Jump to content

mikeszekely

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    12708

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Everything posted by mikeszekely

  1. mikeszekely
    As a kid I loved lion Voltron. I wasn't as big on vehicle Voltron, but one day my dad bought me and my brother each a Voltron toy. Turned out he got us each one of the three guys that made up Gladiator Voltron. With only two of the three guys needed to make a whole Voltron, and those two guys being part of the only Voltron without a show of its own, I learned to appreciate the vehicle Voltron a lot more. Or, y'know, pick up the SoC Vehicle Voltron when it hits.
  2. mikeszekely
    I keep mentioning that the movie 1 cast is done in Studio Series as long as you use the Revenge of the Fallen version for Megatron. But you actually do have another option for Megatron- a Leader-class based on Dark of the Moon. Yeah, this new Leader-class is definitely bigger than the Voyager-class from the DotM movie line. In fact, he's a little taller than the previous Studio Series Megatron... but wait a minute! Aren't the Studio Series toys supposed to be in scale? Well, you'll notice that the shape of his thighs naturally push his hips to point a little forward, and if you bend his knees and give him that same slightly hunched over posture as the other SS Megatron then the height difference disappears. So how do you have two figures of similar size, but one's a Voyager and the other is a Leader and costs $20 more? For starters, the newer Megatron is heavier, so I guess there's probably more plastic. And there's more paint, too. RotF Megatron had some copper accents, but DotM Megatron has a ton of copper used to simulate dirt, plus silver, gunmetal, and khaki accents, plus red for his head wound. As far as the sculpt goes, it's alright. I think the animators really just ran with a robot that looks mostly like he did in the previous film but somehow also turned into a truck without really thinking about how that transformation worked aside from replacing his tank tread feet with truck tire feet. And to that end, well, two tires on the inside of the lower leg, one on the outside, that checks out. To be fair, a lot of the sculpted detail on his torso, thighs, and forearms is actually pretty accurate, and even some of the detail on his biceps, shoulders, and shins are trying. Just some of the details are shifted a bit, the proportions a little off, and there's extra kibble giving him more rectangular shoulders and biceps (with wheels) and big, chunky boots. It's not perfect, but it's a lot closer than the older DotM Voyager. Another thing that this Megatron has that the RotF Voyager didn't is accessories. There's the chains he wears on his chest, sculpted in a rubbery plastic. There's his shotgun, cast in gunmetal plastic with silver paint. There's his cloak, done is some kind of cloth material. And there's Igor. I don't really recall much of Igor from the movie... I guess he's supposed to be what's left of Long Haul after RotF, repaired just enough to function as Megatron's pet. There's not a lot to this guy; he's got some paint, his shoulders have ball joints that can swivel and have some limited outward range, and there's a hinge in his hips for his legs to move forward and backward but the legs and hinge are one piece so the legs move together. I'm just going to toss in a box. Megatron's head is on a ball joint, and he can't really look down or tilt his head sideways with it but he's great upward range and he can turn his head left and right about 30 degrees in either direction. His shoulders can rotate and extend nearly 90 degrees laterally. He's got bicep swivels just above his elbows, which bend 90 degrees. No wrist swivels, but on his right hand the whole hand can hinge up and down. His left hand has similar hinges for similar articulation, except that hand isn't one solid piece and his thumb can move separately from his fingers. No waist swivel. His hips can move just under 90 degrees forward, nothing backward. Laterally he can only get about 30 degrees if his hips are in a normal standing position, but as you bend his leg forward you'll get more clearance. When his hip is nearly 90 degrees forward you'll be able to also swing it out 90 degrees laterally. He's got a thigh swivel just above his upper knee which is ratcheted and goes from perpendicular with the thigh to just over 90 degrees backward. The lower knee is also ratcheted and goes from almost 90 degrees backward to about 45 degrees forward. There's another swivel below the lower knee. Sadly, he doesn't really have any ankle articulation. Due to transformation the front of his foot is on a swivel, but the connection is too low into the foot part and on the outside edge of the front of his shins, so swiveling it even a little lifts it off of the ground and above the inner edge of his leg that's actually supporting him. A 5mm peg hole is molded into his right claw so he can hold his shotgun. The chains can wrap over his torso and snag onto hooks on his back kibble; note that the length that looks like two chains goes under his right arm. The cloth hood sits over his head, with a cutout for his left shoulder. I found the cloth to be a little long on the right side, though. As it pushes against his shoulder it tries to push the hood back or up. To keep it really down over his head I found it works best to take the chain that goes over his right shoulder and wrap it over the cloak, pinning it down. Speaking of chains, he can't carry his shotgun on his back with them, but there is a little peg hole on his back. You can use a peg on the shotgun to stow it back there. And you can set Igor up on his back using small pegs that fit into Igor's feet, like a Titan Master. It may also be possible that this Megatron gets to be a Leader-class because his alt mode is pretty big. He completely dwarfs the older Voyager toy. I'm not sure how long a Mac Granite tractor is supposed to be compared to a Peterbilt 379 (I just know they're both Class 8), but Leader Megatron is similar in length measured from the front wheel to the back wheel of his tractor section as Studio Series