mikeszekely

Never heard of Power Spec, but that's like $200 less than I spent for half the hard drive and half the RAM on a Asus G7 earlier this year.🤔

Or Swindle and Brawl need to be entirely shin and Bruticus needs some proper feet under them.

I got 'em there. Can only find Sideways on Amazon, though. Edit: found 'em.

Confirming pre-orders for 1:00pm EST/10:00am PST.

The Hasbro panel was for all their brands, so the Transformers part was real short. They showed off the leaked Sideways and Onslaught. Nate said someone about making sure Bruticus has black hands- until I hear differently I assume he actually means Onslaught, since gray is already correct for Bruticus, but I pointed out yesterday that green is wrong for Onslaught. Yes, pre-orders for those two open tomorrow, still confirming the time. The only other thing they mentioned is a brief glimpse at Swindle. Sorry for the poor quality. Bot looks fine, not loving the black winch. Jeep is a little long. The trailer is a reference to an episode; I'm hoping the guns mount without it. The arm cannon and trailer will combine to form Bruticus' gun. I don't think preorders for Swindle will be tomorrow, as he's scheduled for the third wave right now.

I mean, if the bubble bursts the companies that invested the most heavily will lose out big time. And I'd say that's exactly what keeps Nvidia from killing GeForce... yeah, it's peanuts compared to their datacenter business, but last quarter those peanuts were still around $5 billion. That's about half of AMD's ENTIRE revenue from the same quarter. Sure, it's not going to make Jensen Huang a trillionaire, but it's not bad for a fall back. Or, for that matter, money you'd want to leave on the table for your rivals even if the AI bubble doesn't burst. Because, yeah, the numbers say gaming is a small part of Nvidia's business now, but it's also relative to how gargantuan Nvidia has become overall, but consumer GPUs still seem like a pretty big market. So why, then, is Micron ditching consumer products? I'd say they simply don't have the resources that Nvidia does in the first place, and those resources are going to be even tighter with the NAND shortage. For the immediate future, data center customers simply can and will pay more than they could get selling RAM to consumers. Data center demand has Micron's revenue up almost 50% of the same quarter last year. It's a bet that, at least in the short run, the AI bubble isn't going to burst. I guess the question, then, is whether or not AI is really a bubble. In a lot of ways it does sort of feel like companies are shoving AI onto a market that really doesn't want it. Anecdotally, I know plenty of people who are just annoyed whenever Microsoft/Google/etc tries to shove some new AI feature nobody asked for into Windows/Android/web apps/etc, nobody seems to like those AI summaries that appear ahead of your search results, and end users seem mad as heck when companies try to use AI-generated content in place of human-created work in anime and videogames. But, honestly, no, I think things will level off eventually but this bubble's not going anywhere. Websites and social media are already churning out AI-generated crap because it costs them next to nothing to create and it brings in the clicks. Nexon says we should assume every game developer is using AI, and Tim Sweeny says Valve is dumb for making creators label their games if they us AI content. Companies are going to continue to force AI on us, because the promise of computers that will do stuff faster and cheaper than humans is just too alluring to them. Yes, but realistically cloud-based setups are all like 70% of the population needs anymore. My wife barely uses her laptop anymore, and then only because she finds it easier to work with spreadsheets, but everything else she does in Safari on her iPhone. My dad would be fine with a Chromebook were it not for the fact that he has a huge locally-stored music library that he still manages with iTunes for Windows for some reason. It's mostly creatives, enthusiasts, and gamers who are going to suffer from rising costs and limited supply. As someone who falls into two of those categories, believe me, I sympathize.

Not sure, but CCXP25 starts tomorrow. The Transformers team is there and will have a panel at 3:00pm EST. I expect we'll hear more about Onslaught (and a few other recent leaks) then, and if there are going to be preorders this week we'll get tipped off then. EDIT: BTW, I'll have more to say in the near future. Probably not before the holidays, though.

I was thinking Leprechaun, but that works too. Just replace "They're always after me Lucky Charms" with "Diggy Diggy Hole".

