Dave's Toy Rant: Shogun Racer: Blizzard (Snow Racer) I only bought one of the six toys in this line, but since the packaging lets you play with the toy, I messed around with the other two molds. CAPSULE The line is fairly interesting, and a lot of thought went into the packaging. Not "really" transformers, but decent toys. Plus, you can play with them before buying them. Mildly recommended for any of them. $9.99 at Meijer. RANT Packaging: The toys are on oversized blister "cards" a foot (31cm) wide and 10 inches (25cm) high made of rigid corrugated cardboard folded so that there's a nearly triangular side view. A big circular bubble on the right side holds the toy, while a smaller rectangular bubble at the upper left holds snap-on accessories (skis, wings or thrusters, depending on the toy). A minicomic and the instructions are held in a flat blister on the left side. While it basically looks like a big blister card, it does not have a hole for hanging on hooks, so look for this toy on the shelves, not on the pegs. The bubble has a hole in the top so that you can trigger the wind-up transformation, plus a hole on the back and instructions for transforming the toy back manually. You're likely to find all the toys in deployed mode, though. While you can't snap on the final bits, you can get a good idea what the transformation is from this. The comic included with the toy is designed for that car's driver, so there's six comics (the only real reason to get all six toys, since three are recolors of the other three). These tiny minicomics are drawn by an uncredited Top Cow artist in the Top Cow house style with a manga edge to it. No writing credits. The story runs six pages, with a few pages of ads and hype. Note that while the logo on the toys has "SHO" and "GUN" on separate lines, it's all one word in the comic itself any everywhere else (albeit ShoGun sometimes). The story is so-so, and there was a major art goof, with the cars of the Good Racer and Evil Racer being swapped (possibly because the cars were swapped at the last minute in packaging, and the comic artist wasn't asked to fix the art). The instructions are minimal, but enough. They also include how to connect the car to its base. Additionally, while it initially looks like packaging material, the base the car is attached to is meant to be a permanent accessory. Made of sturdy plastic, the display base has a locking mechanism to hold the card down securely. There's holes in the underside to let you reset the car's transformation without removing it from the base. The base is round, about 7.5" (19cm) across, and displays the car at a slight angle. Blizzard: It's only listed as Snow Racer on the package, but "Blizzard" is plastered all over the car, so I'm guessing that's its name. The official name for these transforming cars is "Tuners." Blizzard looks kind of like a Dodge Viper with spoiler and airdam in normal ("street") mode and rolls freely. It's 5" (13cm) long, primarily blue and silver with white and orange accents. The skis can be mounted on the spoiler when not in use, their links locking together fairly nicely. When you push down on the activation button (the turbocharger on the hood, in this case), that triggers spring-powered transformation similar to the old StarCon toys. The airdam and "cockpit" slide forwards, while the rear of the car moves back to expose an extra pair of wheels (that pops out and down), stabilized fins and some techy detail. An air scoop at the back of the cockpit needs to be opened manually, and then you attach the skis to the front wheels. The connections are free-rolling, so the wheels can still move without obstruction, very nice. Transformed, it's 6" (15cm) long and looks prety good. More orange and some yellow are added to the color mix. The vehicle does look a lot different, but it still essentially looks like a car with some extra bits. Overall, this is a decent toy with very good production values. Compared to a car Transformer of the same size, though, it's not as impressive, at least to me. You might want to pick up *one* of these to play with the gimmick, but I wouldn't recommend getting all six, or even all three molds. Dave Van Domelen, would include a quote from the comic, but there weren't any good ones....