mikeszekely

I guess you could upgrade the GPU, then wait a little longer to build a new PC with the GPU you buy. Me, I'm definitely ready to upgrade. I think my PC is probably older than yours, since I'm still on an i7-3770k (I've got the same GPU). I've just been waiting for the 1170.

I've checked a few local Walmarts and Targets, and it looks like they all restocked the Generations stuff with more wave 1 PotP figures and they haven't restocked the Studio Series stuff at all, so unless you want Crowbar you're SOL. I was sort of surprised to see that Amazon got the second wave of Studio Series Voyagers in, though. Well, technically you can buy the Deluxes, too, if you want to pay $45+ on the marketplace, but the Voyagers were shipped and sold by Amazon at the now-standard $29.99 price. So here's Voyager-Class Studio Series Megatron. I remember when the Revenge of the Fallen Voyager came out how much better it seemed over the movie 1 Voyager, even with the weird green color. When it comes to robot mode, though, the new Studio Series figure is a big step up in screen accuracy. Most of the detail is there, including the split tank treads for toes instead of the actual toes on the older toy. The sculpting is pretty great, and they highlighted some bits with a copper paint. That said, painting the gray plastic silver, or at least painting some parts gunmetal, would have helped further break up all the gray, especially in his face, and really given him a premium look. He's not entirely screen accurate, though. He's missing his collar, the guns peaking up over his shoulders weren't present in the CGI model, and he's got some extra kibble on the inside of his feet. Small potatoes, though, since he doesn't have the huge, messy backpack that the earlier figure had. Instead, he has a largely clean, largely CGI accurate back complete with thrusters. If there's one major aesthetic problem with the robot mode, it's the big hollow gap in his torso. That's Power of the Primes Rippersnapper peaking through it. Your mileage may vary, but I've gotta say that it's not too big of a bother for me, since you really don't see it from the front or with his arms down. Studio Series Megatron doesn't come with any accessories. In lieu of an accessories pic, here he is with some other Voyager-class movie Megatrons, namely Dark of the Moon and The Last Knight Megatrons. He's definitely a step up from DotM Megatron, and I liked that figure. I think TLK Megatron holds his own, but to be fair TLK Megatron was a more recent figure, and the TLK line started the whole $20 Deluxe, $30 Voyager thing, so it should be on more equal footing. Megatron's head is on a ball joint, but instead of simply sitting on a ball peg the base of the peg is hinged. That hinge is itself on a flap that is connected to the front of his chest via another hinge. So, megatron can look straight up or straight down, he can swivel his head 90 degrees to either side, plus he doesn't tilt his head sideways so much as swivel it around the ball joint like some kind of mecha owl. He can also crane his neck forward. Unfortunately, he used up most of his articulation in his neck, as the rest is nothing to write home about. His shoulders can rotate. His right should can extend laterally a little under 90 degrees while his left can extend a little over 90. His biceps can swivel, and both elbows can bend a little over 90 degrees. Neither wrist can swivel. On his right can there's digit that can hinge in and out a little. On his left he has three (four?) digits molded on part on a pin at the top of his wrist, then two more on a part pinned at the bottom of his wrist. Moving all the fingers together makes it look like he's moving his wrist in and out, and moving them separately makes it look like he's opening and closing his hand. No waist swivel, which is kind of a bummer because the older Voyager did even with that big honking backpack. His hips can kick forward, backwards, or laterally about 90 degrees. His thighs swivel. He technically has double-jointed knees (or more technically, a knee and an ankle). The upper joint has about 90 degrees or range fron straight to backward, and the lower joint has over 90 degrees from straight to forward. However, due to his digitgrade posture I usually have him with the upper joint as far back as it can go and the lower joint as far forward as it can go without pushing the upper joint out of place. Finally he does have a little bit of ankle pivots, although he's coming up with less than 45 degrees. Megatron doesn't come with any accessories, but he does have the big claw blade. Unlike the older Voyager-toy, there's no Mech Alive spring-loaded gimmickry. It simply folds out on a hinge. Megatron's tank mode is ok, I suppose. Better than the old RotF Leader class, that's fure sure. I'm not digging out the Blu-Ray to check, but from what I can tell from the concept art it's fairly accurate, but so was the old Voyager (the wings being deployed in flight mode). Both tous have the same tread aligntment, and both toys have Megatron's head peaking from the front. The newer Studio Series version has the two extra guns on top, but the main barrel seems kind of small and he's missing the big intakes over the rear treads. And just like the robot mode I feel like some silver and some gunmetal paint would have made him pop more and helped some of the molded details staind out more. For the most part, I'd say that Megatron pulls off the tank mode pretty well from top, front, and right side. Passably well from the left side. The back, though, feels unfinished. Both of his hands are kind of poking out the back. That's not a problem so much for his right arm; the cannon in it passes for a thruster, and the underside of his claw fills in the space between his turret and his leg. The other arm, due to it's smaller size, leaves a gap, though, and has those long, skinny fingers hanging out. But the my biggest complaint is that instead of having the two big boosters under the turret, something the older Voyager managed, you've just got the molded impression of them on some small, flat, gray parts. The treads don't work, but he's got rolling wheels in them so he can still roll along. All three guns can move up, although the main gun seems to need a little force to get it up, and the main gun can also aim down. There's no turret rotation, but that's ultimately ok, I think. I didn't get the impression from the CGI mode that Megatron has a turret so much as guns affixed to the top of the tank. My absolute biggest complaint isn't paint, or the alt mode, or anything else I've mentioned, though. No, my biggest complaint is actually the flaps on the backs of his legs. They're clipped to the bottom of his thighs and cover over the back of the knee and calf, and they're screen accurate. But they're super loose. They will fall off at the slightest touch. It's really annoying because you're guaranteed to pop them off while your posing him, and you're guaranteed to pop both of them off while you're transforming him (more than once, if you're foolish enough to try to stick them back on right after they pop off instead of finishing the transformation then putting htem back on at the end). Flaws aside, though, I think he's got enough good going on that he's a worthy addtion to the Studio Series line. He's not the best Studio Series figure, but he's not the worst either. And he is probably the best toy reprepresenting Megatron from the first three movies. Unless you're holding out for an MP version (MPM or 3P), I'd recommend picking him up.

