mikeszekely

Good question. Is it possible that Funko licensed it from both Hasbro and HG?

That looks better than their cartoon Menasor.

Between Generations Selects, Target-exclusives, Walmart Netflix, the first wave of Kingdom, and even a few Studio Series 86 figures I've gotten my hands on it seems like I've been writing a lot about official stuff lately while 3P has kind of slowed down. But finally, after losing my package for nearly three weeks, I've got my hands on the last of DX9's Stunticons, their take on an MP Dragstrip that they've cunningly called... Dragstrip. Sorry, if you want a comparison with XTB's you'll have to wait a little bit until I get my hands of Fans Toys', because I'm not transforming those shoulders on XTB's more than I have to. But yeah, I think Dragstrip will fit just fine with the other DX9 Stunticons in the sense that he hits a lot of the Sunbow notes but with a few concessions to the engineering. His arms are a little thin, with tiny hands. the engine in his chest doesn't fill his whole torso, leaving him with a chunk of gold abs. While I'm used to robot toys having shorter thighs and longer shins than a human would have Dragstrip's thighs seem extra short and his shins extra long. None of it is terrible, but in a market with two competing designs it needs to be noted. That said, it also needs to be noted how very clean Dragstrip is, which has been the case for DX9's Stunticons. Dragstrip doesn't come with a ton of accessories, but he doesn't need much. He's got his gun, which has a nice metallic purple paint job. And he's got a little leg. Leg in hand, we can finally build the little Legends figure DX9 has haphazardly packed in with the Stunticons. It's Orion Pax, a repainted version of their Legends Kup with a new head. I'm not going to talk a lot about it except to say that it has a very interesting transformation that involves him splitting in half vertically, but the alt mode seems a bit unfinished. Getting back to Dragstrip, his head is on a ball joint so he can look down and tilt his head sideways a little in addition to swiveling, but he doesn't really have any upward tilt. His shoulders rotate, with a hinge for lateral movement that'll get you 90 degrees. There's a transformation hinge that you can use to get more, but it's inside the torso from the swivel joint. His bicep swivels in two difference spots due to his transformation, and his elbows bend 90 degrees. His wrists swivel. His thumb is fixed, but his fingers are pinned at the base knuckle and his index finger is a separate part from his other fingers. His waist swivels. He does have an ab crunch, but due to the shape of the cockpit on his tummy it only has enough clearance to engage when his waist isn't swiveled. His hips can move 90 degrees forward or laterally, and about 60 degrees backward. His thighs swivel, and his knees bend 90 degrees. The front of his feet can bend down but not up, and his ankles can pivot 90 degrees. A note here... his heels move, mostly for transformation. Your instinct is going to be to fold them all the way back for robot mode- fight that instinct! If you do the pipes that make up most of his heel don't actually touch the ground, causing Dragstrip to tip over backward. You actually need to angle them down a little. As long as you do that he's perfectly stable. Dragstrip's weapon doesn't tab into his hand at all, it just slots in behind his thumb and his fingers hold it in place. The friction seems to be adequate, though. Dragstrip turns into a Tyrrell P34, as Dragstrips are wont to do. Again, no Fans Toys to compare it to yet, but the transformation is much simpler and more fun than XTB's, which has kind of been the running theme for this set- they're not quite as cartoon or real world accurate as FT or XTB, but they're the most fun to handle. It's interesting that DX9 and XTB both noted that animation model is two different shades of yellow, and they both used paint to color the darken basically the same spots on their Dragstrips. DX9 opted for a much more metallic gold for theirs, though. I know some people complained that XTB's looked like it was supposed to be one color and they just did a bad job of color matching the paint. The gold on DX9's stands out more in a way that stands out more and looks somewhat less correct to me, but at the same time looks more deliberate. I can't decide if I like it better or not. That said, there's some departures from the animation, like the short engine not reaching to the rear spoiler due to his robot knee caps taking that space, and the alt mode is far less real-world accurate than XTB's. However, the colors, stripes, and basic design are unmistakably Dragstrip. The biggest gripe most people have with him is that there's no seat or steering wheel in the cockpit. Instead, there's Dragstrip's head. In fact, he comes packaged in alt mode with his face staring up at you from the cockpit. You can turn it around so the back of his head is showing instead, just be careful because I've heard of people scratching the paint on Dragstrip's nose that way. A more enterprising designer would have found a way to open the back of Dragstrip's head and turn it into the seat, but as I understand it DX9's designer quit before Dragstrip was totally finished. The tires are rubber, and the gut can plug into slots on the sides by folding the handle in, revealing a small tab. Just like XTB's, Dragstrip splits in half at the waist for arm mode. However, as was the case with their Dead End, the mechanism for separating his halves is simpler and less prone to issues than XTB's peg with the button release. Speaking of combined mode, I actually talked about it extensively when I reviewed Motormaster, since his trailer formed the bulk of Menasor with the cars just clipping on. I even went over how Motormaster, Breakdown, and Wildrider connect. Dragstrip and Dead End have hook-like tabs that fit into a slot on Menasor's biceps then slide down to lock it place. The forearm parts use the connector part that attaches their tops to their bottoms plus some slots that plug onto tabs on the forearms. The cars on the calves could connect more securely, especially Wildrider, but the arms are nice and secure. And the result is a well-proportioned, stable, well-articulated, Sunbow-accurate Menasor. Sadly, I don't think I'll be comparing it with XTB's. Despite being five Stunticons in I can't justify over $200 for a trailer that turns into the combiner skeleton when I paid less for a trailer that turns into a combiner skeleton AND Motormaster from DX9. I think XTB's has some sharper details on theirs that I like, but I think DX9's looks better overall. Perhaps I'll change my mind and buy the XTB trailer if/when they come out with the toy version to make a toy/OX-style Menasor, which I greatly prefer to Sunbow Menasor. For now, I guess I'll say that Dragstrip is a fun toy and worth picking up if you're already in on the DX9 Stunticons, but I doubt he'll be my choice for the definitive MP Dragstrip. But, with the caveat that we're still waiting to see how FT's Menasor turns out, I do think that DX9's Menasor beats XTB's and I'd recommend it for anyone looking to have a Sunbow Menasor on their MP shelf.

Deep Cover is definitely real, but definitely NOT an Earth-mode. It's pretty clearly the Siege mold again. Honestly, I'm not complaining despite owning four of them already, I'm down for Deep Cover. As much as I like my custom I wouldn't even mind if they do a real Clampdown.

