mikeszekely

Huh. That's probably going to have a lot more limited appeal. But hey, they're moving forward. Maybe in a few more years they'll hit Car Robots and I'll finally get an MP Fire Convoy...

I guess I'm a bit late to the party, but has anyone else checked out Timespinner? It's been out awhile on PS4, PS Vita, Windows, Mac, and Linux, but it came out more recently on Switch and Xbox One. The game is Metroidvania that's a very obvious homage to Symphony of the Night, although it trades the gothic style of that game for a fairly interesting time travelling sci-fi/fantasy story and sprites that look like they belong in a 16 or 32-bit JRPG. I'm told that it's fairly short, but the music's pretty good and the gameplay is tight. Worth a look if you enjoyed SotN or the GBA/3DS Castlevanias.

China's getting better at making movies that are visually on par with Hollywood. But their storytelling... well, I hope this is better than The Wandering Earth. Also, I saw the title and can't help but be disappointed that it's not an action-comedy-western starring Jackie Chan and Owen Wilson.

VI had such a generic evil empire plot, though. And no, Kefka is a Joker ripoff who didn't deliver half the personal stakes that Golbez did. Plus, everyone could learn the same magic, so for as expansive as the cast was I wound up not bothering to use most of them, just the ones with the best abilities (Terra, Celes, Sabin, and Gogo). And for as devastated as the world of ruin was supposed to be no one really dies. IV had evil space wizards, good space wizards, a love triangle, betrayals left and right, a world under the world, party members dropping like flies, party members you thought were dead returning, half the party members experiencing the deaths of loved ones, the twist of finding out that the big bad mind-controlling your best buddy is in fact also being mind-controlled and is actually your brother. Plus you go to the moon!

X-Transbots is apparently re-working their Motormaster and the Menasor skeleton, so I guess this is the last one for awhile. That one being Overheat, their MP Dragstrip. Once again, I really dig the sculpt here. The biggest deviations are the fact that he's a pelvis (with button, because he splits in half like Deathwish) instead of legs sprouting from the bottom of his torso, the shoulder wheels being unable to magically shrink any further, and some of the alt mode's more realistic detail like the engine in his chest not magically becoming more simplified. And I'm cool with all of it, because he's still ultimately got a very cartoony head on a very yellow body. Despite not transforming anything like the G1 toy XTB even made sure he'd have the bump-outs on the sides of his legs that the animation model has, a relic from where the G1 toy's hands hid. However, rather than being the full box found on the toy or animation model it's kind of just an open flap, with just a little curved side and empty from the back. A lot of us, myself included, kind of think he looks better if you just leave it closed, even if it's not as accurate. Overheat comes with his gun, which unlike the other three collapses and folds up, and a guy who's missing everything below the knees, who we'll talk about later. There's a replacement face, the difference of which isn't immediately apparent. When you get them side-by-side, though, the second face tapers toward the chin a little more, and the sculpted mouth is a little sharper. There's also a replacement face for another figure, XTB's Savant (Skids). This one isn't painted like the face that Savant came with, but you can actually see the sculpted detail, so this is a welcome addition for me that I'm installing right away. And if you have Savant but don't plan on getting this guy, maybe try contacting X-Transbots to see if they'll send one to you. Overheat's head is on a ball joint, with a bit better range as he can look down nearly as much as he can look up. His shoulders can rotate and extend a little over 90 degrees. His biceps swivel, he's got double-jointed elbows that get around 130 degrees, he's got wrist swivels, and his carbot-style hands can