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I might be interested in the Castlevania one. Konami's being coy about what the other four games are (the four announced are Castlevania, Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse, Super Castlevania IV, and Castlevania II: Belmont's Revenge). A lot of fans are speculating Rondo of Blood it Symphony of the Night, but those two were already just packaged this past fall as Castlevania Requiem. My guess is that the other four will be Castlevania II: Simon's Quest, Castlevania: The Adventure, Castlevania Legends, and Castlevania: Bloodlines. I'd love to be wrong, though. I'll happily trade Simon's Quest and the Gameboy games for the GBA games, especially Aria of Sorrow.

Well, last one until some more stuff comes out. It's Voyager Boss-class Siege Starscream. There's two things jumping out at me right away. The first is the head sculpt. I mean, it's better than the kind of mushy head that's on the old Classics figure, but Hasbro's been killing the heads on these Siege figures. But Starscream's seems kind of off. I can't put my finger on it. The other thing I'm noticing is that his legs seem kind of long. His torso is fairly close in length to the Classics version, so most of his extra height is in his legs. Oh, and of course there's the usual messy application of silver weathering... I really wish Hasbro would stop blowing their paint budget on it. Despite these issues, I think it's impressive how much Starscream looks like, well, Starscream, given how different his alt mode is. His only accessories are these two guns. Do I call them null rays? Actually, this might be another complaint I have have... they really don't look like null rays. I think they look more like sniper rifles. Although that's basically what the null rays were in the War for Cybertron game... Starscream's head is on a ball joint with ok up, minimal down, and way more sideways tilt than you need. His shoulders rotate and can extend just about 90 degrees. Due to transformation they've also got a butterfly joint; just a little backward, but a lot forward. His biceps swivel, and his elbows are double-jointed and curl nearly 180 degrees. His wrists can swivel. He does have a waist swivel. It's hindered a bit by his backpack, but I think you get all the swivel you'd actually need. His hips are universals that can get 90 degrees laterally, only about 30 degrees backward (again due to his backpack), but over 90 degrees forward. His thighs swivel, and his knees can bend well over 90 degrees. His feet can tilt down a bit, and you can bend just his toes to make it look like his foot is bent down further. His feet can tilt up probably more than you'd really need. He does have ankle pivots, but probably only about 30 degrees. For a traditional Starscream look you'll probably want to plug his weapons into the peg holes on the outsides of his shoulders. He can hold them in his hands as well. Plus he's got 5mm peg holes on the outsides of his forearms, the outsides of his lower legs, and one on each wing (facing forward in robot mode). Additionally, the thruster on the bottom of each foot and and the trio of them on his back are also 5mm holes. This might be a your-copy-may-vary thing, but I've noticed on my copy that the same 5mm peg on the handle of a gun can fit snugly into some of the holes, but a bit more loosely in others. Starscream has a few other touches that are nice to see on a mainline Hasbro figure. You might have noticed that there's no hollow spots on his forearms. That's because you don't just flip out his fists. His arms actually open, the fist spins into the opening, then the elbow joint collapses into the forearm in a manner very similar to some of Zeta's Aerialbots (and maybe MP Ironhide... it's been awhile since I played with him). Then, take a look at his calves. Again, no real hollowness, even though his thighs partially collapse into his calves for alt mode. His calves are actually an L-shaped panel hinged at the base (near the front of his leg). When you fold up his leg the panel pushes in so his thigh can fit, but when you unfold the leg a spring pushes the panel back out. That especially is a really nice touch, and I hope Hasbro uses it on more figures. If we peak under his chest, at what would be the bottom of his alt mode, you'll see a small hexagonal hole. Presumably this is for a flight stand. I don't have any that use a tiny peg like that so I couldn't tell you what stand does work with him, but I'm still sure that's what it's for. There's another hole between his legs for some robot flight stand action. And yes, he is (barely) balanced and doing a high kick there. Starscream's alt mode is an homage to the "tetrajet" alt mode seen in the G1 cartoon. It's not the first... I think that honor goes to Don Figueroa's War Within design, which itself was the inspiration for Starscream's Cybertron/Galaxy Force design. A few 3Ps have tackled that design as well, most notably Impossible Toys, whose robot modes were kind of meh but who really nailed the alt mode. Hasbro's is somewhere in the middle. The wings are a bit wider at the tips, the nose is a bit longer, and the nose and tail don't come to points the way the cartoon does. However, the sides are smoother and the cockpit is flush, which is better than a lot of attempts at a transforming tetrajet. There also isn't one big engine exhaust on the back. Instead, there's three near the top, and his feet make two more at the bottom. His chest is prominently on display from the back as well, but I don't hate it. Maybe that F-15 canopy is like a warp core or something. The engineering is actually pretty neat, and not as shellformery as you might have thought at first glance. The nose of the jet is actually made from the intakes on the tops of Starscream's shoulders. That does mean, though, that a lot of the jet is his wings and backpack, and the underside does have a lot of folded-up robot underneath. When I saw all that robot kibble in pictures I thought it looked terrible, but despite being no less noticeable it just doesn't bother me so much in hand. Aside from a little gap in the nose everything eventually locks in place nice as securely, so you can woosh this guy around your living room as much as you like. He might have to stay in the air, in fact... there's no landing gear or struts or anything like that. You set him down on his shins, more or less. The instructions have you plug in his weapons onto his robot shoulders... in fact, you can transform him without removing them, if you please. I personally think they look a little better if you move them onto the wing holes, now on the underside of the wings. If you like, you still have access to the ones on his forearms as well, but his transformation partially blocks the ones on his legs. The thrusters on this feet and back are still accessible, too. They're not in a good spot for guns, but if you've got some fire effect parts from some Battle Masters you can give him some exhaust flames. One other thing that's definitely worth mentioning is his chest. For transformation it untabs from his torso then moves up and over his shoulders and collars on these gray arms. The connection is pretty loose. I've seen lots of people have them pop off entirely during transformation. On my copy one side is basically worthless, but it takes some effort to pull it off the other. It's an irritant to be sure, but I have to stress that it doesn't affect either mode. Once it's moved it tabs securely back into place. In any case, the red parts of Starscream's chest have holes on the sides. It looks like maybe Hasbro meant to put a pin in there, then they just didn't. There are rumors, even, of a running change that does put a pin in there, so if you're out shopping you might want to look for the pin (you can see the hole through the box's window). If you can't find one (or the rumors turn out to be a hoax), Youtuber Peaugh has a video explaining how you can add pins yourself. In any case, Starscream was a figure that I wanted because he's such a main character, and the Decepticons are pretty outnumbered, but I wasn't super excited for him because I didn't think he looked so great in pictures. In hand, though, he's actually a lot of fun, possibly my favorite mold of the entire second wave. I have no qualms about buying at least two more of the mold (although I kind of hope they do something different for the Coneheads). He's not without his faults, but if you can get past them I'm giving Starscream a recommend. LATE EDIT: I remember that MP Tracks came with a flight stand. And sure enough, it fits between Starscream's legs justs fine. However, the hole in his chest seems to be smaller. I'm not ruling out it's use as an attachment point for a flight stand, but it's clearly different than the other hole. Oh, and I tried the between-the-legs hole in alt mode. It kind of works. The problem is that you're pushing the peg in horizontally, and the weight of the figure is too much for the non-ratcheted joints on the stand.