ZAM! POWIE! That just leaves Kingdom Deluxe-class Warpath. As much as I like the old Generations Warpath it was always a more stylized take on what's traditionally been a pretty goofy character. The new Kingdom Deluxe is smaller, as you'd expect from a minibot, but not as small as Bee or Cliffjumper, which is also what the cartoon suggests. He's almost entirely a burgundy red, with bits of white around his abs, eyes, and on the treads on his arms and feet. While I'd have preferred light gray or silver, as it's what's on the G1 toy and what color the cartoon was trying to portray, the white is mostly cartoon accurate. He's actually missing a little white on his shoulders, and he's got a bit too much on his abdomen. The cartoon had burgundy in the middle of his abdomen with an Autobot insignia the toy is missing. Otherwise, yep, that's what the cartoon looks like, right down the the u-shaped detail on his crotch. Actually, there is one thing that bugs me, but I'll get to it in a minute. Warpath doesn't come with any guns, which is a little disappointing but not surprising as he almost never had a gun in cartoon and the G1 toy didn't come with one. He does have this "shield" that's really a hunk of partsforming. Ok, so Warpath's head is on a ball joint. Nothing really down, but he can look up a little and has some sideways tilt. His shoulders rotate and extend laterally 90 degrees. Biceps swivel just above his elbows, which bend 90 degrees. His wrists swivel, as does his waist. His hips can go 90 degrees forward, 90 degrees laterally, and 90 degrees backward as long as you move his buttflap. His thighs swivel, and his knees bend a little under 90 degrees. His feet don't tilt up or down (which might be surprising given his transformation), but his ankles can pivot 90 degrees. Although he doesn't come with a gun he's got places to borrow others, including weaponizers, fossilizers, and Battle Masters. Both of his fists are 5mm ports, and he's got more on the outside of either forearm, on the outside of either shoulder, on the outside of either leg, under each foot, and one on his back. His "shield" is depicted in the instructions on his shoulder, with the shorter end angled over the top, like a Zaku shield. If you plug it into his forearm with the short end over his fist it could maybe be some punching weapon. You can also put it on his back, but it only fits with the short end sticking up behind him like a Throttlebot's hood. While the instructions have his tank barrel collapsed into his chest, you can extend it to recreate scenes from the cartoon where he was blasting it in robot mode. That said, it never collapsed this much in the cartoon. The barrel on the Kingdom figure clicks into place when it's fully pushed it or fully extended, but it'd have been nice if there was a stopping point with it collapsed halfway, as it'd look better and be more cartoon-accurate. As others have noted, Warpath's transformation is surprisingly involved, with is legs rotating 180 degrees at the thighs as a variety of panels unfurl. The result is a more traditional-looking tank than the sci-fi H-tank we got the first time around, but the thin panels have trouble locking in place which can leave gaps on the front of the tank. By being a more realistic tank he's more cartoon accurate than before, but I'm a bit surprised by how much misses the mark here. The turret, while having details that are somewhat similar, is more bulbous than the cartoon and far more bulbous than the real thing. It also sits too far back on the tank, with a barrel that's a bit short with a stumpy muzzle brake. Despite using partsforming* there's still a gap between the front treads that neither cartoon, toy, or real Sheridan has, and it's lacking much of the sharp slope in the front. That said, I guess a better tank mode is a lot to expect on a Deluxe; half the reason BadCube's Wardog was so notoriously complicated was because of how much of his robot torso had to be added to the realistic turret. About that partsforming, his shield plugs into the underside near the front of the tank, with the short end angling up into panels that unfold from his legs. If you just want to put the shield in a drawer and forget about it I don't think his tank mode really looks that much worse without it. That said, something I do find interesting is that it uses four tabs to lock into place, not the peg used for robot mode, and there's a big gap between his legs. A gun with a peg hole, like Earhrise Ironhide/Ratchet's, could easily store in his tank mode by plugging into the peg and riding in the shield. Speaking of peg holes, you've got two on either side of the tank and one on the back of the turret. You can see three more under the tank, but they're not very useful in this mode. His turret can rotate, and the barrel can move up but not really down. The tip of the barrel has a little peg for Siege blast effects, put personally I hope some enterprising party uses it as an attachment point for a better muzzle brake. Like the Cliffjumper mold, Warpath makes a strong case for re-doing all the smaller characters previously released in the Legends scale as Deluxes. Warpath isn't the most mind-blowing toy, but he's a big step up from even some of the better Legends-class toys like Seaspray and Beachcomber and a good figure I can recommend. It makes me both excited to see what Hasbro's cooked up for Huffer and disappointed that Gears is still being ignored. But maybe post-Kingdom Hasbro can revisit the minibots; I'd love a Deluxe-class Seaspray.

