mikeszekely

I think almost all of mine are in car mode right now, but again, car guy. My (Chinese) wife jokes that when we watch Chinese dramas on Netflix together that she's always looking to see what the characters are eating, I'm always looking to see what they're driving.

Well... I still don't know when the Voyagers of this wave are coming, but Scavenger wasn't the only Deluxe. So up next we'll do Age of Extinction Concept Art KSI Widow. As the "concept art" bit suggests, "Widow" (aka Widowmaker) wasn't actually seen (at least not in robot form) in the film, but rather is based on concept art by Steve Jung. There are some pretty major differences, though... she was more red than orange, and the car kibble is quite different, because she was originally going to be the Pagani Huayra that eventually became Stinger. The head design, the fenders forming her shoulder pads, the spikes on her arms, the knee pads, though, all come from Jung's concept art. She technically has high heels like the concept art, too, but it's kind of hard to tell with the mass of car kibble on her lower legs that was decidedly not part of the concept art. That said, I'm not really mad about it. The concept art has a very lithe, almost sexy design with almost no visible car parts that would have very much relied on CGI magic to transform. What I feel we got from Evan and Kunihiro is a robot that still has noticeably feminine proportions in the arms, torso, and thighs that avoids the all-too-common "just fold everything into a backpack" engineering that's prevalent with Bayverse cars. Despite allusions to some kind of chain accessory (seen in some of Jung's concept art), Widow just comes with these two blasters. While I do admire Widow's aesthetics, her articulation leaves a bit to be desired. Her head's on a ball joint that swivels, but has minimal tilt due to the molded "hair". Her shoulders are ball joints that swivel and move 90 degrees laterally. Her biceps swivel, and her elbows bend a tad over 90 degrees. No wrist articulation, though, and no waist articulation. Her hips are more ball joints that move 90-ish degrees forward and backward, but only about 75 degrees laterally. Her thighs swivel, and her knees bend 90 degrees IF you make sure the kibble on her thighs is out of the way first. Her feet tilt up, due to how they transform, but not downward, and she doesn't have ankle pivots. Her blasters clip over her forearms. I don't think it's immediately obvious how they go on (pro tip: try to align the curve near the barrel with the back of her hand). When not mounted to her forearms, tabs on the top rear can plug into slots under her door wings on her back. Her transformation actually gives me flashbacks to the Transformers Prime Vehicon. Her head and spine fold back from her torso, tabbing into her butt. Her shoulders shift down and back slightly, so that her arms lay along side her head. Her kneepads and toes fold flat. and the thigh kibble slides out, spins to align with the car kibble on her lower legs, then slides back into place. Then (and this is really where the Vehicon thing comes in) her calves open up, and you fold out the insides on three hinges to form the top of the car, from the hood all the way to the rear. Flip up her wings, fold her shoulder pads down to line up with her chest, then rock her chest up so the wings line up with the thigh kibble on the sides of the car. Then all you have to do is close her thighs, lining up all the kibble you folded out along the way, and fold her heels in to finish off the rear. I'm a car guy, and for all the faults both objective and subjective I might have with Bayverse robots both as both concept designs and physical toys, the one thing you're not going to here me complain about is the cars. The people making the movies have an eye for cool cars, and for their part Hasbro's been doing for the Studio Series line what they often didn't do for the individual movie lines- licensing those cool cars. So what we have here is a McLaren MP4-12C (or just 12C for short). The 12C actually was in a highway scene with Galvatron, it just didn't transform. I guess Hasbro retroactively decided that the 12C could be Widow, since the Huayra became Stinger. Regardless, Hasbro did an excellent job here, as all the little details are accurate to the real car; I think the only thing I can find to nitpick is that the side mirrors stick out further on the real car, but that's about it. Of course, you don't want to mar a gorgeous alt mode like this by plugging weapons on top of it, or even having the requisite tabs to attempt to plug the weapons on top. Instead, mid-transformation, you'll find slots below her knees on the inside of her shins after you fold the car kibble out. Plug the guns in there before you close her up and you're golden. To recommend, or not recommend, is tricky. On the on hand, I don't think most of you even bother with the Bayverse stuff. And, for the few that do, maybe you're sticking to characters that actually get screen time. It's definitely a bummer that her articulation is a little sub-par... ankle pivots have been part of the Generations lines since Siege; Bayverse characters deserve working ankles, too! Despite her flaws, though, I do think that the team did a pretty good job taking Jung's concept art and translating it into a toy that still manages to be maintain a feminine figure on a Deluxe budget, and I'm tempted to say that her alt mode alone is worth the purchase price. Truthfully, there have been worse-executed Bayverse characters, so I think I'd give her a tentative recommend if you collect Bayverse characters.

