mikeszekely

You're right, in the sense that there'd have been a lot less controversy, outrage, review bombing, etc. But let's look at it another way- Sony would rather not sell games in those countries than give up on forcing people to use a PSN account on PCs. Why? Because the data they can collect through PSN is worth more to them than those lost game sales? It's still not a good look.

Still planning on getting them if they have them at my theater. That cup especially.

I wound up getting three months of Apple TV+. As a Godzilla fan I had to binge watch Monarch: Legacy of Monsters first, but after that I started watching For All Mankind. I'm only a handful of episodes into it, but so far I think it's quite good.

It's funny, but as I was writing my review for Sword Dancer I kept imagining an MMC version of Slamdance and Squawkbox. I think they'd be pretty epic, but their output has been pretty slow. I think they only put out maybe three new molds in all of 2023. Sadly, we're a long way from an MMC Slamdance... I know that they're still working on Ramhorn and Ratbat, but they seem pretty focused on their combiners right now. And why not? They seem to be pretty big hits for MMC, with Bruticus going through something like three runs. And they're quite good! But I digress. I really liked Steeljaw, but he's not the most recent. Just last fall MMC released their take on Rewind and Eject.

So about that... Here, in the middle, we have Sword Dancer, Dr. Wu's take on Slamdance. My first thought would be that the G1 toy used a darker gray- here it's light enough to mistaken for white, the way Streetwise often is. His face is also a bright metallic pink, where the G1 toy was simple the same shade of red plastic used elsewhere. To be clear, I think Dr. Wu did release Sword Dancer with a darker gray and an unpainted face, but I dragged my feet so long that I was happy enough to find any color available, and frankly, this is close enough. Although, even if I had got the more accurate one, there's still a big difference in that Sword Dancer has gray hips and blue thighs, and the G1 toy was the other way around. On the other hand, his torso is filled out a lot better and he seems less skinny than the G1 toy. And he scales nicely with Dr. Wu's own version of Squawkbox, just a bit taller than Rewind. The back view is a bit less put-together than the front, but to be fair, it's not worse than the G1 toy. And to be totally fair, I should mention that the one flap dangling on the back of his head actually can be folded up, I just forgot to and didn't feel like reshooting these pictures. Sorry! I'm going to say that Sword Dancer comes with these three gun accessories. You could argue that he actually comes with five; the missiles on the sides of his head are just pegged in and can come off. In theory, though, they don't have be removed for transformation while the above three do. Sword Dancer's head is on a ball joint, but due to the shape of it you're not really going to get tilt, just swivel, and even then there can be clearance issues. His shoulders have hinges that give him over 90 degrees of lateral movement. Those hinges are on ball joints, with the socket in his chest. The ball joints give him shoulder swivels and forward butterfly joints. His biceps and wrists swivel, and his elbows bend 90 degrees. No waist swivel. Ball-jointed hips go 90 degrees forward, backward, and laterally. And while he does have some swivel around the ball joints, he's got dedicated thigh swivels just above his knees, which bend 90 degrees. His feet are on ball joints, with the socket in the leg instead of the foot. This gives him tremendous upward foot tilt, but nothing really down. It also provides an ankle pivot, but a fairly limited one. Still, I'm not inclined to complain too much when it's all far more articulation than Hasbro gave to any of their cassettes, even the Studio Series Core-class ones. Sword Dancer's hands don't have any way to hold accessories, but the finned guns plug into his forearms. Meanwhile, the other gun has a tab on it that fits into a slot on either shoulder, then the barrel folds over the top of his shoulder. This is fairly similar to how the G1 toy worked. Speaking of how the G1 toy worked, Slamdance was the combined form of two other cassettes, Raindance (a jet) and Grand Slam (a tank). And so, too, is Sword Dancer made up from Traveler Plane and Patriot Tank. Here we're getting a bit more departure from the G1 toy. Traveler Plane is probably the easier to get from legs to jet; bend the legs backward at the knee, then correctly the actual knee. Slide his toes in, turn the feet 180 degrees, and fold them up onto the shins. Turn his legs at the thigh swivels so that the feet are touching, then take the gray chest and swivel it 180 degrees so you can tab it onto his legs. Then you just fold out the wings and stabilizers. The two guns that were on Sword Dancer's arms plug into each other first, then they plug into the top of the jet. Patriot Tank isn't much more difficult. Fold the bulk of his head over his face, then unfold a few flaps from it. You have to twist a few joints in his arms to get the treads all lined up, then you use the ball joints to swing the arms in front of his chest, using one of the flaps from his head to tab everything together. The shoulder cannon slides onto a tab to form the turret and barrel. As I mentioned before, in theory the missiles on the sides of his head don't need to be removed for transformation. In practice, though, they'll pop off the minute you start manipulating him, so it might be better to set them aside and put them back on when you're finished. Traveler Plane and Patriot Tank have a bit more liberties taken than Sword Dancer. Traveler Plane's gray hips mean the intakes are gray instead of blue, and he's got actual vertical stabilizers instead of raised edges on the chest piece. The wings have a white stripe, and there's no cassette holes. The lack of holes means that they're not available for the guns to plug into, so he can't carry one under each wing the way G1 Raindance can. As for Patriot Tank, he's got visible, painted treads along the sides. And where G1 Grand Slam had a raised section with his weapons piled on top of it haphazardly, Patriot Tank's raised section has the turret attached to the front and the missiles on the sides. As @M'kyuun noted, their individual modes are better executed than the Dr. Wu Squawktalk and Beastbox, but I'd go one step further and suggest that they're a bit more coherent than the G1 toys as well. Traveler Plane reminds me a bit of a Gundam Core Fighter, and Patriot Tank looks more like a tank than a pile of boxes with a bunch of guns on top. Going from jet to tape is super easy for Traveler plane. Put his feet back into their robot mode position, but leave the toes pushed in. Instead, flip out some tabs on his heels. Straighten his actual knees, fold in his wings, then make him do a split at the hips. Swing the chest panel back around and it'll latch onto those heel tabs, then just fold the vertical stabs over the chest. Patriot Tank isn't actually more difficult, you just have to take a bit more care to make sure you've lined everything up right. Swing the arms back out to his sides and lift the turret back up halfway, so it's sitting above his face instead of behind it. Rotate both arms 180 degrees at the ball joint. Now, fold his entire head back, and his arms forward at the ball joint. That'll give you the clearance you need to bend the arms 90 degrees at the shoulder hinges, then 90 degrees back at the ball joints. If you did it right, the arms should tab into the guns on the sides of his head, most of the treads lined up on the side with his exposed face. I don't know if there's much a point for me to mention that Traveler Plane and Patriot Tank's "tape" modes don't much resemble G1 Raindance and Grand Slam's. To be fair, I don't think Hasbro's own Siege/Legacy/Studio Series tapes are going to pass for microcassettes, either. The important thing is that, yes, either of them can fit into Kingdom/Studio Series Blaster or Twincast, though only one at a time, of course. Dr Wu is definitely doing us a service here, releasing Siege/Legacy/Studio Series-compatible cassettes for Blaster and Soundwave that Hasbro seem unlikely to ever get to, especially since Slamdance and Squawbox weren't in the cartoon. And Sword Dance is a pretty good value, too- he's made of two tapes, and cost only a little more than two of Hasbro's Studio Series tapes, and better articulation too boot. And, as mentioned, Sword Dancer is a definite improvement over their Squawkbox. If you want a complete set of tapes, I can definitely recommend Sword Dancer as a stand-in for Slamdance. However, I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that they feel a bit delicate compared to the official tapes, with a few annoying tolerance issues that I'd find unacceptable in larger, more expensive figures. All-in-all, good enough that I'll definitely pick up Dr Wu's Slugfest and Overkill when they come out, but flawed enough that I'm more excited for the Doctor's other upcoming Micromaster-sized Transformers like Wheeljack, Cyclonus, Bumblebee, and Megatron.