With Megatron out of the way, we might as well cover his rival, Kingdom Voyager-class Optimus Primal. Unlike Megatron, who was a head taller than his G1 counterpart, Primal is a head shorter than Optimus Prime. And aesthetically, I'd suggest he's somewhere between the cartoon and the original toy. Much of his body is black plastic with textured to seem furry in a way that strongly reminds me of the original toy; no slick digital painting here. His pelvis is silver, which is closer to the light gray on the old Ultra-class toy than the darker color used on the CGI or MP-32. Likewise, his hands are a gray color instead of black. However, head has the mouth cutout that he CGI used, the mechanical details on his chest are closer to the CGI/MP than the original toy in both shape and color, and while his dark blue feet don't exactly match the gunmetal feet he had in the cartoon they're not white like the original toy. The one detail that is a departure from both are his hips. They're shaped like the cartoon, but they used the same blue plastic as they did for his feet, while both the original toy and the CGI/MP had red hips. My biggest aesthetic complaint, though, is that the part of his chest that flips around for for transformation is fairly far forward, and there's a large gap between it and his collar. Technically there's a gap under it, too, but it's smaller and less noticeable. Primal doesn't come with a ton of accessories, just his swords. Seems like they were cast in blue and the blades were painted silver. They're lacking the gold on the center of the hilt, but I think it's close enough for a Voyager. Primal's head might be on a ball joint, but if he does there's no sideways tilt. And since his chin is basically touching his chest downward tilt is also pretty much out. He can swivel his head, though, and he can look up a bit. His shoulders rotate and can move his arms 90 degrees laterally, and there's also a butterfly hinge so be can move his arms forward and across his body. His biceps swivel, and his elbows bend almost 180 degrees. His writs swivel, and like Prime and Hot Rod his fingers are pinned at the base so he can open and close his hands. That means that although he didn't come with one and can't store it internally he can hold Prime or Hot Rod's Matrix. Moving along, his waist can swivel. His hips can move forward 90 degrees and a little less than that backward, as long as you move his butt flap, and perhaps about 75 degrees laterally. His thighs swivel around his hip joints, which limits their maximum range due to the sculpt (but ultimately provides enough, I think). His knees bend a little over 90 degrees on a single hinge. However, you can untab the red kneecap from a joint and effectively make his knees double-jointed if you want more range. For some reason there's a second swivel below his knee. His feet tilt up a little but not down, and his ankles can pivot a little under 45 degrees. With his hands open you can slide his swords into his hands. If you don't want him carrying them they have tabs on the sides that can fit into slots on his backpack for storage. If a pair of swords seems like it's not enough when your archenemy is a T-Rex don't worry, that's not the extent of Primal's arsenal. Inside his backpack he's got shoulder cannons you can flip out (the instructions sort of imply that they're always out in robot mode, but they can be folded away in robot mode if you're looking for cartoon accuracy). There's also a rectangular button on the underside of either of Primal's forearms. Push it in and a panel on the oppose side of his arm will open up, revealing his arm blasters. So again Hasbro's going for the more realistic alt mode that attempts to blend his robot thighs into the gorilla's torso and give him a posture akin to a real gorilla moving on all four limbs. That makes the robot knees his gorilla hips (although is robot hips can help spread his legs a little), and the swivel below his robot knees a gorilla thigh swivel, with no actual gorilla knee. The waist swivel is more or less locked in place. Arm articulation is basically unchanged. His head is designed so that it can't look down to far, but he can look almost straight up (or straight forward, I guess, in this posture. He can't swivel his head 360 degrees, but he can swivel it even when it's straight up/forward. His robot parts are mostly hidden, but turning his bicep will expose some of the white part, and the seam of his gorilla butt flap doesn't quite match his robot thighs. His eyes are neither the human-ish cartoon nor the blue of the original toy, but a sort of brownish orange that you might find on a real gorilla. Speaking of real gorillas his hands, chest, and face are gray like the original toy, which is a color you might find on a real gorilla, but I kind of wish they were black like the cartoon, which is also a color you'd find on a real gorilla. I'm not sure I recall Primal ever walking on all fours in the cartoon. And while they don't do it often in real life a gorilla can walk upright for short distances when carrying food or when they're behaving defensively. That's enough for Hasbro to include a bipedal mode for Primal by basically making him look down and unplugging his knee joint from the red part, then using the double hinge to make the rounded joint exposed, then pushing his robot thighs back enough that those joints are roughly in-line with his pelvis. His articulation is unchanged in this position. While it might not be something you'd see on a real gorilla, his swords can still mount on his back or, since his gorilla hands are his robot hands, he can wield them in this mode. Likewise, his shoulder and arm cannons are still accessible, which kind of touches on why I've never been a fan of the gorilla alt mode. Most other alt modes, even beast ones, I can imagine giving a transformer access to some skills or weapons that they wouldn't have in robot mode, but a gorilla is basically already a humanoid form. Oh well, after 25 years it is what it is. Kingdom Primal is, despite being in a different class, a lot like Kingdom Megatron. Both are fairly show-accurate, but not perfect. Both eschew show-accurate alt modes for more realistic ones, and those alt modes are both fairly well-articulated. Both clearly fall short of their MP counterparts, but both are still the best representation of their characters that have ever appeared in a mainstream Transformers line. So maybe Optimus Primal isn't my favorite Kingdom figure or one of my top 5 WfC Trilogy figures, but maybe that's because deep inside I'm with the "truck not monkey" crew. Beast Wars fans are still getting a good toy with Kingdom Primal, so I'd recommend him.

So yesterday when I went to Target I was there for pants, like I said, but my local Target has a CVS in it and that's where I get my prescriptions filled. I had one for pickup, but the pharmacy was closed by the time I got there. Well, today I took my parents to lunch and decided to grab my script on the way home. I didn't expect anything, because who gets restock on Saturday, but on a whim I checked the toy section. Lo and behold, between the main aisle and the endcap were both Studio Series 86 Voyagers (curse my impatience!) and the entire first wave of Kingdom. It's too bad they didn't have the SS86 Deluxes or Grimlock, but again, maybe I'll see what my local Walmart has later (not holding my breath). My two today purchases will have to wait a bit, but the one I grabbed yesterday was Kingdom Leader Class Megatron. Megatron is a big fellow, coming in short of the "old" Leader class stuff (like CW Magnus or Megatron), but standing a good head taller than Siege or Earthrise Megatron. As far as accuracy to the source material goes he's... ok. He's got the dino head for his right hand, the tail-pincher (that I just realized I don't have fully transformed in any of my pics; the end of the tail should be rotated 180 degrees) on the other arm. Like the CGI and MP figures, but unlike almost every BW Megatron before him, he does have a left hand. The patterns on his head, torso, and thighs have mostly the correct shapes, he's got the hip guns, and he's got the tooth collar. His problems are mostly down to colors; there's simply not enough of them. Only the front half of his head is painted; the back half is purple plastic. His biceps are molded in black, and his left forearm in purple, but both parts of his arm should have black and purple, and the purple should be darker than his torso. Speaking of torso, they used a gunmetal color instead of black, which is fine, but they left off some silver around his midriff (despite having it on his chest and tooth collar), and the gunmetal runs all the way to his crotch instead of stopping at his pelvis and having a purple crotch. The round bits at the bottoms of his thighs are actually a darker purple, which is correct, but they used the purple all the way up his thighs on details that should actually be green. Speaking of green, there's none on his shoulders, which are instead covered in a khaki color instead (which replaced the gold on the CGI/MP). Other parts of his dino skin do have green, but in a duller shade than the cartoon. Finally, his purple dino skin is all one shade, with none of the subtle splotching used on the show or MP. Did I say finally? Because there's actually one more thing. He's got a pretty huge backpack. I think it's the nature of the character's design going all the way back to the old Kenner toys; organic beast shell contains a robot inside. That shell has to go somewhere, and that somewhere is his back. That's true for the CGI model and true for the MP... but Kingdom Megatron's backpack is bigger than those, and less accurate (although not necessarily worse than the original Ultra-class toy). Megatron doesn't come with any accessories. It's a shame, I'd have liked to see him come with a toothbrush or rubber ducky, but it's not like Megatron had weapons in the show, and his original toy only came with a water squirter and missile to be used with the dino head, so I guess it's accurate. His head is only on a swivel, so he can't really look down or tilt his head sideways. But a transformation joint can be used to get him to look up a bit. His shoulders rotate and he can move them laterally a little under 90 degrees. His biceps swivel. His left elbow bends about 90 degrees, and although his wrist can't swivel there is a hinge that lets it bend up. That hinge isn't used for transformation. His waist swivels. His hips go 90 degrees forward and backward. Normally they can only do about 45 degrees laterally, but if you rotate the hip blasters to their alt mode position you can get the full 90 degrees. His thighs swivel just above his knees, which bend 90 degrees. His feet can tilt up and down, and he's got about 45 degrees of ankle pivot. His dino head-arm can open, and there's a port in there that works with Siege blast effects. Really, Hasbro couldn't even be bothered to give us one of those? Speaking of dino head-arm, if the head is turned up like the above his elbow joint is limited to about 30 degrees of bend. But... If you rotate his bicep 180 degrees his elbow bends a full 90 degrees. Megatron turns into a T-Rex, and I was a bit surprised to find that he's a tad smaller than Studio Series Grimlock (the AoE one, not the SS 86 one, which I would love to compare to both of these guys). Again, it's Hasbro's stated goal with the BW figures in Kingdom to have mostly cartoon-accurate robot modes, but more realistic beast modes. So again, Megatron's got the mostly-purple body, but without the darker splotches. The green on his back is a duller mint color and his underbelly is more of a khaki than the shinier green and orange on the CGI model. His thighs and neck are longer, and his head is smaller. I'm ambivalent about the color differences, but I prefer the more realistic proportions of the dinosaur mode. Another thing Hasbro did with Megatron specifically is that much of the dinosaur parts, even the stuff that's just folded-up kibble on his robot back, is made from a hard plastic with a rubbery plastic layered onto it like skin. I know some others have expressed some concern about the longevity of the skin, but Hasbro insiders have suggested that they knew that'd be a cause for concern and worked to create a durable formula for it. Perhaps that's where the accessory and paint budget went? Anyway, all those panels cover over his robot parts pretty well, but they do leave a lot of seams on the dinosaur mode. Despite the seems in his skin, and the general fact that I prefer mechanical beast forms to organic ones on Transformers, Megatron's T-Rex mode is honestly pretty awesome. His orange eyes face forward, not the sides. His jaws open to reveal some white painted teeth, a purple tongue, and even those flaps between the upper and lower jaw (muscle? skin?). In addition to opening and closing his mouth, his head can tilt up and down and even swing to either side, although more extreme poses will start to push his skin flaps open or apart. That said, the purple flaps on the sides of his neck actually have springs, so if you push them apart they'll spring back when you turn his head the other way. His little shoulders are ball jointed for rotation and some lateral movement, but he's got no additional articulation in those little arms. His hips can go a little under 90 degrees forward or backward, and he can even spread his legs a little. His knees have the same 90 degree range as before, and his feet still have the same up/down tilt and ankle pivot. His tail has a slight up/down tilt at the base, but more importantly it has a hinge at the base and middle of the tail that allows for some left-right motion. It's one of the most-articulated dinosaur modes on a transforming toy, and it helps make Megatron's beast mode the star of the show. So yeah, Leader Megatron's robot mode suffers from some inaccurate colors and a big backpack. He's a long way from being an MP. But, even at $50 he's also a long way from MP-43's $300+ price tag (even after you start looking for Quackles, the Botbot that turns into a rubber duck, on ebay). I think his robot mode is good enough- I mean, I'm actually not that fond of it, but due to issues I have with the CGI model and MP figure. I've just never cared much for the dino head and tail arms, but Kingdom Megatron replicates what I don't like fairly accurately. But I have to say, even if you're not really into Beast Wars Megatron's kind of worth it for the T-Rex mode, which is just great. It's honestly so good that I swore I was just picking up Megatron due to him being a main character in the show, and that I'd pass on the rumored T-Wrecks and Jurassic Park repaints, but now I'm sure I'll go for the JP repaint at the very least.

