Phil's
Cybertron Shortround
and
Movie Storm Surge
Review


Shortround

Shortround is a Basic sized Decepticon Hovercraft. His air cushion is a dark grey, body an off white, and turbines a cyan blue engines at the back. Inserting his Earth planet key (#s639) into his rear causes the turbines to flip forward revealing molded in missiles. He has a gun mounted in the centre of his body just forward of the turbines. A nice little Hovercraft model.

To TF, fold both halves of the air cushion out and up to the sides of the body. Fold the front down so it's pointing down until it clicks into place. Fold out the legs - the knees are very stiff, and fold the very front of the hovercraft up to form the feet. Remove the gun and fold the head up. Fold the air cushion down to form the arms, bend at the elbow and slide back the pale blue section to form a claw. Place the gun into a slot on the hands.

The resulting robot has very stiff knees that bend back, restricted ball joint hips and shoulders, a bicep joint just above the elbow and a folding elbow joint. The key gimmick works still flipping the missiles onto his shoulders. And most of the toy looks just fine. I just have a problem with the arms. To start with they are a little long. Not too long, I think the toy could have coped...... if they hadn't made such a mess of the elbows ! When a TF bends it's elbows I want it's gun to still be on top of the hand - if you bend the elbow on this toy the gun is on the inside of the body or the arm is hanging out to the side. It's a very odd configuration and would have easily been solved by making the elbow a ball joint with the ball extending into the lower arm. And that just makes it more frustrating !


Storm Surge

Storm Surge is a Wave 4 Sector 7 Movie basic repaint exclusive to Target, which it is believed Woolworths didn't carry in the UK.

Storm Surge swaps the light blue for grey and the purple for dark blue with the white becoming a purer white, yet topped with blue paint in many places. It's a much less garish colour scheme then the original and the better of the two.

storm Surge is pictured next to the G1 version of Crankcase in Generations 2009 v2. This brings home how close the head/gimmick activated cannon arrangement is to Crankcase almost making Crankcase a missing Triggercon.


Future Repaints

I've always felt that a Seaspray version is inevitable but it's yet to emerge.


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