He does indeed look fantastic, just don't touch him. I have tried transforming mine 3 times now, and it all goes to shit at tabbing in the arms in alt mode. It absolutely will not go together. Their pic of how the upper part sits inside the legs panels does not work on mine unless i do not tab the legs together.
Mine will forever remain in bot mode, awaiting the day someone makes an mp hotrod that looks good and can be posed without exploding. I seriously hope their blur isn't as big a let down as this.

@dalianjj - you guys dropped the ball hard on this . Pull your heads out of the sand and see what your recent mistakes are doing to the reputation of your brand. You actually have competition now from companies that learn from their mistakes instead of repeating them over and over.

 

Their blurr looks pretty much in the same kind of vein. Same hip skirt mechanic as well. I am going to the sidelines on that one until extensive reviews come in to decide on whether to jump in on that one, or for any future releases in the future. Their Silverbolt and Motormaster do look good.

 

Buzz: killed.
Preorder regret: rising.

Guess I'll wait till I have him in hand to see how I feel, but I kinda wish I had pushed this one back to a later date, especially with the Neca TMNT figures just around the corner. Oh well, who needs money, right?

 

Honestly probably my biggest gripe, it just breaks up the view really bad. It was almost enough I didn't get Kup for similar reasons, but after all the spotty reviews with HR I'm going to wait for now.

 

Sounds like this is one that's basically a statue and never take a chance transforming him. That's unfortunate, the bot mode looks decent.

 

When I see one guy say the transformation was fine, and the next guy say it was worse than cancer, it makes me wonder.

Is someone lying? Is the QC variable that drastic?

Or, just maybe, some people suck at doing things.

 

Some people just suck  . Only issue I had with the transformation was the front of the car where to arms tab in under the headlights, otherwise it was a pretty decent transformation.

 

Hmmm, might be one for a Perfect Fusion treatment.

As much as many people hate him, he is the hero of the movie, the gold standard of G1 fiction. He deserves a brilliant figure.

I'd like to see XTB take a crack at him, though I'm not liking the look of their Kup so far.

I don't have Hoodlum in hand just yet but from what people are saying, it seems like they've solved a lot of issues of the Takara but the engineering seems dated, most likely due to it being an old design as a lot of people have noted.

That says to me that FT could in theory make a better version of this fairly easily. They wouldn't have to start from scratch, just take the positives and work out the negatives as they did with Scoria and Ceasium.

By the numbers on this forum, it seems like its a bit of a dud overall. Average at best. For Hot Rod, (and FT) thats pretty sad.

 

Transformation difficulty depends on many variables related to the individual customer. Dexterity, fine motor skills, intelligence, persistence, patience, etc.
Articulation is a simple fact. The figure either has it or it doesn't.
Engineering falls somewhere in between, as sometimes a poor tolerance can be worked around, but other times it cannot.

 

Just looks so much better with the rest of the crew

 

I loved this figure from 3 years ago and was all in. I preordered. I hate MP-28 and think it looks like shit. This one LOOKS great but FT shit the bed on this one. It sucks. This reminds me 100% of XTB Ollie that I crapped all over years ago with the EXACT same problems. The arm gimmick is good but the shoulders are absolute crap. Hot Rod's shoulders as well as Rodimus's shoulders look best and are supposed to be about level with just the light portion raised slight above as in the Porkncheese's pictures above. This high shoulder is a bunch of crap and to not allow it to be repositioned or properly attached is also crap. If I can say that MP-28's attachment strategy was crap I can certainly say the same of the engineering here. The chest is an unmitigated disaster. I had chipping on the crap chest right in the package before I even touched it. Having to swivel that crap around basically ruins one of the best features of the bot. Hot Rod's car mode is absolutely beautiful and part of the show almost equal to the bot mode. To have that be such a mess that is a QC nightmare waiting to happen was unnecessary. It they wanted that action they could have had a telescoping joint in there to provide the clearance and push back down to avoid the difficulty. The option for so much diecast used here improperly led to a lot of the extreme torque on parts. I hate the single waist cover design when it is so easy to split it up and the lack of ratchets in the hips and knees. The back section of the car is just a mess down to the bad design of the rear tires and the attachment of the back half of the car and the arms to the sides that you have to squash down. Even the targetmaster was mismolded in the knees with the balljoint being larger than the socket and it appears the attachment had to be warmed up/melted to fit it in there. It barely spun around to get into gun mode. Worse yet the hole on the car hood cannot even be used to mount the targetmaster and hold it. What a joke. I love how BSF recommends this figure and cannot even fully transform it. It could have been a giant turd and he would have recommended it because FT. I liked Rouge even though it was difficult because of the character and was able to work around its issues. For me this is really just a lazy fail by FT. If this is what they were going to do with Berserk I am glad they went back to the start to get it right because they certainly failed here. This is also from someone getting Chomp and all of their combiners and I have a ton of their figures but the quality and engineering definitely feels like it is going backwards.