So, like Siege then. I'm a bit curious myself. I thought maybe more of a wedge-shaped nose, possibly remolded side panels and legs that are a bit more lambo-ish, and an actual roof. But Deep Cover is supposed to be the earth mode, and Sunstreaker already showed that Hasbro thinks they can ditch the spoiler and be close enough. They clearly didn't change the chest/car nose. I wonder if they painted a roof on (like I did with a Reprolabel on Sideswipe and Red Alert) then called it a day?

Thanks for the suggestions, guys. I got the Oculus app and SteamVR setup just need to get some games (and get over the fact that Superhot VR and Beat Saber aren't cross buy [although apparently the song packs for Beat Saber are). @JB0 I think Synth Riders (which I will check out) is on the Quest Store now, with Cross Buy support. Redout sounds up my alley. I love WipEout.

Are you sure he had all blue legs? Everything I've seen online says that Kingdom OP is identical to ER Op save for the box. The Netflix one has all-blue legs, but it's a darker purplish blue so I decided to stick with ER Prime as my main CHUG Optimus. Also, man I wish I lived where you do. I'd have bought everything. Yes, I have preorders, but I'm impatient, and I'll happily cancel my Amazon orders (that said, maybe I should wait on Primal, because my preorder price dropped to $24...). How bad can it be? It looks like it's Siege Ultra Magnus (who, while not great, I honestly liked), but with some retooled parts on the core robot to look more like an Earth truck, and some retooled parts on the trailer to give him a more cartoon-accurate chest and head when armored up. While I'd kill for a new Magnus with a more accurate trailer and better core robot I think I'm still in for Kingdom UM. Oh, btw, those leaks I posted the other day? Not sure what's really different from the Siege mold, but Deep Cover anyone?

So... is anyone else doing VR? I decided to try the Oculus Quest 2. Yeah, I'm not a fan of the mandatory Facebook thing and I totally get why that'd be a dealbreaker for some (many?), but honestly I didn't have a Facebook account so creating one for the sole purpose of using the Quest 2 isn't a world of difference from creating an Oculus account. Plus it's one of the more affordable options, and I love that I can use it as a standalone device (which is all I've done so far, since it just came today) or as a PC VR headset. Any recommendations? I think my first purchases are going to be Vader Immortal, Beat Saber, and Superhot VR.

Nice! I stopped at Target today, too. The Transformers section in the usual aisle was totally empty. Sure, they had spaces for everything, just no product. No Earthrise, no Kingdom, no Studio Series, not even any Cyberverse. I later spotted MPM Ratchet in the clearance aisle, along with some Cyberverse stuff. Didn't check prices, but if you're looking for any of that you might want to see if your Target has a clearance aisle. I was about to leave empty-handed (well, not totally, I was actually there to get more pants for my 6yo, who's growing so fast I swear I have to buy her a new wardrobe every six months), but I stumbled across a Transformers endcap on the back side. The had a few ReAction gold Bumblebees, a lone Studio Series Scrapper, a handful of Studio Series Shatters (the jet one), some Optimus Primes (didn't pay attention if they were in Earthrise or Kingdom boxes), and one other figure I needed (but you'll have to wait until I get the review up to find out which one). Maybe tomorrow I'll head to Walmart and see if they have anything. Or maybe Amazon will be like, "hey, everyone else is selling this stuff now, maybe we don't have to wait until March" and start sending out my preorders.

If you missed ER Skywarp and Thunder cracker BBTS is taking pre-orders for another batch.

