mikeszekely

Andrew Koji was Storm Shadow in the Snake Eyes movie, and he's in The Warriors on HBO. And David Dastmalchian was Polka-Dot Man in The Suicide Squad. Roman Reigns is a pro wrestler, and apparently Orville Peck is a county music singer. Other than that, I don't really know either.

A little, but like Bruce Lee he's pretty defined, and a trained martial artist. I'm willing to give him a chance.

New Street Fighter reboot movie officially announced, along with cast pics. I'll be honest, I don't know who most of those people are. But they seem like reasonably good fits... for the most part. I could definitely see David Dastmalchian (one of the guys I do know!) doing his best Raul Julia as Bison. I'm not loving Roman Reigns as Akuma, though. And what the heck is going on with Orville Peck? My first thought was that his cast photo had him in costume, and for some reason they were changing Vega's mask to something more like Zorro. But I guess a mask and cowboy hat is Peck's normal public look? So it's meta having a guy who likes wearing a mask play the guy who likes wearing a mask?

I think I was always the wrong audience for the Transformers X G.I. Joe line. I mean, I love Transformers, but I wasn't really into G.I. Joe as a kid, so to me they were kinda of expensive, kibbly, cheap-feeling toys with fairly simple engineering that were too big to scale with my other Generations figures. And although I thought Soundwave turned out pretty decent, Megatron and Bumblebee were bad enough that when Kup was announced instead of a more beloved character I decided to pass. But then Amazon had to go and put him on sale (or is it clearance?), so... Well, my complaint about the size stands (kinda), and the head sculpt is somehow worse than the Studio Series toy. I'm not totally sure why he's green instead of blue, either, since the majority of those green robot parts are hidden in alt mode. Colors aside, though, the feet, thighs, arms, and head are definitely very Kup in sculpt, and he's give got his abs and belt. What's more, while he is a bit thick and he does have big chunks of tread hanging from his significant backpack, there's not a lot of obvious plastic-saving, cost-cutting hollow spots visible on his person. And, big backpack aside, he's seems a lot less kibbly than the previous three figures in the line. For accessories, Kup comes with a pair of missiles, a pair of guns, and two retro G.I. Joe figures. Sgt. Slaughter I know, he was everywhere when I was a kid. St. Slaughter comes with a stand and a baton (but what's the whip-like bit at the tip?). I think the other guy is Leatherneck, who comes with a stand, a rifle, and a backpack. Kup's articulation isn't too bad, acutally. His head's on a ball joint that allows him to swivel and provides a limited up/down/sideways tilt. A transformation hinge at the base of the stem gives him a ton more downward tilt. His shoulders rotate on ratchets, and can move laterally over 90 degrees. His biceps swivel, and his elbows bend 90 degrees. His wrists swivel, as does his waist (on a soft ratchet no less!). His hips swivel forward 90 degrees and backward a little less than that due to his backpack getting in the way, on a ratchet, and over 90 degrees laterally. His thighs swivel, and his knees bend 90 degrees on a ratchet. His toes can tilt downward (due to his transformation), and his ankles can pivot 90 degrees. Kup can hold the guns in either hand, though the round base looks a bit weird. The missiles store on rails on the inner edge of the tread kibble on his backpack. The guns can also store back there by plugging them into peg holes near the missile rails. You have to remove the accessories to get them out of the way, but you can fold open Kup's backpack to reveal a computer. The backpack only opens to 90 degrees, and the inside has a quartet of those little pegs for Joes' feet, so Sgt. Slaughter and Leatherneck can ride back there. The instructions for transforming Kup are a bit confusing, but once you know what you're doing it's pretty simple. Rotate the arms at the shoulders so he's pointing straight up, then fold the fists inward. Turn the biceps so that the fists are now pointing forward. Pull the front of his torso away, unclip his shoulders from his collar, and open the flap behind his head. Spin the head 180, lift the backpack a bit, then shift it so that the panel his head is on rotates and you can fold his head into the gap under the panel you opened. The backpack should line up with his torso so that the rivet sits into a notch near the tampoed star on either side. Fold the flap back down, and cover it with the second flap that rotated out with when the head folded in. Get the treads out of the way, and the arms should fold right through the gap and under his backpack. The tread kibble needs to rotate on the black armatures so that the armatures can swing forward and line the white fender up with the bit that you already made from his arms. If you did it right, tabs on the forearms will lock into the the inside of the tread. Fold open the little bits of kibble on his shins, then bend his knees forward the wrong way about 90 degrees. Push the lower leg so that it detaches from the knee and hinges around to the outside... the treads on his legs connect to the treads from his backpack, the bottom of his shins continue to form the fenders over the treads, but don't push everything together too tightly yet. Double-hinge the front of the treads up from the backs of his legs and into place. Open the two flaps next to his tummy grill, then spin his tummy 180 degrees. Use the hinges to push the front of the torso into place as the vehicle's nose, making sure to line up the tabs on the nose with the slots on the front of the fender. If you have everything lined up, the fenders will push in tight with those little kibble flaps filling int he gaps between the nose and the backpack. Again, not really into G.I. Joe, so I had to look this up... but this is the Tag Team Terminator, or Triple T. Apparently, this is Sgt. Slaughter's personal vehicle, and was originally the only way to get Sgt. Slaughter v2 in 1986 (though he had a v1 release that year and v2 would get a standalone release the following year). Hasbro did a really good job recreating the original Triple T toy... aside from a few extra seams and an Autobot badge, the only really noticeable differences are that you can't see through the gap between the treads and the fenders, and Kup's forearms are a little visible from the rear. Kup retains most of the functionality of the original Triple T as well... as near as I can tell, the only thing he's really missing is that you can't open the engine cover. But the missiles plug onto tabs on the treads, and the guns plug into ports on the sides of the seat where they can swivel, like the original toy. One Joe can sit in the seat, like the original toy, where he can hold the joystick, like the original toy. He's still go the foot pegs on the treads, like the original toy. In lieu of the engine, you can again open the rear to reveal the computer that was in Kup's backpack, and to give more Joes places to stand. One more gimmick the original toy didn't have is storage for Sgt. Slaughter's baton and Leatherneck's rifle and backpack. I said I wasn't the target audience for this line. Maybe Joe fans who just wanted cheaper vehicles weren't into the line, either... there was an Optimus planned for the line, but from what info I had it was supposed to be out late last year, and is very likely canceled. I think it's a shame, because I kind of get it, this line was less about being good Transformers and more about taking the original vehicles for the original 3.75" G.I. Joes and making them Transformers. For all my gripes about the robot modes, the alt modes were always good. And it's even more a shame, because they were apparently just starting to hit their stride. Kup is, easily, the best of the line. He doesn't just nail the alt mode, he's honestly a pretty dang good robot, too. I'd say this is the first one I'd genuinely recommend as a good Transformers toy.