open and close at pin hinge at the base of the fingers. His waist can swivel, and he's got an ab crunch. His hips can go 90 degrees forward, a little less than that laterally, but not much backward due to kibble on his butt. His thighs swivel, and he's got the same double-jointed knee setup as Deathwish except that the lower hinge is very restricted, the ratchet in the upper hinge is softer, and he can bend 90 degrees on the ratchet alone. The fake spoiler that makes up the front of his foot can move up a little, down a lot, and a dedicated hinge gives him an insane 360 degree ankle pivot. So yeah, he can do poses. Like Deathwish, Overheat's gun has tabs on the handle that fit into slots on his palms. This time, though, he's got the opposite problem and the fit is a little loose. His fingers have enough tension to hold everything in place, though. Transforming Overheat isn't quite as pleasant as Deathwish. I wouldn't say it's hard once you know what you're doing, but what you're supposed to be doing isn't as immediately apparent during the first transformation, when you're spinning the arms around and folding the nose into the backpack. Your efforts are likely to be further hampered by extremely poor tolerances in two areas, areas that are causing a lot of breakage. So I'll tell you, when the instructions tell you to fold the center of the nose up don't force it if it doesn't want to go. Instead, fold it down and use a hobby knife to remove a sliver of plastic from the edges around the hinge. As for the other problem spot, when you try to rotate the wheels down onto his shoulders again do not force them. If you look behind the wheel that ends up in the front the plastic containing the pin that the assembly rotates on is colliding with the indent in the shoulder that the wheels sit in. You'll need to file it or the shoulder down until you have the clearance you need. The car itself does look good, with a lot (but not all) of the details you might find on a real Tyrrell P34. If I have one complaint, it's that the red stripes aren't close enough together. The little guy missing his lower legs can sit in Overheat's cockpit, and his hands even sit on a steering wheel. There is a spot behind the engine that Overheat's gun can plug into; it's actually how he comes packaged in the box. Not sure that's going to be real effective for the fake driver, there... Remember how I said that Overheat's gun is the only one of XTB's Stunticon weapons to collapse, though? If you look on the underside, between his legs, you'll see an empty space with a slot deep inside. Turns out you can fold up the gun and stuff it in there. The scope on it sits a little higher than the stuff around it, but there's still enough clearance that he can roll with the gun stored there. At one point XTB showed off some test shots of Overheat with two rifles; perhaps that was planned at one point and this is a relic of a time when he needed a place to store the second gun. Either way, I'm not complaining. I prefer some weapon storage to none, but I strongly prefer hidden weapons to just jamming a gun onto the roof of a car. Of the four Stunticons that XTB released, Overheat is the only one I'd say is a little over-engineered. Don't get me wrong, he's nowhere near as bad as a lot of Fans Toys' catalog from the last two years or so, but I still can't help thinking that there was probably an easier solution for turning a P34 into a cartoon-accurate robot. Too much of his shoulders are on thin plastic hinges and arms. And the tolerances issues are a big disappointment that, at best, has you cutting/filing/modding your figure, and at worst is leading to breakage. Objectively, he should be the worst of the four. Subjectively, though, I really dig him. He's got the kind of cartoon accuracy I like; the sculpt and colors match the cartoon as closely as they can without compromising real-world alt-mode details and looking like walking animation error. There's a dynamic element to him. So while I'd caution you to know what you're getting into and have some tools ready to fix those shoulders and nose flap, I do still recommend him.

