mikeszekely

Well, I picked up AC Shadows on PC. My first though was, "how does this even run on consoles?" With an i7-9700K, an RTX 4070, and 32GB of RAM I'm getting 40-50fps at 5120x1440 on medium with dynamic resolution off and with DLSS set to quality. I can get 60-70 if I turn on frame gen, but aside from intolerable input lag it was causing my PC to hard reboot until I set my monitor's refresh rate to 120Hz, so I turned it back off. Even after I seemed to have the game in a playable state I had one DX12 error that caused the game to crash back to desktop. After restarting and playing a bit more I didn't encounter any more issues in-game, but after exiting to desktop properly Windows itself was jacked up (clicking on start menu did nothing, wallpaper was gone, right-clicking and opening display properties gave me an error) which forced me to reboot a third time. So maybe the answer to my original thought is, "apparently better than it does on PC." I think I need a patch, a new PC, or both before I get back to it.

As predicted, Perceptor with Ratbat and Ramhorn are up to preorder on Pulse

I mean, at an MP level with an MP budget and MP engineering, yeah, I want the real alt mode. On one of Hasbro's $25 Deluxes, though? When's the last time we had a real licensed alt mode that wasn't from the live action movies? Close enough's been close enough for years. Sometimes not even close enough... looking at you, Legacy Breakdown.😠 But here, specifically, I know stuff like Siege Sideswipe gets a pass, but the Aerialbots are going to get nitpicked to death for real-world inaccuracies that are still cartoon accurate.🤷‍♂️

You can have real-world accuracy (if Hasbro would bother to license the alt modes, which they won't) or you can have cartoon accuracy. You can't have both. Does Slingshot look like a real Harrier? Nope. But that's looking pretty dang cartoon accurate.