That'd get to buy a V2 MP Ultra Magnus.

An Ultra Magnus that's a white Optimus and combines with his trailer for a more traditional Ultra Magnus look? Now that's what I'm talking about.

I like how that lynx looks, but, yeah, not sure about the price or scale. Maybe wait and see what Gigapower's doing?

Didn't Takara do it by having the entire intakes tilt down/forward? And I think they didn't lock into place well? Looking at pictures of MP-11 online and it seems like people either forget to tilt them or they got bumped back to jet mode position. One of the interesting things ToyWorld did with their Coneheads was have the entire intake rotate 180 degrees, then the painted side on top of the intakes in jet mode push in to becomes the inside back wall in bot mode. Those painted details represent stickers on the original toys, though, so they're not toon accurate. They're also a little taller, around MP Megatron's height, which is a deal breaker for some. Personally, the intakes aren't a big deal to me, and Meteor is the best Seeker mold I've handled. I'm definitely going with MT for my season 1 Seekers. The ToyWorld ones were definitely an improvement over the Takaras, though, and I don't mind that they're a little more toy than toon, or that the Coneheads wind up a little bigger than the Season 1 Seekers. Besides, I already have them (and got all three for just a little more than one of MT's Seekers). So I'm thinking about passing on MT's Coneheads. (FYI, Zeta wound up with TW's Seekers in the divorce. Starscream and the season 1 Seekers apparently coming after the rest of their Aerialbots. If you're cool with slightly bigger, toy-style Seekers they might be a future option.)