Final Fantasy IV is better than Final Fantasy VI. Just saying. Anyway, not super impressed with Ubisoft, Squeenix, or Microsoft's E3 presentations. The FFVII remake looks like a worse option than just buying the Steam/mobile/whatever version and playing that. And while I was hyped for Avengers going in, hearing that it's going to be a "service" game ala Destiny torpedoed any interest I had in it. As for Microsoft, while I'm kind of curious to see where they're going with their cloud ambitions I can't get excited for Scarlett when Microsoft doesn't have much in the way of exclusives (Halo and Gears aren't doing it for me), and what exclusives they have are bound to end up on Windows (Forza). If Gods and Monsters is half as good as Breath of the Wild it'll be fun, and I'm hoping the story creator gives me more fun stuff to do in AC Odyssey, but pretty much the only other Ubisoft franchise I play is Far Cry, and they didn't announce anything Far Cry. Nintendo is winning E3 for me, for sure. No big surprises, but Ultimate Alliance, Link's Awakening, Pokemon Sword/Shield, Dragon Quest XI S, and Luigi's Mansion are all high on my wants list (Persona 5 Scramble, too, but I don't recall it being mentioned), and of course a Breath of the Wild Sequel will be a day-one buy for me (however far in the future that day turns out to be). Hopefully the best (not-yet-leaked) announcements are being saved for last.

Well, each region is getting their own variant, so in the US we'll get the black and more rectangular Turbo Grafx-16 mini. And yeah, I'll probably pick it up. Didn't have one as a kid and I have zero connection to the games, but at this point I have a NES Classic, a SNES Classic, PlayStation Mini, and I've got a Genesis mini preordered.

Pokemon Sword and Shield, Link's Awakening, we finally get the Mana collection in the West, Ultimate Alliance, Dragon Quest XI S, Luigi's Mansion, and a sequel to BotW. Nintendo's having a mighty good E3.

