by Wolfman Jake » Wed Dec 05, 2018 8:56 pm
- Motto: ""A mountain with a wolf on it stands a little taller."
-Edward Hoagland"
- Weapon: Retractable Mecha-Fangs
Let's talk again about Cog, everyone. He's a figure we didn't expect to ever get mere months ago. He's a very different kind of Deluxe Class figure. And he's won over a lot of hearts already. First off, I will say that I like Cog. He's a great update to the original G1 figure. You can still separate him into his component vehicles of Gasket and Grommet. And he's a veritable "weapons pack" for your figures too! I've got the Transformers Legends Fortress Maximus, and the colors on this new Cog toy are almost a perfect match for the reds and blues used by Takara on their release of Fort Max. Your mileage may vary on the color coordination if you have the Hasbro version(s).
The biggest downside to Cog is, of course, the simplicity of his transformation. You just unfold the legs, lift up the head, and pop off the arms to move them to the shoulders. That's it. His transformation is just not very interesting, and the fact that almost half of it is partsforming makes it even worse. Like others have said before, he has trouble holding his own guns securely in his fists, especially in his right fist, for whatever reason. On the other hand, I will note that, at least on my copy, the combination of Gasket and Grommet in vehicle mode works well, despite being a simple flat tab in slot system. It holds together if you're just rolling Cog around on the table, and he stays together even if you pick him up and handle him gently. Any rough play, and he'll come apart, though. The legs peg into the pelvis pretty loosely too, so as you pose Cog, you'll have to contend with the legs falling off frequently.
Cog is definitely NOT a Deluxe Class Transformers figure that is to be enjoyed in the traditional play patterns. He works great as a display and companion piece to Fortress Maximus, and if that's all you need him for, you won't really find him lacking. If you're like me and you like to pull your figures off the shelf periodically and transform them back and forth, Cog is comes up short, being extremely simplistic to convert and very fiddly when posing in robot mode because of his modular nature and loose tolerances. If you're the kind of person that likes to really "play" with their toys and armor up your other figures or just fool around and see what kinds of silly configurations you can come up with, then Cog is pretty good fun. Is he $20 of fun? I'm not so sure, honestly.
Wolfman Jake - Spendin' the day howlin' away.