Optimus. To a layperson like myself that seems like it should be right. The truck mode is much more movie accurate, or at least the tractor section is, than the older DotM toy. He's got the reinforced windshield with the extra rail, the spikes for a sunvisor, and more accurate, more Mad Max spikes on his grill. There's a little molded bulldog on the hood, and it's even painted silver, and again we've got lots of copper paint looking like sandy dirt. Things start to get a little messier as you start to look at the trailer. It's missing spikes, it's missing the spare tire (which maybe makes up for the fact that the DotM Voyager had one on each side, but the actual movie truck only had it on the passenger side). There are some tool boxes and pipes and valves between the tractor wheels and the trailer wheels, but the toy is symmetrical while the actual truck wasn't. The liquid storage tank isn't particularly uniform, either. It starts silver, switches to a dark gray plastic, is interrupted by his robot thighs peeking out, before terminating in a chunk of khaki plastic that doesn't really resemble the tank. The truck is also plagued with visible hollow spaces, most notably in the front of liquid storage tank and the inside of the cab viewed from behind. I really wish HasTak had tried harder to get the liquid storage tank looking more accurate. Just painting it uniformly one color would have helped a lot, but I also would expect some extra panel to cover over his thighs if Has/Tak ever borrowed engineering from this toy to make an MPM version. Fortunately, there is something you can do to cover the worst parts of the tank. Just drape his cloak over it, smashing down the hood, and using the rubber chains to hold it down. Not only does it help hide stuff like the robot thighs, it's a more movie-accurate look even if the truck mode had been perfect. There are more pegs on top of the tank for Igor or a Titan Master to peg onto. As for the shotgun, a slot on one side fits into a tab under the tractor. Just don't look too long, as it's another reminder of how hollow the cab is. On that note, I wish the rear wheels of the tractor locked into place better. They have a tendency to collapse back in under the the vehicle. I've never really been a fan of Megatron in the Bayverse movies. I gather that the designers wanted something that looked like non-biological but still more like an alien life form than a robot, and I guess that's what they got but there was nothing about the design that really said "Megatron" to me. Of the four(ish) versions we got, though, Dark of the Moon's would probably be my favorite as I like the idea that when he finally took an Earth form for his alt mode it was basically an evil counterpart of Optimus'. So, I kind of like this toy. I think it's a major improvement over the older DotM Voyager. I've got mixed feelings about it being a Leader that's a similar size to a Voyager (although, in addition to the other reasons I gave in the review, I could also point out that the RotF SS Megatron was pretty big for a Voyager, especially in the Studio Series, or that spreading the costs over a whole wave or even a whole line might dictate which toys can be large Voyagers and which can be small Leaders). And this figure definitely has some issues that are harder to overlook in a $50 figure than a $30 one. I think the thing is to read or watch reviews (like this one) and be very aware of what it is you're actually getting. Because when I look at this Megatron as objectively as I can there's a part of me that thinks Hasbro should do better at a $50 price point. But on a more personally subjective level I'm actually pretty happy with this figure. So, I can't go so far as to give it a solid recommend, but if after reading this review you still think this looks like a pretty cool figure then maybe you'll enjoy it like I did.
  3. mikeszekely
    That question comes up from time to time, and these days the answer seems to be "because G1". Someone like KFC? Maketoys showed silhouettes years ago that suggested they were in the chain for them, too, but there's been no updates.
  4. mikeszekely
    It could be retailer overstock, or it could be MT made too many and agreed to drop the price to the retailers, either resulting from supply exceeding demand. I don't think that the lack of demand was necessarily "hate"- I think it was fairly well reviewed at the time, but it came at a time when a lot of collectors were really shifting into MP. The Maketoys Technobots were too small, too stylized, and/or used too many ball joints to make that cut for a lot of people. Plus they were facing competition from Warbotron's Technobots... Constructor hadn't set the "MP Combiners are 20 inches!" precedent yet, and between MMC, UT, TFC, Warbotron, and pre-Constructor ToyWorld 13-15 inches was becoming the 3P combiner standard and the MT/FP combiners were starting to seem undersized. I bought it a few years ago, later bought the Warbotron ones, and I eventually sold Quantron (along with Guardia and M3). It came down to a couple of factors, I guess. I really liked the alt modes on MT's Strafe and Afterburner, but the engineering on Strafe was really behind the times. Their Scattershot was pretty cool, but built as if G1 Scattershot was Bruce Banner and MT's was the Hulk. And I found their Lightspeed and especially their Nosecone to have fiddly engineering that I just didn't think was any fun to mess with. Add in the fact that the four limb-bots were all smaller than your average Hasbro Deluxe at the time, and the combined mode was smaller than the average 3P combiner at the time (although the combined mode was honestly really good), and I just wasn't satisfied with it. I greatly preferred the engineering, size, and stronger G1 aesthetic of the Warbotron Technobots, even if the combined mode didn't look as good. And now I guess I'm waiting for Zeta to do a 20" pantsforming Computron...
  5. mikeszekely
    What was the Black Friday price? He's in stock for $200 at TFSource.
  6. mikeszekely
    I'm going to try to get it from the first store that has preorders.
  7. mikeszekely
    If bikes are your thing, keep an eye out for this guy.