Studio Series. But believe me, I get the confusion. You ever wonder how Hasbro decided which figures to put in Kingdom, and which to put in Studio Series 86? Well, it's my understanding that stuff like Warpath, Huffer, Inferno, and perhaps Jazz were actually meant for Earthrise, and Kingdom was going to be Beast Wars and the '86 movie. However, COVID affected Hasbro's production and distribution, causing some of Earthrise to be shoved into Siege (Astrotrain, for example, wasn't supposed to be in Siege), and some of it to be moved into Kingdom. And to make room in Kingdom Hasbro got the bright idea to put some of the '86 movie characters into the Studio Series. Anyway, speaking of Studio Series 86, when I cracked and bought Scourge the best deals I could find weren't for Scourge alone, but for both of the Voyagers. So here's Voyager-class Hot Rod. Right out of the gate my first reaction was to note that this really looks like Hot Rod. In some ways, I think he actually looks better than the official MP version. His red color is a bit redder and less pink which, depending on what you remember or what edition you last watched, might seem less accurate but honestly sits better with me. His torso is also nicely tapered and angled, not the flat slab that the MP had. This comes at a cost, though, that some of you are bound not to like- his robot chest is NOT the car's front end. Still, despite having a the real hood stuffed inside of him he has less of a backpack than the MP toy. Moving along, we'll see that he has other features that previous Hot Rods (Titans Return and Power of the Primes, for comparison) are missing. The flames on his chest are done like the cartoon, with three points on each side. His tires stick out the back of his arms, not the front. He has the orange bumps on his forearms, and he actually has gray hands. His boots have mostly the same shape as the cartoon, and are colored more like the movie than the usual black or the toy-style red. I do have some notes, but know that I'm nitpicking every deviation from the animation and none of them actually bother me. But here goes.... there's no yellow stripe on the orange part of his forearms, there is a yellow stripe in his knees where the joint is, there's a bit of gray in his elbows, the pipes on his arms don't actually blend into his forearms, you can see a little bit of red in his calves, they used a little paint around his forehead and crest to try to capture the color breakup of the animation but I'm not sure I like it, and yet they didn't do anything to mark the color separation on his pelvis that he definitely had in the animation. On more note... you probably noticed that Voyager-class SS Hot Rod is about the same height as Deluxe-class Titans Return Hot Rod. And yes, put with some WFC figures he's a little taller than Deluxe-class Sideswipe, slightly shorter than Deluxe-class Ironhide, and significantly shorter than Leader-class Optimus Prime (who's the same size as Voyager-class Optimus Prime). A lot of people are complaining about this. All I can say is that with both WFC and Studio Series size alone is not the determining factor for a class, budget is. Hot Rod might be one of (if not the) smallest Voyagers ever released, but that extra budget gives him a higher parts count and more paint. Without it, you might have had another Hot Rod with orange hands or red boots. And he definitely would have come with fewer accessories, because SS Hot Rod comes with quite a few. You get two guns, molded in red but painted silver. They're similar to the G1 toy's guns (and bug me because, like the G1 toy, they're two different guns instead of two of the same). I'm not complaining since I like my TFs to have weapons, but it's curious that Hasbro included them because he didn't have guns in the film, and screen accuracy is so much a thing that it's apparently why Grimlock isn't coming with a sword. What is screen accurate, though, is his pizza cutter that he used on the robo-squid. Not content to stop there, you also get a Matrix of Leadership. Near as I can tell, it's the same mold (but a slightly darker translucent plastic) as the one that comes with Earthrise Optimus, right down to the hollow back side. Lastly, you get two "pew" blast effects and one shining effect part. Alas, no fishing pole (honestly, I can live without that), and no practice sword and shield, which really would have rounded out his movie accessories. Alright, so here's the big let down... Hot Rod has a major articulation issue. His head's on a ball joint that can turn and tilt just fine. His shoulders rotate and there's even a bit of forward butterfly that helps ensure that his shoulders don't get caught on his backpack. Now, there is a hinge that lets his arms move almost 90 degrees laterally... if his arms are down at his sides. Unfortunately, the hinge is outside his shoulder so if he lifts his arms he can't move them laterally anymore, and I hate that. I'd rather they dumped the Matrix and/or the buzzsaw and added enough parts to his shoulders to give him proper articulation. Oh well. His biceps swivel just above the elbows. Said elbows can bend a bit over 90 degrees. His wrists swivel, and like Earthrise Optimus his hands can open because his fingers are pinned at the base. His waist swivels. His hips can go over 90 degrees forward, 90 degrees laterally, but only about 45 degrees backward (which is fine). His thighs swivel. His knees are actually double-jointed, and combined he can bend his legs around 130 degrees before his calves start to bump his thighs. His feet can tilt up a fair bit and down a little, plus his ankles can pivot about 45 degrees. He holds his guns with the standard 5mm peg handles. And since his hands can open he can hold the Matrix; this is, in fact, why only he and Optimus have hands that open- they're the only ones with Matrices. The shine part fits over the front of his Matrix... or Optimus'. Which reminds me, Optimus has storage for his Matrix in his chest. Hot Rod does not. For him it's just a prop to hold, which is why I could have done without it. Oh, and since he's a Studio Series figure, not a WFC, he doesn't have a lot of 5mm ports. There's one on the back of each calf, and one under each foot, but that's it. He can store his guns on his back, though, using the same method as the alt mode. More on that in a bit. The gimmicks don't stop there. The blast effects can fit onto Hot Rod's guns, but they're also designed to fit onto the pipes on his arms. Combine that with the fact that you can open his head and flip out his visor you can recreate the scene where he sees the Decepticons and starts shooting at the Autobot shuttle on Lookout Mountain. As for the saw, you can open up Hot Rod's left arm and swivel his hand inside (which is NOT necessary for transformation) to reveal a peg. That peg jams into the bottom of his saw. His right arm also opens, and his right hand also flips around, but instead of revealing a peg you reveal the welding torch he uses to fix Kup. Now, these are all cool gimmicks, like you'd see on an MP, that help justify Hot Rod's Voyager-class price. But, again, I'd have traded all of them for better shoulder articulation. Hot Rod's transformation is definitely more involved than most Deluxes. Interestingly, his arms even rotate around so the left arm is on the right side and vice versa, like the one scene where he transforms on Quintessa. The resulting car is quite a bit smaller than previous Hot Rod toys, but it doesn't look out of place next to a WFC car like Sideswipe. For the most part, it's a good-looking Hot Rod alt mode. His spoiler stick out very far behind him, but that might be to match some of the more exaggerated shots in the movie. I'm not loving the big yellow joint in the roof, and to be honest the gray elbow joint and the orange forearm bump are both visible along the sides of the car. Some parts the fold out from the hood and cover over his shoulders don't seem to sit flush, although I hear there's a mod to fix it. Only his front tires have painted rims; I guess they thought they could get away without painting the rear ones since they're mostly covered by pipes. Speaking of pipes, as with the robot mode the front ends of the pipes don't blend into the sides. Finally, the rear is kind of a mess, with the tips of Hot Rod's boots and some if his knee joint poking out of the back of the car. Not Matrix storage in robot mode means none in alt mode, so just toss that Matrix and shine effect aside. The rest of his accessories can be used in alt mode, though. While he doesn't have any peg holes in car mode (the ones on his calves are covered by the spoiler, which, despite what the instruction suggest, does NOT plug into those peg holes), he does have a pair of slots on the roof in front of the spoiler, and a second pair of slots on his engine. The guns, if you'll recall, have wing-like shapes near the rear sights. Those wings tab into the slots, so the guns can sit sideways on either the roof or the engine. What's more, the saw blade has a pair of slots on either side, so once you have the guns tabbed in you can plug the saw onto the guns. Finally, while the "pew pew" effects can again be plugged into the gun barrels you can also plug them onto the back of the pipes, like he's shooting blue flames out of his exhaust. Hot Rod is a good figure, make no mistake. He might even be the best Hot Rod, because while I don't have Fans Toys' I do think he's better than MP-28, so I'm going to recommend him. Sure, he's smaller than you're used to for a Voyager but he's definitely worth a Voyager price. That said, I'm really frustrated by his shoulders. As I kept saying in the review, I'd gladly have traded all his movie gimmicks for better shoulder articulation, because those shoulders are really all that's dragging him down to merely good. If Hasbro had done his shoulders right Hot Rod would be one of the greatest mainline Transformer toys ever released.

