He’ll be five fairly soon, so I need to make a tough choice: obviously, the boy requires an Optimus Prime. But I am having difficulty deciding which Optimus Prime to get him; many of the newer ones look craptastic, and the older ones are insanely high priced. I need a happy medium.
Moe Lane
PS: I want to buy him a toy, not a wall hanging. Toys get played with and scuffed up. They just do.
My boy is five. He has a BumbleBee and also a Barricade. It took me over 30 minutes to transform Barricade from a car to a robot (and I have an MS in engineering, for crying out loud). My son kind of messes with it, but I think he liked looking at the picture more than transforming it. They usually stay in car mode. And, no, we haven’t seen the movies or read the stips.
Moe, introduce him to Gundam.
I sorta collect those stupid things. I don’t think I’ve bought a new Optimus I really liked since … 2006, maybe.
FWIW, there’s a new round of toys due out any time for their current cartoon (which is conveniently showing on a cable channel well outside of basic cable), so the previous movie’s figures ought to be gettable for a good price on clearance soon.
I am told the Voyager (i. e. $20 price point) Optimus from the Dark of the Moon line is pretty fair.
As far as the newest batch go, I’ve heard this guy is a pretty decent toy.
I don’t own either, but both seem to be available through my usual Intertubes-based supplier of useless plastic tchotchkes at reasonable-ish prices. (BigBadToyStore.com, FWIW.)
There’s also the not-Lego sets out there, but I assume you’re after a Transformer that transforms, rather than one that has to be taken apart and rebuilt.
I’d go with the new ones, just because paying a premium price for NIB classic would be so expensive you’d want to keep it in the box and sealed away from everything. Check out some thrift store and garage sales and you might find a well loved toy that someone won’t know the value of and he can play to his hearts content.
Screw Transformers. GI-JOE! GI-JOE! YOooo-JOE!