The other Age of the Primes Deluxe I managed to pick up so far was Air Raid. Sadly, this means we'll have to wait a bit longer for Slingshot, but at least we've got one Aerialbot to look at. In some ways, I think Air Raid had his work cut out for him. Compared to basically all of the other Prime Wars-era combiners the Aerialbots were arguably the best ones, good enough that a company called Ju Jiang tweaked and embiggened them and sold it as an alternative to Zeta's MP-scaled bots. Side-by-side, though, AotP Air Raid really does look like an improvement to me. The overall proportions are better. His chest doesn't need to be extra wide to accommodate that chunky Combiner Wars peg. The gold sticker-esque details are gone, and the excess red on his knees and shins has been reduced to small squares. The Autobot badge as been moved from his shoulder to his chest (and said shoulders don't have those spikes). He can wear is backpack with the wings open. It all adds up to being far, far more cartoon accurate. I do have a few notes, though. I actually still prefer the metallic blue on CW Air Raid's head. It's weird, because the G1 toy had silver on top of his head, and I feel like Sunbow colored him grayish blue to reflect that it's a different color than the white that makes up the rest of his head, but the blue on CW strikes me as more correct. Maybe because Sunbow did use a different gray for Air Raid's face? CW Air Raid interpreted that as blue head, silver face, but AotP is walking it back to silver head, gray face. My only other complaint are the black hips. I get that he'd only get so many runners, and perhaps that black plastic makes for stronger joints, but it really doesn't match anything. Red or white would have been a better choice. For that matter, I think maybe a white torso with red paint instead of a red torso with white paint might have been a better (if unrealistic by budget) call, based on the Sunbow art. Air Raid comes with two guns. They're not super detailed, but as near as I can tell they are a pretty decent match for the cartoon. You also get his vertical stabilizers, which are separate parts that peg in place. Air Raid's head is on a ball joint. He doesn't have much downward or sideways tilt, but he can look up pretty well in addition to turning his head. His shoulders swivel and move laterally a bit over 90 degrees. Unlike CW Air Raid, they're not ball joints. His biceps swivel, and his elbows bend 90 degrees. No wrist swivels, though they are at least separate parts this time. His waist swivels. His hips can go 90 degrees laterally and backward, and slightly over that forward. And, again, not ball joints this time. His thighs swivel, and his knees bend 90 degrees. Like his hands, his feet are seperate parts now. They can't tilt down, but they do tilt up, plus his ankles can pivot 90 degrees. He can hold his guns in either hand. He also puts the "stab" in "stabilizer," as he can wield them like some kind of knives. That said, you'll probably just plug them into the ports on the backs of his legs. The only other 5mm ports he has are on the undersides of his wings, if you're looking for a place to stow his guns. In broad strokes, Air Raid's transformation is not that different than the Combiner Wars toy. Turn the head around, and double-hinge the nose and intakes up and over. Open the legs and double hinge the backs up and over the thighs. Fold down the horizontal stabs. Tuck the arms into the sides. The only real differences are that you either need to spin the vertical stabs (assuming you already had them plugged in), fold in his fists, and (and this is the big one) instead of doubling-hinging his shin up and over his thigh his shin flips up 180 degrees over the thigh, and his feet fold down against the inside of his shins. Aside from his arms not being tucked in as tightly, when viewed from some angles AotP Air Raid is definitely an improvement. For one thing, the silhouette is a lot closer to a legally-distinct F-15 than the more F-14-ish CW version (even with the vertical stabs are too far inward, sitting on top of the engine bulges instead of along side them). Two, while perhaps a bit less interesting visually, the simple white stripes on the wings and the stubbier nose are both more cartoon accurate. From other angles, though, Air Raid's definitely got some issues. As I noted, the arms jut out from the sides. This is because while they do peg in place, they don't actually tuck in at all. The molded exhaust details are a nice touch, but they don't line up at all with the engine humps. And then there's his feet. Look, I know as Macross fans a lot of us are used to more streamlined transforming planes, and I've often suggested that it's an unrealistic expectation for Transformers given that, a.) they have to be cartoon accurate, b.) often were bricks of robot strapped to the underside of a plane in the G1 days, and c.) are limited in engineering due to their limited budget. That said, is there really nothing better they could have done with his shins and feet? They take an already chunky block of robot hanging under a plane and make it even thicker! Why not swivel them around to the sides, behind his arms? Honestly, without the added thickness of his feet, the jet mode really wouldn't be that bad (by Transformers standards). As I mentioned, if the vertical stabs were already plugged into his legs, all you need to do is turn them 180 degrees. They never need to be removed. As for his guns, you can plug them into the undersides of his wings and it looks fine. The panel on his chest with the Autobot insignia can flip forward as "landing gear". Nevermind that it's like a quarter plane-length behind where an F-15's actual landing gear would be, it's at least enough to keep him from tipping forward onto his nose. For the most part, Air Raid's a definite improvement over the Combiner Wars version. In bot mode, it's amazing how much better proportions and working ankles can make for more dynamic poses, and honestly just replacing the ball joints in the shoulders and hips with hinges and swivels is a big upgrade in my book, plus the deco is far more cartoon accurate. The jet mode is also much closer to the cartoon (and an F-15) than the Combiner Wars version. It's just a shame that his shins and feet add so much thickness to the underside, turning what could have been a slam dunk into more of a goofy-looking underhanded free throw. Still, the greatly-improved robot mode and the mostly-from-some-angles improvements to the alt mode are enough to make me prefer Air Raid over not only his Combiner Wars version, but also over his wave mate Solus Prime. He makes me eager to get my hands on Slingshot. Frankly, that's enough for me that I'll give him a recommend.

