Well if you already have a Tracks or Ravage you already know the deal with this guy. He's not as bad as I thought. The red "paint" is not as good as Tracks but better than Sideswipe's. An interesting note is that he comes with the original BT-06 Binaltech flame hood sticker. (old news to most of you.) One surprising thing is that on his instructions, the head is of Swerve and not Tracks. I think this is the first time Hasbro actually took the time to change the head drawings on the instructions.
A lot of people have complained about marred finishes on their Swerves so far, but, ironically, the Swerve I found today is nicer than my Ravage or Tracks. The bright red finish is really nice, on a par with Sideswipe's finish IMHO, although I like the red on Sideswipe better. The "gold" parts of the finish aren't that bad and the head is fine up close. I thought I'd dislike him, but he's actually a little nicer than Ravage. I haven't had a chance to play with mine yet. I thought of reviewing him for the articles section, but I've reviewed this mold twice. It's someone else's turn -I don't have anything new to say about it.
I think that's about it. Everyone knows what he looks like by now. I was trying to see if I could throw in some Alternators trivia.
Wow.. so that special seal paper I see on the pic.. is that the decal? I wouldn't put it on Swerve..nor Tracks if I ever get one, I just don't like figures having worn stickers in a few months/years and it says BT-06 Tracks.. i guess some leftovers
Hasbro has been using Takara leftovers for decals since they started the G1 reissues. All of my Hasbro reissues have Takara sticker sheets.
We need some good pictures with and without the sticker to help folks decide whether to put it on or not. Though I'm already leaning heavily towards putting it on if only because it'll help differentiate him from Tracks.
I've seen one picture of this guy with the sticker on, and it made me decide to get him, assuming I ever see him in stores. That red and yellow flame decal looks great, on that red car.
Sweet, I'll have to go hunting tomorrow. Hopefully I can find two, so I can start that building Road Rage.
OK, I finally gave up and submitted a longer review to the articles section. I went over what little differences there were between him and Tracks, the colors, anything that made him different. I'd like to see with sticker and without sticker pics myself--I haven't even taken the sticker out of the bag (itself still sealed). I kind of like the hood by itself, but the few pics I've seen with the decal applied do make him look pretty cool. BTW, the boxart is accurate--he does have red eyes, if that matters to anyone. (Personally I think it's kinda cool, like the Autobots got sick of Decepticons stealing all their rebuilt bodies and stole one back, then stuffed Swerve's spark into it.)
That's a good review there mag. Although I noticed that you said that the hood is harder to pull up than ever in the transformation which I'm worried about. When trying to pull the roof up once on my Tracks one of the pegs broke. It still looks fine as the peg is not really visible but I would hate for this to happen when I get Swerve.
Did anyone else notice that the box description is entirely in English? Usually the Alternators boxes have some descriptions in Spanish and French also. I'm not known for my great photographic skills so I hope these help people decide if the hunt for him is worth it. I can only recommend Swerve to completists and hardcore Alt/BT fans.
The hood isn't that hard to pull up, it's his leg that's hard to pull out--I'll have to look at that and see if I need to fix the review (and thanks for the kind words ). I didn't break off any of Tracks's pegs, but I did manage to stress the inside joint on both doors the first time I tried to transform him because I didn't understand his crappy instructions. You can't really see it too much because the ball hides the stress inside the socket, but it's pretty bad inside there. I've learned since then, though.
You noted that both the roof and the leg were hard to pull out. BTW if anyone wants to help a Canadian in need and hook me up with a Swerve it would be greatly appreciated (and if you've seen me post this elsewhere already, well I need to advertise it ).
Sorry, MOP, must be I misread your post... I see that you clearly said the peg broke on the roof (my condolences, they aren't very sturdy pegs). Anyhoo, I've gone ahead and added 6 pics to my review of Swerve. They're not the best quality--they seem to have pixelized between resizing and loading them onto the site--but they'll give you an idea of what he's like. For the guy who wanted them, there's a pic with decal, and a pic without one. I like him better with now, but that's just my opinion.
In those photos, it almost looks like those are sunglasses rather than eyes, so maybe we can still pretend his eyes are blue. Eh, MP Magnus already broke the blue-eyes-only pattern (and that was to be accurate to the G1 toy), so I'm not bent out of shape about it. Just for reference, here's a pic of blue BT tracks with the flame sticker. G1 Tracks aside, the yellow flame job on red appearance on Swerve is nicely subtle while the yellow and red flame job on blue appearance on Tracks is attention grabbing, almost gaudy. Actually, since I don't have a huge G1 nostalgia that many do, I'd probably say the same thing about the flames on G1 Tracks too. Swerve looks good without the sticker on too, but since it's there it may as well get used, and whether you put it on Swerve or Tracks it does help distinguish them from each other a little bit more.
He has a goofy grin on his face, like "Durr...I'm Swerve, hyuck hyuck!" ... and the flame decal is a bitch if you put it on wrong. I like him though. He has good color accentuation throughout. Legs are a bitch to pull out though.
