What do you guys think of the HA stuff? Cheesy? Too much kibble DP? I have a huge backlog of stuff to get through before I get to opening BB & SS.
Bumblebee is quite possibly one of my favorite Transformers ever, and is likely as good as we're ever going to get in toy form. Poseability is top-notch, the action features (such as they are; the various seating positions for Sam; firing cannon arm; blast shield mask) are unobtrusive and well-designed. It's literally a movie-verse Alternators version of BB. The figure isn't going to win any awards, but for the scale, it's not bad and has decent articulation and paint apps. I would highly recommend anyone and everyone who both loves TFs or just wants to have one (mostly) perfect Bumblebee toy to pick him up.
Sideswipe, however, is almost the complete opposite. The car mode is nice, and is certainly much cleaner than the deluxe version (mainly because the "blades" don't make up part of the doors in the HA version, leaving the "seams" along the body to a minimum in alt mode); the robot mode, however, is really disappointing for the backpack-former/kibble issue I mentioned earlier; not to mention the fact that the articulation is lacking and obstructed. The arms kind of fold into themselves for storage, meaning that the visible portions of the arms are hollowed out in robot mode, and the hips/thighs are restricted due to the rubber pistons that connect them to one another; in the deluxe version this works well, but here, it is more of a hindrance than a boon. The only part of the car mode that is integrated into the robot mode is the back fenders (which, like the deluxe version, make up the chest and shoulders), with the front hood, windshield, roof, back roof/windows, and doors folding up awkwardly on his back. He literally looks like he's carrying a compressed Corvette on his back.
The figure is a step down from Sam, too. The paint apps are somewhat wonky, and the design of the Corvette (having a smaller interior than the BB Camaro) makes positioning Epps extremely difficult. I still can't get him to sit in the driver's seat correctly after over a week of trying, so he's sitting in the passenger seat right now. And, where Bumblebee had multiple options of where Sam could be positioned in robot mode (in the hand, on either seat, or standing behind BB's shoulder on the little stand), Epps can just sit (awkwardly) in one of the seats when SS is in robot mode. Very disappointing.
I really hope that Skids/Mikaela/Arcee fare better in the interactibility area, as that seems to be the key selling point (in Hasbro's mind, anyway) for this line. It's almost like they knew they had an amazing toy in Bumblebee and wanted to continue it, but decided to just throw something together, design-wise, at the last minute for Sideswipe. If you want one Bumblebee toy, the HA version should be it; if you want one Sideswipe toy, the HA should NOT be it.
