mikeszekely

The first time I transformed him he seemed tight, but he's fine now and I haven't seen any cracking. It would probably be a good idea for me to take him apart and take a look, but I'm too lazy right now. Also, busy... because I still have to review the rest of the set! It's no secret that the HasLab is Omega Prime, and to make Omega Prime you also need Ultra Magnus. So... here's Ultra Magnus. Magnus is, at the best of times, kind of an awkward, leggy dude, and at first glance there's not a ton of difference between the new and old figures (the big color difference is largely due to my Magnus coming from the Costco reissue during the run of Transfomers Cybertron). Same ugly shoulder joints, same way-too-long legs. His torso is a bit more filled out, though, and the head looks a lot better with an improved sculpt, white face, and colored forehead crest. Like Prime, Magnus doesn't have the batteries and voicebox, so his backpack's smaller, and he's rocking massive heels for improved stability. That said, it leaves his legs even emptier in the back than the original. In Magnus' box, he just comes with his own Matrix. You can open his super hollow chest and plug it in there. Note that while Prime has one Matrix that he has to move between his core bot or his armored chest, Magnus gets a Matrix of his very own. Magnus' other accessory is Bluebolts, and Bluebolts gets herown box. Now, Bluebolts is interesting to me because the original always struck me as such an awkward weapon. The new one, which has the missiles but not the firing gimmick, has some pretty drastic molded differences but she's picked up some new gimmicks. For starters, he has a robot mode now! As near as I can tell, her head (and gender) are based on the End of G1 Universe manga Takara created to help promote some of their MP redecos, starting with Dark Amber Leo Prime. A blue version of Kingdom Skywarp (the Airazor retool) appeared in it, and they chose to name the character Bluebolt as a reference to Beast Wars Silverbolt and the whole Bluestreak/Silverstreak thing. When writer Hayato Sakamoto realized the name previously went with RID Magnus' weapon, he came up with a backstory that essentially made the one in his manga an upgraded form of Magnus' weapon. Note that while the manga hasn't officially gendered Bluebolts, the art often depicts the character in traditionally feminine poses, which has in turn caused Hasbro designer Evan Brooks to say that he's going to refer to Bluebolts as a "she" going forward. Good enough for Evan, good enough for me. Bluebolts' head is on a ball joint with fairly limited tilt forward/backward/sideways. Her shoulders swivel and move laterally about 90 degrees. Her biceps swivel, and her elbows bend over 90 degrees. She doesn't really have hands, but the weapon barrels and the red bits at the ends of her arms both swivel. Her waist swivels. Her hips can go 90 degrees forward and backward, and well over 90 degrees laterally. Her thighs swivel, and her knees bend nearly 180 degrees. Her feet can tilt up due to transformation, but not down, and her ankles pivot under 45 degrees. Ostensibly, the missiles use tabbed fins to plug into slots on Bluebolt's back, but they are basically a long 5mm tube and can plug into 5mm ports, including her own gun hands. The tips have the smaller nubs for Siege effect parts. As much as I do like Bluebolts, she's a Weaponizer, which makes her more accessory than separate character. She breaks down into two arms, two legs, two missiles, and her torso. Magnus' head is on a ball joint that can tilt up and sideways a bit, but lacks any downward tilt. His shoulders swivel and move 90 degrees laterally. His biceps swivel, and his elbows bend a little over 90 degrees. Like Super Mode Optimus, his hands are basically identical to the original toy's, so they scan swivel and fold forward, with a curled 5mm peg on a hinge for a thumb and curled fingers on a hinge. No waist articulation. His hips can ratchet forward 90 degrees but can't really move backward at all. They can ratchet over 90 degrees laterally. His thighs swivel, and his knees bend probably about 120 degrees. His feet don't have any up/down tilt, but he does have about 45 degrees of ankle pivot. Because Magnus doesn't have traditional hands with 5mm ports he can't hold most weapons. IIRC, Bluebolts had transformations that put one barrel forward and the other plugged into the side