I told you I was gonna crack. Here's Studio Series 86 Voyager-class Scourge. While not the greatest figure on Earth, I liked the old Titans Returns one for trying really hard. I mean, it had wings, and mostly the right shapes (ok, the head was a little boxy with an itty bitty Snork tube instead of his usual rocket mohawk), but the colors were rather monochromatic. Heck, I eve I modded one of the two I picked up so the back of his legs could be the front just to give him a little more color break up. Could Hasbro get it right in the Studio Series? Well... kind of. He's the proper size now, and his beard isn't he same color as his face anymore. His molded details are mostly spot-on, and even the geometry of his wings are much better than previous attempts. His fingernails pink. Actually, a lot of him is painted, as everything except his backpack and his bicep/elbow joint is actually molded in the darker color. I say "darker color" instead of "blue" because it's actually a bit purple, with an actual blue section painted around the Decepticon badge on his chest. The lighter color is a light blue-gray where it's painted, but the molded parts are again slightly purple. Some details are missing some color. His toes have none of the pink that his fingers do, there's none of the lighter color on the back of his head, and he's the same color from his knees to his hips when his thighs are more of a two-tone thing, with the light color on a pentagonal pattern on the front of his thigh but, depending on the episode, either a darker gray or the the same blue (purple) as his torso. All-in-all it's the most-accurate Scourge figure that isn't from X-Transbots by a very wide margin, but I find myself wondering if a rumored generic Sweep repaint/repackage might have slightly better colors. Another thing worth noting, Scourge is essentially a shellformer. I don't mean just SS Scourge, I think that's part of his core design. While Hasbro definitely did a better job managing a screen-accurate Scourge from the front his wings are really more of a backpack of folded alt-mode panels. It's not the worst I've ever seen, but he's definitely not as clean as Cyclonus. Scourge comes with a rifle. It's a bit hollowed-out, and cast from the same purplish-blue plastic as almost the entire figure. That said, it's fairly G1-accurate, to both the toy and the cartoon (although I had to go to The Headmasters to even find a screenshot of Scourge using a gun). He also comes with a purple blast effect part. Scourge's head is on a ball joint that can swivel and tilt sideways a fair bit but up/down tilt is a little limited. His shoulders rotate and can extend laterally over 90 degrees. His biceps swivel, and his elbows bend ever-so-slightly over 90 degrees. His wrists swivel, although they're a bit tight due to paint (his hands are actually cast in the darker blue/purple, then painted light blue and pink). His waist can swivel. His hips can move forward, backward, or laterally a little less than 90 degrees. His thighs do swivel, but again it's kind of tight, probably due to paint. His knees bend slightly over 90 degrees. His feet don't tilt, but his toes can bend down due to transformation, and he's got a little under 45 degrees of ankle pivot. His can can be held in either hand, despite them having slightly different shapes. Alternatively, he's got 5m ports on the back of either wing, in his shoulder bumps, on the outside of each forearm, on the outside of each ankle, and under each foot. The blast effect can fit on the tip of his gun. I know some of you aren't fond of it. Heck, as a kid Cyclonus' jet mode seemed so much cooler. But as an adult I love Scourge's flying brick mode. It's so unapologetically sci-fi, and I love toys that try to do it instead of a vaguely real, vaguely Earth-mode X-48-ish aircraft. Previous attempts have been somewhat mixed, as they tried to retain some of the G1 toy's method of using the wings to form the sides but making the nose out of his lower legs. The results (the Titanium Series and the Titans Return figures) never quite had the smoothness that the G1 toy or animation model had, though, and I don't think the Titans Return version was even totally trying with extra fins and molded verniers. SS Scourge, though, flips things around. Almost everything you see from this angle is his wings and backpack. A little of it was stuffed inside his torso, allowing his head to accordion back into the traditional alt mode spot. His actual body does very little transforming, mostly just dropping his arms and part of his sides down alongside his legs and tucking in his toes. From the front or from above he looks nigh-on perfect, with slightly flared intakes and a bit of molded detail near the back of the light sections that's present on the animation model. From straight-on at the side you can see that he's not hovering, he's resting on his shins, knees, and some tucked-in wing panels. He looks the worst from the back, where his folded-up feet protrude a bit and leave gaps that give away his shellformer nature, and from the bottom where you can clearly see a scrunched-up robot tucked in a shell and hiding behind two wing panels. So again, I think there's room for improvement, but I also think it's fine for a mainline Voyager-class toy. I do have one complaint, though. The nacelles on the side fold in for transformation to robot mode, and they don't seem to lock in place in alt mode. I find I'm constantly bumping them back into their closed position. Being that this is a Studio Series toy and not Kingdom you can expect a few movie gimmicks. The first is that you can reveal his head in alt mode so he can do the "You want me to gut Ultra Magnus?" bit from the attack on Autobot City. It's not the neatest, though, as it involves flipping open a part and leaving it flopped over. Also, to raise his head up part of his back has to come up, too, which spoils the sleekness of his alt mode. The back part does tab between the side nacelles, though, so it at least keeps them from folding back over. Also as seen in the movie, you can plug the blast effect onto the front of any nacelle (although the middle one is the movie-accurate one). This does leave you to try to find a spot for his rifle. There are 5mm peg holes on either side of his alt mode, but a side-mounted peg only on one side of his gun. You can either stick it to the left side of his alt mode, or into one the exposed peg hole on his right foot. Like Cyclonus Scourge has a small hole for a flight stand under his crotch. Unlike Cyclonus, there's enough room that I was able to get him onto MP Tracks' stand. I'm pretty pleased with Scourge. He's not quite as good as Cyclonus, but he still manages to pack a ton of screen-accuracy into a mainline toy, and as a result he's leaps and bounds better than any other official attempt. Honestly, while I like XTB's Scourge, SS Scourge is much easier to transform, so I might go so far to say that it's the best Scourge toy period. He's definitely worth picking up. Now I'm really hoping for some slightly recolored Sweeps and that Leader-class Galvatron is as good as Hasbro thinks, because we're getting awfully close to having a set of good-to-great, in-scale '86 movie bots.