Still waiting on Mixmaster, but I in the meantime I got Takara's Synergenex Rathalos Prime. Rathalos Prime is a remold of Kingdom Airazor, though as near as I can tell they only share the same arms, legs, and basic engineering. I'm not into the Monster Hunter games, but as near as I can tell from the new shoulder pads, the extra forearm armor, the new torso, the visor, and the large spike on Prime's head he's supposed to look like Optimus Prime wearing the Rathalos Armor set. From some angles, the wings even look like the skirts on the Rathalos Coil part of the set. From other angles, though, it looks like an Optimus head on a feminine body with a wyvern on his/her butt. And the wyvern makes him/her overly back heavy with the wing/skirt moved out of the way. Speaking of, you can see that there's a new panel on the side of the leg. It exists solely to open in robot mode to reveal a little more blue color, but honestly I think it looks less out of place if you leave it folded against the shin, where it looks slightly more like Rathalos Greaves. Rathalos Prime comes with the aforementioned forearm armor, a sword, a shield, and (because Prime just isn't complete without one) a Matrix. Prime's head is on a ball joint, and can look down a bit and tilt sideways slightly, but nothing really upward. Shoulders rotate and can move laterally 90 degrees if he/she's not wearing the forearm armor, otherwise it gets caught on his/her shoulder pads. Elbows bend a little over 90 degrees, and his/her waist swivels, but there's no wrist articulation. The front of his/her pelvis can hinge forward, giving him/her the clearance to move his/her hips about 60 degrees forward, 45 degrees backward, but well over 90 degrees laterally. Thighs swivel, and knees bend nearly 180 degrees. The feet are on ball joints which allows them to swivel in addition to giving them some decent up/down tilt, but unfortunately the ankle pivot is pretty limited. At the most basic, the sword's handle can fit into either fist, and the shield has a 5mm peg that flips out to be held in the other fist. I'll note, though, that you can store the forearm armor on his/her thighs (which is where they go in alt mode anyway), freeing the ports on his/her forearms to plug the shield in there, either open or closed. You may have also noticed that there's a slot near the tip of the sword. You can open the shield up and plug it into that slot to create something more like an axe. As for the Matrix, cutouts on the handles allow it to plug into his/her fists. His/her chest doesn't open, though, so to store the Matrix you have to open up the backpack, where it stores in the base of the wyvern's neck. It can stay there in alt mode. Speaking of alt mode, the transformation is mostly the same as Airazor, with the added steps of closing the flaps on his/her shins and partsforming the forearm armor onto the thighs if you haven't done either of those things yet. Technically, you also have to bend the arms at the elbows so that the fists go up behind his/her scapula's instead of tucking into the waist, because the torso doesn't extend the same way, and the head only folds back 90 degrees instead of 180. But that's fine because you don't fold the alt head out of the chest, it's just part of the backpack, which double-hinges over his/her back and robot face. The sword and shield combine to form the end of the tail. To be fair, I think this is about the best you're going to get out a remold of a Deluxe-class Airazor. The head, back, and wings look pretty great! The tail is kind of short, though, and the robot torso and thighs all bunched up make for a rather plump-looking Rathalos, with little bird feet instead of the more muscular dragon legs you'd normally expect. Articulation's fairly limited, too. There's an up/down hinge at both the base of Rathalos' skull and neck, but no swivel. The jaws open. The wings are hinged at the base, immediately beside that first hinge, and a third time a little further out for bend and flapping, then there are rivets at the "thumb" spike that tuck the wings in. Just like Airazor, you can bend somewhat at the knee with an additional digitigrade joint, plus the ball joints in the feet for posing the legs, but the hips are locked in place. The tail, (which, again, stores the sword and shield) has no articulation at all. Like I said, it's probably about the best they could do with a remold of Airazor... but it also begs the question, why remold Airazor? Basara Prime and Shield-D Prime from the same line are brand new molds, why couldn't Rathalos? If they absolutely had to remold a figure, why not Legacy Evolution Megatron, which seems like a closer starting point? Rathalos Prime is kind of a mediocre Deluxe-class toy at a Leader-class price, which makes it a hard figure to recommend even if the alt mode is pretty cool. That said, in my head-canon Rathalos Prime is a female member of the same group of Convoy-types that include Lio Convoy and Big Convoy from the Beast Wars II/Neo era of the Japanese continuity.