of his forearm on the original toy. With this version, only Blue Bolt's legs are needed, so Magnus can dual-wield. Her shoulder pegs plug into 5mm ports on the front of Magnus' forearms, while the red bits swivel down to sit in his hands as if he were holding them. As for the rest of Blue Bolts, if you transform her legs like you would for her normal alt mode but swivel her torso down 90 degrees, her torso fits into an empty spot in Magnus' backpack with her shoulder sockets locking into grooves. This gives Magnus a kind of back cannon. Magnus is also compatible with the stands, and this is where the adapters finally come in. You slide it onto the taller peg, and you wind up with a pair of pegs pointed in one direction (toward the back of the stand. These pegs will plug into a flap behind Magnus' butt. Just like Prime has storage for his pistol on his backpack, Magnus has storage for Bluebolts. You have to start by yanking her apart. Then open Magnus' chest and lift up the flap with his head. On the underside you'll find a 5mm peg. This peg plugs into a spot on Bluebolts' back, with her butt facing up and toward the front. Her torso helps fill in the emptiness that is inside Magnus. Bend her knees, and they can plug into the side of Mangus' legs, while a peg on the inside of her leg goes into a port on the inside of Magnus'. With the legs in place, pegs near the red part of Bluebolt's arms plug into ports on the sides of Magnus' legs so that Bluebolt's arms cover her own legs and fill in Magnus' calves. The missiles, which were actually a later edition to the design, simply jam into a second 5mm port and point at each other on Magnus' calves. In broad strokes Magnus' transformation is extremely similar to the original toy. There's one significant change, though. Instead of Magnus' legs disconnecting at the thighs, his abs and pelvis come off with his legs. They then split in half, and his lower torso has to fold into his legs with his thighs. In place of his pelvis and hips under the cab is mostly empty space, save for a brand new flap the original toy didn't have. As with Prime, the result is a truck that is basically the same size as the original and trades problematic rubber tires of the original toy for plastic ones. There's also some pretty significant differences in the molded details, but I'm not clear on why. Like, what was their inspiration? It's clearly not the original toy. But the cartoon is even more simplified, where the HasLab version is just busier. As with the original toy, Bluebolts can plug on top of Magnus' truck mode. There are pegs near the front of the trailer that plug into ports on the bottom of Bluebolts. Thing is, I kind of recall that Bluebolts sat on the back of Magnus's trailer in the cartoon, and I seem to recall that Bluebolts could ride on the front or back of the trailer on the original toy. There are some sideways peg holes on the back of HasLab Magnus' trailer, but I'm not sure how you'd use them to secure Bluebolts without untabbing her arms. Anyway, it was apparently a big deal for the Takara side of the HasLab team to make sure that Magnus' trailer can open up. The ramp on top can fold down, and with it folded up there's just enough space for most Deluxe cars to tuck in and still have room to close he door. This, right here... this is the gimmick that they felt was more important than scale. Me? I'd have 100% ditched the ability to cram the not-very-good Legacy Sideburn into Magnus' trailer and made Magnus smaller if it meant scaling Prime down so his non-super mode was no bigger than SS86 Optimus, but oh well. It is what it is. Much of the transformation to Omega Prime is pretty much the same as before. Magnus' legs scrunch up into shoes in the same way, and Prime's feet connect to them in the same way save for an additional peg that secures the side of the shoe to Prime's leg. The arms transform the same way, even going so far as to replicate the handshake gimmick where Magnus' thumb plugs into Prime's fist. Then, of course, the rest of Magnus fits on top of Prime. But that's where things get different. For starters, Magnus' pelvis and hips aren't Omega Prime's abs, as they're now folded into the shoes with the rest of his legs. Instead, there's a flap that hangs down from Magnus' cab to make Omega Prime's abs and pelvis, with Magnus' chest tucked up behind it rather than forming the pelvis. Since it's just a flap, the sides