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mikeszekely

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  1. mikeszekely
    I could just stop at Bumblebee, but then I'd have a random torso. So I guess I've gotta buy the rest. Here's Cyberverse Adventures Deluxe-class Optimus Prime. Prime is the same size as Bumblebee. You're gut's probably telling you that this figures aren't in scale, then. Well, I finished watching the first season of Cyberverse now, and I'd have to say that you're technically correct, but not by as much as you'd think. Transformers in Cyberverse seem much closer in size to each other than in G1, and Prime's really only around a head taller than Bee in it. I think Prime actually looks a little better than Bee, too, as he's not missing as many paint details. Hasbro got the black on his top of his chest, the vents on his shoulders, and his toes. They got the blue and red lights on his toes. He's really just missing some yellow on molded triangles on his arms and crotch, yellow on the dots on his crotch, and blue on the bottom of his crotch. Oh, and like Bee he's just got gray plastic hands, and I'm pretty sure that they're supposed to be blue on the back and his fingers should be the same gunmetal color as his shins. If you want to get technical, in the cartoon he has a darker face plate, too, but I actually prefer the silver. Prime comes with similar accessories as Bumblebee. You've got a stocky little ion rifle, two translucent blue effect parts, and half a left arm. Prime's head is on a ball joint. He can't really look down or tilt his head sideways, but he can look almost straight up and rotation isn't a problem. His shoulders are also ball joints that give him rotation and 90 degrees of lateral movement. Additionally, a transformation hinge gives him a backwards butterfly joint. His biceps swivel, and his elbows bend 90 degrees. His wrists are actually ball joints, so they swivel but they can also bend inward. his waist swivels. His hips are ball joints that can go almost 90 degrees backward but only about 45 degrees forward or backward. His thighs swivel just above his knees, which bend 90 degrees. His feet can tilt down, but not up, and his ankles can pivot about 45 degrees. So, like Bee, the articulation could be a bit better, but it's a huge improvement over previous Cyberverse figures. An extra complaint here is that his joints are a little loose. Maybe not as bad as some older Generations figures, but definitely not as tight as most Siege figures. Prime's blast effect does fit into the barrel of his rifle. And when he's not using the rifle, it can plug into a peg hole on his back, which features unpainted by molded faux tires where he has them in the cartoon. A pity, though, as we're also seeing plenty of hollowness. While you can plug the effect part into Prime's rifle, if you open up his chest you'll see a non-removable silver-painted Matrix with a blue peg hole in the middle. The effect part can plug into that hole, for what the box calls his "Matrix Mega Shot." Prime's transformation has some of the new stuff we've come to expect from transforming Primes, like a turn at the waist so his shins are facing up on the back, but it's largely that same satisfying bend the legs and tuck in the arms you've been doing since the G1 toy. It's refreshingly simple and fun. It's just shame the resulting truck is so small. It's hard for me to say exactly how accurate Prime's truck mode is, because Prime only appears in Bumblebee's memories until the last episode of the first season. And in those scenes, Prime's mostly in robot mode. The big bumper is accurate, but I think it's missing painted details like the triangle and lights. I also think he's missing paint on his hubcaps. The silver stripe on the side seems to be accurate, but I think it might be better if it were thinner and higher. And, at least in the one episode I remember him being in truck mode, he didn't have a trailer and the rear did have that slope. So there you go. There's a peg hole between Prime's feet. The rifle doesn't really work there, but the blast effect can be plugged in there like some kind of rocket exhaust. And there are little slots near Prime's ankles that a tab on butt of the rifle can fit into, at just the right angle for shooting at pursuing Seekers. However, the instructions will tell you that the rifle is properly stored in alt mode by putting that tab into the notch on the roof of the cab, and the handle into a peg hole on the back of the cab, so the barrel points down between Prime's legs. I really don't have anything to end on that I didn't already say when I reviewed Bumblebee. I paid $20 for this, same price as a Siege Deluxe, but the loose joints, excessive ball joints, and missing paint hearkens back to pre-Siege Hasbro and makes it feel like it should be cheaper. But compared to previous Cyberverse figures Deluxe-class Prime is a huge improvement and an all-around fun figure that's the best representation of Prime from a show that's actually turned out to be pretty good. Ultimately, there are worse ways to blow $20, and if you're a fan of Cyberverse or just curious about the mold then he's worth checking out.
  2. mikeszekely
    I mean, I hope everyone who's getting him enjoys him, but no thank you. Takara's MPs have gone from "must have" to "I see the appeal, but prefer a 3P option" to "garbage that sacrifices too much to make a robot that looks exactly like the cartoon (poorly drawn and all) from just the right angle so you don't see the whole alt mode folded up on up the back that you better not mess with too much because it'll break." Now, to be fair, Hound looks a lot better than Prime 3.0 or Bee 2.0. But plenty of people already bought Maketoys Gundog or Fans Toys Willis, and I'm not seeing anything so incredible about MP Hound that's worth replacing those figures. So yeah, if you're getting him, I hope he's great and that there's no QC issues or anything. But hard pass for me. ... Anyway, I may not be interested in the next official MP, but I love what HasTak's doing with this War for Cybertron trilogy. And on that front, I've got some rumors for about the second wave of Earthrise. Deluxes: Fast Track, Trailbreaker, Sunstreaker, and Runamuck With Hoist in the first wave, Trailbreaker was pretty much a forgone conclusion. It's nice that he's actually a regular release and not some Generations Select or store-exclusive while some more obscure character becomes the regular retail release. Fast Track, if the name isn't immediately familiar, is the little six-wheeled robot that came with G1 Scorponok. Given what we've got with Cog, Sixgun, and Brunt it's a safe bet that Fast Track will be a Weaponizer. I'm all about new versions of these pack-in guys (I'd actually love a better Deluxe version of Scamper and some kind of transforming Slammer while we're at it). As for Sunstreaker and Runamuck I'm kind of wondering if one or both are remolds of Wheeljack. Well, here's hoping we get Runabout at some point, too. Voyagers: Snapdragon and Quintesson I know a lot of people, myself included, will be happy to the other Horrorcon to go with Apeface. And if I'm not mistaken, I do believe that Snapdragon and Scorponok will complete the actual Headmasters from both the Western Season 4 and the Japanese Headmasters anime. But Quintesson? I mean, I'm cool having an official Quintesson toy. I mean, technically we could ask "which one," but I think it's safe to presume it'll be the Quintesson judge. But how do they justify the Voyager-class price point? Even if they made it much bigger than a typical Voyager we're still talking about an extremely simple figure that shouldn't have a high parts count or many points of articulation. Maybe it's actually a multipack, like the Studio Series release of the Arcee sisters, and it'll have the judge, the executioner, and an Alicon guard. I'd be into that. Leader Doubledealer Doubledealer should be interesting, if he's actually going to be based off of the G1 toy instead of being a repaint of a not-so-good Blitzwing toy. I think the question I have is if Hasbro's going to make him a Headmaster (excuse me, Titan Master) like they did with Ginrai, Darkwing, and Dreadwind, because it seems kind of late to decide to do actual Powermasters.
