Sideways is a black space shuttle esque vehicle with lots of silver and bronze highlights. He's got an Autobot symbol but the GX designation applied to the Japanese version should indicate that not all is as it would seen - insert the unique spiked orange Decpeticon force chip (Cybertron #dj51)to reveal a Decepticon symbol. Armada Sideways all over again.....
To TF pop the wings and the connected pieces out to the sides, and origami the waist together. Pop the arms out - his right arm first, then fold up the mechanism that holds the symbol changer and fold out the left arm with that attached. Clip the waist into the lower body and fold the wings out to the sides of the legs. Open the cockpit, fold out the head and close the cockpit. Position the shield on his arm, turn the wrists and pop the wings off to form weapons.
This is one evil looking bot - lots of horns and spikes - almost Devil like, he's have deserved the name Brimstone which was held by one of the other Galaxy Force toys. More spikes - this time in clear orange - pop out of the shield when the key is inserted for the gimmick change. There's a very pointy horn helmet with a transparent orange lightpipe for a face plate. As well as the black a whole lot of orange is revealed in this mode. This just looks sinister and nasty. You want one of these.
Sideways *was* released in the UK as one of the first Cybertron deluxes found. He was case paired with Snarl and available through Tescos and a small number of other outlets - it had a much more limited release than other Cybertron toys.
A nice looking repaint - shame it's so expensive and hard to get.
As the name implies most of the black becomes purple here, with the shield & upper limb remaining black, the orange becoming grey and the clear orange becomes clear yellow. It's not an exact match of name to mould but there are elements of the Sideways mould that say Ratbat - the ears on the robot for example. In fact this is the first time Ratbat has had a robot mode ! Ratbat comes with a clear purple version of the Sideways key with a silver Decepticon symbol painted on it which looks very similar to the key issued with the Decepticon Movie Deluxe repaints exclusive to Wal*Mart and ASDA.
A good use of name and mould matching here produces a good updated version of Scourge.