I'm curious, but cautious. I checked with Speedtest and I should be good to go (72 Mbps down, 12ms ping). I'm also hearing you need Chromecast to play on a TV, and that's baked into the Shield TV I already own. But Stadia sounds a lot like PS Now and GeForce Now, neither of which have exactly wowed me. Just local streaming from my desktop to either the Shield or a Steam Link is janky as all get out.

Especially since the current Leaders are basically Voyagers with extra add-on kits. I propose the following: Normal class (Deluxe) Boss class (Voyager) Xtreme! Class (Leader) Mega Class (Commander) Ludicrous class (Titan)

Nobody's stocked diddly around here. I've been getting most of my Siege stuff from Amazon.

What's wrong with Shockwave's alt mode? Take off the extra bits, turn it upside down, and it's his G1 gun mode. As for Starscream and Soundwave... well, let's start with Soundwave. That G1 Soundwave. Ok, seriously, he's got way too much paint weathering (although I've heard that it's pretty easy to get it off the chest, at least. And yes, he's got some extra kibble under his forearms and on his back. And as long as I'm listing faults, I'd have really rathered they'd given him cartoon red eyes instead of the G1 toy's yellow eyes. But in every other way he extremely G1 and, at least as far as robot mode goes, very much the Soundwave figure fans have spent over a decade clamoring for. I don't know what more I can add to that. Well, I can tell you about the accessories. He's got his signature shoulder cannon, his signature rifle, and a weird-looking extra gun. Soundwave's head is on a ball joint with some upward tilt, very little downward tilt, and plenty of lateral tilt. His shoulders rotate and can extend a smidge over 90 degrees. His biceps can swivel. His elbows are double-jointed and can curl nearly 180 degrees. No wrist swivels, but they can bend inward due to transformation. His waist swivels. He's got actual hinged hip skirts that allow you to bend his hips 90 degrees forward, a little shy of 90 degrees backward, and over 90 degrees to the side on frictioned universal joints. His thighs swivel. His knees can bend 90 degrees. He has a miniscule upward foot tilt, and about 30 degrees of ankle pivots. There's a peg hole on one side of his head for plugging in his shoulder cannon, and he can hold both of his guns. There's a peg on the back of the cannon that keeps bumping his backpack, so be aware of that. Or, you can unfold the gun and use it to connect his other gun to his shoulder cannon to form... well, I call it the worst thing I've seen in the Siege line. In addition to the peg for the shoulder cannon, Soundwave has 5mm peg holes on the outsides of his shoulders, the outsides of his forearms, the outsides of his lower legs, the bottoms of his feet, and two on his back. And yes, Soundwave is compatible with Laserbeak and Ravage, albeit one at a time. The button on his shoulder opens the chest, and Ravage or Laserbeak tuck snuggly into the door. Soundwave's left hand is even molded to have one finger out a bit so you can pose him like he's pushing the button. Things were going so well with robot mode, but here's where we run into trouble in paradise. This is Soundwave's spaceship mode, and... well, it's pretty terrible. His backpack unfurls into... warp nacelles? They don't look great or really lock into that position. I think they'd look better if they could fold out along the sides, but the struts they're on don't bend enough. Panels on the sides of his legs fold up to cover his thighs, but only from above. The side-view is still robo-thigh. And his arms are still pretty clearly arms wrapped underneath the vehicle. I'll admit that the cockpit on Soundwave's butt is a nice touch, though. Soundwave does have landing struts, so I guess there's that. There's also a thin gray plastic thing that flips up on the back. Couldn't tell you what it's meant to be. I'm not sure that it serves any purpose short of getting in the way. His rifle and shoulder cannon are meant to go onto the nacelle-things. They don't really help the look, but I'm not sure they hinder it... which is more than I can say for the other gun, which tabs onto the one side and doesn't do anything for this mode except look very, very out of place. Since I don't really care for the combined super gun, either, I guess I'm content to give that gun away to another Siege figure who might be more in need of a gun. Soundwave's chest is actually the back fo the vehicle, instead of the underside like you might think. It still has the clearance to open so you can still stick store or deploy a tape in spaceship mode. The one thing that might have saved the spaceship mode would be places to store more weapons, but transforming Soundwave basically means hiding all the peg holes except the ones on the nacelles. There is one alternative, semi-secret alt mode. It's not mentioned in the instructions, but it is official. A picture of it can be found inside the flaps on the bottom of the box. I gather that this is supposed to be an homage to the street light mode he had in the first episode of the G1 cartoon, although his arms are curled around behind him instead of hanging out to the sides. I kind of don't mind this mode. His arms actually do tab in place, and the landing struts sticking up off them look like handles while the engines on top could be gun barrels, so he's giving me turret vibes. I just wish the lower half of his body did more than spin 180 degrees. As far as boomboxes go, there's nothing official and I haven't seen any fan modes that I like. Evaluating Soundwave is tough. The robot mode is an easy A, and compatibility with tape-like Micromasters means the things a lot of fans would tell you are the most important in a good Soundwave toy are covered. That spaceship mode is a D-, though, and that's me being generous. I think I'm going to recommend him, though. As bad as the alt mode is, it's ultimately a brick that doesn't do much besides have a compartment you can stick some other smaller guys into, and if I'm being honest that kind of describes the G1 toy, too.

Seems pretty cut and dry to me. They've (finally) decided that the Bayverse continuity is dead, Bumblebee is a reboot, more movies in the Bee-verse are coming, one of them is going to be a more action-packed summer tentpole set in the present and the other is going to be a smaller-scale prequel about Optimus and Bee.

Yeah. Did you happen to pick Pandinus up? As much as I do like Utopia I can't bring myself to pull the trigger on that one.

