When Natobot Toys announced plans to make an upgrade kit for the Universe 2-pack Roadbuster (which is a repaint of Cybertron Defense Hot Shot) way back in October of 2008, I pre-ordered instantly. Finally the finished product has arrived and I want to share it with all of you and give my 2 cents.



First some photos



The original G1 Roadbuster with the now Upgrade Classics Natobot set for Universe 2.0 Roadbuster



Guns!!! The top one is the original G1 Roadbuster's gun while the bottom is the Natobot upgrade.



Head sculpt! Dare to compare. G1 to Nato.



The packaging, all that's left is the pieces from the original Roadbuster mold head.

Review: First off, this toy does not require any glue or mad model skills. So all you snap together Gundam model fans will be happy. Out of the package, you get 3 pieces for the head mold, and 2 guns.

The guns:

1 gun is molded to be like the original G1 Roadbuster gun, while the 2nd is a HUGE cannon for his shoulder (I guess to be a BFG version of the original shoulder cannon). The smaller gun while nicely molded, for me came somewhat warped, but nothing too major (see photo). Just pop it into either hand of the robot mode or hang it off the blade hilt on the left side of the "tank" mode. Really cool.

The bigger cannon is amazing and even has a sliding recoil gimmick like Roadbuster just took a long range blaster and the gun is recoiling. It plugs into either formarm minicon port or in "tank mode" plugs onto the side for an awesome armed tank.

The head:

Again, it's 3 pieces and extremely easy to put together. All you really need is a small screwdriver. Just unscrew the one screw on the back of Roadbuster's original head, take out the back half and JUST his front half's orange crest. Then assemble all 3 pieces over it, it's really easy. No glue, no nothing, it all snaps in nicely and snug. You don't even need the screw you removed. I just put it in the bag with the 2 spare original head parts

The packaging:

Don't expect City Commander with comic packaging. It's a simple ziplock baggy with the paper name logo stapled over it. My only complaint is if you don't know how the final product is going to look, you will be lost. They should maybe have had a small instruction included. Then again, you have the website.

Final thoughts:

If you LOVE Roadbuster and want the most perfect way to get him on your Classics shelf, get this set. Natobot Toys offers different sets if you want just the head and smaller gun, or just the cannon and so on. I am very impressed and for it's price of $30.99 for the FULL SET version, I think it's well worth it.



If your interested check out:

Nato-bot Toys index

 

Well, the way I see it, you are paying two-times the value, compared with the original figure, for a head and two guns, versus the UM add on where you paying 4 times the value for entire transformable (sortof) body. So the maths tell me I shouldn't buy it   but I admit it looks cool though...

 

Looks great! Out of curiosity, can the Classics Roadbuster hold the original's gun? He looks like a bot that should dual wield.

 

Haha, he needs to John Woo "it". Anyhow, sadly no, the original G1 gun is a little bigger then the peg hole.

 

How sharp is the detailing on the head? Looks a bit muddy in your picture... And can you heat up the guns a bit to make them straight again?

 

Yeah my photo ain't the best due to lighting, it's a nice orange like the rest of Universe Roadbuster. Also I can see the warped gun being fixed via heat, I did it with my SCF PVCs no problem.

 

whimper... I hope they make enough for those of us on the "list" to get a set.

 

Keep in mind a preordered in October so.........

 

The head isn't as bad as that travesty made for classics Ultra Magnus, but it's far from a professional effort. Looks like it was sculpted out of play doh.

 

I cant justify the cost on this. My universe RB is pretty cool on its own. I do like the idea of more and bigger weapons, but again, the cost.

 

I'm sorry, but I can't even pretend to be charitable towards these things. They're terrible.

Even if they'd looked EXACTLY like the renders, they STILL would have been overpriced. But as it stands, the result is a bunch of cheap, warped, doughy looking garbage.

For 30$ you could buy a whole lot of much nicer toys to cannibalize for weaponry -- or a G1 Roadbuster gun for that matter -- and they wouldn't look nearly this bad. If it was a fan production done as a personal project, I could see granting the results a little leniency, but when you're producing something that you expect to sell for that much money, the expectations for quality are a little higher. Or they should be, anyways.

 

Hmmmm, don't know if I'm impressed anymore.

 

$5 that is what I would pay. Not worth it to me for what you get beyond that price. In my view, the FIGURE should be the expensive part, additional pieces need to be priced MUCH less.

 

I have the head/rifle on preorder, and I second that. If this is what I'm going to be getting - I don't know if I want it anymore.

The new head parts pictured here look awful. I'll wait for more pics before making the final judgment.

Are those parts molded in color or painted?

 

They're molded in color.

It looks like he got a bad rifle, some of them come out of the mold and started to sag a little, I usually throw those away. I guess I missed one. I already sent Protoman a PM to offer him a replacement. And I've created "racks" for the rifles to sit on while they cure that should eliminate the sagging problem in the future.

BTW If anyone has any problems with the product they get (like a bad rifle) just let me know, and I'll see what I can do to fix it.
(after all, it's just me out here working in my garage, trying to make something you guys will like. Sorry for my imperfection :/ I'm still learning.)

Nate

 

Man I think you did an excellent job. Does it look perfect, no. Does it look like it was made by Hasbro, no. But does it look like it was made by a fan that cares and wants to do right by the fandom, absolutely!

Some guys just have no concept of value or cost on making items like this. Hell a recasted head of an existing mold goes for $6 and those things rarely come out perfect, they need a hole drilled for the neck joint AND need to be painted.

This set is a fully painted/colored head and sweet gun for $14.99
We all know extra guns are sweet to have and head that only needs to be unscrewed is awesome

The full set is the head, gun, and large particle cannon for 30.99
If you have a problem with the huge gun just buy the cheaper set. The huge gun is cool cuz BFG's are cool and this one has 2 colors and moving parts

 

This kit and SGCollect's just goes to show you; don't order anything until you see the final shipped-to-you product.

However, I will say that the color-matching is pretty good.

 

Nate is not here doing charity work. He's helping to make an existing toy better for a small population of fans that don't have the skills to do this type of thing. He's obviously working hard at it and with already selling out of the first run and planning to make any corrections on future runs and fix existing problems, he's doing a service that should garner a little more respect.

I don't care if you like it or not but to call his work "cheap, warped, doughy looking garbage." AND to say it's over-priced just shows how uninformed you are. I'm sick of people feeling all high and mighty when they want their toys for as cheap as possible. Us Americans keep complaing that deluxes have gone from $10 to $13 when the rest of the world has been paying $20 for years now.

 

seems the people who actually have the set says it's a nice set (from what I've read). Some of the people who don't have the set and seeing the pics posted think it doesn't look nice. Is this a case of pics don't do it justice or what's the deal?