Yeah, in Sony's eyes their mistake want requiring a PSN account, it was that they allowed the game to go live without enforcing that requirement from day one. Fortunately, as stated by Sucker Punch, PSN linking is only required for the multiplayer Legends mode. And since I have no intention of touching the multiplayer I'm carrying my pitchfork pretty half-heartedly.

I dunno, this one could be pretty good. I'm hearing Leader-class '86 Springer, core-class '86 Steeljaw, and some kind of Deluxe-class G1 Bumblebee. And if you're into the old Marvel G1 comics, Straxus.

Armada Galvatron and the next wave of Studio Series, likely.

Maybe, if they're cheap. I'm not super impressed.

In the sense that they're not requiring it for Helldivers, but absolutely requiring it from day one one on PC games released from the moment forward, including Ghost of Tsushima later this month.

Well... I actually own a PS5, too, but it's been collecting dust since Spider-Man 2. Which was the first game I'd bothered to play on it since God of War Ragnarok. If Sony would just release their games day-and-date on PC I wouldn't bother with a PlayStation, but I guess that's why they don't do day-and-date. Anyway, I already have a PSN ID. I just hate having to login to something else after I'm already logged into Steam, especially when the other launcher is mostly spyware that causes performance dips. Oh, and then there's- How many times has Sony been hacked now? Three?

If I were into the multiplayer games that seem oh so popular with the youth these days I'd probably care... ...oh snap. They're going to require PSN accounts for Ghost of Tsushima on Steam, too.😒

Huh. So the cab is about the same size as the G1 toy...

That's probably the only good news I've heard since this film was announced.

Not just one. Lunar Dawn, a team comprised of Lunar Outpost, Lockheed Martin, General Motors, Goodyear, and MDA Space, were awarded a contract from NASA just recently to build a Lunar Terrain Vehicle, though I don't think it's nearly as far along as the Lunar Cruiser. Other automakers are also getting into the rover game. Nissan and Hyundai both have rovers in development, but they're they small, unmanned kind. Still, if Artemis takes off the way NASA seems to hope (Artemis 4 calls for establishing a lunar base, and I keep seeing phrases like "cislunar economy" being bandied about) perhaps the market for moon cars will expand.