mikeszekely

All Sega needed to do make a Game Gear in the same size case or slightly smaller, with a better screen, rechargeable battery, and emulation software by M3 with maybe 30-40 games (and enough storage for hackers to add more later). Maybe thrown in an HDMI out on the top and some USB ports to use the Genesis mini's controllers and play on the TV. Instead we get overpriced novelties.

So far we've looked at two of the 3 Mighty Warriors, one that was good but not good enough to replace what I already had, and one that was just ok and still not good enough to replace what I had. But the Warrior I was most interested in was War Machine, Final Victory's Warpath. So did I waste my money, or will War Machine be the one to redeem my purchase? Well, let me start off right away by not only comparing him with BadCube's version, but the Hasbro Generations Deluxe version. He's a head, maybe slightly more, shorter than BadCube's, and roughly the same size as the other Mighty Warriors. When I reviewed BadCube's I mentioned that I couldn't find an official scale chart with Warpath, but he was often shown to be around the same size as the Autobot cars, but I've heard it argued that as a minibot toy he should be the same size as the other minibots. If you prefer a slightly smaller Warpath, then War Machine fits that bill for an MP shelf. However, you'll also notice that he's just a little taller than Generations Warpath. When I wrote about finding minibots for use with Siege/Earthrise I used the same "Warpath was often the size of an Autobot car" argument to suggest that Generations Warpath fit with Siege. Well, if you can accept Warpath a little taller still, maybe Ironhide-sized (a head shorter than Siege/Earthrise Optimus) then a case can also be made that War Machine could also be your Siege/ER Warpath. Aesthetically I think he looks really good, too. He's a nice, glossy red, with silver paint on his treads, around his eyes, and on some smaller details. Weirdly, FV didn't paint his nose, but that's a petty easy fix. The overall sculpt and proportions are much more similar to the cartoon than BadCube's version, which I like. My biggest complaints are the lack of silver on his lats and the fact that his hands are black instead of red. Even the shin flaps don't really bother me. You might also point out that the animation model had some silver on the shoulders. War Machine actually does, too, but they're hidden behind covers. The hinges on the covers weren't molded properly, I think, so they resist opening. Fortunately there's no pin, so the covers can be popped right off. I'll note that the cannon on War Machine's chest can collapse like the Generations toy, which I'm a big fan of, and he has a much cleaner back than Badcube's. After seeing what it takes to get Wardog from robot to tank and back you'd almost expect sorcery to be involved for War Machine to come out so clean. Well, War Machine doesn't come with sorcery, but he does come with this gun, two screw hole covers, and a plug for his cannon barrel. War Machine's head is on a ball joint. He can look up a little, down a little less, and tilt his head sideways more than you'd ever need. His shoulders can rotate, and they can hinge out about 60 degrees laterally before his shoulders start banging into his head. Unfortunately, the hinge is inside the rotation joint like a lot of Warbotron stuff was, so he can rotate his shoulders or move them laterally but not really both. His biceps swivel. His elbows bend around 120 degrees on a single hinge. Due to his transformation his wrists don't swivel, but they can bend inward. His waist can swivel. His hips can move forward a little under 90 degrees and backward 45 degrees on a soft ratchet. They can also move laterally 90 degrees. There are points where I can hear a clicking, but if there's a ratchet there it's extremely soft and he's relying more on the perfectly adequate friction. His thighs swivel around his hips, and his knees bend a little under 90 degrees an another soft ratchet. His feet can bend up slightly, down 90 degrees, plus a hinge allows his ankles to pivot 90 degrees. As with the other Warriors War Machine's hands are molded in the shape of a 5mm port, and his gun uses a 5mm peg for a handle. For the rest of his accessories, the screw hole covers fit into the sides of his feet. And the barrel plug fits into the end of the cannon barrel on his chest. I think it looks slightly more cartoon accurate without it, but the barrel can retract so far into his chest that you have to open up his back to push it back out. the plug effectively stops the barrel from retracting too far. Wardog's transformation was fairly complex and made him somehow get bigger, becoming a more realistic Sherman tank. War Machine is the total opposite. His transformation is actually very simple, and he shrinks up in the process. All things considered, though, I like this tank mode. The more bulbous turret isn't real-world accurate, but it's kind of cartoon accurate. I think he's got enough molded detail to pass for the cartoon tank, too. He's just missing the view port on the front, between the lights. Oh, and the silver section on the rear of the tank is red here. The part that would be silver is basically a flap on a pinned hinge, and the pin is easily removed. If you want it silver it should be easy enough to paint it, then. The turret, which is mostly diecast, can rotate, and the barrel can be aimed up or down. There's a 5mm peg on one side that you can plug his gun into. Were they going for something like a machine gun? I mean, I've seen them on tanks, but it seems out-of-scale here. I almost think it'd look better with their Brawn, so maybe I'll switch their weapons. Unlike Wardog, War Machine does have little wheels under his treads that allow him to roll, and again you can lift those little covers up to reveal the silver details on the rear. So I actually like War Machine a lot, and I'm pretty satisfied with him as my MP Warpath. Sure, BadCube's tank is bigger and far more realistic, but Final Victory's seems more cartoony in both modes. And sure, Fans Toys' probably looks the best, but I can transform War Machine without worrying that his legs are going to fall apart at the knees. And then there's the matter of price. I bought the set of three figures for $90. If I throw Brawn and Huffer in the trash and consider the entire price to be for War Machine he's still cheaper than Fans Toys' and his joint tolerances are better than BadCube's, and I'd give him a recommend. But if you're interested in the other figures, you can find someone else who wants the other figures, or you can find a seller offering just War Machine he becomes even cheaper, making him a bargain to use for MP, CHUG, customizing, or just to fiddle with, and my recommend is that much stronger.

G1, or something else? MP, CHUG, or Legends?

Why not just add to the one you have?

Ugh. So apparently it's not one device with multiple games that's available in for colors, each color has four different games. And with that I think I'm out.

No idea what games it has, and yeah, it looks really tiny. But I want one.

