mikeszekely

Of course Walgreens put Bluestreak up on their website now that I've bought one for scalper prices on ebay. You're welcome, I guess. EDIT: On the plus side, my stupid expensive Bluestreak arrived today. Initial impressions- the chest and head are remolded to be less Smokescreen and more Bluestreak/Prowl, but the feet still have Smokescreen's spoiler. They actually put some paint, including taillights, on the rear of the car, which is nice. The little shoulder cannons, which are the same as ER Smokescreen's, work better on Bluestreak as they're closer to his animation model (although I wouldn't have minded toy-style missiles... I hear Nonnef's got something in the works). Haven't transformed him yet, but so far I'm pleased. Can't wait to add Prowl and Barricade to the collection.

No because- I wouldn't say I'm disappointed, because like you said it's free. I totally got my money's worth out of the game already. But the fact remains I really don't do multiplayer. I'd never play this kind of content with strangers, and I think I'm the only one who bought this game in my circle of friends. It's unlikely I'll ever play Legends.

By hallmark do you mean a much-desired character, or do you mean the sort of must-have release like Vulcan? If the former then Shockwave will be their next release. If the latter, well, fingers crossed because I'm definitely going to get that Shockwave.

But again, you can't argue "That's not the price, no one is charging that much!" and act like it's a number people made up just to make MP-52 look worse than it is when ¥28,000 is the actual price set by the manufacturer and most stores are charging that much just because Amazon and a few Japanese hobby shops are offering discounts. If anything I've said has come across as tribalism I do apologize, although I think I've been pretty fair to MP-52 and have even defended it as having a greatly improved robot mode against the naysayers who seem focused on the alt mode. Wholeheartedly agree.

