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mikeszekely

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About mikeszekely

  • Birthday 02/03/1980

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    mikeszekely
  • Old MW Post count
    600

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    Male
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    Probably driving my Porsche
  • Interests
    Transformers, video games, cars

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  1. mikeszekely
    I still kinda doubt it. Like, yeah, maybe I'd opt to bring XR goggles over a laptop on a plane or something, but I'm not leaving my house without my phone, full stop. So it's still, at minimum, two devices either way. And, while I haven't used the Vision Pro and have no familiarity with it's OS, Android XR is basically an AI-powered gesture-based front end for the same Android that's already running on a lot of phones. While developers can choose to make their apps more XR-friendly, there's not a lot of incentive for them to do so because Android XR runs standard Android apps already. Then the choice is watch Netflix on chonky googles while my phone stays in my pocket, or watch Netflix on my phone tethered to lighter and less conspicous glasses. I know, I'm sounding really down on the Vision Pro/Galaxy XR/Android XR. I want to like it, I want the tech to succeed, and I want somebody to do something truly interesting with the technology. But, as it stands, I just can't see a scenario where they do something that some some other device doesn't do better, with Viture or Xreal glasses if you really want that private big-screen experience.
  2. mikeszekely
    Sometimes a movie can make what you'd think is a decent return, but it didn't make enough profit for the bean counters.🤷‍♂️
  3. mikeszekely
    I had the original Vitures and had the same trouble with blurry corners. I bought the Pro version later. Worse speakers, but brighter display and less blurring on the corners. In any case, I agree that glasses like the Vitures are great for content consumption. That's exactly why I don't see the point of stuff like the Galaxy XR. Why spend nearly $2000 on bulky goggles when the Vitures Pros are $300 right now? Most of the apps your going to wind up running are going to be regular Android apps anyway.
  4. mikeszekely
    Instead of expensive, conspicuous goggles why not spend like half or less on XReal or Viture glasses and use them with the laptop/phone/tablet you likely already own? I use mine with my ROG Ally all the time to get some gaming in while my daughter is in her dance classes. That's why I'm struggling with stuff like the Apple Vision Pro and Samsung Galaxy XR. Meta already brought affordable VR to the masses, and XReal/Viture/Rokkid are providing more affordable, lighter, less conspicuous ways to use XR on existing platforms and devices.
  5. mikeszekely
    So Samsung just unveiled their rival to the Apple Vision Pro, the Galaxy XR. On the plus side, it's lighter than the Vision Pro, costs like half, and the Android XR OS is getting some praise for its usability and compatible with regular non-XR Android apps. But on the minus side, it's still like triple the price of a Meta Quest 3, and I'm struggling to see the actual market is for XR yet. While the Quest 3 can do some XR stuff, the main draw there still seems to be VR gaming.
  6. mikeszekely
    Yeah. I think I'm good with my non-Xbox Ally X for awhile yet.
  7. mikeszekely
    With names like "Forklift Warrior," "Hook Warrior," and "Load Warrior," I thought this next guy would be something like "Bulldozer Warrior." But maybe something was lost in translation, because Dream Star Toys' version of Bonecrusher wound up being called "Pushing Machine Warrior." Pushing Machine Warrior is, broadly speaking, more of the same from DST. Gorgeous metallic greens and purples, curves and facets that give the bot an almost organic shape, and minimal visual cues that really recall the G1 character. No tread legs here... it's actually his arms that form the treads. The almost entirely green color of the animation is broken up by purples on the chest and gray thighs. But he's not totally unrecognizable. The vertical green "straps" flanking the purple on his chest with the red details do a rather good job of recalling G1 Hook's shovel chest. The shovel isn't his chest, though. It's mostly folded into his calves. The cab protrudes a bit, but it's far from the worse backpack we've seen on a toy. A few flaps of tread adorn his arms, but the bulk of the mechanical bits can be passed off as shoulder pads. All-in-all, Pushing Machine Warrior suffers from minimal kibble. Forklift Warrior, with his sole gun, is starting to turn into something of an outlier. Pushing Machine Warrior does have his gun, but he's also got a pair of translucent red-bladed shortswords. Also a big honking leg for the Megatron build-a-figure (that we'll talk more about once he's complete). Pushing Machine Warrior's head is on a ball joint with great up, down, and sideways tilt. His shoulders rotate on ratchets, but lateral movement is a ratchet in the chest, on the wrong side of the swivel (a common problem on these Warbotron offshoots, and one less easily overlooked on a more expensive "premium" figure than on the Mecha Invasion guys). They're a bit limited to under 90 degrees, mostly due to the treads on top banging into his head. His biceps swivel, and his double-jointed elbows bend nearly 180 degrees. His wrists swivel, and his fingers are