Age of Extinction Deluxe Slug

I was originally planning on passing on the Age of Extinction toy line, but then they announced a little something called the DINOBOTS and my interest peaked. Of course, I completely expect them to be almost nothing like the G1 characters, as these are two separate and completely different universes we're talking about. That, and only a couple share names with the G1 characters. One of them is Grimlock, naturally. So let's look at Slug, named such because Slag is apparently offensive. Because when I hear that word the first thing that pops up in my head isn't the by-product of smelting ore!



As always, Slug is a Triceratops. A purple and dark grey one at that! Silver and red are the primary paint colors, though the eyes are picked out in metallic blue. Granted, this is not movie accurate, and is only so that each Dinobot is easy to distinguish from one another. But frankly, I think this works great unlike some other inaccurately colored figures I could mention... *cough*retail FOC Combaticons*cough* The horns/upper jaw, lower jaw, and tail are all soft PVC so as to not break/not easily poke a kid's eye out. His included swords are also made of this, and that's probably my biggest complaint. Sure, it's understandable why they're like that, I just don't like it. The swords can plug into the holes in his sides, and into the bottoms of his hands on the other side. I didn't take a picture of this because it looks really, really stupid. The jaw can open, and the front legs can move a bit, but the hind legs are meant to be locked in place. However, getting the pegs to go into the back panel is a pain in the rear. They have to be positioned just right, and it's really uncomfortable to try and push it down onto them when it is lined up because he's practically made of sharp pointy things in the form of a Triceratops. I wouldn't worry too hard about getting the pegs in, it really only barely makes a difference aesthetically. So how about a size comparison with Crosshairs, his wave-mate?



As is typical for beast-formers, he appears bigger than the car. And I have demonstrated in Crosshairs' review that he's not that small either. Let's get to robot mode.



Transformation is kind of crazy for Slug. It starts off sort of like what you'd expect, but then goes off in its own direction from there. Getting the elbows of the beast mode's front legs to peg into the sides in order to fill out his torso (and help lock his shoulders in position) is a pain the first few times but gets easier once you understand how it's supposed to work. The robot mode looks very...knightly, yet brutal. I like it. His head is styled after some sort of medieval helmet, and the bottom part extends past the top a bit. His visor is the same metallic blue that his Triceratops eyes were. I really like how part of the frill has folded down to help cover some of the screw holes and add some more color to that area. I wouldn't want to be kicked by his pointy boots, which is a trait all of the Age of Extinction Dinobots so far seem to carry. He can hold his swords, but there's no place to store them in this mode.

For articulation, he's got roughly 14 points. This includes a waist joint that isn't at all involved in the transformation. His head is ball jointed, but due to its shape can only turn so far left or right, and can't look up though can looks down very easily. Interestingly, his elbows consist of friction swivels, something I don't think I've seen done before. Sadly, he lacks wrist swivels that sword-wielding robots like him and Armada Starscream crave, but I can understand due to transformation. There really isn't room for it this time. Now, since I don't feel like taking Crosshairs out of his car mode for the shot, how about a size comparison with a Beast Hunters Predacon? Like, oh I don't know, Ripclaw?



About the same size, actually. And she even kind of has that knightly theme going on as well...kind of.

Overall, I highly recommend Slug. Then again, this guy is probably on most people's rather small list of figures to get from this line, so... He's got his trouble spots, but it's also very exciting to get Dinobots that aren't Grimlock again, and said trouble spots I find are few and far between. Perhaps if these do well, Hasbro will consider updated versions of the classic Dinobots at some point. Rumor has it that these guys will at a later point in time receive G1 inspired repaints if the colors aren't to your tastes. Take this with a dump truck load of salt.

Takara I believe is doing Giveaways of these in G1 colours! Anyway, Slug, is on my list to get for sure, thou come to think of it, only one of the movie Dinobots is truly going by a G1 name, Grimlock, everyone else, is going by different names!

great review. And as I was reading I was thinking about it would be cool if these were in G1 colors.
And low and behold, this is happening!! Great news indeed!! These AOE colors make me go cross eyed

Galvatron wrote:great review. And as I was reading I was thinking about it would be cool if these were in G1 colors.
And low and behold, this is happening!! Great news indeed!! These AOE colors make me go cross eyed

There is a slight catch to the Takara G1 colours, you need to go to the Takara TF Expo and pay money to get in and get the figure! In other words, we'll just have to wait for Hasbro to see if they chose to repaint/retool the movie Dinobots to a more G1 look!

if they make a lot of sales on the first run (which I believe they will) we will definatly see repaints

Galvatron wrote:if they make a lot of sales on the first run (which I believe they will) we will definatly see repaints

I bet its likely to end up as some exclusive, much like the REAL AOE figures are exlucives to Toys R US, hopefully not BotCon, that's the worse, its even harder to acquire them!

I've gotten all my Age of Extinction figures from Walmart, and they're pretty damn real. Of course there's also the younger kid-oriented stuff there too, and those huge plastic abominations they call Bumblebee, Optimus, and Drift. You know, the ones that don't transform at all, are barely painted, and barely pose. Because obviously kids want that! 

In the UK, only two places outside of the net will stock the REAL AOE figures, not including the leader class figures, one is, Toys R US, the other is Forbidden Planet, FP I pre-ordered a bunch of figures from, thou I got to wait until July before their shipped out and by that time, AOE will be in cinemas, they changed the date for the UK, yet again, why can't they just stick to one date, who gives a shit about the Football world cup any more! Anyway, I have seen some of the AOE figures that are meant to be simple for kids and frankly, I wouldn't get my niece any of them (she's at an age where she might be curious to see how some of my figures transform)! I get the idea behind Hasbro's reasoning, but, always a BUT, but I think figures that you just stand on their backs and pull down the sides and say its transformed, are rather primitive and not even worth buying, they can't do much! Hell, some of these simple transformers are more expensive than the ones with the complex transformations, maybe Hasbro should bring back the Sparkabot gimmick figures of G1 era?  

SuperOmegaPrime wrote:In the UK, only two places outside of the net will stock the REAL AOE figures, not including the leader class figures, one is, Toys R US, the other is Forbidden Planet, FP I pre-ordered a bunch of figures from, thou I got to wait until July before their shipped out and by that time, AOE will be in cinemas, they changed the date for the UK, yet again, why can't they just stick to one date, who gives a shit about the Football world cup any more! Anyway, I have seen some of the AOE figures that are meant to be simple for kids and frankly, I wouldn't get my niece any of them (she's at an age where she might be curious to see how some of my figures transform)! I get the idea behind Hasbro's reasoning, but, always a BUT, but I think figures that you just stand on their backs and pull down the sides and say its transformed, are rather primitive and not even worth buying, they can't do much! Hell, some of these simple transformers are more expensive than the ones with the complex transformations, maybe Hasbro should bring back the Sparkabot gimmick figures of G1 era?  

Actually, I think they might have with some form of the Dinobots in the younger kids' line. I haven't looked too hard into it, but I think the Dino Jousters do this to some degree.

From what I can tell, with the figures that come with OP for riding on back, their just pull back and go, no transforming whatsoever, but then at the mo, in my local Tesco, TF about occupies just one shelf worth of space and most of it is the Beast Hunters or Beast Hunters Predacons rising stuff, which says to me, until movie comes along, TF is not going to sell very well!