  3. mikeszekely
    As an adult collector my collection has focused on three lines: 3rd party, unlicensed stuff, Studio Series, and whatever Hasbro decides to call the Generations line in a given year. However, since the launch of Robots in Disguise (the second one, not the Western dub of Car Robots) there's been a concurrent line of Transformers figures, with different class names like "Warrior-class," aimed at kids too old for the Rescue Bots stuff but perhaps too young for older kids (or us adults). And I've largely ignored it. I mean, I watched several episodes of RiD, but I thought it was terrible. The only figure I picked up was Warrior-class Grimlock because he was the only character I liked. What I'd say that Grimlock was a little smaller but fairly similar in engineering to contemporary Deluxes, RiD was followed up with the more evergreen Transformers Cyberverse. Cyberverse seems like something of a mixed bag. I like the character designs a lot better, although the faces still seem overly cartoony. The handful of episodes I've seen are better than RiD but they're still not as good as Prime or Animated. And then there were the toys. Most of them were extremely simplified, like the Scout-class that only partially transforms, or the One-Step Changers that transform in, well, one step. The classes that were the closest in quality to what you might find in Generations were the Warrior-class and the Ultimate-class, which were roughly Deluxe-class and Leader-class in size and more complex than most of the other toys in the line, but still fairly simplified and often lacking in pretty basic articulation (for example, one Warrior-class Bumblebee doesn't have working knees). Then something unusual happened. Word got out that there'd be a new wave of Deluxe-class figures, under the slightly rebranded name Transformers Bumblebee Cyberverse Adventures. And it looked like, as actual Deluxe-class figures, they'd be more show-accurate and sport improved articulation. Now here's the part where I confess that I actually like the idea of a G1-ish Bumblebee that's "grown up" from the VW minibot to a carbot-sized muscle car. IDW pulled it off briefly and Hasbro even made a figure based on IDW Bee... but it wasn't very good, with the door wings actually part of his shoulders and a ton of car kibble hanging on his back. Meanwhile, we're yet to get any Siege Bumblebee. The last Generations Bee we've got was the so-so Legends-class version. So this is a meandering sort of way to say that, despite having no attachment to Cyberverse I was kind of curious about this upcoming Deluxe-class Bumblebee. Well, I don't know when these new figures will be widely available at a Target near you, but on a tip from Youtuber Baltmatrix I was able to find the first wave of these new Cyberverse Deluxes at Walmart.com from a third party seller listed as the defunct Hasbro Toy Shop. So... here he is, Transformers Bumblebee Cyberverse Adventures Deluxe-class Bumblebee. Bee isn't a large figure. Baltmatrix was suggesting that he's between a Deluxe-class and a Legends-class, but he was using Siege Ironhide for a comparison. I think it's more fair to say that he's about the same size as the smaller Siege Deluxes like Prowl, Bluestreak, Mirage, Sideswipe, or Hound. Based on what I can tell (as I don't own it) this is also roughly the same size as the previous Cyberverse Warrior-class Bumblebee, but it's far, far more cartoon-accurate. he's still got some car panels with the tires on the sides of his legs that magically disappeared in the cartoon, but his arms aren't solid yellow, the car kibble on his shoulders is more accurate and set at shoulder height instead of mid-torso, there's no flaps of kibble behind his arms, he has car door wings instead of a hodgepodge of half-folded panels on his back, and he has actual feet. I daresay this Deluxe-class is even an improvement over the Leader-sized Ultimate-class, which had his left arm replaced with two thirds of the car mode's front end. Something I find to be extremely curious is if you look on his chest and on his right shin you'll see some little bumps. Those are the same pegs that Siege figures have to attach the effect parts that come with Siege Battlemasters. It's not all sunshine and rainbows, though. While the sculpt and proportions are far better than any previous Cyberverse Bumblebee, he's missing a ton of painted detail. His hands are missing the yellow on the backs, he's missing black on his knees, shins, and a little on his pelvis, plus some red on his crotch. His feet are missing the black band and the red and blue lights on his toes. These missing details make him look a little cheap and unfinished, despite the figure sporting the same $20 price tag as a Siege Deluxe (to be fair, I don't know if that's the actual retail price or if I paid a markup). Bee comes with three main accessories. He's got a small black pistol, and the stinger he uses in the cartoon. There's also a translucent blue rubbery blast effect. You see, previous Warrior and Ultimate-class Cyberverse figures had some kind of gimmick. Warrior-class Bee had a "Sting Shot" that caused its permanent stinger hand to spin. The Ultimate-class had a "Sting Shot" as well, that caused the car kibble on its left hand to open and a blue blade to pop out. Spoilers for the rest of the line, but it looks like these new Deluxe figures are replacing the gimmick with translucent blast effects. The other accessory is the other gimmick that they're working into the line- a build-a-figure. In this case, the figure will be Maccadam, the proprietor of Maccadam's Oil House, and Bee comes with the lower torso. Bee's head seems to be on a ball joint. It swivels, and he has a small amount of upward and sideways tilt, but nothing really down. His shoulders are kind of weird. There bars on hinges in his torso for transformation. Those hinges actually bend down and end in ball joints. This gives him rotation and a very slight butterfly, but his shoulders are limited to only about 45 degrees of lateral motion. His elbows are ball joints, which gives him 90 degrees of bend but also serves as his bicep swivel. His wrists cans swivel. His waist can also swivel. His hips are ball joints that can go 90 degrees forward or backward but only about 75 degrees laterally. His thighs can swivel, and his knees can bend just a little shy of 90 degrees. His feet can't really bend up, but they bend down for transformation (if you don't mind breaking up the sculpt). Most happily, they have dedicated pivots that can get up to 90 degrees. He holds his pistol fine. His stinger actually fits over his fist with a 5mm peg inside, and the blast effect fits over it for the "Sting Shot." If I spin him around, you can see that he's got storage for his weapons. The pistol has little tabs that fit into slots on the back of his door wings. His stinger has little pegs on it that can fit into a small peg hole on Bee's butt. The only way to store the blast effect seems to be to leave it on the stinger. You can also see that his back is relatively clean and kibble-free, but he's got quite a bit of Hasbro's cost-cutting hollow spots. Transforming Bee is a mostly uncomplicated affair. The trickiest part is simply lining up the tabs in the front of the car that unfolds from his back with the parts of the front of the car that make up his shoulder pads. Size-wise it's again pretty similar to a Siege car. Once again, I like the car mode and the overall shape and molding is cartoon-accurate, but it's lacking a lot of painted detail. The grill, the red fog lights, a bit of silver between the black lines on the bumper, and the badge on the nose are all unpainted. He's also missing some blue in front of the sideview mirrors and on the rims. None of his tail lights are painted, and his rear is broken up by some unsightly gray hinges. Again, it's an improvement over previous Cyberverse toys but it comes across as pretty cheap compared to a Siege figure. Bee does have storage for his accessories in this mode. On the underside of the car you'll see some square gray tabs that you can plug his pistol into. Meanwhile, the edges of the stinger fit into slots on the rear fenders. I guess you could say that I have mixed feelings about this Deluxe-class Bee. On one hand he's easily the best version of Cyberverse Bee produced to date. The cartoon-accuracy and articulation are big improvements over both the old Warrior and Ultimate classes. He's fun to transform and mess with, and he cleans up well in both modes. And he's got ankle pivots! As an adult collector with almost the entire Siege line, though, Cyberverse Deluxe-class Bee is simply not on par with a Siege Deluxe. Bee's still got articulation issues, he's still got ball joints for elbows, shoulders, and hips instead of hinges and swivels. He's lacking in paint, and he's got some unsightly hollow spots. But both Siege and Cyberverse Deluxes (appear to) cost the same. Presumably this is because you have blast effects and chunks of build-a-figure packed in, but I'd gladly have traded the BAF, the translucent bit, and even the pistol if it'd have bought me more paint. And yet, despite the fact that I think you're objectively getting a higher-quality figure for the same price with Siege, this new Bumblebee is fun. I dig the Cyberverse aesthetic. And I have to admit that I'm finding myself really enjoying this figure. So, sure, if you're into Cyberverse or just like this design I do like this figure enough to recommend checking it out.
  4. mikeszekely
    It is, but apparently it's sturdier than the -P version. And iirc it's VESA-compatible, so there stand is replaceable. I have a 3TB drive for storage I'll move from my current PC, plus a 5TB USB 3 external. Storage is covered. As for the RAM, yeah, I figured it need an upgrade at some point. But that's easily doable.
  5. mikeszekely
    Fun fact, my first real OSX experience was a Hackintosh I set up back when OSX 10.4 "Tiger" was the new hotness. It was fun, and what led me to buy my first real Apple computer, a 13" MacBook (also running Tiger). While building a new Hackintosh would be both fun and cheaper than buying an iMac it's unlikely that the savings would be low enough to enough that I can get it and a new gaming PC. So that'd really put me back at not seeing a clear edge for Macs over PCs for video editing and thinking I'm still better off getting a new gaming PC and doing my video editing there. I play all kinds of games, including FPS (feel free to friend me on Steam, my username there is the same as it is here). But, my current monitor is 60Hz, and it's not like I'm having a bad time now. The two biggest reasons I've slowed down on my PC gaming is my aging hardware isn't pushing the pixels it used to, and having a kid (currently 4yo) I need to keep an eye on limits my time on my PC to mostly after she goes to bed. OK. I'm thinking I might go for an LG 27UD68-W (27", 4K, IPS, 60Hz, and 99% sRGB accuracy, only around $300). As for the PC, I usually build them. But, the contact I had at Microsoft left to work for EA, so I have to pay for my Windows licenses now, and it's starting to look cheaper to just buy a pre-built. Looks like I can get an Asus ROG Strix GL12CX with a Core i7-9700K, 16GB of RAM, a 512GB M2 SSD + a 1TB 7200RPM SATA HDD, and a GeForce GTX 2080 for around $1600.