  8. mikeszekely
    With Barricade out of the way we can complete the '07 movie cast with Studio Series Voyager-class Bonecrusher. In terms of height to the head Voyager Bonecrusher isn't much taller than the '07 Deluxes. The newer figure is carrying a lot more girth, though. Girthy enough that the Voyager label feels fair? Well, that's debatable, I suppose. I'd say he's pushing it, but given how diminutive a lot of the Studio Series Deluxes are I think I'm ok with it. The important thing is that he looks a lot better than the old Deluxe. The overall proportions are better, and there's kibble flaps hanging off of his arms. The head is just about perfect. And while in some ways Bonecrusher exemplifies the worst of the Bayformer designs with lots of jagged edges and very few bits easily identifiable as part of the alt mode, SS Bonecrusher does a pretty good job of getting those few bits and getting them in the right places- tires in the heels, tires outside his knees, tires in the hips, windows near his shoulders. Maybe I'd expect more out of an MP-scaled figure, but for a Voyager I'd say this is definitely good enough for me. My only real complaint is that the forks on his back stick up too far, because the arms they're mounted to are too long. Ok, accessories. Well, Bonecrusher doesn't have any. I guess in lieu of accessories I'll give you guys a picture of the '07 movie Decepticons* together. *Except, again, Megatron's technically from Revenge of the Fallen. Bonecrusher's articulation isn't half bad. His head swivel, although given how his neck is mounted it's more like a sideways tilt. But there is a joint that lets him swing his head from left to right a bit, just nothing up or down. His shoulders can rotate, and there's actually two hinges that combine to give him nearly 180 degrees of lateral movement. Plus, due to transformation, there's a butterfly hinge that brings his shoulder around almost over his face. His biceps can swivel, and his elbows can bend 90 degrees. Weirdly, his whole forearm can bend, or just the inner silver part, but either way it caps at 90. His claws are hinged so they can open and close. No waist swivel. His hips can go over 90 degrees forward, backwards, and laterally. His thighs can swivel, and his knees can bend 90 degrees. He doesn't have any up/down tilt on his feet, and his front toe is fixed, but the rest of his foot is hinged and acts like an ankle pivot. Again, he doesn't have accessories, but he does have 5mm peg holes on his forearms if you found something you wanted to mount. I guess his weapon is meant to be his forks. Which can hinge up and over to jab at things in front of him. The two sides can stretch up and connect for added reach. The forks can swivel, too, so you can make them like a grabbing claw. Considering how stumpy his legs are and the lack of a waist swivel I was pleasantly surprised to find that you can get him in some decent poses. That butterfly shoulder really helps get him in that about-to-shoulder-check-a-bus pose. What problems I ran into were less about the range of the joints and more about their tolerances, as wider hip stances would sometimes find him doing the splits. As good as Bonecrusher's robot mode turned out to be, his vehicle mmode is kind of a letdown. It's a little bigger than the Deluxe, sure, but not by as much as you'd think. And it really isn't any more detailed. In fact, it's missing the little Bonecrusher logo that the Deluxe has. Plus, like I said before, the arm with the minesweeping claw is way too long. It never looks right, and it's a little too heavy for the hinges. It rolls, somewhat poorly, with a little less clearance that you really want for his robot hands under the rear of the vehicle. But you can fold over the minesweeper claw. I don't know what more I could say. It's not really even that his alt mode is bad, it's just kind of underwhelming. Underwhelming alt mode or not, I think the robot mode is surprisingly good. Bonecrusher was probably my least favorite Transformer in the '07 movie, I was definitely picking him up just to complete the cast. After how mediocre Brawl was I didn't have particularly high hopes, but Bonecrusher came away as a surprisingly fun figure. I think he's worth a recommend.
  9. mikeszekely
    Speaking of cars in the Bayverse, one of the last year's Studio Series announcements that I'd been really looking forward to was Barricade. Not only would he bring me closer to completing the movie 1 cast* (aka the important ones; everyone else is just gravy), but Barricade was my favorite Decepticon in the film. Now he's here, so let's take a look. *Yeah, yeah, technically that Megatron is from Revenge of the Fallen, but they're both silver with ugly heads and busted metal whisks for hands, so unless HasTak does a movie 1 SS Megatron RotF Megatron will do. Like many of the other Studio Series Deluxes Barricade is a pretty small figure, roughly even in height with Bumblebee and a head shorter and noticeably less massive than the '07 Deluxe. Aesthetically he's hitting a lot of hte marks with his weird legs, foot spikes, long arms decked in car panels, and squished up car chest. His forearms are a little hollow, and that hollowness is exacerbated a bit by some of that forearm being clear plastic, but he's arguably not worse than the Studio Series toy in that regard. He's even got those trapezoidal panels on his shoulders. One of my main gripes are a lack of paint; his face looks fantastic, but the lack of silver and blue on his body leaves him almost entirely black his neck to his feet, and what gray there is is to break it up in gray plastic, used incorrectly in the case of his biceps and knee joints. My other complaint would be that he's kind of lacking the window wings. I mean, they're there, but they're tiny flaps of rubbery plastic that jut almost straight out the back like vestigial lumps of what they really should be. I also think his chest could be a little bigger, but overall it's a huge aesthetic improvement over the '07 toy, and indeed a better overall appearance than pretty much any Barricade short of MPM-05. Barricade's sole accessory, much like MPM-05, is his spinning wheel of death. It's totally unpainted, but it'll do, I guess. The spikes are a soft, rubbery plastic. Barricade's head is on a ball joint with a little up/down tilt, although his chest and the peg are kind of at an angle so it's up to you I guess how much of that tilt is up and how much is down. He's got just a touch of sideways tilt, too, and he can swivel his head but the angle of the peg makes it look like his simultaneously tilting his head forward. His ball jointed shoulders can swivel and bend about 45 degrees before his shoulder kibble hits his head. Due to transformation he's got a backwards butterfly. His biceps swivel, just be mindful of the door kibble that gets caught up on his shoulders. A transformation hinge bends his elbows in toward his body, and the actual elbow bends over 90 degrees. No wrist swivels, but his claws can open and close a little. No waist swivel. His hips are ball joints that can go 90 degrees forward, about 60 degrees backward, but is extremely and disappointingly limited to just a moderate A-stance laterally. He also doesn't have any thigh swivels except the limited motion of the hips around the ball joints. Due to his weird leg design he's got two knee joints. The upper knee goes from about 90 degrees forward to 45 degrees backward. the lower knee has the same range in the opposite direction. His feet have excellent up/down tilt, but no ankle pivots. Truth be told, I find the articulation to be pretty limited, and it's hard to have him do more than stand around. Unlike the MP toy there's no half-transformation to make the spikey wheel look like part of his arm. There's just a 5mm peg at the end, and half circles in his claws that make a 5mm peg hole when they're closed. Barricade's transformation is like a simplified version of MPM-05's, so there aren't a lot of surprises. The resulting car is small, slightly shorter than Bumblebee and maybe 60% of the size of the '07 Deluxe. It doesn't have the inaccurate '643' on the bumper, the "Police" on the rear spoiler is facing the correct way, and he's got the '9-1-1' markings that the '07 toy was lacking. Translating the MPM's engineering, even if it is simplified, to a figure this small does leave some fit and finish issues. My copy has trouble keeping everything tabbed in properly. The other big issue with the car mode is, again, the lack of paint. The headlights are unpainted black plastic. Although they're molded in, the orange lights in front of the front tires and the red lights behind the rear tires are unpainted. There's also nothing in the license plate area. Barricade can use his spiked wheel in car mode. Under the front bumper is a deep groove that the 5mm peg lays sideways in. Getting it back out can be a bit of a chore. If you've been collecting the Studio Series then at this point Barricade is kind of a must-have, as he's one of the last two figures needed to complete the movie 1 cast. But I feel like HasTak knows that and is taking advantage of it, because what they've given us is a figure with a pretty strong sculpt that will look good with the other figures on a shelf, but kind of a lousy toy with poor articulation and poor fit and finish. And at the risk of sounding like a certain masked YouTube reviewer, the lack of paint is a real disappointment. I mean, if you're going to charge me $20 for an undersized Deluxe that's fine if I feel that money went somewhere. Jazz is a great example; he's tiny, but almost all the silver on him is paint. I'm not asking that the whole toy be painted black, but picking out the lights on the car and adding some silver and blue on the robot would have gone a long way toward helping me forgive some of his other shortcomings. Like I said, you pretty much have to get him if you're like me and want to complete the cast, but know that you're in for a disappointment. And if you're not serious about collecting the whole cast then he's an easy pass.