Oof. I'll let Onslaught's feet have a pass. They're ugly, but kind of becoming a standard for Hasbro; they're basically the same as Silverbolt's. And the truck mode looks pretty good. But this is a Commander-class toy. At that price, they should be able to afford enough plastic colors to make his thighs and hands black instead of sticking them on the same runner as the green/brown parts. And don't get me started on Bruticus. He's got terrible proportions that look like half his legs are missing. It's funny that after buying a DNA upgrade for Menasor I was debating if I think such upgrades are necessary for Superion and Devastator, but I'm already praying for DNA to fix Hasbro's mess on Bruticus. Also, I strongly prefer Bruticus to have a silver chest plate and blue thighs. I'm not getting that, because Hasbro wants to go Sunbow. OK... then why doesn't Blast Off connect via the top of the shuttle, as is cartoon-accurate? It's like Hasbro figured out the frame system works, then made a one-size-fits-all design that clearly doesn't work for Bruticus.

Despite not being nearly 60 years old like Twin Mill, Bone Shaker, first released in 2006, seems to be nearly as iconic. It also had a life-sized working version commissioned, and has appeared in several Forza games. And now it's a Transformer. Bone Shaker is kind of like the opposite of Twin Mill. Yesterday I praised Twin Mill for blending in with other Deluxe carbots due to his somewhat typical design and lack of overly Hot Wheels-esque elements. Bone Shaker's giant skull chest is instantly recognizable to Hot Wheels fans, though, and the bot it's attached to clearly has no interest in blending in. And yet, it totally works. Combined with his red eyes and face that managed to look angry even with a mask, Bone Shaker is a bot that oozes attitude. But not in a "I'm something else being shoehorned into Transformers way," like the pizza van from Stranger Things or a football helmet. More like in a Lobo or Deadpool way, like you stuck him in a comic book with the regular cast and he gave off so much main character energy you had to give him his own series. That attitude does come with a few drawbacks. He's not as clean as Twin Mill. The wheels aren't really his shoulder pads, they short of hover above his bare shoulders, with flaps of kibble tucked half-heartedly behind them. A windshield that doesn't fold at all sticks off his back. And his feet kind of aren't really feet. Like the front of his "foot" is actually part of his shin and doesn't move at all, while the flat bottom does move but is kind of just a flap. Bone Shaker's sole accessory is this... I guess mace. There's something like a skull and crossbones on it, but instead of a skull it's an Autobot badge. The packaging does suggest Bone Shaker's supposed to be an Autobot, but he gives me major Decepticon vibes. I'm kind of glad this is the only Autobot badge on the entire figure; rather than accept him as another Autobot, I'll imagine him as a Decepticon rival for Twin Mill. Bone Shaker's head is a ball joint, with a swivel and minimal down or sideways tilt, but he can look nearly 90 degrees straight up. The wheels over his shoulders are hinged so you can adjust them as needed to allow his shoulders to swivel and move just about 90 degrees laterally. His biceps swivel, his elbows bend 90 degrees, but he doesn't have wrist swivels. He does have a waist swivel, though, and his hips can go forward, backward, and laterally 90 degrees. His thighs swivel, and his knees bend nearly 180 degrees. The design of his feet don't really allow for up/down tilt, but the flat part that he actually stands on is hinged gives him about 90 degrees of ankle pivot. Bone Shaker can hold his mace in either hand. There doesn't seem to be any storage for it. Transforming Bone Shaker is relatively simple, and unlike Twin Mill doesn't require partsforming. Fold the skull on his chest open. That will open a gap that will allow you to rock the front of his torso up over his head. Don't close the skull yet, though! You need to open to fold the flaps with his shoulders attached down, tucking his shoulders together in the space his chest just vacated such that his elbows are bend 90 degrees with his hands tucked in just above his waist. Now you can close the skull, as well as fold the front wheels down and tuck the exhaust pipes into place. As for the rear of the vehicles, his legs tab together and fold over, Micromaster-style, but that's oversimplifying things a bit. You need to take his shins and hinge them out and away, giving you the clearance you need to fold his feet flaps around to make the seats. Once the legs are actually in place, the shins swing down to fill in the rear of the car. Bone Shaker has been released in a lot of decos over the years, and I'm not into Hot Wheels enough to say if what we've got here is accurate to any of them. Suffice to say that the flames-on-black works for him, though. And the shape of the car- exposed V8 on the nose, curling exhausts sticking out the sides, the big skull nose clutching the headlights, the open roof, and what I assume is a fuel tank in the back is all accurate to the 1:64 car regardless of the deco. I think Bone Shaker's Hot Wheels origin is more obvious than Twin Mill's and it's hardly a disguise, but he's still not totally out-of-place as a Transformer. G2 Laser Rods, anyone? There is the bit of Hot Wheels branding on the hood, but again, no faction symbols. The instructions fail to mention it, but there's a tiny tab at the bottom of the mace. This tab fits into a notch between the seats in his cabin, allowing in to store it in vehicle mode. Is it supposed to be a shifter? Bright red, smooth ball of the mace does sort of seem like it, but the scale of it vs the car is way off. I guess it's better than nothing, but why not just give him a gun that could tab into the slots on his rear? Bone Shaker is, in my opinion, another hit. Sure, he's got a bit more kibble, but he makes up for that with sheer charisma. He's got a solid transformation and a great alt mode; there's not a lot to complain about here. I'd love to see Hasbro and Mattel continue this collab, as it makes a lot of sense for both companies. And, fortunately, it sounds like I'm going to get my wish, as I know of at least three more in the works.