Finally moving on to something more current, this is X-Transbot's Deathwish, their MP Dead End. The sculpt is very on the money for this guy. I mean, pick a detail from the cartoon... the white protrusion on his tummy stripe, the hexagon-in-a-hexagon on his chest, the octagons on his knees, the stripes on his forearms, the purple goggles and gold mouth plate, it's all here. The torso itself is just a slab, giving him a profile like a refrigerator... and yeah, that checks out too. Of course, the flip side of that is that he's not particularly toy accurate, but I think by now we should know that XTB is going for the cartoon look. One thing I'm not too sure of, though, is the color. Deathwish is red. Perhaps not as red as my pictures make him look, but definitely red and not the shade of maroon that was used both in the animation and on the G1 toy. XTB has been doing G2 editions of these guys, and G2 Dead End is a brighter red... I wonder if they mixed up the paint? Moving right along, Deathwish doesn't come with much in the accessory department. You've got his gun, which is pretty cartoon-accurate if you ignore the protrusion on the handle. He also comes with a pair of rubbery wing mirrors. Apparently earlier prototypes had plastic painted to match the car, and some people aren't happy about the rubber ones. I feel pretty comfortable telling you that if they hadn't switched a lot of people would be breaking them. So Deathwish's head is on a ball joint, and he can look down or tilt his head sideways just a bit but he does have pretty great upward range. His shoulders rotate and extend a tad over 90 degrees laterally. His biceps swivel, and he's got double-jointed elbows that curl just about 180 degrees. His wrists swivel, and his hands are MP carbot-style, with a fixed thumb and fingers molded as one piece pinned at the base knuckle. His waist can swivel, and he's got a soft-ratched ab crunch that can bend over 90 degrees but definitely breaks up the sculpt. His hip skirts hinge out of the way to allow his friction universal hips to go 90 degrees forward and just under that backward and laterally. His thighs swivel. His knees are double-jointed. The lower joint is friction, while the upper joint is a strong ratchet. Bending his knee usually engages the lower joint, at it might seem at first like he can't bend his knees more than 45 degrees. Using both joints, though, he can get the full 90. His feet can tilt up slightly, down a fair bit, and his ankles can pivot 45 degrees. His gun using the MP-standard of pushing tabs on the handle into slots on his palm. On my copy, the fit it a little too tight, and the handle has a tendency to push back out. One more thing, before we go to alt mode... yes, that's a very obvious rectangular button for a belt buckle. In a move that's sure to surprise absolutely no one who's seen XTBs renders and prototypes, you can push the button in and pull Deathwish apart at the waist. It's expected that the combined mode is really going to be a mostly complete robot with spots to plug the Stunticons. In this case, Deathwish presumably splits in half so that the front of the car can plug into his bicep while the bottom of the car will attach to his forearm. My only concern about this gimmick is that the connector is on the end of a fairly thin plastic bar, and even after you push the button in it takes some force to pull it out. XTB probably should have used metal for it. Ok, so on to the alt mode. Getting there is a little more involved than I remember the first two being, but I don't think it's necessarily difficult once you know what you're doing. And no, you don't have to pull the waist apart to transform him. The one thing I do think is an issue is that there's not a ton of clearance for folding or unfolding the legs. You have to pull the hip out to the side and turn the thigh just right and still kind of bend some parts to get his feet to clear his crotch. The alt mode itself is pretty gorgeous. All of that red is paint, the windows are a dark translucent plastic, and there's painted lights, exhaust tips, and rims. I know some people aren't super happy that there's no gold stripe, but that's a toy detail that the cartoon didn't keep. After picking up FT's Road King I was thinking I might pick up the rest of the FT Stunticons, and possibly even check out the DX9 ones as well. I figured that XTB's might be kept in combined mode or alt mode, with FT's in robot mode. And yeah, Deathwish is making a strong case for alt mode. Just be advised that the wing mirrors don't stay on securely. I'm probably going to just toss them back in the box. That big protrusion on the handle of his gun comes into play here in alt mode. Instead of plugging on top of the vehicle, like the first two, Deathwish's gun plugs into the back, between the taillights. And he's got one final feature that none of the other Stunticons had. If you look at the underside you'll see a small switch near the front of the car. Well, if you open up the bumper you'll find room for some button cell batteries (AG0/LG521/LR63/379). If you install the batteries and turn on the switch Deathwish's headlights turn on. Which is cool and all, but not exactly correct since they don't move when they turn on. A real Porsche 928's lights should swivel up and and out so the lens points forward, not up. Despite having a pile of button cells I've accumulated for other figures I don't seem to have any of this type, so I can't light him up for you guys. By rights, this probably should have been XTB's best Stunticon yet. The engineering, as mentioned, is interesting, the paint is gorgeous, and most of the joints are well-toleranced. However, the QC seems a little worse on Deathwish than the first two. I already mentioned the gun not tabbing in so well, but out of the box I have stress marks on one of the hip skirts, stress marks on a gray hinge at the top of his torso, said hinge looks like the pin is slightly misaligned, there's paint overspray in a few spots, and paint chipping on one of hsi diecast thighs. His hip joints were too tight and very creaky, and I couldn't comfortably get the two halves to come undone. I had to open up his crotch, put some silicone lube on his hip joints, and file the port for his waist connection a bit. There's some speculation that the release of FT's Road King and the positive reception it received pushed XTB to rush the production of this guy and Overheat (Dragstrip). Personally, the minor issues I have with Deathwish are irritating, but ultimately so minor that I'm not even going to bother trying to get replacement parts or anything like that. Ultimately, I still like him, and until/unless DX9 or Fans Toys do a better one I'd still recommend him.

