Congratulations on purchasing this fine Real Gear Robots product! With this purchase, you’ve uncovered one of the most closely held secrets on Earth. Known to only a very few humans. The power of the Allspark has been unleashed, and the machines all over the world have come alive. Unlock their secrets, and join the battle!
I’ve already gone through the packaging for Takara Tomy’s Transformers Real Gear Robots Spy Shot 6. Now it’s time to look at the toy itself.
Real Gear Robots, contrary to my previous assertion (and as pointed by Microbry), aren’t 1:1 scale like the Microchange figures of old. You could argue that some of them are but I think it’s more accurate to say these toys are primarily meant to be child-size toy replicas. I’m sure Hasbro and Takara could’ve gone with the 1:1 scale across the subline but they probably opted not to in order to keep production costs down. The other possible consideration is a 1:1 scale gadget like a videocam might be unwieldy in a kid’s hands.
The cheap price point is not necessarily a bad thing. It may mean the toys lack details but on the plus side, it also means the toys aren’t saddled with some stupid gimmick like Autosmurf or whatever it is that’s in the movie figures. Sometimes toy designers can be a bit too clever for their own good.
So, anyway, Spy Shot 6.
First question: whatever happened to Spy Shots 1 through 5? Being an Autobot spy is a hazardous occupation, it would seem.
The bio:
Spy Shot 6 doesn’t talk a lot, preferring to remain in camera mode as an observer in the background. It’s probably from years of spying on the Decepticons. He’s got a perfect memory, able to produce a description of anything he’s ever seen or heard. He prefers not to fight, but when it comes down to it, he can fire focused beams of laser-intensity light through his lens.
That’s a decent bio. It’s only lacking a character quote and details of weaknesses. He’s got a strength rating of 6 so I think it’s fair to assume he makes use of mass-shifting to increase in size when in robot mode.
Spy Shot’s alternate mode is a digital camera and he nails it. It’s about 7.5cm x 4.8cm x 1.5cm in size which makes it smaller than most digicams in the market. The obvious seams would probably raise suspicions but you could fool most people. Whether that would be a wise thing to do is another question altogether.
There’s not much in the way of play features in digicam mode. There’s a button with a strong spring in it which can be clicked and you can look through the viewfinder to see a blurry view of whatever the digicam is pointed at.
There’s a sticker on the back where a digicam’s LCD would be and it’s where the Hasbro and Takara Tomy versions of the toy differ. The sticker on Hasbro’s version has an image of the Decepticon, Ransack, (which makes sense) whereas the Takara Tomy version has an image of Convoy (which doesn’t).
Why would Spy Shot be spying on his own boss? He must have ball bearings of chrome steel to do that.
(Oh wait, he has no crotch.)
Transforming the figure is fun. It takes enough moves that’s it’s not boring but it’s straightforward and quick enough that it isn’t a tedious chore.
The end result is a really good robot mode, the main reason I got the figure.
This 10.5cm-tall robot is very old school. Very blocky but very clean.
I really like the head sculpt. It’s such a relief to see a 2007 Transformers toy with distinctive facial features.
See, here are the eyes. Here’s a mouth. A nose. A robo-chin. All in all, it’s a great head sculpt reminiscent of the best of G1. There’s a lightpipe feature which causes his round red eyes to glow when placed under a light source. It’s slightly creepy, actually.
Articulation is very good considering his size and price point. The lowdown:
- Head – ball joint.
- Shoulders – ball and hinge combo joints.
- Elbows – ball joint for right elbow, ball and hinge for left.
- Claws – hinge.
- Hips – ball joints.
- Thighs – swivel joints.
- Knees – hinge joints.
The only meaningful joint he’s missing is the waist joint. There are additional joints which are needed for transformation that can also be used to improve stability in some poses. The left toe hinges down and there’s also an additional hinge joint at each thigh which swings up laterally.
The joints have a really good range of motion. The head can look directly up. He can do the splits. He can execute a side kick. He can lay on his back, arms behind head, legs crossed, gazing up at the stars.
Overall, this is a great Transformer. Two strong modes and a low price point to boot. Get one for yourself and get one to convert a non-believer. It’s that good.