I might have told this story before, but I was kind of poor as a kid. Even though Transformers was my favorite thing as a kid I didn't have a ton of season 1 or 2 characters because my parents couldn't really afford much more than the occasional mini-bot. But things improved for us in... I guess '86 or '87. And for Christmas one year I did get Metroplex, who remains to this day one of the favorite toy I had as a kid. And if you read my reviews in the official thread, you probably know that I picked up the Takara Legends version of the Titan-class Metroplex, whom I thought was a fairly good figure but it didn't quite scratch my Metroplex itch. During a recent ebay flash sale I managed to pick up a figure that's been on my bucket list: Maketoy's Utopia, a 3P Metroplex. For some people the fact that Titan Metroplex is significantly bigger is an immediate deal breaker for Utopia. Metroplex is supposed to be huge, after all... but I think that's kind of worth considering a little more deeply. Yes, you can do stuff like put Combiner Wars Aerialbots on Metroplex' vehicle-mode runways, and I've even seen people put Generations Springer in helicopter mode on the city-mode helipad. But Autobots are supposed to live in that city mode. After playing games like Fall of Cybertron and reading the IDW comics when I think of Metroplex I think of a robot who could hold Optimus Prime in the palm of his hand. Those red windows on Metroplex's chest? I imagine those as the windows of a ship's bridge, and that bridge is worked by a whole crew of Autobots. Looked at that way even Legends-class figures are too big to scale with Metroplex. Short of building a house-sized custom Metroplex I think we have to accept that the citybots are always going to be out-of-scale with other Transformers. While Metroplex's size had a certain appeal when he was the only Titan-class figure, since Trypticon's release I think deciding that Metroplex is the clear winner just because he's bigger is short-sighted. If I pose Trypticon as tall as he can be, with his back and legs straight (something you're not likely to do), then Metroplex is a head taller and looks too big next to his rival. Lean him forward and get him in a bit of a crouch, though, and you can get Trypticon fairly even with Utopia (and if you're anything like me, if one is going to be bigger than the other you probably want Trypticon to come out on top). However you land on matters of size and scale I think Utopia is, aesthetically, a lot closer to G1 than any version of the Titan. He's got chunkier limbs and he doesn't have the same elongated torso and legs. His arms have more of that boxy made-out-of-buildings look, and his shoulders are topped with spires like the G1 version (although I'd have preferred white). The guns on the sides of his shoulders are less stylized (something you wouldn't normally expect to say about a Maketoys product over an official one) and aren't burneded by the flip-out handles. His knee pads are closer to G1, and don't stick up so far. That's not to say that Utopia isn't stylized. He's got a lot translucent red and black paint breaking up all the white, and ironically the stuff that actually should be read like his toes and the sides of his shins are black. His antenna are shaped more like blades, and he's got tank treads instead of wheels on his hips. A lack of partsforming means that he's got a tower sticking up on his back. Utopia probably isn't a figure you'd consider to be a proper MP representation of Metroplex... but that's goes double for Titan Metroplex. Really, my biggest aesthetic gripe might be the screw holes. I'm not usually super picky about those, especially when they're on the back, but Maketoys tried to keep the cost down by mirroring a lot of parts. In some cases that means stuff like his right shoulder having visible screws while his left shoulder doesn't. In other cases it means stuff like seeing actual screws on the front of his left hip and molded faux-screws on his right. Fortunately for around $15 you can get a set of screw covers and tiny representations of Maketoys' Giant (Devastator) and Battle Tanker (G2 Laser Optimus) you can display with Utopia for a better sense of scale. Speaking of accessories, Utopia comes with two big guns, 18 clear plastic stacks of Energon, two clips that can each hold six of those stacks, a small translucent red antenna, a small translucent red Utopia, and two identical sprues of little odds and ends you can use to make Utopia's alt modes seem more busy, I guess. Truthfully, I'm going to take the sprues, the little Utopia, and the extra Energon stacks, put them in a baggie, and stash them away in the closet. As for the big red guns, they're not designed to look like battleships on their own like the Titan's but they're much closer to the G1 guns that made up Sixgun's legs. The handles can be folded back (on ratchets, no less), and there are something like a cockpit that can be opened on the top. The little translucent Utopia is a little too big to fit in there, tough. There's also a door on the side of each gun. The clips with the stacked Energon slide into a gap inside, which is a cool touch. Utopia's head is on a ball joint. He can look up and down a little and tilt his head sideways a little; I'd have liked him to be able to look down a bit more, but it's already more than Titan Metroplex. His shoulders rotate on ratchets, and they can move laterally about 60-75 degrees on ratchets. His biceps swivel on tight ratchets. His ratcheted elbows are double-jointed and, despite the blockiness of his shoulders and forearms, cans till bend at least 120-180 degrees (depending how how you position his biceps, which are on sliders for transformation). His wrists can swivel. His thumb is on a ball joint at the base with one additional hinged knuckle. Each finger is also ball-jointed at the base but has two additional knuckle hinges. He's got a ratcheted waist swivel. His ratcheted hips can, in theory, get at least 90 degrees forward and backward. Practically some tank tread kibble on his back has to be moved to get that 90 forward and will restrict the backward movement, especially if his hips aren't spread. Which they can, about 45 degrees freely and 60 if you move the back kibble. He's got ratcheted thigh swivels. His ratcheted knees can bend 90 degrees. He's feet can tilt up one click and down 90 degrees on a ratchet. He's also got an ankle pivot, but it's not the best. Basically, it's yet another ratchet, but the teeth are pretty widely-spaced. With the shape of the leg around the foot you're limited to about one click. The problem is that his lower legs are too big to stand stock straight the way the Titan does, and the teeth in his hip ratchets don't line up with his ankle ratchets. So even if you put him in an A-stance, that stance is either slightly too narrow or slightly too wide and he's never totally flat on his feet. He can hold the red guns just fine using a typical MP-style system with tabs on the handles and slots on his palms. The guns on his shoulders can swivel, and they're not detachable. Which tower (or both) you want peeking up from behind is up to you, but they towers are hinged at the base and they have a pair of cannons that can slide out from inside so you can angle them over his shoulders a bit. If you don't want him to carry both guns, there's a keyed peg on the bottom of each gun that fits into the holes at the tower bases. The guns also have keyed pegs on the sides. You can use them to plug the guns onto Utopia's forearms. And if you're like me and want a more G1, tower-free look you can angle them like wings so that they're mostly hidden behind his shoulders. Side note, while we're looking at them- I like that you can slide guns out of those towers, but I really hate how Maketoys left the back of the towers open. Utopia originally retailed for $400, and you shouldn't have to put up with this kind of Hasbro-esque plastic-saving cost-cutting on a $400 toy. Of course, if we're talking G1 Metroplex we probably should decide if you mean G1 toy or G1 cartoon. The