Studio Series Voyager Alpha Trion incoming...

Depends on the price. I really don't need Kickback or Skywarp, but I'm sorely tempted to have a Shrapnel with solid purple arms and Bombshell with solid black arms and silver hips (after I swap those parts onto a purple-chested one).

I'm not exactly sure what wave this figure belongs to, as it was originally slated to be released nearly a year ago, then in April of this year, but it's just now finding it's way out after every other figure in the current wave of Studio Series figures (except Mixmaster😡). This figure is Deluxe-class Transformers One Elita-1. Near as I can tell, based on the concept art, the design if this toy is broadly accurate as long as you don't go nitpicking it too hard... but nitpicking too hard is kinda my thing. So, let me first say that the wheels in her calves are accurate, even if they don't shrink the way they do on her CGI model, and kudos to Hasbro for hiding the other wheel... mostly. Things kinda start breaking down in the torso. The rear wheel is kind of folded up comprises the bulk of her torso... the animation-accurate chest and tummy is kind of just a flap tabbed loosely into that wheel. From the back it's covered by a fairly prodigious backpack that's basically the entire top of her alt mode folded up. Her forearms are also suffering from having the screen-accurate bits molded onto the insides of large alt mode panels that extend beyond her hands and elbows. As far as accessories go, she has the rifle she used in the movie, which is similar too but not exactly the same mold as the one that came with Bumblebee. She also comes with a miner jetpack. Elita's articulation isn't bad, but it's not my favorite. Her head is a hinged ball joint with decent up/down/sideways tilt, but it's a tad on the loose side. Shoulders are also ball joints that swivel but only move laterally about 60 degrees. She lacks dedicated bicep swivels, but her elbows are more ball joints that provide a swivel in addition to 90 degrees of bend. No wrists, but her waist swivels. Her hips are *sigh* even more ball joints, that can go forward and backward about 90 degrees (as long as you move them outward slightly), but only about 75 degrees laterally. Her thighs swivel, and her knees are double-jointed and good for nearly 180 degrees of bend. Her ankles are more ball joints, and though they provide some up/down tilt they sadly do not provide much in the way of pivot. Her rifle can plug into either hand via the usual 5mm handle. Weirdly, the handle is hinged, though it doesn't actually need to be. As for her jet pack, there are two tabs (marked in pink) that fit into slots on her back pack. But you'll note that those aren't the only tabs. The wider-set tabs (marked in red) fit into Pax/Optimus' backpack. The unmarked horizontal tab at the bottom fits into Megatron's backpack, and the same tabs that Elita uses also fit into Bumblebee's backpack. Alas, there's no way to plug the jet pack into Sentinel Prime or Starscream, but they're already flyers so I guess that's fine. Elita's transformation has some neat tricks, but I think it's ultimately undercut by her Deluxe-class budget. Her head, chest, and tummy fold forward, revealing the wheels inside. Those wheels are folded in half, and they have to unfold and shift slightly. The outsides of her biceps spin around, and that's about all that's needed there. Her backpack opens and then several panels inside just keep unfolding. Her shins open and her knee spikes tuck inside. Her ankle wheels and feet tab together, then her feet shift up toward her knees, while here knees use the double joints to set the upper joint into a space behind the lower one. Tabs in her forearms near her hands lock into her thighs, while the open shin flaps fit into slots on the outside edges of her arms. Then you close it all up by plugging her backpack flaps into tabs on the backs of her arms and thighs to solidify the top. As with Starscream, be prepared for parts to just come off. For me, both her heels came off, the hinge connecting her neck to her chest came off, and her entire chest came off at one point or another as they're just friction clipped on. Inconsistencies in tightness or looseness of her ball joints have also caused me to pop an arm off at the shoulder once. The impression I get is that this toy isn't exactly inaccurate, but it's too wide. The open shins should be tighter against the body of the vehicle and wrap underneath, while forearm kibble should wrap up and over the rear wheels. You can also sort of see her head and feet just chilling under the vehicle. Again, I get the sense that this was just the best they could do managing her robot mass with a Deluxe-class budget. The spirit of just barely doing what it needs to do but could be way better continues to her alt mode accessory storage. The jet back uses a 5mm port you might have noticed to plug into a peg dangling off the back of the vehicle. As for the gun, one side has a tab, and you can plug it into the 5mm port on either side of the vehicle (in what was her shoulders). But, the shin panels stick out so far, and the barrel of the rifle is so long, that the rifle can't actually point forward while doing so. Instead, you have to have it pointing backward, which just looks awkward to me. Compared to the Generations/SS86 toys, it seems like Hasbro likes to take shortcuts on Studio Series figures. For the most part I've liked the Transformers One figures better than the Rise of the Beasts toys, at least, and based on Prime, Bee, and Sentinel I've felt pretty comfortable saying that the Studio Series figures are at least better than the mainline TFOne toys. That said, I think Elita-1 is probably my least-favorite of the TFOne Studio Series figures- not really bad, but clearly compromised due to budgets. Pick her up if you've already got Prime, Bee, and Megatron and want to complete at least those four, but if you're not into the TFone figures Elita is definitely no the one to start with.

