Phil's
Cybertron Crumplezone & Dark Crumplezone,
Galaxy Force Land Bullet
and
Botcon Optimus Primal
Review

Crumplezone

Crumplezone looks like a dark green futuristic 3 wheeled racing car with 2 huge engines sticking out the back.... Or perhaps he's the 2nd incarnation of the Batmobile in this line ! His Speedia/Speed Planet key - same design as Exillion's though the Cybertron version has the number #vj40 - causes the white engine tubes to flick over onto the front of the car revealing them to be missile launchers - pale green missiles, also used for the flaps on the engines - and making an electronic firing noise. The canopy for the car and the wheels are moulded in clear dark blue plastic.

To transform pull the sides at the back down slightly - his hand are holding pegs at the rear - and then out to the sides, and then back down towards the back pulling out his shoulders from within the car. Pull the sides of the front down - the waist is attached to a pivot inside the car - and fiddle to form the legs. The head folds out under the cockpit, the front wheel folds in in it's place, and then the cockpit folds down to become the robot chest.

Robot mode..... well he looks big and stupid. Huge long forearms and little legs, produce an almost ape like feel. The head is a near exact likeness for Cruellock complete with moving jagged jaw, but this, and the green on the robot put me in the mind of both Rhinox and Tankorr. Engines can hang down his back as a rocket pack or flip over the shoulders as missile launchers.

In a year when there are so many excellent toys around Crumplezone is going to get overlooked as being merely OK, but he's a good fun toy

Crumplezone was originally issued as Galaxy Force toy GD-04 Land Bullet - he came in a box of toys from HLJ which required £12.84 sacrificed to the customs men to get it. As well as Crumplezone it contained my reissue Blitzwing and the remaining Galaxy Force Wave 1 toys - Thundercracker, Backpack & Jackshot.

Dark Crumplezone

Dark Crumplezone is a *MAJOR* remould of Crumplezone with nearly every exposed surface being changed in some way. Green is basically swapped for black and white becoming a rich brown with the car gaining a new front, new solid cab, new forward facing exhausts/laser blasters (clear orange, replacing the blue). He also gains a Minicon port on his roof. Transform and articulation remains the same as the earlier version. His key number now is v2r2.

You don't see remoulds like this too often and I'd have quite liked to get my hands on it. The new colour balance is at the darker end of the spectrum though the orange is a little jarring !

Dark Crumplezone appeared in a Voyager wave with Cybertron Defence Scattorshot. Although featured in the toy catalogs neither toy made it to the UK. Interesting Dark Crumplezone (Dark Landbullet ?) never came out in Japan either.

Optimus Primal

Botcon 2006 presents us with pre-Beast Wars forms for the Beast Wars characters. Ultra Ape Optimus Primal's robot mode has cannons that swing from his back over his shoulders so Crumplezone's mould made a good candidate for use here. You might think a ground vehicle is an odd mode for a flying character but when you look closely you'll realise that an added benefit of using this mould is that the vehicle mode isn't too far removed from the ground vehicle mode on Optimal Optimus - Optimus Primal's form at the end of Beast Wars.

Reverting to the original version of the Crumplezone mould we set the bulk of the vehicle to a black colour with white for the engines, clear red for the cab & wheels and blue for the missiles & engine flaps. Transformation gives us something that looks astonishingly like Ultra Ape Optimus Primal - the new head moulded with a mouth like his cartoon appearance does help. He comes with a solid grey version of the Sideways/Unicron Planet Key with a gold circuitary pattern on the front.

Result all round really.

Email Philip

Phil's TF Review Page