While Legacy started fairly strong, I think even its most ardent defenders will have to admit that Legacy United made 2024 one of the weakest years Transformers has had this decade. The number of new molds spread across the four 2024 waves was paltry, and then they opened 2025 with a bonus fifth wave that was nothing but repaints and package refreshes. I've been dying for some genuinely new figures, and it looks like they're finally starting to trickle out. Today I stopped at my local Walmart and didn't find anything, but the next closest Walmart had half of the Age of the Primes wave 1 deluxes! And since the theme of Age of the Primes is, well, the 13 Primes, let's open with one of the titular Primes, Solus Prime. Let's talk about the Thirteen for a minute, shall we? They were originally conceived of as not necessarily Primes, but the as the first thirteen Transformers created by Primus. The seeds of this began when Simon Furman was writing for 3H Productions, but became a sort of canon when Furman wrote the DK-published Transformers: The Ultimate Guide, and was further fleshed out when Furman wrote Transformers: The War Within: Dark Ages for Dreamwave, which introduced the Fallen. Other characters, like the barman Maccadam, old Alpha Trion, and the Liege Maximo were tossed around as potentially being part of the Thirteen, and when Transformers Galaxy Force came to the west writer Forest Lee decided that Vector Prime must also be one. The notion of the Thirteen was kicked around a bit behind the scenes, with Fun Publications introducing some characters in their BotCon comics, and Hirofumi Ichikawa implying that Logos Prime (aka Cybertron Soundblaster) was one in a Beast Wars manga. And it was around that time that Hasbro a.) was developing Transformers Prime, and b.) decided they'd better sit down and figure out exactly who the Thirteen were and what exactly their deal was. And so, we got The Convenant of Primus, a real book based on an in-fiction book written by Alpha Trion that details the story of the Primes, and suffice to say that Alpha Trion and Vector Prime did indeed make the cut. While Alpha Trion has been leaked as a Voyager for later this year, there's been no mention of Vector Prime, and with the Legacy United figure being a recent release it wouldn't surprise me if we either don't get another one, or get a package refresh of this one. So, even if we exclude the SDCC Alpha Trion, I'm pretty sure Solus is actually the second Prime to be released. By this point, there have been a few depictions of Solus Prime, but this figure seems to borrow the most from the model created for the Machinima Power of the Primes series (though that model itself could be see as G1-ifiying the design from the Covenant). The shape of her chest, the largely purple-and-silver color scheme, the shoulder pads, the pointy toes on the feet, and the apron all take heavily from that design, though her head is arguably a bit closer to the Transformers One design. As a Deluxe she doesn't have a lot of stature, but it's a solidly-sculpted robot. Solus comes with these three accessories, but you can really think of them more as three parts of one accessory. The darker purple bit plugs onto the wide end of the gray shaft, and the other bit onto the 3mm peg on the other end of the shaft, and you've got the hammer known as the Forge of Solus. The Forge was a plot point in the Transformers Prime cartoon, with Megatron replacing one of his arms with the arm of a dead Prime so he could use it. The design here is not the Forge we see in Prime, though. Rather, it's almos exactly the hammer from the Machinima version, which in turn was the hammer seen in The Covenant of Primus but with the pink swapped for gold. Solus' head is on a ball joint with adequate up, down, and sideways tilt in addition to the standard swivel. Her shoulders swivel and can move laterally 90 degrees, plus due to her transformation she's got a 45-ish degrees of forward butterfly. Her biceps swivel, her elbows bend 90 degrees, and her wrists are on ball joints that swivel and bend inward. Her waist swivels. Her apron is actually three parts, all hinged, so her hips can move 90 degrees forward and laterally, and about 60 degrees backward before her backpack gets in the way. Her thighs swivel, and her knees bend 90 degrees. Her ankles don't tilt up or down, but they can swivel as well as pivot 90 degrees. To get Solus to hold her hammer, you have to slide the shaft up from the bottom of her hand and then plug the top onto the shaft. The butterfly joints and inward-bending wrists do allow you to get her in poses holding the hammer with two hands. Aside from her hands, she has 5mm ports on the outsides of her forearms, and one on her backpack near her butt. A peg near the top of the hammer can be folded out and plugged into the port on her backpack to give her bot-mode weapon storage. As much as I really like Solus' robot mode, her alt mode isn't doing her any favors. Transformation was simple but also frustrating. Some parts didn't want to line up, some parts seemed like they needed more clearance than they actually got, and way too many parts came off that weren't supposed to. On my copy, one of the flaps on the inside of her forearm came off, her grill came off, a panel that rotates on her shoulder pads came off on one of them, and her entire right foot came off no fewer than three times. And for what? The front half of her truck mode starts off pretty strong, but kind of quits halfway through. The front of her apron spins 180 degrees, but her apron is ultimately just draped over her thighs, which are still super visible from the sides. Her knees and part of her shins form the rear, but don't come close enough to not leave a huge gap. They could have designed this version of Solus any way they wanted to, but it's clear that they heavily prioritized the robot mode. I'd be more mad at it, but technically Solus wasn't supposed to have an alt mode, so... She can, at least, carry her Forge in this mode. You'd think the obvious thing to do would be to use the flip out peg to plug the Forge into her roof, the same spot she stowed it in bot mode. However, you might notice that one side of the Forge has a tab on it. That tab actually plugs into a slot near either knee so that the Forge attaches to the side of the truck instead of the top. I think Solus is a bit of a mixed bag. On the one hand, the concept of the Thirteen has intrigued me since I first read Transformers: The Ultimate Guide, and it as well as The Covenant of Primus are both on my bookshelf as we speak. Toy version of the Thirteen have been on my wish list for awhile. And, as a robot, I don't think Solus disappoints. I like the sculpt, and I think the articulation works well for her with her Forge. Her alt mode, though, looks like she stopped halfway through transforming, and with all the parts that fell off I found it to be more frustrating than fun. If, like me, you're planning a display of the Thirteen in their bot modes then Solus is probably worth picking up. But if your love of Transformers begins with the cartoon in 1984 and ends with the cartoon in 1987 and you're scratching your head thinking, "what thirteen original Primes?" then you're better off skipping Solus.

