I just got him, not bad. Kinda wish he could hold the guns in his arms better though.

 

Well....if you want him to look more like BW....use Air Raid's thingy(in shield or gun mode...it don't matter. ) and Barricade's gun in super claw mode.....and it looks like the snake/legs arms he had!! 

 

I gave up on finding Darksteel at retail and bought him from a fellow TFW Boarder.



I wrote a full review of Darksteel with a bunch of pics and his buddy BW Quickstrike on my blog, but here's my overall thoughts on Darksteel:

"Overall: Darksteel is an impressive albeit imperfect Transformer. I like him worlds better than I did the deluxe ROTF Transformers that I had, as Darksteel is superior in ease of transformation, sculpting, creativity, and sheer coolness. At the same time, Darksteel is still lacking in several areas: his paint isn’t perfect, he can’t hold his combined-form weapon well at all, he has way too much car kibble showing in his robot form, and his “roller skate” feet look dumb for this character. The character selection is absolutely outstanding and to be commended, and Hasbro really did put a lot of effort into making this retooled Sideswipe feel fresh and new, and as a result the positives outweigh the flaws in my book. I give this guy a recommend to Transformers fans, and an unquestionable recommendation to Beast Wars fans. Both for a retool and for a movie toy, Darksteel delivers.

GRADE: B-".

 

BEHOLD!

next to voyager ironhide, this one is my most regrettable purchase from the DOTM line.

The sideswipe mold was great, beating the dead horse even more about paint on him, he was pretty good. This is one of those backward TFs for me..usually I see them online in pics and think..wow..that's a real bag of shit...then I see it, get it, and love it.

This one is the opposite. Online pics looked stellar. In person though, colors have a reminiscence of the remains in the toilet bowl, after a looong nite pounding cheap beers in the local pub, then hitting white castle, and eating enough sliders to make Ethiopians cry halfway across the world.

The funky brown molded plastic can literally make an excited TF fans ego flacid at the point of unpackaging. The blue paint that matches the mechtek parts are pretty good, but its really comparable to putting pretty glittery spinkles on top of rhinoceros dung.

The one I have has SO much flash, that I spent about 15 minutes with an exacto knife trimming it up. Especially around the head. Rear passenger wheel....does not spin well...at all.

Mechtek choice on this makes about as much sense as casting peewee Herman to voice Optimus Prime in the next movies. What the hell were they thinking?!?! Ok...ok...yea..swords..I get it, but this guy just can't hold these guns, and it is a damn shame because they really are sweet on starscream. They don't look right on the sides of the car, and they hit the rear wheels if pushed in all the way, stopping my ONE good wheel from turning.

I do NOT recommend this one. Enjoy the cool pics online, because that is the best he will look. Save your money for....Sheeeeit....I dunno..anything. toilet paper. Buy that. You can never have enough of it.


EDIT-After taking this out of my flourescant lights, it IS grey...looked very browny grey to me..just not a very good color, if you ask me..

 

Usually I'm all over goofy pinnipeds, but I just can't get past the walrus face enough to buy it. I guess it has to do with this supposedly being a Quickstrike homage ( which I really don't see, walrus or no walrus) and Fuzors are one of the few TF things I have any nostalgia for. Plus, the walrus head isn't even very movieverse-like; it's too organic looking.

 

Walrus....crap. Now I cant get that image out of my head..

 

A figure which is of fish head

 

Mine has beautiful paint apps and great construction, although I found two to choose from and the other looked like it had glue all over it.

Other than the fact that he can't hold his weapons very well (longer pegs could have fixed that) he is my favorite dotm deluxe as I got lucky and picked up a very good one.

I give my DS a 9/10.

On the flipside my Armor Topspin had QC issues like some are finding with DS so I understand the hate if you get a bad one.

And from what I saw the other DS might have had serious QC issues.

Buy it if you can find it - but look it over first.

In person DOTM Ratchet has the walrus face and not DOTM DS, lol.

 

Anybody else have really flimsy plastic on his weapons? It feels like they'll break if they're held the wrong way. Everything about the figure itself is great but man, that plastic quality is not up to par.  

 

That was the big thing that really turned me off to this one. Joints were all loose and jacked up. The plastic had NASTY swirls in it, and once the rubber bands were popped, the thing would NOT go back into car mode, even after the blade/door tab fix. add to that plastic flash everywhere...Add to that the hood problem with SS originally, this hood just dangled there, and would fall off holding it in my hands by the feet.

This was the WORST DOTM fig I had, and I actually returned that one...something I very rarely do.

 

Mine is pretty fine. It doesn't feel any different than DOTM Sideswipe, really. I've had no problem with Sideswipe and I've got no problem with Darksteel either. Dunno. Maybe a bad batch?

 

My dotm sideswipe has several issues, most notably that his hood will not stay on for anything. My darksteel does not have this problem.

My only gripe about Darksteel is his horribly undersized head. Still love my scourged out sideswipe.

 

Rather not read through the whole thread (yet), but has anyone else picked 'em up, only to find he has two left hands?! Manufacturing/qc error, I'm sure, but I had to return him, he looked REALLY sweet otherwise.

One big point that made he hesitant to check him out was the hood, I checked out Sideswipe's, and two different ones had the hood fall right off, I know it's supposed to be held by friction rather than a bar, but the Sideswipes didn't hold for crap, I was afraid Darksteel would turn out the same way. NOPE, held in place so well, I couldn't even get it off! I was able to move it for transformation, but it didn't pop in, whatever happened with Darksteel, it was for the good.

 

Finally found this guy in the wild, though I went for Black Shadow instead - still a bit indecisive, I guess. Will say this though....dang but his mugshot on the package is ugly! And we all thought -Ratchet- had a walrus-face...

 

This figure looks great in pictures but once you hold it in your hands, you realise how cheap it feels. I can live with the cheap plastic but mine has extremely tight shoulder ball joints on both sides. It just feels that the ball joint is going to snap off whenever I rotate its shoulders.

 

I finally found me a Darksteel figure to go with the rest of my shattered glass movie autobots  . I don't regret picking it up.

It's a great figure. just wish he had a wee-bit better leg articulation for better posing but, such is life.  

 

I think he still has the best leg poseability of all Sideswipe molds, but yeah, it's still not perfect. This guy is pretty cool and a perfect companion for Cyberfire Murderbee. I find it easier for him to hold his guns/blades under the hand, or to put him in his "wings" as gunpods, like the wreckers.

 

Found Darksteel at the Family Dollar Store yesterday. 5 bucks