Funny, the last two things I reviewed (over in the official thread) were MPM Ratchet and MPM Ironhide. Now here I am with another Ratchet and Ironhide- this time it's Planet X's Fall of Cybertron-inpsired Vejovis (Ratchet) and Mars (Ironhide). Aesthetically, both figures are pretty game-accurate. As tends to be the case with Planet X's stuff the differences between the figures are really concessions to the fact that these are transforming toys that actually transform instead of shifting some polygons around. The proportions are a little off- you notice it the most on Vejovis' torso and Mars' shoulder pads, and they've got some kibble with the wheels jutting from their legs while the in-game models seem to have everything blended more smoothly. Likewise, the wheels on their forearms stick out a bit, while they're more in-line with the elbows in the game. Possibly due to the choice of materials Vejovis has silvery gray hands, pelvis, and thighs when they should be red for the hands and white for the rest. While Mars is technically a remold of Vejovis, I like that Planet X didn't repaint Vejovis and call it a day. The figures share the same bodies from the waist down, the same biceps and forearms, and the same backpacks but they have different heads and torsos. I do have some questions about Planet X's scale, though. Both of these guys are right around the same size as Jupiter, their Optimus Prime. Was that game accurate? I don't recall. But all three of them are only around a head shorter than Vulcan, their Grimlock, and that definitely doesn't feel right. Speaking of not feeling right, I've looked at a number of Planet X's figures now and out of the box the very first thing I noticed was that these guys use a different plastic than previous figures. It feels lighter and, although I'm certainly no expert on plastics, cheaper. It reminds me a bit of the stuff Zeta used for their Aerialbot limbs. With poor plastic seems to have come poor tolerances, as the hips on both figures are fairly loose. They both also have an issue with the flaps on the back of their forearms not tabbing into their wrists securely, so they have a tendency to open and let the hands start to fold in when you don't really want them to. Anyway... Mars doesn't come with anything too fancy. He's got an axe. Now, at no point in either game do I recall playing as Ironhide, so I couldn't tell you if that's accurate or not. The gun he comes with looks like War for Cybertron version of the Neutron Assault Rifle. Vejovis, on the other hand, comes with a pile of parts, two screws (of which you'll only need one), and a small screwdriver. When you put all the parts together you'll have what appears to be the Energon Harvester from Fall of Cybertron (basically that game's shotgun). Subjectively I'm not a fan of the plastic on these guys, but objectively they have pretty poor articulation. Their heads are on ball joints with decent up/down/sideways tilt. Their shoulders rotate, but get caught up easily on their backpacks. They only move about 45 degrees laterally, and that's only when their arms are at their sides. If their arms are raised their shoulder pads have no clearance to allow them to open their arms. Their biceps swivel, but again only freely if their arms are at their sides. If they bend their elbows (which they can do to just under 90 degrees) the tires on their arms will start to collide with their shoulders when you swivel their biceps. Their wrists swivel, and their MP carbot-style hands have fixed thumbs and fingers molded in a single piece hinged at the base. Their waists swivel, as long as your mindful of their backpacks. Their hips can move forward 90 degrees, backward a little under that, and laterally only about 60 degrees. Their thighs swivel, but their knees can only bend around 45 degrees. Their feet can tilt up slightly, down a bit, and his ankles can both swivel and pivot up to 180 degrees. Both figures can hold their guns fine; they just use 5mm ports that slide into their molded grips. To get Ironhide to hold his axe you kind of have to just open his fingers and push it into place; it doesn't come apart to slide in like some of the other melee weapons that have come with Planet X's figures. Side note, the big barrel on Vejovis' gun isn't fixed in place. You can remove it if you prefer to give him something more like a pistol. Transforming these guys is a case of both simple and frustrating. How they actually fold up is mostly obvious, and even if you do need to refer to the instructions it's likely something you'll only have to do once as it's mostly a case of folding in the head and hands, collapsing the arms and scrunching them in, spinning 180 at the waist, and then folding up the legs. The frustration, though, comes from the backpack. You see, to have the room for tucking in the head and collapsing the arms you need to pull the backpack away from the body, which it's designed to do. Unfortunately, it's designed with a spring that pulls it back toward the figure, and it needs to spin 180 degrees. So, you're forced to pull and hold the backpack out while simultaneously completing the upper-body transformation. With the differently-molded torso and head parts hidden in or under the vehicles both figures wind up with the same alt modes, just in different colors. Mars is very game-accurate; he's even got details like the two raised squares under his windshield. The only faults I can really find are that the gray on the front fender runs the whole way down the side to the rear fender in the game, but a fair bit of it has to be red on the toy because it's his forearms. There's also a bit of a crease in the roof that the game's model didn't have, due to where his shins end up. Vejovis' basic shape is fine, but his colors are a bit less accurate. In the game, all of his fenders and most of the roof were red, but again painting those parts of the alt mode red would leave him with a ton of red on his arms and legs in robot mode, so I'll let it slide. His grill should also be different. That's actually a bit frustrating that they just copied Mars' grill, because the grill is made from the shoulder pad pieces that are actually different between the two, and with a little more care PX could have gotten that detail right. They both have a 5mm port on either side of the vehicle. This port is actually used for a connection between the knee and the lower leg in robot mode, though. While you can use the 5mm ports on their weapons to plug them in somewhat awkwardly it doesn't seem to be intended, but at the same time their doesn't seem to be any better alternative way to store the weapons. If you're a fan of the games and you've been collecting Planet X's figures for a display then Vejovis and Mars will certainly look good in that display. However, these are easily the worst Planet X figures I've looked at so far, and if they're not essential to your display I'd recommend passing on them. As it stands I'm not too unhappy since I got them at a pretty big discount (around $90 for the both of them), but if I'd paid their full retail price I'd be pretty angry. Their articulation is poor even by pre-Siege Hasbro standards, let alone contemporary 3P offerings, and the materials are a noticeable step down from previous Planet X releases.

Even if you're right it doesn't really change my point- people quoting Takara's retail pricing (and pricing charged by many stores that aren't Amazon.jp or AmiAmi aren't just making numbers up, and even if I could get it for $200 out the door it doesn't change my personal opinion that I don't need to spend that money on what is, to me, an minimal upgrade.

