Human Alliance Barricade

Originally Posted by Depthcharge

Picked up Barricade today and let me say........... WOW!

Now, for frame of reference I loved Binaltech/Alternators and so far have been very pleased with the HA line-up. HA Bumblebee and Skids were great and good respectively (Sideswipe gets an A for effort) and Barricade here does not disappoint. Here's my assessment.

Frenzy: For being a tiny action figure, he looks quite good and has just enough articulation to suite me. The exact words I uttered after removing him from the package were, "Holy crap, he even stands up on his own." He is able to sit quite comfortably inside Barricade in either the driver or passenger seat so hey, +1 for actually achieving a design goal without excessive force *looking at you Sideswipe). A HUGE bonus to me is his level of interaction with Barricade. Frenzy folds up (not transforms, just kinda condenses down into a Frenzy block) and can be stored within Barricades hood just like the deluxe figure.

Vehicle mode: Looks great. Panel lines are well hidden and/or fit snugly together and he rolls nicely with a fair amount of ground clearance. The car mode is very solid as well. As mentioned above Frenzy figure fits inside the cabin quite easily or you can store him inside the front end of the car. It's also more or less possible to utilize the chest cannon interactive feature in this mode which does a nice job of simulating the interrogation scene from the first movie.

Transformation: The HA line has been pretty good at being complex but not frustrating and Barricade continues that trend. He's pretty kibble ridden in the arm area but manages to avoid being overly fiddly, if that makes any sense. You'll likely activate his spring loaded blade mechanism a few times by accident but its no big deal and not really annoying since its easy to reset or just leave alone once its sprung.

Robot mode: Way better than the deluxe version in terms of looks and articulation. Like most of the HA's his articulation is a little weird in spots due to the transformation scheme but it is still very functional and you get all the basic joints that you would expect except the waist. Actually upon closer inspection it looks like the waist should be able to turn but on my figure at least the best I can get is a wiggle. Might just need to eat my spinach and try again. The spinning blade gimmick is neat enough though I'd have personally preferred a hand, but oh well. Mercifully the little blades on the tire are NOT spring loaded; it sounds like it would be a fun idea but with all compound spring gimmicks I have a feeling i would end up being more annoying and difficult to keep locked down. Tons of fun here where interaction with Frenzy is concerned. Frenzy can ride on Barricades back, in his chest, hanging out of his chest to man the chest cannons, or on either arm. Not a big fan of the arm chairs this time around as basically you're just having Barricade hold his hand behind his back so it looks a little silly. Again, my personal opinion is that the chest compartment is an amazing bonus feature.


In closing, I'm very very happy with this figure not just because I like it better than the deluxe but because it's everything I look for in a Transformer. Great looking in both modes, complex, sturdy, and well articulated. As an added bonus, he's got gimmicks and play features that actually work without detracting from the any of the above. If you can stand to fork out the $30 for Barricade, I highly recommend you get punished and enslaved.