Some of the first Transformers Movie figures were great, but I took interest in the characters that didn't appear in the movie, rather noes that had look a likes, or appeared on another continuity, like games or comics. My last review was that of Stockade, the "bully" of the Autobots, the one, even Ironhide couldn't punch down. Today we have Payload, the Armored Truck of the Decepticons...
Payload appears in the Transformers Video Game as drones. There were many drones in the game, either Decepticon or Autobot. The differences were the heads, with the 'Cons having one eyed Zaku/Shockwave style heads, and the 'Bots with more humanoid classic TF heads. Most drones released in toy form were Decepticon, I believe to my knowledge...
Payload is a dark blue Armored Truck as stated. He has some minor silver paint on the back and hub caps. Parts that are supposed to be silver is the front grill, and side skirts. Some orange paint apps on the top lighting, and red light in the back. There are two red and one white stripe on the front hood. The windows are a dark illegal tint translucent plastic. The emblem on the sides on the Truck are also red and white and have a purple Decepticon symbol. The insignia reads, "Armored Security Services", and coincidentally the first letter of each word spells out ASS...Overall it's a pretty cool design, though the hinges for transformation stick out like a sore thumb...Something to take notice is the front portion, or the cab-like front is paint or made of shinier plastic than the rest of the truck. Also the grill seems to come off, I fixed that with some super glue...
His transformation is pretty simple. Nothing too hard, but some issues that are being addressed below...
In robot mode, he's pretty short, and also rather awkward. He's still dark blue, still has some grey palstic, and some silver apps, but now he has some shiny "AllSpark" blue. Detail is great in these TF Movie figures, even the newer ones took a huge step forward. A lot of wiring sculpt and exhaust fans, panels, the whole deal in mechanics is sculpted here. I especially like the hands, as they have a very skeletal appearance. He has a camera eye, much like Zaku and Shockwave, which is cool, nothing too special though. He stands pretty good despite a "tower" sticking out his back.
Articulation is pretty good. Very limited swivel head, sadly, ball jointed shoulders, swivel biceps, hinged elbows, and ball jointed hands for the top half. The bottom half consists of swivel waist, ball joint hips, swivel thighs, hinges knees, hinged knee pads, and hinged ankles. He's pretty well articulated and could get into some decent poses.
The awkwardness begins here. First off, in transformation, and in robot mode, his entire head and chest piece tends to snap off, or peg off. Again I used superglue and it's on permanently now, and will now alter the transformation. His gimmick is the huge stick poking out his back. You push that and a claw comes out his stomach and eats you or something... It's a rather dull gimmick and gets in the way. Sometimes, or several times for me, the claws dangle or don't retract with the gears and it gets stuck. As with many I don't like the gimmick, but I think it's an cool gimmick if I was still a kid. Ending with that...
I think it's a pretty cool toy. Great vehicle mode, you can pretend he could carry Energon to the Decepticons for power, or whatever you'd like. His robot mode is pretty cool. The gimmick is iffy. Totalling up that, he gets a 8 out of 10. Now I know some hate this guy, for the gimmick mainly, but get past that, and he's a great detailed, well articulated figure, and a very cool design. He was a pegwarmer, so if you look him up online or ebay, he might be cheap. It's definitely something to look at...
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