Aloha. Today we have two Datsun brothers to review from the ER line; the mass retail release of Smokescreen and Wal-Greens exclusive Bluestreak, whom the latter I actually got online from a seller in Hong Kong thanks to a local TF friend of mines that gave me the ebay link. To clear this up, in the west, Bluestreak, is indeed, a Wal-Green exclusive. However, in Asia, most figures end up as retail releases. Why they do this in the west? I dunno. I ended up paying a little extra to snag Bluestreak instead of going to the stores for the hunt. I did this with Siege Ratchet as well. Without haste, let's get started!
*Note: Some of the pics didn't turn out well.*
Boxing
Nice artwork from the duo. The map pieces are displayed for your completion viewing pleasure.
Smokescreen (Robot form)
Bluestreak (Robot mode)
The duo together plus alt mode
My take:
Positives:
- Both bots look much closer to their G1 cartoon counterparts then the classics version. Neat design. Colors are nice as well.
- Bluestreak really looks awesome here.
- Shoulder cannons can be detached to form one weapon or be used as forearm cannons
- Fairly easy to play with and semi-easy to transform to alt mode and back though the legs can get a little tricky.
- Has waist swivel for some decent posing.
- Weapons are inter-changeable between the two and I'm pretty sure the rifle can be gripped by other Siege/ER members as well.
- Joints are tight.
Negatives:
- Smokescreens head looks cheaply made. Very nitpicking here but Bluestreak's sculpt looks a whole lot better. I know SS looked like that in the cartoons but better detail was given to Bluestreak.
- Despite having black shoulder cannons on his boxing and renders, Hastak decided to release blue cannons for SS's final release. Why? I dunno but this wasn't the cartoon colors and black wasn't either, but I take it over his already mainly blue color scheme. At least the black does add some color, don't you think?
- Also his cannons are heightened/stacked in his G1 portrayal. His shoulder cannons here look so small.
- Big feets. Not only that but it seems like they are riding a pair of huge ice skates. It's good and versatile for posing and all but it really looks funky .
- Maybe it was mine, but I kinda of had to jam the rifles for both of my figures into their 5mm hand ports. Taking it out was really tough as well.
- Smokescreen's number is changed from 38 to 80. Mostly likely due to copyright reasons.
Overall: The positives outweigh the negatives. The duo are still good figures for what they are worth. Though I wish you folks luck in getting Bluestreak for $40 or less. I paid almost 60 and I don't think it's a 60 dollar toy but I didn't want to do the hunt so you pay extra I suppose.
Buy or no buy: Buy. The negatives I mentioned here are minor. They will fit and scale well to your Siege and ER collection. Laters folks.
