Review – Marchon Roadbots Loadorr

While I posted the review of the Roadbots Hookorr first (a few days ago), Loadorr was the Roadbots toy that I wrote about on my LiveJournal last month. Everything I’ve said in the Hookorr review — and in my LiveJournal — holds true for Loadorr, so let’s skip the reminiscing and take a look at the toy itself.

As with the other Marchon Roadbots, the transformation instructions for Loadorr are quite vague — the instructions even call them “hints” — but once you’ve snapped the robot apart and back together a few times then you’ll see just how simple the transformation process actually is. One change that’s worth making is to rotate the head to face down, rather than to the side, in the dump truck so that it’s a little more obscured. Also, fitting the hands between the cab and the motorized rear-half takes a few seconds since you’ve got to rotate the hands around a few times before everything fits together nicely.

In dump truck mode, Loadorr has so many pieces in the back that he can’t even carry anything else. This was always annoying when I was a kid (I also owned the Constructicon, Long Haul, and even though he was smaller he could at least carry stuff) and I’m no less frustrated with this today than I was back then. Another problem with Loadorr’s vehicle mode is that the cab tends to separate from the hands; the connection is pretty weak. These are pretty major complaints and, today, I can see why everyone I’ve ever tried to describe the toy to didn’t know what I was talking about (bad toys don’t usually get a lot of brainspace, after all).

Closing Thoughts

Even though he’s the toy I was actually searching for, now that I’ve played with both Loadorr and Hookorr (I didn’t even remember Hookorr until I saw a photo of him online and then I immediately remembered him) I have to say that Loadorr not’s a very good toy.

If you can find a cheap Loadorr, and you’re just curious about what he’s like, grabbing the toy is perfectly acceptable. Otherwise, even if you’re a hardcore transforming robot toy collector you shouldn’t bother paying more than $10 for Loadorr (or any of the Marchon Roadbots, for that matter).

Philip Reed shouldn’t really admit to owning all of the Marchon Roadbots and he definitely shouldn’t mention the fact that he bought all three of them packaged (and then proceeded to open the packages).