I just got mine out and checked; aside from not even being able to clear the first level everything works fine. Are you having any trouble with any other games? Maybe a bad controller? It almost certainly won't. I think Microsoft owns it (and Perfect Dark, and I think Jet Force Gemini). While we're at it, I'd wager licensing issues preventing Goldeneye from being included, too. But, unless Nintendo beefs up the security on the Linux OS that their mini consoles run on, it'll probably be super easy to add your own games to it.

So, the best tip I can give for the Darknuts is to stand in the doorway. There's a point where you're in far enough that they can't reach you, but not so far you leave the room. Wait for them to walk by, run out and stab, then run back to the doorway. Haven't spent a lot of time with my NES classic, though. I'm waiting for the 8bitdo controller, and I just finished setting up my Super Famicom mini. I removed the original games, installed Retroarch, and I picked up an OTG adapter with that can handle power pass through so I could stick a tiny USB drive into the back, then filled it with Gameboy, Gameboy Color, and Gameboy Advance games. Now I'm replaying the Castlevania games.

People already complain that BadCube's Warpath is hard to transform. I can only imagine what kind of nightmare FT's will be.

Still waiting for mine, and with TFSource's free shipping I'm guessing I have while to wait until they're in my hands anyway. None of the exclusives are really catching my fancy, no. I thought I saw somewhere that Maketoys was going to have Rainmaker repaints of the Meteor mold? I do kind of want those, but in the last year and a half I've really switched from buying mostly CHUG-style figures of everything I liked to mostly G1 MP-style figures. Honestly, there's not a ton of surprises for me at TFCon. Most of what I want I knew was coming, although it's nice to see some more prototypes. I'm mainly interested in MMC's Azalea (anyone want to buy a Rouge?) and Hellion, X-Transbots's Skids, Seaspray, and remaining Stunticons, Zeta's Onslaught and their remaining Aerialbots, and the last two Giga dinobots (I didn't see anything new on their Swoop, though). I was thinking about getting FansToys' Cyclonus, because it looks better to me than Eligos, but given how much I've disliked FT's season 3 bots I'm not so sure about that anymore. I'm also on the fence with MMC's Bruticus. It looks pretty good, but I don't know if I need another one. The only totally new stuff for me that's really got my attention is MMC's Sky Lynx, and ToyWorld's Combiner Wars-compatible Onslaught and Motormaster. Sky Lynx looks amazing, but it's going to come down to size and price for me. As for the ToyWorld stuff, I still have all my Hasbro combiners, and Menasor came out the worst by far because of the torso. A new Motormaster, with new hands and feet for Menasor, would go a long way toward fixing that. Hasbro's Bruticus was alright, but if the price turns out ok I could be persuaded to upgrade. I think if ToyWorld replaces those guys, though, I'd kind of want them to re-do all the Combiner Wars/PotP torsos, starting with Hun-Grrr and Grimlock.