  6. mikeszekely
    Any standalone monitors you like? Or, your thoughts on refresh rates? Seems that 4K IPS with sRGB 99% is doable in the $300-$500 range, but only at 60Hz. To hit 120 or 144Hz it looks like I either start to trade resolution and or color accuracy or the price goes way up. I'm not sure how much refresh rate affects video editing. On paper a higher refresh rate is better for gaming, but I'm thinking that in practice even with a GTX 2080 I'm not likely to go much beyond 60-70fps at 4K with everything else cranked up.
  7. mikeszekely
    Not to derail the Star Citizen/Squadron 42 discussion, but I have to insist you guys pick up Gunvolt Chronicles: Luminous Avenger iX for whatever platform you prefer (Switch, PC (Steam), PS4, or Xbox One). For those unfamiliar, the Gunvolt series are 2D action platformers from Inti Creates, with an art style that's extremely similar to the Mega Man Zero and Mega Man ZX games (which they also developed for Capcom). They're somewhat similar to Mega Man, in that you run, jump, climb ladders, wall jump, and dash your way through levels that you can tackle in whatever order you choose, but with slightly different combat. Gunvolt has a gun, but it's kind of weak. What it's really for is tagging enemies, which allows you to use Gunvolt's electric abilities to fry them with lightning. Or, he can use special skills he learns to do a lot more damage, but on a much more limited basis. Gunvolt 2 introduces a second playable character, Copen, who plays differently still. Like Gunvolt, Copen's gun doesn't do a ton of damage on it's own. What Copen can do is dash into enemies, which allows him to use a homing shot. At first it sounds kind of similar, tag enemies then attack, but the big difference is that Gunvolt's style is focused on tagging multiple enemies then using lightning to kill them all at once, while Copen's style is about staying in the air, dashing and killing one enemy at a time then chaining a dash into the next without touching the ground. Another difference is their skills. Gunvolt's are all based on his electric power, and he learns them in a set order as he levels up. Copen is more like Mega Man, in that he learns new skills from the bosses he beats. Personally, I like Gunvolt fine, but I think Copen's more fun to play as. And that's where we come to Luminous Avenger iX. See, the first Gunvolt game has two endings. Gunvolt 2 picks up after the good or true ending, iX is in an alternate timeline that follows the bad ending. Copen's the star of iX. Honestly, all three games are good, and you'll get the most out of iX if you've played the original Gunvolt. iX is probably the best of the series, though, and the game that's the most widely available, as it's on all four current major platforms. AFAIK the first Gunvolt is only available on the 3DS eShop and Steam. Gunvolt 2 is only available on it's own in the 3DS eShop. Alternatively, a compilation of the first two Gunvolt games "the Striker Pack" was made available as a physical release for the 3DS and Switch, and as an eShop release for the Switch.
  8. mikeszekely
    I reached out to a handful Youtubers I watch, and was honestly surprised at the range of answers I got. Only two said they're currently using a Mac (although both that did use Final Cut). One used to use a Mac and Final Cut, but when it died he switched to PC and and Premiere Pro. Three of the other gentlemen that said they use PCs answered with three different, non-Premiere software solutions. And one told me he shoots and edits everything on his iPhone with iMovie. Yeah, I used to work in IT so I liked to stay fresh and at least reasonably know what I was doing regardless of OS. I've had at least one Windows desktop since the Windows 95 days, I've occasionally owned a Windows laptop, I'd keep an older laptop or desktop lying around to test Linux distros, and I've owned one of the old blue-and-clear iMacs, one of the early Intel MacBooks, and two Mac minis. So I'm really platform agnostic, I was just looking to get some opinions on whether one platform is better than the other for this one specific task. And it seems like the answer is "not really." I've owned laptops for various reasons over the years. I still have an old Dell with Linux Mint on it, and a Razer Blade I got a few years ago to bring with me when I had to stay in Shenzhen for six weeks. While they definitely have their uses, I really prefer to work with a full-sized keyboard, a mouse, and a big monitor (my current monitor is 27"). If I go Mac, I'm pretty much settled on the 27" iMac. But if I go the Mac route, I can pretty safely say I'd just use it for video editing and some web browsing. I don't mind dropping two grand a computer just for this, if I felt that computer was definitely the best option for it. But like I said, my gaming PC is getting a little old, and I'm going to want to upgrade that in the near future, too. While my wife has been almost uncharacteristically supportive of me buying a computer and getting into video editing I'd be pushing it if I tried to talk her into a new gaming PC and an iMac. I could go with the iMac and put off upgrading the PC for awhile longer, but considering how many people are telling me they use PCs for the video editing I'm starting to think I'd be better off investing in a PC that can do both. If I go Mac, I'll be using whatever the built-in display is (but I hear those a pretty good, yeah?). But if I go PC I'll definitely keep in mind your advice and shop for a 27" 4K IPS display.
  9. mikeszekely
    Rounding out the Fans Hobby Monsterbots is Flypro, their version of Grotusque. Two things immediately jumped out at me about Flypro- for one, he clearly shares some tooling and engineering with Fei Long. For two, they must have agreed with my assessment that Fei Long would have had better proportions if his torso didn't expand, because Flypro's torso doesn't expand and he looks fantastic. His proportions are spot on. And his aesthetics are very much on point; he's still got some those Fans Hobby tampos (and is it just me, or do the ones on his knees look like batteries?) and some extra molded details in his torso, but overall the design and colors are on point. Fans Hobby was even careful to make his crotch pinkish but his hip skirts white and to work some white into his abs. The only area where he really departs from the G1 design is that he has a tail split on the sides of his legs instead of monster legs, and he's got little gray feet instead of, well, no feet at all. Interestingly, these are two features also found on the Titans Return version, which released after Flypro. Unlike the other Monsterbots, Flypro comes with a ton of accessories. In fact, a lot of the accessories are actually for the other Monsterbots. You've got a double-barreled gun that's somewhat similar to the gun the G1 toy had, and two alternate faces for Flypro- one with gritted teeth, the other with a happy smile. For Fei Long we have a pair of actual hands, a new front-half of the head, and two alternate faces (also teeth grindy and smirky smiling). For Megatooth we get two new faces, gritted teeth and smirking, and replacement eyes that share the metallic paint of Fei Long and Flypro (verses the flat light blue he comes with). Finally, we get four rubbery flame effect parts. Due to the shared engineering, Flypro's articulation is similar to Fei Long's. His head is on a ball joint; mine is a little loose. His shoulders rotate on a friction joint, and another friction joint allows him move his arm to the side 90 degrees. They also have Fei Long's butterfly joints. His biceps swivel, and a ratcheted elbow can bend a little over 90 degrees. His hand are identical to Megatooth's (wrist swivel, fixed thumb, pin hinge at the base of the fingers, index finger is separate and has an additional mid-knuckle hinge). His waist swivels. His hip skirts are hinged, but unlike Fei Long's they can move independently of each other. Hips ratchet forward 45-ish degrees, backward 90, and laterally 90 degrees on a soft ratchet. His thighs swivel, and his ratcheted knees bend about 45 degrees. His ankles are the exact same horizontally-oriented ball joint that Fei Long has, so there's some up/down tilt and some pivot but I'd have liked more. Flypro's back to the standard Fans Hobby style for weapons: notch at the back of the handle, rails in the palm. His grip is secure. Swapping faces on Flypro is fairly simple. Unscrew the back of his head, pull the front off, pop the face out, pop the new one in, screw everything back together. From the waist down, the engineering on Flypro is identical to Feilong. From the waist up, transformation consists of nothing more than folding the monster head over his robot head, tucking his hands away and sliding his claws into place, and unfurling his wings. And yet, for all his simplicity his monster form is extremely "G1, but we cleaned it up a bit." His wings are properly on his back, behind his shoulders, instead of pegged into triangular bumps just above them. The G1 toy's beer gut and robot-head throat tumor are mercifully absent. His claws are G1, but larger, sharper, and with each one on its own ball joint. The head is colored like the G1 head, with the blue throat and spots and pinky-purple lower jaw, but his eyes metallic and his teeth have all been chromed. The only major departure (and