I mean, it's great that you found discounts on him already, but Takara's MSRP is ¥28,000, so a little over $265. I'll grant you, I'm off by $10 but it's not like people are pulling these numbers out of thin air. And as you yourself noted, those discounted prices are before shipping. If I were to order him from somewhere like Hasbro pulse shipping is included. You can't compare one pre-shipping price and one out-the-door price and act like we're tacking an extra $63 for the sole purpose of making MP-52 seem more expensive. Meteor originally retailed for $130. But it's kind of beside the point, because I'm not saying "Starscream is too expensive, just buy Meteor instead," or "Starscream's so expensive, Meteor was so much cheaper!" What I am saying is that I already own Meteor, so whatever MP-52 costs it isn't the price to get an MP Starscream on my shelf, it's the price to replace what I already have. Like I said, if it were MP-03 or MP-11 on my shelf then yes, I'd go for the upgrade. Alt mode be damned, MP-52's bot mode is so much better it's like comparing the Earthrise figure with the original G1. But, I don't think MP-52 is a huge upgrade over Meteor; while there are things I like about MP-52 there are just as many things I like about Meteor (especially if the rumored lack of waist articulation on MP-52 turns out to be true). So it's just not worth it to me personally to spend $265, or even $200, on what I'd generously call a lateral move. If other people feel differently, that's fine, too. I honestly hope that's the case for at least some people! Stock of the Meteor mold has dried up, and I know some people who still wanted them. If some Meteor/Lightning/Skycrow owners do trade up and sell their Maketoys figures then everyone can get the figure they want. Me too. I mean, if I see these in stores I might pick up Chromedome and Mindwipe because they come with the more G1-style heads, and Hardhead because he comes with the cartoon-style mask-less face (skipping Brainstorm, because I'm not into the Headmasters-colors and I abhor the Headmasters-style mask-less face). But if they were G1 reissues I'd definitely buy all four. Brainstorm was my #1 favorite toy the holiday I got him as a kid.

I'm passing. I think the robot mode is a big improvement over MP-03 and MP-11 and I'll be curious to see some reviews. I hope I get a chance to check it out, like I did with MP-44. But I don't think it looks like it's a $275 improvement over Maketoys' Meteor.

I wish I'd have known sooner. On Wednesday I went to the Walgreens by my parents' place, nothing. Friday I went to the one by my house, nada. Saturday my wife and my mom wanted to look at leaves up in the mountains and I stopped at two different Walgreens on the way back, zilch. Since I never found their last exclusive (Siege Ratchet) in local stores I got a bad case of FOMO and bought a Bluestreak on ebay at stupid scalper prices.