Big Bad Toy Store is (or was) doing a summer sale. I picked up KFC's Ditka, their version of an MP Blitzwing, for under $100. So how does he fare? Well, size-wise he's about the same height to the head as MP-10. Blitzwing's a bit of a bruiser, so I think that works, although scale charts seem to indicate that he should actually be Seeker-sized in height. For what it's worth, as of this writing the only alternative is DX9's Gewalt, and that's even bigger. Aesthetically he's very close to the cartoon. Definitely more accurate than Gewalt. You can quibble if you like about the specific shades of purple and tan KFC used, but aside from some gray on his backpack and the gray panels on his chest that should be a darker purple, everything's pretty much as it should be right down to the red trapezoids and triangles on his chest, the red line on his chest, the purple stripes on his shoudler pads, and the purple on the sides of his head. That said, you may notice the fin on his left shin isn't sitting proper like the one on the right. The joint it's on has no basically no tension. And loose joints are definitely a problem with Ditka. In fact, he arrived with a little baggie that had replacement parts for his knees and ankles. Before I swapped them in he couldn't even stand up on his own, collapsing backwards under the weight of his backpack. He comes with a ton of accessories. You have a flight stand that, as near as I can tell, is the same one that comes with Andras (and maybe other KFC/XTB figures). You get the little KFC/XTB screwdriver. You get a sword with a light up feature, but I didn't even check to see if I had the fight batteries. You get a gun that's fairly similar to the one he had in the cartoon. You get a pair of spring-loaded missile launchers (I think the launchers were built into the G1 toy?). You get a football, which is my favorite accessory ever. You get two sprues that I guess you can use to build some extra missiles. The instructions aren't super clear. And you get a replacement head. The head is kind of an odd choice. Aside from the face it's still G1 Blitzwing, which is what you'd expect from a MP G1 Blitzwing. But instead of including an alternate facial expression, or a G1 toy-style dark purple face, they used a face that's clearly modeled after Animated Blitzwing. Ditka's articulation is, to be frank, sub-par. His head is on a hinged swivel and can rotate and look down a little, but he can look up a full 90 degrees. Be advised that manipulating his head does tend to pop open his chest panel, though. His shoulders rotate on stiff ratchets, but because his shoulder pads can't rotate backwards due to the backpack being in the way he can't quite even manage 90 degrees of rotation. Lateral motion isn't any better. A flap does open on the side of his shoulder pads, but his arm stops when his bicep hits some molded lights for the tank mode, at just under 90 degrees. They're also ratcheted, and there's only four clicks between flat against his side and his maximum extension. His biceps swivel, and his elbows are double-hinged for nearly 180 degrees of bend; that's nice at least. His wrists can swivel. And his hands... they're KFC hands, which of course means tiny ball joints at the base and a pair of hinges on each digit. So his hands are fully articulated, but in the usual floppy, messy style that makes me actually prefer the oft-derided "flipper" hands a lot of other companies use for hands this size. He has a ratcheted waist swivel that can turn less than 90 degrees in either direction (three clicks) before running into the backpack. While that's limiting compared to a lot of other figures, I think that range is still fairly natural. Lateral hip motion is ratcheted, and I only wish it were as tight as the shoulders. You get four clicks to just under 90 degrees; a few more clicks would have been nice. Where we really start to run into trouble is the forward/backward motion of the hips. The top of the white part of his thigh actually gets caught on a lip under his hip skirts on his pelvis. If you stop there, you'll only get about 45 degrees (two clicks) forward. If you work at it you might get part of it to slide under the lip and get one more click, but you're always going to be short of 90 degrees. And one is all you're going to get backward due to the backpack. His thighs swivel, and again they're limited because the white part of the thigh collides with his crotch. If he's standing straight you'll only get a little swivel, but if you move the legs out a click he at least has a fairly natural range. His knees are double-jointed ratchets. The bottom ratchet can get about 90 degrees, then the top ratchet can squeak it a little over 90 but is ultimately limited by the shape of the cutout on the back of his thigh for the joint. Finally, we come to his feet. They can bend up and down a little on ratchets, and swivel slightly. A ratcheted pivot is good for about 45 degrees. Thing is, the up/down ratchet isn't quite strong enough, and the transformation hinge in the middle of his foot is actually quite loose. And his backpack is really huge, so even with some crazy long heels it's very hard to keep his feet flat and to keep him from leaning. In fact, in the first picture he's actually leaning backward and his hips are bent forward a click. Between being extremely back-heavy, not having adequate joints to deal with the back-heaviness, and limits in the articulation due to poor clearances around the hips and shoulders I found the task of getting Ditka into a dynamic pose to be rather difficult. He holds his weapons ok. They have tabs that fit into slots on his palms, then you wrap his fingers around them. As is common with KFC hands, though, the fingers don't really have any strength so the weapons only stay in his hands by the friction of those tabs in those slots. They're not going to fall out on their own, so he's doing better than MP Sideswipe, I guess, but a slight bump while trying to pose him will definitely knock them out of his hands. As for his other accessories, he can hold the football with his right hand just fine by using a tab on the football into the same slot on his