Given the somewhat more limited improvements over their Combiner Wars selves compared to Megatron, I feel pretty comfortable suggesting that SS86 Megatron has overtaken Devastator as the hot item this year. But Devastator's still on a lot of minds, and it just so happens that I also received Deluxe-class Studio Series Scavenger. Unfortunately, like basically everyone but Long Haul so far, SS86 Scavenger seems to take more inspiration from the Combiner Wars toy than Sunbow's control art. Same narrow hips, same lack of the angled collar, same "ironing board" midsection that's basically flat with some molded detail instead of the more three-dimensional cartoon look. In some ways, I think SS86 Scavenger actually looks worse. His proportions are squatter, with a longer crotch that looks like he's walking around with a fully-loaded diaper. Officially, his shovel is meant to curl up onto his back, also like the Combiner Wars toy. In the cartoon, though, Hook's shovel was more like a tail or a third leg, coming off his butt and reaching toward the ground. Scavenger's sole accessory is this gun. As near as I can tell, it's pretty cartoon-accurate, but I wonder at the little peg hole on it. There are no corresponding pegs anywhere on his body. Scavenger's head is NOT on a ball joint, just a simple swivel. A transformation hinge gives him the slightest downward tilt, but he can't look up or tilt his head sideways. His shoulders are ball joints, which allow his arms to move 90 degrees laterally and swivel. His elbows are also ball joints, bending 90 degrees and pulling double duty as bicep swivels. No wrist swivels, no waist articulation. Hips are *sigh* ball joints, capable of moving a little over 90 degrees forward and backward, and 90 degrees laterally. His thighs swivel, and his knees bend 90 degrees. No upward tilt on his feet, but the front half can bend downward due to transformation, and his ankles pivot 90 degrees. Scavenger can hold his gun without issue, but there's no place for robot-mode storage. His shovel has three hinges and a swivel, so he can bring it over his head like a scorpion tail, or you can have it dangling from his back more like the cartoon. The engineering in Scavenger isn't too far off the CW toy. Once again you open his ironing board to fold in the head, the cab folds over, the sides of his chest fold back, and his arms use the hinged ball joints in his shoulders to slide down in line with his chest to form the upper half of the vehicle. The legs, if anything, are slightly less complicated as you just fold in the toes and swing the legs up and around on their ball joints enough that you can tab them to his hips and sides. For what it's worth, Scavenger feels a lot more solid in alt mode than the CW version does, and that third hinge on the shovel is one more than the CW toy had. But still, Scavenger is still copying the CW toy more than the Sunbow art. He doesn't have the section on front of the shovel where the animators drew the G1 toy's peg for attaching the arm. The cylinders (I assume they're supposed to be air intakes and exhausts?) on the Sunbow at is also missing. In place of them we have in indent where a purple ball joint is clearly visible. Finally, the rear of the shouldn't line up with the treads, it's meant to overhang them. I wonder how many of these wrong details got copied from CW because so much of the basic engineering was copied? I mean, the CW and SS toys both have the feet at the front of the treads, the shoulders at the front of the deck, and the hands and waist at the back... exactly the opposite of the G1 toy. I know CW did it because the middle of his torso folded out and Devastator's forearm attached to it, and guess what? 86's chest folds out, and Devastator's forearm attaches to it. And that means that, just like CW Scavenger, 86's deck does NOT rotate. He doesn't even have any wheels to roll on. About the only thing you can do in alt mode is move the shovel using joints at the base, halfway between the swivel and the bucket, and right at the bucket. Oh, and there's a 5mm port on top of the deck you can plug his gun into. Scavenger joints fellow Deluxe and fellow arm Bonecrusher as the weakest of the SS86 Constructicons. There are some improvements over the CW toy, if only in the stability and solidity, especially in the hips, but ultimately he follows the unfortunate trend of copying way too much of CW Devastator's homework when I really would rather they started from scratch and tried for more clever engineering and better cartoon accuracy. I guess Habsro figures the individual modes don't matter all that much if he's going to be combined most of the time anyway... so hopefully Mixmaster will arrive soon and I can tell you if the whole shebang is worth it or not.