TFSource does have tax, depending on where you're at. I know, because I've got hit with it in my last two XTB Stunticon limbs.

I take it you've never seen Final Wars?

My mom really wanted to see this, and since my mom doesn't really have a social circle beyond me and my dad and my dad's health problems make sitting in a movie theater uncomfortable for him I wound up taking her and seeing it again. My opinion still stands. There's plenty of monster action, and the plot's easy to follow even if you've never seen a Godzilla but there's tons of little nods and easter eggs for the long time Godzilla fans. It's biggest weakness is the human stuff, but that can be said of nearly every Godzilla in the last 50 years, and for all its flaws in that regard is still a major improvement over the 2014 film. It definitely had some elements I didn't care for, but they basically boil down to "Hollywood gonna Hollywood." Frankly, I don't either. I mean, everyone is entitled to their opinion and I'm not saying that anyone is wrong for theirs, but I genuinely don't understand what expectations you'd have to go in with to come away with a negative opinion. As a summer popcorn flick the film is much more action-oriented than the previous film, and as a Godzilla film the filmmakers were clearly Godzilla fans themselves and made a movie that was as close to a Toho Godzilla as Hollywood was ever going to get.

Beachcomber is one of my absolute least favorite characters, but with a recent reissue, a new G2 version, and upcoming competition from Fans Toys I think it's time I took a look at X-Transbots' Arkose. Beachcomber is one of those G1 characters whose animation model actually wasn't too far off from his toy, and XTB did a pretty great job nailing it. That being said, just how accurate you think Arkose is might boil down to how much cartoon accuracy you like. Arkose's chest skews a little closer to the toy than the more simplified look of the cartoon, and like the toy you have headlights on the sides of his legs that the animation model dropped. The instructions have you angle them so they're pointed forward, but you can leave them pointing up if you like. There's also the small matter of some bumper bits near his ankles. Neither the cartoon nor the toy had them, but we'll touch on them again later. Given Fans Toys' reputation, deserved or not, I think a comparison is inevitable. All I can say for now, with nothing but gray prototypes to go off of, is that FT's will be a bit more cartoon accurate, but (and this is super subjective) he looks a little chunky and lifeless. Arkose comes with a few accessories, a lot of which is "that thing from that episode." Well, he's got a rifle, and while it's not exactly cartoon accurate it works fine for my tastes, and there is a reason that it looks the way it does that we'll touch on later. You get a toy-style, mouthless face. And then, from the quintessential Beachcomber episode "The Golden Lagoon" we get a replacement gold-painted right hand and three birds. Arkose's head is on a hinged swivel that can look up or down maybe 30 degrees in addition to swiveling. His shoulders rotate and extend laterally about 90 degrees, just be advised that you want to push down on the the parts around his collar when you do so as manipulating his shoulders has a tendency to pull them loose. His biceps swivel, and he's got double-jointed elbows that curl until his forearm starts colliding with the tires on his shoulders. His wrists swivel, and he's got a pin hinge so that his hand can open and close. His waist can swivel. His hips can move over 90 degrees forward, about 90 degrees backward, and a little under 90 laterally. His thighs can swivel. His knees are double-jointed, but still only good for about 90 degrees. His toes can tilt up and down a little, and his ankles can pivot about 45 degrees. I think, especially since it's an older figure, that the articulation here is pretty good, although I do wish the hips and knees were a little tighter. Despite having MP carbot-style hands, Arkose's palm is actually molded into a small peg hole. The gun simply slides into it. Alternatively, he can hold the bird with a longer peg the same way. The other birds with the smaller pegs don't fit into his hands, but there's two small pegs on his shoulders that they can sit in. Now, he does have something that looks like a peg hole above his wrist, and I've seen pictures where it looks like people stuck a bird into the hole for a pin hinge near his elbow, but those holes seem to small on my copy. Now, even though Arkose came from a time when XTB figures were sometimes criticized for their engineering, I think he's pretty easy to transform. The engineering here is fairly logical. The trickiest part is transforming the roll cage so you can move the engine into his backpack, but even that can be avoided entirely by simply removing it when you start the transformation and putting it back in place when you're done. Now, here's what I think could be the deciding factor for a lot of people when deciding between this or Fans Toys' version. Fans Toys' Beachcomber is definitely much more cartoon accurate in alt mode. However, if you look at the animation, Beachcomber looks like someone made a generic dune buggy out of Legos. Beachcomber wasn't supposed to be a generic dune buggy, though. The G1 toy was actually based on a real vehicle, the Chenowth M1040 Hellfire FAV, and Arkose trades cartoon accuracy for real-world accuracy... hence the bumper that neither the cartoon nor the original toy had. Presumably, XTB's designer was looking at one of the Hellfires that does have a bumper. Granted, I don't think I've seen one with a roll cage quite like that, and there's the small matter of his forearms acting as a rear bumper I've never seen on a Hellfire (with weird tail lights that are on the sides instead of the back), but it's otherwise not a bad replica. My only complaints here are that I wish the tires were rubber instead of plastic and that I can't get things to tab together quiet as well as I'd like, hence the little gaps in places. The seats have little molded and painted first aid kits on the back, which is a nice touch for a pacifist like Beachcomber, and the interior has two seats, a steering wheel, and a gear shifter. You can even see the molded circles that were only on his right foot are now like gauges on the dash. His heel spurs stretch between the seats. I think they're supposed to be like part of the roll cage, but they seem kind of in the way, and (although maybe I did something wrong) they don't seem to want to sit quite where they're supposed to. On the other side of the dash from the steering wheel, in Arkose's other foot, you'll find a something like a hinged ball with a chunk cut out. You can use it to plug in his gun, giving him a mounted machine gun for the passenger's seat. This is something that was done on actual Hellfires, and the reason Arkose's gun is molded the way it is instead of like the cartoon. I suppose it's not very in keeping with Beachcomber's personality, but I dig it. If you're looking for an MP-style Beachcomber for your collection your choices at the time of writing boil down to picking up Arkose or waiting for Fans Toys'. Without knowing more about the engineering on FT's, all we really have to go on at this time are aesthetics, and that's a pretty subjective preference. I think if super Sunbow accuracy is your jam then waiting for FT's might be a good idea. But if you're more of a fan of the older Hasui MPs and a mix of cartoon accuracy with real-world details, then I can easily recommend Arkose. He's solid, he poseable, he's detailed, and he's not difficult to transform and mess around with. I don't really need more than that for Beachcomber.