of the cab open and the front of it double hinges up and backward, reducing how much his chest sticks out. Magnus' backpack and wings sit a bit higher on Omega Prime's back, and there's some space in Prime's backpack for Magnus's biceps to tuck into. Aside from tucking Magnus' arms into the backpack, there's slots under Omega Prime's head that grab tabs on top of Optimus' body, clips under the ab-flap that plug into Optimus' chest, and a tab on Magnus' backpack that plugs into Optimus' backpack. So once again, the result is a better proportioned, significantly sturdier combined mode. The Omega Prime head is on a ball joint and can tilt a little up, down, or sideways. His shoulders, biceps, elbows, waist, hips, and knees are the same joints on Optimus and have the essentially the same range (though the Omega Prime shoulder and chest armor can interfere with his shoulder swivel). Omega Prime's hands swivel. There's a hinge that folds the thumb over the palm, and two hinges in the fingers (which are all molded together. The front of Omega Prime's feet can fold down due to transformation (which breaks the sculpt), and his ankles pivot 45 degrees. Just like the original toy, you can turn Bluebolts upside down and use pegs on her feet to plug into the top of Omega Prime's backpack. He again doesn't have 5mm ports in is hands, but there's some on the backs of his hands and on all four sides of his forearms. There are also pegs on the outside of his forearms and legs. There's no mention of it in the instructions, but supposedly Omega Prime was designed with a deliberate fan mode in mind, and rumors suggest it involves sticking the leftover bits from Optimus' traileronto Omega Prime. Omega Prime can use the stand, and he attaches exactly the same way Super Mode Optimus does. And that finally brings us to the last box, Omega Prime's Matrix Blade. I get that it's a thing from the cartoon. I get that it was an accessory that came with Japanese "Special Clear God Fire Convoy" and Encore releases. But, seriously, what are we supposed to do with it? In theory, there are a trio of tabs in each of Omega Prime's palms that fit into the numerous notches on the handle. In practice, the thing is too big and heavy. Gravity pulls it off the tabs. And remember, aside from the lateral shoulder movement, none of the joints in Prime's arms are ratcheted. His elbow joints and shoulder swivels droop, and his wrist spins around as gravity inevitably pulls the heaviest part, the blade, back to the ground. You're pretty much confined to posing him like I have, with one arm straight out and the hand holding the sword at just the right height for the pommel to touch the ground and help support the blade. Like Optimus, Magnus is clearly improved over the original toy, but still copies so much from the original toy that I can't help but feel like they didn't improve enough. Also like Optimus, he scales poorly with other Generations figures for the sake of a car carrying gimmick that I'd have gladly given up in favor of better scale and more improved engineering. I love the new Bluebolts, though, and the Omega Prime mode seems to have the most changes for the better, resulting in a much sturdier, more stable, and better proportioned combined mode. I have to confess, I'm simultaneously quite happy with Omega Prime while also being oddly dissatisfied. On the one hand, HasLab Omega Prime fixes a lot of the problems the original toys had. There are improvements to articulation, improvements to the joints, improvements to the transformation, and improvements to the connections that make the Super Mode and Omega Prime modes especially sturdier and better proportioned, and again I love the idea of making Bluebolts a Weaponizer. Give that this set, with its improvements, with two stands, with Cerebros, and with a transforming Bluebolts cost a little less than the Encore reissue of the original Omega Prime it's a pretty good deal that gives you the best version of Omega Prime to date. But on the other hand, while this feels like a great update of the original RID toys, for me it doesn't really scratch that itch I have for a true Generations version of RID Optimus or RID Magnus. The scale is off, and the aesthetic just isn't there. He's not really a Masterpiece, either, but I do find myself thinking maybe he'd go better with Fans Hobby's Scourge and MMC's Ruination than with Legacy Sideburn and Legacy Towline.

