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mikeszekely

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Everything posted by mikeszekely

  1. mikeszekely
    Yeah, going to best buy after the holiday is probably a good idea. ...I wish there was a Microcenter around here. Closest ones for me are Columbus Ohio and Fairfax Virginia. I've been to the one in Fairfax, it struck me as kind of like Best Buy, if Best Buy catered less average people and more toward enthusiasts. I dug it a lot.
  2. mikeszekely
    It does look like a gap on the prototype, but that's definitely where Hook's head should be. Maybe Hook didn't have a head in the prototype yet?
  3. mikeszekely
    Isn't that just the top of Hook's head? Best guess? Just to keep Scrapper and Mixmaster from banging together when Devy's standing stock straight. Yeah, I think it's a tad odd myself (and opinions seem sharply divided on him in general), but I think he mostly looks better than Combiner Wars, I like that he scales better when other Combiners (need a new Predaking now, too, Hasbro), and I expect he'll be more stable and use better than Combiner Wars. Plus Long Haul's not a massive chonker. That's really all I expected from Hasbro.
  4. mikeszekely
    Purely supplemental. Some light couch surfing, streaming video when my wife is using the TV for Chinese dramas, and reading comic books and other stuff that that does better on a larger screen than my phone. If I'm doing anything that's going to start requiring multitasking or a keyboard I have more laptops than one person technically needs (a Windows laptop for gaming, a Surface Pro for taking to DnD because it's smaller and lighter and fits in the bag with my TTRPG stuff, a 15” Vivobook so I can stay current on Linux, and an M1 MacBook so I can stay current on MacOS), or I'll go upstairs and use my desktop with my surprisingly useful 32:9 monitor.
  5. mikeszekely
    So, uh... kind of a dumb question. While my wife has been solidly in the iPhone camp, the last iOS device I personally used was so long ago that I can't remember if it was a 3rd-gen iPad or the original iPad Air (I think it was the Air). That being said, my daughter wanted an iPad for Christmas, and I got her the 10th-gen iPad. Like a responsible parent, I'm taking the time to set up parental controls from my wife's Apple ID and make sure it's charged and updated and all that. Now, here's my dilemma... I think I'm in love with this hardware. My post-iPad experience with tablets has been Surface devices, currently a Surface Pro 8+ with a keyboard cover that I really use more as very portable laptop at my TTRPG table. The 10th-gen iPad is wonderfully thin and light compared to my Surface, but the aluminum chassis feels suitably high quality. I'd love to have a tablet like it for myself, except for one major paint point... I loathe iOS. Now, I'm NOT trying to start an iOS vs Android vs whatever debate here. If you use an iOS device or devices and you like it that's great, but Apple's walled garden isn't for me personally. And on that note... does anyone hear have much experience with Android tablets? What I want out of life would be as close to the 10th-gen iPad as possible in terms of dimensions and materials, just running Android instead of iOS. Seems like a lot of what's out there that has the nicer builds like the OnePlus Pad and the Galaxy Tab S10 are larger, like the iPad Pro, or else they're made out of cheaper materials. Maybe a Pixel Tab? I'm open to suggestions.
  6. mikeszekely
    Not the clearest look, but Long Haul is definitely looking a lot better than his Combiner Wars counterpart.
  7. mikeszekely
    My copy of Incertus should be arriving next week.😉
  8. mikeszekely
    Got my notice from ShowZ to pay off the next set of Mecha Invasion Constructicons. Seems doubtful they'll ship before the end of the year, but it's looking like they'll be here before the Chinese New Year shut down. I'm pretty stoked; the first set, while not perfect, were simple, fun, and relatively inexpensive; it's easy to overlook some minor flaws when four MI Constructicons cost less than one of Fans Toys. Speaking of, while I'd thus far bought most of the Devastators, I can't bring myself to do another Devastator war and buy them all. I've heard good things about XTB's Long Haul, but their track record for QC issues is keeping me away. I think Fans Toys' Scrapper just doesn't look all that hot. And 01 Studio's looks like the old ToyWorld one, but more stylized and without partsforming. I expect I'm passing on all of those. Given how their Combaticons and Protectobots came out, I think MMC's Constructicons will be my final G1 MP-style ones. I'm thinking about giving Dream Star's Constructicons a go, though, or at least their Scrapper. Like Mecha Invasion, Dream Star seems to be an offshoot of Generation Toy that's doing a more stylized take on Devastator, and I dig how their Scrapper looks. Plus it looks like Hook is next, and he has both a torso mode and a leg mode, because Dream Star might also be doing a Prowl that can combine with the Constructicons IDW-style. What's more, it looks like some of the combiner kibble will form a Megatron.
