Rifle: Constructed from cheap-feeling, very lightweight black plastic, it's about 3/4" longer than the transforming rifle designed by Fansproject. The handle has a rectangular section, meaning it will only fit in City Commander's fist and not a standard 5mm hole, unless modified. The only major flaw is that the rifle's stock is too long, and can only be held if CC's fist is rotated inwards, away from the beveled gaunlet. Missile pods: Each pod is constructed with a red plastic missile that pegs on to a white plastic pod. The shoulder pegs cannot fit in a standard 5mm hole; they are designed to conform to the semicircle+rectangle holes in CC's shoulders. The plastic also feels very lightweight and cheap. Sword: Made from fairly flexible translucent plastic, it's much more transparent than the images seen on igear's website. It's nicely detailed with a small Wreckers insignia on the hilt. Like the rifle, it also has a rectangular grip, meaning only CC can hold it without modification. Head: The new head is about 80% the size of the original CC head. It's mounted on a balljoint compatible with CC's neck, and is constructed from two painted pieces of blue plastic: the helmet and the face. Like the CC head, the face can slide out from a dovetail groove in the helmet. However, because the head is smaller than the CC head, their parts are not interchangable. While the detailing is decent, it just seems sloppily unfinished and aesthetically incompatable with CC. Flag: The flag is made from a very flexible, translucent green rubber or vinyl. The molding is very nice, but it lacks any sort of logo or insignia: it is simply a nondescript green flag. It's great if you like green flags. Hammer: My favorite piece, and the only reason I bought this set beyond curiosity. The head of the hammer itself is constructed from three layers of plastic: a transulent inner layer, a chromed middle layer and the outer transparent layer. Only the inner layer can move independently, as the chrome layer is only there to act as a reflective inner surface for the outer layer. Each of these layers split into two pieces, which allow the hammer to be reconfigured into a pair of mallets. In this mode, the inner layer slides out and fills in the back of each mallet. Two short handles for the mallets prop the inner layers out in their extended position, but unfortunately are loose and the mallet heads can spin freely around them. In hammer mode, everything clicks very securely together, and the long handle simply pegs firmly into the head. Each handle is made from slightly bendy, blue transparent plastic, and fit very securely into CC's hand. Even though they are circular, they are a barely too thick to fit into a standard 5mm hole. The long handle seems to be thicker than the two short handles. There's also a Wreckers insignia on the face of each side of the hammer. Card, Poster: Not really worth mentioning, but the set also comes with a fancy business card for igear, and a folded-up poster featuring Ultra Magnus' head. In summary, this set is very underwhelming for the $60 price tag. In general, the opaque plastic feels cheap and light, and the detailing and mold quality are decent but uninspired. For me, this was anticipated so I wasn't terribly disappointed. While each item in the set is neat in it's own way, I can't imagine many, if any, people will actually make use of the entire set. If you really like one or two items in the set, consider splitting a set with someone else, or buying this on clearance. IG-TF001 @ igear: iGear Blog Archive IG-TF001
i hope their base set is a hell of a lot better plastic and overall quality if only fansproject could do quality control for all those other companies
Can you take a picture comparing the original with iGear's head, and comparing FansProject's rifle with iGear's rifle?
The head is really small. I really hope this is the last time we see an upgrade kit for another companies upgrade kit. Thanks for the review man
I cannot believe the lack of engineering of this set with the problems with the gun holding in the hand, the midget head with very long antennae. Even the shoulder launchers look too small. iGear had so much time to work on this set and yet they dropped the ball on this one (At least SGCollect released their "Why so Serious?" set 8 months earlier at about $30). The price tag is also astronomical at $60 relative to the original $76.99 of the original set or $88.99 for the re-release with a better upgrade kit. You take great pics, process.
Just got this from BBTS today... have to admit that it is a bit underwhelming... at least it would be if I were buying it solely for my City Commander. I'll be putting the rifle and sword on my Powered Commander, the Hammer will go to CC and Shadow Commander will be getting the launchers once I repaint the white parts black. The flag and the head were always going to get thrown to the side. As far as the mold quality goes... yeah, I'm a little perturbed that they only cast the weapons with square pegs instead of the standard and I really am not too keen on the rubbery plastic used on the sword, but it's still a pretty good set IMPO if you can find use for most of the set. Otherwise, I have to completely agree that this set just is not worth the investment for only one or two pieces (as I know most people were interested in this set only because of the Animated Magnus styled Hammer). Hopefully, their Ark and Nemesis playsets will be better quality plastic wise...
If you have ROTF Bludgeon, you should paint the handle of the flag black also and give it to him. Kinda like a sashimono.
i bought the upgrade. this set isn't very good except for the hammer. i cannot recommend this...the parallax version will run the same price and goes along with it better. as a last resort, i modified the new face to fit in the original CC helmet and it looks great. But I don't like having to mutilate items that I never intended to kitbash with, especially expensive limited edition 3rd party items. here's the result
sometimes you know spyboy sometimes u just have to b happy with the head u get if any at all now your igear kit is fd in its autobot rims
Bite me, Larry! lol, j/k But honestly, it's kinda grown on me. The goofy G1 missles are awesome and the flag is kinda epic. Yeah, the value is f'd, but there wasn't much value here to begin with besides ripping people off. If anything, this set will benefit Warbot Defender (Springer) because of the hammer having the little Wreckers symbol on it. iGear should be ashamed. Faith Leader is AWESOME, Arcee is AWESOME, Kup head kit is SUPERAWESOMEYEAHHH cause it's cheap. This sucks and is barely compatible is some ways... This set would be amazing for 20 bucks, but simply not worth the 60 dollar price.