When I reviewed Steelsmash a few days ago, one of my biggest complaints was that a Transformers collaboration with the NFL just doesn't the same sort of sense that pop culture vehicles do. Which is why today's collab feels so right... maybe they don't have the mainstream recognition that, say, the Delorean from Back to the Future does, but Hot Wheels certainly have their place in both pop and collector culture. Taking some of Hot Wheels' most iconic original designs from the last 57 years and making them Transformers feels as obvious as taking real licensed cars and making Transformers out of those. While not part of the original 1968 "Sweet Sixteen," this car is so iconic Mattel actually commissioned a life-sized working version... this is Twin Mill. As Transformers go, Twin Mill isn't a bad one. With his primary blue colors and long, semi-circle shoulder pads I'm getting Cybertron Blurr vibes. The roof-chest is more standard car Transformers fare. And at roughly a Deluxe scale, he fits in pretty well with your regular Autobot crew. Twin Mill maintains a pretty clean appearance all-around, with no backpack and only a minimal amount on his arms. The open gaps in his calves are a bit of an eyesore, though, exposing the inner joints. Twin Mill doesn't come with any weapons... I guess the pipes on his arms are enough. He does come with these two flame effect parts, though. Twin Mill's head is technically on a ball joint, but there's no real clearance around the ball, so he can swivel his head but he can't really tilt it. His entire shoulder can swivel and move about 60 degrees laterally. That lateral movement is really for transformation, though, and on the wrong side of the swivel. Fortunately, his shoulders have additional swivels under the shoulder pads that get a bit under 90 degrees of lateral movement as well. His biceps swivel, and his elbows bend a little under 90 degrees. His wrists swivel, as does his waist. His hips can go over 90 degrees forward and laterally, and 90 degrees backward. His thighs swivel, and his knees bend 90 degrees. His ankles are hinged ball joints, so they swivel, have some up/down tilt, and pivot about 45 degrees. The flame effects have holes on them that fit over the ends of the pipes on his arms. To get Twin Mill ready to transform, you're going to have to partsform him. The sections with the engines and exhaust pipes slide outward to come off of his arms. Does that make them accessories? I think no, simply due to the fact that there's nowhere else to store them. As for the rest of his transformation, it's relatively simply. His arms tuck up into his shoulder pads, which then swivel 180 degrees and fold up to encapsulate his head and form the nose of the car. Spin his waist 180 degrees, and fold out his chest. Flip the trim out from under the window, and rotate the roof 180 degrees. Tuck in his heels and open his calves. His feet swivel so the toes are pointed inward, then they fold up into his legs. The legs tab together then collapse Combiner Wars-style. When the legs are in place, you can rock the roof back and tab it in, too. Slide the engines into the gap between the roof and the nose, and swivel the intakes so the opening faces forward. I'm not much of a Hot Wheels collector... I do have a number of 1:64 cars, but they're all Porsches. That said, as near as I can tell, aside from being a little thicker proportionally and using gray plastic instead of chrome form the engines, rims, and intakes, it's a pretty good representation of the Hot Wheels car. The light blue markings match marking on various Twin Mill releases, with the only concession to being a Transformer coming from the Autobot badges in front of the rear tires. I guess, if I was being really picky, I'd also point out that the swirly blue plastic Hasbro used is a poor substitute for Mattel's "Spectraflame" paint. Of course, the flame effect parts are meant to be used with this mode, too. In fact, there's a curve to them that allows them to curve around the flared rear, so they only fit a certain way. As I kind of alluded to, I really like this collab. Yes, Twin Mill is an iconic Hot Wheels car, but there's nothing about it that makes it stand out dramatically from other Transformers in either mode. If you're into Hot Wheels, it's cool to see Twin Mill brought to life this way, but even if you're not into Hot Wheels it's just a solid robot with good articulation that turns into a solid car fictional car. The only catch is the price. He's Deluxe-sized, with minimal accessories, and nothing about his paint seems to push the budget higher, but he's priced more like a Voyager. But, I guess Mattel has to get their cut, eh? If you can swallow the price tag, I give Twin Mill a solid recommend.