So I recently wrote some reviews for the DNA upgrade kits for Studio Series Ironhide and Megatron. I think I mentioned I picked up some DNA kits for Titan Metroplex, too, but I never really wrote up a real review. Well, I happened to find someone selling the Takara version of Fortress Maximus with the DNA upgrades, and I decided to buy it off of him because Fortress > Cerebros, the colors are more accurate, he comes with the Master Sword, and y'know, upgrades kits. Anyway, with the kits for both Titans in hand I figured I might as well discuss them for real. Basically, there's two kits for each Titan. A third (DK-03) was planned for Fortress Maximus, but it seems it never came out. So the first kit is DK-02 (for Fortress Maximus) and DK-02M (for Metroplex). The big thing is this kit is fully articulated replacement hands. They're slightly larger than the original hands, but it's a pretty good trade, I think. The thumb has a hinge that can move the thumb across the palm, a swivel, then two hinged knuckles. The fingers have swivels at the base so the fingers can splay out, plus three hinged knuckles. And of course, they still swivel at the wrist and the wrist can still fold palm down, so they're very articulated hands. The tips of the fingers are designed like hollow barrels, so finger lasers, and a cut in the palm allows them to hold the same accessories that the default hands can hold (quite snuggly, at that). The icing on the cake is that the back of the hands open up to reveal cannons inside. The barrels can extend, and the entire assembly can turn 180 degrees so they can close with the cannon side up. Attaching them isn't terribly difficult. You have to remove some screws on the arms to open them up, slide out the old hands, slide in the new ones, then close it back up. While hands for Metroplex are all you get with DK-02M, Fortress' kit has a bit more. There's filler for the hollow gaps on Fortress' arms, and entirely new legs from the knees down. They're not the prettiest legs, especially with the obvious seem in the middle, but the toes and heels are on pins, giving Fortress some much-appreciated ankle pivots. Mind you, all of this stuff is molded in gray. It works perfectly well with the Takara version, but not so well with the US or SDCC versions. The arm filler just pushes in and is held in place with friction, no biggie. The legs require a little bit more work, but if you can install the Titan hands you can install these legs. The legs work fairly well as legs, although the pin hinges are a little loose, but chances are you're going to have him in head mode more often than not, right? And the what you have here is that the leg transformation is slightly more involved than the original ones, resulting in a head with a slightly less blocky appearance. Looks pretty good from the front... but when you look at it from other angles, especially the top or bottom, you see that the front of his feet are bowed out, and the panels that fold back from his legs don't sit flush. It seems like DNA had a good idea but they didn't measure properly and didn't give the new parts proper clearance. DK-02 comes with one more thing: Fortress Maximus' hip cannons. To deploy them you push a pair of pegs on the gray part into his side, then position the barrels over the red (Takara and SDCC) or silver (Hasrbo) circles. The barrels can extend and retract. What they can't do is fold around into his sides like the G1 toy. So in the box you'll find a pair of these gray clips with peg holes on them. You clip them onto the ramp on Maximus' back, then the guns peg onto them and sit on his back. So, to quote a certain YouTube personality, "it's not hateful." If the hip cannons are important to you this gives them to you. I'd have preferred if they didn't have to partsform, but their placement on Maximus' back works out ok. The other kit, DK-04 and DK-04M, is primarily the foot upgrade kit, for the pair of shoes they give the Titans. In addition to the shoes, you get new springs and ratchets for the hips, additional foot parts for Metroplex, and a new G1-accurate crotch for Fortress Maximus to replace the recolored Metroplex crotch he comes with. Installing the hips and crotch is your basic ratchet surgery where you know what you're doing, it's just kind of a pain to sandwich everything back together before closing up the thighs. Do note that for Maximus' new crotch that you're actually using his old crotch as his butt now, and it's actually the Metroplex crotch-butt that's getting replaced. And do they make a difference? Kind of. They are noticeably stronger than the ratchets in my Hasbro Fortress Maximus, but not much different than the ones in my Takara Metroplex. They do seem to have a few more detents on the outward hip motion. As for the shoes, they have hooks on them that grab into molded gaps in the underside of the Titans' feet. Just line them up and push them firmly into place. The big draw in this kit is that the shoes sort of provide ankle pivots. The bottom of the inside is hinged, so while it clings to the bottom of the real foot the rest of the shoe can swing down, giving the appearance of a foot flat on the ground. I think it works fairly well for Fortress Maximus. The chunky shoe with the gap between the "toes" makes his feel look more like the G1 toy's. I just wish that the hinges were tighter; when you lift him up the bottom of the feet flop straight down. As for Metroplex, well, they do what they're supposed to do and give him the faux ankle tilt. But the extra chunk looks a little more out of place here, especially with Metroplex's kind of tall and skinny proportions. Someone said it looks like he's wearing tissue boxes on his feet, and they're not entirely wrong. Another thing to consider is that, for the shoes to fit properly on Metroplex, you have to unscrew the flight deck on the inside of his shins and replace the sides of Metroplex's feet with new parts DNA provides. There's one last thing in the kit, and that's these little pegs. On Metroplex they're mean to go on the front and back of his forearms; I don't mind them on the back, but they're