mikeszekely

Vroom! Got a shipment with two new Stunticons in. Today we'll take a look at one of them, DX9's Kukinski, aka MP Dead End. One the one hand, yep, that's what Dead End looks like. DX9 managed to get a lot of the details you'd want, like the vents on his forearms, the geometry and colors of the shapes on his torso (although I suppose he could have used a little more gray under the protruding white part), the layered shape of his crotch, the "O"s on his thighs, the details on his shins, and the wheels on the insides of his shins. The colors are all fine. On the other hand, there's a bit about him that feels almost stylized. His torso has an inward taper that I don't hate, but stands a bit in contrast to the cartoon's slab of a torso. Likewise his thighs have MP-10-ish tapers at the corners. His visor seems like it should come down a bit lower, closer to his face mask. Stylized or not, there's no question he's cut from the same cloth as the other DX9 Stunticons. He's got the same thin body, wheels on the shoulders, the hood of the car wraps around the back and outside of his forearms in the same way. His lower legs are also quite similar to Henry's (Wildrider's). There is one difference, though, that I'm almost loathe to point out because once you see it you won't be able to unsee it. And that is his tiny hands. They look kind of small on him when he's by himself, but with Montana and Henry and their more proportional hands it's extra noticeable. Kukinski doesn't come with a ton of accessories. He's got his rifle. And he comes with a leg. I sort of recall that Henry came with the entire upper body of a Legends-size Orion Pax, so this looks to be the left leg that attaches to it. All it'll need after that is the right leg, which I suppose will come with DX9's Dragstrip. Kukinski's head is on a hinged swivel that can look up maybe 30-ish degrees and down a little until his chin touches his chest. The swivel isn't a full 360; his cheeks will hit into his collar, but the range he has feels natural enough. His shoulders rotate and have a joint that gives him 90 degrees of lateral extension. If you work the transformation joint around the folded car panel behind his shoulder you can get a bit more if you need it. His biceps swivel, and he's got double-jointed elbows that curl all the way up. His wrists swivel. His thumbs are pinned at the base to move in and out. His fingers are permanently curled and pinned at the base, with his index finger being one piece and the other three fingers being a separate piece. His waist can swivel. He has 90 degrees of ab crunch, but he can also arch his back at least 60 degrees. His hips can go forward 90 degrees, backward 60 degrees, and laterally 90 degrees. His thighs rotate below the hips, and his knees bend 90 degrees. He doesn't actually have whole feet; his calves basically run the whole way to the ground and serve as his heels. The front of his foot is on a double hinge that lets it bend up and down, and a ball joint gives him a faux ankle pivot of around 90 degrees. He holds his gun fine, with a tab on the handle that fits into his right palm. There is no tab on the other side of the handle, though, so Kukinski is right-handed whether you like it or not. Kukinski's alt mode seems reasonable enough (although, spoilers for comparison that will come later after I have Fans Toys', not as detailed and real-world accurate as XTB's). The transformation has a lot of elements of Henry's, with differences mostly being in how the head comes out and how the legs fold up, with more minor differences in how the torso collapses. We'll see how Fans Toys does with theirs, but DX9 again provides a transformation that is more fluid and fun than XTB. One thing that I find a bit interesting is that Kukinski is smaller than Montana and Henry in alt mode. I'm too lazy to Google if that model of Porsche is honestly that much smaller than a Countach or that particular Ferrari, but it still strikes me as kind of surprising. As I said, I'm saving the big comparison between DX9, XTB, and FT for later, after Fans Toys releases there's, but spoilers for that, Kukinski is bigger than XTB's but not by as much as Montana or Henry were. The height is pretty close, Kukinski's just a bit longer and ever-so-slightly wider. Given that Montana, Henry, and even Capone (DX9's Motormaster) all had doors that open it should come as no real surprise that Kukinski's do too. Not that there's anything to see in there except his scrunched-up waist. The handle on his gun can fold back, revealing a tab on the bottom that can peg into one of two slots behind the sunroof. His tires are rubber, and they roll pretty well. Like XTB's Dead End Kukinski physically comes apart at the waist for combined mode. Instead of relying on spring-loaded latches, though, DX9 goes for a simpler (and honestly more effective) method. The actual waist joint has a large, square, grooved peg (not unlike a Combiner Wars connector) that slides into a notched slot at the top of his pelvis. Connecting him to the Menasor frame is pretty simple. The top half has that protruding piece on his tummy. There are grooves on the side, and you just push it into the wider part of the hole on his shoulder and slide it down to lock it into place. Meanwhile, the bottom half has a pair of slots near the wheels. They fit into tabs on the forearm, with a larger tab near Menasor's elbow sliding into the socket that where his upper half normally connects. Just be aware that you'll have to bend this feet down and turn the ankles so the bottoms of his feet are touching so they'll tuck inside Menasor's forearm. Kukinski's connection to Menasor's arm feels a lot more secure than Montana or Henry's to the backs of his legs. As for how they look there, well... it's cartoon-accurate. I know some of us would prefer that the car make up the entire arm, but we knew this was what DX9 was going for, and it works, they pulled off what they're going for. Weirdly, despite only having four of the five Stunticons while XTB has five Stunticons out, DX9 feels closer to having a completed Menasor, and I can't wait for their Dragstrip. Which, for all I know, could come out before XTB finishes their trailer and combined mode (although if I were a betting man I'd say XTB finishes up late summer/early fall, DX9 late fall, and Fans Toys sometime in 2021). Should I recommend Kukinski? I think he's the strongest release yet of DX9's Stunticons, with similar engineering and aesthetics but improvements in the joint tolerances. In what's becoming a running theme with this set I like Kukinski more than XTB's Dead End, and I definitely think he's playable and is more fun to mess with than XTB's (which was true for their Motormaster as well, even if I think XTB beat them on that one). Based on the other Fans Toys Stunticons I expect they'll also be more fun to mess with than Fans Toys', but I've been preferring Fans Toys' overall (at least for their Stunticons). And, of course, we're a long ways off from having complete Menasors, which will be a factor. For now, I'll just leave you with this- Kukinski is a good figure. If you're already in on DX9's Stunticons you won't be disappointed by him. If you're only after one set of Stunticons, though, I like him better than XTB's but expect to like Fans Toys' more that Kukinski, and it's simply too soon to call a winner for Menasor. But chances are good that you've probably committed to one set or another already anyway, and I don't think my Kukinski review is going to get anyone to jump ship at this point.