No, first I'm hearing of it. I just used the regular credit card I use for everything. Between that and all-season tires for my Porsche I'll get some points that I'll cash it for gift cards for Christmas.

Whatever you're using it for, hope you find a good deal. I feel like I didn't get the best price I could have if I were a little more proactive earlier, but with NAND prices on the rise I think I still got a better deal that I would if I waited a few more months. I wound up buying a Beelink SER5 with a Ryzen 7 6800U, 32GB of RAM, and a 1TB SSD for $380. Like I said, it's going to be a Batocera box, and I'd like it to do up to PS2/Gamecube. 32GB of RAM is probably overkill, but boxes with 1TB SSDs were scarce and M.2 drives are already creeping up enough that if I bought one with 16GB of RAM and bought a 1TB drive separately I'd be paying just as much.

Hmmm, I should probably buy a Beelink or Miniforum mini PC now instead of waiting. Been wanting to set up a Batocera box for awhile.

Amazon. And just to check, I went to Amazon.de and set my location to 70435 Stuttgart (Porsche HQ and their main factory😁). I found all four available to pre-order with a March 2026 release date.

When Hasbro started doing these Transformers crossovers they started out with some pretty obvious ones, like the Delorean and Ecto-1, the gradually started to drift into some that were some head-scratchers, like the T-Rex from Jurassic Park. But this crossover might be the most head-scratchiest of all... this is Steelsmash, part of Hasbro's Transformers Collaborative... with the NFL? Now, Steelsmash is the only version I picked up, but for the most part everything here applies to Starblitz, KC-59, and Tundra Prime, the other three figures released in this line (so far). They all have the same body, colored to look like the uniforms of the represented teams; the Pittsburgh Steelers for Steelsmash, Dallas Cowboys for Starblitz, Kansas City Chiefs for KC-59, and Green Bay Packers for Tundra Prime. The only real differences are the heads. Now, the yellow dome on top of Steelsmash did give me sort of steelworker helmet vibes and made me think of the Steeler's mascot, Steely McBeam. But a quick check told me that Starblitz has the exact same head, and the other two have similar tops of their heads, they just swap the visor and mask look for eyes and a face. Anyway, from the waist down Steelsmash and his roughly Deluxe-sized friends do have an athletic sort of look, but short arms and a fat gut kind of spoil it. What really spoils it, though, is the copious kibble. Sides of the legs, backs of the calves, forearms, shoulders, backpack, all kibble. If it isn't obvious, these guys are super shellformers. Oh, and not just shellformers.... partsformers, too! Half of Steelsmash's accessories are just the chin strap and face guard for his alt mode. The rest of his accessories are a little helmet and football. Steelsmash's head is on a ball joint. It swivels, but depending on the angle not much tilt. Shoulders are ball joints that swivel and move laterally about 75 degrees. His biceps swivel, and his elbows bend 90 degrees. No wrist articulation. His waist swivels, and due to the nature of his transformation, he's got a nice ab crunch. His hips can go about 90 degrees backward, and slightly more than that forward and laterally. His thighs swivel, and his knees bend 90 degrees. His feet have hinges for transformation that give him pretty good up/down tilt, but the feet themselves are attached on ball joints that give him ankle swivels and a little under 45 degrees of ankle pivot. The little helmet splits and hinges open so you can wrap it over his head