So Reckless Combat surprised me by faring surprisingly well against the BadCube version that I'm totally satisfied with. Y'know what I'm not totally satisfied with? BadCube's Brawn, which has kind of stumpy legs and whose torso comes apart too easily when your manipulating the arms. Might Final Victory have another winner on their hands with their version of Brawn, Hummer? My initial impressions weren't too bad. He's a little taller, perhaps too tall for a Brawn. His legs are a bit less stumpy, which is good, but his torso is a bit more heroic, which is less good. Instead of the silvery plastic BadCube used Hummer's arms are that same bluish plastic that FV used on their Huffer. Visible windows sit on his toes and shins, which isn't at all cartoon accurate, but honestly none of that stuff is a deal breaker to me. The most noticeably thing that I'm really not digging is that helmet, which is also using the light blue plastic. Presumably FV is using light blue for silver, and silver might work for the old Marvel comics and the G1 toy, but his helmet was definitely darker in the cartoon. BadCube has that right. While we're on his head, it's fine, but I'm not really a fan of yelling faces. Lucky for me Hummer has the same face-change gimmick as their Huffer. Pull the helmet off and spin the head around 180 degrees and now he's got a more neutral expression. Bonus, if I can find a metallic gray paint I like it should be easy to paint the helmet. I posted an image of FT's upcoming Brawn a few days ago, pointing out how large its backpack is. BadCube's Brawny is also ready for school with his own backpack. Hummer, though, is surprisingly flat back there. There's some downsides to that, though. The main flap is relying on the friction in its hinges to stay in place, as it doesn't tab down. And it's not really doing the best job of hiding how hollow his torso is behind that backpack. It's here that he's starting to lose me. I can tolerate some backpack, if it's neat. While Hummer's is flatter it looks sort of unfinished. If if one my my big gripes about Branwy is that his torso comes apart, well, at least it's tabbed in. Again, going by pictures on the box to decide which of the packed-in accessories are meant for Hummer, I think it's the following: a dark gray pistol, plus a drill and a blowtorch in that light blue plastic. Hummer's head can swivel, but it doesn't seem to have any up/down tilt. There is a transformation joint that could, in theory, give him some upward tilt but the back of his helmet is right up against the hood behind it. His shoulders rotate on soft ratchets, hinge out 90 degrees, and due to transformation he's got a little forward and backward butterfly joint. His biceps swivel, and his elbows bend 90 degrees on extremely soft ratchets. His wrists swivel. His waist swivels. His hips can go 90 degrees forward, backward, or laterally, all on ratchets. His thighs swivel around the hip joints. His knees bend 90 degrees on friction hinges. Most of his foot can't move, but the front part of his foot is on a swivel that gives him faux ankle pivots of around 60 degrees. As was the case with their Huffer, Brawny's hands are molded into 5mm ports, and the gun handle is a 5mm peg. I know a lot of people prefer articulated hands, but on a bot this size static hands don't really bother me, and the added compatibility with other 5mm accessories is a bonus. As for the drill and blowtorch, when you collapse Hummer's fists into his forearms you'll see two notches at the end. A pair of small tabs on either accessory fit into those notches. Hummer's transformation is a bit different. You might have noticed that he has two wheels in each calf. Where Brawny's torso turned inside out to form the front of the vehicle and used his lower legs to make the rear Hummer uses his hood to make the, well, hood, as well as the grill and headlights, but his legs actually unfurl to make up most of the rear, sides, and front, including making the windshield out of his toes. For the most part I think it's a bit easier than Brawny, who wasn't that difficult in the first place. I have mixed feelings about the vehicle mode. On the one hand, I think I've actually seen a model of Jeep that looks like this, so maybe it's a bit more realistic than Brawny. While still kind of minimal compared to the cartoon, G1 toy, and what Fans Toys seems to be doing, Hummer does seem to to have the fender flares that Brawny was missing. On the other hand, Hummer's missing the roof rack, spare tire, yellow bumper, and roof rails that the cartoon, toy, FT, and BC versions have. The grill is gunmetal instead of silver, protruding instead of recessed, and fills a large space on the vehicles nose. The headlights flank the grill on the green portions of the nose instead of sitting in the silver part. For most people, myself included, it's just not cartoon-accurate enough, and that's before I point out that I could never get the panels that make up the rear to sit flat. He does, at least, sport rubber tires, with diecast metal rims. The rear ones are even on shock absorber-like springs, which is kind of neat. The drill (and technically the blowtorch) can be used in vehicle mode. You won't find dedicated slots for it, but the tabs fit snugly between the slats on the grill. There's a 5mm peg hole on the roof, and you can plug his gun into it if you like. I can't help but notice that the peg hole ends up on his back in robot mode. I think FV could have made the spare roof tire with a 5mm peg and it could have plugged into that hole. I can't help but be a little disappointed with Hummer. While their Huffer wasn't quite good enough to overtake BadCube's it was still a strong showing and a reasonable alternative if you still needed a Huffer and can't find the BadCube one. BadCube's Brawn, on the other hand, is more in need of a replacement than their Huffer, but Hummer fails to step up. He's not a bad figure by any means, but he's definitely a placeholder. As much as I hate to say it, if you're in the market for an MP Brawn you're probably better off waiting for Fans Toys at this point. The only real advantage Hummer has is his price.

I'll get a "someone liked one of your posts" pop up and a red mark on that globe on the toolbar at the top of the page, and if I click it it'll take me to whatever post was liked. It's usually one of my reviews, and not just a generic good post or anything. It doesn't tell me who did it, or even if more than one person did it, though.

Expect a review soon. Can't speak for everyone, but I'm making a point of liking your pictures.

I think its not as bad in person as it looks in pictures, like his forehead is adding some extra shading or something. But yes, they're smallish.

I think it's a mix of the age of these boards, the smaller size of the community, and the average age of said community. These boards have been around forever; I joined probably around twenty years ago and there were guys who were considered long-time veterans even then. The number of active members is smaller than a lot of other boards I've visited, so there's kind of a sense that we know each other and we don't have a problem just saying if we like something or not. Plus I think we're a little older than some other communities, and kind of set in our ways. The like/kudos feature is actually pretty new and came with a board update maybe two or three years ago, and I think a lot members who were used to not having it are content to ignore it now.

Speaking of Fans Toys, early reports of QC issues held me back from buying their Warpath and it seems that it sold out anyway. I picked up BadCube's version recently, but while there's stuff I liked about it and I don't think the transformation was as bad as I people were making it out to be I'd be lying if I said I was totally satisfied. So I decided to explore one other option, but that option came in a pack with three other guys. Guys I had figures of that I actually was pretty satisfied with. Was my lack of interest justified? Let's consider the one I was the least interested in, Final Victory's Reckless Combat, an MP-scale take on Huffer that comes in a set called the Mighty Warriors. My initial impressions out of the box weren't exactly favorable. It's partly because he has three flaws that immediately jumped out at me- an ugly head sculpt, arms that are the same light blue as his thighs instead of a silver color, and a lack of that light blue on his chest. It's partly because I have BadCube's Huff (the second version, not the original Cubex one), and it's just about perfect (in my opinion) in robot mode. Other issues that have been brought up are the visible tires on his legs and the non-articulated hands. While I'll concede that hidden tires and articulated hands on BadCube's are better I can't honestly say that either of those are a big deal for me. The head I guess I can get over, the arms can probably be painted. The biggest deal for me is the chest. What were they thinking? Did they watch the cartoon, or were they just going off of the first image at TFWiki? I can't quit tell, but it looks like the part that should be light blue might be a separate piece, so perhaps I can take it apart and paint it. But let's not just focus on the negatives. Head aside aside, I think the overall sculpt is pretty good. I like the bigger feet and more detailed shins. His backpack is no worse than any other Huffer's. He's actually got a little diecast, and you can kind of see it in shins that don't quite match the yellow of the rest of his legs. While the robot mode isn't as good in my eyes as BadCube's I do think it's better than X-Transbot's old Krank figure. Really, a little more paint, a better face, and some new hands and I wouldn't have had to listen to usual "it's not MP" snobbery from certain segments of the fandom. Oh, and about that head. You can actually pull his Magneto helmet off, and turning his helmet-less head around will reveal a second face. Thing is, with a slight (and uncharacteristic) smile and eyes that aren't painted as neatly the second face might actually be worse. Since Reckless Combat comes in a set with some other characters there seems to be some confusion about what accessories belong to him and what accessories belong to the others. Going off of the pictures on the box I'm pretty sure that the accessories intended for this guy are just these two pistols. They're molded in the same color plastic as his arms/thighs with no paint (and some sprue marks on the one handle). I think the sculpt is pretty good, though. Another area where Reckless Combat shines is articulation. His head is on a ball joint at the base of the neck, which gives him plenty of foreward/backward/sideways tilt and rotation. His shoulders can rotate and hinge outward 90 degrees. His biceps can swivel, and his elbows bend 90 degrees. His wrist swivels, as does his waist. Interestingly enough the upper part of his torso is connected to the lighter part by a ball joint in his back, so he not only has a good ab crunch that doesn't break his sculpt but he can also lean to either side. His hip skirts hinge out of the way so his hips can ratchet forward 90 degrees, backward about 45 degrees, and laterally 90 degrees. His thighs swivel around the hip joint, and his knees bend just a tiny bit under 90 degrees on a soft ratchet. His feet can tilt up and down a bit, plus a double-hinge where his foot connects gives him some deep ankle pivots. His joints are tight, even the friction ones, if a little squeaky like an older Fans Toys figure. The handles on his guns, despite the little slots in them, are really 5mm pegs. And they fit snugly into his hands, which are shaped like 5mm ports. Reckless Combat has a transformation that's pretty simple. What I find interesting here is that BadCube used panels to cover the thighs and keep an overall shape that seems more like a realistic truck. He winds up longer, to the point that he doesn't even bother to hide his head. Meanwhile, Reckless Combat leaned heavily into the G1 toy's Choro-Q influence and shrinks down into a compact chibi truck. Sure, the truck could have used the covers for the top of the arms that BadCube's has, and maybe some more paint for the taillights and behind the transparent headlights. Unlike BadCube, Reckless Combat does at least sport rubber tires, and I prefer the angle of the front windshield on the cab. I actually think it's both more toy and more cartoon-accurate than BadCube's in truck mode, and I kind of prefer it. There are a some hinged parts on the back of Reckless Combat's truck. If they're folded up you'll see they have hollow slots in them. Those slots allow him to pull MP-10's trailer. What he doesn't have, though, is any way to store his guns in this mode. I like BadCube's Huff a lot, and no, Reckless Combat isn't going to replace him on my shelf. However, where I initially thought I might try to sell off or bin Reckless Combat I'm finding that I'd rather leave him on my desk because he's just fun to mess with, and not nearly as bad as I thought he'd be. Given that BadCube's is hard to come by these days I actually think that Reckless Combat is a solid alternative, especially if you've got some talent for customizing your figures and can paint the arms and chest. His low price and 5mm-compatible weapons/hands make him an attractive buy for customizers in general, really. Just keep in mind that Fans Toys also has a Huffer coming, if you're into more paint and diecast.