  10. mikeszekely
    Difficult to say. As designed, I'm thinking not. But if the inside were more hollow, then probably yes. The barriers seem to be structural support. I guess the question is whether the inside could have been designed differently to accommodate the nose and maintain the same structural integrity. I'm not an engineer, though, so I can't really answer that.
  11. mikeszekely
    Perhaps because it has to fold inside the fuselage for transformation?
  12. mikeszekely
    According to XTB, their Menasor will be 49cm. This Superior is 50cm, so it should be close. Of course, we're just taking XTB at their word until they actually show more of their prototype.
  13. mikeszekely
    $50 seems a little steep, since it's based on CW Onslaught/Hot Spot.
  14. mikeszekely
    While I don't think it's impossible to make transformers with good jet modes, given enough engineering, I think the Aerialbots are always going to suffer for the fact that they need enough mass to form Superion's limbs. And frankly, even if he didn't have to combine, I think Silverbolt's always going to be a challenge. An actual Concorde is really mostly a long, relatively narrow tube with some delta wings along the sides. Even the engine nacelles, as big as they relative to a human, are fairly small and flat compared to the tube of the Concorde's fuselage. Anyway, speaking of Superion's limbs, let's put together Zeta Toy's Kronos. First we've got the legs. Mostly they're what you'd expect, although they both have tricks to hang their tails and noses lower than they sit for robot mode so they don't hinder the knees. The connection to the feet works the same on both: ridges on the inside of the leg-bot's legs grab onto the edges of the ankle base, then the leg bot slides back over a tab and another piece folds up and tabs over the front. The connection is very secure. The knee is also very secure. The leg-bot's backs open up, and a diecast bar fits inside Then hinges fold down and double peg into the leg-bot's shoulders. Nothing's going to pop out the way it does on Zeta's Bruticus (especially Swindle). With most of the torso already a complete partsforming chunk Silver Arrow curls up into a block in much the same way that Zeta's Onslaught does. Once you have him in the right shape the grooves on his crotch slide over rails inside the torso, then a flap at the top of the chest folds down over some pegs on top of Silver Arrow. Despite those being the only two points where Silver Arrow is physically connected everything is pretty tight, and it takes some force to get Silver Arrow back out. Then we have the arms. On paper they're pretty easy to get into arm mode, as it's mostly jet mode with the noses and tails put back into their robot mode positions and elbows deployed from inside their torsos. In practice you're getting the joints out of those torsos that already had clearance issues folding in the arms and chest flaps, plus now you have to feed the robot heads back into the cavities the combiner elbows just vacated and get the combiner pegs out. Not super hard, just a little more frustrating than it really needed to be. Once they're all set you stick the hand on by wedging the connector into slots on the insides of the arm-bot's legs. then you open the flaps on the combiner ports on the torso, slide them into place, and close the flaps back up to lock everything in. Last but not least you put a head on. Like their Bruticus, the head has a large peg at the base of the neck that fits into a peg hole on the torso. This time Zeta gives you two heads. One is based on the Studio OX art and has an actual face painted in silver, translucent red eyes and a translucent red piece in the forehead, more molded detail, and yellow paint on the antenna. For that head, I'm not a fan of the red. Studio OX Superion should have blue eyes. As for the other head, the bigger visor, mouthplate, yellow plastic antenna, and simpler molded detail is very accurate to the cartoon, but the silver face needs to be darker, and the translucent red eyes look dead. So neither head is perfect, but cartoon head for me, thanks. And now we finally have the combined Kronos, and that's a really impressive Superion. Ok, Fireflight's horizontal stabilizers don't magically turn white with his wing details and his wings don't magically turn red, and Air Raid and Skydive don't magically become identical bricks with slightly different planes on the calves. And the molded detail, especially on the knees and chest, is definitely more Studio OX than G1 cartoon. But it's still undeniably Superion, with some pretty great proportions at that. The brickish shapes that kind of spoiled the jets, especially the F-15 and F-16, work great for limbs, and the V-shape torso that looked off on Bruticus is just right for Superion. Also, if you want a cleaner look on his limbs, you can remove the wings from the jets and just stash them somewhere. I mean his head, shoulder connections, the entire front of his torso, his hips, pelvis, thighs, knees, hands, and feet are all partsforming; if you're cool with that, I don't imagine that removing some parts would bother you much. As far as accessories go, you can take Silver Arrow's gun, fold the barrel in half, then open the cannon and tuck Silver Arrow's gun inside. I like this. It gives Silver Arrow a cartoon-accurate gun and Superion a toy-accurate bigger gun, and it's much more effective than Hasbro's method. When the gun is inside the cannon you can flip down a large handle with tabs on that fit into Kronos' palms, which is really no surprise. But, whether intentional or not, you can also leave Silver Arrow's gun out of the cannon, then use a 5mm peg on the cannon to either plug into a peg hole on Fireflight's wing if it's attached or the peg hole his wing plugs into if it's not attached. That gives him a cartoon-style arm cannon. Then as far as articulation goes, Kronos' head can swivel on the peg it attaches with, and a hinge inside his neck lets him look up a great deal and down enough. His shoulders can rotate on the same kind of ratchets