and close it. As for the football, there's a small hole on it. This hole corresponds to small pegs on the insides of his fists. It doesn't look like he's holding the football so much as it's stuck to his hand. For the rest of his partsforming accessories, you can plug the face guard onto the chin strap, which you'll eventually do for alt mode anyway, then use the tab on the inside of the chin strap to plug the combined mass onto his backpack. Yay, more kibble! Steelsmash's transformation isn't particularly complicated. You pull out his backpack enough to fold his head in (and it fits with the helmet on), lift his tummy up and over to meet his backpack, bend his feet up to his shins, fold in his hand and bend him over at the waist, then kind of curl him up and start lining up the panels on his legs, arms, and shoulders with his tummy and backpack to get a a helmet shape. For ease of effort, I recommend attaching the chin strap first by plugging in the four pegs into holes on the sides of helmet, and then plugging the face guard into the chin strap, lining it up the the parts that are already on the helmet and plugging it into the sides as well. Aside from seems were various kibble panels line up, it's a pretty accurate representation of the Steelers' helmet. The holes, vents, and contours are all a match, with the team logo tampoed onto the right side. The white straps and black face guard match the real deal, and they even painted the white at the base of the helmet. The only concession to being a Transformers product is the small Autobot badge on the white bit above the face guard. My one gripe isn't that it's a bad representation of the real helmet, it's that the inside is full of folded-up robot, so you couldn't, say, make it look like Star Convoy is wearing a football helmet. Or, conversely, that there's not enough robot in there. Imagine if he had a robotic head inside the helmet, and you could plonk the football helmet head down in place of Cerebros or Zarak on Fortress Maximus or Scorponok. Anyway... as mentioned, you can leave his little helmet on during transformation, and his partsforming bits, well, partsform. That leaves the football. Turns out, there's a little peg inside the chin strap, so you can store the football inside the helmet. Convenient! Now, I'm not particularly into football (American or soccer), but where I live I'm very much the outlier as pretty much everyone around here ranks Steelers football ahead of church for important Sunday things, so I did feel compelled to represent the home team. But do I actually recommend Steelsmash or his brothers? If you happen to be into the NFL, especially if your team is one of the four represented so far, then I suppose there's a bit of novelty in having a thing you like crossover with another thing you like, sure. And if you're an NFL fan but your team isn't represented, don't fret, I've heard that Hasbro plans on doing all 32 teams eventually. That being said, if you don't care about football, no, I don't recommend these guys at all. Like, at least guys like Code Red, Ectotron, Maverick, etc have weapons and turn into vehicles. How is a football player going to help the Autobots? Catch the football next time Blitzwing shoots one? And when Optimus orders the Autobots to transform and roll out, does Steelsmash just turn into a helmet and plunk onto the ground? As NFL memorabilia, fine, but as actual Transfomers Steelsmash and friends are kind of dumb.

It's been awhile since I messed with my copy, but I think so, if you you close the sides of the trailer before folding the front back over. The Kingdom trailer explodes a bit more than the original.

