Soundwave is a dark blue futuristic jet with a black midsection between the wings containing the cockpit and grey rear. Lots of angles to the body. He's got tiny wheels on the tips of his wings and under the body. Purple clear plastic forms the canopy, and moulded into the cockpit - though you probably won't spot it till it TFs is a tiny pilot's seat. His key socket - towards the rear of the jet - opens a gold painted door underneath which releases a box with Hexagonal ends which they label as a bomb. There's room to clip 2 of these under each wing, and 3 in total with the toy. Each transforms into something different.
The transformation of the toy is easy but you need everything to line up and remember where certain bits go. The legs run either side of the cockpit, which is itself both arms on top of each other. The top of the waist is the top of the rear of the jet with the pelvis underneath it. I'd start with raising the cockpit canopy slightly and pulling away the legs at the sides of the cockpit. Pull the flap at the back of the jet down. Fold the entire leg section back - noting that the back of the base of the pelvis is recessed down a gap - and lock onto the back of the jet. Straighten legs, feet and heel spurs, fold down waist panels and lock centre one into place. Pull the arm with the cockpit roof on out to one side - the shoulder connections for both arms are on a series of hinged panels - and swing the underside of the cockpit and it's arm the other way. Fold the body of the robot - what's between the legs and the wings - into this gap, and lock into place with the arms by folding the shoulder panels into place. Fold the panels - whether underside of cockpit canopy - back on each arm.
Soundwave's 3 bombs are very different in colours - one is almost all clear purple, another is purple and grey with black end and the third is black with red ends. All TF differently:
The purple one fold a gun barrel out, then the purple casing swings through 180 degrees allowing a 2nd gun barrel and a handle to fold out. The instructions designate this his hand weapon.
The purple and grey one had 3 purple gun barrels fold out of one end, and a handle out of the other. There's a hole beside his head for this to act as a shoulder cannon.
The black one unfolds to form Laserbeak - separate review.
The final robot can best be described as a thinned down G1 Soundwave with a big wing back pack. The colours end up in the right places - dark blue for the body, head, shoulders & lower limbs and grey for the upper limbs. Like certain other Voyagers - I'm thinking Energon Mirage in particular here the limbs tend to be a little on the spindly side. His articulation consists of knees, a swivel above the knees and universal * jointed hips on the legs - along with an odd bend the legs sideways and out just below the knee joint which is part of the TF. His shoulders are restricted Universal joints with a bicep swivel and elbow joint. The arms are limited a little by having canopy and cockpit kibble hanging from them.
* I'm using the term Universal Joint to describe a joint that moves in all conceivable directions. To my mind it's not a ball and socket joint unless there's a ball and socket involved - see BW Waspinator's hips and shoulders amongst many others. Strictly speaking I don't think they are Universal Joints - see Wikpedia - but I can't think of a better phrase to describe them. Here ends the lecture.
The jet's bomb bay door is now on Soundwave's chest so the insertion of the Planet X key (Cybertron# vmj8) into the small of his back is similar to the opening of G1 Soundwave's tape compartment. He has standard size peg holes in his hands to match his weapons, a hole on his shoulder for one of the weapons. There's 2 other post holes on the wing tip which can be used as perching posts for Laserbeak without having to fold him up so much as to get him hand held. Soundwave's face is reminiscent of the original while not being an exact copy and his visor is cast in transparent purple plastic which is part of a lightpipe through the head. The purple used is slightly darker than on the Japanese version - as is the grey on the upper legs and arms - so the light effect doesn't work as well as in the pictures.
Well..... It's not a bad reinvention of Soundwave, and as I say in Classics Megatron's review I'm all for Decepticons who aren't jets being done as jets. Soundwave's problem is that the original is both distinctive and done very well - there's little you could want a newer version to do that the original doesn't. And as such no-one has really had a go at redoing Soundwave before now - save as a recolour with greater tape capacity and an Actionmaster.
And no I still can't TF the LoC version. Though I can TF this one reasonably easily thank you very much.
Soundwave was available in Japan as Galaxy Force toy GX-02 Soundwave.
Soundblaster was numbered GX-03 and was a Toy's Dream project exclusive.
Blow me they went and did it. His vehicle mode is mainly black and grey with a smattering of red, but the robot mode is much better with red body, head, shoulders and lower arms and grey legs. The head however is completely the wrong shape ! The clear purple is swapped for a clear blue. The Minicon becomes a red eagle with black feet called Blockrock - I look forward to an inverse repaint of G1 Laserbeak under that name.