It's a little over your budget and not the most cutting edge hardware, but this is about as low as I'd go on the CPU for Tarkov, and the GPU should still cut it for your desired settings. https://www.bestbuy.com/site/thermaltake-graphite-360-gaming-desktop-amd-ryzen-5-5600x-16gb-memory-nvidia-geforce-rtx-3060-1tb-nvme-m-2-black/6488518.p?skuId=6488518 Anything newer/faster is gonna cost you these days. To put it in perspective, I spent about $1200 on my desktop five and a half years ago. I upgraded last fall and spent double that.

Respecftully, I disagree. I mean, yes, Megatron does have a lot more greebles than a modern Fans Toys version would, absolutely. But Prime's far from Sunbow sleek, with thicker proportions and plenty of greebles of his own, especially on the sides of his arms, the backs of his shoulders, and the sides and backs of his legs. Personally, I think they look quite good together.😁 To force you to start over with an ever-so-slightly larger scale, of course. In all seriousness, it was my understanding that they felt that ER Prime was a little too short compared to the rest of the Autobots, and that 86 was something of a course correction. The problem is that Siege/ER Megatron actually did scale pretty well the with other Decepticons, though, so Soundwave, Shockwave, and the Seekers pretty much have to be redone to scale with 86 Megatron. There have been hints of these adjustments for awhile. Galvatron is basically the size they scaled Prime and Megatron up to, Blaster's a little taller than Soundwave, and even though they kinda hyped Motormaster being the same height as Prime, well, none of the Decepticons were as tall as Megatron so Motormaster was always properly shorter than Prime and Megs. I do think, in a way, it's a shame that Romulus wound up not scaling with 86 Prime for those people who really do insist on Megatron having a gun mode, but I'm personally too bent out of shape about it because the Studio Series versions of Prime, Megatron, Ironhide/Ratchet, arguably Bumblebee, and apparently the new Seekers have been such improvements over the WfC versions that I would have double-dipped even if they didn't adjust the scale.

