There’s that awesome DotM packaging. I love it. It’s functional and yet so much more pleasing on the eye than the Revenge of the Fallencards. You’ll notice that Topspin is one of those names that Hasbro needed to tack the word “Autobot” in front of in order to avoid some kind of copyright infringement. For those of you old school G1ers playing along at home, you’ll remember that Topspin, along with Twintwist was one of the Battlechargers. Anyway, Topspin is packaged in his auto mode with his MechTech weapon mounted beside him. There are Tech Specs and a bio blurb on the back of the card, and as with Cyberverse Leadfoot, nowhere on the package does it say that Topspin is in fact an asshole.

I really dig the whole NASCAR-attack-vehicle thing that the movie did with The Wreckers. It’s as dumb as all hell, and makes no sense, but you could probably say that about the whole damn movie and I still loved it, so why should this be any different. Anyway, the sculpt is really nice, with lots of little details like armor and spikes. Topspin has four guns, all of which peg into sockets on the car and are thus removable. The MechTech weapon pegs into the hood, but we’ll save that for later. The bright blue and grey and silver color scheme is pretty pleasing and many will be happy to see that the Lowes emblem made it onto the toy. I’m guessing since Lowes doesn’t sell toys, the other big boxers didn’t care. There is some unfortunate seaming on the rear quarter panels, that just don’t seem to fit together all that tightly, but otherwise, this is a nice looking and fun alt mode.

Transforming Topspin isn’t terribly difficult and the resulting robot is pretty good. You do get some odd bits of car kibble hanging over his shoulders. They sometimes get in the way, but if you fiddle with them enough you can probably find a way to position them so that they aren’t that much of an eyesore. I’m not terribly keen on Topspin’s head sculpt. I think he’s supposed to have a mullet, but the sculpt just makes him look strange. The rest of the robot, however, looks great and I’m particularly fond of his huge pincer claws, which are a nice change from the norm. Topspin has sockets on his arms so any of his weapons can be pegged in, giving him some serious fighting chops.

Topspin’s MechTech weapon is a gun that converts into a capture claw. Honestly, I had high hopes for these MechTech weapons and on the whole, they just aren’t really jiving with me. They’re a cool idea, and I like the fact that they’re interchangeable, but I don’t think Hasbro has really captured the full potential of the gimmick. Either way, the weapon can peg onto the hood of the car or it can be pegged onto his arms when he’s in robot mode.