A week or so ago I picked up a few more toys. From the TRU website I ordered the Transformers: Prime Deluxe Arcee and BumbleBee toys and a few days later picked up the Kreo BumbleBee kit (the big one).

I have to say that I am very impressed with the Arcee figure. She’s got a fair amount of kibble on the back and could use a few more paint apps. Her blades are also far too large for her and I’m thinking of picking up a replacement set that I saw on Shapeways. That said, however, I got to say she’s very flexible.
In fact, she’s the only transformer I’ve ever had that can more or less sit in lotus position with her arms crossed. So with that kind of flexibility she can achieve some really dynamic poses. Her feet, unfortunately, make it a bit hard to balance her in these super awesome poses though.
Later in the line Hasbro will be releasing a Cyberverse version of Arcee and I can tell you that I will be picking that up without a thought. The whole TF franchise is really bad at things like scale, but it’s important to me. Even if the toy isn’t that great I’ll get it if for no other reason than it will be closer to being in scale with the rest of the team.

BumbleBee, has been a bit underwhelming though. Granted that at this point I think I have 5 or 6 BumbleBees, but this is a new design so we’ll let that slide. The alt mode looks spot on and the robot mode does some great things in trying to achieve the look of the show. He’s got some good things going for him, but it just isn’t quite there. A second attempt at a deluxe BB is coming down the pipe in addition to the cyberverse version so we’ll see how those turn out. His feet are ridiculously huge and his chest/torso feels kinda loose like it just doesn’t quite lock in properly. I know a lot of fans have experienced having parts of the chest actually break off on them. Thankfully I watched for the before messing with mine.

I love building things (obviously) and have always had a soft spot for Legos, Bionicle and now the Halo Megabloks sets. I’ve been pretty keen to check out the Kreo sets and I have to say that I’m not overly impressed. The parts themselves feel kinda weird like they don’t quite snap together properly. I can’t speak to the alt mode as I haven’t bothered with that yet and just went straight to robot mode. The whole thing is going for a mix of G1 and Movie-verse and I am kinda digging it. The smaller BB kit has a straight up G1 looking head and I’m tempted to pick it up so that I can swap it with one of the heads on an extra Movie-verse BB Deluxe figure. The cost of spending $9 for a head is throwing me off for the moment. That, and I’m trying to save any extra toy money I have until more of the TF:Prime toys come out. The finished kit has some strange kinda rubbery joints that hold a pose pretty well, but also have a tendency to pop out pretty easily. The little dudes, Kreons, I find kinda a waste. I’m super into the Halo Megabloks mini figures, they have an awesome level of detail AND articulation so after that… these just felt kinda lame. On a side note, I saw the new Megabloks Power Ranger Samurai kits the other day and the minifigures have devolved into Lego minifig knockoffs. Why Megabloks, WHY?? I’m still interested in picking up the Kreo Optimus Prime though that may be simply because I have a weakness for OP toys.

Today I picked up a Generations Wheel Jack and he does some pretty neat things during the transformation. I love his wrenches and he’s got some great light piping. His legs bug the heck out of me though. From the windshield forward becomes his shins and feet and that coupled with the wind shield covering his pelvis give him a very stunted look. Dude is very bottom heavy and has some stubby legs. Like I said, he’s still a cool figure and I’m glad I have him; but I don’t think he’s going to get pulled off the shelf and messed with as often as some of the others.