Well, well! While I've accumulated a small pile of repaints over the last two weeks or so that I do eventually need to get photographed, seems Amazon has started sending out the final wave of 2025 Studio Series figures. Which means that I now have, sitting on my desk, one of the most-anticipated figures of the year, Leader-class 86 Megatron. For me, almost since I started collecting, a proper Classics/Universe/Generations/whatever Megatron has felt just out of reach. Classics? I was glad to have something to go with Classics Optimus, but the winged white-and-purple Nerf gun was a bit of a reimagining. Combiner Wars had better colors, but poor articulation and a lot of compromises to make a better tank mode, not to mention he was closer to MP scale than Generations. ToyWorld's Hegemon scaled well and had a proper G1 style, but was kind of fiddly and kibbly even for the time. Siege's squat proportions and stylized fusion cannon were getting closer and still make a decent Cybertronian mode, but he did have a backpack and leg molding that was obvious tank parts. The Earthrise remold gave him a more cartoon-accurate fusion cannon, head sculpt, and abdomen, but an even bigger backpack and partsforming chunks for his turret and barrel and the space between his legs on the back of the tank. NewAge set themselves up for what looked like a home run- clean and very cartoon-accurate bot mode and the gun mode that Hasbro can't do, but they jumped the gun by scaling it with Earthrise Optimus right before the new taller 86 Optimus came out. When 86 Megatron was first leaked, I had just two requests. The first was for the figure to maintain the high level of cartoon-accuracy that 86 Optimus brought. I know Hasbro can't do a gun Megatron, I don't care if Megatron has to be a tank, but I don't want to see any tank kibble on him. This was more important to me than the ability to transform, so important that I'd actually modified an Earthrise Megatron, repainting some parts, removing the backpack entirely, and attaching one of the weird pistols that came with Siege Soundwave to give him the gun barrel on his back. And for that wish, I think I have to give Hasbro an A here. Megatron has pretty much all the cartoon details you could possibly ask for- he's got the hammers on his shoulders, the details on his abs (including the red on the sides that was missing from Earthrise), the black "diaper" pelvis, and the gun barrel on his back. There's something a little off about his fusion cannon. I feel like the barrel is ok, but the middle section should be slightly longer with a dial instead of that lip, and the rear section is a tad long and probably should collapse closer to the middle section. But that's about it. I mean, even his back and sides are remarkably clean and free of tank kibble, just as I asked. You can sort of make out the treads inside his thighs, but the grooves aren't really that far off from the grooves of the gun grip. There's also a chunk near the heel with obvious tank wheels, but even that sits where the attachment point for the shoulder stock. Oh, and a note about the colors... yes, the gray on his legs is a little bluish. I think, under brighter lights and as picked up by my camera (and the cameras of the leakers), they do look too blue. However, sitting on my desk in more normal lighting conditions, the gray looks fine to my eyes. The other wish I had was that he'd come with an accessory that represented his gun mode that other figures could hold. As great as it would be to have a Megatron toy that could turn into his gun mode, the fact is in the cartoon he always shrank so a minion, usually Starscream, could wield him. Megatron turning into a gun captures the spirit of the G1 toy, but a cartoon-accurate Megatron robot packaged with a gun-mode accessory captures the spirit of the cartoon. Once again, wish granted, as he does indeed come with a pistol-mode accessory with a standard 5mm peg handle that anyone (including the future SS86 Starscream) can use. Additionally, there is of course his aforementioned fusion cannon and back-mounted gun barrel. While I largely consider them to be parts of his body, they count as accessories. I mean, not only are they removable (and not installed in the box), they have to come off for him to transform. Lastly, you get the beam saber he used in his fight with Prime in the movie. I know a lot of people wish he'd also come with his energon mace, as they think of that as more his signature melee weapon, but I get it, the saber was in the '86 movie and the mace wasn't. Honestly, since Prime's axe has been installed inside his trailer since I finished that review nearly a year ago, I don't think I'm too bent of out shape about the exclusion of a mace I'm also unlikely to use. So, Megatron's head is your standard ball joint fare, very slight downward and sideways tilt, slightly more upward tilt, and swivel. His shoulders swivel, move laterally 90 