again one that was also made by the Titans Return version) is that he's traded the two little white tails of the G1 toy for one big pink one, and I can certainly live with that. On engineering bit I'd like to highlight is that, like the G1 toy, the monster head is basically a backpack in robot mode. And like the G1 toy, it folds up onto the top of the torso for monster mode. Unlike the G1, his robot head doesn't fold over to his chest and chill out under the monster throat, sticking fingers in his ears, closing his eyes, and yelling, "You can't see me!" Instead, the monster head simply folds over and covers his robot head. Now, I'm sure some companies would have simply left the monster neck empty and hollow, and we'd have probably given that a pass. But Fans Hobby put a little flap there. When you fold the monster head over, the robot head pushed the flap into the neck. And then the cool part is that when you fold the monster head back onto his back, the flap will automatically push back out and fill in the gap again. It's a nice touch. The monster head is on a ball joint, so it can swivel, tilt up and down, or look side to side. The jaws can open. The arms are essentially still the robot arms and have the same articulation, save for the claws. They don't have a wrist swivel, but each talon has its own ball joint at the base so they can fold down individually. From the (locked) waist down the engineering and articulation is identical to Fei Long, so refer back to that. His wings are on a swivel at the base to move up and down. There's also a hinge at the base to fold the wings back and forth. Each wing has two additional hinges, about one third and two thirds of the way to the tips. The inner hinge can bend the wing back but not forward. The outer hinge can bend back about 45 degrees, and forward until it's almost folded over itself. Although Flypro still has the little holes that Fei Long's guns plugged into, Flypro has a circular hole above the upper screw hole on his back. His gun plugs into it, in a manner not dissimilar to the G1 toy. As for the remaining accessories, Flypro has a tab in the back of his mouth that a flame effect part can plug into. There's nothing really to plug one into Megatooth's mouth, but you can work one in so that his teeth and jaws hold it in place. As for Fei Long, the tabs on the base of the fire effect parts fit into the peg holes in the dragon mouths. This allows for all the monsters to breath fire, with is a nice callback to the spark gimmick the G1 toys had. Fei Long can even use them in robot mode. Speaking of robot modes, as mentioned before Megatooth gets shiny eyes to replace the flat blue he comes with. However, the flat eyes are a molded part of the stoic face, so to use the metallic eyes you'll have to swap to a non-stoic face. Fei Long's eyes are already a separate part, but his stoic face is part of the original head. To use an alternate face you have to pop the eyes out of the default head and put them in the replacement head with the face of your choosing. Otherwise, the the process of swapping is the same as with Flypro. Lastly, there are the hands. They have pegs on them that plug into the ports in the dragon mouths, then you simply use the double joints to get the dragon head/jaws out of the way as best you can. The hands are otherwise identical to the ones on Megatooth and Flypro, with the same articulation and even the rails for the notches on other Fans Hobby weapons. Of course, since his guns have tabs on the handles instead, Fans Hobby did put slots in the palms for them, so he doesn't have any issues using the guns he came with. Personally, I don't think hands belong on Doublecross, but it's a nice little extra for people who might prefer them. I gotta be honest, Grotusque was always my least favorite Monsterbot. I mean, he's some kind of winged cat thing instead of a two-headed dragon or the alien spawn of a bug and Gigan. Plus he's pink, which was not a cool color to young boys in the '80s. But due to continued improvements over Fei Long, who was already improved over Megatooth, Flypro is easily the best of Fans Hobby's Monsterbots. His aesthetic is better hitting that sweet spot where it's still kind of stylized but G1 enough that you're cool putting it with your MPs, the proportions are better, and even the articulation (while still not great) is improved in both modes. Plus he comes with more of the bonus accessories you might find on another company's MP figures. At the end of the day I think you still might be having a discussion with yourself about whether or not you really need MP-ish Monsterbots, but if you're thinking that you might Flypro is the first one I feel like I can recommend without qualifying it first.
  10. mikeszekely
    Anyone know anything about video editing? Without going into a ton of detail this is a field I'm looking to get into, but I've got a few decisions to make. Some quick background, while I've dabbled in Macs and Linux and a PC gamer and Windows man at heart. My current PC sports a 3rd-gen Core i7-3770K, 16GB of RAM, and a GeForce 970GTX. And no matter what I do, I'll probably end up building a new gaming rig in the next year or two, and that'll surely have enough power to do whatever editing I want. If I got the Windows route, though, it looks like the tool of choice is Adobe Premiere Pro. While Premier Pro seems capable enough, a casual survey seems to indicate that Macs are the tool of choice, and my wife and I are considering the 27" iMac. This is a steeper investment, but I do like the idea of keeping work and gaming separate. And while the tool of choice on Macs is Final Cut Pro X, it sounds like the free iMovie software is fairly capable in its own right and a good way to get my feet wet before transitioning into Final Cut Pro X. The real question is whether or not I can get my wife on board with the $1800 price tag. Thoughts? (I mean, besides advice to buy it with the base RAM configuration and upgrade it myself, because Apple is crazy if they think I'm going to pay $180 to go from 8GB to 16.)
  11. mikeszekely
    Sorry for the late reply, everyone, but Christmas is the one day of year that's a big production in my house. So I've been looking in on this surprisingly active thread today, but didn't have time to engage until now. Anyway, if you like Smart Robin then Code's pretty good, too. Not quite as clever, and the robot's articulation dates him, but he's still pretty fun. And if you like Peru Kill then the obvious recommendations are Unique Toys' Challenger and DX9's La Hire, both of which pull the same trick of having very little in the way of obvious alt mode parts. UT has is also close to releasing a Megatron based on his The Last Knight design, and they've shown prototypes for an Age of Extinction Galvatron. Other than that, you might want to check out Planet X's Vulcan, a Fall of Cybertron-style Grimlock that pulls off some black magic to go from having minimal game-accurate dino kibble on his robot mode to sprouting one of the best-articulated tails I've seen on a Dinobot (and I've seen a lot of Dinobots). DX9's Carry is a Studio OX-style Rodimus Prime whose trailer is actually part of his transformation. And even though I'm not usually a fan of their pain-in-the-rear, overdone engineering I have to tip my hat to Fans Toys for Spoiler. The transformation is one of the most enjoyable, straightforward transformations they've ever come up with but it somehow takes a robot as tall as MP Starscream and transforms it into a car that's not longer and only slightly wider than MP Sideswipe. The only difference is the paint. I actually bought the regular version when it first came out, then bought the metallic one thinking it'd look more premium. Where the metallic paint is applied it looks really nice; from the waist down it looks perfect. Then problem is that they didn't use any metallic paint on the red plastic, and while they used it on his legs and most of his head they didn't use it on his hands and, IIRC, his ears, so I felt like the paint job looked half-finished. Plus, to differentiate the silver on his thighs and pelvis from the bits under his chest and his cab stripe they used a darker, almost gunmetal color above the waist that didn't look quite right to me. I wound up selling the metallic paint version. To be fair, the metallic paint version is still very nice, and the guy who bought mine seems quite happy with it. You really have both versions in front of you and a tendency to nitpick over the details (kind of my thing) to find enough fault with one over the other for it to really matter. Soon.
  12. mikeszekely
    Seems that between the backlash surrounding The Last Jedi and Solo turning into a bit of a flop Disney's plans for the next theatrical Star Wars film are in flux. A ton of stuff has been announced for Disney+, including a second season of The Mandalorian, 12 more episodes of The Clone Wars, a live-action show about Obi-Wan Kenobi starring Ewan McGregor, and a live-action show about Casian Andor and K-2S0 set before Rogue One (with Alan Tudyk returning as the voice of K-2S0. But, AFAIK, the only thing we know about the next Star Wars film to hit theaters is that Disney set a date: December 16th, 2022, and that it'll probably be the first part of a new trilogy since Disney's also booked December 20th, 2024, and December 18th 2026.
