Beast Wars Rampage

 

Robot Mode: Rampage is a little strange in robot mode. The robot body as such is nicely done and holds a great deal of resemblance to his TV character. He carries a huge backpack, though, mostly consisting of the two giant crab claws, and has the crab legs sticking out in all directions. Interestingly enough Rampage manages to be both stable and good-looking despite this amount of kibble. He can even throw poses without toppling over backwards and except when the spindly crab legs on his arm get in the way his posability isn't impaired in any way. He carries his huge missile launcher as a hand weapon and has an additional rifle, but that looks pretty small and out of place. Bottom line, though, a very good if strange-looking robot mode.

Beast Mode: In Beast Wars terms Rampage is a Transmetal, having a very organic-lookin robot mode and a meched-out beast mode that can be slightly modified into a vehicle mode. The beast in question is a king crab and Rampage gives a very good showing here. The animal is extremely detailed and very nicely sculpted. The one disadvantage is that the spindly legs have some trouble keepin the body aloft, especially with the giant claws out front, but if you use one of the claws for additional stability you don't have a problem. The vehicle mode is a kind-of tank. The legs fold up, the claws fold back and deploy tank threads. The result doesn't look that good, but does give Rampage some added play value. In both modes he can deploy his huge missile launcher from underneath his crab head.

Remarks: Rampage was one of the most interesting Beast Wars characters. The demented result of an experiment that was to duplicate the immortal spark of Starscream, Rampage became a serial killer and was to be exiled to some dark corner of the universe, but ended up on prehistoric Earth in the service of Megatron. He was far from one-dimensional, though, turning out to be one of the best bad guys of the series. The toy is a pretty good one, offering just about everything you saw on the TV screen and then some. A definite recommendation for every Beast Wars fan.

Rating: B+