palm you'd plug a weapon into. The missile launchers can plug into one of four ports on his wings. His gun also folds up for storange, and you can plug it into one of the unused wing ports. There are also ports on his biceps and on the inside of the treads under his wings. The launchers can plug into the ports on the treads, which I think is the most cartoon/toy accurate way to do it. The gun doesn't fit in those holes, though. I couldn't get anything to fit into the ports on his biceps, but maybe one of the pieces on the sprues does. As for the sword, it has a smaller peg on either side of the cross guard, and those pegs fit into the small holes on his back. He also has a rectangular slot on his crotch. You can use that to mount him in a flying pose on the flight stand. I don't think he looks all that great there, though. Ditka has a huge tank mode. It dwarfs even Zeta's Brawl. I think the tank mode is very good, perhaps Ditka's best mode. It's got plenty of molded detail to give it a fairly realistic look from some angles, and like the G1 toy (and unlike Gewalt) it does a great job hiding the purple. Where it deviates from a real tank are mostly looking at it straight on at the front or straight on at the back, where a folded up jet nose and folded up feet thrusters can be seen. While real tanks don't have that, I do feel like it's cartoon/toy accurate, and I'm inclined to let it pass. There's also a flap on the back of the turret, but it's not hateful, and if you look a little closer you'll see some landing gear for the jet mode. I'm ok letting those things slide, too. The turret does have a pair of opening hatches, and the launchers on the sides of the turret can swivel in and out. the barrel can move up and down, but the clearance isn't quite right and you kind of have to force it. The turret also rotates, on a ratchet no less, but for transformation the turret is on a slider. Unless the slider is centered the turrent looks a little off when it's swiveled, but if the slider is centered it looks like it's sitting too far forward on the tank. The treads are just molded and painted. There are little wheels on the underside, but the tank doesn't roll very well. Aside from that, my only real tank complaint is that there's really nowhere to put Ditka's weapons in this mode. And jet mode. I think this jet mode is probably a little divisive. After all, Blitzwing's jet mode was supposed to be a MiG, presumably a MiG-25, and fans of the Hasui-era Takara MP's with realistic alt modes may prefer a jet mode that looks like an actual MiG for Blitzwing (something DX9 attempted to do with Gewalt). However, the animation model was rather accurate to the G1 toy, and both looked less like a MiG and more like a short-nosed, delta-winged jet bi-plane. KFC chose to go the cartoon route, and frankly I prefer it that way. It's not perfect, though. For one, both the cartoon and the toy actually had a gray piece between the wing and the rest of the jet. KFC could have easily painted that part gray on Ditka, too, without affecting the other modes, so I'm not sure why they went with purple. The slope of the fuselage is too much, and looks weird. I wonder if it wouldn't have looked better if they just left the tan parts off, since tan isn't accurate anyway. Then there's the nose. I'm ok with it being short, but it's also too thin. It looks like it belongs on a smaller Blitzwing toy. On, and the loose fin is now a loose vertical stabilizer, and just as problematic for its looseness. Like the G1 toy, the tank turret is chilling out underneath the plane. It's not too bad, with the barrel hanging way out the back, though. The barrel collapses almost the whole way into the turret. The front landing gear folds down in front of the barrel, and the rear landing gear opens on top of the turret. With just the landing gear, though, Blitzwing is so back-heavy from diecast in his feet and lower legs that he'll tip over backward. That's where the flap comes in; you fold it down to act like a kickstand and prop the rear of the jet up. And at least doing so reveals two thrusters, so the turret is almost like some kind of underbelly FAST pack. But if it really bugs you the turret can be removed entirely. Just remember that you're taking most of Ditka's landing gear with it. As for the weapons, you can store them in pretty much the same places you did in robot mode using the holes on wings for the missiles and and gun. The holes for the sword are between his vertical stabilizers, and it just lays across the top of the jet. As for other features in jet mode, the cockpit can open and close, tiny as it is. The flaps on the wings can also fold up. Finally, you can mount him on the flight stand, although you'll need the tank turret since the slot for the stand is on it. I'd advise caution using the flight stand, because again Ditka is very back-heavy, and the stand doesn't feel particularly sturdy. Buying an MP Blitzwing today is a bit of a Kobayashi Maru, I think. While I haven't personally handled Gewalt, from what I've seen he's got superior joints and articulation to Ditka. Aesthetically, though, Ditka has him beat by being more cartoon and more toy accurate in all three modes. Neither is perfect, but that's basically all we've got right now. Everyone's got to decide for themselves where their dealbreakers are. For me, Gewalt's aesthetics are a non-starter for me. Thing is, Ditka is flawed enough that I can't really recommend him either. I'd be mad if I paid full price for him. If you really feel like you need an MP Blitzwing in your collection right now, though, I can't say I regret this purchase at the $97 sale price. He'll do until something better comes along*. *Yes, FansToys has been working on one, and for a lot of people just knowing that FansToys was working on a Blitzwing was probably enough to skip both Gewalt and Ditka. But, FT supposedly delayed their Blitzwing indefinitely to majorly rework the design, so I don't think you can count on it anymore. And even if it does still come out, based on their last couple of releases I have serious doubts about whether or not it'd actually be any better than what we've already got.

