One of the reasons why I got the gift set was the fact that, try as I might, I hadn’t yet gotten a Legends Sideswipe to that point; either I didn’t have the money to be spending on TFs, or I had the money but couldn’t find one in stores. Thus, the set offered me a chance to pick him up along with a few other dudes I’d been after.

            For his vehicle mode, the big stand-out is the fact that he’s an actual open-top convertible. Hasbro could easily have cheated by having his top up, meaning that they wouldn’t have had to worry about doing anything resembling a detailed interior. This makes the vehicle mode look a lot nicer from a distance, but when you get up close it actually exacerbates the typical issue of Legends being obviously transformers. The most obvious clue is that he has no floorboards, as his molded seats are on the backs of his legs. And while the visible hinge for his rear armor might be excused as a center console, it doesn’t entirely hide his lack of a steering wheel. Couple this with visible separation lines and a large chunk missing out of his rear bumper, and it’s obvious that he’s not a generic toy vehicle. However, his lot number stamp was placed where his license plate should be, a little bit of a plus. This rendition also makes use of the blue sparkle paint that Hasbro’s been doing off and on since ca. 2002, which is always nice to see.

            So what does this net us in robot mode?

            Sideswipe’s design has two major trademarks: the first is swords at the end of his arms, while the second is wheels for feet. The design team thus had to go and add these in, but given just how small a figure he is they didn’t quite succeed. In order to get the blades for his arms, they molded them into the door panels, meaning that he’s got some really long arms and some visible vehicle mode kibble. Given that this kibble includes the side windows from his vehicle mode, this limits the practicality of his blades (they’d be more like meat cleavers than swords). And since his “feet” aren’t exactly the most stable to begin with (the wheels are supplemented only by a single spur on each leg), his oversized arms can actually cause some balance issues, especially if his feet and spurs aren’t properly deployed. Granted, the figure does indeed give off the image of being lean and agile, such that he’s got a good deal of hip and shoulder articulation, but the whole package just really isn’t something that translates down all that well to such a small scale.

            I’d like to give him high marks for being innovative and unique as a design, but I really can’t. If you want a Sideswipe figure, go ahead and get one; there’s both this version and the mass-release version. But just be aware that he’s not quite what he’s cracked up to be. Rating: 7.5 / 10.