Air Attack Optimus Primal

Color Scheme:

Dark brown, gold, bronze, and orange with some pink and blue accents. Most unfortunate is their choice of coloring his monkey butt pink. Excuse me, but I don't think Silverback Gorillas have pink butts, especially not ones that look like a babboon's butt. Yes, it bothers me. Otherwise, I love his color scheme. It's easily one of the best Beast Machines color schemes. Oh yes, I forgot to mention that. THIS IS A BEAST MACHINES TOY!!! I know, they put it in RiD packaging because this toy was released long after the Beast Machines toy line and cartoon was over, but still... this bothers me as well. Such is life, let's move on...

Robot Mode:

Very much like the character's depiction in the show (as I recall). He has a permanent yell on his face, but I guess that's ok since when he was in robot mode int he show, he was usually yelling at Vehicons or his own team to stop screwing up, hehe. He is very well articulated, and with care can be placed in a variety of poses. Too bad about the pink monkey butt on his shoulders. :P He does have a jet pack that pops out of his back with cool blue flames, too.

Beast Mode:

Again, a reasonably good copy of his show depiction. While his legs get pretty bulky, they still look good considering how tall they get in robot mode. The forearm covers are a nice touch without which he would look much more like a leaning over robot than he does. The beast head is good, and they kind of sort of have the compass looking thing for his neck, but not so much. Of course, there's the pink monkey butt. The cool blue flames of the jet pack seem much more pronounced in this mode, probably because they aren't "just his back" any more. Overall, a good beast mode.

Transformation:

Swap heads by rotating his chest section, straighten (or fold up) his legs, and fiddle with his arms a bit, and you're done. He could be much more complicated for the size of the toy he is, but a simple transformation helps keep play value high, especially for the younger kids who'll really enjoy his gimmicks.

Gimmicks:

He's electronic! Electronics include lights and sounds. The lights are pretty much only in his head/chest, but they flicker and strobe when he makes noises. To activate his sound effects, you press his chest panel, which makes a power up kind of noise. Then, when you press his head he says things. He has a few phrases total, one or two of which only play in beast or robot mode, including the infamous, "The seeds of the future lie buried in the past!" said with much fervor. Add to the cool (Garry Chalk's actual voice) speech sounds a really cool jet sound that is activated by the release of his jet pack. When you press the release switch, the jet pack pops down with the "blue flames" coming out of them, and the jet noise starts. What's really cool is that when he's vertical the jet sound increases in pitch, then if you aim him down as if he's diving, the sound decreases pitch, and if you have him sideways as if he's strafing something the sound plays a strafing kind of noise. I can imagine some kid flying AAOp all over his house with all those cool flying noises, pissing off his parents to no end. ;-) That's, of course, not all. He also has a disc launcher in his belly that makes an energy pulse kind of noise. And if you pull back his right arm and let go, it punches because it's spring loaded. Too bad the arm doesn't make a nice smacking/punching noise, though. hehe. All these noises cease to function after a set timeout has occurred. I'm not sure how long it is, but it's not very long, probably only about 20 or 30 seconds. That's plenty of time to play with the noises, but also short enough to not annoy parents with a toy that never shuts up, or wastes battery power (can you tell I'm a parent now? ;-).

Pros/Cons:

All pros (see above) and one con. That stupid pink butt! Gah! If you can get this toy, get it. If you're lucky it won't sell well and you can get it on clearance, but don't count on it, because this is a sweet toy.