Transformers Real Gear Robots : Spy Shot 6

Last week was a pretty big week for fantasy roboticists everywhere, as Hasbro finally opened the floodgates of Transformers movie merchandise to the purchasing public. For the few weeks preceding that, us toy nerds had been hearing tales of these little robots being stocked on shelves, priced, but forbidden to leave the store once they reached the cashier, due to release date complications. The embargo has been lifted, though, and just in time for me to stumble into them as I was returning a completely different item to the store. To my own defense though, I’m biologically predisposed to being magnetically attracted to anything robot-related within a mile of myself. You can’t fight nature, especially in giant robot form.

Hasbro has already saturated the toy aisle with a crazy number of Transformers toys, half of which don’t even perform the requisite transformations that give them their name. I ended up coming home with a couple of transforming items (including the Deluxe Class Jazz and Swindle), but the one that initially caught my eye was the Real Gear Robots Spy Shot 6 toy.

It’s not the first time that there have been Transformers toys that convert from their robot forms into realistically scaled real-world items, blending in with our everyday sundries without detection. The Real Gear Robots line features robots that can transform into binoculars, a PSP-like handheld gaming device, a cell phone, a video camera, and my favorite, the compact digital camera. For my money, the digital camera was the only robot that seemed truly convincing as the everyday item that it purported to be.

For about eight bucks, the Real Gear Robots present some interesting toy engineering feats – even if they’re completely divorced from the core Transformers story and exist only to be toys. I’ve never been really interested in the emotional travails and complicated plotlines of robots anyhow, unless it interferes with them making me a sandwich or defeating my various archnemeses with death rays. The ideal robot would actually do both at once, because Death Ray sandwiches are delicious.

Spy Shot 6 is a tiny little thing, very similar in size to the average compact digital camera. It features clear plastic wherever lenses and viewfinders and flashes are concerned, which is a detail that really aids the veracity of the item, and the rest is done up in the appropriate dull greys. The biggest departure from realism comes with the pseudo-LCD screen on the rear side. Instead of being a black, shiny square (as if the item were off), it’s a goofy sticker. The packaging is kind enough to let us know that this Autobot is not a real working camera, though. Thanks, guys. Next you’re going to tell me that it also can’t fire laser beams. As a camera, he does feature a spring-loaded shutter button that emits a satisfying ‘click’ when pressed, even if it doesn’t perform an actual function.

Transforming him to robot mode is fairly easy, and the packaging rates it at a difficulty level of ‘2 out of 4′, the number ‘0′ being reserved for those odd items that don’t even bother to transform. Transforming him reveals the usual full set of arms and legs, as well as a tiny little ‘big brother is watching you’ head with red, translucent eyes that glow when the light passes through them right. I’d almost say that, as an all-observing camera, this head design is a direct, clever reference those ‘watching’ posters of yore.

As far as I’m concerned, it’s an excellent little introduction to the world of the Transformers, and for once, merchandising the movie property with completely tangential items doesn’t bother me like, say, a Fantastic Four Dr. Doom Silly Cycle or Extreme Bungee Jumping Thing. ‘Cause there are robots, and ergo, inherently awesome.