  9. mikeszekely
    Yeah, I'm not opposed to Missing Link. I just personally feel like once you start improving the original toys then they're very clearly NOT the original toys, so you might as well keep making improvements until you get to the modern toys. I'll say this much, though... adding articulation makes a lot more sense to me than keeping the limits of the original toys but changing the deco line Walmart's retro line. It's equally NOT the original toys but lacking any meaningful improvement.
  10. mikeszekely
    Sure, but if you're going to start making improvements to articulation, why not make more improvements? Replace stickers with paint. Fix the wonky proportions. Tweak the decos to make them more cartoon accurate. ...whoops, I've made Generations. Or Masterpiece. And that's kind of where I've landed. I love the G1 toys because they're what I played with as a kid, warts and all. And if I want improved versions, I've got lots of options for truly improved versions and not simply G1 toys with better articulation. Maybe age is a factor here? I was four when I got Sideswipe, my first TF. I was too young to be bothered with the limitations of the toys back then, my little mind was simply blown by the fact that I could have a cool car that turned into a cool robot.
  11. mikeszekely
    Because it is the toy I had as a kid. Don't get me wrong, I love Missing Link, I think it's neat how Takara added so much articulation to the original toy, but once they did that it's not really the original toy anymore.
  12. mikeszekely
    Pass. I'm sure someone's into it, but personally I don't get the desire for a figure that's the G1 toy, but colored like the cartoon. If I want G1 toy, I have the G1 toy (and Missing Link). If I want cartoon accuracy, I have SS86,
  13. mikeszekely
    If I were building a cheap 1080p rig for someone just getting into PC gaming I'd probably go with Battlemage. Doesn't do much for me, though. Still, I sincerely hope Battlemage is a success- rumors are going around that Celestial could have a few more skus, and Nvidia really needs more competition in the mid-tiers... right now the price and performance difference between the RTX 4060 and RTX 4070 is huge.
  14. mikeszekely
    Unexpected but very welcome. https://www.ign.com/articles/capcom-is-finally-bringing-back-onimusha-the-game-awards-2024?utm_source=threads,twitter
  15. mikeszekely
    My i7-9700k is getting a little long in the tooth, but with 32GB of RAM, 6 and a half TB of storage, and an RTX 4070 in my tower I don't need the Ally X to be a desktop replacement. Maybe after the RTX 5000-series launches I'll upgrade my desktop and save the 4070 for a dock on the off-chance I decide to game in the living room instead of my computer room, but for now the Ally is 85% for keeping me entertained while taking my kid to her various classes, and 10% gaming in bed, and 5% Netflix/Hulu/Youtube/etc in bed or when my girls are watching TV and I want to be close to them without actually watching their crap.
  16. mikeszekely
    So I said I was biting the bullet, and I did. Sorry I didn't report back sooner. It's pretty much exactly as expected... marginal improvements, but nothing amazing; if you couldn't run the game well on an Ally plugged into the wall an Ally X probably isn't running it either. That said, some of those minor bumps do help. Like, I can actually take advantage of the 120hz display on a few games now. But the extended battery life is absolutely worth the upgrade, at least in my particular use case. At the 15w "performance" power profile on the original Ally I'd fall a little short of getting through my daughter's two-hour dance classes, forcing me to bring a power brick and hope to sit near an outlet in the waiting room or hope to get a playable 30fps at 10w. On the Ally X at 17w we're leaving and I've still got around 50% left. It makes the Ally X feel truly portable in a way the original Ally didn't quite live up to. The other main advantage for me is that there's two USB-C ports on the top now. It's a minor thing, but it does allow me to plug the Ally X in while I use the Asus 15" portable monitor I have kicking around, or more importantly, my Viture XR glasses. Speaking of, I had the Viture One XR glasses. They're basically like sunglasses with thick frames that have mirrors and little OLED displays. You plug them into a laptop or phone or whatever and it projects a virtual screen in your field of view. They've been a great match with the Ally- a virtual 1080p, 60hz, 120" display is a lot easier for my old eyes to see than the 7" display on the Ally itself, and I like that I can use for more privacy when I'm out and about. I like them enough that I offered to get a pair for my wife. Her response was that I should upgrade and she'd just use my old ones, so yeah, I bought the Viture Pro XR glasses. Honestly, I wasn't sure I needed the upgrade. They're still 1080p, but they upped the refresh rate to 120hz, and they increased the FOV so the virtual screen is 135". So far, nice-to-haves, but nothing earth-shattering. The display is brighter, but I thought the One XRs were bright enough. They also improved the electrochromatic lenses so that they get much darker, but the One XRs already had a clip-on cover if you needed to block out more light. Then I got the Pro XRs in hand. And I was right about one thing... I don't really notice a huge difference on the screen size. But the rest is apparently a bigger deal than I thought. It's not just brighter, it's noticeably brighter. Combined with the darker lenses you definitely don't have to worry about seeing through the virtual screen, even in a bright environment. But best of all, whatever they did to increase the FOV fixed the single biggest issue I had with the One XRs- blurry corners. The entire virtual screen is nice and crisp. The Pro XRs aren't cheap, but if you game on the go I'd say they're a must-have accessory for the ROG Ally/Ally X/Steam Deck.