Nah, I bought it.

You know, it's kinda weird, but I loved Bruticus, and when Streetwise, First Aid, and Groove came out I thought they were all better than even the Combaticons. But I wasn't a fan of the fact that I had to go back and consult the instructions on Hot Spot; he just wasn't intuitive enough to go on memory alone, and Blades was kinda weak. So by the time I was finished I was less in love and more like, "I'm glad that's done." But Defensor's never been my favorite combiner. I'm a lot more excited for their Devastator, which looks like it's going to have some pretty crazy articulation. @M'Kyuunwill be glad to know they don't just have ankle pivots, looks like they've got at least 45 degrees of upward ankle tilt. And they both have way beyond 90 degrees of knee bend; Scrapper's pulling a full 180! Lest anyone thing I only care about the combined mode, though, here's the unpainted prototypes in bot mode. Of course I'll want to see them painted, but Scrapper's looking at least as good as the competition to my eye. As for alt modes... ...that also works for me. I dare say that Scrapper's looking much better than Fans Toys, and while there's some details I like on XTB's I think I prefer MMC's. Really looking forward to these.

I know the spotlight is on the XTB vs FT Devastator drama, but let's not forget that MMC is still in this fight. And one of their reps was showing the latest prototypes... Now, the flat green foot with the toe stub on the Mixmaster leg is cartoon accurate... but it's perhaps too accurate. We do have confirmation that you do NOT need to transform it that way. I did really like XTB's Scrapper (FT's wasn't bad in a vacuum, but definitely less good in my book). But I'm thinking this is the set I'm going to go all-in on.

Very nice! I hear the Japanese market is also going to get a set with the Insecticons. If the deco on them is more cartoon-accurate (solid black arms on Bombshell, no black hips on Bombshell, purple hands and biceps on Shrapnel) I'd be tempted to import.

Yeah, I bought it. I had the original Zephyrus G14 and I loved it, but it was getting a bit dated (only 1080p, only 60hz, only 16GB of RAM, and an RTX 2060 Max-Q). I'd been eyeing the new model since they announced it, and between the $400 discount and a $500 gift card I got for cashing in credit card rewards I couldn't resist. Haven't had a chance to install any games yet, but the 2880x1800 120hz OLED display with HDR is a huge upgrade by itself. It's a small thing, but I had the original in white, and the light bleed through the keys made using the backlighting on the keyboard really undesirable. This time around it's much better, and I can customize the color to boot. Slightly lighter, slightly thinner, double the RAM, newer Ryzen AI 9 CPU, and an RTX 5070ti mobile and I'm pretty content so far. We'll see how it handles gaming later.

Oh, that's cool to know someone who worked on the Charger's development! Like I said earlier, I don't know if it's going to win over the V8 crowd, and I'm not sure the Daytona actually counts as a muscle car, but I definitely prefer whatever it is to the electric "Mustang."

Despite being slightly longer and nearly as heavy as my wife's EV9 it doesn't feel as big as that does. It definitely feels bigger than a Porsche, though. But yeah, in the future I'll either go back to one car, probably a Taycan 4S with the optional Active Ride upgrade, or if I continue the two car thing I'll maybe swap the Taycan for an even funner Porsche like a Boxster and get something like that BMW i4 for a daily (cannot stress enough how much I enjoyed that test drive).

I mean, that's Magnus all right. In fact, my G1 Magnus is in that exact same pose as we speak. Kinda hard to get too worked up over it until they show off some articulation.