HasLab's here! Inside the shipping box was a brown box, and inside the brown box was the actual box, which had a few smaller boxes in it. Hasbro hates trees, I guess. Today we're going to get into just two of the boxes, as we look at Optimus Prime (RiD 2001). My initial thought is that the newer figure is maybe two steps forward, one step back. On the plus side, his sculpt is by-and-large better defined than the original toy. His fists are separated from the armor on his forearms, allowing you to slide it back so his hands aren't always buried (though I think they should have added a hinge to the arm kibble so it could fold up a bit). I think the new head is on-point, and the removal of the batteries and speaker means his backpack is greatly reduced. Plus he has heels now, making him more stable. I think I actually prefer that the red on his chest isn't chromed. The sort of corkscrew shape between his window pecs is an indent now, though. His abs, which are silver paint instead of chrome now, don't have quite the right shape. The lightbars on his his back have hollowed divots that make them look almost like Lego parts, a fact which isn't helped at all when you realize that they're just pegged on (and a tad loose at that). It's harder to notice, but the backs of his hands are also hollowed. I get hollowing a toy that you're trying to cram into a retail budget, but c'mon, on a made-to-order project that you can charge whatever you want for? Maybe they should make "no hollow gaps" one of the funding tiers. 😒 My biggest gripe, though, is really the size. Hasbro's made a big deal about how the mainline toys since Siege are supposed to better reflect their scale, yet Prime's even bigger than the original toy. This makes him a little over a head taller than the Commander-class SS86 Optimus, who was already pulling up taller than most other recent Optimus figures. Proportionally he's wider than the original toy, too. Too be fair, that's not the end of the world, but I feel like Hasbro had a chance to approach this design fresh and it would have been cool to see some clever engineering that could have widened him for Super Mode. As it is he kind of reminds me of that Kanye video for "I Love It" where him and Lil Pump are wearing those wide, blocky costumes. As far as accessories in the box with Prime goes, we've got his pistol, an Energon Matrix, and a Titan Master of Cerebros. Cebreros is a repaint of Legends Fortress (who was released as Emissary with the SDCC version of Titans Returns Fortress Maximus, but NOT the retail version). Transformation's the same, and you can plug him into any Titans Return body. You also get all these pieces. I mean, he's actually packaged in alt mode, but I almost always start with bot mode, so... bits. In the second box we're covering today you get these- two stands, two bases, two adapters, and two thingies. Yes, that's the technical name. Alright, so Prime's head is on a ball joint, but the shape means he's got a fairly limited up/down/sideways tilt. Note that his head is actually on a slider so you can move it forward so his chin clears the lip around his neck for swiveling. His shoulders swivel, and they ratchet 90 degrees from inside the shoulder armor. There is also a friction hinge in his chest, and it'll probably engage before the ratchet does, but it's for transformation and using it for articulation gives him Hot Rod Shoulders. His biceps swivel, and his elbows bend 90 degrees. His wrists swivel. His waist swivels, though his backpack kind of gets in the way. His hips can go forward just under 90 degrees and backward about 45 on an extremely tough ratchet. A slightly less tough ratchet gives him 90 degrees of spread. His thighs swivel, and his ratcheted knees bend a little short of 90 degrees. There's another swivel below the knee for transformation, then his feet are on ball joints so they can swivel, tilt up/down slightly, and pivot a bit under 45 degrees. Prime holds his pistol in either hand via a standard 5mm arrangement. He also has a 5mm port on his backpack between the lightbars, one on each shin, and one on each calf. If you open Prime's back (rather than his chest) you'll find a small molded compartment. That's one of the places where you can store his Matrix. The stands slide into the grooves on the bases; either direction is fine. You don't need the adapter parts for Prime, just the stand and base. I chose to position him this way to give him a more airborne pose, but if you want his feet on the base you'd turn the stand around and use the lower peg on the other side into the same spot on Prime's butt. You may have noticed the pegs on Prime's shoulders. They're so you can take these specific parts from the bits and plug them onto his shoulders as missile launchers. You may also, as was the case with the original toy, arrange the parts into a sort of defense platform. But my personal favorite use for them is to turn them into the back of Prime's alt mode. An alt mode which is, of course, a fire truck. The transformation to truck mode is almost identical, though there are a few more connection points for the bits to form the trailer, which makes it feel more secure. The main differences are that the part of the trailer with the super forearms comes off with the cab rather than staying on the trailer, Prime's pec windows swivel with his arms, and for some reason the mechanical bits over the wheels on his shins are separate pieces that have to be swiveled into place rather than just being the back of the wheels. The new version is about the same length, but slightly bigger and taller (and, as mentioned, a bit sturdier). C-001 is tampoed onto his front and rear license plates, an animation detail that was missing from at least the original American version. The rubber tires, a point of failure for the original toys, have been replaced with plastic. The cab has a slightly more exaggerated shape, there's more mechanical details on the sides, and the ladder and stairs are a bit more detailed. Prime's pistol still plugs onto the back of the front bumper, between Prime's knees. And the seat on the other