individually-articulated with three pinned knucklers on his fingers, while his thumb has a ball joint at the base and two pinned knuckles. He's got a ratcheted waist swivel with a small ab crunch. His hips use a soft ratchet to move 90 degrees forward or backward, and a stronger ratchet for 90 degrees of lateral movement. His thighs swivel, and though his knees are double-jointed (both using ratchets) the kibble in his calves does stop his knee bend at just over 90 degrees. His feet can tilt up and down, and his toes have a separated up/down tilt, and his ankles pivot 90 degrees. Aside from the shoulders, you should have no trouble getting this guy into some sweet poses. Assuming you can get him to hold his weapons. The thin handles on both the gun and the swords have small slots cut into them. These slots should, in theory, fit around little tabs in his palms. In practice he seems to hold the swords ok, but the gun just immediately comes off the tab, leaving the friction in his fingers to do all the work. And, alas, there's no other storage for the gun in his robot mode. The swords can go on his back, though. There's little pegs on the hilts, and they fit into these little ports on the sides of the cab on his backpack. Transforming this guy is, once again, not particularly hard when you know what you're doing, but made difficult the first time by confusing, unclear instructions. There's some swiveling involved, but his arms turn entirely into the treads. His torso opens up and his head folds into the cab, and the bulk of his upper torso. His legs kind of explode, folding over his calves, but with a number of panels that have to be unfolded just right to make up the front end and shovel. while his feet lay over what's left of his torso to form the rear. Then the cab kind of swings back in and plugs on top. From some angles I think he look like a pretty cool bulldozer, though from the rear his obvious robot toes and the ripper dangling off his robot chest are a bit obvious. DST designed the swords to use their hilt pegs to plug in hear the front of the treads, then the handles unfold and attach to the shovel. This would probably be a good idea, were it not for the obvious red blades, and the fact that they don't secure anywhere along said blades, making them extremely prone to simply popping off. That said, the hinges in the sword handles do allow them to articulate with the shovel, which has a few joints and collapsing hydraulic pistons. The treads don't work, and there's no wheels for him to roll on. As for his gun, it folds up into a neat little package. That package, you'll note, as some little pegs on it. Those pegs can plug into a port on the inside/underside of his chest as part of the ripper. The back of Megatron's leg can open up to reveal a fist inside. Swing it out, close it back up, and fold in the heel and toe and you've got one of Devastator's forearms. Untab the treads, rotate them, and tab them back, remove the gun and scrunch up the ripper (it doesn't actually lock into place as near as I can tell) and fold back the shovel on Pushing Machine Warrior. You'll find a T-peg that slides into the top of the leg-turned-arm, and two clips will fold down to lock in into place. And that's his arm mode. I'm not sure why the DST Aerialbots never really did anything for me, but once again I'm digging the overall design and aesthetic of their Constructicons. Pushing Machine Warrior is another win in my book, I just wish they'd work on their instructions.
  8. mikeszekely
    Remaking the original is a bad idea. The CGI and special effects weren't the problem. Sure, they're not as flashy as Legacy or Ares, but they've held up reasonably well. The problem with the original is the slow pacing.
  9. mikeszekely
    You're correct. I don't know why I thought I paid less... eh, I'm getting old. Must have had something else shipped around the same time that cost $80. I'll have to edit my review, but really the takeway is that the Air Defense team is now fully equal in price to Optimus' trailer, and I dunno about that. The math ain't mathing, as my daughter would say. I 100% agree. Just like animators in the '80s couldn't shade silver, and now we've got a whole mess of people insisting that Optimus' legs and thighs should be white when they're clearly supposed to be the same silver as the toy. And if I'm being honest, I'd have preferred that NYCC Nemesis Prime was black. It's how Takara did the original Armada toy. But, like I said in my review, they're not just copying how the animation was done, it seems that the Hasbro version of the original toy was also dark blue.
  10. mikeszekely
    Nine Inch Nails has been pretty hit and miss with me, but YOLO. I just bought the Ares Soundtrack. I liked what I heard in the movie.
  11. mikeszekely
