When Toys Rule The World: Review: Transformers Age of Extinction: Generations Voyager Grimlock

Here on the blog, I'm not afraid to call a crappy toy a crappy toy. Who fails to remember the total monstrosity that was the TP table? It'd be very easy to have a similar rant about the Bayformers, but I think all that needs to be said about those abominations has been said many times before. So instead I'll have a rant about the Grimlock figure.

In response to the numerous complaints about previous movie figures being a complete nightmare to transform even if you hold a PhD in Transforming from the University of Cybertron, for the latest movie, Age of Extinction, Hasbro have greatly simplified their toys. I repeat, greatly simplified. These are the Transformers you'll find on every toy shop and supermarket shelf across the country.

In addition, to appeal to the adult/older Transformer fan, Hasbro have released a limited number of more complex figures in the Generations line. These are packaged identically to the 'normal' lines which makes them a tad difficult to spot on a shop shelf.

I guess we should count ourselves lucky, really, that we're getting any Generations figures at all in the UK. They're Toys R Us exclusives, in part because Toys R Us are the only ones who'll stock them. I say we should count ourselves lucky, but the Grimlock figure is really rather terrible.

My big mistake, I suppose was buying Scorn first. Despite being a Bayformer design, I really like Scorn. He's a lot like an old school Transformer. Next I bought Slug (definitely not Slag). Slug is, well, he's pretty good. Not Scorn good, but I still like him.

Finally I got Grimlock...

Oh dear.

I'll start with the positives. I quite like the head. Unlike most of the Bayformers named after G1 characters there's at least a hint of the original G1 Grimlock head in there. And I guess overall it isn't too bad of a looking robot.

However...

The lack of wrist articulation is a pain. Well, I suppose it does have wrist articulation, but you have to unplug the 'leg' bits from the arms to get them to turn. Which is doable and looks ok, but having pegs that you don't use is just a bit silly. And as for the back kibble... Did Hasbro put zero effort into trying to make it fold up tidily?

The bigger problem though is the dino mode. Which I hate with a fiery vengeance. It just looks terrible. What are the ears about? What's with the hunchback? Is this really the best Hasbro could do with 30 years of Transformer engineering experience? I couldn't find a single angle from which this supposed 'T-Rex' looked in any way half-decent.

With Scorn, his sword weapon neatly hides away in his tail. With Grimlock, his large staff thing...clips on the end of his tail. Now on the one hand this does make getting the dinosaur to balance a lot easier, but this does very little indeed to improve on the look of it.