side of the ladder has been widened to accommodate Cerebros or another Titan Master. The ladder can swivel and extend. It has sort of has the missiles of the original toys... they're folded out manually and do not fire. In fact, they're molded right onto the red parts of the launchers. They have nubs on the ends that make them compatible with post-Siege blast effects, though. The removal of the firing gimmick means that a button was no longer necessary, and it's been replaced with more mechanical details. The gun/hose barrels still fold out of the end of the ladder, but they're now on ball joints for some reason which gives them some wiggle. Note that when the end of the ladder is folded down there's a space on it that Cerebros can stand in. For displaying Prime in his vehicle mode you can set the stands and adapters aside, and connect both bases together using the thingies (again, technical term). This makes a road-like platform that's modeled after a segment of the Autobots Global Space Bridge seen in the cartoon. In what was already becoming the standard after Ultra Magnus and Powermaster Optimus/Super Ginrai, the reason there's so much truck left after Optimus turns into a robot is because once it's split into bits it becomes an armored power-up. Again, the combination is nearly identical. Some minor changes include the torso piece not only plugging into the top and front of Prime's torso, but onto his backpack as well for added stability, and the shoulder parts are now identical (vs the pipe only being on one side) so it no longer matters which shoulder you put them on. He's also tall enough now that you don't have to fold the end of the ladder. The biggest change, though, is a new part of the backpack (which I didn't realize I'd missed in the above photos, sorry). Those of you with the original toy may recall that Prime's torso has two levels of expansion, one fully extended so he can transform, and that's sort of halfway for Super Mode. A hinge swings to bits at the bottom of his backpack around the sides of the exposed transformation hinge, better locking the torso in place. This makes the new toy feel much more solid than the original, which I'd describe as "rickety." Here's another quick size comparison. In Super Mode he's coming in slightly taller than Commander-class Armada Prime's Super Mode. And I can't help but note that the thickening of the base robot I complained about actually makes for a less skinny, more proportional Super Mode than the original RID toy. Prime's new head seems to be on a ball joint, but I'm not totally sure. He can look up about 45 degrees if you collapse his neck back in, and down about 45 degrees if his neck is out all the way. It also swivels and has a decent amount of sideways tilt, but that sideways tilt only works if his head is turned a bit. His shoulders, biceps, and elbows are the same joints as before, though the pegs on his elbows limit the outward range slightly. With his shoulders expanded he's also go a slight forward and excellent backward butterfly joint. His hands are basically the same as the original toy's; they swivel, and his wrists can bend inward, a hinge folds his thumbs down over his palms, and his fingers are permanently curled with a hinge at the base. His pelvis armor just hangs over his normal pelvis and doesn't plug in, so if you lift it he's still got his waist swivel. It's actually slightly better, due to the bottom of the backpack being folded into his waist. Hips, thighs, and knees are the same. A hinge on the platform his feet plug into provides him with a solid 45 degrees of ankle pivot. The ladder can still fold over his shoulder. The guns on his forearms swivel, plus the barrels are hinged. Because the hands are basically the same as the original toy he doesn't have any way to hold his pistol in this mode, something I would have liked even if this way is truer to the original toy. There are a few other 5mm ports, though; two on top of each shoulder, one on the front and one on the back of each shoulder, two on the back of each hand, one under each foot, and two on the side of each leg, in addition to the one on his backpack, one on the side of his legs, and one on his calves that are still available in Super Mode. What he's lacking, though, is the port the original had to the side of his head for adding the pistol as a shoulder weapon. Instead, there are 3mm pegs on the sides of his backpack that plug into ports on the pistol. The section of his bandolier with the Autobot insignia flips open, revealing another spot (and my preferred spot) to store his Matrix. Prime can use the stand by plugging it into his butt, same as before, except this time you have to use the the taller port on the other side of the stand (refer to the earlier picture). Aside from holding him up taller for a natural standing pose, the taller peg has space in front of it to rest his crotch on. That will keep him from tipping to the side, like so. HasLab RID Super Optimus gives me a lot of mixed feelings. On one hand, RID Optimus has been one of my favorite non-G1 Optimus designs, combining signature details like the head with the mask and ears, the primary red color, and the chest with pec windows and silver abs with excellent Japanese super robot anime vibes. The original toy is, like I said, a tad rickety now, and a sturdier modern version with improved engineering and articulation has been extremely high on my wish list since I started collecting. But, while I think Hasbro delivered on a lot of my wishlist there, I'm not convinced they lived up to the "improved engineering" part. Yes, they did make some changes that result in a figure that's sturdier across all his modes, but that's kind of where they stopped. The design, especially in the transformation, remains extremely similar to the original toy. This means the passed on some improvements I might have made, like folding up the arm kibble on the core robot better, but also has the effect of making him seem not quite compatible with modern Generations figures. So is he worth it? I guess you'll have to tune in for part 2 to find out.