G1 toy had red eyes, and Utopia can do that look (albeit with some black eyeliner). The cartoon had a visor, though. And if you push the forehead crest in, a translucent red visor will slide down over Utopia's eyes. That's my preferred look, so I guess I like cartoon for my G1 Metroplex. But options are good. Speaking of the G1 cartoon, he had a double-barreled gun to the left of his head. You can do that with Utopia, too. Just flip around a panel on that side. The gun is even hinged so it can move up and down. The other side has some kind of molded room with translucent red windows. You can plug the translucent red antenna into the top of it. One other weird thing to note about robot mode... his toes open up. Not sure why. I guess you could store some of those extra Energon stacks or the other bits on the sprues in his feet. Utopia's ship mode is arguably less G1 accurate than Titan Metroplex's. I think a big part of that, though, is because Utopia actually transforms instead of sitting down and sticking his arms out behind him, and therefore doesn't look like a robot sitting down and sticking his arms out behind him. In fact, the ship mode is surprisingly cohesive. Aside from the towers sticking off the back with guns extended (what, are they supposed to be engines?) I could buy this ship mode as some kind Federation mobile suit carrier. Unlike the G1 and Titan versions Utopia's arms are curled up. The towers sticking out from behind kind of fill that need for something sticking out from behind, I guess. Also, the instructions officially have you pluggin the big red guns in so they're pointing backward. Again, maybe they're supposed to be engines? There's no reason you can't turn them around so they're facing forward, which is what I prefer to do. Actually, I'd prefer to plug them right into the middle of the runways like the G1 toy, but that's probably close enough. But seriously, I do like this mode a lot. The knee pads look like the catapult doors for launching an Aerialbot (or a mobile suit, or a Valkyrie) off the runway, while the panels covering his fists on the sides look like where cargo would be loaded. Utopia's head and part of his chest are folded out of the way to reveal a bridge with fold out panels on the sides. Which brings up the only thing I don't really like about this mode, and that's the transformation. See, the top half of Utopia's chest is on sliders, and the sliders run through the part of Utopia that his head is on. So to transform him to this mode you have to slide them back, lower each side, lift the section with the head up part of the way, slide the chest parts forward again, move the head section the rest of the way back, then slide the halves the of chest back again. While I'd buy Utopia's ship mode as a spaceship, G1 Metroplex of course had wheels and was like some kind of land-driving aircraft carrier. As I said, Utopia does away with the G1 wheels in favor of tank treads. I don't know about you guys, but I think if someone ever built an aircraft carrier that traveled over land that tank treads are more probably than giant wheels. There's eight pairs of treads total. There's two treads on each calf, one on each hip, and a pair that unfold from his butt. The ones on his legs are all on sliders, too. The instructions aren't clear on the matter, but I think they're all closer to his feet in robot mode and closer to his the back of the ship in ship mode. The pair on his butt have some piston bits that you can also fold out. Sadly the treads don't roll, and Maketoys didn't put any wheels in them, so Utopia doesn't actually drive on the ground. Again, Utopia actually transforms to his city mode. The transformation does a pretty good job of making the city mode look visually distinct from the ship mode, something I'm not sure Titan Metroplex really pulls off (especially if you have the retail Hasbro version with only one gun to use as a tower). The towers on his back come into play, and his shoulder armor slides down to cover his bicep, making it look like an actual tower and not a tower with an elbow in the middle. A helipad flips out from inside his chest. His thighs have to be positioned a certain way to allow the waist to rotate 180 and keep the hip treads out of the way, and I think it keeps things in-line better than the Titan's approach. The backs of his legs don't open up like the Titans and is arguably less G1 accurate for it, but it's at least visually interesting, distinct from robot or ship mode, and not a big empty hollow space like the Titan. So, even though it's visually distinct, it does have two things in common with the ship mode- it's more cohesive and looks less like a robot sitting down, and you still have to move the chest parts more times that you ideally want to because going from ship to city means raising the chest back up to get the clearance to rotate the waist, and going from robot to city means sliding the chest back and forth twice to keep the sliders lined up with the part the head is on. While the thighs have to be positioned a certain way you can bend the knees however you like, so it's possible to give him more of a G1 spread. Personally, I do like them pointed straight forward. The right side of his chest does still open and have an extendable ramp. It's big enough to drive a Legends-class or smaller car on, like Generations Scamper. However, because of the way it folds up into his chest when it's closed you can't close Scamper in there. Maybe a smaller car, like a Micromaster, would work. Also, while the official transformation has the guns in the towers tucked away you do have the option to slide them out. In addition to the door on his chest, the other side has a fold out door with molded missiles, just like the other versions of Metroplex. Interestingly enough, there's a little door you can open on his arm tower as well. And remember how I said his feet open up? The instructions have them open in city mode, too, although they can't open very far. As for the big red guns, I suppose you could attach them to the arms and have big cannons on the sides of towers, but the instructions have you plug them into the back. I kind of like this. From the front they're basically out of sight, and from the back they remind me of the kind of pipes/struts/geothermal doohickeys you might see on some kind of base or building in some sci-fi movie. And while we're back there, on the left side of his back? There's another door. All these storage spaces, it's really a shame Maketoys didn't give us much to put in them. Where's Scamper, slammer, and Sixgun? So... let me preface this by saying that I've wanted a Utopia for awhile, I'm glad I finally got one, and with the flash sale on ebay I think I got him for a pretty good price (around $310 shipped). I think he's all-around better than the Titan Metroplex- better proportions, better articulation, better aesthetics, better alt modes that don't look like different ways a robot can sit down, scales better with Titan Trypticon. That being said, it's hard to actually recommend Utopia. Today, in 2019, we live in a world where you can buy two-foot-tall MP Omega Supremes for under $300. I just can't say that Utopia is worth the $400-$450 he went for at retail. And really, retail's dried up. While you might get lucky and find one for less on ebay or through a Facebook group like I did, most aftermarket listings I'm seeing are closer to $500-$800. Even though I think it's an inferior toy I think the $100-$150 Generations Metroplex went for at retail was probably a more fair price for what you were getting. Of course, stock of Metroplex has largely dried up, too, and aftermarket prices for any version of the Titan have gotten fairly absurd as well. I guess my recommendation is ultimately this: think about how much you really want a Metroplex. If $300+ is too much maybe try to find a good deal on a version of Titan Metroplex. But if you're going to spend over $300, especially if you're want one badly enough to shell out for some of these aftermarket prices, then Utopia is the superior toy.