that Constructor and Armageddon use (in fact, the arms are interchangeable between the three); you don't actually turn them on the ratchet, you pull the shoulder out, turn it to the position you want then let the spring inside pull it back into place. The little wings on his chest are hinged and will move out of the way. His shoulders move laterally 90 degrees on ratchets in the combiner pegs. Both arms have bicep swivels above the elbow joints; just be careful as the arm-bot's hips can get caught up on the jet kibble on their backs, especially Slingshot's. The elbow on Fireflight can bend 90 degrees with no problem, and the one on Slingshot can get close to that but comes up a little short because of the VTOL nozzle. There's a second swivel below the elbow, and a swivel at the wrist. The wrists can also bend up and down on ratchets. The thumbs are connected to the hand on a hinge that moves the thumb across the palm and a swivel that spins the thumb on the hinge. It also two knuckle hinges. The fingers are hinged at the base, with swivels just above the base that splay the fingers apart. Then there are additional hinges at the middle and top knuckles on each finger. He's got a ratcheted waist swivel, and a small ratcheted ab crunch. His hip skirts have hinges to fold up, but just like Constructor and Armageddon they can also swing to the side to give the hips extra clearance. The hips themselves can go 90 degrees forward or backward on ratchets, and over 90 degrees laterally on some scary tight ratchets that require quite a bit of force to move. The thighs swivel around the hip joints. The knees can bend over 90 degrees on ratchets. The feet have ratcheted ankle pivots that get about 90 degrees, and ratcheted toe tilts that bend up. He's quite possibly the best-articulated combiner to date, honestly, but articulation is only as good as stability. Proponents of Zeta's so-called "pantsforming" argue that making the waist, hips, pelvis, thighs, and knees a separate piece just for combined mode makes the gestalt more stable, but that claim was definitely dealt a blow by Armageddon being far more difficult to balance than designs like Unique Toys' Bruticus or Generation Toy's Devastator. Fortunately, that's not the case with Kronos. He's still slightly back heavy and can lean that way, but he doesn't have those same huge cannons dragging him down, and Silver Arrow doesn't seem to stick out as far in the first place. There's also not nearly as much play between ratchet clicks in the hips and knees, and the ankles connection is much more secure. It takes some work to pose him; a figure this size with heavy ratchets for most of his joints is just kind of unwieldy. But balancing him after I had him in a pose wasn't a problem. Zeta's individual Aerialbots might not be worth picking up as standalone figures (except Silver Arrow). Down the road I'll keep an eye on FansToys to see if they can do better in that regard. But I think you should still definitely pick up this set for the combined mode. The partsforming element isn't going impress anyone with the engineering, but the completed Superion is well-proportioned, sturdy, posable, stable, and big in a way that puts it ahead of Constructor or Armageddon. In fact, I find myself thinking of him less as a combiner and more as one large robot, like the various MP Omega Supremes. Oh, and one more thing... Well, this is what color I wound up going with. I think I'd have liked it a little lighter, but it was basically this (metallic black), slate gray, or silver. At least this has a sheen to it that does set it apart from the rest of the helmet.
  15. mikeszekely
    What color do you think Superion's face is in the cartoon? Black, or dark gray?
  16. mikeszekely
    Well, before we can do Superion, we gotta do Silverbolt. So let's take a look at Zeta's Silver Arrow. So yesterday, when I wrote about Downthrust (Skydive), I said "while I tend to think Zeta did better with their Aerialbots than they did their Combaticons I'm still not convinced Zeta's designers have what it takes to make an individual toy that's on the same level as MMC, FansToys, DX9, X-Transbots, etc." And I'm thinking I might have to walk that back a bit. I mean, that's really good-looking Silverbolt. I mean, there are things I could single out as being not totally cartoon accurate like the little bits of red on his abs, the smoked translucent panels on his chest, pelvis, and knees, the fact that his shoulders aren't black behind the faux molded wings, or differences in Silver Arrow's molded detail vs the linework on the cartoon. But given that there are people nitpicking the prototype of Fanstoy's Silverbolt I feel pretty comfortable not pouring over every detail and calling out the minutia that's not 100% animation accurate on Silver Arrow. Instead, I'll point out that the colors are actually quite good, he's got possibly one of the best head sculpts Zeta's done (and almost definitely the best one they've done that doesn't have a faceplate), and the proportions are good. His feet are diecast, and there are some metal parts in his backpack. He doesn't have a ton of paint, but what he's got is applied well. For a character that always seems to be a robot with a jet hanging off of his back, Silver Arrow's back is even remarkably clean. Different, but not necessarily worse than what FansToys is doing (based on renders). Honestly, my only real aesthetic complaint is that I think he's too tall. You can see he's maybe half a head or so taller than MS-01, and certainly taller than his teammates. And given how much of the combined mode torso is a separate partsforming piece it just doesn't seem necessary to make Silver Arrow that big. Speaking of, yeah, Silver Arrow comes with a gun, some screw hole covers, a big cannon, two hands, two heads, two feet, and a chunk that's probably half of Superion. That piece is the knees, thighs, hips, pelvis, waist, the entire front of his torso, some of his sides, his collar, and the connection points for the arm bots. Maybe, like the torso chunk for their Bruticus, it can do something