Transformation: fold a hand part out of each end of the tank treads. Fold the tank treads on each side of the vehicle together to form lower arms. Pop the "wings" up from the top of the body - there's a shallow 5mm peg holding each in place. Look at then underside of the tank with the cannon pointing up. Fold the claw section out to your right and then rotate 90 degrees anti clockwise and lock onto the vehicle: it will off some considerable resistance to sliding into place properly. Pull the tops of each side out to the sides to form the upper arms. Fold the wings and the rear of the vehicle back 180 degrees to form the legs. Fold the wings down under the legs to form the feet swinging the fins up to form the inside of each foot. Fold the head and then the chest plate up. While he can continue to store the cannon on his back it can be popped off the tab it rests on and clipped onto the side of either arm. Unfortunately the clip for attaching to the arm is right opposite the trigger panel so be careful when attaching the cannon or you might shoot yourself/loose the missile trying to apply pressure in the right place.
In many ways the robot mode feels like Animated Megatron crossed with the design aesthetic for Classic Megatron. I can see elements of both here. The robot is mainly the same off white/grey as the vehicle with black lower limbs and lower chest. There's red paint on the forearms, upper arms, chest and gun which are a nice pointer to the red plastic used on the Original Megatron.Several small panels of clear purple plastic are found on the chest and legs. This is the same plastic used for the lightpipe, but here we find the eyes painted over with red. The overall effect here is a purple glow around the painted eyes. It looks OK but personally I'd prefer the eyes to be left unpainted. The chest and legs both have pointed arrow shaped designs on them. There's a purple painted Decepticon symbol in the middle of the chest. In the middle of the forehead is a tiny upside down black triangle which I think is meant to be a Decepticon symbol too. The back panel can either hang behind his waist as a skirt or folded up onto his back where you find that there's a distorted Decepticon head moulded into it.
Articulation is pretty good: Ankles bend to the sides and move forwards & backwards, the knees bend, there's a thigh swivel, the hips bend to the sides & turn, the head turns on neck and neck base moves backwards & forwards. The shoulders turn & bend to the sides and the elbows bend. The elbow bend is accomplished by a hinge on the outside of the arm which lets the forearm bend right the way up against the upper arm. When the elbows are bent then the lower arms will fold to the sides. Finally the lower arms can swivel bellow the elbow.
The real star of the robot mode is the cannon which, as we've said, can be clipped onto either arm. Thanks to the swivel bellow the elbow the cannon can then appear above, to the outside of or under the arm. So few Megatrons have had a proper cannon - Classic Megatron's being marred by the Decepticon symbol which ends up upside down if the weapon is on top of the arm like it's generally pictured for the Original Megatron. The cannon can still fire in this mode which is superb. I'm pretty sure there's been a Megatron with a firing arm mounted cannon before but I struggling to think of which one it is! The G2 versions - both Leader and Combat Hero - have shoulder mounted cannons, while the Universe version is Galvatron. Various Beast Wars versions have launchers *in* the arms so I believe the most likely candidate is the aforementioned Animated Megatron.
This Megatron really works for me. Yes the vehicle mode isn't the greatest, but the robot is superb taking the best elements from several Megatrons and giving us one of, if not the best, Megatron arm cannon ever. Of the three War For Cybertron toys I own so far this is bar a long stretch the best one, and one of the best Megatron robots I've seen in quite some while. Well worth a look.
Megatron was released as part of wave 2 of Generations in August 2010.
Expect a purple Galvatron recolour soon! Or how about repainting him in orange with a new head as Flame?