Ravage

Height: 9cm (at shoulder); 14cm (alternate mode length)

Articulation: 33 total points - 7 points each front leg: double jointed shoulder, upper arm swivel, pre-elbow hinge, hinge elbow, hinged claw (x2); Ball joint waist; Double hinged cannon armature; 3 points in tail: base hinge, mid-point hinge, ball jointed tip; 4 points each leg: ball joint hip, hinge knee, hinge ankle, hinged claw.

Colors: Molded black, grey, clear purple; Painted metallic light blue, silver.

Accessories: N/A

Release Data: Released in the United States in June of 2009 in ROTF Deluxe Wave 3 at a retail price of US$11.99

Author: ExVee

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Bulleting down through the atmosphere at better than 15 times the speed of sound, Ravage considers the data he has already amassed on the small, soft creatures that inhabit this planet. They seem weak and fragile, yet they are the ones that destroyed Megatron. That is a fact he will keep in mind as he penetrates their most sensitive installation. Against such an unpredictable enemy, stealth will be his watchword.

Okay, so an alien robot jaguar may not be the most interesting thing, but it is kind of different. Ravage isn't the first beast mode toy in the movie style. And in truth Scorponok was probably the toy from the first movie I came closest to getting on more than one occasion. Ravage is obviously the fill-in for Scorponok this time around, although later on we know we'll be getting a Scorponok recolor. I'm almost certainly ending up with that one, since its colors are based on Beast Wars Scorponok. Maybe for the third movie they'll make us a dinosaur robot?


Beast Mode

I'm debating whether that should be tagged as robot mode, but I guess we'll go with this. Though there's only the vaguest resemblance to the Zoid of the same name in the general shape of the head, Ravage is easily a Hellcat. The body is lean, and the feline features slightly exaggerated to prove the point. Points are a major part of Ravage, as there are three rows of large spines and spikes running down the back and neck as well as the entire length of the tail. This is a clearly alien depiction of a cat. The cycloptic head - or an alternate interpretation is a normal cat head with a helmet on, the opposed-clawed feet, and a general sense of being mildly skeletal all combine to suggest that someone is improving on the basic notion of a large cat.

There's some fun molded details spread around the body. The neck and the waist have molded bands meant to look like overlapping armor plates to allow flexibility, although these parts do not themselves bend. The upper front legs have details to represent exposed mechanisms that move as you pose the legs, and the "forearms" look like basic frame structures with shock absorbers just before the wrist joints, plus there are piston details on either side of the neck. As noted already there are skeletal elements, and the tail is a big one. The normal mechanical looking segmentation is augmented with the many, many spines, which give it the look of the vertebrae in a real animal's tail. Another somewhat standard mechanical aspect is the large blade and claw unit that makes the tip of the tail. One of the blades, and thus the attached claw, is hinged. The hinge joint is stiff enough that the claw will stay closed around narrow objects and Ravage can hang by his tail. It's a feline crossed with a marsupial!

The big Ravage detail for the toy is the two guns mounted at the hips, which in basic style also make me think of Zoids. They're attached to double hinged arms, and have an effective firing arc of about 80 degrees. They will go farther than that but are either pointing at the ground or Ravage's front legs. I found later on my particular example that one of the connector arms is warped enough to skew the angle of the cannon. This was not evident to casual inspection in the package, but it might be worth some scrutiny since that plastic is capable of being distorted. On the subject of weapons, I have sadly discovered that the transformation peg holes on Ravage's hips are just slightly too small to fit G1 Ravage's rockets. Shame, that...

Ravage's Mech Alive gimmick is simple, but effective. When pulled back, a lever not so cleverly disguised among the row of spikes along the spine causes Ravage's head to lunge forward, ears fold back, and the lower jaw to open ...maybe. See, I've found that it may be necessary to have the head push forward first and manually open the jaw. It seems like there is a position where the jaw will stay closed regardless, whether by design or bad planning. Once the jaw is opened the first time, the full mechanism will work perfectly every time until you push the jaw closed again. When the jaw is open, you can look inside and actually see some kind of almost creepily mechanical looking tongue. The single large eye is translucent plastic, and is made for lightpiping. While this plastic does not work especially well under room lighting, even applying a direct light or an LED blacklight does not help much; The plastic does transmit light, but there seems to be an obstruction from the upper jaw preventing most of the eye from glowing. Somehow that seems so much sadder than lightpiping turned opaque and/or painted over.

Ravage's legs have quite a bit of articulation. Unfortunately the effective posability is considerably less. The front legs have very little problem, and while the odd, extremely restricted sideways hinge above the elbow is pretty inexplicable, the rest is basically what you'd normally expect from the jointing. Of particular note are the transformation hinges at the shoulders which greatly increase the overall range of posability. Also the articulated claws on the front legs, capable of going from a basically flat standing position to fully closed, the hinge is of similar strength to the tail claw and Ravage can hold just about anything thin enough to fit in the claw. The rear legs have a lot more restriction to contend with. The most the joints are able to bend is to reach a normal standing pose. Sitting, laying, or crouched to pounce are really just not possible with how these joints are made. Plus the rear claws are single pieces, only articulated at the "ankles" - a cat's ankles, like many four-legged animals are actually the joint that looks like a backward knee. Most four-legged animals basically walk just on their toes.


Transformation

Though there is some physical modification here, it mostly is just folding the limbs around. But on the upside, there is a way for parts to lock together in the alternate mode, contrary to what the stock photography would like to suggest. In any case, it's a good idea to check over the instructions to make sure you have everything right. The way Ravage transforms there can be aspects that aren't obviously supposed to be one way or another. I usually don't appreciate such ambiguity in transformation.


Re-Entry Mode

I suppose a choice has to be made; A choice of either having a really nice beast mode and a lousy afterthought of a robot mode, or a really nice beast mode and a lousy afterthought of a vehicle mode. Under the circumstances, I think the latter may be preferable. Even so there is absolutely no getting around that this mode is almost entirely a matter of Ravage having his limbs folded around him. The chest does split and connect to the side as engine pods with small wings, and the rear legs basically dislocate, but it's still a very minor change. The guns remain movable in this mode. The rear legs and tail don't actually lock into position, but they're not intended to be moved. The best thing I can sum this up as is what someone else has said: this is Ravage doing an impression of Optimal Optimus in either of his two vehicle modes.



Closing Remarks

It's a pretty nice robot cat toy, which is how it feels like it was really designed. The transformation is like it was tacked on later. In all honesty they probably could have done Ravage just as a Robot Replica and had at least as good of a result. Its intended mode turns out Very Good, but the transformation is almost worthless. As a Transformer I have to call it Could Have Been Better, even though it probably couldn't have without compromising the cat mode. Just another to join the ranks of really nice Action Master Elites, I suppose.

The sad part is that unlike Scorponok, Ravage has almost all the joints needed to get a decent robot mode with just a few changes to the design.

-ExVee