degrees, and due to how they're engineered have some forward butterfly action. His biceps swivel, and his elbows bend a bit over 90 degrees on a single hinge. His wrists are ball joints for swiveling and a little wiggle. His hands are identical to Prime's; fixed thumb, but articulated fingers with a hinge at the base and the middle knuckle, with the index finger separate from the other three. His waist swivels. His hips can go about 90 degrees backward, over 90 degrees forward, and just under 90 degrees laterally. His thighs swivel, and his knees bend a little over 90 degrees. Using some transformation hinges, you can get some decent up/down tilt on his feet, plus his ankles can pivot 90 degrees. Megatron has 5mm ports on the side of either forearm, as well as a pair on his back. This is how you'd properly attach the gun barrel to his back and his fusion cannon to his arm... but I suppose nothing's really stopping you from sticking his fusion cannon on his back, and mounting the gun barrel to his forearm. As for his other accessories, like I said before the gun has a 5mm peg for handle, so Megatron or anyone else can hold it. The pommel of the saber is too big to slide into a 5mm port. The top of the saber does come off, but there's a flare near the top so nor can you feed it up through the bottom of a fist. You kind of have to open his hand and snap it between his thumb and the curved bit of his palm. I don't really like the way it feels doing that. You can use second 5mm port on his back to plug the saber into it. Meanwhile, there's a tiny tab on the pistol's scope, and it plugs into a slot between the 5mm ports, allowing Megatron to carry all of his accessories. After transforming the dirt-simple Combiner Wars Megatron and the Earthrise toy where a backpack and some add-on bits are doing a lot of the heavy lifting, 86 Megatron's transformation feels very clever. His forearms don't just open to hide his fists, the opened forearm armor spins 180 degrees so it captures his elbows when it closes. His chest does open to allow his head to fold it, but also continues to unfold to become most of the front of the tank. His arms work their way out of the torso a bit, too, then his back also opens up and the swivel for the turret comes out. The hollow space you created in his torso captures his pelvis. His shins and feet lift away from the legs, tucking over his thighs with his feet wrapping behind and under to make the back of the tank. The bulk of his lower legs unfold to form the sides and treads of the tank. The gun barrel plugs into the fusion cannon's barrel, and the fusion cannon sandwiches between his arms (with a little hatch that opens so the rear of the cannon can hide the arm joints) to finish off the turret. Now, ok... it's not the best tank mode we've seen. Combiner Wars looks a lot better, but a lot of what makes his tank mode so good compromises the robot mode. The front of Earthrise's turret is a bit better, but the front of Earthrise's turret is also a big partsforming bit. Frankly, I'm impressed that the tank mode even came out as good as it did. Yeah, the cartoon-accurate arms mashed onto a nearly cartoon-accurate fusion cannon with a cartoon-accurate gun barrel poking out of it don't make the most convincing turret (and that turret does sit a bit far forward), but his chest makes for pretty decent front of the tank, his legs make for great sides of a tank, and his feet and shins at least fill the gap between his legs better than a random hunk of black plastic, and with (abstract turret notwithstanding) basically no robot kibble. Since the concept art Bumblebee Megatron came out I'd been saying that was the way to go- make an awesome robot, even if it meant phoning in the tank mode. So, to my eyes, Megatron's tank mode is far from perfect but also more than adequate. The tank does roll, by the way. The turret swivels, though the swivel is at the very back of the turret instead of the middle, so maybe don't. You can't elevate or lower the barrel, anyway. What you can do, though, is use one of the two 5mm ports on top of the turret or the one along either side to store your pistol and saber accessories. Studio Series 86 Megatron is not a perfect figure. With a bit more budget maybe he could have had a better fusion cannon, some extra panels or transformation to make his turret look better, or more accessories like his mace, the pistol he murdered Prime with, etc. And it's a safe bet that someone like DNA is working on an upgrade kit to do one or more of those things. While not perfect, I do think that Megatron is still a very good, perhaps even excellent figure, because he delivered more or less exactly what I wanted; an excellent Sunbow-style robot with solid articulation that scales with 86 Optimus, an adequate tank mode, and a pistol accessory that represents his "real" alt mode. If you picked up SS86 Optimus, you're definitely going to want this Megatron to go with him.