It won't be Kingdom. It'll be SS86 or whatever comes after Kingdom. Dr Wu is mainly known for doing add-ons; the only Dr. Wu stuff I actually have is guns he did for the Legends Insecticons and Power of the Primes Battletrap (Battleslash and Roadtrap). They're fine, nothing amazing. IIRC he announced a full Mixmaster figure to replace the Combiner Wars one with something more G1-accurate, but it never materialized. I did preorder his tapes, though. MP Thundercracker is up for preorder on Pulse. At $242 that's a big ol' nope for me, I'm quite content with the Maketoys one, but if anyone else is interested and you live in the States, there you go. I finally, after watching Ebay and the BST thread at TFW2005 for what seems like years, got my hands on a Star Convoy. I think my retro Prime collection is complete now, unless I want to start tracking down RiD 2000 or UT Primes.

Some new stuff I learned, from the same take-with-a-grain-of-salt source as before. Blaster IS coming... in 2022. Studio Series Skids and Mudflap are NEVER going to happen. WFC repacks in the future are likely. The next Studio Series Optimus will be Evasion Prime.

After picking up APC's Megatron, I decided to replace the APC Prime I bought a nearly a year ago because they re-released it with tweaked colors. While the original version (left) was good, with a bit of extra silver paint on the abdomen, the colors were still mostly the same as the original Hasbro First Edition Optimus Prime. Which was fine at the time; the First Edition mold was a lot better than the RiD mold, it saw an extremely limited release, and APC's was technically more accurate than the official, so it was a smart buy for anyone who missed FE Prime. But there were still plenty of inaccuracies that APC decided to correct. They ditched the weird brownish plastic, which partially addresses his shins. The red plastic is a bit more brilliant now, and the blue just a bit darker. The abdomen keeps the extra silver paint from the first release, but also spreads it to his biceps, thighs, and around his neck, plus the windows and faux windscreen on his chest. Speaking of his chest, the window are much darker and more opaque. His feet are now also silver instead of black, which looks off after seeing so many Prime Prime toys with black feet, but it's actually correct. Even his head has a bit more silver detail with a darker section inside his crest. I was sure that was wrong, but nope, after checking with the source it's half right; his ear and the smaller antenna is supposed to be silver, the bigger one should be blue. And yeah, the inside of his crest should be darker. So there you go. That said, it's still not perfect. Only the front of his hips is painted, and he's missing blue on the backs of his thighs. His hands are black, when they really should have been silver. He's missing the red on the outside of his biceps. And the first release had the marker lights on his chest painted (not that you can see it in my pictures), they're just silver on the new one. And the yellow lights on his ribs, which are painted here, should be silver. You get a lot of the same in truck mode- improved, but still not perfect. The smokestacks have a wash on the tips that looks cool, and again around the windows and the windscreen are painted silver. The grill and bumper are chromed out, and they tweaked the area around the headlights so that only the headlights are translucent blue and not the space between them and the bumper. One other thing that might be a bit subtle is that the panel that the smokestack sits along is red plastic with a little blue paint. On the original it was blue plastic with red paint, and you can see that the painted red sections aren't an exact match for the red plastic, but the colors on the new one seem to match better. Finally, the new version has painted taillights, which I appreciate. However, again the marker lights that were painted yellow on the original are just silver on the new one. The hitch is the same blue as the rest of his legs; I don't know if that's right or not. The joints that connect the roof-feet to the shins also have a bare rivet on the new one, instead of the molded fans of the original. And he's still missing some silver at the bottom of the blue, under the smokestacks. You get the same accessories, with a few minor differences. The translucent blue used for the arm blades and the star saber is a bit darker, but they're otherwise painted the same. You still get the clips so he can carry the sword on his back, and they're basically the same (minus a little unpainted bit on the end of the original). The guns, though, are painted silver instead of being plain black plastic, with a copper and black wash over the barrel. Looks nice! And you do still get the second head, whcih I believe is based on Dr. Wu's Sage head. Again, a darker blue plastic, silver paint on the ears and face, and a darker section on the crest make it a bit more show-accurate. When I reviewed it, I recommended the original version of Attack Prime. I'm not normally a supporter of KOs, but given that FE Prime is so much better than the RiD figure but was never widely available, and given that Attack Prime is like half or less the price of an FE Prime on Ebay (to say nothing of the fact that it comes with double the guns and blades plus accessories you'd need two Dr. Wu upgrade kits for) it was really the best option for a TF Prime Optimus. That being said, if you want one but haven't bought one I'd recommend paying extra for the repainted version. It's still not perfect, but it's much more screen-accurate and noticeably nicer in hand than the first run.

Man, I'm still waiting on Primal and Warpath from Amazon. Hopefully they ship soon. Gears is in dire need of an update, I agree. And with how well they've done the minibots as small Deluxes I would love for them to to do all of them plus the Insections as Deluxes. But, as far as Windcharger goes, he turned up in Titans Return and was pretty decent (with a Tailgate remold in Power of the Primes). Hasbro seems to think a lot of the characters that were done in the Prime Wars Trilogy were good enough for now, so I wouldn't hold my breath waiting on a newer Brawn, Outback, Seaspray, Windcharger, Powerglide, Cosmos, or Beachcomber. Still no excuse for Gears, though, who hasn't be updated since the 2014 Legends figure, and that figure was designed to be IDW Swerve first and Gears second. Actually, now that I think about it, while Cosmos was was reissued during Combiner Wars he and Shrapnel are actually from the same era as that Gears figure and could probably also use updates. But Windcharger, yeah, the Titans Return one will do fine.

I know not everyone's a fan of 3D-printed stuff, but I've got a couple of Go Better's kits and some of them I like better than Nonnef's injection-molded stuff, like their spoiler and wings for Wheeljack. Anyway, no preorder links yet, but looks like they're doing a set for Sunstreaker. It'll have a lower leg filler similar to the one on their Wheeljack kit, thigh fillers, a rifle, and most importantly a spoiler for the alt mode. But, while I've already seen other spoilers that just plug into the 5mm ports on the rear of the vehicle, Go Better's are a little more elaborate. They have a part that does fit onto those holes, but it wraps over the back of the car mode, and in robot mode the spoiler folds around and covers over the gap on the inside of his forearm. I was waiting to see what Nonnef does, but honestly at this point I'm probably going to go for this. Hopefully they'll do them in red and white for Spinout and Cordon. Barring that, I hope I can find a red paint that's a good color match (what should be easy enough). Bonus, on those two the kit would cover over the black on their rears.