If FT's designer is smart, he'd rip off improve on Transportation Captain and call it done. The Captain was already like 90% there. Bigger size, better materials, better tolerances, better proportions, and better paint are all I really want. Yep. Just had a discussion with another guy about that. He prefers more realistic alt modes, and I respect that, but those realistic alt modes just don't look like Blitzwing and Astrotrain to me.

TFCon's going on in LA. Honestly, I haven't seen much new stuff. There is this new Star Convoy coming from MMC, though. Apparently he's called Stellarus Prominon, and he'll be the first figure in an Ocular Max subline called Ocular Max Unlimited. EDIT: Spoke too soon. Zeta is doing Raiden for their next combiner. I've been pretty unhappy with Fans Toys' stuff for the last year or so, but we've been in dire need of a better MP Astrotrain than Chigurh, so I'm going to keep my eyes on Thomas. And Fans Hobby, who you guys should know I adore, announced that they've altered their plans to make a smaller Armada Optimus toy. He's now going in the Master Builder line as MB-15, and his super mode is going to be bigger than Power Baser. Now, for you guys that might not have heard, in addition to my main MP display I have one display just for various Optimus toys. Armada Prime and Star Convoy are big deals for me, then. If Maketoys is still planning on doing Cybertron/Galaxy Force Prime then I kind of just need MP versions of Rid/Car Robots Prime and G2 Hero Prime to die happy.

I know after buying two of the three Micromaster sets in the first wave that I said I wasn't buying any more, that they're just not worth the money. Well, that excludes Soundwave's tapes. Here's Laserbeak and Ravage, the Soundwave Spy Patrol. Now, I kind of like my Ravage a little on the big side (which is why I replaced the official MP with MMC's Jaguar), but I Ravage and Laserbeak both look pretty good with Megatron (sorry, no Soundwave yet). Ravage with the Fall of Cybertron Generations version, the G1 version, the official MP, and the Universe one that came with Hound. And... he's ok. He doesn't have the flatness and the need for add-ons that the G1 toy has. He's not stuck with the weirdly arched back that the Universe version has. He's not a complete mess like the Generations ones. Yes, the MP version is clearly superior, but MP Ravage was sold with red-tape-guy for a lot more than $10, so I expect it to be better. He's got some rotation in the hips, shoulders, knees, and elbows. His neck is hinged at the base and can move up and down. Hasbro even put some little molded guns on his hips and painted them silver. Sure, for a jaguar he's got weirdly large hips/thighs and shoulders/biceps and a lack of a tail... but if he hasn't gone to Earth yet, he wouldn't really be a jaguar, so I'll let it slide. I'm more bothered by the gray peg in the middle of his neck and the lack of black on his feet. Would it have killed Hasbro to put the gray parts on a black sprue and just put some paint on the legs? Laserbeak, with the Generations version, the G1 version, the MP version, and (since I don't have another Laserbeak, but I have something that looks a lot like him) Booster X10 from the 2007 movie Real Gear Robots subline. Laserbeak fares a bit better, I think. He's fairly similar to the G1, just with gray feet, a different backpack (that's sadly lacking in fins and lasers), and a head that's very inspired by his Cybertronian mode from the first episode of the original cartoon. He doesn't have a ton of articulation; the wings can move back and forth, his neck has a pair of hinges for some head motion, and that's about it. But, shy of being able to flap and fold his wings, that's kind of enough. They haven't been to Earth yet, so I don't know what you'd call their alt modes. This is the topside of Ravage, and he's a rectangle. He's smaller than the G1/MP/Universe versions. And he's not round like the Generations version. Again, no Soundwave yet, but I think he's supposed to be able to fit into Soundwave's chest. Topside of Laserbeak. I've got nothing really to add. Flip them over and yeah, they don't have the same smoothness that the top side does, but neither really did MP Ravage. And they're still not really cassettes. Who's to say that on Cybertron that whatever they're supposed to be can't have hollow spaces on one side? You'll notice that they both have flip out pegs, like other Micromasters. You can stick them into any 5mm peg hole on the larger Siege figures and they become "Sonic Drone Armor." I mean... I guess that's fine? One little bonus with that is that if you fold Laserbeak's legs up and peg out you can plug him into a peg hole on Megatron (or presumably Soundwave's arm) and he looks like he's perching there. I'm not really sure how to evaluate these guys. On aesthetics I think they beat out most every official, non-MP version of these characters, including the relatively recent Titans Return versions. They turn into very cassette-esque rectangles, with none of the gimmicks that some of those other versions had. And with a retail price of $9.99 you're not really spending as much for them as the Titans Return versions or the Generations versions. They're not perfect, though, and they don't really do much in either mode. Objectively, they do less than the other Micromasters that I told you were kind of waste of money, and based on that I can't really recommend them on their own merits. On the flip side, if you're planning on getting Soundwave these guys will probably pose pretty well with him, and you can excuse some of their more subjective flaws by reminding yourself that they're pre-Earth. As long as you know what you're getting into, I don't think you'll really be disappointed if you do pick them up.

Yeah. I liked the first two GotG movies, I'll watch the third, and I'll evaluate it as a film separately from what I think of Gunn as a human.

Addendum to my Double Evil review. That's the tank portion of DX9's Gabriel. Double Evil's tank is almost exactly as long (not counting the portion of DE's barrel that hangs over), although Gabriel is wider and taller. Both are heavy. DE's tank (with gun and ramp attached and Giga driving) is about one pound, ten ounces (1.6 pounds) (734 grams). Gabe is around two pounds, four ounces (or 2.25 pounds) (1.02kg).

Since I found the new Siege Deluxes at the Walmart by my friend I decided to shop around, see if I could find any more (or the new Studio Series guys, although I'm really only super interested in Bee Prime and the Constructicons). Tuesday I hit the Walmart near my old apartment in the next township over. Nada. I see guys like Emgo and Peaugh reviewing them, so I'm getting more anxious. I checked Amazon, and found only third-party sellers demanding $50+. I'm not that anxious. Yesterday I tried my local Walmart and Target again. Still no dice (although I was slightly amused to see that the only Siege Voyager and the only Studio Series Voyager and Leader Target had in stock were all different versions of Megatron). Looks like Amazon just got stock of the wave 2 Siege Voyagers, though. On a whim I decided to look before going to bed tonight. $29.99, ships and sold by Amazon. Only minor issue is that even though they're listed as Prime-eligible my order says "arriving Tuesday," but that's still faster than TFSource would get them to me (assuming they got theirs in stock, which so far they haven't) and probably fast enough to beat my local stores. (kind of starting to miss TRU here)

