Giant Planet Mini-con Team - Cybertron - Figures


For my first review I decided to review the brand new Giant Planet Mini-con Team which just arrived with me recently.

The team comes in the standard Cybertron packaging with a large Decepticon logo on the back instead of the Mini-con logo. So we are looking at some little guys to accompany Menasor and Heavyload.

Alt Mode

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Longarm

This is the vastly different to the last incarnation of Longarm, which was a companion to Armada Red Alert.

This time he is a lime green and purple contruction vehicle, with a digger arm on the front and crane on the rear. For some reason Hasbro still insists that any Decepticon construction vehicle must harken back to the classic G1 Devastator colours. This means Longarm doesn't really blend in all that well with the rest of the team.

The crane and digger arms can both move up and down and swivel 180 degrees which is the only alt mode feature.

Deepdive

Deepdive is the first time submarine alt mode. I'm sure somebody will correct on this if I'm wrong but the only other submarine I can think of is the Bandai Gobots Dive-Dive.

Dive-Dive back in the mid 80's was one of my favourite non-TF toys. For more on Dive-Dive you can view picture of him here

Deepdive is a gunmetal grey with dark blue highlights which give him a very menacing look

I absolutely love submarine alt modes but they don't really lend themselves much to Transformers as there is not a lot you can do with the method of transformation.

The only feature with the alt mode is that Deepdive has a Mini-con peg on top. This is listed as an official combination feature with Overcast in his instructions.

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This doesn't actually add a whole hell of a lot and actually makes the figure look unusual. In reality why would a seaplane be docked on top of a submarine?

Overcast

Overcast is a dark blue seaplane with purple missile/pontoons under his wings and the occasional slate grey details. The purple is a rather nasty contrast to the rest of the plane and does make them stand out a bit too much.

Once again, like so many other Mini-con releases, the missiles are push released from the rear and thus don't launch very far.

Transformation

All of the transformations are your usual Mini-con simple transformations.

Longarm just lift up the front of the vehicle and then turn the rest of the cab 180 degrees to form the legs. Then to form the body split the rear and fold the rear hook half down and attach to the claw half. Rotate the body 90 degrees and you have your robot mode.

Deepdive's transformation is almost exactly the same as Dive-Dive. Swing out the front halves of the sub and raise the front end to form the legs. Split the sides of the rear and pull them down to form the arms. Push the head back from the conning tower. Then if you want you can push back the rear fins on the top of the arms for purely asthetic purposes.

Overcast is pretty much what you expect. Fold down the missiles to make the arms. Fold down the rear of the plane to form the legs and pivot the rear tail forwars to form the feet. Then pull the cockpit down and raise the robot head from the body.

Now this is the official Overcast transformation.

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I find though if you raise the nosecone back up into the body like my next photo it stops him looking like he has an elongated codpiece on his body!

Robot Mode

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Longarm

Longarm retains the mainly green and purple look, but now adds a little bit of grey from his wheels being in the centre of his body and from a few chest highlights. His face rather unusually is a bright red on the green which makes him look a little sunburnt. Probably something to match the other colours would have been better.

The fact that the vehicle "arms" are his robot arms is to be expected really and does detract a little as they look quite spindly.

He has quite decent articulation though for some decent action poses with knee, leg, waist and arm movement.

Deepdive

Deepdive retains the grey with blue highlights but now has more purple appear from the joints. Deepdive again has a re visor with a gas mask type look to it which fits in with his undersea nature.

Deepdive looks bulky and menacing, which really makes him the stand out member of the team in robot mode.

Deepdive doesn't have a vast amount of articulation with only the legs being able to move up and down but the arms are on ball joints which do give you lots of poseability.

Overcast

Overcast retains exactly the same colours from his alt mode. His feet are a slate colour which matches his head. Giving him a three tone look overall.

The arms are claw like without the missiles in place and don't make him look too unusual.

Overcast has exceptional leg articulation with his feet, knees and legs all jointed to give him some pretty good stability. This is a great help considering Overcast is very top heavy. The arms pretty much swing down and that's your lot. They are on a ball joint but with being under the wings this doesn't give them much movement.

Overall

Overall I would highly recommend this team to boost your Mini-con army. Deepdive is by far the standout member of the team with Longarm the weakest due to his colour scheme not matching.

My only gripe overall is that being from Giant planet and all the other TF's from there being construction vehicles only Longarm really fits into this. The team is listed as scavengers in their bio and again only Longarm's alt mode fits in with this.

But despite this they are very well crafted figures with pretty good attention to detail. Definitely though raise Overcast nosecone into his chest to make him look less bulky and less "crotch stuffed".

Must buys for all the Mini-con lovers out there.



ReviewerPeter Bown  
DateJune 5th 2006  
Score 8 stars (8 out of 10)  
Reads12404


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