Well, I mentioned elsewhere that my desire to baby my Porsche Taycan caused me to see out another vehicle to drive primarily in the sloppy winters we get here in southwest PA (but also because the township decided the week the kids go back to school is the best time to do roadwork), and @TangledThorns asked me to talk about it. So, my criteria was pretty simple. I wanted something with AWD; I got a good deal on my Taycan, but it's the base model that's RWD, and maybe this could have been avoided had I simply invested a bit more and got a 4S, but what's done is done. I wanted something electric; I'm not road tripping, and with prices of gas and electricity in my area even a pretty inefficient EV is going to run me about a quarter of the cost per mile, to say nothing of lower all-around maintenance costs. It had to be something my wife was ok with; her own car was in the shop for an extended period of time, and though they eventually gave her a loaner (that she never really cared for) we kind of realized that we'd get more value out of a backup vehicle either of us could use than strictly something I'd drive. And, mostly, I wanted something cheap. This car is, after all, essentially a spare. We don't need all the bells and whistles of our daily drivers. Turns out there are a lot of brands offering relatively low-cost, low-mileage leases on EVs right now. Some, like the Honda Prologue and Volkswagen ID.4, couldn't be found anywhere within 100 miles. But we shopped what was in the area, and we eventually settled on, of all things, the Dodge Charger Daytona R/T. (Largely due to my wife's company being a supplier for Stellantis). I'll be honest, the Charger Daytona has fascinated me since Dodge first unveiled it last year. I mean, MOPAR enthusiasts were already turning their noses up a promised gas-powered turbocharged straight six version, insisting that any real muscle car has to have a naturally-aspirated V8... no way were they going to buy an EV! But rather than bolting a muscle car name onto a fastback SUV like Ford did, the new Charger really does look like Dodge tried to make a genuine successor to the name. Even the haters admit that the car looks pretty cool, with a faux grill, and headlights that blend elements of the first & second-gen Chargers with the outgoing 7th generation and taillights that mix the modern with the third-gen, and a long, squared-off retro-modern body akin to the Challenger that it's also replacing. The Scat Pack trim even has a ducktail spoiler like the third-gen Charger did. Capitalizing on the retro vibes, Dodge brought back the Fraztog logo from the '60s and '70s, a logo that would have appeared on the original Charger. With that Fratzog logo comes something Dodge calls "Fratzonic Chambered Exhaust." See, by law, EVs have to make a certain amount of noise so that pedestrians can hear them. Now some, like my Porsche, simply amplify the natural sounds of the electric motor. Others, like BMW, make cool spaceship noises. Dodge, in an attempt to play into their muscle heritage, basically mounted a speaker to the rear of the car to play fake V8 engine noises. It's kind of cool when you turn the car on- there's a sound like a jet turbine winding up, followed by a loud rumble that caused both my wife and my mother to jump like my cat when I sneeze, and as it idles it almost could be mistaken for an ICE engine. But as you accelerate, the sound that comes out of it has a tinny quality that sounds more like an Outrun arcade cabinet than V8. Worse, it revs up and then just kind of whines there, as there aren't any gears to shift through. I think I'd enjoy the Fratzonic Exhaust more if Dodge took a page from Hyundai's book and added fake gears you can manually shift like the Ioniq 5N. Fortunately, you can put the car in "stealth" mode, which shuts the speakers and the fake noise off and relies solely on the sounds of the electric motors. It doesn't matter how good a car looks, though. Ultimately, it's about how well it drives. And, well, it's fast! The R/T Stage 1 I bought can do 0-60 just under 5 seconds, or a hair faster than my Porsche. Opt for the Stage 2 Scat Pack and you can cut that down to just over 3 seconds, which on numbers alone makes it faster than any Hellcat. But I think that's where the similarities to previous ponies with the Charger name kind of ends. See, when you step on the accelerator, you go. No burnouts, no smoking tires, you just go. What's more, the car moves smoothly and confidently. At nearly three tons it's not going to tear through the corners the way my Porsche does, but it's rather difficult to kick the tires loose into a slide. This car's not going to be doing any donuts. Oh, yeah, three tons. Yeah. I went to look at new Charger thinking, "like a Challenger, but electric." No, in person, this thing's nearly a foot longer and four inches wider than a Challenger. My wife's Kia EV9, a three-row SUV, is just a tad shorter than this behemoth. If a technician took the 100kw/h battery off the car it'd still weight more than my similarly-electric Porsche. And yet, it's really not that bad when you. It cruises comfortably, accelerates quickly, and aided by the regenerative brakes it was capable of stopping just as quickly (Car and Driver found the Scat pack to stop from 70mph slightly shorter than both the Hyundai Ioniq 5N and the BMW i4 M40). It's only in sharper turns or successive curves that I really was aware of the size, and again, that's me comparing it to a Porsche. Compared to just about any SUV I've drive I'll happily take the Charger. Pair the composed ride with the interior... it's quite spacious. Despite being a coupe, passengers in the rear have leg room for days, and the seats are wide and a bit plushy. My mother, who has a hard time getting in and out of my Porsche and who finds the bolsters on its bucket seats at tad too aggressive for those of a plumper build, was quick to tell me she actually prefers riding in the Charger. Now, I don't know that I'd go that far from where I was sitting (the driver's seat!). I definitely took the Charger on a few winding back roads and though, "man, my Porsche would just eat this up!" But on the other hand, I didn't even slow down as I barreled over steel plates in the road near my parents house that I'd have to gently coax my Porsche over. After months of worrying about the ground clearance on some steep hills it was actually kind of liberating to simply not care. Unfortunately, it's not all sunshine and rainbows. Despite having the car for all of five days, I've already had to take it back for service. On Sunday, after going with a friend to see a movie, the car just wouldn't start. A screen came on telling me that the battery needed service, and the car seemed to being reporting that it was charging despite not being plugged into anything. After consulting the internet, I turned it off and waited for all the screens to go completely dark, and was eventually able to get it started. At least I could get it home, I figured. And for the next seven miles, no problem, but as I come to a light a bunch of warnings come on- "parking sensors off," "stability control off," "speed may be limited." A turtle icon comes on the dash, and the car refuses to go more than 5mph. I manage to turn off into a parking lot and again shut the car down completely and restart it. Took back roads the rest of the way, but didn't have any other problems. In total fairness to Stellantis, I eventually realized I may have left a dome light on while I was programming the garage door opener, which could have drained the 12v battery, and after extra double-checking that all the lights were off I'd since driven it to get groceries on Monday, took it 20 miles through backroads back to the dealer today, then drove it home again without any further issue. And, credit to the dealer, they spent an hour and a half pouring over the car to try to find a problem. They did find that the pump for the washer fluid was dead and ordered a new one that they'll put in after they get it, but both batteries and the connections between then checked out, and all the latest software updates have been applied, so they couldn't do much more there than make a record of it and pass it along to Stellantis. Fingers crossed that it was just my bad, I guess. QC aside, would I recommend this car? Probably not. See, it really comes down to price. I think Dodge was like, "it's faster than a Hellcat, so we'll price it like one!" Down the line, when they inevitably cram a HEMI into it, that might be enough to attract the MOPAR crowd, but right now, as an EV, for everyone else? I don't think Dodge actually built a muscle car, I think they built a grand tourer. The sticker price on this R/T Stage 1 is comparable to a BMW i4 xDrive40, and I took one of those for a ride, too. Trust me, all things being equal, you want the BMW, which ranks among the very best cars I've ever driven. Depending on the options, the Scat Pack will run you another $10-$15k Even with different sales incentives, there are other EVs that are nearly as quick that bring more features to the table. That being said, you might be able to find a good deal on a lease. I got a 3-year, 10k miles/year (a number which I rarely hit in just one car, let alone spread over two) lease for $1000 down and $300 a month. At that price, it genuinely is a stylish and fun alternative to the sea of electric crossovers everyone else seems to be offering, an alternative I'm glad exists even if the pony purists hate it.