Nice! I get emails from Target that they're in stock online all the time, but they're never actually in stock when I click the links. Closest I came was the page showing that they were, in fact, available, but a popup every time I click on them that they weren't actually in stock and they weren't added to my cart. They didn't have any at my local Target last I was there, but I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow and my local Target is close, so I'll swing by again tomorrow. Wait, what? A street date of September 1st for a figure that's been out since like February? I mean, I don't remember when I got mine exactly, but it was before COVID-19 shut everything down and it was at Target...

Has anyone seen this yet? I know XTB said on Facebook that details on the trailer were coming in July, but this was apparently on Reddit like two weeks ago.

Assuming the pic is legit... My Japanese is a little rusty, but it's something like "After 15 years Starscream is revived in the Masterpiece series!" I'm honestly having a hard time drudging up any interest in this, if true. I haven't been impressed with the modern MP tendency to create robots that are too Sunbow-ish, or how many of the recent ones have had a large shell of alt mode parts that fold up into a giant backpack. Or how a few have had QC issues. And frankly, even if Takara were making good-looking robots with clever engineering and rock-solid QC the price creep on the MP line meant my first thought when I saw this was "I wonder if Starscream will be under $300?" At $150-ish I think I'd give them a look, but any more than that and I'm pretty content with Meteor, Lightning, and Skycrow.

What's funny is that I didn't like X-Transbot's version of Windcharger enough to buy the Tailgate repaint, but if they'd done a black one with black rims I probably would have bought it.

Yeah, I don't see anyone making a General Lee anytime soon, transforming or no. But I'm in for KITT, a Batmobile, or the Party Wagon.

The irritating thing about the clones is that I clicked the button to be notified when they're in stock on Target.com. Every day I'll get an email around 4:00 or 5:00 am telling me they're in stock, but of course by the time I actually wake up and check the email they're showing as sold out, if they ever were actually in stock. That being said, hang in there and keep checking. I got lucky and found the Seekers at my local Target, and at a different Target I found a spot on the shelf with a price label for the clones. Just be aware that they're going to be on an endcap, not the regular Transformers section, and that the endcap will be on the back side, not the side facing the main aisle. While demand is high and they're selling out fast and not available online Target's usually better than other stores for exclusives (I never saw a Siege Ratchet in the wild; I got one online). The three-pack of Siege Seekers was fairly easy to get, and the Micromaster pack shelfwarmed for awhile.

Nothing yet, but I'll post here when they're available.