  13. mikeszekely
    Well, it's Christmas Eve, and my four year old daughter is super wound up. I need to make sure she's definitely asleep before "Santa" can put presents under the tree. With some time to kill, I guess I can get a quick review done for Fans Hobby's Fei Long, their take on Monsterbot Doublecross. Fei Long, like Megatooth, is definitely a chunky boy with a broad chest and narrow waist. And yet, he doesn't come across as being quite as badly proportioned. This is, perhaps, because the G1 toy's legs did look a lot like that, and the G1 toy's torso had a similar (if less exaggerated) shape. I think the biggest departure from G1 is actually his arms. They're definitely proportionately thicker than the G1 toy's (although the G1 toy was probably closer to Fei Long's chunkiness than to the slender appendages found on the Titans Return version). They're also more mechanical in appearance. With all the cool stuff Takara, Gigapower, and Fans Toys have done over the years hiding Dinobot legs and tails it's kind of a bummer that Fans Hobby didn't do more to hide the tail-halves on the sides of his legs, but at least I can say that's accurate to his appearance in the Headmasters anime. Overall I can't say that I love the aesthetic, but it's definitely an improvement from Megatooth. Fei Long comes with not one but two rifles, in a silvery-gray plastic. Which is interesting, because Megatooth's gun was like the G1 version scaled up, but the generic sculpt here isn't a match for the white gun that came with G1 Doublecross. Fei Long's head is on a ball joint that swivels and can look up a fair bit and tilt his head sideways more than you'd probably ever need, but his prominent chin eliminates any real downward tilt. His arms can rotate on friction hinges, and they can extend laterally about 90 degrees on another friction joint. There's a second joint, more for transformation, that can ratchet them further up/out, and he's even got a dedicated butterfly joint. His biceps swivel. His elbows are single-jointed and good for around 90 degrees. With the dragon heads collapsed for robot mode it seems like he doesn't have a wrist swivel, but he actually does. You just have to slide the dragon head down before your turn it. His "hands" can open and close. In fact, both the top and jaw of the dragon heads are double-jointed, allowing them to not just open but to kind of pull back, revealing a large peg hole inside. His waist can swivel. His hip skirts can swivel up, but they're connected so both move together. That allows his hips to go forward about 60 degrees and backward 90 on a ratchet, as well as 90 degrees laterally on a stronger ratchet. His thighs swivel around his hip joints. His knees are unfortunately limited to only about 45 degrees, and they're also ratcheted. His ankles are ball joints, so he has some up/down tilt and some ankle pivot, but the ball joint is horizontally-oriented so it can't swivel like Megatooth's. The ankle pivot is a little less than I'd like. Without hands Fei Long doesn't have the usual Fans Hobby/Maketoys method for holding his guns. Both guns do have more traditional MP-style tabs on their handles, and these plug into slots in the lower jaws of the dragon heads. Like Megatooth, Fei Long has a transformation that's incredibly similar to the G1 toy. In this case, the biggest differences are that his head actually folds inside the torso instead of lying on his back, the torso collapses so it's not quite so broad (although the robot might have looked better if it never expanded in the first place), and the monster legs store inside robot calves and form his feet. And the result is pretty good. His legs and wings have some red details that the G1 toy didn't, plus his monster limbs are again more mechanical than the organic, molded fur-covered limbs of the G1 toy, but I approve of those changes. Indeed, my only real complaint here is that the dragon heads seem a little large for the body. The dragon necks can swivel, both where the neck meets the red part (at the robot bicep) and at the base of the dragon head (the robot wrist). There's a pair of hinges that let the head look up and down (at the robot shoulder and elbow). As previously mentioned the jaws open and close. His monster shoulders are ball joints that can swivel and butterfly a little, but they can't move much laterally. His monster elbows can curl up a little past 90 degrees, but they can't fully straighten. His claws don't articulate at all. His waist locks in monster mode, so no swivel there. His hips rotate on ratchets, but he can't move them laterally without unpegging them from his body. The knees are actually his robot ankles, ball joints that bend the knee over 90 degrees but can't fully straighten the legs due to knee caps (made from robot toes). His beast ankles are ratcheted and bend up and down, but they have no pivot. The wings have a hinge above his shoulders that can move the wings so they're pointed backward or folded over his body. A second hinge mid-wing can only bend forward a little bit but folds over backwards almost the whole way. Sadly, the tail has no articulation. Unlike Megatooth, Fei Long does have storage for his guns. There's two holes at the base of his tail, and the handles just peg right into them. I think I said this when reviewed the Titans Return version, but Doublecross was always my favorite Monsterbot. I mean, what's not to like about a red, white black, and gray robot that turns into a two-headed dragon? So it's nice to see some improvements going from Megatooth to Fei Long. Indeed, with Fei Long we're starting to see a bit more of what I've come to associate with Fans Hobby: simple, effective engineering that makes for a toy that's still fun to mess around with. That being said, I wish his torso were a little narrower in robot mode, that the dragon heads were more proportional and looked a bit more alive, and that he had better articulation in both modes. Ultimately, despite being an improvement over Megatooth, I think my verdict is pretty much the same: he's a fun toy that's worth picking up if you're a fan of the design/Monsterbots/Doublecross, especially because I don't see anyone else taking on these characters. But if you've got no connection the character you're not really missing out on anything if you pass on this one.
  14. mikeszekely
    A friend of mine and I had this discussion. The prequels weren't great, but they did expand the Star Wars universe. Lucas was great at world-building. And no matter how bad they were, since they came from the guy who created Star Wars in the first place they were authentic. Abrams' films are extremely unoriginal and come across as basically fan fiction, and Johnson's film seemed to come across as a statement that Star Wars needed to move in new directions without actually offering any. And as a trilogy they more or less told the exact same story as the original trilogy.
  15. mikeszekely
    Anyone else preorder Transformers on Amazon? I'd preordered the entire first wave of Earthrise figures, minus Ironworks, but a few days ago I got an email saying they canceled my order for Grapple, and today they canceled Starscream on me. Not cool, Amazon. Luckily both figures were still available to preorder on Hasbro Pulse.
  16. mikeszekely
    Guess I can fit one more in before things get too busy. Tonight we'll look at Megatooth, Fans Hobby's version of Repugnus. OK, I know that even though we Fans Hobby's stuff is generally considered MP-scale that they have traditionally put out designs that are a bit stylized. And I'm usually cool with that. But holy mother of chonk is that a super chunky robot! His head and waist a tiny, but his chest is positively enormous. That chest is supported by some thick thighs and thicker lower legs. Weirdly, I think his arms are ok. If Fans Hobby had made the legs a little thinner, his chest not quite so large, and they'd filled in his lats he'd look great, but as it stands he just looks kind of awkward to me. But maybe that was the point? Maybe Fans Hobby felt that Monsterbot should have a robot mode that's also somewhat monstrous. Although, if that's the case, why the Gundam-style tampoes? I'm not aware of the Monsterbots appearing on any official scale charts, but here's how Megatooth scales with TE-01 (or MS-01, MP-10, or MP-44). If you think that the Monsterbots should be slightly shorter than Prime, you win. Since reading IDW's Maximum Dinobots I kind of think of the Monsterbots as being Dinobot-sized. But frankly, I'm not sure if I could handle a robot this chunky made as tall as Gigapower's Gigasaurs, though. Megatooth comes with just one accessory. It's a rifle, nicely molded and pretty similar to the one that came with the G1 toy. Megatooth's head is on a ball joint, with adequate up/down/sideways tilt and swivel. His shoulders rotate on ratchets; care must be taken to rotate just the shoulders and not the part it's connected to, and they can extend a little under 90 degrees laterally. His biceps swivel, and his elbows are double-jointed with ratchets on both end, capable of curling 180 degrees in total. His wrists can swivel, and because they don't really lock in they can also bend up and down. His thumbs are fixed. His index finger is separate from the others, hinged at the base and the mid-knuckle, although it's molded more for a trigger finger and can't straighten enough to point. The other three fingers are molded as a single piece hinged at the base with no additional joints. His waist is a ratcheted swivel, and due to his transformation he has ab crunch. However, his backpack is so heavy and the joint so weak that he's always leaning slightly backward. I compensated by tilting his pelvis a little. His hips can go forward and backward about 90 degrees on a ratchet, and a little under 90 degrees laterally also on ratchets. His thighs swivel, and his double-jointed knee ratchets get them past 90 degrees. His feet are actually on big ball joints, so they can tilt up and down a little, swivel, and pivot, although I wish he had a little more pivot. As is the case with Fans Hobby's stuff, Megatooth's rifle has a notch on the back of the handle that fits into rails in his palms. On my copy the gun fits snugly in his left hand, but it's loose in his right. Also, weirdly, his fingers have to be open for the gun to fit. Megatooth's transformation is somewhat similar to the G1 version, much more so than the Prime Wars version, and I think the result is more G1-accurate for it. I like how the mass shifts on him; his monster chest is considerably narrower, and the chunky robot shins become chunky monster thighs. He does wind up with his robot arms just folded up and dangling off of his back, although his "wings" help fill the space between them, and I do wish they'd put that spot of red on his tummy that the G1 toy had. Oh, and each monster hand has two claws like pincers now, instead of the single hook the G1 toy had. I actually prefer that. What I don't prefer is that the red part that slid up over the thigh isn't super secure, especially on his left. Of course, if you want a more G1-accurate look, you can always leave the lower claw stowed way. In monster mode, the head can swivel but you'll need to lift his "wings" to clear his robot arms. His mouth can open, and you can spread the mandibles out a bit. His monster shoulders can rotate on soft ratchets, but again they're still stronger than the transformation joint they're attached to. The shoulders can also move laterally, but the amount varies based on how much his shoulder is rotated, from 45-90 degrees. The monster biceps swivel, and the monster elbow is double-jointed. His waist can still swivel, and the monster hips and thigh swivels are the same joints as his robot hips. He can only use the lower knee joint in this mode, which is still enough to get 90 degrees of bend, and he has the same ankles as robot mode. I looked, but I couldn't find any place to store is gun in monster mode. You can sort of tell that Megatooth was one of Fans Hobby's earlier designs. Indeed, although he released after Archenemy in 2017 one of the tampoes above his knee reads "20141111," which I take to mean the design is from November 2014. While most of the ratchets are good the friction joints are looser than I'd like, the sliding red part on the legs is inelegant, and more could have been done with the robot arms in monster mode. I'm not a fan of the robot mode due to wonky proportions, but I think Megatooth does pull off the monster mode pretty well. All-in-all Megatooth isn't bad, but he's probably Fans Hobby's weakest figure. Ultimately, I think the Monsterbots are pretty obscure characters. They had minor roles in the Marvel G1 comic and the Headmasters anime, but didn't appear in the US G1 cartoon. On the one hand that's a weakness- how many collectors feel like they need MP-sized Monsterbots? However, it's also an unexpected strength, because if you do want MP-sized Monsterbots no one else has even hinted at working on some. And that's basically what my recommendation boils down to: if you do want an MP-sized Repugnus, especially if you plan on displaying him in monster mode, then this is your only option. But if you don't have any strong feelings about the Monsterbots and/or you're limiting your collection to just characters that appeared in the US G1 cartoon then by all means pass. There's nothing special here that makes Megatooth a must-have toy.