besides wait to be combined. The sides do fold in, and the top of the chest can fold back and in. But it's not mentioned in any of the instructions. Regardless, we'll save our discussion on most of this for later. For now, we're really just looking at the gun on the bottom left... ...which he holds just fine, using the same method as the other four of a tab in the palm and a slot on the gun handle. And as far as articulation goes, Silver Arrow's head is on a ball joint that has pretty good up/down/sideways tilt in addition to rotation. His shoulders are ratcheted for rotation, and due to transformation there are actually a couple of hinges you can use to get his arm out 120 degrees laterally. His biceps can swivel. He's got a ratcheted elbow that can bend 90 degrees, but there's another ratcheted hinge just below the bicep swivel that can be used as a second elbow joint so he can curl his arm up almost to 180 degrees. His wrists swivel, and his hands are the usual Zeta fair with a ball-jointed thumb and individual fingers pin-hinged at the base and friction hinged mid knuckle. He's got a waist swivel, although it can get caught up on his backpack. His hip skirts are hinged and move to accommodate his hips moving 90 degrees forward or backward and over 90 degrees laterally, all on ratchets. His thighs can swivel around his hip joint so there's not cut thigh. His knees bend a little over 90 degrees on a ratchet. His foot articulation is limited to the diecast part at the front, but it can bend up, down, and turn like an ankle pivot. Perfectly adequate, on the whole. Silver Arrow turns into a Concorde, and not merely something with a vaguely Concorde shape. And I have to say that I think Zeta did a pretty fair job with it, too. Given the shape of a Concorde it seems like it's nearly impossible to make anything other than a plane with a lump of robot kibble underneath and we definitely got that here. The thing is, I think Zeta did a pretty good job of keeping it all underneath. If you were to look straight down at him I don't think you'd see any robot kibble. That's more than I could say for G1, Combiner Wars, TFC, Jujiang, or (judging by the renders) even Fanstoys. Another look, from the bottom, to help illustrate how everything moves to stay under the wings. Even the corners of his shoulders hinge up and around to sit on top and stay under the wing, plus the details inside look kind of like intakes. I'll go one step further and argue that this is definitely still a big chunk of robot kibble strapped to the bottom of a plane the torso changes shape enough, the biceps, thighs, feet, and hands are all hidden away, the shins tuck into the pelvis enough with the arms snuggly alongside that it's not super obviously a robot. Some effort still goes into transforming him. Not too much, though. Like Zeta's other figures there's a lot of panels you have to unfold, it's just not hanging off his arms and lower legs. So most of the transformation is really about unfolding the stuff that's tucked away and then lining up all the panels. The hardest parts are giving yourself the clearance to close the lower legs over the thighs Combiner Wars-style and making sure that the shoulder joints are all bent in the right ways so that the arms line up properly. He of course does have landing gear. There are 5mm peg hole sunder the cockpit and on the underside of each wing. You can use the one under the cockpit to store a gun, including the big cannon. The ones under the wings are for the big cannon; the wings on the smaller gun don't give it the clearance to fit. However, there are ridges on the gun, and notches on the underside of the thrusters at the back of the wings, and you can use them to attach the gun there. And, because this is a Concorde, the nose can drop down. I'd have to say, my only real complaint about Concorde mode is the deco. It just looks a little bland, and what is "Mission Cyber" anyway? Gold stripes down the sides, or at least gold windows and a gold stripe on the tail, would have gone a long way toward making Silver Arrow look more like Silverbolt. Oh, and for the curious, from the tip of his nose to the tip of his tail Silver Arrow is almost as long as FansToys' Phoenix. Phoenix is wider, much heavier, and has a bigger wingspan, though. I'm just going to come out and say it. Silver Arrow is good. And not "good enough," or "it doesn't matter because it's all about combined mode." Silver Arrow is Zeta proving me wrong and making a good standalone Masterpiece figure. I definitely recommend him. If you want a Masterpiece Silverbolt then Silver Arrow is your guy. He's good enough that I'm tempted to buy a second one to display uncombined, something I'm definitely not doing for the other four. My only serious complaint is that the clips that hold the sides of his backpack together have a tendency to come loose when you're manipulating him, but they're not so loose that they'll fall out while he's just sitting on a shelf so it's just a matter of clipping the backpack back together after you pose him.
  17. mikeszekely
    Not exactly. As you noted it's still a better Voyager-class figure than anything Hasbro had released in years. It's just that compared to the other Siege figures it has more of the loose joints and hollow spaces that were endemic of the pre-Siege stuff, and he suffered from some questionable design choices like the lack of a locking point for the neck and the goofy gun sword that's necessary for the alt mode. Personally, I'd say the highlights are Prime, Sideswipe, and Shockwave (although you have to accept that the latter is really a Voyager with a bunch of accessories and not really a Leader).
  18. mikeszekely
    Well, I know we're only one wave in, but Megatron is possibly the worst of the bunch.
  19. mikeszekely
    Actually, I caught Skully's review of New Age's Prowl, and he's thinking that NA might be in a smaller scale than IF/DX9. Yeah, it's definitely made getting into the Legends stuff sort of a challenge. There's just no clear MP-10 benchmark to measure against like there is for MP.