Horizon Zero Dawn Complete Edition is up for preorder on Steam and will release in August. I was thinking if it were $20-30 I'd like to play the game again on PC, but the list right now is $50. While PC is my preferred platform, I can't be the only PC gamer who picked up a PS4 for the exclusives and games that just don't release on PC, and $50 seems like too much of an ask when the base price on PSN is $20 and it regularly goes on sale for less.

I need to stay off Ebay for awhile. Either that or I need to come up with $150-ish more bucks for a Star Convoy.

I wish I knew.

Hmm. I wonder if it's just the G1 trailer? I'm in on all three sets of Stunticons, and right now I'm leaning toward DX9 for the combined mode and Fans Toys for the robot mode. I'll probably pick up the toy-style "Youth" version of XTB's trailer and make XTB's a toy-style Menasor (despite going with the regular cartoon-style Stunticons). For some weird reason I like my combiner team members to look like their cartoon selves, but I prefer more of a toy/Studio OX look for the combined modes.

Aside from saying that Ectotron was a Voyager and Gigawatt's a Deluxe, it's hard to say for sure. Even if I'm right that Gigawatt's based on Siege Sideswipe (I'm 90% sure though) we don't know the extent that the mold has been modified to make Gigawatt (although I don't see anything that would drastically alter the height of the robot mode the front of the car looks significantly longer). But this should give you a rough idea. Not perfect, but if the cart is a little longer and taller not too bad, either. Word is the gull wing doors work (but as you can see in my earlier post there's no interior, just his robot arms) and the tires do bend 90 degrees into hover mode. Anyway, it seems the first run will be limited to 1985 copies, and the preorders were supposed to go up on Walmart.com at 1:00 EST today, so we probably missed it (I tried, but I just get an error page). However, a second version of Gigawatt will see a wider release (including at Hasbro Pulse) on October 1st. It's not clear what's going to be different about the two releases; hopefully they're just losing the hooked pole and tweaking the rear to reflect the differences between the first and second movies and not applying the more drastic changes the time machine saw in the third movie.

Yep. For all the prequel trilogy's flaws if there was one thing Lucas did well it was world-building. Lucas did take us to some familiar places, like Tatooine, but he also introduced new worlds and new people with distinct styles and customs. The sequel trilogy took us to planets with new names that looked a lot like places we'd already seen and armed everyone with the same X-Wings, Tie Fighters, Star Destroyers, and Mon Cal cruisers we'd been familiar with for 40 years.

I personally just discovered Shovel Knight. I can't believe I didn't play this before; while thematically pretty different the gameplay is like a mix of Mega Man and Castlevania with a Super Mario Bros 3 overworld. The game is brutally hard and at times you'll run into the kinds of cheap deaths that those classic NES franchises are famous for, but it's balanced with checkpoints that rarely set you back too far, and the only penalty for dying is the loss of money (that you can recover if you can get back to the spot where you died without dying again). So while you will die (often), you usually know exactly why you died and you can avoid making the same mistake to push on a little further. The music and graphics are meant to look like an 8-bit game, and had it actually released on a system like the NES back in the day I have no doubt it'd be one of the top five games on the console.

I'm cutting it some slack, as long as it isn't too expensive. It does have to transform, after all, and it is only a Deluxe. Nope.

Gigawatt (or should I say Jiggawatt?) has been revealed. I admit, I was wrong, it's not Titans Return Chromedome. Can't say for sure, but it looks like Siege Sideswipe to me, which is fine. Sideswipe's a good mold. Now we just need the preorders to start...

I didn't see Picard yet, but I thought Discovery was flawed but good. Started off kind of shaky in the first season, but it found its voice and the second season was great. And I don't think the "Discovery is a failure" narrative is particularly true, either. Analytics suggest that it did pretty well, with it being the most in-demand streaming show during the period of April 6th and May 5th in 2019 and the number 2 sci-fi series overall. And it was picked up for a third season. I'm not saying that there aren't legit criticisms to be made about it, especially the first season, but I don't think it's nearly as bad as some crowds are suggesting.

Kega Fusion on Windows plays Genesis, 32X, and Sega CD games, and you can get a licensed Retrobit reproduction 6-button USB Genesis controller for around $20. I love having a collection of my favorite Genesis games on the Mini, but my collection of ROMs and ISOs for those three is probably around 140 GB, and the Mini doesn't really have enough room.

That's a good figure. Shame Maketoys didn't use better materials in the hips. Or that it doesn't really fit in my collection. Thinking about selling my copy.