The first Wipeout was almost like a prototype. The physics and track design were greatly improved for the sequel almost to the same degree that Ace Combat 2 was an improvement on Air Combat. I don't mean to take anything away from F-Zero. I like the series and I'd be mad if the didn't include it on a GC Classic. But I've probably spent more time playing Wipeout XL (or 2097, depending on where you live) than all the F-Zero games combined.

I like F-Zero, but it doesn't hold a candle to the Wipeout series.

Rough estimate, about 1/75. (Blackout is about 14", a Pave Low is listed as 88' or 1056", 1056 divided by 14 is 75.428.) Also, thanks for reading!

I, uh... I actually don't collect Macross toys. This probably sounds weird from the guy with a nearly $300 3P Omega Supreme, but Macross toys are kind of too expensive.

While RiD/Car Robots was terrible as a show I'd love an MP Fire Convoy/Optimus.

It's a tough call for me. I definitely enjoyed more GameCube games than N64 games, but I think the handful of games I liked for the N64 were more memorable for me. Well, if Nintendo keeps pumping out retro mini consoles, and they keep making them easy to add roms to, I guess I'll keep buying them. Speaking of, my Super Famicom Mini arrived. To save money I bought one listed as used, very good condition on Amazon. Huge bummer- no box or manuals. Oh well, still got both controllers and the cables, and the console itself is in fine shape. In fact, aside from mixing the box and manual it looked unplayed. Hooked it up and played enough Star Fox to unlock Star Fox 2, everything seems fine. Now I'm ordering a case, a wireless 8bitdo controller, a 64GB flash drive, and an OTG adapter (the last two in case hakchi doesn't compress GBA games enough for me to cram them all in).

I didn't watch Beast Wars until I was an adult, years after it originally aired. I'm not going to deny any young'uns their nostalgia (I mean, I've spent thousands on toys representing the Transformers I watched when I was five), but I wasn't buying BW Megs even before we knew how ludicrous the price would be. But on the topic of G1 nostalgia, like David I've been kind of digging the Cyberverse designs. It's almost like the people doing the new RiD cartoon decided to go G1. But the reviews are starting to come in for the first wave of toys, and good grief they're bad. They're somewhere between RiD and Rescue Bots in terms of engineering at PotP prices. I really hope this is some kind of evergreen product to take RiD's place on shelves and not replacing Generations.

We haven't heard beans about the N64 Classic since the rumors started popping up in late May, but it based on some trademark filings it seems like a Gamecube Classic could be in the works, too. Me, I'm down. I didn't play a ton of Gamecube games, but I played it a lot more than the Wii or Wii U, and it's probably the oldest Nintendo console that feels retro to me.

