By Loran
Like I said back in my Smolder review, the idea of “rescue” vehicles as Decepticons has always appealed to me. As such, Barricade was a “love-at-first-sight” for me when I first saw his prop car for the first Transformers movie. A Decepticon Cop Car? My dreams have come true! Naturally, he was the first deluxe-class figure I picked up from the first movie and was my favorite for quite awhile. Of course, Dark of the Moon has been making me want new versions of characters I already have… so I figured, hey, why not update Barricade, too?
First things first: He’s a LOT smaller than the toy from the first movie. This makes it pretty clear how much smaller Deluxes are now. But size isn’t everything, right? This vehicle mode is much more detailed and streamlined than the old toy. I like it much more. Even the lightbar is better. The only things I really don’t like are the visible parts under the windshield and the white spoiler. The white spoiler in particular is kind of distracting. I’m not sure why it’s there, since it’s not on any other toy or the prop car. He also has only one MechTech port! Disappointment.
The transformation on the new figure is a LOOOOT easier and less… fiddly than the first one. No joke, it took me almost an entire Deep Space Nine episode to get the first figure back into vehicle mode. Okay, maybe that’s an exaggeration but god, getting those legs in is so annoying. It’s certainly more complex this time around, but less frustrating.
…again. There’s a considerable size difference here. I guess Hasbro’s been downsizing their figures for cost reasons, but whatever, I’m not bothered. I’d rather have smaller figures that have more “toy” to them than larger ones that are kind of lame. He’s much nicer, and again, slimmer than his previous figure.
The paint applications on this figure are very good-especially on his face. The silver really brings out the copper mouth and red eyes, keeping the detail from getting lost in the design. Sadly, there’s no light piping! But hey, other than that, it’s a great sculpt.
The articulation is, again, much improved over the previous toy, although his hips are kind of annoying, with the swivel being a bit too tight. The pistons on them give him much better movement, giving him some of that great creepy leg movement I love from the movie ‘cons. His arms are the biggest improvement, thankfully ditching the stupid spring-loaded gimmick. Amazingly, he has articulated fingers sort of! They actually hold his gun (or really, any other appropriate 5mm peg weapon) a lot better than I expected.
His MechTech weapon is a machine gun that folds out into some sort of death rake. It’s… pretty lame as far as MechTech weapons go. It doesn’t help that there is only ONE port on this entire figure for MechTech weapons, and it’s on top of his lightbar. He even has two gastanks in vehicle mode, and neither of them accommodates weapons. Totally missed opportunity, in my opinion.
Also, no Frenzy. Oh well…
Overall, I’d have to say the new Barricade is much better than the old one. I’m glad they’re going back and updating older characters with new figures, now that the actual source material has been out for years. I’d suggest getting one from us if you see it. Now give us a bigger Bonecrusher and Blackout, Hasbro!