Hmm... I think there will be an NDA involved so I can't say too much, but it seems my wife and I have a settlement payment coming our way. I think I might cash in some credit card points for a Best Buy gift card and buy that laptop after all.

No that's the thing, I got the trim with RWD. And I already baby it; they put oil and chips on a road near my house and I didn't know it. I was driving 15mph and still wincing every time I heard a stone ping off the undercarriage. So I leased one of those new Dodge Charger EVs that seem to appeal to nobody but me... too electric and AWD for the MOPAR crowd, lacking the comfort and refinement of other EVs in the same price range. But it's dumb fun, it's got AWD, and since Stellantis is a customer of my wife's company I got it for $300/mo, 3 years, and only $1000 down. I upgraded my desktop this year, too, and no regrets there- I'm pretty much always going to prefer playing on a 49” 32:9 OLED. But my wife's mom has some issues trying to get a visa this year, so I'm thinking I might be traveling sooner than later.

Seems that early benchmarks on the Xbox Ally X suggest the Z2 Extreme isn't much of an upgrade. Sounds like my ROG Ally X is safe for another year.

Oh, that's the laptop I've had my eyes on! I'll have to check my budget, though; Pennsylvanian winters get pretty sloppy so I just leased another car so I can keep my Porsche in the garage.

I'd give this a pass as Hasbro doing something for kiddies instead of a collector... if Takara weren't also doing their kid-oriented Wild King line that craps all over this. Yeah, if only Mixmaster would ship. It's the only figure from the wave I don't have. 😒 Yeah, I mean, distribution is pretty sketchy (my local Target doesn't seem to have jack, but my local Walmart is full up on the current AOTP wave. But yeah, Megatron is part of the current Studio Series wave that should be hitting shelves about now.

A lot of people didn't like the original when it came out. I got super into it, though, so I'm still planning on picking up the sequel. But on PC.

Pretty much this, but I think one of the biggest mistakes I made was buying a 4k 60hz display back in the day. Granted, it depends a lot on whether you prefer higher frames or higher fidelity, but I today I have an RTX 5080 and a 240hz display that runs at 32:9 5120 x 1440, which is double the pixels of a standard 16:9 1440p display but still roughly a million pixels less than a 16:9 4k display. I play mostly single player games and I like to turn the graphics up; I average between 60-90 fps in most games, and occasionally hit the 120 mark. Despite using different cables, both HDMI and Display Port, I had weird glitches with the desktop running at 240hz and wound up setting the display to run in 120hz mode. Before, with an RTX 2080, I had to use DLSS and turn down a lot of settings to stay in the 45-60fps range at 4k, or if DLSS wasn't supported it was a choice between looking good at 1440p (or even 1080p) or looking like butt at 4k. Kinda depends on what you're running, I'd think, if it's more CPU-bound or not. My setup came with an Ultra 7 265KF, and 99% of the time I'm fine. I did notice playing Assassin's Creed Shadows, though, that I'd get some dips in towns where the CPU was driving a bunch of NPCs.