Well, like @M'Kyuun I had occasion to pop into a WalMart (not even my local one), and I also managed to pick up the remaining Terrorcons (if there's more to wave 3 of PotP, in any size class, I didn't see them). Of the three, none are 100% cartoon or toy accurate. Sinnertwin is the closest to being toy accurate, only with a cartoon silver face and yellow eyes that are wrong either way. Due to his animation model being the closest to his original toy, Cutthroat could go either way, except his silver face should be yellow, and Hasbro has recolored some other parts that should be yellow as purple. Blot is probably the most interesting of the three. The G1 toy basically had the robot head flip up and sit above the monster head, which did nothing to transform. The animation model simply had a solid blue-purple torso with some lines that may have been indicative of the monster head folding in somehow (like Unique Toys' version). Although the silver and yellow paint recalls stickers on the G1 toy, the rest of PotP Blot's torso is dominated by the combiner peg. Blot's actual monster head and chest are folded up onto his back. I think the lack of obvious monster stuff on his torso, red visor, and silver face make him more cartoony than toy accurate. Articulation is pretty much what you'd expect from a Hasbro deluxe; head swivels, ball joints at the shoulders and hips, ball joints on Blot's elbows but dedicated bicep swivels and hinged elbows on the other two, hinged knees, and no foot articulation. Each one comes with a single gun and the usual Prime Armor that's a super obvious double-thumbed hand with a removable cover that can be used as a pistol, revealing a gap inside that you can put a Prime Master/Matrix/Titan Master into. And each figure has extra peg holes on their bodies besides their fists where you can plug their weapons/Prime armor into. Blot, like Rippersnapper, has a little flap on his chest that folds down to reveal such a peg hole. For the record Blot seems to be a totally unique mold, but Cutthroat and Sinnertwin are retoolings of PotP Swoop and Snarl, respectively. Monster modes. Aside from giving him purple horns instead of yellow and front legs that are on the largish side Sinnertwin is pretty much exactly what you'd expect. His front legs are basically his arms with all the same articulation, but his rear legs have no articulation except hip rotation. The base of his beast necks tab into his toros, but there's a hinge that lets them move up and down. Although they're basically hollow there are some molded parts inside that hide some of the hollowness and make his neck look solid up to a point. The beast heads are on ball joints, and both jaws can open and close. His tails are essentially non-articulated; there's a hinge, but it's just for transformation and using it at all will break the sculp. Cutthroat is similarly lacking in surprises; aside from how his legs collapse the transformation is even pretty close to the G1 toy. The main differences are that he's got a bit of a tail, like the cartoon, but it's green instead of purple (I wonder if the cartoon's tail was derrived from pegging the G1 toy's gun onto his back backwards?). Speaking of purple, you can also see that his crest, neck, and lower jaw are all purple instead of yellow. The head can look down a little, but that's as far up as it goes. The jaw can open and close, and like @M'Kyuun my copy's jaw comes off super easy, so I'm betting it's not an individual thing and it'll be like that on every copy. The wings have a hinge where they connect to his back to rotate them up a little, a hinge that will let you flap the wings 90 degrees up or 90 degrees down, and another hinge at the claw to spread or retract the rest of the wing. His hips can rotate, and there's a hinge in his knee. Once again, Blot's probably the most interesting, because he's the least like the G1 toy in ways that make him more cartoony. One of the claws on his wrist folds around with his hands to make the thumb claw for his monster mode. Instead of scrunching between his monster legs his robot legs fold up and around to his back, while his backpack folds up and over his head to make the monster head and chest. Then he's got this purple chunk that just sticks up over his head. The only purpose it serves is to provide a place to plug in his gun while in monster mode. This seems to be a cartoon accurate feature, and although it's not removable on this Blot it seems likely that the original cartoon got it from a part you could plug onto the G1 toy's monster back. Personally I think it looks rather out-of-place, but cartoon purists may enjoy it. As far as beast articulation goes his monster arms are basically his robot arms, his monster hips can rotate, and his monster knees can bend. He has no monster head articulation; his mouth