WW Megatron: Robot mode is awesome, tight joints, love the silver paint job. Shoulder articulation is pretty sucky, no outward movement. His head sculpt is badass. His alt mode is a pretty lame excuse for a tank, but I think he's worth the purchase just for the kickass Bot mode.

Ultra Magnus: Again awesome bot mode, nicely articulated. I love the shade of blue and the paint finish on him. His hand gun also looks extra cool. Truck mode has some holding together issues, but it does the job of looking like a car-carrier enough for me. Also his thighs above the knees are definitely misassembled. I swapped mine easily by removing the 2 screws on each thigh and now he has knees, yay!

G1 Magnus, with swapped thighs and better knees, is ready for action!

 

Can't believe I found Ultra Magnus at retail, but there he was at Target today, along with WW Megatron. I'd like to have had both, but only had the money for one, so Magnus it was.

Pros and cons are pretty similar to everyone else:

- Looks great, apart from the shoulders being too far back
- articulation is pretty good. The original had next to none, so anything would have been an improvement on that score.
- NOT a Prime repaint. Woot!
- the car carrier could be a bit better if they'd made the boots narrower. It works as a car carrier since I'm used to the original UM, but the middle is very iffy otherwise. Cab is a bit squashed, but ok.
- the big boots do give a feeling of size to the figure.

Overall, it's not half bad. Not worth Ebay prices, but well worth $16. Like most of the Titaniums, it's a mix of good ideas and good execution mixed with iffy execution. I'd give it a B.

 

Found him at retail finally. Am I glad to have bought him? Well, yeah, but I think the toy is definitely a bit of a stinker. I thought at first the arms being so far back was gonna be the only issue, but I share every single problem with him discussed in the first post of the thread. It's just...eh. I'd give it a 5 or 6 out of ten. It looks ok in robot mode save for the arms being so far back, the articulation is passable, but overall it's just hardly functional with the parts popping off so easily and the gun barely fitting well into his hand. Then, the vehicle mode is just a floppy mess! Best left in box if you ask me.

Worth the prices on eBay and in comic stores, other online places? Absolutely not.

 

Got my G1 Magnus today.


Thanks for the tip, Cataclizm1 - I switched around the thighs and it makes poseability in biomech mode better.







*Vehicle mode - took a while to get right. I didn't see the part where you push down the inner lower legs when transforming him.

I don't like how flimsy he is to sit together - the leg-connections don't fit smoothly (it has hexagonal slots for round pieces!) and the arms have nowhere to rest on properly.

The cab is loose, too - in the sense that it doesn't sit neatly.

No place to store the rifle, either.


*Biomech mode - kind of ok, but the joints are waaaaaay too fiddly (Both arms popped off twice the first time I tried to transform him, and the left forearm popped off twice when I tried to rotate it when going from vehicle to biomech!) and the rocket launchers and gun aren't snug fitters either.

It almost feels as if they really want you to be able to make him come apart, like in the Movie...


The head's not great, either - and the eye-visors are a bit too big. They look out of place on him.


Compared to the likes of Rodimus Prime, he's got a lot of problems - and it just feels like they could have done an awful lot better with him.

I hate to say it, but it's as if the QC guys took a look at the design and said... 'I can't deal with that now.'


Sigh.


But then, I'll probably warm to him eventually.


Gary


EDIT:

*Reads through thread*

It does?

*Popps off cab*



It does!

You can even fit the rifle on there!


Cool...

...I wonder if anyone will try to kitbash a transformable cab which could be put in place of the current one?

 

You can fit Cybertron Armorhide in there...

 

Cool.


Do you have a pic of him in there?

(But does he hold in place when UM is in biomech mode, as well?)

 

Don did it but I'm not sure exactly of how he did it:

http://www.tfw2005.com/boards/showpost.php?p=1165968&postcount=23

 

Hmm, looks like he's saying to literally saw off the peg holding the head and glue it on elsewhere...

...I don't know if I like that idea very much. (It might make messing with the head a bit tricky in future.)


I'd really want to see exactly where on the cab Don re-glued that head piece before I tried it myself.


Looks like Armorhide takes up a lot of room, too - see behind Magnus' hips and shoulder blades.


The armour looks cool beside the Revoltech Magnus, though!




EDIT: I've been having a further look at the fig, and it seems that if you want to move the head on the cab, you can forget about the cab being able to transform - the head will most likely not fit when you fold out the rear wheels of the cab, blocking it from sitting straight.

Much as I would like the head to be further back, I don't want to compromise one mode for the sake of another.

I might be mistaken, though. It looks like the cab transforms just fine in that third Don pic - but is it the same cab?

Just what on Cybertron did he do?


Damned fuzzy pictures...

 

Payback's a biomech!




EDIT: I moved the head-chopping thing to a new thread at the kitbash board.

 

megatrons alt mode is kind of sucky, but honestly, its about as close to the comic version as is really possible. if you look at it fron on and compare it to the wwi comics its pretty close. his legs are the big problem, but there isnt a whole lot you can do with them when you have to work with real life physics and cant mass shift them away. it does look ugly, but it looks ugly because of how the character was designed in the comics, not the toy. its a fair complaint that its a bad alt mode, but its unfair to pin all the blame on the toy itself.

 

Magnus, post-operation:




I like him.


I kinda miss being able to move the head, but the proportions are a lot better, and the head is not stuck on the trailer when the cab is removed, either.


Gary

 

with a little force, the gunbutt fits into the hole on center of his chestpiece. I know it seems like it doesn't want to go in there, but it definitely fits.

 

I'm in the camp who likes UM. My only gripes are with the vehicle mode; the face that his legs don't stay connected well at all, and I think there could've been some kinda solid connector to link his arms with his knees.