a little unsightly on the front. For Fortress Maximus they go on the backs of his thighs and shoulders. They don't have a bot mode purpose; they're entirely for the alt modes. Which I guess we'll look at now... Well, the hands are still hands, although the fingers do curl in much tighter, which does help. And you can flip out the guns on the backs of their hands, to further distract yourself from the fact that they're hands. So kudos for that. As for Maximus' hip guns, the clips aren't a bother. The cannons themselves have pegs on them so they can peg into the conn tower in battleship mode. So far, so good, right? Although I guess I should mention that the new legs on Fortress seem to get caught up and don't slot in to the conn tower quite as smoothly as the original legs. We run into problems the shoes, though. In theory, they come off the real feet and plug into the back of the thighs They've even got helipads on the soles! In practice, though, the toes on the shoes jam into Maximus' waist. Plus, to get to the back of the thighs, you have to rotate the waist 180 degrees. Then to get the shins cannon side up again you have to rotate at the thigh swivel 180 degrees on each leg. But now you're right leg is on the left, and the left on the right... which means that the little thing that hangs on the outside of Maximus' left leg would have to go between them, and it doesn't fit. So you have to take it off. And frankly, if you're going to take anything off and just set them to the side, you might as well do it to the shoes instead. You get a more G1-accurate battleship for less effort, since you're not spinning the waist and thighs that way. As for base mode, again, the hands are still visible, but you can fold them up and deploy the guns to kind of distract from that fact. The hip guns stay on the conn tower, and it doesn't matter if you rotate the waist and thighs or not. Then the shoes kind of peg into Maximus' shoulders. The instructions make it look like they should sit in closer to the body and use both pegs, but there simply isn't enough clearance for it. I kind of think they look messy there. DNA does offer an alternate transformation, though. Basically, bend the hips and knees so the legs are sticking up like a tower behind the conn tower. You can even use the sliders designed for Metroplex to push them together, although they don't tab into each other. You shouldn't rotate the waist if you want the shin guns facing forward, or do rotate it if you want to pretend the calves look more like a building with windows. Honestly, I liked doing this anyway, as it looked closer to the G1 city mode, although it does just rely on the strength of a couple ratchets to stay in place. Then the back of the shoes tab into the shoulders, filling in the back and adding some helipads (that aren't covering the flight decks). I think this look works pretty good, actually. Unfortunately, things aren't working out quite as well for Metroplex. I mean, it starts ok. The shoes come off and plug onto the backs of his arms for battleship mode. They don't look great back there, but not really any worse than the arms themselves sticking out the back and they do kind of cover the hands (from most angles). But, the new foot parts on Metroplex' actual feet don't leave enough clearance for the red arms to fold down all the way. That means that the knee pad can't fold in all the way, preventing it from tabbing in place, and keeping it lower than it actually should be. The reduced ground clearance means the the knee/armature placement is forcing the flight deck upward. And then there's city mode (forgive me for not doing all the work and totally transforming him). This time, the shoes are supposed to plug onto the front of the arms. This is already strike one, as those pegs are an eyesore on the front of his arms. Now, for his right arm, you could just turn bicep 180 degrees and keep using the back, it's not really functionally or aesthetically different. But whichever side you're using, you're not going to be able to flip open his forearm and deploy his forearm gun. Strike two. The left arm requires bending the elbow, so you have to use the pegs on the front of his forearm. All to get a helipad sticking out from the back of the city, which wouldn't be the worst thing in the world, except it's kind of in the way if you've got the multiple guns of the Takara version. So, here's how my recommendations shake out. All around, I think DNA could stand to improve their QC. But the DK-02M kit is a no-brainer, definitely yes. The replacement hands are much better than the originals. The DK-02 kit is still a yes. The hands, again, are just that much of an improvement. I personally don't care for the hip cannons, but they're fairly unobtrusive if you do want them. And I love giving Fortress ankle pivots, I just wish the QC and design was a lot better so things could sit flush and the pins would be tighter in head mode and so that they fit better into the conn tower. You might also be less inclined to use those legs if you're not rocking the Takara version and its more gray color scheme. DK-04 is a more qualified recommend. I like the new crotch, and the shoes work pretty well for giving Maximus ankle pivots. The shoes are terrible for battleship mode; like I said, i'd rather set them aside then pull his leg bit off and set it aside, and I don't really care for them with the official transformation on city mode. But they seem to be fine for the unofficial city mode. Plus the replacement ratchets may or may not help you. DK-04M, though, is an outright pass. While they do give Metroplex ankle pivots, his shoes look like the wrong size for his feet. And while the shoes themselves are alright in battleship mode, the new foot parts you have to install to fit the shoes on him create clearance issues that mess with the flight deck. Likewise, the city mode seems better off without them. Unless you really, really want ankle pivots on your Metroplex, don't mind how goofy they look, and aren't planning to ever transform him into his other modes I think DK-04M causes more problems than it solves.