Sideways and Excellion are up for pre-orders on Pulse and Walmart.com, though I don't actually recommend Walmart since they've yet to fill my preorders for the toy -style Gears and Bumblebee, but somehow had both show up in stock for new orders then sold out of at least Bumblebee. EDIT: Apparently Target is also doing a thing, now. They're going to unveil something Transformers every Thursday for the rest of March. Unfortunately, today's reveal is a reissue (or a lot of leftover stock) of Legacy Devcon. That said, I have it on good authority that the Perceptor pack with Ramhorn and Ratbat is next week and the Devastation pack (blue Runamuck and black Ramjet) will we in two weeks.

Lilo and Stitch is, quite possibly, my favorite Disney movie, so I'm less inclined to dismiss it outright than a lot of their other recent output. However, I still don't get Disney's perverse need to do live action remakes of all their older animated movies... especially when half the time "live action" isn't even that, it's just "realistic" CGI animation.

Have you played it? I'm not super big on SRPGs. I bought SD Gundam G Generation Cross Rays and couldn't get into it, played one of the Disgaea games on the PSP and didn't care for it, played the GBA Final Fantasy Tactics and couldn't get into it... but on the other hand, I did kind of like Transformers: Battlegrounds and I loved the Project X Zone games on the 3DS. Not sure if I'd like this one or not.

Pre-COVID my wife and I would visit her family in Beijing, which for us usually meant a short flight from Pittsburgh to Detroit, then a 12-13 flight from Detroit to Beijing. And I'll tell you, there's something about being bored out of your mind six hours into a flight and knowing that you're only halfway there that'll turn a movie you wouldn't give a second glance at on Netflix at home and turns it into an Oscar contender.

I've never bothered to finish Cybertron, and didn't collect the original toyline, so I shouldn't be interested in him. But I'll probably get him anyway. ...assuming Walmart actually honors their preorders. I have preorders for the "toy" versions of Gears of Bumblebee. They haven't filled those; my preorders just say "by March 31st." But apparently Gears is showing as in-stock and if you place a new order you'll have him in like two days.🤨 While I didn't have the original Cybertron Sideways, I did have the Ratbat repaint that came with the Springer repaint of Evac. I'd say based on that my wishlist will be replacing the ball joints with hinges and swivels, giving him ankle articulation, and that the weapon-thing with the pop-out blades be removable.\ I'll probably get Excellion, too. I thought the mold was pretty good in Hot Shot colors, might as well get it in Hot Rod colors. I think a lot of Western naming for Unicron Trilogy characters was kind of weird. Rampage gets changed to Wheeljack (despite looking way more like Sideswipe), so then later the guy who's definitely supposed to be Wheeljack winds up getting called Downshift. Roadbuster is renamed Ironhide, despite have almost nothing in common with previous Ironhides. As for Excellion, I think that's just Hasbro trying to make one of the main characters Hot Shot to reinforce the idea of a trilogy, despite the fact that Galaxy Force wasn't supposed to be a sequel to Micron Densetsu or Super Link.

Or any other matter, really.

Oh yeah, I'd nearly forgotten that. ... And now I want them to do a RoboCop vs Terminator game.

If you're not into RoboCop, it's a solid but definitely not triple A shooter. If you're into RoboCop, though, it's the best the franchise has seen in decades, with a story set just after RoboCop 2 with Peter Weller reprising the role of Alex Murphy.

Walmart exclusives. Preorders should open at 10:00am ET/7:00am PT on Thursday, March 13th.