Still waiting on Mixmaster, and I don't have any more brand new figures to write about. I do, however, have a TON of repaints and remolds... Yeah, no Mixmaster, but the other Voyager in the current wave of Studio Series is War for Cybertron Voyager-class Thundercracker. And, I mean, not a lot left to say after Starscream and Skywarp, because Thundercracker's basically the same thing except blue. It's a pretty blue, at least. Same mace weapon, and I dunno if it was always too big or if there's been some mold degradation, but he has a hard time holding it up. On the flip side, he's got a different gun than Starscream and Skywarp. It's the same Neutron Assault Rifle that came with the generic Decepticon Soldier, though, so it's not totally new. Fine with me, though, I kinda wish Skywarp had a less bulky gun than his Thermo Rocket Launcher. Get him if you want to complete the trio, but if you skipped Skywarp and/or Starscream you can probably live without Thundercracker, too. Relevant to yesterday's review of Sideways, another figure on the shelf is Cybertron Deluxe class Excellion. Now, for anyone who actually watched the Unicron Trilogy, you might have wondered how Hot Shot started Armada as a reckless, hot-headed youth who gradually matured over the course of the series, becoming a seasoned warrior and mentor in Energon, only to revert back to a reckless, hot-headed youth in Cybertron. The answer is, as I mentioned yesterday, is because Galaxy Force wasn't created as a sequel to the prior two shows, it was just cludged into a "trilogy" when it was dubbed into English. The guy we know as Hot Shot in Micron Legend and Super Link was called Hot Rod, but in Galaxy Force that guy was called Excellion. While I think there have always been parallels between Hot Shot and G1 Hot Rod, stuff like the chevrons on his shins and the spoiler wings seemed a bit more obvious on Cybertron Hot Shot... but I guess not enough for Takara, who released a more G1 Hot Rod-colored version of Excellion. Hasbro was only too happy to bring this redeco to the West, but I guess their logic was that if Hot Shot was already reformatted into an APC alt mode in his usual blue color then he wouldn't go back to his old sports car mode but changed to red, so they decided he'd be a new, separate character. And for that character, they kept the Japanese name, Excellion. Personally, I'd have liked for him to have been Hot Rod or Rodimus and really hammer that deco and design home, but you can't always get what you want. The point is, Hot Shot was already a decent update of the original toy, so you'd think Excellion would be, too. And for the most part, he is, but there are some deco changes from the original toy. In bot mode, most of the dark gray/black details are a lighter gray, except for his hips which are the same orange as his thighs now, and his hands which are now red. The single chevron on his shin is in two parts now, and his fold-out wing spoiler is orange instead of blue. In alt mode, the vents on his hood and in front of his rear tires are painted a gunmetal color instead of being left unpainted, and there's some gold paint on the rear of the car where the wings fold out. Purists who had the original toy might be fussed by the changes, but I kinda like them, as they make him even more like Hot Rod. Heck, I'd have been cool with them ditching the gray and silver on his chest for orange with flames. As a character who wasn't actually in the cartoon Excellion is far from essential, but the mold's decent enough and I like him as an alternate universe Hot Rod. Where Excellion is a Walmart Exclusive, Studio Series 86 Perceptor can only be found in Targets. I mean, this particular version, since Perceptor was already a mainline Studio Series 86 release. Aside from some extra pack-ins (more on that in a minute), I figured that the only real difference would be tweaked colors. And they are tweaked... the blue and red are just a bit darker, and the blacks on the orignal are are dark gray to better mimic the colors used in the animation. His chest is no longer a translucent part with a silvery paint around the edge, it's solid red plastic with silvery paint. But that's not all. Take a closer look, and you can see that his torso is actually slightly remolded, so he's a little wider in his lats. Spin him around and he's also got a door on his back to hide the gap that his head folds into. Transformation is more or less unaffected, though. But it alt mode, you might see something curious... Perceptor's entire torso is painted red. The two tabs that hold his chest door shut show that the plastic under the paint is actually brown. I guess that's because they put Perceptor's new chest parts on the same sprue as Ramhorn, one of the two packed-in cassette figures and very likely the reason you're replacing Perceptor in the first place. Ramhorn's pretty ok! The little rhino mode is a chonky little guy, and I like that his tape mode has some silver bits that almost past for reels if the weren't so off-centered. Like Steeljaw, his golden weapons are partsformed on and off along with his tail... and a good bit of his back. The other pack-in is Ratbat. Ratbat was previously released as a mainline Siege Micromaster pack, along with a robot bearing the name "Rumble" while being colored like Frenzy. While I liked the shade of purple and the extra colored details on the tape mode of the original version, the two-toned, red-eyed face, the gray that stays on the body and doesn't spread to the wings, and the more magenta main color on the new version are more accurate to the way Ratbat was colored in the 86 movie. Also, Ratbat a new accessory, a set of backpack boosters like the G1 toy had. So, yeah, both of Perceptor's buddies have some partsforming now, and those parts don't really belong on the cassette modes. But, as they both have 5mm pegs (and the gold bits on Ramhorn are on swivels), you can use them as weapons for anyone with the usual 5mm port fists. Just like everyone