  17. mikeszekely
    It's nice you were thinking of me, but I don't have any 4K TVs right now and I don't really need the extra power. Plus the OG Shield is the only one with a microSD card slot. As for the Steam Sale, it's kind of a bust. I have a lot of the stuff that's on sale, and the stuff I really want is only around 20% off and still over $40, so I'll wait awhile longer (like I did for RE2make). It's not like I'm hurting for games right now; I haven't even started Luigi's Mansion 3 or Astral Chain yet.
  18. mikeszekely
    I'll happily recommend getting a Shield if you don't have one, and would take advantage of this deal myself, but I actually have two Shields already (the original Shield Tv and the previous generation). It's my go-to streaming device- I don't have cable, but I have Netflix, Prime Video, and Disney+ plus I use it for Youtube and Movies Anywhere.
  19. mikeszekely
    I've been busy and haven't even opened Steam yet, but I got an email that some stuff on my wishlist was on sale and have been meaning to take a look. Hopefully it's better than the PlayStation sale (where I already own most of the stuff on sale) or Nintendo's (where I have at least 40 things on my wishlist and only Dragon Quest II is on sale).
  20. mikeszekely
    In 2017 I reviewed Archenemy (RiD Scourge) and Gunfighter II (G2 Laser Optimus). Even though he came out the same year, I didn't get a review up for Power Baser (Super Ginrai/Powermaster Optimus Prime) until January 2018. And Double Evil (Overlord) is in my top five figures for this year. At this point, although I did question the value of Archenemy and the necessity for Gunfighter, it's safe to say I'm a fan of Fans Hobby. So, when they had their holiday sale around Thanksgiving I used the opportunity to get caught up on some molds I missed (and at this point I've now skipped most of the repaints but I think I do own at least one of every mold they've produced). So let's finish out 2019 looking at some stuff from years gone by, starting with MB-09... which is a trailer. Technically, MB-09 is two trailers. MB-09A is meant for Archenemy, and MB-09B is meant for Gunfighter II. Externally the only difference is some of the detail on the sides; A is silver, B is red, to match the original RiD/G2 toys. Both trailers roll on rubber tires, and both have fold-down support legs for standing the trailers up without a tractor under them. They both have some chrome parts, including ladders on the rear, and painted tail lights. I could mention that A is painted silver instead of chromed up, but the silver paint on the trailer matches the silver paint FH used on Archenemy. And silver paint is an improvement over the gray plastic on the original Laser Prime. Perhaps expecting that they might have a hard time moving trailers for trucks most people display in robot mode, Fans Hobby loaded them with a ton of accessories. The A version comes with a double-barreled gun similar to the one used in the Robots in Disguise anime; the B version doesn't because Gunfighter already has the same gun. The rest of the accessories are (basically) the same. You get a pair of arm reinforcements, a satellite dish, six shells, five discs, six blast effect parts, six missiles, and an alternate head sculpted a little more like the anime and the original toys (Scourge-colored for A, Prime colored for B). There's also three adapters for pulling the trailer. One is, of course, for Archenemy/Gunfighter, since it would be kind of silly to make a trailer for them that they can't pull. One is for Power Baser, in case you wanted Ginrai to pull a tanker instead of his super-mode trailer. And the last one is for MP-10, which kind of makes sense since there were plenty of variants of that mold that were sold without a trailer. You may have noticed that the B trailer is silver like the A and thought, "didn't Laser Optimus have some crazy stickers on his trailer?" He did indeed, and Fans Hobby has you covered there. Both the A and B trailers came with this sticker sheet, featuring artwork by none other than the Marvel comics Transformers G2 artist Geoff Senior. Now, if your thinking that Laser Optimus' trailer said "Optimus Prime" and not "Gunfighter II" and would prefer something more copyright-infringing but more accurate you'll also find coupons for 50% off the Reprolabels set for the trailer, which also has artwork by Geoff Senior (just be warned that 50% off is still over $30). I like the new, more anime-accurate head for Archenemy. However, especially since Laser Optimus hasn't appeared in any media (to my knowledge) I'm keeping the original head on Gunfighter to make them more distinct. Archenemy can hold the new gun just fine, which shouldn't be a surprise, using the same Maketoys-style system of sliding a notch on the back of the handle into rails in his palm. The new arm reinforcements, which just clip into the molding of his forearms, happen to have peg holes on them that allow the rifle, Gunfighter's G1-style rifle, and presumably Power Baser's rifles and shoulder cannons, to be mounted onto Archenemy or Gunfighter's forearms. For the rest of the accessories we're going to have to look at the trailer itself. The trailer splits open, similar to but not exactly like the original toys. MB-09 has a bit of a ramp at the front, and in place of the air-powered missile launcher you have a large gun. Also new to MB-09 are some small fold-out guns near the tires on the sides and a double-barreled gun in the front. You can attach the fire-effect parts to the small guns or the double-barreled gun. You can also attach them to either of the rifle that came with MB-09A or either of the guns that came with Gunfighter, or the four circular bits on Gunfighter or Archenemy's shoulders. The satellite dish plugs into the front of the ramp, and if you have Gunfighter his G1-style rifle can also plug into the ramp. The rifle that came with A or the G2-style rifle that came with Gunfighter can plug under the big gun. Speaking of the big gun, the shells can be loaded into it and fired with a spring-loaded mechanism. Likewise, the missiles go into the square missile launcher on the one side of the trailer and are similarly spring-loaded. The discs go in the disc launcher on the other side of the trailer, and once again it's spring-loaded. Note how the gun is on a rotating pedestal. Fans Hobby calls this "base mode I." Needless to say, they wouldn't call it "Base Mode I" if there wasn't a Base Mode II. The only real difference his that the large gun and pedestal detach, then the handles (which are mounted on a ball joint) turn into a new mounting point that clips in behind the ramp while the pedestal turns into more gun with new pull-out handles. So, not a huge difference, but I suppose it's at least something if you have both Gunfighter and Archenemy, you want them to both be displayed with their trailer bases, but you'd like them to be at least a little distinct visually. Since we've established that the large gun is, in fact, detachable, the next logical question would probably be "then can Archenemy/Gunfighter hold it?" Yes, yes they can. The ball-jointed handle spins around to form one hand grip, while another handle with the Maketoys-style notch flips out on the rear to make a handle for his other hand. Now, this gun is quite heavy; I had a hard time posing him without his fingers or an arm drooping. And Fans Hobby seems to be concerned that he weight of the gun in his hands will pull open the flaps that you use to tuck his hands away for truck mode. The real purpose of those arm reinforcements, then, is to help hold his arms closed, and the manual tells you straight up that you should use them whenever you're posing him with the big gun. And yes, he does look awkward with it. It looks too big for him. Which is probably why Fans Hobby shows Power Baser holding it instead in the manual. All these accessories are good and all, but what if you just want a trailer to be a trailer? Well, the trailer doubles as storage for most of the accessories. To begin, you can plug in the double-barreled rifle that came with MB-09A or with Gunfighter in behind the ramp. You can also leave the satellite dish in place, but you'll have to remove Gunfighter's G1-style rifle. Along the sides, in the inner wall of the liquid storage tank, are some grooves for storing the missiles and shells. They'll stay in place as long as you put them in properly; turn the missiles until their fins are wedged in. Both sides are identical, not mirrored. That means you can fit three missiles and three shells on each side. One the other side, with the peg hole closer to the inside of the base, you can store the sword that came with Archenemy/Gunfighter. There isn't really room to store the anything in the other side. All five discs can fit into the disc launcher at one time, and that seems to be where you store them. With the trailer all closed up you can look at the bottom. There's a spot where you can store the adapter for connecting the trailer to Archenemy/Gunfighter. I didn't check to see of the other adapters fit, but they have different shapes and I kind of doubt it. Nearby, there are four slots that you can use to attach the arm reinforcements. Now, if you've been keeping track of everything, that means there isn't storage for the fire effect parts, the spare head, the other two trailer adapters, or Gunfighter's other gun. I don't plan on swapping heads often or using the trailers with MP-10 or Power Baser, so I don't mind boxing up those accessories and putting them away, and Gunfighter's G1-style gun is only a problem for Gunfighter. I do wish they'd have at least made some storage for the fire-effect parts, though. Base modes and accessory storage is nice and all, but I think the point of the trailer is to be a trailer, especially for Archenemy to have a cartoon-accurate alt mode. For them to pull the trailer, first you have to split the legs a little to attach the adapter. Once the adapter is in place, you drop the little peg near the front of the trailer into the peg hole on the adapter. The fit allows Archenemy/Gunfighter to pull the trailer, but it's loose enough that the trailer can swivel in place. One issue I kept running into, although it's more with Archenemy than the trailer, is that the weight of the trailer starts pushing Archenemy's legs apart. It's not enough for them to separate and for the trailer to come loose, but it is enough to bow out the cab's rear wheels. Both trailers are well-sculpted, well-built, and add a lot of playability to Archenemy and Gunfighter II. The catch, though, is that they normally run around $80 (although I got them for around $50 on sale). I think Fans Hobby really went the extra mile to justify the price, but as I mentioned before it's debatable whether you need a trailer at all if you're displaying in robot mode. But I think I do recommend MB-09A if you have Archenemy, but you can skip MB-09B. Laser Optimus doesn't appear in any fiction I feel like a trailer or a different head sculpt isn't as necessary for Gunfighter. And he already comes with two guns, one of which you still won't have storage for in the trailer. For Archenemy, though, you're finally getting a rifle (which Scourge did have in the anime), you're getting a more anime-accurate head (and using it makes Archenemy a little more visually distinct from Gunfighter), you're getting a trailer that makes his alt mode more anime-accurate, and that trailer does store all of his important accessories.