Wrapping up the second wave of Siege Deluxes until I break down and buy Chromia, tonight we're looking at Sixgun. I think Sixgun was always going to be something of a challenge. If you go G1 toy you've got a guy who's literally a torso with guns for arms and legs. He didn't even have hands. Then you had the cartoon, where he had a lot more red on his torso and actual (red) arms that the toy never could. The black guns that made up Sixgun's arms were instead on his shoulders. Plus, the remaining torso didn't turn into a drone or something like Cog that could conceivably have some purpose away from the citybot he came with. It turned into a tower for Metroplex's city mode. I think overall Siege Sixgun hews closer to the toy than the cartoon, adding a cockpit to his torso, reimagining the vents on the sides of his chest as missile launchers, and tweaking the design of his gun arms so that he actually has arms. I think it's fair effective, although I have some quibbles with the colors. I mean, I don't mind the silver on his toes, the black on his ankles, the blue eyes, or the black missiles in his chest breaking up the colors some... no one wants a return to the G1 toy where you had monocolor plastic parts. But I would have liked his mouth plate to be red, white instead of black for the part around his collar, and black arms (although, weirdly enough, a lot of 3P Sixguns have at least some white on his arms). Maybe I'll buy a second one and try painting the arms, at least. Sixgun is a Weaponizer, like Cog, so he doesn't really come with any accessories. Instead, he kind of is one. You can separate him into the the following piece: two small red guns (that are actually a reuse of Siege Sideswipe's red gun), two black guns, two arms that don't totally look like guns without the previous black ones, a chunk of head and chest, a chunk of lower torso and hips that has four hinged barrels and a flip-out 5mm peg, and finally a pair of large guns made from his legs. Sixgun's articulation is a little hampered by the Weaponizer gimmick. His head is on a swivel, no tilt. His shoulders are really 5mm pegs with hinges in his chest. While he can raise them nearly 90 degrees laterally, the shoulder rotation is supplied by the arms rotating around the 5mm peg. This means that he can't both raise and spread his arms. He does have a bicep swivel, and his elbows can bend 90 degrees. No wrist swivels, but he does have a waist swivel. His hips are universal joints that can bend about 90 degrees backward or laterally and slightly more than that forward. High thighs swivel where they plug into the hips. His knees bend 90 degrees. His toes can bend up and down a little, and a hinge gives him 90 degrees of ankle pivot. If you want him to hold a gun the ones that come off of the back of his arm or the red ones on his back have 5mm pegs he can hold. He doesn't have a ton of other 5mm peg holes; one on the front of each forearm, one on top of each of his shoulders, two on his back, and one in each foot. There's also two more barrels like the red ones are plugged into that have 5mm openings, but they're close together and pointed at the ground. Since he's not going to turn into a tower and guns for Metroplex, Hasbro had to come up with something. And they came up with some sort of attack aircraft. And I gotta tell you, I don't think it's hateful. Despite his arms largely copying the shape of the guns that made up the G1 toy's they do have a shape that could pass for VTOL propellers akin to Thrust's. And, while this is the official configuration, there's no reason that you couldn't tweak the placement of some bits. Arguably the biggest flaw with this mode is the large chunk of torso and hips chilling most un-aerodynamically on the underside, but I gotta tell you I don't even hate that. It reminds me a little of the troop-carrying section of a LAAT gunship from Star Wars, or the big boxy cargo section of a Medea from Gundam. I don't think it was intentional, but if you remove his limbs transform the top half of his torso like you would for alt mode but leave it attached to the bottom half of his torso it does still kind of look like the G1 tower mode. And if you rotate one hip out of the way but use the other to fit into the lone available peg hole at that spot then you actually can kind of use him as a tower. And although his limbs are too small to be Metroplex's hand and shoulder guns there are still lots of 5mm peg holes on him that you could still use to attach the rest of Sixgun's parts. Of course, as a Weaponizer Sixgun isn't meant for Metroplex as much as other Siege figures. While you're free to just divvy him up as guns for other guys or to try to find combos of your own I figured I'd at least show off the ones in the instructions, with Sideswipe (since he's the guy they used in the instructions. First up is Defensive mode... which you actually can't do as shown in the instructions, because someone goofed and included four of Sixgun's legs. So, you can either build the backpack like the one on the left and use another set of legs, like Cog's. I don't recommend it, though. It's extremely back heavy, and I don't think even a Voyager would support it all that well. So an alternative would be to use Sixgun's legs as shoes, but move the his arms to the spot on the backpack mode where the legs were. I think that gives him a more balanced look, almost like he's got a jetpack. Offensive mode keeps the shoes and uses arms and lower torso to make a dual shoulder cannon-toting backpack. And the rest turns into some kind of missile shield gun thing. Maybe the Hasbro staff mixed up "offensive" and "defensive." A third mode uses the torso to make a big hand. This is kind of cool, although it doesn't use the little red guns, the arms, or the legs. I don't think that's a big deal, though, because those are basically all the guns that can be carried in a hand with a 5mm peg hole grip. Something that was a little disappointing, but not entirely unexpected, is that Sixgun doesn't work so great with Cog. While both Weaponizers do have a few peg holes, they tend to have more pegs than holes, and the holes they do have tend to be in different spots than the normal deluxes. Their arms connect differently, and their legs are shaped differently enough that the pegs on Sixgun's hips can't reach the holes in Cog's thighs, so they can't even swap limbs. Still, there's stuff you can do with a little creativity... like combine Sixgun and Cog into the ultimate Destroid. Between Cog and Sixgun, I definitely think Sixgun is the better Weaponizer. Due to his G1 self literally being six guns attached to a torso the bits that come off of the Siege version make for better weapons, and his alt mode is somehow more cohesive than Cog's. I'll give Sixgun a recommend, especially if you're curious about the Weaponizer gimmick and never picked up Cog.

Well, Siege is part 1 of a trilogy, and their last trilogy (Prime Wars) lasted over three years. If they do Earth it won't be for awhile. I say buy the toys as they come out, enjoy them for what they are, and worry about future Earth mode versions when and if they actually happen.

I've watched Beast Wars. I'll happily concede that it had some surprisingly mature writing, especially given the time. I'm still very much opposed to robots that turn into organic animals. And while I'm more tolerant of robots that turn into mechanical animals I prefer them in smaller doses among robots that turn into cars, planes, trucks and tanks. My two cents? Forget a Beast Wars movie. Just admit that Bumblebee was a reboot, dump the first five movies, and tell me a good story with transformers that looked like they did in Bumblebee's Cybertron scenes.