@Kuma Style Fans Toys has been pretty prolific lately, and a lot of the discussion seems to be focused on them lately. Seems like they're releasing stuff with more QC or design issues, prices are creeping up on their stuff faster than other 3Ps, their stuff is selling out super quick, scalpers are having their cake and eating it too, and their fans are defending all of it. It's been sucking the joy out of this hobby for me lately. But you've been posting these pics of some older stuff, especially Maketoys, Fansproject, and MMC. It reminds me of when these things were fun toys and not necessarily premium collectibles, when we were excited to get a character (or version of a character) Hasbro neglected and weren't obsessing about how much paint or diecast was on it. Thanks, buddy, for reminding me what got me into 3P in the first place.

It's time for me to bring up a figure that's a bit polarizing over at that message board that shall not be named: Fans Toys' Iceman, their MP-style Air Raid. So, first impressions, and holy cow does Iceman look good. Not just good, he looks right. I mean, people have insisted that Zeta's was based more on the toy, but let's be clear, the toy didn't have translucent panels on his chest and hips, he had red and yellow stickers. He didn't have silver thighs, free, or on the middle of his chest, he had white. What Zeta actually gave us looked like a generic body that could have been Fireflight's as much as Air Raid's. And it felt kind of cheap (to be fair it was pretty cheap, retailing for around half of Iceman's price), with sides that liked to collapse, ball joints for ankles, and those weedy ToyWorld/Zeta hands. Iceman is none of those things. He looks just about perfect, hitting that sweet spot where he's got just enough details to look like a real robot but enough attention to those details to look extremely cartoon accurate as well. All the red you see is a bright metallic red paint. Almost all the white you see is paint with a pearlescent, satin sheen. Translucent panels on his chest reveal some interesting mechanical detail. And it feels good, too, with the usual Fans Toys' heft, plastic that feels sturdier, tighter joints, and a more solidly-connected backpack. Speaking of backpacks, it was something of an (minor) issue that the previous guy, their Skydive, had a pretty massive backpack. Fans Toys did a much better job cleaning up the backpack on Iceman, although in doing so they seem to have brought a few new issues to the table. Now, I think it's only fair that I point out that there have been a number of reported QC issues with this guy. The most common issues seem to be stuck finger joints and loose knees due to short screws that don't hold everything together properly. Slightly less common issues, but ones that are still being reported, are legs sheering off where they connect to the pelvis and arms breaking at the shoulder. Well, 31 must have been doing his or her job the day my copy was coming down the line, because I have none of that. My complaints about Iceman will all be related to the design, starting with something you might have already noticed- Iceman is big! When Zeta was doing their Aerialbots everyone insisted that the Aerialbots should be Seeker-sized. When the Stunticons started coming out people debated whether XTB was right to go with Autobot car-sized robots since they also turned into cars, or if DX9 was right to make them Seeker-sized since their rivals, the Aerialbots, are Seeker-sized. Well, Iceman is not Seeker-sized. As you can see with Zeta's Air Raid and the similar-sized Maketoys Starscream Iceman is about a head taller than them. Iceman is, in fact, a little taller than Fans Toys' own Skydive, coming eyes-to-nose with most MP-styles of Optimus Prime (like TE-01 here). I'm sorry, you guys, but Iceman is too big. And I hear a lot of people arguing, "well, maybe it's a little too big in robot mode, but that's the size it needs to be to get the right height for combined mode." OK, but- 1. I'm not buying them for combined mode. Zeta's totally scratches my itch for Superion. I'm picking these guys up for robot mode because I think that's where Zeta really dropped the ball. And speaking of Zeta, 2. ToyWorld's Constructor is still considered the standard for a properly-sized MP combiner to scale correctly with MP-10 (and all the MPs that came after, even MP-44, are still using that scale). Zeta's Superion is already the same size as Constructor. If Zeta's Superion is already the "correct" size, and they did with an Air Raid that's a head shorter than Iceman, then I'm not sure that "Iceman needs to be bigger for combined mode" is an argument that necessarily holds water, although I suppose I'll have to give them the benefit of the doubt until we can actually build FT's Superion and see. Anyway, moving along. Iceman comes with a replacement, yelling face, cool for those that want it. He also comes with a pair of pistols. The last guy came with a pair of pistols, too, and you know what, I think they only used one gun each in the cartoon and the G1 toys only came with one gun. I guess it must be for symmetry in alt mode. The guns themselves are painted and have decent enough molded detail. The handles can fold back to reveal a little peg that'll be used for alt mode. I think the shape of the guns is a little weird, but it seems to be cartoon-accurate. Before I really get into Iceman's articulation I'd better tackle the elephant in the room... when Iceman is properly transformed for his robot mode he does NOT have a waist swivel. And I've seen all sorts of excuses by the FT fans to try to justify it, the most common ones being that it was maybe omitted for combined-mode stability, a waist swivel isn't important on a toy that most people are going to leave in combined mode, that waist swivels really aren't that important and we all pose our toys without them, or it was too difficult to engineer a functioning waist swivel with half a plan on his back. In fairness to that second argument it is his backpack that's the problem. The rear of the plane that makes the bottom of his backpack is on a diecast armature that's hinged at the base of his spine, but in robot mode properly sits in a groove right down his butt, locking his waist in place. And if you start pulling his backpack out of place you'll find that without the armature running down his butt he not only has a waist swivel, that waist swivel is ratcheted. But whatever the argument, my counterpoints are that in 2020 things like a waist swivel should be a given (especially on a $130 figure), that Zeta figured out how to build an Air Raid with a working waist swivel two years ago, that Fans Toys has a track record of making robots that look great on a shelf but often have problematic engineering and/or articulation issues, and they get away with it because people will buy whatever crap they put out and make excuses for them later. As for the rest of his articulation, Iceman's head is on a hinged swivel without a lot of up/down tilt and no sideways tilt. His shoulders rotate on ratchets, but the joint's got this weird thing going on where the joint is actually in front of the shoulder so instead of the shoulder rotating on the joint it rotates around the joint. The shoulders can hinge out to 90 degrees. He's got bicep swivels, and single-jointed elbows good for just 90 degrees. His wrists swivel. His thumb is on a ball joint at the base, and each of his fingers is individually-articulated with hinges at the base and two additional knuckles. His hips rotate forward on ratchets a little over 90 degrees, and although backward is a bit more limited just due to his backpack kibble. They move laterally 90 degrees on friction hinges. That's usually what I prefer, but I should point out that Iceman's legs are a bit heavy. On my copy he'll hold a kicking pose, but just a little shake and the leg will start to come back down. His thighs rotate around the hip joints. His knees bend 90 degrees on a single ratcheted hinge. His feet don't bend up, but his toes can bend down for transformation. His ankles can pivot up to 90 degrees, so no issues there. He holds his guns nice and tightly using the bog-standard tabs on the handles and slots in the palms. Iceman's transformation starts off fairly easy, especially if you've handled the previous one. I wasn't even using the instructions, and at no point was I even really unsure about what it was I needed to do. Near the end, though, it gets frustrating due to a number of clearance issues (his hip skirts have to tuck into his his shins, the armature that the bottom of the backpack his on needs to be sandwiched between and ultimately under panels on the backs of his legs, and thankfully his wings are on c-clips because they're going to get in the way so often that you're going to pop them off). And, honestly, I think I have some issues with the jet mode, too. For starters, I gave Zeta more of a pass because if their robot mode wasn't super 'toon or toy accurate then why should their jet mode, but since Iceman was super cartoon accurate in robot mode I have to point out that it's just not in jet mode. I mean, his horizontal and vertical stabilizers are left plain black, with none of the toy's sticker details, which is fine. But then his wings have silver edges with thin red and yellow stripes. It's somewhat similar to what Zeta did, and closer to the toy than the single white stripe seen in the cartoon. I can't help but be disappointed; I prefer the cartoon's cleaner look. Likewise, Fans Toys used a dark translucent plastic, nearly opaque, for the canopy. The cartoon, taking its cues directly from the G1 toy, had a silver canopy. The size is a little off, too, but not as badly as the robot mode. You can see that the proportions are similar to Zeta's, but it has a much longer nose. And compared with an official MP Skywarp Iceman seems to have a thicker fuselage and nose, but similarly-sized wings and stabilizers. The fuselage lines up with the official pretty well from the intakes through the wings, but as we go beyond the wings Iceman winds up being just a little longer. Looking at him from the sides and he's not a ton different than Zeta's version. I know the boxy robot under a plane thing is a peeve of @M'Kyuun, but I'll allow it here. You can make a case that it's G1 accurate for the Aerialbots, and Air Raid in particular probably needs a certain level of brickishness to make for a solid leg. Taking a quick peek at the bottom of the jet. You can see that he's got landing gear that folds out from the plane's nose and from the colored detail on his robot knees. There's also a tiny peg hole on the underside of either wing. The little pegs you revealed when you flipped back the handles fit into those holes for alt mode storage, one on each wing. Hence my remark about alt mode symmetry. Iceman's canopy can also open, revealing a molded seat and controls inside. Credit where credit is due, the details on the controls are sharp, and FT even painted some of them with red, blue, and yellow paint. It's the kind of thing that nobody would have noticed or said anything if they'd left unpainted, but they did and it looks fantastic. If you're like me you might be satisfied with Zeta's Superion as your MP Superion, but their Aerialbots aren't cutting it for MP Aerialbots. Iceman, on the other hand, looks exactly like what I wanted for robot mode, with a good but seemingly more toy-inspired jet mode. That said, if you like to handle your toys you may find the transformation a bit frustrating. But the biggest disappointment for me has to be his articulation. While I'm not a big fan of what Takara's been doing lately they're arguably FT's closest rival, more than any other 3P, and I understand a big part of Takara's "stuff the whole alt mode into a backpack" approach is to maximize articulation. Ab crunches, double-jointed knees and elbows, and butterfly joints at the shoulders are becoming increasingly common on 3P figures and pretty much standard on Takara's. 90 degree single-hinge elbows and knees used to be the absolute minimum, but these days they feel like too little. And the lack of a functional waist swivel (even if it meant turning the waist over 180 degrees in one direction) is totally inexcusable. Iceman always looks kind of stiff in any pose but a stoic, slight A-stance. For now, Iceman is unquestionably the best MP-style Air Raid you can get. However, if X-Transbots, DX9, or MMC were to try their hand at the Aerialbots I think they'd come up with something that isn't a pain to transform, isn't too big, and has better articulation. If I absolutely knew one of them were working on Aerialbots I'd tell you to pass on Iceman, sell the other two if you already have them, and just wait. Unfortunately scalpers and FOMO seem to be hitting FT's products hard lately, and they're selling out quickly, so you might be better off buying Iceman now. Just hang onto the box so you can sell him later.

