Transformers Siege Shockwave review

Shockwave is quite the interesting character in G1 fiction. Sometimes he can be an extremely loyal ally to Megatron while in other instances he would want to take over as Leader. I like him as a scientist a la his Aligned continuity, but one thing's for sure, he's been severely lacking in the CHUG range. Few alternatives have been made to fit in with the line but they ultimately are hard to find or were from different franchises. I'm not one that wants to repurpose Energon Shockblast or TFP Shockwave as the G1 version of the character when they can happily stand next to their other figures. Maybe Siege Shockwave can fill in the gap of the CHUG Decepticons. 

Here we have Shockwave in the complete space ship mode. It's certainly a nicely done ship, and it almost feels like one that the Decepticons would pilot. The cannons, design, and the dark purple make for the perfect combo that a Decepticon ship would have in Generation 1 media. God forbid any G1 fiction tries to make Shockwave mass shift, though.

The eye is one of the nicer features of it. It could have been a regular bridge, but the fact that it resembles Shockwave's head is neat! I wonder how its practicality would work in fiction.

There is an additional mode that I came up with, where Shockwave can become a cannon. It's a lot more based on the gun mode that he'd use, but with more firepower added into the mix. 

The armor can be removed to have a regular ship. It's a lot weaker here both without the armor and as a mode on its own. The fact that it's an upside down gun instead of a convincing spaceship means that it'll have to be tweaked slightly to make it as spaceship-like as possible. The arms and the nozzle on the front can bend depending on how you rotated the arms. While it at least does look like a slightly better altmode than Magnus without the trailer, Shockwave still feels nerfed as a toy in terms of what his altmode can present in my opinion.

The transformation is fairly basic, but what I do like is how there's no partsforming in this figure. I also love how what was the handle of the gun mode doesn't become thin legs like the old toy did, but they instead become part of the bulkier legs. The head isn't spring-loaded but is instead revealed by opening the chest and lifting the head up. The hose can then detach from what was on the leg to his arm.

In robot mode, Shockwave is the best-looking take on the character in Generations form that money can buy. I love the dark purple, the sculpted details found throughout the toy, and the proportions capturing the beep-boop look of Shockwave's simplistic look. The thighs not matching up with the feet and the ears is distracting, but nothing severely out of place.

The backpack doesn't weigh the figure back to my surprise, though it is in the same solid purple that doesn't really make itself distinct from the rest of the body.

The head sculpt is fairly basic. It's got the horns and a black space with the yellow dot in the center of it, but I appreciate how even that's detailed instead of being a smooth surface.

The articulation is consistent with the rest of Siege. Head is on a ball-joint, shoulders swivel front and back, hinge in and out, swivel at the biceps, bend at the elbows, and swivel at the wrists. The waist swivels, hips move front and back on ratchets, in and out on hinges, swivel at the thighs, bend at the knees, and pivot at the ankles.

Here he is next to a few other Shockwave figures I have. They are the TFP version of the character, the DOTM Voyager, and the Cyberverse Ultra figure. Sadly, for a figure said to be a Leader Class toy, this take on Shockwave is seriously missing the beef that could make his price tag more justifiable despite being a Leader Class figure. Even as a Voyager I'd say he's lacking due to his engineering not being sufficient enough to go up with DOTM and TFP's more complex transformations.

The armor pieces can be reattached to become a glider for Shockwave to ride. I've never seen any fiction where Shockwave relied on this, but it doesn't look half bad. Maybe paint it silver and add some new parts on Shockwave to make him the Green Goblin!

Because of how his legs work, I kind of felt it hard to make him look good while posed on the glider. This is the best you can get with both feet pegged onto the glider, and it's not so hot.

Here is the armor attached to Shockwave. Now we have shoulders with extra arms, a bigger backpack, and new platforms for Shockwave to wear like sandals. To be honest I'm kind of mixed on the execution. He has all of these extensions added on him, but none of it is really able to make him worth the price of a Leader Class Transformer. Sure, he had the larger shoulders and extra arms; sure, the backpack is bigger, but these aren't enough to justify the amount of money you'd have to pay for this toy. The sandles aren't even going to make him taller.

 

Only one repaint has been made so far, and it's one exclusive on Hasbro Pulse. It's based on the Galactic Man/Shackwave variant of the old toy Shockwave was repurposed from. I don't care for this deco since it looks like someone put the image in a black and white filter on their basic photo editor. Does work for some clones.

Shockwave isn't a terrible toy, but the way he's priced as a Leader Class figure when he has NO right to have a high price for his size certainly puts me off. If you got him for a discount, then that's perfectly fine. I don't recommend him at full price unless you haven't gotten him yet and just need to get him regardless of its flaws.