  21. mikeszekely
    After the discussion we had about flaps? I had a parts diagram of an F-16 in front of me when I was writing!
  22. mikeszekely
    I disagree. While I ultimately disliked The Last Jedi more, Solo is the only film in the franchise that had me checking my watch out of boredom. I just didn't need a two-hour movie over-explaining Han's origin; "He's a smuggler" was enough to go on. That said, Han and Chewie's adventures between Solo and A New Hope could make for an interesting TV show.
  23. mikeszekely
    My Black Friday shopping arrived so I've got a bit of stuff to talk about (to say nothing of the fact that I'm still waiting on DX9's Capone, but has been in limbo since it left China on the 6th). Between the holidays and a death in the family I'm not sure when I'll get everything out, but I have a little time tonight and I want to do this one while it's fresh. It's Fans Toys' Goose, their MP Skydive. Comparing the Goose with Zeta's version of Skydive feels almost unfair. Goose is far more cartoon accurate, but even if I cut Zeta some slack and say that they were really designed to be more toy-accurate the differences in materials are stark. The plastic feels better, there's more diecast- Goose weighs 548g, a little short of double Zeta's 298g. And everything you see on Goose in the above picture is painted except for part of his bicep and elbow joint and his hands. One thing that is actually more Zeta, cartoon or toy, is the backpack. Zeta copied the G1 toy, leaving part of the fuselage and the wings on the calves and only bringing the tail to the backpack, with the horizontal stabilizers making the robot wings. Goose, on the other hand, has pretty much the entire jet folded up into his backpack, only leaving the horizontal stabs on the backs of his legs. I might argue that Zeta's backpack is, perhaps, a little cleaner and doesn't protrude from his spine as much as Goose's. But the thing is, if you give Zeta's a shake it's backpack will probably start to come undone, while Goose's backpack isn't going budge unless you're deliberately trying to transform it. And that winds up being another reason why Goose just doesn't look better, he feels better. Granted, Goose costs nearly twice as much; I'd be very disappointed if he didn't. I find it a bit curious, though, that Goose is taller than Zeta's version. One of the arguments for Seeker-sized Stunticons was because they're rivals with the Seeker-sized Aerialbots, yet Goose is larger than a Seeker or FT's own Stunticons. He's not as tall as your various options for an MP Prime or Megatron, though. Moving along, Goose doesn't come with too many accessories, but what he's got is perfectly adequate. You've got at alternate, yelling face, and a pair of guns. Even the guns are painted. Again, per FT's rep, all the extra parts needed to make Superion will come with the final team member. Now we're starting to get to the trouble in paradise- articulation. His head is on a hinged swivel that can look up a bit, nothing really down, and even the swivel is a little to about 60 degrees to either side. His shoulders rotate on ratchets, but the joint is both weirdly far forward on his torso and weirdly set in the upper forward corner of the cube that is his shoulders, so rotating his shoulders kind of looks weird. They can also extend laterally 90 degrees. His biceps can swivel. His elbows bend a little short of 90 degrees. His wrists can swivel. His thumb is a solid piece on a ball joint. His other four fingers are all individually articulated, pinned at the base knuckle with another hinge at the middle knuckle. His waist has been the subject of some discussion. He has a ratcheted waist swivel, but due to a flap that covers over the backpack hinges in jet mode his waist only turns to his right. It's irritating, because the flap is actually connected to his butt, but if they'd simply put the hinge higher up so it was connected to his back it'd have turned with the rest of the backpack instead of impeding it. However, I should point out that you can rotate his waist almost 360 degrees, so if you want him posed turning his waist to the left you can turn him to the right until his torso is in the same basic position. Continuing, his hip skirts have hinges, and with them folded up out of the way they ratchet forward 90 degrees, backward 45 degrees, and they can move laterally on friction joints 90 degrees. His thighs can swivel around the hip joints. His knees are ratcheted and bend 90 degrees. His feet have a slight up/down tilt, and very deep ankle pivots. His pistols are standard MP fare, with tabs on the handles that fit into slots on his palms. They fit nice and snug, no issues there. To my untrained eye, Goose looks better in F-16 mode, too. More of the nose is black, the cockpit seems more proportional, and the fuselage isn't quite as wide. The gunport is molded on to the left of the cockpit, and the fixed portion of the trailing edge of the wings have little static dischargers on them. While Goose does have those two hinges near the back of the cockpit the wings aren't marred by unpainted gray nylon hinges, leaving room for larger, more accurate lightning bolts. The vertical stabilizer also has its lightning bolts, but the rest of the stab is a beautiful metallic blue which, again, makes it more accurate to both the cartoon and the G1 toy. As for the bulk of the fuselage I do kind of like the silver paint, although I'm fairly certain that real F-16s don't sport such metallic colors. The silver might be more accurate on the afterburner nozzle, but that does leave me wishing FT had painted it a different color like gunmetal just to separate it from the rest of the fuselage, especially since it was a little darker in the cartoon. When you could see how much of the jet was crammed into his backpack you had figure out much robot would be chilling out under that jet once you transformed him. Goose enjoys none of the extra engineering that FT used to try to flatten their Silverbolt. I can't say that I'm really mad at that, though. For one, I'd imagine that the brickish shape will help with his leg mode. For two, the aggravation that extra engineering caused when transforming Silverbolt wasn't really worth it, in my opinion. Sure, the brick was thinner and less obviously a folded-up robot, but it was still present. Goose, by contrast, is pretty easy to transform, with the bulk of the transformation being unfolding the backpack into a plane or folding the plane into a backpack. The handles on Goose's guns can fold back, revealing small pegs that can fit into peg holes under his wings. Be careful, though; I'm not sure FT accounted for paint, so the tolerances are pretty tight. I'm good so far, but I know of at least one person who's sheared that peg off trying to remove the gun. Goose's canopy can open, revealing a little seat inside. Opening the canopy and moving the seat and console are actually necessary steps in the transformation if you want to get the front landing gear out when you transform him. If you want to stow the gear you have to partially undo the transformation to fold it back in; because Goose's head is hiding in the intake the landing gear isn't a small piece stored in there, it's a long rod hinged above the intake, and the bulk of it winds up behind the seat in the cockpit. Fortunately there's no issues with the rear landing gear; they're just little wheels on hinges that store behind his knee pads. I've often said that Fans Toys has a habit of making hefty robots that look nice but often have horrible engineering and/or articulation issues that make me loathe to handle or recommend them. With their Stunticons, though, I thought they were turning over a new leaf, giving us robots with fairly intuitive yet clever transformations and good articulation. Their Silverbolt was, for me, a disappointing backslide to the old Fans Toys. I didn't think it was fun to transform, plus it had fairly limited articulation. I told myself I'd try one of their Aerialbot limbs, and that if I didn't like it I was going to sell the two I have and be out on this set. Well, it looks like I'm still in. To be clear, I do think Goose has some quirks, and no, I don't think he's as good as FT's Breakdown, but I'd still say Goose is pretty good on the whole. Time will tell if Fans Toys can pull of the combined Superion, but I'm still content with Zeta's Superion. It's their individual Aerialbots that I'm not as fond of, and as a standalone Skydive I'm much more satisfied with Goose. I'm going to give Goose a recommend.