 

I thought that was hilarious as well. It's barely holding together in car mode but because of the paint and diecast he gives it a pass.

 

As per usual he explains why that is, he's a display presence over transformation and play guy and he recommended it on that basis. I find him pretty balanced, he highlights all the issues, gives his opinion on them but always qualifies it with you're welcome to disagree or like what you like. On that point if you don't like his reviews maybe don't watch them?

 

Pretty much why I don't watch any of his reviews. His discussion sections though are really good.

It's interesting to see the polar views here and it looks to boil down with what I said a few days ago, if you're happy with just a display bot then this is your Hot Rod, anything else you're best sticking with mp28. Seems to me alot if frustration is coming from transformation too.

Fwiw I'm happy with my purchase, he looks perfect with my other statues on the shelf:

 

Tracks would like a word with you.

Yeah, I feel that people give FansToys a pass on this - they're always saying they'll tweak things and fix it before release but it rarely happens.

True, but it seems more people than not have had an issue so far. Bobby had an issue too (though it's Bobby, so he might have done it, but still).

Yes! I completely agree. It's not always guaranteed to help, but it can help. Get more eyes on it, etc. to make sure there are no widespread issues. If the company can knock it out of the park by themselves, great, but it seems FansToys could do with the help... which is fine, since most big companies have focus groups and other tests, so there's no reason a company like this can't do it too.

In the case of Lupus though, at least Bobby didn't make it clear that it was a test shot, and I'm not sure how many others did either, nor do we know if it was made clear to the reviewers that it was a test shot, but there was clearly some miscommunication there. Most test shots are clearly communicated as test shots. I think that's ultimately on FansToys (and, to some extent, the reviewers) for that one.

 

Exactly what I was thinking.

The fact that he's a display guy and recommends this one based on that alone, and says he's going to do a video based on Hoodlum vs TT Hotrod, a toy that many dislike aesthetically but enjoy his playability, says it all.

He doesn't give Fanstoys a pass, they just cator to his tastes more so than any other company.

 

Exactly! I enjoy his reviews because I have fairly similar sensibilities. Display presence is top priority for me.. so sculpt, proportions, paint, finish, scale, materials and the general look and feel of a figure trump most other things. I love good articulation as it gives me more option but provided I can get a handful of good poses out of a figure I can live with limitations. Transformation is important to me, a good intuitive and clever transformation is a joy to behold, however I rarely transform my figures..so again I can live with a difficult one. So our tastes align on a lot of things. However I don't agree with him on all points, his "Issues with Beast Wars" or criticism of MP-01 Light of Freedom for not being painted enough for example.. but that is the nature of reviews right? A lot of it is opinion and personal preference, a good reviewer states it as such.

 

Not bad but not great either. After getting MS Optimus Prime any figure would have a hard time coming after it. Hoodlum could do with some sort of 3D printed collar section to improve it.

 

The transformation is very straight forward. It isn't a matter of not being able to do it. I can transform the original mp megs, koot, and ft arcee with ease. This 1 just will not tab together correctly. Maybe i got a shit copy, but it seems i am not the only 1 who can't get parts to stay locked. As i said, he will LOOK beautiful never moving again on my movie crew shelf.

 

He refused to even transform Rouge and complained about her lack of waist articulation. Yet he gives Hoodlum a pass even though Hoodlum is arguably less articulated than Rouge in certain areas. The thing is that he admitted he's a display only guy. So, why did he have an issue with Rouge? Her transformation is a nightmare and she has no waist swivel, but she displays great (and she's more articulated than most give credit for) making her a good piece for that purpose.

I like Skullface's reviews a lot, but I'm confused by his flip flopping.