Welcome to the first of a short series of articles where I mumble on about the Transformers Powercore Combiner toys. I'm planning this to be 4 articles in total, covering the wave 1 Commander 2 packs known as Search Light & Backwind, Smolder & Chopster and Huffer & Caliburst. I will be doing short reviews of Searchlight, Smolder, Huffer followed by the three minicons. I'm treating the minicons independently because they're going to do a reshuffle of the pairings with the recolours in a later wave.
Each short(ish) review will be broken down into smaller segments just to add a bit of structure to them. They will cover:
- Vehicle Mode
- Robot mode
- Gestalt Mode
- Combiner Pegs
- Transformation
- Summary and Thoughts
This first article will cover the rescue helicopter known as Searchlight.
Searchlight
Vehicle Mode
To sum up the alternate mode: Searchlight is a gray and blue rescue helicopter.
Except for the visible thighs on the underside, it's a fairly decent alternate mode. There is a minicon peg on the underside of the cockpit, as well a the retractable peg on underbelly of the helicopter. My only major criticism of this mode is the lack of landing gear to support the helicopter when it is at rest. It has to sit at an angle. It's made worse when minicon weapons are attached to it.
One small observation: the rotor blades are not identical. The one with the smallest diameter has four blades while the larger one has three. I would have thought that it would be easier to recycle one rotor blade to make a symmetrical pair for the windmill shoulders on the gestalt mode.
Robot Mode
Before I go on, I just want to highlight one aspect of some of these new PCC commanders have that I find to be absolutely brilliant: The retractable minicon peg on the chest. This gives them a place to install minicons to act as a chest-plate, but can also have retracted when not in use. You could even pretend that they're a chest-gun of some sort. Pity not all of the commanders have one, but it's a great idea all the same, and one that would've been really useful when powerlink pegs were introduced in the Armada line. But I digress.
Searchlight's robot mode is in my opinion his weakest mode thanks to his shoulder assembly and thin legs. I do like the impression of a 5 o'clock shadow on his face. It makes him look worn and tired. Actually reminds me of the junkyard robot in Season 3 of G1 for some reason.
His weakest point, in my opinion, his the shoulder/back assembly with the helicopter cockpit halves. They are loose and the whole shoulder and sides rotate freely. The cockpit 'coat tails' don't really have anywhere to go and hang loose behind him. These aspects aren't too good, but are still workable. Now comes my main fussy point - the shoulder interface. They are just flaps with the ball joint attached to it. This does gives great articulation but it does not look very good at all. It makes it look like his shoulders floating away independently of the torso.
He has beefy arms with, but very thin legs that are mostly made up of thin helicopter siding. Being top heavy, his toes need to be spread out to take most of his weight when standing upright. The combiner pegs on his knees also give him very large kneecaps. Transformers with fairly hollow legs have been around, but they generally make up for it by disguising the hollow legs to make them look stocky, such as the ones on Animated Jazz or G2 Hero Prime. Searchlight manages that from the sides, but try not to look at his inner leg too much.
Articulation-wise, he's very good. The elbows have double-joints, with one being a ball joint on the lower arm. His shoulders are ball jointed and the plate that holds the ball joint has a bit of motion. This gives him excellent arm articulation. Head is on a standard bal joint. Hips are not ball jointed (a step backwards in the right direction in my opinion - they often get it wrong with the hips when they use ball joints)but instead use a good old 2 axis joint that holds firm. The hip also rotates mid-way. The knee is a fairly standard joint offset a little to allow the whole lower leg flip back for its alt mode and gestalt mode hip mode.
To go beyond the official modes (one should never confine themselves just to the official modes): one thing I would suggest to disguise his offset shoulders is to deploy his gestalt mode chest plate siding. They hide the shoulder interface. Again it's a facade, but it makes Searchlight look less unfinished.
As for the cockpit tailcoat, the minicon peg is wasted on it. Consider tipping the shoulder pylons forward a little and clip both cockpit halves together. This gives you a central minicon peg on his back where you can install a weapon minicon of your choice.
Finally, the rotor blades seem to be neglected in the instrucions and don't appear to have anywhere to go. Common senses dictates that they be used as weapons. They can be plugged back into their sockets to give Searchlight a pair of spinning arm blades, which he can use to mow down enemies - and maybe trim the treetops. The pegs on the rotor blades don't seem to be quite the right dimension for his fists, but can be put in. I would recommend sticking to the arm slots instead.
Gestalt Mode
Note, as I couldn't find my set of instructions for writing this review, I think I may have the normal arms set up in the wrong position in this photo. Also featured in the photo are the Aerialbot drones.
Most of my concerns from his shoulder siding in the robot mode translate across to the combined mode as well. The negative points are that his thighs amount to really thin legs with facades. Just looking at them from the side ruins the image somewhat. The windmill shoulders bother me - partly because they're not functional and partly because I feel like the instructions are just including them there simply as somewhere to put them.
Now for the good points. As mentioned earlier, Searchlight's gestalt mode comes with its own chest plate, which is actually part of his sides for his small mode. The head flippy gimmick where you swap his head works really well - better than Smolder's. Also the big head has a small resemblance to Animated Ultra Magnus, which earns it a few extra points from me. Clear plastic is used for the eyes, but there's no light piping block at the back of the head - this works on the similar principle as the light piping used in the deluxe Cybertron Red Alert toy. It works by viewing it from the side.
Now, if we go beyond the official modes, take away the shoulder windmills, you can actually use his normal arms as an extra set of manipulators, giving you a four armed robot. That can let you arm this bot with more guns and other weapons that the large arms cannot carry.
Transformation
Fairly simple but also interesting. I quiet like the way the arms fit into the roof. They are polar aligned, so you have to make sure you get the right arm in the right direction otherwise they won't clip into the legs or cockpit halves.
Combiner Pegs
Because of the colour scheme, the baby blue pegs actually fit into the whole thing seamlessly and don't stick out like a sore thumb. They still protrude in most cases.
Summary and Thoughts
My verdict? Well, as I was writing this review, my impression of Searchlight started to improve somewhat as I discovered the ways to mitigate the few sore points I had with him. However, my verdict will have to be that Searchlight is an average minus. Probably the weakest of the three of the wave 1 PCC 2-pack commanders, but certainly not the worst toy ever made.
I would say get him if he's on special, but to concentrate on the other two wave-1 2-pack commanders before Searchlight. But that's just my opinion - yours may differ somewhat once you have him in your hands.
Now, I do rate his minicon - Backwind - quite well, and I will cover Backwind on the 4th installment. However I wouldn't recommend getting Searchlight just to get the Minicon. There will be repaints and reshuffling of the drones and minicons with a few recolors in Wave 3, and one will have an Autobot repaint of the Bombshock Mold paired with the Backwind minicon. That would be the best time to get it.
If you want to see the larger 640x480 versions of the photos used here (I had to have the blog shrink them otherwise they were being hidden by the sidebar), you can see them under the PCC Searchlight section no my Photobucket account.