Let's continue looking at the second wave of Siege figures with Deluxe-class Ironhide. Right out of the gate, one of the things that immediately grabbed my attention is his size. He's still smaller than a Voyager, but a head or so bigger than Sideswipe, Prowl, or Hound. From what I'm hearing, upcoming Voyagers like Soundwave and Starscream are a little smaller than Megatron and Prime, and that works out to two different sizes for Deluxes, and two different sizes for Voyagers, because the carbots are smaller than guys like Ironhide, Ratchet, and Trailbreaker, who are in turn smaller than Soundwave or the Seekers, who are smaller than Megatron and Optimus. It's an attempt at G1 cartoon scale, and I like it... although I do wonder how Hasbro will approach minibots in this line. There haven't been any announced, but I can't imagine them not giving us a Bumblebee sooner or later. Perhaps they'll add Legends class to the line, or bring back the old Scout class. I also dig the looks of this Ironhide, at least in robot mode. His crotch could have been the same lighter color as his thighs, but it's one of the few attempts to use two gray tones I've seen on an Ironhide toy instead of randomly replacing them with black or more red. His shins are properly long, flat, and red, with only a little unobtrusive kibble on the sides. His torso is dominated by a window, although I'd say he's looking a tad less tubby and a tad more buff than the G1 cartoon. And the head is nigh on perfect... that right there is the face of a bot who's been around the block a couple of times but he's still ready to bust some Decepti-chops. And if you're going to bust Decepti-chops, it helps to have a weapon. This is all Ironhide comes with. It's kind of like a missile launcher, I guess. Ironhide's head is on a ball joint with a little up/down tilt and a little sideways tilt in addition to swiveling. His shoulders rotate and can extend laterally a little over 90 degrees. His biceps and wrists can swivel, and his elbows can bend 90 degrees. His waist can swivel. His hips are universals that can go 90 degrees forward and a bit more than that backward and to the side. His thighs swivel around the hip joint. His knees bend ever so slightly more than 90 degrees. His feet can't tilt up or down, but he does have up to 90 degrees of ankle pivot. And it's there that we run into our first problem... the feet are connected via the hinge that gives him that ankle pivot, and one area Hasbro seems content to cheap out on the Siege toy is putting pins in those hinges. Instead, they use the kind where one part has the two ends of the hinge with little holes in them, in this case the legs, and the other part (the feet) have the middle of the hinge with two nubs. Hasbro's been having problem with tolerances on this line- we've seen that mostly with weapons that all supposedly having 5mm pegs for handles fitting snug into some fists or peg holes but being loose on others, even on the same figure (Cog was a particularly egregious example). It manifested itself on my Ironhide by making the nubs on his right foot slightly too big, warping the plastic on the hinges and leaving the foot prone to popping out. Anyway, Ironhide's got a few 5mm pegs available in robot mode. There are four on the top of his backpack, one in the middle of his back, one on the outside of each shoulder, one on the outside of each forearm, one on the outside of each leg, and one on the bottom of each foot. He can hold his launcher, but the handle is up pretty close to the business end, so he can't bend his elbow without angling the weapon. Also makes me wish for some wrist tilt, but I don't expect it on a $20 Hasbro figure. The peg hole on his back is useful for storage. Alternatively, the business end can fold down, and you can use a different 5mm peg to have Ironhide hold the weapon like a battle hammer. That's pretty cool, but I think I'd have traded the whole thing for a proper gun. Oh well, I guess that's what Weaponizers and Battle Masters are for. I'm not sure what the third peg on the weapon is for. Best I could come up with was to have it hook down into one of the four holes on top of his backpack, again for storage. While we're back there, you can see my next big complaint with this figure, and that's the he hollowness that I kind of thought we were getting away from. It's in his back, his forearms, his thighs, even his freaking hands. And look, on a Deluxe I can forgive a little hollowness if it's kind of necessary for transformation, like Prowl's legs. But what you see here is purely to skimp on plastic. Ironhide's alt mode is sort of like a van, but kind of narrower or shorter. That makes him longer than the other Deluxes (that I have), but there isn't really an illusion of bigness. You're not going to mistake him for a Voyager. And the transformation is kind of interesting in some ways, but kind of frustrating in others. Interesting because of the way his upper body spins at an angle to make the front of the vehicle. I also like how the window has a flush setting for van mode, but notches inside his chest that it slides into to push it out a bit for robot mode. Frustrating because the head has to be in exactly the right spot or the chest window won't close all the way, and because the flaps that are on the sides of his legs pop off super easy. Like his right foot, the nubs in hinges seem a little big for the holes so the ends of the hinges are a little bent. From the front I dig the sleek angles of the windshield and the quartet of bumper blasters coming at you, but the rest is kind of a mixed bag. I mean, I like the silver stripes that are kind of like windows, and the gold stripes that homage the G1 design. His head is super visible through the totally clear window, though. It bugs me, but honestly not as much as if it were an Earth mode; I mean, would he carry passengers there on Cybertron? If not, why can't a robot's head be visible? The wheels are just gray. Ideally I'd want black wheels with silver or gray rims, but I'd have settled for gray wheels with painted rims. His feet are just chilling there; they don't blend with the rest of the vehicle at all (and the toes have some bonus hollowness). I think the worst is his arms, though. The gray on his shoulders is out of place in alt mode, and because his biceps are smaller than his forearms or shoulders the space they occupy is gappy and unfinished. Prime's arms are covered in extra kibble to finish off his alt mode; it's a shame Ironhide couldn't have had a few extra fold out panels to cover at least his biceps. Ironhide's got the four peg holes on his bumper and the ones on the bottom of his feet at the back of the vehicle. While they're great places to use blast effect parts from Battle Masters they're not as useful for plugging in weapons. For that, he's got four on the roof, and that's about it... unless you start transforming him. The back of the roof, the part that makes his shins in robot mode, have a peg hole on the inside. The effect is something like the roof and sides of the vehicle splitting open and deploying a weapon, and I assume that this is what it's intended for. After all, with the panels closed fully for vehicle mode the peg holes are on the inside, and in robot mode that panel is his shin, so the peg hole isn't exposed there either. At the end of the day, I think it's fair to say I have mixed feelings about Ironhide. I definitely appreciate Hasbro's attempt at scale in the Siege line, and he's definitely an improvement over the old Universe Ironhide or the one from Combiner Wars. In some ways I think the robot mode is more aesthetically-pleasing than even something like the iGear version. Compared only to Siege figures, though, and not the older CHUG lines, and Ironhide's seriously disappointing. The alt mode is unfinished and it's distressing to have so many parts popping off due to poor tolerances and a lack of pins in the hinges. But the worst thing is the return of Hasbro's extra cheap, plastic-skimping hollow spots all over Ironhide's back. It feels like a step backward. I'd have gladly traded the sloppy silver weathering on his feet and weapon for a little more plastic in his forearms. Ultimately Ironhide surpasses Skytread and Cog to become my least-favorite of the Siege Deluxes so far. Unless you're all-in on Siege, I can't say I recommend him.

