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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Nice addition to any Transfan's collection, 18 April 2001
By A Customer
This pictoral guide is a wonderful companion of any fan of the Transformers toys. It's collection of pictures from across the years, from the original Transformers of 1984 up to the Beast Wars: Transmetal/Fuzor series provides fans with an easy way of identifying toys: the additional pictures of boxed toys and the wonderful miscellanious section means there are several priceless relics of the Transformers buried away inside this book: I want's me the Transformerss Battlin Robots set. :-)As good as the book is, however, there are still several problems with it. For a start, there are several inexplicable ommisions: where are Grandslam and Raindance, Slugfest and Overkill, Pretender Starscream, any of the Action Masters? (OK, we could argue that they aren't /really/ Transformers, but they had the logo, they had the characters and they appear in the damn price list: four of their vehicles are shown, but no actual Action Masters present!) One could argue that after all these years the toys are hard to find, but ironically it is mainly later toys that are missing. It couldn't have taken that much work to find them on the fan circuit... Also, there are one or two errors and somewhat odd conventions. Sizzle and Fizzle , the red and blue Sparkabotsare reffered to as "Sizzle and Guzzle": Guzzle, the tank, is in fact nowhere to be found. And the author's assertion that "merge groups" is a common term for the combining TFs: well, there isn't an official term for such groups, but in all my years on the net I've /never/ heard them called a merge group. "Gestalt" has become the unofficial name of choice. Though it's not exactly an "error", the fact this tries to sell itself as a price guide, with sealed and opened prices throughout, is kind of pointless to me. Within no time at all the prices in the book become invalid and this is too expensive a work for people to constantly rebuy to get the latest info. However, a rough comparison of different prices (e.g. "A Fort Max costs x times more than a Hot Rod) can be done with the book, and as such can help as a rough guide to buyers. At first, the way in which International TFs were glossed over bugged me as well, but (a) a second book is out to cover that topic and (b) the book would be a lot bigger with US, Europe and Jap TFs in it. ;-) Overall, this is still a good book for Transformer fans and can be an asset to remember "what's his name", but most of the info is already available on the net anyway and the errors & ommisions dotted throughout are a pest. Still, die hard Transfans will love it on their bookshelf. I know I do. ;-)
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by Mark Bellomo
by Michael Bellomo
