Well yesterday I nipped into Toys R Us and saw that they now had a giftset of Blackout and Scorponok. These two Decepticons should be familiar to anyone who’s seen the movie, as Blackout laid waste to the US Army base in the opening scene of the movie, and Scorponok tracked the soldiers who escaped afterwards.

As a result of this fairly cool scene, I’ve been keen to pick up the two of them, so the giftset seemed like a great idea, especially since the box was roughly the size of a Voyager-class, I figured it’d be nice and affordable. Well, shame on me for not checking the price tags more carefully, as the cost was actually £39.99! I was in a hurry though, so wasn’t really watching what I was doing.

Now, since most people reading this won’t really follow Transformers toys, the problem here is that Blackout is a Voyager class toy. Which means he retails for £19.99 (give or take). Scorponok meanwhile is a deluxe, meaning a cost of £9.99.

Yup, Toys R Us suckered me good.

Sadly, I’m one of these strange people who won’t take it back and complain, as I view it as my fault for not checking the price before buying it. That and the set is now the source of a perverse amusement for me, just for the audacity Toys R Us have for stocking it at that price.

As for the toys themselves? Well, fortunately I quite like them. Blackout’s helicoper mode isn’t necessarily as robust as I’d like, but he matches his on-screen appearance well, looks suitably evil, and his some nice gimmicks in his mini-Scorponok he carries with him, and his geared rotor system.

Scorponok should be awful. Only his beast mode appeared on screen, so the designers have had to cobble together a robot mode for him based on what they had. It kind’ve works though. He looks quite monstrous which appeals to me. Again, he’s got a nice gimmick in his gears claws (push him along the ground and they turn, along with a flywheel in his chest), and his tail is nicely articulated. Plus I quite like how the fixed spring-loaded missle in his tail works as a stinger. Simple idea, but it works well.

As an added bonus, Scorponok can be pegged underneath Blackout to be carried into battle, and apparently (though I’ve not tried it yet), in this mode, triggering Blackout’s rotors will also activate Scorponok’s claws. Neat.

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 12th, 2007 at 12:18 and is filed under Toys, Transformers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.