    A few more repaints, then I think I'm just waiting on a few crossovers and, despite it still being warm enough to skip a jacket most days, I think I'm done for the year. Up first we have Seaspray's wavemate, Retro Brawn. And... he's kind of unimpressive. To be honest, I was going to skip him entirely but I got to thinking, "well, I have Retro Gears and Bumblebee, and Seaspray's Retro (especially if they do eventually release a toon version), and I started getting FOMO. So when I saw him on a peg at my local store I grabbed him. So he does have a new head that matches the G1 toy. They also altered the colors of the green to better match the toy, they painted the windows black instead of blue, and they put a spot of black under the badge on the hood. But that's where they stopped, and that's kind of disappointing. I mean, I get it's a Walmart line and they're not going to dump a ton of money into remolding figures for it, but the stocky cartoon body doesn't match the clawed jank that was the G1 toy. But forget about giving him claws and shoulder pads, they could have at least tampoed some sticker detail onto his waist and pelvis. The moral of the story is don't be me. You have SS86 Brawn? You've got all the Brawn you need then. Coming from Hasbro Pulse, we've got a two-pack of G2 Dinobots. One of which is Snarl. There's some minor paint differences. Most notably they painted the eyes red like the toys whereas SS86 Snarl went for cartoon blue. Other than that, they used a slightly darker shade of red for the parts that were already read, and a lighter shade of red for the parts that were gray, and that's it. The other Dinobot is Snarl, and it's pretty much the same story. The gray plastic has been swapped for a greenish blue, and he's got a silver lower jaw, red eyes, and red horns to mimic the original G2 toy. He's also got black thighs and a black head. But there's no changes to the actual mold. It'd have been cool if they'd has some remolding; keep the dino kibble on the outside like the toys, for instance, but broad strokes this is probably fine. A bunch of Leader-class repaints with no remolding is probably a tough pill for a lot of people to swallow. Still, especially with Grimlock still on shelves, it's kind of cool seeing the team together but sporting more individualistic colors. Again, maybe not for everyone, but I say bring on the expected orange Sludge and green Swoop. Finally, we have our NYCC-exclusive Nemesis Prime. Unlike more recent Nemesis Primes, this isn't simply a black repaint of regular Optimus. This version, one of the first to actually bear the name "Nemesis Prime" AFAIK, actually had screen time. And to mimic the cel-shaded colors of that episode (also the Hasbro version of the original toy), Nemesis Prime is more dark blue than black, with a messed up face also pulled from the episode. Aside from the new head and colors, he's the same figure as the Commander-class toy, with the same Matrix, gun, and forearm pipe-guns. He doesn't, however, come with a trailer. Instead, he comes with the Star Saber from Transformers Armada. Not the Vorpal Saber he wielded in the show, but I guess Hasbro figured that most fans would want the Star Saber more? The Star Saber is an awkward-looking sword, and that sword breaks into three smaller minicons. The Minicons are, of course, the Air Defense team- Runway, Jetstorm, and Sonar, from left to right. Note that I have Jetstorm mistransformed. His tail should slide back, then swing over his head to sit on his chest (a bit like Runway's). You might notice, however, the crack on one of the hinges. The tolerances don't seem to be right and the plastic is too thin for the stress, so I'm leaving it permanently where it's at. Aside from being the Star Saber, and aside from the fact that Armada fans seem to genuinely want more Minicons, I don't think they're much to write home about. They're a little larger than the Siege Micromasters, with slightly better articulation, but not by a lot. Moving back to Nemesis, he of course transforms into a truck. Although he doesn't come with a trailer, he can pull the one that came with Optimus. He can even combine with it; despite not technically needing them, he's got the head and fists for combined mode. Kind of makes you wish he came with a trailer of his own. What makes you wish it even more is the price tag. Optimus, as a Commander, was $90, right? Well Nemesis here is also $90. In other worse, he's giving up the trailer and extra play patterns that come along with it for a trio of honestly-not-that-great Minicons that turn into a sword. I dunno about you guys, but I'd have rather had the trailer. I mean, how does that even add up? Optimus' trailer has WAY more plastic and more parts than the Air Defense Team. I know, recent tariffs and price hikes would likely mean that Armada Optimus would actually cost even more, but still, a repaint of the core bot with some dinky and fragile minicons instead of the trailer is a really hard pill to swallow.
  12. mikeszekely
    All I know is I did my part... I dragged two friends to see it one night, and yesterday I took my family. Tron: Uprising was awesome. I should re-watch it next.
  13. mikeszekely
    I understand he wasn't always the easiest to work with, but when a lot of people were getting into Tekken I was a big time Dead or Alive fan. I only dipped out after Itagaki and Tecmo parted ways and DoA 5 was riddled with expensive microtransactions.
  14. mikeszekely
    My wife's the kind of person who sees that it got bad reviews so assumes it must be bad but also unironically likes the live action Dragonball and Avatar (The Last Airbender one). If it's colorful and has a few action scenes she'll be fine. As for my daughter, she's always been kind of indifferent to movies until she actually watches them. Even when she was little she never really wanted to go see like the new Disney/Pixar/DreamWorks/etc movies. Pretty sure the only reason she watched K-pop Demon Hunters (which she’s obsessed with now) was because my wife saw it in her Netflix queue and asked her to watch it together. But usually after watching the movie she'll say she liked it and talk about scenes from it days later.
  15. mikeszekely
    Well, that and the price.
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