  20. mikeszekely
    I'm finally nearing the end of this voyage. This is Zeta Toys Downthrust, their take on Skydive. I mean, I think I'm inclined to be more forgiving of this guy than the other Zeta Aerialbots just because his arms and legs are black and gray instead of white and silver. Zeta gave him a fairly cartoon-accurate head, which is fine, and cartoon-style black feet, but from the neck down he's still more toy-inspired. He's got none of the gray the cartoon had on his arms, the black on his chest doesn't come all the way down to his pelvis, he's got smoked translucent plastic on his chest and hips where the G1 toy had stickers, and his kneepads are clear translucent over a yellow field with a red stripe that's very in keeping with the yellow and red stickers on the G1 toy's knees. Ultimately I don't think this is my ideal Skydive, but he's definitely a step up from the Combiner Wars or TFC versions. As far as accessories go, just like the other Aerialbots he's got his gun and a pair of c-clipped racks for holding his four missiles. He also comes with a new cartoon-style head for Zeta's Air Raid. The sculpt is kind of so-so, and it could use some blue paint on top of the head, but I like it a lot better than the default head. So I guess my Aerialbot limbs are going three cartoon, and one toy. Downthrust uses the same basic engineering as their Air Raid. Head is on a ball joint that can only look up and down a little without pushing his chest compartment open, but he's got more than enough sideways tilt to go with his neck rotation. His shoulders rotate and extend laterally 90 degrees. His biceps swivel, and his elbows bend 90 degrees. His wrists swivel. Each finger is a separate piece, with a ball joint at the base of the thumb, pin hinges at the base of the fingers, and friction hinges at the mid-knuckle. His waist can swivel. His hip skirts can swing up so his hips can move just under 90 degrees forward, 90 degrees backward if you move his back kibble out of the way, and a little over 90 degrees sideways. Sideways movement is on a soft ratchet. Knees bend 90 degrees on a ratchet. His ankles are ball joints so his feet can tilt up, down, pivot a little under 45 degrees, and swivel. His gun handle has slots in it that fit on tabs in his palms. The peg holes under his wings are kind of obscured due to how they fold, but you can stick them into holes on top of his shoulder pads if you like (I like to toss them back in the box). Downthrust turns into an F-16, of course. And... I think this is probably the worst of the jets. Like, due to being proportionally thicker in the first place Zeta had an easier time pulling off the F-4 and Harrier, and while their Air Raid couldn't hide his block of robot as well he still looked pretty good from the top. But this... I don't know. I mean, I know there's been a lot of versions and revisions to the F-16 over the years, and it looks like Zeta hodge-podged features from a couple of different ones to come up with one that just looks wrong to me. And I'm not sure what's going on with those ridges on the nose. Plus, of all the jets so far, this is one that hides the robot kibble the worst. But hey, he's still got working landing gear. And like his mold mate, the front landing gear is spring loaded, super annoying, and requires half untransforming the nose of the jet to access. The canopy opens. And they did do a pretty nice job painting the afterburner. There's two peg holes on the underside of either wing that you can use to plug in his gun or the missile racks. Curiously, though, there's no missiles for the hardpoints on the wing tips. An F-16 just looks naked without them. There's also the peg holes on his robot shoulders, in front of the wings. And he's got a spring loaded point on his crotch that's compatible with the ToyWorld/Zeta bases. With Zeta's Aerialbots it seems like you have two choices. You can either favor the arm-bots for having the better plane modes, or you can favor the leg bots for having better feet and a smoother transformation. And while I tend to think Zeta did better with their Aerialbots than they did their Combaticons I'm still not convinced Zeta's designers have what it takes to make an individual toy that's on the same level as MMC, FansToys, DX9, X-Transbots, etc. They make robots that are bricks that convert into alt modes that are bricks. However, it could be argued that this is to the benefit of their combined modes. While that might be the case here, taken only as an MP Skydive I don't think Downthrust quite makes the cut.
  21. mikeszekely
    Which one? 01, the first release? Or 27, which is basically the same toy, just with some darker gray parts and some painted rust on the car? And let's not forget that 18 was Volkswagen Bee, and 26 is WWII Bee. Or that 15, 19, and 20 are special editions of either old Camaro or Volkswagen Bee. 6 out of 47 known SS releases are Bee, but none of them are the new Camaro Bee he used in half of the 07 movie, RotF, and with a few mods in DotM.
  22. mikeszekely
    Maybe I've just watched too much Gundam, but I kind of don't. If anything, I'm kind of thinking the opposite. It's more frustrating to me to be plodding along and swinging a melee weapon like a middle-aged woman braining a cheating husband with a frying pan when I expect to be dashing in and slicing enemies to ribbons. I guess it's the difference between expecting the game to be more like Armored Core or more like Zone of the Enders. Then again, with parts already being listed as light, normal, and heavy, there's really no reason why the designers couldn't incorporate both.
  23. mikeszekely
    Got my Combat Hero Megatron today. I'm not going to write a full review, because 99% of him is the Siege Megatron we already looked at, just in a different color scheme. That color scheme is based on 1995's unreleased G2 Combat Hero Megatron, which was an unreleased repaint of '94's Hero Megatron, which itself was basically a smaller, purple version of the original G2 Megatron toy with a new air-pump missile firing gimmick. Which makes this deco sort of an odd choice. Don't get me wrong, it's not a bad deco, but I wonder if it wouldn't have appealed to a wider audience if it hadn't been released in purple as regular Hero Megatron or Archforce, or in green as regular G2 Megatron or Megastorm, instead of an homage to a toy that never came out. The one actual new part on this guy is his head. Instead of the furrowed brow and deep scowl of regular Siege Megatron's decidedly G1 head, or even the slightly more detailed but basically the same head used on the original unreleased toy, this Megatron is sporting a very Alex Milne Megatron Origin sort of look. Which begs the further question, why a deco of an unreleased G2 toy instead of doing a deco based on Megatron Origin? Questions about the choice of deco aside, at the end of the day it's still Siege Megatron. That means he's got the strengths of the original figure, like a strong Megatron sculpt, good articulation, and a very Megatrony fusion cannon. He's got some of the same weaknesses, too, like the weird locking ankle pivots, hollow spaces, the lack of a locking point to keep the head from sinking into the chest, and (subjectively) the fact that his other weapon would be much better without the blades. In fact, while I think that was true for the original version, it's doubly true for this version because Hero Megatron sported a pair of clips on his turret for missile storage. Those clips were on his arms in robot mode, so the stored missiles almost looked like fusion cannons on both arms, so a cannon on both arms of this Megatron would be appropriate. One thing this Megatron did improve from the original release, though, is the joint tolerances. While Siege has definitely been better than previous Hasbro lines in that regard, Siege Megatron was something of a weak spot for me with floppy hips and loose heel spurs. All that's been fixed on Combat Hero Megatron. Everything is so nice and tight on this guy that I have half a mind to buy another one, repaint him in G1 colors, and toss my actual Siege Megatron. Tank modes. No further comment. So yeah, I don't know that this deco will appeal to everybody, but if it appeals to you know that my original Siege Megatron review applies, but that the joint tolerances are greatly improved.
