Name: Barricade and Decepticon Frenzy

Faction: Decepticon

Function: To hunt and destroy Megatron’s targets.

Motto: “To punish and enslave.”

Barricade and Decepticon Frenzy have worked together for centuries. They are the perfect partnership, designed for one purpose- to hunt down and destroy whatever target Megatron assigns to them. Decepticon Frenzy has a hyperactive hunger for information, which he uses to guide the relentless pursuit at which Barricade specializes.

Barricade broods ominously as he stalks his unsuspecting prey. Evil to the core and one of Megatron’s Hellhounds, Barricade stalks his prey, crippling the victim with a wide array of devastating technology and weapons. Not much for speech, Barricade prefers to wait in the shadows while Frenzy sneaks around gathering information. Constantly scanning human communication and a direct uplink to Soundwave, Barricade intimidates his foes into submission.

Alternate mode:

Barricade is a Saleen S281 police car. Hasbro licensed the Saleen S281 brand from MJA, Inc. The Ford oval and Mustang are registered trademarks to Ford and licensed use to Hasbro as well. What an awesome car to use for the ultimate stalker! Highly detailed, the Saleen S281 is like a scale model of a police interceptor. As displayed in the photo gallery, the vehicle mode forms solid with tightly locked joints. Nothing is loose and the wheels spin freely. Frenzy tucks in nicely, although a miniature police replica would have been perfect to enhance the illusion.

As stated with the Human Alliance Bumblebee and Sam Witwicky review, the Human Alliance models offer highly detailed and great quality Transformer figures. Hasbro and Tomy Takara made a great film to toy transition by integrating enhanced details and unique features. If you are a fan of the Alternators line, then you will definitely enjoy the Human Alliance figures.

Robot mode:

Barricades’ robot mode ranks among the top five of the entire The Revenge of the Fallen toy line. In robot mode, Barricade incorporates a smooth blend of robot and car technology with alliance enhancements. Transforming Barricade from vehicle mode can be challenging, but not difficult where any parts pop off during the conversion. Barricade’s primary colors are black and grey with white police doors that form the upper arm. In robot mode, Barricade has dozens of articulation points, which allow for various poses as well as active stances. As with the vehicle mode, the robot mode displays highly detailed sculpture with all of the robot parts mimicking The Revenge of the Fallen on-screen persona. Barricade’s head sculpt pivots up and down giving him either a brooding or an enraged face.

Barricade’s weaponry primarily consists of the spinning saw blade, which replaces his left hand. The gas cap functions as a button to release the saw blade. His right hand has a thumb and three fingers and forms a huge claw to thrash his victims. He also offers a battery with a shoulder cannon and chest lasers. Not featured with the Human Alliance Barricade are the robotic pinchers as seen with the deluxe vehicle mode.

Decepticon Frenzy:

Barricade’s human alliance is not human at all. Decepticon Frenzy functions as the reconnaissance agent for Barricade, gathering information on the unsuspecting victims. Highly detailed and articulated, Frenzy’s back and feet have peg holes that fit on various points with Barricade. Two of Barricade’s main weapon systems use Frenzy to operate. First, the right shoulder blaster serves as weapon station for Frenzy. Second, Barricade’s chest opens to reveal a hole where Frenzy can tuck in. Underneath the chest are dual cannons that flip out and Frenzy uses the cannons to blast their victims.

Transformation: 10/10. The Revenge of the Fallen Human Alliance series offer superb transformations, articulation, detail and simulation.

Durability: 9/10. Barricade’s parts are made of quality plastic, paint and sculpture.

Fun: 10/10. One of the top five figures of The Revenge of the Fallen toy line. Barricade offers a lot of fun and attitude to any collection.

Price: 8/10. $30 USD, the price for Human Alliance Barricade and Decepticon Frenzy are well worth the amount of detail and articulation of the figures.

Overall: 9/10. Barricade and Decepticon Frenzy offer a solid combination of a highly articulated and detailed figure. The Human Alliance gadgetry tucks away neatly so that when Barricade stands alone, the connection pegs are not obvious or extruding. The figure accurately portrays the on-screen character, making the figure more desirable since it looks and feels more realistic. For collectors, the quality of the figure enhances the collection due to the multitude of unique features. Barricade and Frenzy are must-have figures for 2010.