Uh... yeah. So... MPM Ironhide was apparently an Amazon-exclusive. And he's been marked down a bit, I guess, because he's significantly cheaper than Ratchet despite being a similar size. Comparing Ironhide to the Studio Series toy is kind of interesting, because the expectation is that of course the bigger, more complex, more expensive figure must be better, right? I mean, I liked the Studio Series versions of Prime, RotF Bee, Ratchet, Barricade, and Starscream, but for all five of them the MPM is a better figure (at least in robot mode- looking at you, Starscream). And at first glance there's definitely things about MPM Ironhide that are better than the Studio Series version. There's more details picked out with paint, the proportions are closer to the movie model, and the truck halves that make up much of his upper torso seem oriented better, like they're really part of his chest and not big shoulder pads. His rear wheels end up in his hips, like the movie model's, instead of simply having faux molded wheels in his hips while the real things winds up under his feet. On the other hand, the wheels on the Studio Series version are better tucked into his body, and while his shoulders are set back on his body (which seems to be movie accurate) they don't seem like they coming out of his back like the MPM version. Like most of the the line, Studio Series Ironhide has a bit of backpack, although it's just the roof, front windshield, and rear window, and it's one of the less egregious examples. MPM Ironhide has a less obvious backpack, made mostly from the rear window and exhaust pipes. It's not any more screen-accurate, though. Worse, it's not that MPM Ironhide has less kibble- I think he actually has more, really. A backpack is, at least, mostly out of the way. No, the designers of the MPM toy moved the kibble to his arms, with the roof and windshield split in half and carried on the insides of his biceps. Meanwhile, the doors of the truck are folded up onto the backs of his forearms (the SS version only had the windows). The results don't just look messy, they'll cause other problems as we'll see in a bit. Before we get too far ahead of ourselves, let's look at his accessories. He comes with his signature big ol' arm guns. They are indeed big, but lacking somewhat in details. Ironhide's head is on a hinged swivel, and he can look up a lot but not really down. His shoulders, as previously noted, are kind of coming out of his back. As such, they rotate laterally on ratchets, theoretically 360 degrees but practically the kibble on his arms will catch on his back a little past 180 degrees. A soft ratchet allows his shoulder to bend 90 degrees backward, but forward motion is effectively non-existent. His biceps swivel, and the roof/windshield kibble can swivel around his bicep. His ratcheted elbows bend 90 degrees. His wrists swivel, plus they have a hinge for some upward and a small amount of downward bend. His fingers and thumb are pinned at the base and middle knuckles, with the index fingers and thumbs being individually-articulated while the other three fingers are molded together. His waist can swivel. His hips can ratchet forward and backward about 90 degrees. Double hinges (friction) provide for some lateral movement, but only about 45 degrees. His thigh rotates just above his knees, which are also ratcheted and also limited to about 45 degrees. His feet tilt up slightly and down a lot on a ratcheted joint, and they can pivot but the pivot is pretty limited. Plus, like Ratchet and Starscream, Ironhide's mouth can open and close. All told that gives MPM Ironhide more points of articulation but far better range in important joints like shoulders, hips, and knees on the Studio Series toy (ankle pivots, too, if you have the DNA kit). Plus, on the Studio Series toy you can manipulate his arms easily and the figure is still solid, while moving the arms on the MPM toy is going to continually move the truck parts that make up his chest. Ironhide's weapons use 5mm pegs to plug into the kibble under his forearms. The placement isn't entirely accurate and it attempts to use hinges on the kibble to make up part of the guns' look (mostly unsuccessfully, if you ask me). More troubling is that the kibble panels have a slot that's supposed to meet with a tab under his wrist. The tab is too small, or the slots are too big; there's zero friction and the door slides right off even without the guns, and the kibble relies on some hinge joints to stay mostly in place. With the guns the weight pulling them down you can pretty much forget about the kibble staying anywhere near where it's supposed to. Transforming Ironhide is an exercise in frustration. The back half isn't so bad, but the rest involves getting everything transformed and in place but not locked into place, then getting the kibble in place to form the roof, windows, and doors while sandwiching an attached strip with part of the hood, grill, and bumper between the parts of the truck that were his chest and praying that nothing moves out of place as you do so. The result doesn't feel particularly sturdy. Ok, so the truck mode does have the 4x4 marking on the side, silver around the grill and headlights, red-painted GMC badge on the grill, silver on the vent on the one side of the hood, orange marking lights on the front fenders, and molded door handles... as did the SS version. The paint on the taillights has more colors, there's paint on the GMC badge on the tailgate, and the running boards are painted silver, plus the bed is covered more thoroughly. Is that enough to make the MPM the superior truck? Fun fact, although the movie model's chest appears to have the front bumper prominently featured in gray the bumper is black on the actual truck. Same for the rear bumper. MPM Ironhide also has his entire rear window as unpainted gray plastic. End of the day, I kind of think the Studio Series truck looks better. You may have noticed a peg hole above the running board. The peg hole is on both sides, and you can use it to store the guns while in truck mode. Is that a better method than sticking them on the bed? Debatable. I haven't bought a lot of official Masterpieces lately, but Ironhide has to be one of the worst. Granted, I get the impression that Hasbro is more hands-off with the main MP line, letting Takara make what they want and charge what they want while importing a few to sell through Pulse, while they're more involved with the MPM line and actively trying to sell it in the US (hence Bee, Prime, and Barricade on TRU shelves before they closed, Barricade and Ironhide being sold through Amazon, and Ratchet and Starscream turning up at Target). Hasbro's involvement probably means limiting the price and lowering the quality to meet that price, sure, but even then Ironhide is by far the worst MPM figure I've bought (and at this point I guess I'm just missing Jazz and Megatron). He doesn't feel solid in either mode, his articulation is limited in the arms, hips, and knees, and he's a pain to transform. If you're building an MPM display he'll look pretty good alongside the other Autobots, but he's just not fun to pose or transform. I can't really say that I recommend him- an upscale KO of the Studio Series figure with the DNA kit would be better.

I take it preorders for Walmart's Headmasters never went up? Oh well, it's not like they fill their preorders anyway. I got another email from Walmart pushing Soundwave back to mid-November, and a second pushing Bumblebee back to the same.