Yeah, the software is supposed to be a reasonably competent front end but basically retroarch. It's fairly easy to add games, cores, and front ends. And the hardware is mostly fine, although they recommend replacing the gates on the joysticks.

I think I should stress that when I said, "I wasn't a fan of the exaggerated cartoon designs and I don't think they translate will into 3D toys" I don't mean that Takara didn't do a good job- I think the toys came about about as well as they could. I mean that the cartoon designs look better (to me) as flat drawings than as real-world three-dimensional objects. So I hope that HasTak or a 3P gives Animated some love again someday for the fans that want it, but I personally don't need it. Oh, one other thing I thought of about the UT designs (and this applies to Car Robots/RiD 2000, too). In a line that's more of a grab bag of various continuities, the UT stuff fits better with the G1/WfC Trilogy stuff. Like, you could put a hypothetical Armada Hotshot on a shelf with WfC Autobot cars and he wouldn't look out of place, but Animated, Prime, RiD 15, and even Cyberverse (as well as the live-action movies) have an aesthetic that doesn't integrate as well. Just my two cents, anyway. Oh, while I'm handing out opinions, how about a quick repaint roundup? Yes, friends, after four of five delays I've finally got my hands on Earthrise Thrust. Not a ton to say here. He's got the same retooled shins with the big knee pads and chest with the extra vents plus the obvious cone-shaped noggin that Ramjet and Dirge received. His deco is pretty cartoon-accurate, although he's got the same orange canopy that all the Seekers have had when, like Dirge and Ramjet, they were silver in the cartoon. And I'd have painted some of his pelvis details black, again to better match the cartoon. Speaking of paint, his box art shows the housing for the VTOL fans as black on this side. I was stressing about finding a paint that matches his maroon plastic, but the actual figure has the correct colors. Oh, on the topic of colors, he comes with the same Null Rays as the other ER Seekers, which is cartoon-accurate. I'm mostly ok with that, as I never cared for the larger bomb/fuel-tank weapons that toy-style Dirge and Ramjet carry. But Thrust's weapons were closer to the Sunbow Seeker weapons, just with some maroon on the barrels. I might have liked that. Speaking of Sunbow, the animation seemed to show his wings hanging low, almost as if they were on his hips or legs, with the front of the wings pointing downward. Although the official MP managed to capture that look most attempts are not so successful. ER Thrust can't get totally accurate either, but you can pick your poison- wings hanging low, but with the front of the wing pointed up (which seems to be the "official" transformation), or you can rotate them around like the old Generations toy (as well as the iGear and ToyWorld MP-style versions). Again, aside from the orange instead of silver on the canopy, Thrust's alt mode is very cartoon-accurate. In fact, it's arguably the most accurate of the three Coneheads, since he's the only one with the right amount of black on his fuselage. And unlike the old Generations toy, ER Thrust's VTOL parts are not separate parts that peg onto the wings, they're molded into the wings themselves. It looks to me like the wings are molded in the maroon color, then the black is painted onto the wings with gunmetal paint on the fan blades. That's not it for the Coneheads, though. We also have Sandstorm. Sandstorm was an unreleased G2 character and, essentially, a repaint of Ramjet who already had a G2 repaint that was actually released. Why Hasbro decided to go with Sandstorm instead of G2 Ramjet is unknown to me, but maybe it has something to do with releasing a character who could be a fourth Conehead instead of the same guy you already have in different colors, or maybe G2 Ramjet's colors are just more associated with Slipstream now. Either way, I can't decide now if I want a G2 Blackout or G2 Starscream more, now. To me, Seekers are like Pokemon, and I want to catch them all. I digress. As an unreleased figure without a Sunbow model it's hard to complain about what we see here, because the apparently hand-painted prototype might not have been the final deco. Still, a little of the camo patter on the underside of his wings would have been nice. Hasbro also used black for the shins and on his feet, while the prototype used a light gray. And while his cone head makes sense as a repaint of Ramjet I'd have personally preferred if they tried to differentiate him a bit by giving him the standard Starscream-style head, with the prototype's silver face and purple ears. Ironically, the black face they gave Sandstorm would be more accurate for Ramjet than his own silver face. I might double-check if the face is a separate part or molded onto the head, maybe I can swap them. Sandstorm's alt mode is, naturally, Ramjet's, but he trades the white and red for a desert camo pattern. On the prototype this consisted of brown and white splotches, sometimes with black accents. Here, Hasbro opted for more of a digital pattern. It looks fine, although they left the vertical stabilizers black. I do like that they retained the shark mouth deco on the nose, though. After an excellent new Cyclonus figure in Kingdom, and with some impressive-seeming figures coming in Studio Series 86, it's a little hard to get excited about yet more repaints and remolds of the Earthrise Seeker mold, which was already a bit of a letdown for borrowing heavily from the original Classics Seeker and for having less articulation than the Siege Seekers. Of the two, Thrust is more desirable for completing the Season 2 Conehead trio, while Sandstorm is a safer pass since he doesn't even represent an actual G2 release. Still, like I said before, I'm a sucker for Seekers. Hasbro could still release Red Wing, Hotlink, Nova Storm, Ion Storm, Acid Storm, Sunstorm, Nacelle, G2 Starscream, G2 Ramjet, and Blackout with the Earthrise mold and I'd buy them all.

I love that Arcade 1UP is doing these, but I don't have the money and space for every one their cabinets that I want (I've nearly pulled the trigger on their Turtles cabinet, but I'd also love to have the Marvel Vs Capcom, Mortal Kombat, and now this X-Men/Avengers one). I know hearing "AtGames" immediately gets noses turning up, but I think I might buy a Legends Ultimate cabinet and put my own ROMS on it.

Cool for the people who are all-in on the toy-style Youth versions. I'm only interested in the Youth trailer for a toy/OX-style Menasor, though, which I expect to use with the regular-release Stunticons.

While I think there's definitely a market for supplementing the WfC Trilogy with figures that Hasbro seems intent on ignoring (like Gears), characters that weren't done particularly well yet in either WFC (like Astrotrain), or characters that are still only represented in the Prime Wars Trilogy (Blitzwing, the combiners, etc), that doesn't seem to be TT Hongli's intent. The designer seems more interested in doing vaguely IDW-ish versions with modern alt modes. I have no idea if they're going to put it into production, but they had some art for a Bumblebee I wouldn't mind having. (I do wish they'd stop putting the front fenders on the shoulders, though. It limits shoulder articulation.)