Name:

Faction: Decepticon

Function: The Fallen Prime, the original Decepticon, and Megatron’s master.

“The Matrix shall be mine!”

For millennia, he has waited. Thousands of years have dragged by as he recruited proxies, on by one, to scour the cosmos for the artifact he required. Now he finds he must return to the primitive, flesh-slug infected planet no which his quest began. Nothing will stand in his way this time. If need be, he will scour the surface of this disgusting world clean in the fire of his rage, and search through the blasted rubble for that which he seeks.
Alternate Mode:
The Fallen’s alternate mode is a Cybertronian Destroyer. This ancient war bird looks alien in design and in many ways more advanced in design that most of the other Cybertronian seekers. The word primeval comes to mind, and Prime evil is the function of this seeker. No firing missiles, no electronics and the feet turn into the wingspan of the destroyer mode, but the seeker mode seems appropriate for the age of The Fallen. One of the nice things that makes the seeker a bit sturdy is there are pegs and holes that click together keeping the thrusters in place and the seeker in decent alignment. The Fallen seeker has flat platform landing gear.

Robot Mode:
The Fallen’s bot mode offers a few distinct features. The Fallen is built with the combination of sturdy plastic and soft plastic for the pointy parts such as the nose cone, face spikes and cranium spikes as well as the hand. His hands have eight digits each and are symmetrical from right to left, each having four thumbs and four fingers. The feet have spring loaded toes, which give surprisingly good balance during different poses. The Fallen also has the Mech Alive features as well.

Mech Alive: The Fallen’s Mecha Alive opens like battle armor. The Mech Alive features for The Fallen start at the head. The head leans forward and two slide-out energy absorption panels flip out and augment his head. His shoulders also have panels that flip out into energy absorption panels as well. His forearms each have a pop out cannon that reveals energy absorption panels as well. Last but not least, his knees and shins have similar energy absorption panels.

Since The Fallen comes in robot form in the box, he looks huge for the Voyager sized toys. He is rather wide and in seeker mode is pretty large, but he is no taller than an average Voyager sized toy. He has a lot of articulation from the shoulders down; however the only articulation the head has is to flip down to reveal the energy absorption panels. Another feature to consider is that the hands, which open and close and are attached to a joint that spins 360 °

Transformation: 5. Transforming The Fallen into seeker mode was a bit tricky the first time around, but once you see how the connecting pegs work, the transformation is very simple.
Durability: 5. While transforming The Fallen, his arms and legs repeated popped out of joints with even the least bit of pressure. The elbows are a rotating joint connected to a male-female-male joint which connects to the forearm, and is very easy to disconnect accidently. The paws also pop out of the ball-joint easily as well. I am not a huge fan of soft plastic either as I have had older Beast Wars toys with this (thinking of Depth Charge repaint) where the soft plastic can bend and harden in another shape that is not true.
Fun: 8. The Fallen is what I expected for this sized toy and represents the character from the Revenge of The Fallen decently.
Price: 7. Picked up The Fallen at Toys R Us for $21.99 which is normal for the Voyager class toys.
Overall: 8. Overall, The Fallen is a decent toy. I really would have liked seeing a staff accessory with this toy considering the movie version had one. Then again, The Fallen would have to have mits that could grip it.

Leo Prime is a career soldier, commander of an elite Maximal black ops unit designated The Pack. So secret is his unit, even those in the Maximal command structure are aware of it only as a rumor. Leo Prime and his comrades in The Pack travel wherever trouble is thickest, often working undercover to deal crippling blows to Predacon Plots.

