward on the missile section till it come away on the right. Fold the nose of the jet out to your right and the missile section out to your left. Push up on the clear chest panel raising the head. Fold the nose & missiles down to form the arms.

As I said above the robot is very Cyberjet/Flipchanger in style. His ankles bend, ball jointed knees & hips, turning head - which is lightpiped in the same colour as the missiles, shoulders that turn & raise to the sides and ball jointed elbows. No hands as such, just the nose on one arm that opens to form a claw weapon using the spark and the missile launcher on the other - the triggers for which can be found underneath.

It not a bad toy at all, just let down by some engineering difficulties and a bad paint job.


Robots In Disguise Nightcruz

Spystreak came back as Nightcruz in the Autobot three pack of Vehicon repaints for Robots in Disguise. Here the jet body becomes back but with the panels lines now picked out in pale blue. The rust coloured panels become grey and the clear plastic is yellow.

Not a bad go, better than the original, but the panel lining hurts the toy.


Transformers Universe Fireflight with Firebot (Emergency Team) and Thunderwing (Air Military Team)

In 2004 I said "The quest for new minicon repaints has driven me into the arms of Transformers Universe for the first time. I shunned it due to it being just recolours, and mostly bad ones at that but these are quite good. In the case of the 2 minicon teams, excellent.

Fireflight is the BM Stealth Jet but in white with some blue and red as highlights and limb pieces - looks nice again, though the sooner they do an all black version.(and I mean all black, no coloured arm pieces or white detailing lines) the better. Comes with Hotspot and Thunderwing at a dlx price point.... (so basic + 2 minicon = 1 deluxe......)"

The white works which is a surprise but it is at best just an adequate repaint. Of all the Universe toys it wouldn't have been too hard to modify the spark into a minicon hardpoint so that you'd be able to be able to mount the minicons that came with the toy !


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