Defensor is probably my least favorite combiner/team, and even I have to say that this set has been some of MMC's best work. Groove was especially a highlight for me.

My copy is paid for, just waiting for TCP to stock it so I can ship my stash.

Well well... FedEx's delivery date went from Saturday to Tuesday then back to Saturday. So unless they screw something up (which is still a possibility, FedEx SUCKS in my area) I should have Omega Prime in hand this weekend, and hopefully have reviews up early next week for people to read at work. Thinking I'm going to break this one up... I'll review Optimus/Super Optimus, then I'll review Magnus, Bluebolts, and Omega Prime after.

Not a launch game. Not even a 2025 game, which is a bummer because the Switch 2 could really use a game like that, even if I'm personally not interested.

Yeah, honestly their launch lineup is mediocre enough that I was originally going to wait until Metroid at the earliest to even bother with the Switch 2, but potential tariffs made me think it might be better to just get one now. Because, even though I consider myself a PC gamer and haven't really touched my original Switch in ages, Nintendo makes some of my favorite games. I always buy their consoles because I know, if nothing else, I'll want to play their 1st party games for the next several years (and likely a few good Nintendo-published 2nd/3rd party games).

Well, I got the bundle with Mario Forza Kart Horizon, but I haven't committed to anything else at launch. It's a safe bet I buy the upgrades for BotW and TotK, but that might be it for me since I'm really only in it for 1st party games (almost everything else announced at the Nintendo Direct wound up on my Steam wishlist). Down the road, though, I'll probably be checking out Donkey Kong, and I'm 100% getting Metroid Prime 4 and Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment.

Yeah, I got in on Prime right away, too. Did you do Deathsaurus (I meant) Liokaiser? I eventually backed it, but not until Deathcobra was funded. I guess we'll see if it takes me longer to get him next year than all the early backers, or if there's some other method to their madness.

Dang, that's fast! Mine was originally saying it should arrive Saturday, but last I checked FedEx is now saying Tuesday.

I'm a big fan of MegaTen games, so I put this on my Steam wishlist last month when they announced it. Between this, Gundam Seed Battle Destiny, and Oblivion it's looking like a good year for playing shinier versions of games I already played.

When Nintendo announced the price I thought I'd just sit this one out for awhile. But after Nintendo postponed the NA preorders and all the accessories went up in price, $500 for the Mario Kart bundle started seeming pretty reasonable compared to $525-$575 for the console alone that some industry analysts are predicting if the full force of the tariffs go into effect, so...

I wasn't aware of recent OutRun ports. Like, Arcade Archives or something? I guess it makes sense, though... those licenses expire. It's why you can currently only buy Forza Horizon 5 and the Forza Motorsport reboot but none of the older ones. I'm a BIG Porsche fan, so there better be some of those in the movie, too.

Eww, that's just... eww. I mean no disrespect to American muscle cars, but OutRun isn't OutRun without Ferrari. The only way I'd accept anything less is if Ferrari simply won't play ball, but if that's the case they should go with a similarly-expensive Italian car with a similarly-ridiculous amount of power.

On paper it should be; that MV car and the one in the original OutRun are but Testarossas (F110), and the Testarossas was one of the playable Ferraris in OutRun 2/Coast 2 Coast. But I could see Ferrari (or Bay) insisting that they use a more current model like the F80 or 12Cilindri. ... And I don't know how I feel about that. The gamer in me says the Testarossa is more authentic, but the car nerd in me would love to see the F80 in action.

That's the plan!

Got a notice from FedEx that I have an 11 pound package coming from Hasbro, but no emails from Hasbro. Based on part experiences that means Omega Prime is shipping.

Y'know... as much as I'm not a fan of what Michael Bay did with the Transformers movies, his style would probably work for Outrun. Hot girl, lots of glamour shots of the cars, maybe some high speed chases (with explosions). Pretty sure I've seen worse.

It's not that I disagree, I just don't know how much faith I have in them not to go for the easy cash grab. And it's not just the fact that the joints for Magnus don't line up with the cab. The cab used the fist holes to connect, and ML Convoy doesn't have those fist holes. I think it's probably pretty trivial to find a way to transform Magnus' fists, but what about the chest, waist, and head? How many changes do we tolerate before it's less G1 toy with articulation and more new toy? I'm just feeling a bit pessimistic about this one. Fortunately Grimlock should be much easier for Takara to pull off.

That, unfortunately, is an exceedingly likely possibility. On the plus side for you, if that turns out to be the case an ML Nemesis Prime would pretty much be a guarantee after that.