Got my orders in. Here's the Target links. Thrust Runabout EDIT: If you need them Galactic Encounters Micromasters My Little Prime Devastator

I'm not preordering any of the Walmart Headmasters, but if I see some of them in stores I might buy Hardhead and Chromedome for the more Headmasters anime-style heads. Maybe Mindwipe. I'm also not getting the Micromasters. I have Target already open and logged in. I want both Thrust and Runabout. And yeah, I'm in for the whole first wave of SS '86. I'll probably preorder at Amazon.

No surprises with the Studio Series reveals. My heart sank when they said they were doing more Walmart exclusives. But it's just a reissue of the Takara versions of Titans Return Chromedome, Brainstorm, Hardhead, and Mindwipe in G1-style boxes. Another Amazon-exclusive Galactic Encounters pack. It's just Micromasters, though. Thrust and Runabout are Target-exclusive. Also announced the Studio Series Devastator box set, if you missed the individual releases, and an Optimus-decoed My Little Pony called "My Little Prime" if you're into that.

Agree to disagree. That was a great figure for its time, but the legs are kind of wonky, I don't like the mandatory door wings or the flaps with the wheels, and the alt mode isn't a Porsche 935. The Studio Series figure isn't perfect (those hollow forearms!), but it's a lot closer to G1 Jazz. After Earthrise that's what I want in my mainline figures now. Paint has been an issue with Studio Series. I'm not surprised to see it's still an issue with Studio Series '86. Hopefully Toyhax will whip up some Reprolabels. As for the feet... I mean, on the one hand, the car looks fine from most angles. But yeah, it's unfortunate. Maybe Hasbro thought it'd make the car different enough to avoid dealing with the Volkswagen AG? I mean, I know Volkswagen eventually relented on Bumblebee, but I've heard that licensing the alt mode is the biggest reason why their hasn't been an MP Jazz. Well, I think it's worth remembering that Jazz is still a mainline Deluxe-class toy. I made arrangements for my wife to take our daughter to kindergarten tomorrow so I can watch Hasbro's stream tomorrow and jump on the preorders right away, because I'm in for the whole first wave. Truthfully, if future SS '86 figures are half as good as these first six I'm in for the whole line.

Got an email from Walmart that my Soundwave won't come until mid-November now. So help me, if Walmart fails to fulfill another preorder...

Super blurry, but here's a peak at what we're expecting to be announced Friday. Deluxe-class Jazz, Kup, and Blurr, Voyager-class Hot Rod and Scourge, and Leader-class Grimlock.

Get your preorder routines ready. Hasbro is having a fan-first Friday stream this Friday at 11:00 am Eastern to finally officially announced the first wave of Studio Series '86 figures.

Oh, I nearly forgot about X-Brawn, Sideburn, and Prowl. I did not care for those designs. Mostly I just liked Prime, the trains, Scourge, and the Decepticon Commandos, with a side of Sky-Byte. Wasn't that more Energon's gig, specifically? I owned none of the Energon toys at the time, but I have the Platinum Edition repaints of Optimus and Omega Supreme, plus a handful of the figures that were repainted for the movie line. I wouldn't say any of them are good, but Omega Supreme came the closest. Design-wise Energon had perhaps my least-favorite Optimus, beer belly Prime. But the other two series had their own gimmicks, minicons for Armada and Cyber Planet Keys for Cybertron. Again, Armada was before I got back into collecting, but I liked the design of the non-super Prime. I actually did wind up picking up a red-and-black repaint of the Deluxe-class Prime (Bendy Prime) that was released during the Cybertron line. It must have been an amazing figure then, because aside from proper thigh swivels it holds up pretty well today- it even has ankle pivots! I though Starscream and Megatron had fairly good designs, too, but I don't know how their toys were. As for Cybertron, I think it was still on the air when Classics was coming out, and I checked out a few toys from that line. I had the Leader-class Prime (pretty good), and some of the repaints that wound up in Classics, notably a Dirge repaint of Voyager-class Starscream (pretty good), a Ratbat repaint of Sideways (not so good), a Springer repaint of Evac (pretty good), and a Roadbuster repaint of of Cybertron Defense Hotshot (mostly ok). My biggest gripe with most of the Cybertron designs was that they tended to have chunky alt modes with little resemblance to anything real... maybe to make them easier to animate in CGI? I dunno. I wonder. Hasbro's been putting multiple lines on the shelves almost since Classics first hit. There's been the line for whatever cartoon is current, the movie line, and then Classics/Universe/Generations/WFC. It's the first one that gave us stuff like Prime and Animated, but the impetus behind the third has always been some level of G1 nostalgia (even if it's closer to mini MP today than 2006's G1 reimagined). I wonder how far they can stray from that well before they start losing demand? If I were a betting man, I suspect that after WFC they might go back to the Unicron Trilogy. Think about it, Dreamwave kicked off the G1 revival less than 20 years after the cartoon debuted, and Classics hit around 20 years after G1 ended. Kingdom will carry us through 2021, and in 2022 Armada will have it's 20th anniversary. While I don't care for the shows and many of the toys I know there's a generation of collectors in their mid 20's and early 30's who say that Armada is like their G1 (actually, I seem to recall our own @Kuma Style saying something along those lines). I don't expect Hasbro to rehash every character and toy the way they did for G1, but I think they'd probably get the most popular ones. Indeed, the trilogy format will allow Hasbro to sell you a new Optimus, Megatron, and Starscream three years in a row, and even G1 fans like me will probably bite on those. It may even explain why that prototype Armada Prime we saw almost two years ago (back when they were showing prototypes of Star Convoy) still hasn't happened- they could be saving it for post-Kingdom.