Yeah, I ordered a Nonnef blue kit, too, and that's after getting a silver 3D-printed one. The one that comes with Centurion will be my third Roller. The accessories I'm actually the most interested in are the guns and the mini alt-modes for Reflector, Soundwave, Megatron, and Shockwave. But really I preordered Centurion because Brunt's my favorite of the weaponizers and I could go for another copy of the mold. I have no doubt that HasTak can do better; like yourself, I've seen them do it. And sure, I'm going to rate figures with clever engineering higher than those that take a lazier approach. I guess what I mean by "more forgiving" is that I'll look at something like ER Arcee and say, "Boy, that's pretty lazy. But it's a good-looking Arcee, and it's only $20, so I'll buy it anyway." Compare that to, say, ToyWorld's Leah, where it seemed like they couldn't figure out what to do with the rear of her alt mode so they just left it off. I look at that and say, "Boy, that's pretty lazy. There's no way I'd pay $70 for that, I don't care how good the robot mode looks!" Anyway... the seller accepted my offer for PM Prime. It's a reissue, which I guess matters to some vintage collectors, but I'm happy because (from the photos) it looks almost brand new and it's 100% complete with God Bomber. I've got a little cash left over after selling a few things and I'm going to try to track down Laser Optimus, then maybe I'll do a little write up on Primes throughout the years. I'd try to get Star Convoy, too, but he's a tad expensive. Laser Op is cheaper (but harder to find complete). EDIT: Made an offer on a Laser Op that's missing a gun and the instructions, but has all the missiles and the sword. Seller didn't reply to my offer. Found another one that looks like it's in excellent condition and is listed as complete. I sent a message to the seller to confirm that the gun is included, if it is I'll pull the trigger, but I'll already be over budget so Star Convoy's going to have to go on the back burner.

Maybe Hasbro saw how many people were buying Weijiang's KO Arcee with the detachable kibble and thought that's what people wanted? Anyway, I'm not saying that I disagree that Earthrise Arcee's engineering is lazy, but the partsforming didn't bother me much on Cliffjumper, and honestly I'm a lot more forgiving of stuff like that on a $20 Deluxe than on a premium figure. Still plan on picking her up. ...although I might have to cut back on my budget for them if I don't stop buying old Optimus figures on ebay. I got a Machine Wars Optimus that was missing some accessories but mostly in good condition last week, today I got a G2 Hero Optimus (the bellows don't seem to work anymore, but he was otherwise totally complete). I made an offer on a Powermaster Optimus reissue with "Apex Armor," and I'm watching a Star Convoy and a few G2 Laser Optimus Primes.

Hasbro put out a little guide to accessories that are coming with the Centurion pack. Most of it is pretty obvious - a cage for Ravage, some Energon cubes, a new blaster, energon ax, and Roller for Prime, and Energon Mace for Megatron, a radar dish for Trailbreaker, an Optimus mini-figure (I guess to display with the Titans or Unicron to make them seem bigger), a mini Reflector in camera mode and Soundwave in tape mode, mini Megatron and Shockwave gun modes with 5mm peg handles, a jetpack for Sideswipe, a "drill blaster" meant for Ironhide, and a glass gas gun for Cliffjumper. The last item, though, is a pretty generic blaster. What's interesting is that it's labeled "Bumblebee Blaster," and it's interesting because Hasbro hasn't officially announced a Bumblebee figure in the War for Cybertron line.

Went to Walmart for address labels. Found Netflix Hotlink. I bought it, but I'm kind of mad that I pre-ordered him and Mirage back in February and the status was still "Delayed" when I went to cancel. Maybe fill your preorders before filling endcaps, eh? Would still like to find Scrapface, but my local Walmart had a pile of every figure expect him and Magnus. edit: Speaking of Hotlink, I'm always happy to troop build with more Seekers, but I'm not a fan of the deco. He's a pretty obvious purple in the G1 cartoon with mostly black accents, almost as if you took Skywarp and inverted his colors then added a little white for good measure.. The Netflix version uses a very muted purple, then goes overboard with the scorch marks (which seems to be the Netflix version of Siege's dirt) and loses the white entirely. The result is a technically a purple Seeker with black accents that could easily be mistaken for a black Seeker with purple accents. Or, y'know, Skywarp. Still need a Sunstorm, Hasbro. Although, with the Earthrise Seekers all in hand I wonder how difficult it'd be to repaint the Siege versions of Starscream, Thundercracker, and Skywarp into Sunstorm, Nacelle or Bitstream, and G2 Blackout...

I use Toyhax, formerly Reprolabels.