While that'd be nice it's my understanding that the original molds for the Dinobots were either lost or degraded/destroyed. Then again, I'd heard the same thing about Hound, and Walmart relatively re-released him in the animation accurate colors, and there's supposed to be decent KOs of them out there, so...🤷‍♂️

Haven't been to Target since last week, but they didn't have jack then. Looks like Walmart did a reset- the Transformers section moved, and now they've got lots of new Studio Series and Age of the Primes toys, plus Retro Gears and Bee, but nothing bigger than Voyager. Waiting on Silverbolt, I guess. Amazon says he's delayed, but was due on April 2nd (better than some people, though; I had Amazon cancelled a bunch of orders). Pulse says November.

Yeah. At the time Long Haul was released I was still fully expecting to be all-in on MMC's and that's it, but now that I've Ground Bite in hand I'm really sorry I slept on Big Load. Couple of mine have loose joints now. But there's other stuff that bugs me, like how Boncrusher's chest doesn't stay hooked on, the tolerances on all the panels jammed into Mixmaster's legs, Scrapper's lower legs being as thick as they are tall, Long Haul's difficulty standing up without the panels from the upgrade kit, etc. A little birdie told me that MMC's should have working treads.😉 Same, Vortex is looking very good (especially compared to the CW version). But be warned, they're definitely using a frame for him like Superion and Menasor.

I think he's been fine as Devastator for a long time, but taking them apart for some of these recent reviews made the flaws in the individual bots stand out. And it's not like you can ever have too many Devastators.