had to buy Legacy Soundwave just to get Buzzsaw, I think a lot of completionists are going to wind up buying Perceptor just to get Ramhorn. To that end, I appreciate that they included an extra accessory for Ratbat, and that they actually did a little remolded to Perceptor. That remolding on its own probably wouldn't convince me to upgrade, but at least this way I do feel like I upgraded when I was really in it for Ramhorn. Though I haven't see this one in stores yet (I got mine from Pulse), I do believe that two pack containing this Transformers Devastation Ground Soldier is also a Target Exclusive. Ground Soldier is reuse of the Runabout/Runamuck mold, though with a new head and trading a gun in for a sword. For the most part, that's fine... with the backpack on the in-game model I recognized the Ground Soldier as being based on the Battlechargers at the time, and these are definitely one of the colors they used in the game (the other being orange with red windows), but I should point out that their car mode in game had more curves, flared fenders, and a wing on the back. Ground Soldier is packaged with Elite Seeker, who's a repaint of Earthrise Ramjet with new sword accessories. Of all the coneheads, Ramjet is probably the closest to what we get in the game, what with the delta wings and the presence of the vertical stabilizers. Still, I can't help but wish, with this being the fifth color of this mold with no changes to the mold, that they would have made some changes to the wings, since the Seeker in the game does have delta wings but broader with an upward bend at the tips (more like Dirge without the canards), and though the in-game model does have vertical stabilizers like Ramjet (which Dirge and Thrust don't have), they're not sitting on top of big engine nacelles like Ramjet has. In any case, the mix of red, gray, and black make this one of the cooler Seeker designs in my book, and I can always use more nameless grunts, so I think this pack is worth it. Moving on to Amazon's exclusives, we have a pack that's a bit harder to justify. This set has Slugslinger, a bit of a dated Titans Returns mold that replaced the Targetmaster gimmick with a Headmaster one. The white plastic is a light gray, and the blue plastic is much darker (yeah, sorry, I accidentally but the new version on the right instead of the left). Technically, the new deco better matches his brief appearances in "The Rebirth," so points for Sunbow accuracy, I guess. But to me these colors seem more like they belong on Triggerhappy, and the lighter blue is closer to the G1 toy and, arguably, his appearance in the Japanese Headmasters cartoon, so I'm inclined to prefer the original. I'd heard it claimed that the tampographs were altered for the new version, but you can clearly see that they're really not. The only change is that the Decepticon badge on one of his wings has been replaced with the Mayhem Attack Squad insignia. I probably wouldn't have bothered with this set for Slugslinger, but Slugslinger comes packaged with "handsome" Sandstorm... that is, Legacy Sandstorm, but the toy-style masked face has been replaced with a cartoon-style unmasked face. Not much else has changed... the gray plastics used for the small pistol, his hands, and some of his inner workings have been replaced with black plastic, and black hands is more accurate to both his G1 toy and most of his cartoon appearances. Other than than, the orange plastics are just a bit lighter and they didn't paint the vents on his chest. In dune buggy mode, the black plastic instead of the gray for the engine is a change that is less like the chrome engine of the G1 toy and doesn't totally match the control art, but I can't say for sure if it does or doesn't match the cartoon better. I think, if you're not partsforming the otherwise useless cage on, that black subjectively looks better than that random gray. In helicopter mode there's even less difference. I guess what it really boils down to is how badly do you want a cartoon-accurate Sandstorm? I didn't have the G1 toy as a kid, so to me he absolutely needed a cartoon face. The toy-style face was my biggest complaint with the Legacy release. It just sucks that to get that head you have to not only buy another barely-changed copy of Sandstorm, you have to pay for Slugslinger, too. Last but not least, we have the Takara Godzilla Megatron crossover. In robot mode, from the neck down it's just Studio Series Grimlock in a mix and dark and light grays, with a little bit of red in some spots. From the neck up, that's actually a repaint of Studio Series Sludge's head, which kind of works better than I expected it to. It's an almost Alex Milne-esque style for Megatron. I said when I reviewed Hearts of Steel Megatron that I like a black Megatron, and with the lower part of Grimlock's torso picked out in silver and red I think it's really not that bad of a design for a Megatron. I just wished they could have swapped Grimlock's double-barreled rifle for a Fusion Cannon. The disappointment comes when you get him in dino mode, because it's just a dark gray Grimlock. Same stumpy Grimlock arms, same Grimlock head with the missing front teeth. No Godzilla spines. Even with the included blue effect part in his (admittedly well-painted) mouth, I don't think anyone's going to see this on a shelf and think, "oh, that's Godzilla!" So I supposed the question is, how much do are you willing to pay for an actual transforming Godzilla? Because, as is, I can't recommend this figure. Because DNA, maker of third-party upgrade kits, will be releasing a kit later this year that replaces the toes, arms, and head, plus adds spines and a longer tail, to turn this figure into once that actually resembles Godzilla. The kit effectively doubles the price of the figure, though; worth it for a hardcore fan of both Transformers and Godzilla like me, I think, and enough to flip my recommendation from a hard no to a yes if you're willing to spend the money on the upgrade kit.