Hmm, is it possible to adjust his legs with forward knees so that he stands on, only, his feet...without the wheels touching the floor ?

 

Yeah, he can stand only on his feet, but he's not very stable like that.

 

I have to say being so similar to Barricade (which I did not care for all too much) I'd be hard pressed to pick this toy up.

 

so is anyone going to paint his head crest ?

 

Peaugh, are you sure the legs aren't supposed to go like this? It seems like the joints were designed for it, but I could be wrong. There seems to be less friction than your way, but I might be doing it wrong. Your way might be more stable.

 

The more I see this toy the more I must have it.

I am sad it is not a real Audi, but it's close enough and everything about it kicks ass.

And I don't care what the package says, this guy is Barricade.  

 

Thanx ! Great pics. Nice to see that you can put the heel wheel facing to the rear, while still being able to peg in the inner shin plating. I saw a similar transformation earlier, but with more straight posed legs :

 

i too am falling hard for sideways. also does ne one have the concept art of him id like to see it in comparison to the toy.

 

I got my Sideways on Friday, and I gotta say I am impressed. Very nice looking Audi mode (only missing the Audi symbol really) and a nicely complicated transformation. Lots of tiny little tabs and pegs to where once you get everything lined up just right, the car mode is firm, and the robot mode is more poseable and versatile than I first thought.

Some notes:

I didn't care for the wheel on his left hand - it's a fake wheel that's just there for looks and it tends to drag on the ground in car mode. Luckily, it's easy to remove, one screw and it's gone. That leaves him with a hole in his hand, which is a natural way to give him a handgun. It's not a standard 7mm peg hole, but I found a decent gun to arm him with. That big unused space in the back of the car is a natural place to store the gun.

Speaking of the big unused space in the back of the car, I was a little surprised by it. The motor detail is simply etched onto the back window, and there is a very large empty space in the back of the car area. I wonder if the production version will have something to store there? He could fit a smallish minicon there or something.

I still don't know the proper configuration for his feet. It seems that the wheels are supposed to store parallel to the legs in those little recesses, and the fender pieces are supposed to peg into the holes in the red plastic shin parts, but that leaves him with nothing to balance out his tiny little feet. I mean, he can still stand thanks to the feet having a front-side stopper built in, but one stiff wind and he goes over. I have taken to using the fender chunks as heel spurs - they almost seem to be meant to do that, if you angle them backwards as heel spurs rather than pegging them in, there is a bit of a ridge that stops them at just the right angle. I don't think it's meant to be that way, but it makes him nice and stable without any sort of weird chicken-leg backward knee stance.

I definitely like how he is different enough from Barricade - there are a couple of similarities, but he's definitely a different design. Solid B+ from me.

Tim
"toy geek"

 

overall ive been disappointed by the movie figures, im not a fan of the aesthetic.

However i find i like this figure, the flow of the legs, arms and kibble makes the look far less cumbersome than many of the rather hotch potch or assymetric figures. The legs in this case are still a bit 'birdy' but that at least fits in with the rest of the toy. Sideswipe for eg has a nice upper half but the lower legs simply look wrong on him.

sideways does have a very microman acroyear look, perhaps thats why i like him.

 

No, you can tell they're supposed to go Peaugh's (revised) way because the wheel sits in a "well" on the inner leg, which also has a block on it that locks into the back of the wheel.

 

I started to like this , too after carefully reading the review ... but I want to name it as "Waspinator" cuz' it got the wings and ugly face...

 

Pics of slightly modified Sideways

Like I mentioned earlier, I did a minor modification to my Sideways and I have his legs in a way not shown before, which I think improves him a bit.

Here is the leg configuration I came up with:

DSCN0277 on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

I doubt this is an official config - I think the "tiny feet" version is probably correct - but if you leave the side panels unpegged and use them as heel spurs, it really helps balance out the tiny feet. Note also (sorry for the blurry pic) that the front leg guards now notch into little ridges on the fronts of the shins. The back panels have little stoppers molded into them that seem to hold them just right to be heel spurs. Overall he now stands straighter with no chicken legs, and very nice balance.

