I admit, I was not particularly excited about a Centurion Drone in and of itself - but the accessory pack was more than worth the asking price of $19.99 at launch, which later went up to $29.99 prior to the toy's sell-out. You may not need or want everything in the box, but there's enough good stuff that you'll a) get your money's worth, and b) be able to sell off extra elements for a few bucks if you don't want them - and probably break even. If you don't need Energon cubes, surely someone does.
If you already got Brunt, this is Brunt in new colors with a lot of gear. If a third party made this accessory kit it would cost you a lot more than $20-$30 - so the entire ball of wax was well worth the asking price.
I never read the comics with the Centurion Drone, so all I can say is that it's fine. It's a nice tank, an OK robot, and I don't have a lot of skin in the game as a character or story element. I just know that the colors are cool and despite a Decepticon marker on the manual, there's no such indicator on the toy.
It's a "partsformer," so you need to do some dismantling to go from the robot to to tank mode. You can also deploy him on other toys as accessories, using elements as platform shoes, or upgrades to bulk up existing toys. It's silly and fun, the kind of thing you'd enjoy if you got as a gift but may be less inclined to buy for yourself due to less of an attachment to it. I like the little wheels, and the resulting play pattern is - to say the least - on-brand for an accessory pack. I still haven't reviewed Brunt, but I did review his retool Zetar [FOTD #2,145] - and it's also a good one.
The gear is, as they say, off the hook. Most of the stuff is going to augment your Optimus Prime toys, but you can use these with most of the Transformers toys featuring a 5mm fist hole. First up is Optimus Prime's Ion Blaster, which is the biggest it's ever been for these guys. As of now it might be too big for your average War for Cybertron figures - it might be best with your Power of the Primes Leader-class toys, or other Prime Wars Trilogy Leader-class figures. The sculpting is magnificent with a 5mm hole for the blast effects, but it's almost cartoonishly oversized to fit this particular toy line.
This Energon Axe fits - albeit awkwardly - around Optimus Prime's fist. The Earthrise toy requires you rotate the wrist a bit, but it slides right over and the cap goes outside the body. It just works - it's also something that's been absent from Hasbro's Classics and Generations toys over the years. You've undoubtedly seen it in other line expressions, but for whatever reason it's been left out in non-Masterpiece G1-themed transforming toys. I'd go as far as to say this one is really good.
This Energon Mace for Megatron - either Siege or Earthrise - is pretty good, but a tight fit. It's tough to fit over his fist completely, and tough to take it off. Parts of it appear to be clear plastic painted purple, and the ball rotates a bit. This, like the axe, is also frequently not used in "Classic" toys - but Masterpieces and Cyberverse have been getting them for years. It's one of those necessary additions that maybe you had in another form, but I didn't, so I was happy to finally get one here. It's also quite large.
In blaster mode, Megatron with silencer is another "where has this been?" release. I've seen them in G1 reissues, Masterpiece editions, but never in the Classics/Generations world. This one is a two-piece thing, with minimal decoration. For an official toy, it's unfortunate that it lacks a sculpted or painted Decepticon symbol - which is the only thing that would set this apart from a print-on-demand accessory. It's a tight fit in the hands of the likes of Starscream or Optimus Prime, but it does fit - it just doesn't look quite like the original toy or the cartoon gun models. You can see what they're going for, though, it would have been nice to have spent the extra nickel to put the purple face on the side.
It's a fantastic accessory - and I really hope we see it (and more like it) in the near future. It would be a great addition to future fan-friendly Megatrons, so you could hand it to your other Decepticons. It's also a decent replacement gun for an era where Megatron can no longer turn into a toy gun without significant concessions in terms of color and shape.
Ironhide's Drill Gun is as advertised - it looks sort of like it does on the cartoon, but not in the right colors. This is definitely good enough, considering paint can add cost and a painted 5mm grip can make it harder to hold. You an also place a blast effect on the tip of you like.
The pair of Energon Cubes are bigger than the ones that came out with Ultra Magnus, and seem to be odder. Each has a 3mm hole in the side, a change from the packaging art which indicates they almost had a 5mm peg sticking out so figures can hold them. Why the chance? I don't know. Why does one have a wave wall inside it? Presumably to indicate it's "full," but it doesn't read particularly well. They're great accessories to have around, and it's kind of weird Hasbro hasn't done a lot of consumer-facing Energon Cubes for its classic ranges in the past Well, at least we're getting a bunch more this year.
