{"id":14187,"date":"2015-11-06T00:01:35","date_gmt":"2015-11-06T00:01:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/?p=14187"},"modified":"2015-11-01T12:15:59","modified_gmt":"2015-11-01T12:15:59","slug":"carys-top-five-favorite-autobots-and-decepticons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/2015\/11\/06\/carys-top-five-favorite-autobots-and-decepticons\/","title":{"rendered":"Cary’s Top Five Favorite Autobots and Decepticons!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"ironhide3\"<\/a>Recently I reviewed Transformers Devastation, and it got me to thinking about the franchise. When I was a kid in the 80\u2019s, I was pretty big into Transformers for a couple of years.\u00a0 Ever since I was a kid I always wanted a GOOD Transformers game that was truly based on the cartoon.\u00a0 And now we finally got one with Transformers: Devastation (although I still like Fall of Cybertron better).\u00a0 So in honor of the release of this long-awaited game, here\u2019s a blog about my top five favorite Autobots (good guys) and Decepticons (bad guys).<\/p>\n

But first, a bit of history about me and the Transformers franchise. When the toy line came out in the US, I wasn\u2019t that big into them right away.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t get into too many toy lines as a kid.\u00a0 I had a few Star Wars toys, but the other popular 80\u2019s boys\u2019 toys at the time: He-Man and G.I. Joe, never really got into them.\u00a0 I mostly just played video games.\u00a0 But one time when my dad came home from a business trip, he brought me back a toy, and it was my first Transformer.\u00a0 It ended up being my favorite, too.\u00a0 Wanna know who it was?\u00a0 Well you\u2019ll just have to read the whole blog.\u00a0 So now that I had a Transformers toy, I decided I might as well watch the cartoon to see what all the fuss was about.\u00a0 Right away I was hooked, and I don\u2019t really know why since the cartoon really wasn\u2019t that good.\u00a0 But when you\u2019re a kid, there\u2019s no accounting for taste.<\/p>\n

So anyway, for a couple of years as a kid, I was really big into Transformers. My \u2018biggie\u2019 Christmas presents for two years were the really big toys (Omega Supreme and Metroplex, respectively).\u00a0 You wanna know what was the trigger to get me out of the Transformers phase?\u00a0 The movie.\u00a0 Yeah, the animated movie based on the TV show that most every boy from the 80\u2019s loved.\u00a0 Believe me; I was stoked for it, too.\u00a0 But in the first ten minutes or so, they killed off a good majority of my favorite characters.\u00a0 While that didn\u2019t upset me too much as a kid, it still just never sat right with me.\u00a0 I know they did that to make room for new toys, and they were going for an older audience with the movie, but still, these are just children\u2019s toys.\u00a0 If they wanted to get rid of characters, just have them go off on a faraway mission.\u00a0 Don\u2019t let them get shot point blank in the head, like how my favorite character died.\u00a0 After that, the new season of the cartoon based on the movie wasn\u2019t as good, and the new toys weren\u2019t as much fun to play with either.\u00a0 Plus, I was probably growing out of it anyway.\u00a0 You know how fickle kids are.<\/p>\n

But the Transformers toys lived on, even to this day. Whether it was the Beast Wars or the awful Michael Bay movies, it\u2019s still a strong license for Hasbro.\u00a0 By the way, I don\u2019t get too upset over the Michael Bay movies because while they did make a mockery of my childhood, they\u2019re just movies based on a dopey toy line.\u00a0 It\u2019s hard for me to get too upset about that.\u00a0 Even Nintendo got in on the act recently with one of their Splatoon Splatfests.\u00a0 You pick a team to play for, and one of them was Autobots vs. Decepticons!\u00a0 I\u2019m surprised that Nintendo got the license from Hasbro to do that!\u00a0 I hated it that I missed that one, but I was at PAX.\u00a0 I heard that at PAX, Nintendo was giving out Autobots and Decepticons logo T shirts to those who played Splatoon at their booth, to make up for them missing the Splatfest.\u00a0 But I don\u2019t know if that\u2019s true or not.\u00a0 I did see people wearing Transformers t-shirts, but that\u2019s to be expected at a convention like that.\u00a0 A few years ago, I was excited to review Fall of Cybertron.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t exactly based on the cartoon, but it had that same \u2018feel\u2019 to it.\u00a0 It\u2019s what the Michael Bay movies should\u2019ve been.\u00a0 And while I like Fall of Cybertron better than Devastation, I still think it\u2019s cool that Devastation was based entirely on the old cartoon.\u00a0 OK, enough of my personal history with Transformers, now let\u2019s look at my favorite ones!<\/p>\n

Decepticons<\/strong><\/p>\n

We\u2019ll do the bad guys first. I usually tend to side with the good guys, but the Decepticons had some neat toys and characters, too.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Contructicons<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    So kids like construction vehicles so this was a sure-fire hit. And I think it was the first that let you combine them all into one big robot.\u00a0 It always baffled me why they were painted purple and green, though.\u00a0 Has anyone ever seen green and purple construction vehicles in real life?<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. Kickback<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      After they had made robots that could turn into just about any vehicles you could imagine, they started using animals (this was before Beast Wars). The Autobots had Grimlock and the Dinobots, which were always a fan favorite.\u00a0 I don\u2019t think I had any of those but my friend had all of them so I would just go over to his house to play them.\u00a0 But I did have one of the Insecticons, bad guys who could turn into bugs.\u00a0 Hey, kids like dinosaurs and bugs, so why not?\u00a0 The one I had was named Kickback and he turned into a grasshopper.\u00a0 I thought he looked cool and I liked the color scheme with lots of purples and blacks and a tiny hint of yellow.<\/p>\n