Until MMC starts releasing their Constructicons, the main competition to X-Transbots is going to be Fans Toys. So, this would be their Scrapper, Gehry. If Fans Toys had released Gehry when the only "MP" competition was ToyWorld I think we'd all be pretty satisfied. He's a big boy, made of the sort of quality materials people have come to expect from Fans Toys with just about every surface painted. He's super cartoon accurate, too, with the green lumps instead of wheels on his shoulders and the shins that are smooth boxes unblemished save for the simple round bits just below the knees. Gehry's problem, though, is that he's not coming out alone against the decade-old ToyWorld set, he's come at very nearly the same time as X-Transbot's Ground Bite. Traditionally I think these sorts of matchups have favored Fans Toys... compare their Cyconlus, their Seaspray (2.0 for FT), their Blaster, their Perceptor (2.0 for FT), their Cliffjumper, their Trailbreaker, etc, and FT has come out ahead (although not always ahead enough to justify their prices). This time, though, I'm inclined to argue that Ground Bite looks a bit better. Objectively, I think the purple FT chose is a tad too red, and he's a bit too wide. Subjectively, the plain sculpt is maybe a bit too Sunbow for me, leaving Gehry a bit lifeless. Oh, and there's also the backpack. FT seems to have over-engineered the shovel to shrink it down in the name of... what, cartoon accuracy? I went back through a couple of clips of Scrapper in the cartoon, and his shovel wasn't so narrowed. And so much of that condensed mass is just random dangly kibble flaps. Then there's the fact that his front wheels are stuffed into his butt. I'm not necessarily holding it against him, but Gehry comes with fewer accessories, too. You get a big green chunk of... thing. You get his trumpet, and you get his gun. On his own, Gehry's articulation is a bit sub-standard, which is even worse when you compare it to Ground Bite's above-average articulation. Gehry's head is on a hinged swivel with almost no downward range and about 45 degrees of upward tilt. HIs shoulders rotate and move 90 degrees laterally. His biceps swivel, and his elbows bend about 60 degrees. His wrists swivel, but no bend. His thumbs have a ball joint at the base and a single hinged knuckle. Each of his fingers are individually articulated with a hinge at the base and a hinge at the middle knuckle. He technically does have a waist swivel, but what you see in the above image is the maximum range you're going to get out of it because the wheels in his butt completely obstruct it. No ab crunch, either. His hips ratchet forward a little over 90 degrees, but backward only about 30 degrees. Lateral movement is a friction joint, and it's also limited to about 75 degrees. He has a limited thigh swivel, and his knees bend 90 degrees. His feet tilt down and slightly up, with about 45 degrees of ankle pivot before you have to fold down his heel to clear the edge of his leg. He can hold his gun and trumpet much the same way most MP-style figure do, with tabs on the accessories that fit into slots on his palms. I'll note that the tab on the trumpet is such that you curl his fingers through the loop under the keys. That's actually movie-accurate. While there's no storage for his weapons in robot mode, if you're worried about it there is storage on his back for the big green thing. Transforming Gehry's legs is pretty straightforward, perhaps even more so than Ground Bite. Enjoy that part, though, because the rest of the transformation is decidedly less enjoyable. A frankly unnecessary amount of the transformation is spent expanding his shovel and arranging the shovel's arms. Then there's his own arms, which spin apart so that you can kind of wedge his shoulders into the front of the alt mode but stick his forearms along the sides. The wheels move from his butt to the space his shoulders vacated. If you just look at the part of the loader made from Gehry's legs it's fine. The detail is pretty simplified, but that's kind of how the cartoon was even if it's not my preference. Likewise, the roof over the open cab is more cartoon/toy accurate than Ground Bite. But that's all the nice things I can say, because everything else is a mess of random parts smashed together in a way that's neither cartoon accurate, toy accurate, or realistic. Lumps of arm kibble lay along the sides, lumps of shoulder kibble cover the front, there's no details in the "cockpit" for a driver, the arms connecting the shovel are just kind of there, and the shovel itself is covered in seams and gaps to facilitate the again largely unnecessary robot mode shrinkage. It does, at least, roll. And the shovel can be raised to about this height. Alt mode weapon storage is as simple as plugging a tab on the underside of the loader's rear into a slot on the side of the gun. The green hunk of kibble can plug onto the top of the rear, with a shovel-looking piece reaching down into the void that's supposed to be the driver's cabin. I'm not sure why you'd actually want to store it in either his robot or his alt modes, though, aside from the fact that you really don't want to lose it. Yesterday, I said that Ground Bite makes for an excellent Scrapper due to his robot and loader modes, but I expressed some concern over the leg mode. Suffice to say, Fans Toys took the opposite approach. All the complaints I had about Gehry's robot and especially his alt mode seem to be sacrifices in the name of his leg mode. Because, yeah, XTB went the usual route of standing the loader up on it's front with the shovel as the toes and his robot arms as his heels, but FT used Gehry's thicker robot arms to connect to the shovel. This in turn lifts the loader higher, which makes his robot legs form the Devastator thigh. The cabin flattens across the top, giving the cartoon-accurate square on the knee and semi-hiding his front wheels, while the back wheels fold inside his robot legs. Meanwhile, some flaps change position on shovel blade to give him the two-toed look. That green chunk we've been just sort of dealing with in his other modes becomes a vital part of the leg mode, as the bulk of it forms a cartoon-accurate angled heel, with the shovel-esque part reaching to sit between his robot shoulders to form a uniform bit on the front of the leg. The result is a leg mode that fairly accurately captures the wonky Sunbow animation model, for better or worse. In leg mode, it looks like Gehry has a just under 45 degrees of ankle pivot, no up or down tilt, and just under 90 degrees of knee bend, and he feels solid as a brick (save for a flap in the shovel where a tab broke off). I don't have any real concerns about the combined mode here, and somewhat interestingly, it's actually easier to flip between robot and leg mode than robot and loader or loader and leg. In the battle for your shelf, I think Ground Bite is pretty definitely the better Scrapper. However, I did say yesterday that I think a lot of people care more about a Masterpiece Devastator than a Masterpiece Scrapper, and on that note Ground Bite's greatest weakness is Gehry's greatest strength. So if you want a Masterpiece Scrapper, skip Gehry and get Ground Bite. But if you don't care to transform your figures and you want the best Devastator, well, the tables have turned and you might want to pass on Ground Bite and grab Gehry and the other Fans Toys Constructicons. If you're curious what I personally plan to do, I think I may continue to pick up X-Transbots' Constructicons (assuming their Long Haul get's a reissue) based on how good they look in their robot and alt modes and how (surprisingly) solid the QC and engineering is. Based on my experience with Gehry (and from what I've seen of their next release, their Scavenger) I think Fans Toys' bots are just too expensive to have such compromised robot and alt modes, so even if their Devastator turns out great I'm out. I'm looking forward to MMC's Constructicons. Based on their track record with Bruticus and Defensor I'm expectingly delightfully clever yet fun transformations. I think they probably won't have better robot or alt modes than XTB, or a better Devastator mode than Fans Toys, but are the most likely to average out the best across all three modes.