No, the protruding cab is definitely the biggest offender. Mostly because your issue simply... isn't. I dunno if that's a bad photoshop on the part of some poor Hasbro intern or just a really bad angle of the storage door partly open there, but properly closed that perceived bump just isn't there. Properly closed, it looks like this (Kingdom in the middle):

Excuse my VERY poor photo manipulation skills. Move the rear of the car part up, to partially cover the canopy and move the wing forward. Ideally, by having hinges that move them forward on the car itself, but by making it part of the trailer instead like the MP version. Then, like I said, ditch the effects parts and their storage cubby so the car can sit in deeper. EDIT: To be totally clear, I'm not against a new Rodimus mold that's just better and more accurate all around. I'm just saying that they were a few doable tweaks from getting a lot closer the first time.

I'd imagine it'd be a pretty easy fix, honestly. Ditch the effects parts, then replace the storage for them with more room under the trailer for the cab to sit deeper inside. If they insist on the cab having a separate car mode, make the wing part of the trailer so it comes down on the right spot on the car's roof.

Over a year ago I covered MMC's Shiftlane, their version a Rollbar, a retool of their version of Swindle. And then... well, nothing for a long time. But I don't really do full reviews for repaints, and I don't buy nearly as much 3P stuff I used to (and when I do, I don't really buy repaints). But... I did get the rest of the set. So the first one after Shiftlane was Chops, the MMC version of Ro-Tor. Now, the animation models for Robots In Disguise were a lot closer to the toys than the G1 Combaticons. MMC cleverly flipped Shiftlane's torso around. For Chops, they remolded the front of his torso. For the most part, that works for him. The new torso is pretty cartoon accurate, and aside from having Vortex's little feet he's accurate enough down through the legs. MMC tucked Vortex's tail and use the engine nacelles to make for more G1 cartoon-accurate, but that actually works against Chops, since Ro-Tor's toy-accurate arms were clearly the helicopter tail. Ro-Tor also shouldn't have the little arm guns that Vortex does, but Chops has all the same accessories that their Vortex did. Transformation is the same as Vortex, which is to say it's still my least favorite of the set. The helicopter mode was designed to walk a fine line between G1 cartoon-accurate and a realistic Seasprite. Again, it's the kind of thing that worked pretty well for the Vortex version, but the RiD animation was much closer to the simplified look of the toy. To that end, I don't think that Chops came out badly, per se. The realistic helicopter is fine, but some details are a bit off. Why isn't the nose red? Where's the gray panel on the side? The third release was Astrolift, aka Movor. Again, MMC made a few modifications to make the mold a bit more RiD-accurate. He's got new feet, and a partly new chest. As with Chops, the new chest is indeed more accurate, but the faux wheels are kind of unnecessary. And while the arms are made from the front of the shuttle, same as Blast-Off, details like the visible pink cockpit windows are missing. I'm not sure why MMC didn't just paint a fake windows onto part of his arm where the actual cockpit could cover over it. As for the shuttle mode, well, Movor always had more realistic colors than Blast-Off, and the realistic look pretty good with MMC's (fairly) realistic design (the engine bells are still wrong). It's worth pointing out, though, that in the cartoon Movor was drawn rather strangely, with small wings, a rectangular fuselage, and sharply angled engine nacelles, so aside from the colors Astrolift isn't exactly cartoon-accurate here. Another thing to note is that Movor was animated with the larger cannons from the toy over the wings/near the rear of the fuselage. Since MMC's Blast-Off didn't include those, neither does Astrolift... just the smaller pistol, which still folds up and tucks into a spot near the top rear of the fuselage. The fourth release was Fortiflex, their Armorhide. Fortiflex has remolded hip skirts, which better resemble the trapezoidal hips of Armorhide's character model. From the waist down, no complaints. From the waist up, though... well, Brawl's animation model was pretty different from the G1 toy, with a much smaller chest and treads for shoulders. Armorhide's animation model, being closer to the toy, kept the big tank chest and the arms where the treads were on the backs of his arms, not the front. The remolded chest does sort of look like the front of the tank, but it's clearly not as protruding, and no changes to the arms means you've got treads and dark browns where we should have