What's it say about me that you have stacks of awesome-looking games but the one I zeroed in on is Knight Rider?

I usually don't do more than one of these posts a day, even if I have more stuff to look at, but I want to get this off my desk. With all six Seacons in hand we can combine them to form King Poseidon (or Piranacon if the old Marvel comics were more your thing than Masterforce). So here he is, with the guy who's around 60% the same thing. As a Scramble City-style combiner you can, of course, use any of the Deluxes as any limb (or even borrow pretty much any other Power of the Primes or Combiner Wars Deluxe), but I tend to go for the "official" combination (that is, the configuration most-commonly used in media depicting the character). On the boxart for the G1 King Poseidon gift set and in the Masterforce anime he was shown with Kraken as his left arm, Lobclaw as his right arm, Gulf as his right leg, and Tentakil as his left leg. You eagle-eyed readers might notice, then, that I have his arms reversed. It's easy to do, because one of my favorite features about King Poseidon is that he's color coordinated. Gulf and Tentakil, both as legs, are mostly blue, magenta, and pink. Kraken and Lobclaw are green, gray, and black arms Turtler has the green from the arms and the magenta from the legs. Overbite matches Turtler's green and magenta but trades Turtler's pink for purple. Despite being a "new" combiner, Generations Select's King Poseidon is definitely part of the older Combiner Wars/Power of the Primes "G1, but updated" design (as opposed to Earthrise's "G1, but with modern engineering"). Even at a glance it's unmistakably King Poseidon, but the configuration of the limbs (Gulf and Tentakil's beast heads on the front of the legs, Kraken and Lobclaw's heads being the shoulders instead of the forearms, no tail sticking off his Kraken-arm shoulder or claws on his Lobclaw-arm forearm, no spikes on the backs of his hands, etc) is quite a bit different. As far as accessories go, as you might have guessed the melee weapons that came with each of the six Seacons combine to form a sword for King Poseidon. You start by sticking Overbite's and Gulf's swords onto the top of Turtler's. Then take the axe-things that came with Tentakil and Kraken and plug them onto the pegs that Overbite's and Gulf's added to the sides. Now, before you add Lobclaw's axe you need to plug what you've already built into the 5mm port built into the thumb on one of the hands. The handle is long enough to go all the way through and stick out the other side. Technically you could stop there (which is good, because I do believe that Beast Wars II God Neptune only has five members, and there was no repaint of Lobclaw/Nautilator). But that protruding bit of handle fits into a peg hole on top of Lobclaw's axe, giving it a secondary blade on the handle. As for the guns, well, despite all the extra pegs and peg holes there is no official combination for them. Assuming Overbite goes to gun mode when the others combine, and assuming his rifle is necessary for that gun mode, this is the best I could come up with for the rest. With Lobclaw's and Gulf's tales tabbed pegged onto their limb modes that should cover all their individual accessories except the extra hands. Well, the feet have peg holes on the backs, and the instructions tell you to use two of the hands as heels. That fifth hand, though? Toss it in a drawer, I guess. Articulation... Well, his head is on a swivel, but there's no tilt. His arms can rotate on the ratcheted combiner pegs, and move laterally (also ratcheted) a little over 90 degrees. His biceps swivel, and if you have the arms turned right Kraken and Lobclaw's hips and knees give King Poseidon double-jointed elbows with enough articulation to bump this forearms into his shoulders. The wrists are, of course, just pegged on, and can rotate on their pegs. The peg is also hinged with the kind of hinge that has detents but isn't a true ratchet, and that allows him to bend his fists in and out. The thumb is hinged, with 90 degrees of motion, and the fingers are individually-articulated, molded into curl with a hinge at the base. Unlike the Combiner Wars hands, which had one thumb in the middle of the palm, or the the Power of the Primes hands, which had a ball-jointed thumb on both sides of the hand, the thumb is tabbed into place on one side of the hand. Untabbing it will free a second hinge to flip the entire thumb over the palm to the other side, so any of the five hands can be either a left or right hand without looking anatomically-weird or sporting extra digits. King Poseidon doesn't have a waist swivel. His hips are ratcheted and can go forward or backward over 90 degrees, and 90 degrees laterally. His knees use the ratcheted combiner pegs to bend 90 degrees. His feet do not tilt up or down, but they have the same detented-but-not-really-ratcheted hinges on the pegs that the wrists do, so he does sport some ankle pivots. As mentioned before, the thumbs have 5mm peg holes molded into their curls. He can use them to hold his sword, a combined gun, an uncombined-gun, or really almost any weapon with a 5mm peg for a handle. I touched upon this briefly when I reviewed Gulf, but I'll go over it again. King Poseidon is designed to hold weapons with 5mm pegs for handles. Overbite and the other Seacons do not come with anything to give their gun modes a 5mm peg handle. Instead, what you're supposed to do is remove the back from one of King Poseidon's hands, very much like you could with the old Power of the Primes-style hands. Except this time, instead of jamming a Prime Master or Enigma (or even a Titan Master) into the cavity you jam the combiner peg from the gun-mode Seacon of your choice into it. At this point you might be thinking to yourself that with double-jointed elbows, ratcheted hips and knees, and detented ankle pivots that King Poseidon actually has pretty decent articulation, but I've now posted three pictures of this guy in super static poses. And this is the part where I tell you that you're probably not going to actually get this guy into any dynamic poses, and there's a number of reasons for it. For starters, the friction hinge knees and ball joint hips on whatever your decide to use for arms are not strong enough to support a lot of weight... like, say, the weight of a Deluxe-class figure turned into a gun. His combined-mode hips go from stock straight to a very wide A-stance on just one click, the feet don't have any kind of non-slip tread, and the weight of the figure pushing down on the joints will continue to force his hips into the splits. You can try to lighten the load and have him stand stock straight. Leave the gun-mode guy off. Give him his sword, and maybe just Turtler's gun. You can store Gulf and Tentakil's guns in their usual alt mode spots (just be careful not to push Gulf's in all the way, as one of them will be sharing a peg hole with his tail). Kraken's can plug into his tail on King Poseidon's forearm. Lobclaw already has his tail-gun attached to his head on King Poseidon's shoulder. And unless you're planning on using them for gun mode you're probably safe putting the other rifles that came with Kraken and Lobclaw in that drawer with the fifth hand; Kraken's already got dual pistols and Lobclaw's tail-gun is perfectly adequate. But after all that, you're still probably going to have issues. See, it's not just his hip ratchets that could stand to be tighter. The ratchets in the combiner pegs that form his knees could be a little tighter, and there's too much play in all those ratchets between clicks. The actual connection between those pegs and the ports on Turtler is too loose. His thigh swivels are loose. With all this going on he wants to lean. And if you're like me and insist on using Tentakil for a leg the issues I detailed with his leg mode in his review are going to make matters worse. Even after you lighten the load, even after you accept a static pose, and honestly even if you swap Tentakil out for Overbite you still might have some stability issues. Like I said, he wants to lean. And remember that articulated foot? That's where the real problem is. See, that joint that gives him ankle pivots? The peg and hinge are set into a cavity that is quite a bit bigger than the hinge, leaving a lot of empty space around the peg. And, even though it's not supposed to tilt forward or backward the assembly isn't tight enough. Play in the connection between parts means that the peg will lean forward, on a bot that's already starting to lean forward, on joints that simply aren't tight enough, and you get the picture. The best solution I could come up with for keeping him upright while holding his sword and Turtler's rifle was to take the covers off the backs of the hands that are plugged into his heels, then wedge them into the gaps in front of the pegs on the feet before plugging the legs into them. Those covers will then prop up the front edge of the legs and help them stay straight, so the only lean is from the play in the hips and knees. It's not pretty, it's not super solid, but it'll do until someone like DNA Design, Perfect Effect, or Transform Dreamwave comes up with some kind of upgrade kit for this combiner (while they're at it maybe they can throw in some new arms and tentacle tails for Tentakil to fix him like I described). So... yeah. After paying Takara import prices to get six characters shoehorned onto five existing molds that already felt dated compared to more recent Siege and Earthrise figures it's safe to say that King Poseidon is pretty disappointing. If an upgrade kit comes out for it I might look into it, and hopefully salvage things a bit. Otherwise, though, it's one good figure, four ok ones, and one bad one, all overpriced, that combine into a robot that can't hold his Targetmaster gun (so you really only need five) and can barely stand even when he's not. I do not recommend this set.