I removed the useless wheel on his left arm, and I now have it so a surplus weapon that fits into the resulting hole is his arm weapon. It hides very nicely in Audi mode using that big negative space in the rear of the car.

DSCN0276 on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

I did a small amount of detail work on the torso just to break up all that red, too. I think the result works pretty well.

I now have him and Sideswipe, and I'm pleased with them both. I doubt I will be happy with all of the ROTF toys, but these two at least are really good.

Tim
"toy geek"

 

hmmm.. I"m glad I put this one down.. I don't like the design at all. Looks like a Barricade rip-off IMO. The Car mode looks good, but it doesn't do well enough to make me buy it.

 

Mmm.. No thanks. I find that his body is way too large for his skinny arms and legs. I do however like how he looks in the movie. I've seen CG Art of it.

My complaints would be:
1. A little too much red for the torso.
2. If the body had been slimmer, or the arms and legs a little bulkier, then it would be fine..

I'll take a look at other toy reviews and see how this toy turns out.. But most likely I'm not going for it..

 

i think i will end up with him... just because i want all bots that are in the movie.. and that includes him

 

Just got him, and I love everything about this figure. The small legs don't bother me at all, his weirdness just appeals to me.

 

Sideways is a very cool figure. Once his legs are locked in just right (The wheels are at a 45 degree angle to his ankles when properly aligned) he's VERY stable, his transformation is clever and satisfying (I love the initial double-click of his waist and wheels popping out and away), and he's overall designed very well, I think.

He's got a great silhouette, too. Much nicer than Barricade, and now that I have him, they don't seem as similar as they did before. The legs and overall proportions (lithe vs. chunky) are very different.

 

Quick first impressions:

He doesn't look like this at all. If the grille "button" that activates the automorph actually stayed bent in a bit more ... then he'd look a little more like that render. But there are no wheels at ALL on the rendered legs (much less wheel-heels), or bent-out headlights on the chest (it looks like they wrapped around the taillights, instead). Plus, there's that giant smear of red on the toy's chest/torso ... yeahhhh, no.

But judging him by himself, as a toy? The only thing that flat-out sucks are the ballerina feet. Everything else is ... interesting. The panel transformations are unique, and the giant, folding roof-trunk tucks itself away pretty nicely (certainly better than on Alt. Ravage). Most of the panels manage to stay out of each other's way, which is no small feat when you consider how much car kibble is being juggled around. He certainly does a better Barricade than the old toy -- but then, damn near ANYTHING could do a better job than old "side-car arms". His alt mode is shiny and attractive, and I guess if you're desperate enough, you could silver-marker all the red crap on the robot and call it a day.

The instructions get the back wrong AND the order of transformation wrong. The stock photo gets the back wrong AND has the feet posed with wheel-heels (whereas the instructions just stand him on his feet). For the record, I've tried the backwards-knees, wheel-heels thing -- and when he isn't falling over, he looks like he's taking a perma-crap. If he's going to have balance issues, I'd rather have him stand taller; I'll just take advantage of the fact that the legs don't go past vertical on the feet, and balance him that way.

I've heard at least one person compare this toy to a Car-Robots shellformer. I have a hard time swallowing that, because this toy juggles panels in a much nicer fashion than any of the Car Brothers ever did. However, it is true that doing things out of order makes the process much more difficult. Protip: ALWAYS pop the trunk before trying to unhook the side panels. You'll also want to bend the legs downward towards the bottom of the car while unhooking. I don't know if it's physically possible to unhook them if you don't -- and this is the big thing the instructions get wrong. When going in reverse, hooking together the side panels is the FIRST thing you should do before attempting to reform the rest of the car shell. With the side panels locked in, everything else eventually falls (and clicks) into place.

So yeah, he's OK. Better than I thought he would be, and certainly a better take on the Barricade design. Screw movie accuracy -- just stick a siren on top and be done with it.

-XCN-