tan bits from the top of the tank. Tank mode is still looking sharp, though. Again, MMC likes realistic details so we've got the periscope, mirrors, and working hatches. Although Armorhide didn't use them in the cartoon, he's still go the rear-mounted double-barreled gun that came with Brawl. Megalith, aka Mega-Octane, finishes up the set. I don't think it's particularly controversial to say that Onslaught was the weakest of MMC's Combaticons due to being the most hampered by the all-in-one gimmick, and that's certainly still the case with Megalith. However, MMC's Onslaught, due largely to his transformation, was always a bit more toy-ish than the other four, and this is something that works in Megalith's favor as the wheels on his torso and the extra kibble on the backs of his shoulders are all cartoon-accurate now. Even the large orange pelvis is. You just have to squint and remember that it's all supposed to be pelvis, regardless of where his hips and waist swivel are. As far as mold changes go, the only difference is some minor changes to the molds of his chest panels. Note that he comes with both an orange version of Onslaught's original gun, as well as the gun and boxes from the upgrade kit they did for their Bruticus. Transformation is the same, and the truck mode is basically just Onslaught's in a different color scheme. I suppose the grill could be a little more cartoon-y, but I think it's fine overall. Of course, if you're this far in, you're probably not in because you want the Decepticon Commandos, you're probably in for Ruination, so here's Eversus, the combined mode. Like Megalith on his own, I think Eversus benefits a bit from the toy-style torso. You'll notice that the head and chest are the ones that came with the Bruticus upgrade kit; Eversus does NOT have the Blast-Off chest and G1 cartoon Bruticus head were stock on Onslaught. The chest is painted with details from the Japanese release of Car Robots Dorailer. However, while the torso goes a long way toward the Ruination look, being designed first and foremost as Bruticus does hold him back in a few ways. His left arm lacks the big red guns from the RiD Ro-Tor toy, just the little ones from Vortex. And his elbow bends like Vortex, whereas the cartoon had the side of the helicopter as the front of the arm. Likewise, the front of his left arm was the side of Movor, and presented as white. The biggest difference, though, is that Armorhide connects backward in the cartoon, with the turret on the back of his leg and the front of the tank as his knee. But Brawl was designed to match the G1 cartoon, with the turret on the shin. The other reality is that in RiD Ruination frequently flipped his arms and legs, with Armorhide as the right arm, Rollbar as the left arm, Ro-Tor as the right leg, and Movor as the left. But since Bruticus only had his "standard" configuration in the G1 cartoon, MMC only designed their Bruticus with the single combination, so that's the only one that Eversus gets. So, I guess the question is whether or not the whole set is worth it. And I think that's an interesting question. On the one hand, the strong toy aesthetics and Megaltih and, by extension, the core of Eversus, actually seem to work better for Ruination than they did as Bruticus. Plus, while MMC was competing at the time with Zeta and Unique Toys, there really hasn't been too many takes on Ruination, and certainly not at this scale. I think, despite the compromises that come with being designed as a Bruticus first, this is a solid take on the characters and it goes great with Fans Hobby's Scourge. Top it off with better joint tolerances all around than Bruticus, and I'd say that I'm quite glad to have this set. But, the thing is, there are enough quirks with these designs that I don't really want to own two of each of these molds. And in the years since MMC first released their Bruticus, we've gotten another take on an MP Bruticus from Magic Square. So while this set does satisfy my desire for Ruination, it also makes me want to sell the MMC Bruticus and buy Magic Square's.

Tyrant's great, but I want one that scales with SS86 Megs, not MP-36 Megs.

Not super surprising, they can't sell it at a loss and make it up with licensing fees the way consoles do. Also, what even is console pricing anymore? Used to be they'd go down in price as they aged. Five years ago both the Series X and PS5 were $500, today they're S650 and $550, respectively. My money's on $600 for the 512GB Steam Machine.

I'd love to see Hasbro explore lots of designs for lots of characters, but they seem fixated on Timelines doing endless versions of Optimus vs Starscream and Bumblebee vs. Megatron. And sadly, at a sort of "Deluxe+" price. I'd personally love a version of the IDW stealth bomber Megatron that scales with the SS86 toy.