  17. mikeszekely
    Age of the Primes is live now on Pulse. I grabbed all three Aerialbots, Megatronus, Prima, Solus, Star Convoy, and Red Alert for now. I skipped Wasp, same as I skipped Animated Motormaster, because I'm just not that into the Animated designs. I'm on the fence about Grimlock, since I already have the much more interesting tiger striped G2 version, but if they're going to do other G2 Dinobots then Bluelock might match better. I'm also not preordering the Sonic crossover. I'm not really a fan of the cartoony aesthetic; I think they'll look too out-of-place with the other crossovers. And I'm not really into Sonic. But if I see them in the store I might still bite.
  18. mikeszekely
  19. mikeszekely
    Like Menasor, they're spring loaded and close when a bot is plugged into the calves. Unlike Menasor, it sounds like any of the four Deluxes can go on any of Superion's limbs. I haven't confirmed it but I think wave 1 preorders are coming Tuesday in the States. EDIT: Oh, BTW, the plane kibble on Wingtail's butt is likely supposed to be his fox tails, of which Tails has two.
  20. mikeszekely
    My best guess is to make it just inaccurate enough that they don't have to license the alt mode.
  21. mikeszekely
    Depends on what you mean by "accurate". The AOTP Aerialbots aren't accurate to their real-world jets, no. But they're pretty close to their animation models... I just wish Air Raid had bigger wings and his arms tucked in a bit better like Slingshot's.
  22. mikeszekely
    Yep. Also, Slingshot. Also, hey artwork for Vortex. Guess we already know that Onslaught's the Commander for 2026. I'm hearing that Hasbro will announce their next Transformers Haslab in the spring. I'm like 75% sure it's Gigatron/RiD Megatron.
  23. mikeszekely
    Did you guys know that Cybertron Con is happening in China? And wouldn't you know it, it's the official reveal of Age of the Primes. Hopefully we gets some more info and clearer pictures soon, but here's what I've managed to wrangle up for you guys so far... Sonic Collab Titan-Class Star Convoy. Looks like he has all the gimmicks of the G1 toy, including a Micromaster Hot Rod! Forget Devastator and Superion, Star Convoy is my most-anticipated 2025 release now. Commander-class Silverbolt and Superion. Bot and combined mode looks good, but it looks like Superion's using similar engineering to Menasor, and the rear half of Silverbolt's alt mode is a massive brick of combiner kibble. That said, if you look closely you can see what appears to be a while veritcal stab folded over, so the current theory is that Silverbolt turns into a jet that combines with the brick of kibble to become a bigger, blockier jet (though, even without it, he's definitely a robot with a jet on his back tha turns into a jet with a block of robot kibble on its belly). G2 Grimlock Armada Red Alert Wasp Primus Solus Prime Some artwork for Onyx Prime Skybyte Heatwave (who's probably a Bulkhead retool, just saying) and Crasher (who's the same Earthrise Mirage retool we already got in Velocitron) Slingshot's bot mode with art for his alt mode and art for Air Raid's bot mode and his jet mode
  24. mikeszekely
    The show might be good. Heck, it might even be great! Animation isn't everything... I didn't care for the animation in the Netflix Ultraman anime, but I loved the show. I'll need to watch an episode or few to decide if the plot and characters are something I'm into or not. All I'm saying for now is that's the worst mecha to bear the name "Gundam" in 45 years.
  25. mikeszekely
    I think it depends. For Gundam specifically, I don't think it did Iron-Blooded Orphans any favors. But I think it worked ok for 00 and Age* where there were more significant time gaps in between.
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