Last Seacon up would be Tentakil. Tentakil is another retool of Blot... ok, just kidding. Unlike the rest of his teammates Tentakil isn't a retool of any of the Terrorcons, he's a retool of the Power of the Primes Novastar/Moonracer mold. The resulting figure has thin biceps and a tapering waist that gives him a rather feminine appearance, and this is almost certainly because Takara was planning for the God Neptune repaint even as they were designing the Seacons (for those that are unaware, the Seacons were repainted and sold as part of the Beast Wars II line in Japan, and in the accompanying anime Tentakil's repaint, Scylla, is a girl). Frankly, I think Tentakil came out the least-accurate of the set. For starters, the outside of his lower legs, his feet, his crotch, and the tentacles on his back split the difference between the cartoon (white) and the G1 toy (lavender) and wind up kind of a light pink. But, suppose for a minute that we just accept the light pink. Then his whole lower legs should be that pink. That magenta color doesn't belong there. It does belong on his torso, though. In fact, it should be magenta where that blue "belt" is, and his pink crotch should be magenta. The blue is fine for his biceps, thighs, and hands (although the thighs were technically more of a blue-green that was definitely different than the blue on the rest of the figure). So fine, in fact, that they should only be blue. None of that magenta should show on his forearms. There's a tiny bit of blue in the middle of his chest, that seems to be the only concession to the large vertical blue combiner peg that ran down the G1 toy's chest. The abs and lats on the newer figure have molded angular segments that weren't on the G1 toy or on Scylla's animation model, so they're kind of baffling. There are more silver-painted segments in the middle of his shins that could maybe be the molded vent-like details on the G1 figure's shins, and just a splash of blue paint that is maybe meant to represent the stickers from the G1 toy, but they're not very similar. There's a ton of kibble visible behind his head. At least that head is pretty good, although I could do without the magenta part coming in under his eyes. You can't really see it from this angle, but Tentakil has the most obnoxious backpack of the set, too, with a large chunk already containing the combiner peg and tentacles, but also with his beast legs dangling off of them, part of the beast head sticking up and forming that hood, and the rest of it folded around and sticking even farther off his back. Tentakil comes with a fifth hand for King Poseidon, and an "axe" that's identical to Kraken/Seawing's. They shouldn't be much of a surprise. You also get a pair of pistols that seem a bit G1-inspired. Since I don't own and haven't covered the Novastar/Moonracer mold I guess Tentakil's articulation might be new. His head is on a ball joint with a slight up/down and sideways tilt. The other end of the peg is hinged, though, and that hinge is set into a hinged collar, and with the extra hinges you can get quite a bit more up/down tilt. Shoulders are on ball joints for rotation and under 90 degrees of lateral movement. Elbows are also ball joints for 90 degrees of bend and pulling double-duty as bicep swivels. No wrist swivel, but they bend inward for no discernible reason. His waist can swivel. His hips are on ball joints, and they get significantly under 90 degrees forward, backward, and laterally. His thighs can swivel. He's got double-jointed knees, with about 90 degrees of bend at either joint and roughly 180 degrees of bend total. His feet can tilt up and down, and he's got a very slight ankle pivot. He has no trouble holding his accessories. For extra storage there are five 5mm ports on his back, two on the front of his hood, one on the outside of each shin, and one each on his two largest tentacles. Tentakil's transformation was a bit different than I expected, but ultimately pretty simple. I like that Takara painted the lips and teeth red and silver, which matches the Masterforce anime, instead of just leaving them blue like the original toy, but I wish that they could have painted a little more black between his eyes. Otherwise, I think he looks fine from the beast face up. Going down, though, his body is too long. The anime (and to a lesser extent) had a blue body, which this version seems to, but with just a little magenta pelvis, which is a bit less that what we have here. The G1 toy also had two magenta tentacles that came off the back of the beast pelvis like tails. This version doesn't. Instead, pink covers double-hinge over his hands and I guess we're supposed to pretend that they're those tentacles. Then thin beast legs reach around from from beast hips that are set back way too far and wind up looking much to short. Frankly, I think they should have just designed the robot arms to turn into the beast legs, and put the magenta tentacle-tails on the hinges that the actual beast legs are on. Not only would it have likely given him better beast proportions and set the beast hips in the right spot it could have made the tentacles a more-correct all-magenta and the robot arms a more-correct all-blue. Tentakil doesn't have a ton of articulation in this mode. The mouth doesn't move. The beast legs can only rotate at the hip; there's no lateral movement, no thigh swivel, no knee, and no foot articulation. His tentacles, which sit a bit far behind his face, are molded as a solid piece on each side hinged only at the base. Only his robot arms retain any real articulation, especially if you ignore when the instructions tell you to tab his biceps to his sides. He can attach his guns to the sides of his head, like the G1 toy did. He also has the 5mm port on top of his head the two in his large tentacles, and technically his fists are still usable under those tentacle covers. Tentakil's arm mode is a bit awkward compared to the others. The waist that becomes his bicep swivel is set kind of far forward, and his thinner legs make for a thinner forearm. Meanwhile, the beast face just kind of dangles down from the bicep. The instructions tell you to put Tentakil's guns on the flap with the beast mouth, but I think that just draws attention to it hanging out behind the forearm. It's fine if Tentakil isn't the best arm, because he's supposed to be a leg. But he's kind of the worst at being a leg, too. For one, because his legs don't do the usual Combiner Wars-style collapsing that traps the waist joint while part of the beast face shifts back, preventing the mouth section from tabbing in, Tentakil can still partially swivel at the waist in this mode. But much worse than that is the fact that that same Combiner Wars leg collapse usually locks the hips and knees while in leg mode. Tentakil's calves do tab into the backs of his thighs, which locks the knees, but the hips can still move. Plus the port for King Posiedon's foot is on the beast face, which is hinged at the base and doesn't actually tab into anything in this mode. Yes, the actual port is hinged, and there's notches on the bottom. The notches fit over the base of Tentakil's knee pads, but they don't lock into place. So, if Tentakil's hips or the hinge with his beast face shifts King Poseidon's whole leg can bend mid-shin at best or come apart at worst. Tentakil's gun mode is the leg mode, turned on it's back with his guns stuck together and plugged in instead of the foot. It has the same stability issues that the leg mode does. Again, I don't have Novastar, Moonracer, Lancer, or Signal Flare. I don't know if they have the same issues that Tentakil does or not. All I can say is that he's an ok (if inaccurate) robot with a horrid backpack that turns into a so-so squid monster that could have been better just by having his arms turn into his beast legs instead of tentacles. And he's the worst at being an arm, the worst at being a leg, and the worst at being a gun for King Poseidon. I've been coy with recommending the others, acknowledging their higher price tag and their deficiencies when compared with the current crop of Siege and Earthrise figures while nevertheless stating my enjoyment of them anyway. But Tentakil is easily the worst of the set. Unless you really can't live without all six Seacons or you're a stickler for the "official" combination (and/or the color symmetry it brings) then pass on Tentakil. Build King Poseidon with Overbite as one of the limbs and forget about a sixth Seacon Targetmaster.

The fandom: "That's the most obnoxiously huge backpack ever!" Fans Toys: "Hold my beer..."