I mean, we're talking about a franchise where a space shuttle orbiter becomes the arm of a robot that uses a Jeep Willys for a leg (in the cartoon, I am aware that the toy was actually based on larger the XR311). Trying to reconcile alt mode scale in G1 is a pathway to madness. But like I keep saying, the real problem is the relatively thinness. A car just of room underneath and inside to stuff robot parts, or chunkier parts that are easier to translate directly as robot parts. As big as an F-15 is (and comparatively thick for a fighter), it's roughly 40% thinner than a Datsun 280ZX (which is pretty sleek, as cars go) when you compare their relative length or width to their height. A lot of Kawamori's designs end up with large intakes and engine nacelles that are a thicker than a lot of modern fighters, and Macross series since they started using more CGI have featured Valks that are a lot skinnier, especially in the arms. And like I said, Kawamori has the luxury of working backward from Fighter, and from VF-1 to VF-11 to VF-19 to VF-25 to VF-31 a lot of the transformation elements are pretty similar, with the big evolution seeming to be how they scrunch up the cockpit and nose. I'm not saying this as a critique of Kawamori's work, I'm saying that Takara was first constrained by using real-world aircraft then double-whammied by Sunbow replacing the Diaclone mecha designs with Floro Dery's character models, which (especially in the first season) often deviated wildly from the original designs. When you start with a toy that had kind of weird proportions and arms that were half part of the fuselage and half add-on fists, turn it into a cartoon with more humanoid proportions and normal, blocky arms, then turn it back into a toy that has to be faithful to that cartoon, something's bound to give. And, I mean, yeah, I think it's definitely possible, with enough parts and engineering, to have a totally accurate F-15 turn into a totally Sunbow robot. I agree that designers could make better use of what the plane actually has and translating that into what the robot needs. But at even a $50 Leader price? On a toy that still has to meet US safety standards to be sold in Walmarts, and very likely doesn't have a license from Boeing even be all that accurate in the first place? Last I checked even Newage charges more for a toy that's half the size. And it gets even worse when they have to do it as a Deluxe that also has to be a part of a Combiner. Like I ultimately said, Has/Tak's jet Transformers are far from perfect, and I do get how that can be frustrating for someone so into aircraft... but I gotta be realistic about what they can and can't do with a $20/$35/$50 trying to capture the nuances of an often poorly-animated 40-plus year-old cartoon. ...newer Transformers media, though, doesn't quite have the same excuse. The guys who worked on the Bay films could have worked backward from an F-22 the way Touch Toys did with the J-35 and given us a cool Starscream, instead of the mess of scrap that we actually got. But they didn't. But even then, there's the matter of budgets... SS Starscream? Best they could do on the budget at the time (was that release all the way back when Voyagers were $25?). The MPM, though, that was proportionally thicker and far messier? No excuse. So... like Bumblebee and Cliffjumper? 😄 Shifting gears a bit, I know you're a big fan of the tapes in general and Dr. Wu's specifically. Make sure you check out the 3P thread.😉