Still hoping to find the wave 2 Siege Voyager soon, but in the meantime here's a look at Deluxe-class Prowl. Sorry I don't have the old Universe Prowl anymore, but here he is with (Reprolabeled) Combiner Wars Prowl. And I think that's actually a good comparison, because it helps highlights both the good and the bad with the newer figure. Good, because in most of the ways where it really counts Siege Prowl really nails the aesthetic. His head isn't sitting up extra high and he's got actual car bumper feet and not the goofiness of Universe Prowl. The colors are mostly placed correctly (he could have used some silver on his thighs and biceps), with some yellow paint highlights and a head sculpt I'd totally accept on an MP. But speaking of that MP, Siege Prowl's torso is nearly as wide, and his head and arms are only slightly smaller. What shrinks Siege Prowl to a size smaller than the last Deluxe-class Prowl is everything from the waist down, and the result is that his upper body and lower body look like they belong to two different Prowls that were part of two different size classes, and that's the bad. For a $20 toy, though, I think the good outweighs the bad, though. This is the best mainline version of Prowl we've got since Classics debuted. Oh, one other subjective complaint. I hate the off-centered Autobot badge on his chest. Really don't know why they couldn't have tampoed it above the black point in the middle of his chest like the MP. I guess because that's how the G1 toy did it. Still, I'm hoping Reprolabels comes up with something to fix it (not holding my breath, though, as it seems like lately their sets have had a lot of busy stuff I don't want while totally missing the few fixes I actually would want). Getting a little off track, so let's look at accessories. He's got his rifle, no surprises there. It has one 5mm peg hole on the top at the back. There's also his lightbar. With Siege's gimmick being multiple peg holes so you can attach multiple accessories it makes a certain amount of sense to make the lightbar an accessory. For one thing, it means you can use it like an accessory and plug it into any 5mm port on Prowl or any other Siege figure. You can even plug it into the one on his gun, and I kind of dig that. I think it will also make repainting the mold for characters like Bluestreak or Smokescreen that much easier. Prowl's head is, I believe, on a ball joint. It swivels, can look up a little bit, down a fair amount, but sideways tilt is negligible. His shoulders rotate and can extend 90 degrees laterally. His biceps swivel, and his elbows bend 90 degrees. He does have both wrist and waist swivels. His hips are universals, and they can a little over 90 degrees in all directions. his thighs swivel around the hip joints, and his knees can bend basically 180 degrees. His feet can tilt down plenty, up a bit, and his ankles can pivot nearly 90 degrees. My biggest complaint with his articulation is honestly just that you can move his wings back and forth on a hinge but you can't tilt them at all like you can on the MP. As I mentioned, you can put his accessories into his hands or any of the other 5mm ports on his person. He's got one on top of each shoulder, one on each forearm, one on the outside of each lower leg, one on his back, and one on each heel. Transformation it pretty good, too. His lower half transforms exactly like you'd expect, although it compresses a lot more than you first think. For the upper body, most of his torso and arms are on a hinge that lift them up and away, leaving just his head on a box, then after you transform it you bring it back down over the head-box, closing the doors and pushing the arms up under the car to finish enclosing it. The result is low, sleek, and noticeably smaller than CW Prowl. Again, though, I think it hits a lot of the right notes. The car has a long nose, and the transformation hinges for his arms even kind of evoke the bulges for the original Datsun's headlights. With the sleeker, futuristic design, the Tesla-esque single window running from the windshield over the roof to the rear window, and the lack of any kind of tail lights I'd almost buy this as a concept car for the next Nissan Z car. Minor subjective complaint, I don't really like the Cybertronian writing and wish he had a more proper police deco (again, maybe Reprolabels), but considering that this is supposed to be pre-Earth it makes sense they did it this way. I'm also not a fan of the headlights. There's some molding there for them, but just this tiny sliver of yellow paint in the corner of the molding. Some blue or silver paint on the rest of it would have really helped. Unlike most of the other Siege figures Prowl doesn't have many 5mm pegs in alt mode. In fact, he's just got the one on his roof, and if you're using it for the lightbar you're really not left with much else. You could plug the lightbar onto his gun, then plug the gun in there. But, the lightbar actually has a squarish hole in it. You can't put a 5mm peg into it, but there is a square tab on his gun that fits into it. That way you can still put his gun onto his alt mode, and you still have the 5mm peg hole on the gun to plug something else into. Well, I like Siege Prowl. He's simple and fun, he's got decent articulation, his car mode is pretty cool, and aside from some minor issues with proportion he looks the part better than Universe Prowl or Combiner Wars Prowl. He'll probably replace Sideswipe as my go-to Deluxe-class Siege figure for comparison shots in future waves. If you're already collecting the Siege figures or just want a good Deluxe Prowl then this one's a safe recommend from me.

Well, there was a flash sale coupon on ebay, 15% off if you used the ebay app. I'm fairly caught up; I have a small backlog of "eh, I'll get around to it someday when there's nothing else I really want" but with the new wave of Siege stuff hitting, a preorder for a Boost reissue that other US retailers already got in, and ShowZ having just requested payment for my preorder on Gigapower's Swoop I really wasn't looking to spend anything. But I decided to browse my saved sellers anyway. Big mistake. One seller had the foot/hip upgrade for Titan-class Metroplex. I don't do a lot of 3P upgrades for official figures, so I figured I'd check out some videos on Youtube. Then somehow ended up checking out some videos for Utopia. I didn't buy him before because I didn't have the money. I later bought the Takara Metroplex because it was slightly cheaper than Utopia's original price, way cheaper than some of the aftermarket prices I saw since stock has mostly dried up, and because I'd picked up Titan-class Trypticon and figured that even though Trypticon was smaller that he'd still size better with Titan Metroplex. But, and I know this is subjective, I think Utopia looks so much better than even the Takara Metroplex. Nice and chunky, like I remember the G1 toy. And yes, he's smaller, but depending on how you pose Trypticon it actually looks like Utopia scales better with him. Long story short, I bought a used Utopia. From a US seller, so hopefully I'll have him late this week or early next.

They just came out with a new Mega Man game. I think Zelda II, when looked at objectively, was a fairly good action game. I just think it would be remembered more fondly of it were a new IP and not a Zelda game. Even at the time I was bothered by the gameplay changes.

You definitely do. Skimming?! ( j/k) They do. The rear wheels hide in doors on the insides of his forearms, and the front gear is in the nose (and possibly partly why he doesn't have the orange cockpit underneath). I agree, it works for the Hasbro version. But the Hasbro version can kind of get away with it because the treads are just molded onto the sides, and the tank is much shorter. Double Evil's real working treads have to fold up and then slide into that space in his calves. It's probably worth pointing out that, even though it adds to the chunk on his legs, it's actually G1 accurate to have the tank halves on the sides. I'd totally buy that, and I'm saying that as someone who doesn't play to buy the Tailgate version. While we're on the subject, I'd have bought MMC's Calidus (IDW Hot Rod) repainted as a Batmobile.

Got and paid my deposit invoice from eknight.

It does look great... for Japanese speakers. As an English Speaker, though, I already have a copy of Transformers Legacy: The Art of Transformers Packaging. It looks like they cover a lot of the same material; Legacy even has the Japan-only stuff. Will this book be hardcover? I guess that would be an advantage, since Legacy looks like it's really only available at decent prices in paperback. Looking at those prices for the hardcover and I can't believe I picked it up for $27 at a used book store.