Dave's Robot Rant: Rock'em Sock'em Robots Head Case Slamurai Nuclear Wastor In conjunction with a new Playstation game, Mattel has released a new line of Rock 'em Sock 'em Robots. But the toys aren't Rock 'em Sock 'em. Rather, they're modular, based on Mattel's Mechanix line. There were six available at the store I checked, I picked up three. CAPSULES Head Case: Big, looks pretty good, has a decent number of joints, and can actually mount extra parts by itself. Recommended. $6.99 at Toys R Us. Slamurai: Looks okay, less poseable, lame ranged weapon gimmick. Mildly recommended. $6.99 Nuclear Wastor: Looks so-so, lame weapons, not very posable. Neutral. $6.99 RANTS Before I go into the individual toys, I should go over some of the common elements. The toys are sold on bubble cards, with lots of twist-ties (7-8 in the ones I got) but an overall attractive package. The upper left corner is truncated and a triangular sticker proclaims how many pieces the toy has. However, this listing cheats and includes two pelvic plates which are generally just left in. There's no "good" or "bad" robots, the story on the cardbacks implies that every robot is its own faction. Each robot has a common torso "skeleton" onto which are bolted arms, armor plates and a pelvis (which has bolts for two legs), and the head is pegged onto the top. There's also holes in the shoulders to accept pegs for armor "flags" that some robots have. The connection system gives every robot the equivalent of swivel joints for neck, waist, shoulders and hips. The pegs are octagonal in cross-section so that the joints ratchet. Most things are connected using set bolts taken from the Mechanix line. After moving a joint a bit (except the head), the bolt tends to come loose, requiring re-tightening (although it never comes loose enough that the part just falls off). Each toy includes a metal multitool with socket, allen wrench, flathead and "Phillips" drivers. All four tools can be used on any given bolt. All three of the robots I got come with two spare arms and no spare legs, although I think some of the other robots have spare legs instead. Finally, each robot comes with a small sticker sheet. HEAD CASE Mainly blue and dark grey, Head Case stands about 6.5" (17cm) tall, but as he has knees, he can squat down to as little as 5" (13cm). His main weapon arm is a big blade on a hinge, giving him one elbow. None of his other arms has any articulation. One is a cannon shaped like a large drill bit with a muzzle, another is a long clawed thing, and the third is a shorter claw with three attachment pegs on it. With a little fiddling, you can get the long claw and the drill both attached to the short claw, making Head Case the only one of the three that can mount all its limbs at once. He comes with no add-on shoulder armor, but he has clear places to put such pieces. SLAMURAI 5" (13cm) tall in dark maroon and dark grey and an oriental warrior theme. He has no articulation in any of his limbs, just the basic six points of all the line. He has a banner-like shoulder plug-in, a weird claw-like arm, a combination machete/rifle arm, and a garden weasel. Well, it has two spinning blades and a spinning-blade "missile." I put "missile" in quotes because this is that lamest of ranged weapon gimmicks, the "Finger Flick Missile." Those things flicking bite. And they don't even hold in, so the arm has to always be raised. The motifs are nice, but it's not that great of a toy. NUCLEAR WASTOR Also 5" (13cm) tall, in orange, dark grey, light grey, and some green parts. He also has no functional articulation in his limbs (one limb can twist a bit at mid-upper-arm, but that's not really articulation) in addition to having a dubious color scheme. He has two green claw arms, one long and one short. He also has two dark grey weapon arms, a machinegun and a finger flick hot dog cluster launcher. Or something. His back armor has a backpack unit fused to it designed to look like a couple of coolant towers. COMBINATIONS Limbs are, of course, freely exchangable. If you remove the chest armor and head of one robot, you can mount the torso of another onto it. But, unless you're interested in weird sideways asymmetrical critters, there's just not enough connection points to make much. You might want to get two Head Cases to combine, but otherwise, ehhhh. I kinda wonder if you can tack on Mechanix parts. }-> OVERALL I had high hopes for this line when I saw pictures in Previews. But the execution is a lot less than it could have been. And they don't even have launching heads. Head Case is probably worth it, but none of the others I've seen seem to be. Dave Van Domelen, also got a Space Leo and is a bit disappointed in it (neck and waist can't move, you have to remove the regular shoulder pads to attach the Dober Gun and shield)....