It's a fair price, especially with an OLED screen, but I'd recommend budgeting for a RAM upgrade to go with it. Aside from a short weekend trip I haven't really traveled lately, definitely not like I used to pre-COVID. I'm glad I upgraded my desktop when I did, but I'm not really sure I even need a laptop anymore, at least not for the time being. For what little gaming-on-the-go I do these days (mostly just sitting for 45-90 minutes while my daughter is in her dance class) my ROG Ally X is handling well enough.

While I love Dr. Wu's Micromaster-sized Extreme Warfare line, I've been a little more lukewarm on his tapes. His version of Squawkbox was a so-so Beastbox and kind of crappy Squawktalk that combined to make a pretty awkward robot. His version of Slamdance fared a bit better, but between tepid reviews and the fact that the G1 toy never released in the US I opted to pass entirely on Dr. Wu's Decibel. Perhaps they'd have quirks if they didn't have to have to worry about getting both an alt mode AND a combined mode out of a tiny rectangle? Still, it's nice that the good Doctor is covering those late G1 cassette combiners, because who knows when Hasbro would get around to it? It took them how long just to get a version of Buzzsaw out there, and we're just now getting Ramhorn (but only as part of a Target-exclusive package). And speaking of tapes Hasbro's not getting around to, we're still missing two that weren't just part of the US G1 toy line, but characters that had screen time in the Sunbow cartoon. So I'm turning to Dr. Wu once again for Brutality and Slaughter, his version of Slugfest and Overkill. Both figures are lacking the cassette decals the G1 toys had, though there's a case to be made that it makes for more cartoon-accurate "robot" modes. Then again, I think in the cartoon Overkill's biceps, thighs, and tail were white instead of blue, and like most Decepticons he had his eyes colored red in the cartoon, so they're still more toy-colored than anything. Brutality is very similar to G1 Slugfest, with the most obvious difference being that his legs are more on his sides that directly under his belly. Slaughter, meanwhile, stays mostly accurate to G1 Overkill but I feel enjoys an overall better shape and proportions than the G1 toy (ignore the fact that his tail is upside down, I fixed it later). While the early Siege tapes ignored (or in Laserbeak's case, half-heartedly integrated) their accessories, accessories are kind of the good Doctor's specialty. So naturally, this pack comes with all of the weapons needed for both bots. Brutality doesn't enjoy a ton of articulation. His head and tail can bend up, due to transformation, but it ways that break the sculpt. His head is on a swivel, though, so he can tilt his head like he's confused. All four of his legs are on ball joints that allow them to swivel at the hips as well as provide some lateral hip movement, but that's really it for him. Well, it's not like the Siege tapes had the best articulation, either. Brutality's weapons have tabs on the sides that fit into the channels that the sliders for his dorsal plates use. Slaughter, meanwhile, got all the fresh engineering and has much better articulation as a result. No neck swivel, but he can look straight up and tilt his head down until his chin touches his chest. His jaws open and close. His shoulders are on ball joints that swivel and give him about 90 degrees of lateral movement, plus he's got hinged elbows that bend from 90 degrees the anatomically-correct way to 90 degrees the wrong way. His hips are also ball joints for swiveling and some lateral movement, but not a ton, plus he's got a hinged knee and a hinged digitigrade joint. And if all that wasn't enough, his tail actually has a pair of hinges as well, which don't have a ton of range but still allow you to get a little bit of side-to-side curl. Slaughter's weapons have peg holes that plug into small pegs on his sides. Brutality is one of the most convincing tapes we've seen so far, due to all of the molded details on both sides. I think he can afford this luxury due to his pretty simple engineering; his head, tail, and dorsal plates transform exactly like the G1 toy. Really, the only difference is that there's a flap on either side that reveals a gap. His legs hinge into that gap and tab together before folding the flaps back down to cover them. Slaughter is where all the engineering went. His tail rotates 180 degrees and his head folds onto his back, then his entire body splits down the middle. His limbs arrange themselves along the sides, with holes in his ankles pegging the legs in place using the same pegs the guns do for dino mode. Finally, his tail splits down the middle and the halves re-fold at the edge of the "tape." I'm using that word in quotes because he resembles a tape less than even Siege Ravage, with one side largely a white expanse of hollow gaps and the other clearly dinosaur limbs. I'm not going to judge too hard, though, because that's been pretty par for the course not just for Wu but for Hasbro. No one seems to care if they actually look like tapes, so long as we've got little rectangles that fit inside Soundwave and Blaster. Wait... do they fit in Soundwave and Blaster? For the most part, yes, though Brutality is cutting it close. Aside from being right at the limit on height and width, he's one of the thicker boys. I was able to work him in there, but I'd be worried about getting him stuck with the door closed. End of the day, I think these are my favorite tapes that Dr. Wu has done, at least so far. Uncompromised by a combining gimmick, these guys focus on being the best dinosaurs you can get out of tiny rectangles. For Brutality that means fairly basic, very G1 engineering, but I'm not going to complain because he nails the look. And for Slaughter we get a dinosaur mode that beats the robot/animal modes of just about anything Hasbro's done so far, and if the tape mode's a bit messy that's still par for Hasbro's course. And at around $25 after shipping they're priced right around what Hasbro would charge for two Studio Series Core-class tapes, so what's good enough for Hasbro seems like it should be good enough here. So yeah, if you're a fan of Soundwave and want to complete his collection of tape-bot minions, Brutality and Slaughter do a very good job filling Slugfest and Overkill-shaped holes in your collection, and I'd give them a recommend.