  24. mikeszekely
    I think maybe so are Magic Square. If that's how big Tyrant is with Dutch, I think he's going to be too short to go with Magic Square's Legends-scale Optimus.
  25. mikeszekely
    And we're wrapping up the Monsterbots tonight with Generations Select Prime Wars Trilogy Deluxe-class Repugnus. HasTak went for the hattrick on the Twinferno mold, as once again Repugnus is borrowing some parts and engineering (although I can't help but notice little things like the fact that the shins are actually remolded and not straight up repainted). But as with Grotusque it's a surprisingly effective remold that hits the sort of notes you'd expect in a Repugnus. Of course, there are still some questionable choices. His hip joints are brown instead of white, and he's got white hands instead of red. The brown parts at the end of his shins could have been red. There's no black on his arms (although that matches The Headmasters), and instead of a white block on his abs he's just got a little red nub. Finally, he's missing some back kibble that the G1 toy had, but I'm by no means complaining about that. One other, more subjective complaint would be his face. He's too handsome. It's actually pretty G1 toy accurate, but he looks so out of place with his buddies. Surprisingly, Repugnus doesn't come with the same guns as the other Monsterbots. Instead, he's got a pair of swords cast in translucent green with brown paint. I guess the idea is that they're poisonous? The swords do still connect together like the guns did, forming a sled-like conveyance for his Titan Master. Once again, the Hasbro name is the fairly meaningless "Dastard," but it's really a third Battle Beast. That's Hedgehog in The Headmasters, Prickly Porcupine in the West. And this being from the same Generations Selects that gave us Prime Wars Trilogy Blast Off, Repugnus also comes with a Prime Master. This one is Solus Prime. I don't really have much to say about her. Prime Masters that turn into symbols and get stuck in combiner feet aren't as cool as Titan Masters that turn into heads. Another Twinferno remold, another figure with 80% the same articulation. As with Grotusque, the only real difference is the arms. Repugnus' shoulders can rotate and extend laterally just over 90 degrees. His biceps can swivel, and his elbows bend 90 degrees. No wrist swivels, but they can bend inward due to his transformation. As far as his weapons go, he can definitely hold them by sliding the handles into his fists. However, there are tabs near his wrists on his forearms. Those tabs fit into slots on the swords so you can peg them together like the Titan Master sled mode and connect them to his arm at the same time, giving him a big claw weapon. It's not as cool as a two-headed dragon, but I've always dug Repugnus' bug monster mode. And it's pretty impressive how they pulled it off using a lot of the same engineering as Twinferno and Grotusque. Presumably, this is why the robot had the red nub and no white on his torso; this toy doesn't do the same torso flip as the G1 toy, so they opted for a more beast-mode accurate torso. Not sure about the translucent green on his chest, though. His robot shoulders are kind of jutting out to the side, his beast hips are out a bit farther than the G1 version, and his robot legs are tucked under him like an insect abdomen, giving him a butt that the G1 toy never had. But, he's got a great bug head, complete with a bump where the G1 toy's button was for the sparking gimmick, his feet have been remolded from the other two to be more Repugnus-accurate. And his robot chest does still unfold into his scythe-like bug arms. His bug mouth can open and close a little; sadly, the gray parts on the sides don't move. The bug shoulders can move up and down a little or butterfly over the front of his body, but straight out is as far as they go away from his body. His bug elbow are ball joints that let the red parts of his bug arms bend 90 degrees and swivel, plus the claws themselves can bend in. The bug hips can rotate and extend laterally 90 degrees. His bug knees can bend from almost straight all the way until the brown part is almost hidden in the red part. And just like the other Monsterbots he's got a space inside his chest for a Titan Master to sit, or pegs on his back that a Titan Master can stick to. He doesn't have the awkward kibble flap bug back that the G1 toy did. However, instead of his weapons tabbing together and becoming a gun saddle for the Titan Master, they can stick to his back using the tabs on his robot forearms to create some of the same effect. You can even unplug them, turn them 90 degrees, and plug them back in to create a sort of open-winged look. Coming after the Titans Return line had finished, as a third use of the Twinferno mold, Repugnus almost seems like an afterthought. You'd almost expect him to be a little crappy. Somewhat surprisingly, though, I think he's my favorite of the three. It's just a shame he's got such a pretty boy face. If only he'd had something closer to the face he had in The Headmasters... Oh, wait. There's Titan Returns Titan Master Repugnus! Like the other stand-alone Titan Masters, this Repugnus came with a little robot/vehicle that looks much like a smaller, underpainted Repgunus. It doesn't have a ton of articulation. The arms can swivel at the shoulders, and the legs can move at the hips, but the legs are connected so both legs move at the same time. On my copy those hips are so loose he can't really stand, but that's nothing some floor polish shouldn't be able to fix. In beast mode, the Titan Master makes the tummy. The Titan Master himself is supposed to look like a similarly-underpainted Repugnus in robot mode. Except when you put him in head mode... there we go! That grimace of a frown! Those bug-eyed squares for eyes! That's the face I wanted for Repugnus! That's not all, though. Bend the bug's head up and turn him upside down, stick a Titan Master's feet to the pegs inside, and you've got yourself a vehicle. I guess. But even better, you can pull a 5mm peg out of his chin and flip the wings around. Now Repugnus is wielding a weapon that looks like himself, and that's all kinds of awesome. So while Titan Masters aren't really the best value in the first place, and their aftermarket prices seem to be on the rise, Titan Master Repugnus might actually be worth picking up if you're picking up the Deluxe-class Repugnus.
×
×
  • Create New...