So if Turtler was a retool of Hun-Grrr, Gulf a retool of Blot, Overbite a retool of Rippersnapper, and Kraken a retool of Cutthroat, then could Lobclaw (or Nautilator in the West) be a retool of Sinnertwin? Nope. Lobclaw is, in fact, a second retool of Blot. You can see how they have all have the same legs, torsos, and biceps, although the back of Lobclaw's lower legs have been retooled and included new beast mode legs, plus he's got a new head, forearms, and backpack. Speaking of leg kibble, the fact that it's on his calves instead of his back, and he's got big Shredder claws on his forearms, no beast claws on his back, and his beast head sticks up kind of like a hood are some of the more notable changes over the G1 toy, boxart, and Marvel Comics art (again, no animation model to work with). His chest isn't nearly as broad, and rather than being solidly gray the combiner peg and the flap over the Power of the Prime's-style 5mm "Prime armor" peg hole are black. The blue-green is where it should be on his lower legs and arms, though, and he's got some red-painted accents on his knees and waist that recall some of the G1 toy's stickers. The head sculpt looks good, too, so on the whole I'm not too fussed about the changes that were necessary to get Lobclaw/Nautilator out of an existing mold. Lobclaw comes with kind of the usual accessories. He's got a black rifle, and like Kraken's it has some extra bits that look like they could be useful for combining them with other weapons, in this case a peg on the butt, a peg on each side, a peg hole on the top, and some peg holes underneath around the handle. He's got an axe, and unlike Kraken's it actually looks like an axe. And since Blot originally folded up into something like a box with legs the beast mode tail a partsforming bit. Not pictured, just because I forgot it, is a fourth hand for King Poseidon. You can just imagine it, though, because it's identical to the first three. Lobclaw's articulation is identical to Gulf and Blot's. I'm not going to cover it again in detail, I'll just link you back to my review of Gulf with a note that Lobclaw's fists bend inward, not down, due to transformation. Lobclaw can hold his rifle and axe with no problems. There's also a 5mm peg hold under his backpack, on the back of his backpack, and on the "hood" behind his head. The tail part has a piece that flips around, making it into a gun, and doing so more effectively than Gulf's, I might add. I actually kind of prefer it to his holey, peggy rifle. That said, if you prefer to just give him is rifle and need a place to stow the tail it can peg into the hole under his backpack with no issue. While Blot and Gulf both kind of curled their legs up and around onto their back Lobclaw's transformation is more akin to their limb modes, with the waist rotating 180 degrees and the legs collapsing in the Combiner Wars style. His claws unfold like Blot's, reaching up instead of forward, and the beast head hinges up over his robot head. The tail pegs into the hand/foot peg at the back. All that works pretty well except his beast legs, which unfurl and swivel around on armatures. The issue here is that I'm not sure they were planning this far ahead when they made Blot. The armature's with his legs have little tabs, and those little tabs rest in notches that were molded into the Blot chest, but those notches weren't really slots. So they rest, but they don't actually tab and there's no secure connection. You may find color an issue in this mode, too. While they did use two different shades of blue-green and add some black to his head the original didn't have to help break up the colors really none of the gray shows through in this mode. I can sort of understand why they didn't give him gray claws, since they're made from his robot arms instead of partsforming or chilling on his backpack, but his back isn't gray either. This seems sort of lazy to me. While his beast back isn't his robot chest like the G1 toy's it is his robot back, and there's no reason why it couldn't have been gray. Lobclaw doesn't have a ton of beast mode articulation. His tail can't flap, his body is mostly a brick, and his beast legs are molded as one solid part on each side, hinged only where they connect to the body for transformation. He makes good use of the articulation he has, though. His beast head can tilt down, and his jaws can open to reveal some nice red paint and silver teeth inside. His arms have a hinge just behind his robot shoulders that give them some in and out movement, the shoulders' ball joints give them some up/down movement (or in-out if you rotate them), and the ball joints at the biceps act as swivels and elbow bends. For weapon storage in alt mode he's got a 5mm port on his head, on his back, under his jaw, and behind a flap on his chest. Destined for arm mode, Lobclaw works here about as well as Blot does, which is to say he's fine. For this mode the tail stores on the beast head and will hang off King Poseidon's shoulders. Do note that unlike the others the official transformation in the instructions has his legs pointing forward, toes on the wrist, with the beast legs splayed out, which would give him just Lobclaw's hips for a single-jointed elbow. It's my personal recommendation that you rotate the waist 180 degrees. Not only will that give King Poseidon a double-jointed elbow, it'll allow you to curl the legs in on the sides of the arm which, in my opinion, gives him a cleaner look. Of course, Lobclaw does have a leg mode and gun mode, too. The leg mode is perfectly fine, with the tail plugging in to the armature under the beast head and filling out the shin. And the gun mode is just the leg mode with the tail flipped to gun mode and plugged into the hand/foot peg instead of under the head. The black rifle is supposed to peg in under the tail gun. Interestingly enough, I think if you remove the tail and just use the black gun, don't tuck in the claws, leave the beast legs in their beast mode position (except maybe curled in a bit), and untab his beast head and allow it to sit as far forward as it can with his robot head in the way and you'll have an alternate gun mode that's actually a lot closer to the G1 toy than any of the other gun modes we've got from this set. I think Lobclaw is one of the better figures in this set. Maybe not as good as Kraken, but I like more than Gulf and Overbite. But, y'know, the same caveats apply- Combiner Wars/PotP Deluxes not being as good as Siege/Earthrise, importing Takara figures (even through Hasbro Pulse) is still not a good value, and good luck finding one even if you do want it.

Oh yeah, what edition? My friends and I were pretty into 3rd edition (my first edition at the table, although I'd played several AD&D PC games). We skipped 4th edition, but for a group that's pretty resistant to change I ran a brief 5e campaign, and the group decided they liked it enough that the guy who usually runs our games started us playing the Rise of Tiamat. Sadly, one of the guys in our group has been having some health issues and hasn't been able to play regularly, so even before the lockdown we switched to board games since it was less of an issue if someone couldn't make it. I'm hoping after things open up again that we can start something up again.

I'm into Transformers (obviously, if you hang out in either of the TF threads and read my reviews), both the cartoons, toys, and comics. I also collect NECA Godzillas. I enjoy reading, fiction and non-fiction, books and comic books. I don't really watch anime as much as I did in college, but I'm a big Gundam fan. I do like a lot of Western cartoons, though, everything from kids stuff (I'm currently watching the Nickelodeon Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) to more adult-oriented stuff (my favorite is Archer). Mostly, though, I like video games. I play modern games, mostly on PC, but I'm really into retro gaming, too. On the retro front it's not just the games. I like watching Youtube videos and reading up on the history behind a lot of the old consoles, especially the ones I didn't have as a kid.