Well, I got my metallic MS-01... And it's not really the knockout improvement I was hoping for. From the waist down it's (nearly) perfect. The silver and metallic blues look fantastic, I just wish they'd have painted that last little bit at the knee. From the waist up, though, the design decisions kind of baffle me. The metallic blue looks great on the head, but they skipped painting his ears and for some reason made his forehead black. Likewise, his silver face is a stark contrast to his unpainted neck. The red parts seem like they're still unpainted, same with his hands so they stand out from the legs and head. Actually, with the forearm arrows left unpainted on the new version it seems to have less paint than the original. And what paint there is is just too dark, trading the flat gray paint for the cab stripe and the silver around the lights on the original for a metallic gunmetal color. So now I'm facing a dilemma. Originally I wanted to get the metallic and sell the original. Now I'm seriously thinking about using the metallic head with the original face one the original upper body. Then maybe I can figure out how to separate them at the waist linkage and put the original upper body on the metallic lower body. Of course, after I put the other parts back together I'll have a metallic upper body and face with the original helmet and legs, and I don't know that I could get anyone to buy that.

I mean, I guess it looks fine. Not sure if it's so fine it's worth replacing if you already have Maketoys' or Fans Toys' versions, but as long as Takara isn't charging and arm and a leg it should be a choice for the people that don't have an MP Hound.

If you say so. I haven't been paying attention to Bandai's MSRP or what the Japanese stores are charging. All I know is that it's $40 more than GX-71.

$340 and tax, which for me is another $20.

Well, that's what I did. And he arrived today. And... well, he's not broken. So I guess that's already better than NECA. In all seriousness, though, I don't know. I guess he's kind of what I expected. The is fantastic, and the paint (where he has some) is top notch. He's also made of ball joints, many of which like to pop off, but I gather that's kind of par for the course for Monsterarts. I was a little surprised, though, that for all the joints he has that the articulation is kind of so-so. Some of that seems to be the sculpt around the ball joints limiting their range, but in the case of his right shoulder I wonder if the joint is actually jammed up. The rotation there is limited to maybe 90 out of 360 degrees. So, ultimately, I just don't know. At $70 I think it's fine. The Monsterarts stuff just seem to have better sculpts than their NECA counterparts, so the premium is justified. But in trying to track down some of the older ones at $150-$200+ then I'm starting to think that maybe the NECA stuff is good enough for what you pay for them. I guess one nice thing is that the NECA figures and the Monsterarts are fairly similar in size, so mixing and matching isn't the worst thing in the world.

Got my preorder in, too. I was hoping it'd be a little closer to the Lion Voltron in price, but eh.

Same here, plus XTB's Arkose v2.

Trust me, as a TF fan I can tell you we definitely don't like anything Transformers.

So I'm hearing that, despite opening at #1, KotM is underperforming. I blame the 2014 film. I think a lot of people were disappointed with it (disclosure: myself included), killing a lot of interest casual fans had in seeing another (myself not included: Legendary had me at "King Ghidorah"). Hopefully word of mouth gets around and it has a good second weekend.

Me too! I just got back from seeing it tonight. The humans were the weakest part of the story... but honestly, that's about par for the Goji course. I thought the humans, especially Kyle Chandler and Millie Bobbie Brown, were at least better than the ones in the 2014 (excluding Bryan Cranston). The film plays with the Godzilla mythos in a way that's distinct from any of the Japanese films yet spiritually similar and did a fantastic job setting King Ghidorah up as Godzilla's nemesis. I also think the film does a solid job laying out enough information for people who have never seen a Godzilla film to follow the story, but there are a lot of nods to the Toho films for the longtime Godzilla fans. It's not a perfect movie. There were some things I didn't care for, and honestly a lot of it is Hollywood doing the Hollywood thing. But I'd say of the three American Godzilla films it's the closest yet to capturing the spirit of a Toho film. Quite frankly, I think I liked it better than Endgame.

To be fair, while Kawamori's designs look a look more like plausibly realistic aircraft than basically any variable Gundam, Kawamori still had the luxury of not having to make actual planes transform. And it shows... Most of the "hero" Valkyries have shared a lot of the same engineering with the VF-1 and/or YF-19, and pretty much all of them have large engine nacelles to turn into legs with plenty of room for the arms to tuck between. This isn't to say that I think it's impossible to apply that kind of engineering to real-world aircraft, I just think the result isn't going to yield the kind of G1 robot the TF fandom has come to expect.