  24. mikeszekely
    Just got back from seeing it. I went in with low expectations, since I thought VII was glorified fan fiction and VIII was just terrible. And, yeah, the fanservice was strong with this one, but I think it was ok. At no point was I checking my watch and wondering if the movie would be over soon like I was with Solo, anyway. I think my biggest complaint, not just with IX but ultimately with the whole trilogy, is that the Star Wars universe is so big but ultimately they reset the status quo to Empire vs Rebels so they could tell basically the exact same story as the original trilogy. Which is why, I think, the Mandalorian is getting so much love. It's not Empire vs Rebels or Jedi vs Sith, it's taking a tiny piece of lore with minimal impact on the first six movies and worldbuilding with it.
  25. mikeszekely
    Short of finding their version of Snarl I figured I was pretty much done with Fansproject's Lost Exo Realm Dinobots. But, with Legends-class Slash making a female deinonychus Dinobot official and TFSource's holiday sale making Fansproject's stuff really cheap, I decided to pick up one more: Comera, who I'm going to say is a 3rd party Slash even though I'm pretty sure Comera released first. Well, given that Comera would have been designed without an official Slash to reference they're obviously going to be pretty different. They do have a number of similarities, though- silver/gray shins, forearms, and shoulders, a silver face in a black helmet, black hands, some silver/gray between the red on their upper torsos and pelvises, and some dino kibble hanging off their backs. And I appreciate how Comera has a more obviously feminine figure than the official Slash. That said, Fansproject is known for their more stylized designs, and it's funny how stylized Comera seems even without comparing her to the official Slash. Some of it I like, like the cylindrical robo-buns on the back of her head and the way her fingers are pointed like claws. Some of it just seems like excessive sexualization, though, like humanoid butt with red-paint thong and the red paint tube top on her again very humanoid ro-boobs. One thing I find interesting is her size. Fansproject made Comera a little smaller than the other LER Dinobots, but still roughly Voyager-sized. While it was probably their intention, then, that Comera be basically a little smaller than Severo/Grimlock Hasbro went and made Slash a Legends-class figure that was much smaller than PotP Grimlock. If we accept the disparity between the official figures as, well, official, we can put Comera with a figure like Gigapower's Grimlock and see that same proportional disparity. So while Comera can obviously be displayed with the other LER figures or used with CHUG-style figures, I think she could also stand in as an Masterpiece Slash with Gigapower's Gigasaurs or Fans Toys' Dibots until/unless something better comes along. One other note before I get to accessories. Although they both split in half, her dinosaur head and tail are left just dangling off her back by default. The instructions don't tell you to do this, but I prefer the splay the halves of the dino head and fold them over. This clears a little kibble from directly behind her head, and from the front gives her "wings" which all the other Dinobots have anyway. Now about those accessories. She comes with a sword, as Dinobots do, a pair of very large guns with numerous hollowed spaces that really don't look very good, and a pair of smaller guns that look a bit better. She also comes with a pair of dino claws. Dino claws? Is that partsforming" It can be, but it doesn't have to be. You'll notice very small pegs on her shoulders. The 5mm pegs on the claws have little peg holes in them, and they can fit over the pegs to give her shoulder armor. I personally think that it looks too busy, though, and as armor they can hinder her lateral shoulder articulation. I prefer to leave them plugged in and folded over the kibble on her forearms, which is where they attach in dino mode. There's kibble there anyway, so I don't think it's much worse this way, and it eliminates the need for partsforming. Now about that articulation, her head is on a ball joint that can swivel and look down a bit, but she can't look up due to her robo-buns getting in the way. Her shoulders are also on ball joints with a hinge at the base. The ball joint allows for rotation and a slight butterfly, and the ball joint combined with the hinge gets her 90 degrees of lateral motion as long as the claws aren't on them getting in the way. Her elbows can bend a little over 90 degrees and her wrists can swivel, but she lacks a bicep swivel. He has a ratcheted waist swivel. Her hips can ratchet forward 90 degrees and backward almost as much. A minor issue with my copy is that the ratchets don't seem to be properly aligned, so one of her legs is always positioned slightly more forward than the other. Her hips also have ratchets for lateral movement, but they're limited to about 60 degrees. He has ratcheted thigh swivels, and her knees are double-jointed, both ratcheted, and can bend until her calves reach her thighs. Her ankles are tight ball joints that allow for some up/down tilt, pivots, and swivels, plus her toes and heels have hinges to move up and down. Be mindful of that ankle ball joint; I haven't had any issues yet, but I've stories of the peg breaking instead of the ball swiveling. Her hands are molded into a 5mm peg grip. Her sword has to put into her grip then twisted into place, like some older MMC figures, but she holds it fine when you do. The guns just slide in, but her grip on them is a little loose. The sword and small guns have pegs on them that allow them to attach to her hip armor for storage. It works great for the sword, but I tried both pegs on both guns in both hips and no matter what it was very loose. As for the big guns, she can hold them. The joints in her shoulders and elbows seem up to the task of supporting their weight, but her grip is a little loose so she might not hold them straight. It's not a big deal to me, as I'd personally never display her with those guns anyway. Comera's deinonychus mode is a bit of a mixed bag. I like the gold chrome on her tail, and the way her skirts fill in her dino torso. The way that claws flip over her hands leaves her hands super visible, and with the wrist on the claws basically starting at her fingertips her dino forearms are too long. Her robot hips don't shift, squashing her dino hips into her body. And while I give kudos to Fansproject for designing her to walk on her dino toes in an anatomically-correct fashion it makes her almost impossible to stand. In this picture you might notice that I'm using one of her front claws for support. That's where the big rifles come into play again. They actually lock together to form a base with a pair of pegs. These pegs are meant to go into her dino feet so she can stand up. However, the pegs are slightly too large, and she wound up with stress marks around the peg holes. And since I didn't want to force her I didn't push her too far onto the pegs, leaving her prone to falling anyway. As for her other accessories you can put them into her robot hands, because a deinonychus with a sword or gun is definitely scarier than a regular deinonychus, but there really isn't any other storage for them. While the peg holes that were on her hip skirts are still visible, actually using them would put her weapons in the way of her legs (assuming you can even get the guns to stay pegged in). Her dino arms and legs are are her robot arms and legs, so they have the same basic articulation. Her folded-up hip skirts lock her waist rotation. Other than that we've got her tail and neck. The tail has a pair of hinges that give it some nice curl. Her neck has one hinge in the middle and one at the base of the skull. The neck doesn't curl as mucha s the tail, but she's got some decent up/down range. Plus her jaw opens. Comera's an ok robot with a few flaws, and a really flawed dinosaur. There's no way I'd have paid full price for her, but I don't really regret buying her on sale for $40. As I mentioned, she can fit with both CHUG and MP collections, at least until something better comes along. That said, I do hope something better comes along, because I think and MP Slash would be pretty cool and I'd like to see one with fewer flaws than Comera. If you like the design feel free to pick her up when she's on sale, but I don't really recommend her.
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