So far we've had Turtler/Snaptrap as a remold of Hun-Grr, Gulf/Skalor as a remold of Blot, and Overbite as a remold of Rippersnapper. Care to guess which Terrorcon Kraken (or Seawing, as he's known outside of Japan) is? Did you guess Cutthroat? Because it's Cutthroat, although it might not be immediately obvious from the waist up since he's got a new head, new wings, new forearms, and his chest is covered by a new beast head. Take away the new wings, forearms, and beast head, though, and what you have left is the same from the neck down, including the beast legs on the outsides of their legs. But how accurate does that make him? Well, his lower legs are black, and the yellow knee pads are kind of evocative of the beast eyes, but the beast legs are kibble the G1 version didn't have there. As for his thighs, I guess it's sort of how you interpret the G1 toy, since it wasn't really animated. One interpretation could be that his thighs should be all black, and he should have a large blue-green jaw for a loincloth. Another interpretation might be that the jaw becomes the thighs, and making them blue-green while omitting the loincloth is the way to go. Although it's colored very differently (almost entirely blue and gray) that seems to be the direction the Marvel Comics were going, so I'll give this one credit. His arms start off correct, with blue-green shoulders and biceps, but where the G1 version was blue-green down to black fists this one goes for black on the forearms and blue-green fists. The wings are upside down compared to the G1 version, and black (from this side) instead of gray. Behind the beast head is torso is mostly gray with some black in the middle which would be G1-accurate except it's covered by a beast head that really isn't. His robot head is ok, although the corners are a bit pointier than I'd expect. Almost like cat ears. Kraken comes with the most accessories among the Seacons (even the ones I've yet to review). You get another hand, a rifle, two pistols, and... an axe? Maybe? Much like Gulf and Overbite's "swords" Kraken's axe suffers from being designed as a part of a larger sword before being an actual weapon on its own. The pistols have, in addition to their hand grips, a small peg on the butt and a peg on one side. The other side of the gun has a peg hole. Meanwhile, the rifle has the handle, a peg on top, a peg on either side, and a peg on the butt plus a peg hole on top near the barrel and two peg holes on the underside. While some of these pegs and holes are necessary to arrange the accessories as part of the gun mode the combination of pegs and holes on these weapons is starting to seem like the guns might combine into a larger gun for King Poseidon. Anyway, Kraken's head is on what seems to be a ball peg, but with only a slight downward tilt and a swivel. Nothing really up or sideways. However, there is a hinged flap tha tyou can use to fake more of a downward gaze. His shoulders are ball joints for rotation and 90 degrees of lateral movement. Note that on my copy both joints seem adequate, except at certain angles where his left arm is rotated forward about 90 degrees and out about 45, then it becomes super loose. The right arm doesn't have that issue. Moving along, both arms have bicep swivels and hinged elbows that bend about 90 degrees. His wrists don't swivel, but they bend inward for transformation. His waist swivels, and his hips are ball joints that go 90 degrees forward, backward, or laterally. His thighs swivel, and his knees bend a tiny bit over 90 degrees. No foot articulation. His wings have rivets that they can swivel up on where they connect to his back, and hinges that allow them to bend foward and backward. He holds all his weapons just fine. For storage you have a pair of peg holes on either wing, one that's just on the side facing forward and one that goes through his wing, plus a peg hole on the beast head on his chest. Technically there's some on the sides of the backs of his legs the foot/hand peg hole under one of his feet, too. So, I don't really have strong feelings on whether to use Gulf or Skalor for the fish or Turtler or Ironshell for the turtle, but what was Takara thinking when they called this guy Kraken? He's not a kraken. Tentakill is closer to being a kraken. Seawing makes a lot more sense, eh? But I digress. The purpose of the new forearms becomes apparent as, instead of tucking into the sides like on Cutthroat and Swoop, they actually reach up and become the sides of the beast head. Aside from the blue-green biceps and shoulders it works surprisingly well. His back is mostly blue-green, and his wings are properly gray and properly oriented for beast mode. He does have his issues, though. His tail, which does curve downward like the G1 toy, is a bit of a thing. Like, there is a stumpy little tail, but there's also his robot legs forming a big brick on the ray's butt. Going by the color, is that supposed to be part of his tail, too? Regardless, it's not the smoothest transition. Also, his beast legs are actually the same as Cutthroat's, but due to the differences in their transformations they're oriented backward, so Cutthroat's big front toes act as a heel spur, and Cutthroat's little heels become tiny toes for Kraken. The way they bend that way does give you the freedom to make Kraken stand kind of tall or so his belly is just off the ground, so they work, but they kind of look weird. Kraken doesn't actually do much in this mode. As I said, the articulation in the beast legs gives you some posing options, as does the articulation in his wings. But he doesn't have any beast arms or working jaws or anything. Kraken makes for a fairly effective leg. I can't recall off the top of my head if it's like Cutthroat/Swoop's, since I kind of tossed the PotP Dinobots in a bin and I have Cutthroat as an arm. Interestingly, the instructions tell you that you should stick the pistols on the sides of the rifle and attach the combined guns to the peg hole on the beast head for this mode. While there are certainly plenty of places you could plug stuff in on them, official weapon storage wasn't included in Overbite and Gulf's leg modes. Kraken is usually depicted as an arm, though, and he's equally fine at being an arm. As with the others the instructions indicate that the back of the robot legs is the front of the forearm, allowing you to use both the hips and knees to give King Poseidon a double-jointed elbow. Gun mode is similar to leg mode, which is usually the case, except for gun mode you want to rotate the waist 190 degrees. The beast head doesn't fold down as far as leg mode, either, staying in the same spot as robot and arm mode. Finally, instead of pegging the combined guns into the beast head you plug them into the hand/foot peg. At this point, I think it goes without saying that the Generations Selects Seacons have very different engineering than the G1 toys, and the result is very different gun modes. Despite his flaws, Kraken is probably the best use of the Swoop/Cutthroat design yet. He makes for a solid robot, mostly solid beast, a solid arm, and a solid leg. I've always liked Seawing the best of the Seacon limbs, so I might be a bit biased, but I think he's overtakes Overbite as the best Deluxe-class figure in this set. Of course, the same caveats about the premium Takara pricing and whether you're getting your money's worth compared to a $20 Earthrise figure still apply, and given how quickly the Seacons seem to have sold out whether I recommend him or not might be moot. Suffice to say I'm happy with him.