I try to be mindful of price, because budget constraints are real. So I'll put up with more on a Deluxe than I will a Leader, and more on a Leader than an MP. It's why I might look at a figure like Studio Series Devastation Optimus and think it's fine, but be fairly critical of MPG Super Ginrai. Regarding planes, I've said before that they're proportionally thinner than most cars and I don't know what more Hasbro can do on a Voyager (or worse, Deluxe) budget than a block of robot with wings and a nose. The fact that they're beholden to Sunbow accuracy for robot mode doesn't do them any favors, either. Sure, Kawamori does way better with his Valkyries, but he can work backward from the Fighter mode and the cheapest Macross toys are 3-4x the price of a similar-sized Transformer (without having to meet the same US toys safety laws). So, yeah, maybe I'm cutting the AotP Aerialbots a little slack. They're far from perfect, but they're at least better than the Combiner Wars versions.

😶

Price doesn't seem too bad... in yen, anyway. Actual import prices will affect my final decision. EDIT: Nope, I'm out. I just saw a photo of the prototype with MPG Super Ginrai, and Ginrai's a little bigger. And since Ginrai is a little smaller than Legacy/AotP/SS Combiners, that means Predaking will be significantly smaller. Doesn't work for me.

Not just over the weekend. At least twice now a several posts just vanished. Doesn't look like it was purposeful moderation, in one case it was basically every post over a 14-hour stretch. I don't know if it's happening in other topics or sections of the board, I noticed it hear because this is where I'm most active.

That seems to be happening lately...

Meh. Haven't touched my PS5 is actual years. I'll probably skip 6 entirely as long as Sony keeps putting their games on PC.

Hearts of Steel Bumblebee and Megatron And Void Rivals Jetfire are available to pre-order on Pulse, now if you're Premium and 2:00pm ET for everyone.

Not a licensed one, anyway. Most likely because he'll be a heavy re-tool of Vortex, and the way he transforms makes it easier to make his heels and toes thrusters instead of making his toes each one and his heels each half of one with a hump for a smaller one. Wrist-mounted flamethrower. Anyway, my thought seeing this artwork is that I need Hasbro to tell me that they're doing toy colors sooner rather than later. While I prefer OX/toy decos of the Scramble City gang in combined mode in general, I can live with Sunbow for Superion, Menasor, and Defensor. I HATE Sunbow Bruticus, though. Blue legs and silver chest or bust.

I didn't have the original TF1 leader, just the Voyager. I had the RotF leader, though, which has a transformation that's kind of similar to the MPM. I'm curious to see how the new SS figure will turn out. I thought the original Voyager was just ok-ish, hoping that going leader will afford him more screen accuracy.

I asked Alexa earlier, but I double-checked and she was off by about a half an inch both ways. Regardless, I think that puts the Alpha/Legioss somewhere around tall Deluxe or short Voyager. I was never into the second and third arcs of Robotech or Mospeada, I just think it's a cool design. If the price isn't too bad I'll get one and stick him with my Transformers.

The next Hot Wheels Collab will be in 2026, and it'll be Twin Mill II. Which, after I Googled it, is more different than Twin Mill than I figured. Y'know how everyone's mad that Starscream's in that Anniversary capsule? So's Prowl. We're supposedly also going to get a box set of all three Insecticons. Finally, looking all the way ahead to 2027, in time for the 20th anniversary of the first Bay film, we're going to get a new Leader-class TF1 Optimus. Brand new mold.

5 and three quarters inches tall, little less than 6 and three quarters inches long.

Starscream is a hugely popular character; Target might be the only way to get him in 2026, but just like Crasher and Cosmos (and, spoilers for next year, Hound), I fully expect him to turn up in a regular retail line eventually. BTW, another Bayverse Dinobot in 2027. They're shooting for '28 and '29, too, but those years aren't set yet.

Happy Gilmore is my favorite of Sandler's films. HG2 isn't on that level, but it's probably the best film he's done in 20 years.

Slapping Roy's colors on something is a surefire way to guarantee I buy it.

Maybe, but can it run Crysis?