"These Decepticons scatter like cowards."
"Til all are one."
"Metroplex heeds the call of the last Prime."
"Foolish Decepticons."
"Decepticon deactivation commencing."
"Target synchronizing initiated."
"Target obliterated."

Unsure of how to start this damn post about Generations "Thrilling 30" Metroplex, I thought I'd start with a quote from his electronics.  Apparently there's a lot of quotes, so I wrote out all of them for you!  As these cycle through, the sentences alternate with mechanical sounds.  Two AA batteries (not included) fit into the small of his back (screwdriver also not included), and once you start pushing down on his collarbone, he starts chattering.

But let's get the most important and obvious thing out of the way first.  Metroplex is two feet tall.  He's the tallest Transformer ever made, including 1987's Fortress Maximus, who he has a very slight edge over.  (Mine is in the basement and kind of an unsightly yellow, so, uh, use your imagination for height comparisons.)  He's so big, he's packaged in his box with his arm detached so that the volume of the box takes up less shelf real estate in stores.  Of course, once the arm goes in, the arm doesn't come out, so don't expect to use the box to store him later.  It's the same deal with the recent huge-ass Millennium Falcon and probably lots of other similarly-sized toys.

So of course, when you get to BotCon and Cheetimus points out to you that, dude, Big Bad Toy Store is here for the first time in years and they brought frigging 240 Metroplexes a month or two ahead of its expected release date elsewhere, your first thought is OH MY GOD I WILL BUY IT IMMEDIATELY followed by OH SHIT HOW DO I GET THIS THING HOME???  I ignored the second all-caps exclamation and went ahead and bought the damn thing.  Once I got my artist alley table set up, I stared longingly at the box.  I could just, y'know, open it and take a look inside!  I can still put it back in the box if I only pull out the cardboard tray!  Oh, and I can probably remove Scamper, his little included car dude.  Oh, hey, look, I've removed his detached arm and played with it OH GOD NOW HE'S COMPLETELY REMOVED AND HIS ARM IS PLUGGED IN HOW DID THAT HAPPEN????

shiiit

In the end, it turned out removing him from the box actually helped me get him home.  Since BotCon is in San Diego, as are my in-laws, and Comic-Con is in three weeks, I was able to keep most of the contents of my suitcase (posters, prints, bookmarks, etc) in Maggie's closet at their house for the duration, allowing me to stand up Metroplex inside my suitcase and pack him in tight with all my clothes and other BotCon swag.  Glad I bought that new 2-foot tall suitcase a few weeks ago!  So I just checked my suitcase with Metroplex inside and all was well.  I threw away the box.

Metroplex is... well, Metroplex.  He has a robot mode and then two modes which are extrapolations of that.  He transforms very similarly to the original in either non-robot form, just with some smaller extra steps.  For battlestation mode, he still sits down and unfolds the front of his legs.  This is my favorite non-robot mode because I love the new black runways.  "Aircraft carrier" is a more fun alternate form in my view than a battle station.  His city mode is also basically the same as the original's but with a pretty important improvement -- you can actually drive cars all the way down through his legs.  The original Metroplex unfolded his legs open in much the same way, but they formed very obstructive streets.  His knees and feet were in the way of driving cars through them.  But on the new toy, those feet and knees lift and tilt out of the way of the roads.  A car can go all the way from inside Metroplex's chest, down the ramp, and out to his toes.  ...well, his knees, due to how the legs open up.

He comes with a sticker sheet, and it's enormous.  Like, legal paper size.  And most of the stickers aren't terribly large!  Each arrow going down the runway is a sticker, as well as anything written anywhere in Cybertronix or any set of hazard stripes.  It's a lot to sticker, and it'll take a while.

The only problem I have with getting Metroplex to function is the deal with his face.  You're given an option between normal eyes or red shades to fold down over the eyes, because one is toy accurate and the other is accurate to Metroplex's cartoon portrayal.  And so if you tilt Metroplex's helmet forward, his shades will flip and click forward into place.  But these shades can get out-of-joint pretty easily and I've had to put them back into his head a number of times.  It's kinda annoying.  But it's really the only part of him that annoys me.

Well, and I think like three stickers are mis-numbered in the instructions.  Oof.

If you have room for a two-foot robot, I recommend him.  He's massive and fun and all your smaller dudes can play inside him in various ways.  If you don't have room for a two-foot robot, buy a bigger house.  There's gonna be an SDCC version, so you can look out for it, but I'm plenty fine having the "normal" version.  I really don't like the SDCC Metroplex's chrome nor do I have any desire for the little decoys he comes with.  A second gun would have been all right, but it's not a dealbreaker.  If you don't care for any of that stuff either, the normal Metroplex is due in stores within a few months.