Can't argue with any of that logic. But I wanted Seacons I could use with Siege/Combiner Wars. While I own TFC's, I think they're too big for that.

Feels like forever ago that I got Turtler/Snaptrap and Gulf/Skalor (late March, really). The next two Seacons came out, but I needed more stuff to get free shipping, and by the time I had enough for free shipping some other stuff was close to coming out... next thing I know it's almost June, reviews have been out for all the Generations Selects Seacons, and I'm just getting mine. Oh well, that lets me cover the rest in whatever order I want instead of the release order. So I'm going with Deluxe-class Overbite next. So yeah, when I covered Gulf I had Rippersnapper out with him, thinking they'd be similar because they're both essentially fish with limbs. And it turned out that Gulf was actually based on Blot. So now we've got Overbite, and did Hasbro go the TFC route and retool him from Gulf? Nope. Overbite is definitely a recolored Rippersnapper. From this angle you can mostly only see a new head, although some of his backpack and the beast legs on the sides of his bot legs are new. Well, it's ok. I think Rippersnapper was my favorite of the PotP Terrorcons, anyway. I dig the Shredder claws on the backs of his hands. The colors are pretty good here; the silver paint on his toes where the G1 toy had silver stickers is an especially nice touch. The one issue I have is the purple forearms instead of teal. And the new head is spot on. What I find interesting is that, while not as prominent as the ribs on G1 Overbite, the molded detail on his chest seems more evocative of those ribs than the molded detail on G1 Rippersnapper. Overbite comes with a large blue rifle, a "sword" that's more or less the same as Gulf's, and another of the combiner hands that came with Gulf. In addition to the peg that I'd consider to be the handle, the rifle as a peg on the butt and a peg on top, plus a peg hole on either side. I covered them a bit in Gulf's review, so we'll keep moving. With minimal mold changes Overbite's articulation is identical to Rippersnapper's. If you need a refresher, aball-jointed head gives him some upward tilt and a little sideways tilt in addition to roation. Ball joints in his shoulders give you rotation and 90 degrees of lateral movement, but those balljoints are on hinges in the chest so you can go all the way to 180, or just pose him with a shrug. Ball joints in his elbows provide both a bicep swivel and 90 degrees of bend. He has wrist swivels and a waist swivel, ball-jointed hips that go 90 degrees forward and backward and about 45 degrees laterally, mushroom-style thigh swivels, and 90 degrees of knee bend. No foot articulation. He holds his rifle without issue. Like Gulf, the shape of the sword's blade and the short peg make it a bit more trouble to hold, but I think it's easier for him than it was for Gulf. Additionally he's got the 5mm ports on the sides of his back that Rippersnapper had, the one under a cover on his chest, plus new ones on the shark's head and chin. In shark mode you can see more of the new parts, in the beast legs, head, and part of his back with the fin. Technically not even the while leg... the pink thigh is actually the same as Rippersnapper's, but the lower leg and foot has been replaced by a larger foot. Considering that the transformation is kind of backward compared to the G1 toy I think they did a fair job color-matching, too. The purple section is a little short, but it is followed by the teal tail with pink fins. The thighs are properly pink, with teal feet where the G1 toy's lower leg was and correctly-purple claws. The shark head has the right combo of teal head, pink lower jaw, and yellow eyes. Only his arms are a bit off, since they have purple in addition to the pink. Overbite's jaw does open, and his arms have the same articulation as in robot mode. His beast legs are on ball joints at the hips, with a hinge where the pink section connects to the teal. And that's about it for beast articulation. For weapon storage in this mode you again have the port under the flip cover on his chest, the port on his head, and the two on his back. For some reason, he's also got three 5mm peg holes under each of his beast feet. Overbite's limb modes are pretty much what you'd expect- the same as Rippersnapper's. The official transformation does have the tail on the top of the wrist, so using both his hips and knees will give him a double-jointed elbow in arm mode. As limbs go, Overbite's a pretty good choice for either. Of course, the "proper" configuration for King Poseidon has Overbite as a gun. Once again, due to the very different transformation compared to the G1 toy the gun mode is not at all G1-accurate. In fact, it's really just the leg mode with the combiner peg angled down, the claws turned, the beast feet at a different angle, and his rifle plugged into the foot/hand peg hole. At least, that's the official transformation, and officially it leaves the shark tale dragging down lower than the hand that serves as the base. What I like to do instead is turn his waist 180 degrees, so the tail sits like a fin on top of the gun. Like I said, I think Rippersnapper was the best of the Terrorcons, and as a result Overbite is a pretty solid figure by extension. Is he $40 good? Probably not. Even the best of the Combiner Wars/Power of the Primes Deluxes were kind of a step down from Titans Return, let alone the newer stuff in the Siege and Earthrise lines. If your a fan of combiners or the Seascons, though, Overbite winds up being a better figure than Gulf.

The joints are all tight, some of them almost too tight.