This Radar Dish goes with Trailbreaker, but he's not here yet - so you'll have to see it in a substitute environment. It doesn't do much for me, but it works, it looks cool, and it doesn't hurt anything. I just can't do much with it that's incredibly exciting other than to say it's a way to augment a vehicle and add some visual niftiness. It's sculpted nicely and has no decoration to speak of, just cast in grey plastic like much of the other gear.
The microscopic Optimus Prime micro-figure is ridiculous. It's here so you can lose it - it's under-detailed and about the size of a grain of rice. It may well be the smallest recognizable character figure I've ever seen. Be extra careful to adhere it to something. Use tape. Store it in a bag. Don't expect it to not get lost if/when you display it with Unicron some day. I might have him hang around Sky Lynx, but the very idea of these miniatures seems utterly preposterous. I personally would have rather had another blaster or sword, mostly because this is not going to add to the enjoyment of my other toys like the rest of the gear in the pack.
It is admirable from the perspective of an oddity, but I'd be curious to hear how many get lost to time, or carpets, or dogs.
The tape deck mode of Soundwave is a bit larger and makes more sense, being roughly scale to the other toys to serve as a spy. While it lacks a Decepticon symbol - another unfortunate shortcoming given anybody could make a tiny cassette player toy - it does have a 3mm peg hole on the bottom, so it can cling to robots and cars like we saw in the original cartoon. It would have been funny to have another hole on the back so it could hang like a Walkman, but the functionality it does have is true to how we saw it on the cartoon. And it's big enough so you won't lose this one quite as easily.
I love that we got Shockwave as a blaster, but the grey mode really hides the fact that it's Shockwave. The sculpting is a bit more rough, with recognizable landmarks of the old toy obscured by the color, size, and lack of weird wires hanging off the blaster mode. It fits in a hand well, and it has a 3mm peg so you can attach an energy blast - but you're going to want some purple paint for this one. It's a great addition to the set, but I'd also like to see a painted or colored version in the future. It's a great blaster design as it is, but it's not necessarily feeling like the final form of this particular design.
I think this G1 Blaster is meant for Bumblebee, who isn't here yet. It fits in Hubcap's hand, so I would say it's good enough for our other yellow buddy too. It's nothing too fancy, so it's kind of perfect - it has the right silhouette and a few more greeblies to make it interesting. The peg is integrated nicely, too, so it doesn't stand out despite being something you just can't miss.
This is the second "scale" G1 Refraktor we've had - this one is all grey, the last one could turn into a robot and a gun. It has a 5mm peg and it's a tight fit in most hands, but it's still neat to have a camera accessory for these guys. I would assume Hasbro might try another version of this one in the future, but what we got is pretty darned good - it just lacks the distinctive coloration. You may want to shave the peg down a bit, but try it out with a few figures before you make any hasty decisions. I found it worked perfectly with Earthrise Arcee, but was a tight fit with Earthrise Thundercracker.
This is the second Generations-derived Roller but the only one that actually looks like the original toy. All six wheels roll, and the grey chassis is painted blue. If you want a grey Roller, presumably you can strip the paint off somehow. It has a 5mm hole in the bottom so it can stay put in Earthrise Optimus Prime's trailer, and another one on top for a blaster. It's great! It's probably the must-buy accessory in the set. Good paint, nice sculpt, and seating for... something. I don't know what you'll do with it as drivers go, but as an accessory it's a gem. It's a pity it couldn't be included in the Optimus toy, but at least it's here now.
The Jetpack Sideswipe loans Optimus may well be one of the most memorable - or rather, only - things Sideswipe does on the original cartoon series. This is the first G1 "Generations" version, but you can find it in Masterpiece toys and other collectibles. This time around it's all grey with 5mm holes in the jet emitters for your blast effects. It has two holes in the back, designed specifically to fit on Siege Sideswipe and Earthrise Optimus Prime. It may fit on other toys, too. I find it fits Sideswipe better than Optimus, as the fit on Optimus isn't quite as secure. It's still super cool, and something I've wanted to see in this format for ages. We've gotten tons of guns over the years, but nothing like a jetpack for this kind of toy.
Cast in smoky clear black plastic, Ravage's Cage is a fragile-looking two-part piece of furniture to use with the smaller Siege toy. It's fine. There's not much to it and it's not exactly a lot of fun compared to the other blasters and props, but now you can say you bought one and that it exists for you to display somewhere.
And now I'm exhausted. You get your money's worth out of this set and it's a great way to flesh out some of your other toys - and some of the gear is kind of useless. I can't imagine the cage or micro Optimus Prime to be a ton of fun, but everything else has some decent use - even if you lack the matching figures, they can be used with a lot of other toys.
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