The Energon Pub

Talk about your favourite gimmick here. I won't count poseability or ball joints or pipe lighting as gimmicks since that means gimmick haters would be in a difficult spot. But I will list my favourites:

Automorph - not always well executed, but when executed well, is extremely cool - i.e. Leader Prime, 08 Bumblebee, Voyager Ironhide, Deluxe Arcee.

Mini-Cons - I dunno, I find them really cute and cool. Human-sized Transformers? Count me in. I'm disappointed I only have one! (Safeguard w/ Vector Prime) But you can do heaps of things with them and they are fun, and that's what counts.

Omnicons and Energon weapons: Ever since getting the movie Scouts Arcee and Skyblast, I have wanted more toys with Energon weapons. I think they are really cool! Combining to form new weapons, able to be used by other Transformers (although those toys need to be from Armada/Energon/Cybertron/Classics), and a lot of them are actually really well done weapons, both in concept and applications.

Mini-cons rock. Energon Keys sucked, while Automorph can cause figures to break way too easily.

MP3 player Soundwave's ability to play mp3s is an awesome gimmick!

My favorite gimmick for a line of toys is simply the ability to store all parts, weapons, etc... in each mode. I don't like having loose parts to store away when I have a figure in a certain mode.

Automorph, Cyb. keys, Energon crud, lights and sounds, all that stuff I can do without.


I do have a soft spot for G1 combiners too.

I really don't care for gimmicks all to much! Give me a TF without gimmicks, and just pure old school transformations.

The only gimmick I care for is realistic cars that transform into cool looking robots. THat's why I like G1, RID and the Alts and Masterpiece lines the best.

payload wrote:I really don't care for gimmicks all to much! Give me a TF without gimmicks, and just pure old school transformations.

Same. I've seen too many potentially great figures ruined by the gimmick of the day.

Lapse Of Reason wrote:MP3 player Soundwave's ability to play mp3s is an awesome gimmick!

My favorite gimmick for a line of toys is simply the ability to store all parts, weapons, etc... in each mode. I don't like having loose parts to store away when I have a figure in a certain mode.

Automorph, Cyb. keys, Energon crud, lights and sounds, all that stuff I can do without.


I do have a soft spot for G1 combiners too.

+1

Burn wrote:

payload wrote:I really don't care for gimmicks all to much! Give me a TF without gimmicks, and just pure old school transformations.

Same. I've seen too many potentially great figures ruined by the gimmick of the day.

Agree.

Although combining was an interesting gimmick, as was triple changing...

Neubleon partners, minicons could have been realy awesum if they had of been more like these.

Minicons as Classic Target Masters would have been deadly

Automorph is an interesting and good in theory gimmick, that did not transfer over to the toys very well.

All the Headmasters/Targetmasters/Minicons were decent gimmicks, not much can beat getting an 'extra' transformer.

I didnt mind the Energon weapons that came with the Energon Scout figures, they could have done it with all size of figures though.

I don't mind a small amount of figures with gimmicks. For example, I love G1 headmasters. I have a strong distaste for forced line-wide gimmicks though. Armada had mini-cons which weren't actually necessary for figures 9/10s of the time. I enjoyed a larger amount of Energon, mostly Decepticons. The forced combination gimmick of the Autobots always looked terrible to me. Otherwise, the Energon chips and weapons was a neat touch. I only wish we didn't have to sacrifice character specific weapons for those. Cybertron I loved. The planet keys again, like mini-cons, weren't necessary for most figures and could be put aside. Just give me a good solid robot that moves and transforms well without NEEDING a gimmick for these things. If there's room left over in the design process that actually adds something cool to the toy? Knock yourself out.

My favourite gimmick: Combiners!! Targetmasters were pretty sweet too.

My favorite gimmick is light piping or floresent painted eyes. I don't mind the other gimmick if they don't mess with the shape of the figure or the way it stands. I can't stand gimmicks that make my tfs look fat(energon's buddy system) or figures that take other "keys" to transform them (armada minicons and cyberkeys)lights and sounds are fine, but only if the battries don't add so much kibbiethat they can't stand up proper. I also like the idea of weapons becomming part of the vehicle mode, my bigest problem with my surviving G1 stuff is I can't display them in alt mode without a weapon clamped to them or out of place on the shelf beside them. I don't know if baljoints are a gimmick, but I think that's the best addition to transformers figures ever.

At the time I thought the laser rods had a cool feature. They were also some of the first ball jointed highly poseable TF's released which added to the fun. Electronics, yes, but they were well hidden in vehicle mode. And it hardly impacted the poseability-no real extra kibble. And, they always worked, and well at that. Optimus's sword was bad ass. And how often do you see Optimus with a sword anyways?

Unicron's Head wrote:At the time I thought the laser rods had a cool feature. They were also some of the first ball jointed highly poseable TF's released which added to the fun. Electronics, yes, but they were well hidden in vehicle mode. And it hardly impacted the poseability-no real extra kibble. And, they always worked, and well at that. Optimus's sword was bad ass. And how often do you see Optimus with a sword anyways?

I second that.....I love the Laser Rods but i could neva find Jolt or Volt (the black car?) and A cool Re deco of Prime(Scrouge)

I aslo Love the Headmaster gimmick even tho it sux 4 the Bots takin orders from their drivers in the carttoon but as toys they rock 2 me

Note 2 Hasbro

Have a Classic 2.0 of Skygunner and Roadgrabber or at least A Tracks and i will be happy


Now i agree with a lot of ppl that 2 me the best gimmick is the Bots able 2 store there weapons and either bot or alt mode or Having more then 2 modes like the triple changers

My favorite gimmick of the whole brand is turning from a robot to a car (or plane or gun or dinosaur or whatever!) The line is called Transformers and that is what they do best!

Onus wrote:My favorite gimmick is light piping or floresent painted eyes.

Close second! I really love the Master concept and to a lesser degree Minicons!Pretenders were cool but misused (but even as a kid I thought Jazz should be black!) Think about it! What better disguise than the guy next to you? As a kid, I used to play (with other kids) that I was a Pretender but was reprogramed to think I was a person. I was Skywarp