Beast Mode:
Leo Prime is a techno-organic lion. Although he is designated a Maximal, he bears the Autobot emblem on his lion’s head, which transforms into his robot chest. The lion form is highly detailed and this version of Leo Prime (Convoy) has been repainted to resemble the G1 Optimus Prime color scheme, which looks great in bot mode, but absolutely makes little to no sense in lion form. Fortunately for me, I usually leave my bots in robot form, so beast mode does not bother me. The lion form has some flexibility with poses but is limited to moving the legs and claws forward or backward to give Leo Prime a pounce position, and a stand-at-attention position. A little bricky and the tail is a detachable from the joint, which can come off quite easily with even a little bit of play or movement.
Robot Mode:
Leo Prime’s robot mode is pretty decent. As opposed to Leobreaker and Nemesis Breaker who had the same head mold, Leo Prime has an Optimus Prime head mold. Being a “Voyager” class, he is about the same size as other $20 price point figures and is well designed with good joints. Leo Prime is another figure where the arms and legs of the Maximal beast form mode become the arms and legs of the robot mode. The robot head is cleverly hidden in a compartment of the lion’s head and has some movement flexibility in bot mode. The G1 Optimus Prime color scheme gives Leo Prime a presence as a figure. The arms and legs do not have as much movement but the forearms and hands can be maneuvered to give Leo Prime some decent poses.
Special Features:
Leo Prime has several unique features. The tail turns into his “jungle whip” which resembles a flail more than a whip. He also has key activated “robo-shredder claws” which pop out when you put the key into the slot on his forearms. Some of the most uniqueLeo Prime’s features are what he does not have. He does not have the electronics of the original version and the 3rd combiner mode (to combine with Cybertron Optimus Prime) is nowhere on the directions and no mention of the combiner mode on the packaging. This “secret” about Leo Prime may be remembered like the secret modes of RID Megatron (which was later revealed with RID Galvatron) or it may be lost as a legendary tales of Maximal slag.

Transformation: 2. Transformation difficulty is marked a 3 out of 4 on the box, but I give Leo Prime’s basic transformation a low score because the arms and legs are the same for both modes. The 3rd secret mode gets a 6 because you have to remove the forearms and reattach them to the connectors in the feet and put the tail in the join on the side of the legs. Overall Leo Prime’s transformation is not very complicated.
Durability: 10. Leo Prime resembles the G1 toys of yester-year sans the metal.
Fun: 8. Leo Convoy/Prime was one of my desired Beast War toy and although this is not the orginal version I wanted to get of him, I do like the color scheme and resemblance to Optimus Prime.
Price: 8. I picked Leo Prime up at Wal-Mart for $20. This is a standard price point for the Voyager line and is decent for the toy. The toys are all about the same size and quality varies. I did not mind paying $20 to get Leo Prime.
Overall: 9. Leo Prime is overall a good figure with the exception of missing several features that Leobreaker and Nemesis Breaker versions had. The color scheme does not look good in beast mode, but looks great in robot mode. Even though this is a repaint and does play on the popularity of Optimus Prime/Convoy, by giving the toy a new head mold, Leo Prime gains an edge over normal repaints. Anyone who is or was a Beast Wars/RID fan will not be disappointed with Leo Prime.

Faction: Autobot

Function: Medic

Ratchet hails from before the great Cybertronian war and now works his way into the function of repair bot for Optimus Prime and the Gang in Transformers Animated. To be honest, I really never cared much for the Ratchet character from the G1 series, but I think TFA Ratchet rox. He’s old, stubborn, full of grit, and don’t take slag of anyone, especially a nasty ole Con like Shockwave.

At anyrate, I decided to pick the toy up almost at the end of the cartoon series because I had the opportunity to watch Ratchet in action saving the day restoring Arcee, and especially after the battle he had with Shockwave. Sentinel Prime was a real let down when he charged in causing Ratchet to lose sight of Shockwave, allowing Shockwave to kidnap Arcee’s shell and fly away. Wish he had slagged Sentinel in a deserving manner.

As for the toy, well, it is a solid toy, but mundane to say the least. Good portrayal of the figure from the series. About the only neat gadget is that he has four tools that attach to his back, or either hand, and he also has a connector spot where the laser that comes with Lockdown fits. This laser looks just like the one seen in the series that Ratchet uses to repair items.

Overall, the combination of the cartoon character adds value to the Ratchet toy because he was just a cool ole time Autobot, and his form reflects it. Kind of reminds me of the G1 Kup, where the ole bot and truck mode just fit the character.