I absolutely LOVE soundwave, and I love the basic design of this figure. I can deal with/custom fix anything on this I have a problem with, except for one thing.

that damn waist flap sticking out the back. is there no possible way to make it go away/appear smaller?

 

It's a neat design and all, but this figure will be an easy pass.

The only two things I think it has going on is a couple of nice looking heads.

 

He's got very similar proportions to Device Label Blaster, except people give him a pass, for some reason.

I think the execution's alright. Getting the proportions accurate to Guido's design is an impossibility, there's so much cheating going on with the mass there.

There's probably a number of things that could have been handled better, but I don't hate it. I'm still leaving this in my Pile of Loot. The price is on the low end for 3rd Party items, so I really don't mind all that much.

 

This is the 1st time that i can say Hasbro WOULD do a better version of a 3rd party product!!!

 

I was almost ready to go ahead and get him...until I saw those legs from the side. Those are ridiculous. I might get him still, but those legs are actually a huge turnoff for me.

 

I don't think it would have been impossible to make the toy more like that art. Problem is that the figure would have to be bigger to accommodate that tape holder gimmick and have better robot proportions and a lot of the engineering would need to be redesigned for better articulation. BTS isn't BAD at making things but this one takes the taco. If this was all you had to go by when it came to judging them by their work you would never give them a second look.

 

You could get a better proportioned robot mode. But then you'd have a crazy chunky tape recorder mode as the tradeoff.

Guido's design cheats, hard. His chest is far smaller in robot mode compared to his legs, whereas in the alt-mode pic, the legs portions are about 2/3rds the size of the tape housing. His thighs are of similar depth to the rest of his torso, despite the fact that they have to fit side-by-side, depth-wise, in alt. mode.

The only thing BTS could have done differently is to layer the lower legs as per Guido's design, having a portion of the mass shift out to the side. That would have fixed the depth problem people are complaining about. But then that would've made his thighs and toes look even skinnier.

 

Yes, it would be a bit more chunky but I think you could strike a balance...BTS didn't even try to strike a balance. Looks like they just tried to make a very realistic tape recorder turn into a robot with no trade off and then failed on the conversion engineering leaving it with bad articulation and a tape mode with no working tabs to keep it together where it's needed and the ones they DO have are useless and weak. I would have MUCH prefered a more chunky and stylized tape recorder as a trade off for a toy that turned into an excellent robot mode because let's face it, I think most people are buying this sort of transformer for the robot anyway. XD

 

That's totally not what you said.

 

I think a big issue is the insistence of making Soundwave compatible with G1 cassettes. I have a mini cassette recorder similar to this, and the cassettes are of a smaller make. I would've said one way to help out with the balance is to eliminate compatibility altogether. You would get a smaller chest, because you don't need to have G1 cassettes in them.

I understand that this is Soundwave, but this figure is a case of having your cake and eating it too, and the figure suffers horribly for it.

 

I don't see anything that makes him better than the original G1 toy. I know that sounds harsh,but I really don't. What that toy lacks in articulation it makes uo in looks. This one looks horribly unbalanced....

 

Not bad shaney

 

Well, I just saved sixty bucks at BBTS. Thank you for the advanced review. I can't say that enough. That's no match for the Music Label Soundwave.

That was the one thing that stuck out most to me too. A diving board for the cassettes? Soundwave's all kinds of fun for the little ones.

Nice attempt, but this disappoints me more than device label Blaster. Fortunately, I've learned from that "investment".

 

Looks dumb. WFC Soundwave is lol'ing.

 

think i will stick with my music label soundwave

 

This...

Sonicron needed to look a little more like his box art...

To this day Music Label Soundwave is the best stand-in for the classics imo...I actually have Soundblaster (the purple/black version)...and he looks really good next to United Megatron and Hound's Ravage...

 

Pass, I will stick with my G1 soundwave and Soundblaster

 

Quality issues aside, this mostly looks decently engineered...except for dat ass shelf. What on Earth were they thinking by not making that fold out of the way?

 

Wheeeelps. Since I have Music Label and G1 Soundwave, it's an easy pass. Does look pretty sweet though, just not cool enough to displace old Soundwave.

Though the fact that he has a 9 in Intrlligence is quite intriguing... since mine has a 9 in Intelligence, in fact I don't know what any of my other TF's have in Intrlligence...