        \n
      1. Astrotrain<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

        One of the toy lines that came out a little later were called Triple Changers. They could turn into THREE things instead of two.\u00a0 There was one that turned into a tank and a plane (you get to fight him in Devastation), but my favorite was one that turned into a train and a space shuttle.\u00a0 His name was Astrotrain and I\u2019m not sure if I owned him or not, but if not, I must\u2019ve played with him at a friend\u2019s house.\u00a0 I liked that he was purple, and I think his train form was like an old timey train, too.\u00a0 I know the tagline for the toys is \u201cRobots in disguise,\u201d but if I saw a purple space shuttle or train going by, I\u2019d be a little suspicious.<\/p>\n

          \n
        1. Shockwave<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

          Many kids thought Decepticon leader Megatron was cool because he turned into a somewhat realistic looking gun, which would never happen in today\u2019s world. But I always liked Shockwave better because he was purple, turned into a space gun, and had lights and sound effects!\u00a0 I think I got him for my birthday one year.<\/p>\n

            \n
          1. Soundwave<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

            The Transformers cartoon was made just to be a 30-minute commercial to sell the toys. Actually most cartoons in the 80\u2019s were like that.\u00a0 Even as a kid, by the time the late 80\u2019s rolled around; I was getting sick of it and almost stopped watching cartoons altogether.\u00a0 Luckily DuckTales saved the day.\u00a0 But I didn\u2019t give into the commercialism in the Transformers show TOO much, and I didn\u2019t have to have every toy there was.\u00a0 But there was one character in the show that made me want to buy his toy, and that was Soundwave.\u00a0 I thought he was so cool.\u00a0 He could turn into a tape player, which is a bit outdated now, but he could eject tapes that could turn into little robots themselves.\u00a0 I was sold.\u00a0 Plus his voice was cool in the cartoon.\u00a0 You can even fight him in Devastation.\u00a0 Anyway, so yeah, Soundwave is my favorite Decepticon.<\/p>\n

            Autobots<\/strong><\/p>\n

            And we saved the good guys for last! Here are my top five favorite Autobots!<\/p>\n

              \n
            1. Kup<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

              After the movie and new season of the cartoon, I didn\u2019t buy hardly any more Transformers after that. All the new toys were more futuristic and their vehicle forms all looked like used bars of soap.\u00a0 And I already mentioned the other reasons why I kind of stopped being into Transformers earlier.\u00a0 But I did get one of the new toys, and that was Kup.\u00a0 In the movie and cartoon, he was a crotchety old timer who turned into a flatbed truck.\u00a0 But it was a cool futuristic flatbed truck.<\/p>\n

                \n
              1. Perceptor<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

                When I was a kid, I really liked science. That ended in Middle School when I learned that you have to be good at math to be into science.\u00a0 So that ended it for me right there.\u00a0 Anyway, this Autobot was a scientist and he turned into a microscope, and the toy even worked (sorta) like the real thing.\u00a0 Granted, it didn\u2019t work very well, but it was still pretty neat.\u00a0 Hasbro made the US Transformers line out of a mishmash of Japanese robot toy lines, and one of those was called Microman and the robots actually turned into things that worked in real life.\u00a0 I think Perceptor was part of that line.\u00a0 Since I liked science as a kid, I really liked this guy, too.\u00a0 I was glad to see that he made a token appearance in Fall of Cybertron.<\/p>\n

                  \n
                1. Tracks<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

                  In the cartoon he was snooty and prissy and annoying, but he turned into a really cool blue Trans-Am. So I just kept his toy in car form all the time.<\/p>\n

                    \n
                  1. Cosmos<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

                    Hasbro was smart. They made big Transformers toys that parents could buy for their kids, but they also made little key-chain trinket sized Transformers that were cheaper so kids could blow their allowance on them.\u00a0 Bumblebee is a good example of that.\u00a0 Needless to say, I had a lot of those little Transformers.\u00a0 My favorite one was Cosmos.\u00a0 He turned into a green UFO.\u00a0 I like the color green and UFOs, so it was a win-win situation.\u00a0 He was the second Transformers toy I owned.<\/p>\n

                      \n
                    1. Ironhide<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

                      Remember when I told you all about the first Transformers toy I owned, and it was a present from my dad when he came home from a business trip? Well, Ironhide was that toy.\u00a0 That\u2019s one of the reasons why he\u2019s my favorite.\u00a0 I also liked how the other Transformers turned into cool things like mac trucks and race cars and tanks and planes, but Ironhide just turned into a red van.\u00a0 He was the soccer mom of the Autobots!\u00a0 Rather \u201cironic,\u201d huh? Even the repaint of Ironhide was cooler, as it was an ambulance named Ratchet.\u00a0 Speaking of which, Ratchet was voiced by Don Messick in the cartoon, and I\u2019m glad I got to meet him before he passed away.\u00a0 I thought Ironhide was cool in the cartoon as well.\u00a0 Shame that he wasn\u2019t in Fall of Cybertron and the Devastation games.\u00a0 Oh well.<\/p>\n

                      Roll Out!<\/strong><\/p>\n

                      And those are my favorite Transformers! In the comments section, let me know what you think of my picks, and tell me YOUR favorites, too!\u00a0 Later!\u00a0 –Cary<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

                      Recently I reviewed Transformers Devastation, and it got me to thinking about the franchise. When I was a kid in the 80\u2019s, I was pretty big into Transformers for a couple of years.\u00a0 Ever since I was a kid I always wanted a GOOD Transformers game that was truly based on the cartoon.\u00a0 And now […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":14178,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-movie-reviews","category-television"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14187"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14187\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14189,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14187\/revisions\/14189"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}