I was in college during RiD and a newlywed scraping by in my first apartment during the Unicron Trilogy, so I neither watched them nor collected the toys at the time. I pretty much went straight from watching G1 and playing with the toys as a kid to Classics. As an adult getting back into the fandom I did go back and watch the Japanese series, and yeah, they're pretty terrible. That said, while I wasn't really back into Transformers like I am today I knew Transformers had gone from G2 to Beast Wars, and like yourself I was glad to see Transformers turning into cars again when RiD came out. It's a terrible show, and I'll take your word for it if you tell me the toy was bad, but I loved the design of Fire Convoy. I was getting into anime in high school and college, and I thought that Fire Convoy blended some G1 Optimus with some anime style, with a super mode alá Powermaster Optimus. To this day I still love the design, hence my desire for an MP version.

Except that the Bayformers and the Prime characters were modeled in 3D. Yes, they're very distinct from G1, but 3-dimensional. G1, Cyberverse, even the Unicron Trilogy was animated in such a way that they were clearly drawing realistic 3D shapes. Only Animated had a very exaggerated, cartoony style. And like I said, it's a fine style for a 2D cartoon, but I never felt it translated well to 3D toys. Put another way, I'd love MP-style versions of almost any Optimus Prime for my collection (an MP RiD 2000 Prime/Fire Convoy is my holy grail), but I'd probably pass on an MP Animated Prime because I just don't think it'd fit in.

I liked the Animated cartoon a great deal, but the art style was flat and exaggerated. It made for a perfectly cartoony show, but despite collecting a lot of them I didn't care for the toys. I just didn't think the flat art style translated well to 3D toys, toys that look out of place displayed with even RiD (2015) or Cyberverse. I'd be ok with them doing something to wrap up the story, but I'm honestly fine with them never going back to that well for toys.

That sucks. At least there's one near me, and another by my parents' place I can start checking...

Preorders began after Kingdom was officially announced at Pulsecon, about two weeks ago. IIRC the only store-exclusive is an Amazon two-pack for the Autobot clones. Oh, and some TF Prime reissues, including Breakdown and Jet Vehicon (which were never released outside of Japan) were Pulse-exclusives. I'm not a huge fan of Beast Wars (I liked the show, but I'm not really a fan of robots turning into organic-looking animals) but I preordered almost the entire first wave at Amazon. Now I'm just waiting for some stuff we know exists but hasn't been listed in the West yet (Runabout, Bluestreak, Barricade, and the leaked Studio Series '86 stuff).

MP-52 up for preorder on Pulse. $265. As previously noted, this thing with Blaster is the third time this has happened (the other two being Hotlink and Netflix Mirage). So far Walmart has never filled any of my preorders. But at least Target got me my preorders. I managed to get POs for Soundwave, Bee, and Prime (they cancelled my order for Elita-1, then relisted her and told me I could order again, but ordering her alone would hit me with an extra $10 for shipping). The date listed for Soundwave is the 21st, but you'll understand if I don't have a lot of faith in Walmart at this point.