doesn't even open. Quick group photo. I think I covered it enough when I talked about him before, but Hun-Grrr definitely came out the worst. A large part of that is definitely the concessions to torso mode, especially the way Hasbro forced him to integrate Abominus' chest plate in all three modes. But I think it's also because the Scramble City combiner limbs were pretty small, simple figures in the G1 days, and the G1 Terrorcons especially had nowhere to go but up. Of course, as combiners the Terrorcons also have their combined modes. Here are the arms. Couple things to note here, the most obvious being that the hands are all different colors. I don't know why Volcanicus got all black hands and feet, but Abominus gets his traditional magenta feet and not one matching hand, but that might be my single biggest gripe with this set. Another thing is that Blot's instructions seem to suggest that you collapse the monster head and chest onto his back for arm (and leg) mode the same way you do for robot mode, but that doesn't seem to be correct. If you do you'll inhibit Abominus' lateral shoulder movement. Instead, you have to bend the hinge outward instead of inward, and if you look on the inside of the monster chest there are two pairs of holes. The inner pair hook over two tiny pegs on his collar for robot mode, but you want to use the outer pair for limb mode. This does make the monster kibble stick out a bit more, but won't hinder any articulation. Finally, the wrist port on Sinnertwin is basically a spoon on a hinge, folded up in the other modes but folded down for the wrist to peg into. This makes him probably the worst choice for an arm. And leg mode. Cutthroat's wrist/ankle peghole is a little loose, but nothing a little floor polish won't fix. Although the instructions leave Sinnertwin's beast heads upside-down, I like to turn them around so they're rightside-up. And Cutthroat's instructions have you position the head just as pictured, looking straight foward. You can position it so it's pointing downward, though. As for Blot, his monster kibble sticks out as much here as it does in arm mode, so I think he's probably the worst all-around limb. The weapon-holding looks even more out of place in his limb modes than it did in his monster mode. The combined Abominus with the only other Abominus I have to compare him with, Ordin, a third party version from Unique Toys. I'd actually taken pictures of each individual Terrorcon to compare with this version, but to be honest I decided it wasn't really a fair comparison. Yes, the engineering for most of the individual members feels a little dated (they don't even have wrist swivels, which I think is a basic 3P requirement these days), and even at the time everyone but their Blot and Hun-Grrr took some flak for being a little underwhelming, but frankly they still blow the Hasbro Terrorcons out of the water, and the combined mode doubly so. While trying to fold up the dragon heads into the shape of his chest shield was a clever way to keep Hun-Grrr from having to integrate too much kibble, the resulting largely white chest and gray thighs just don't feel right. No matter what hands you go with they don't match, as I've already said, but I think the hands that came with Rippersnapper and Blot are probably the most alike. Nothing matches the feet, though. And somehow the visor that's seemingly made of two triangles side-by-side looks more like something you'd see on the G1 toy than the actual G1 toy. Speaking of looking like the toy, I'm sure a lot of fans would have preferred a more cartoon-colored Abominus in general, with the magenta all replaced with purple, the purple and white inverted on his head, and the visor painted red. Here's the combined Abominus, in his G1 cartoon configuration. While I couldn't recommend replacing Ordin with PotP Abominus he actually doesn't fare all that bad against other Combiner Wars/Power of the Primes combiners. Hun-Grrr borrows a lot of engineering from Silverbolt, and like Silverbolt turns upside down with his legs forming the chest and his arms forming the hips and thighs. The result is a similarly stable and well-proportioned combiner and a big improvement over the disappointing Volcanicus. In fact, if being similar to Superion makes Abominus one of the better Hasbro combiners, the ankle tilts built into his feet might just push him up above Superion and make him the best stock Hasbro combiner. You can even pop the extra thumbs out of their ball joints if you want more normal hands. Speaking of hands, while Volcanicus integrated the extra two hands into his torso Abominus doesn't have any tricks like that. What I wound up doing is pegging them into the backs of his feet, to give him bigger heels. The peg holes in the thumbs even give you a place to store some of the individual Terrorcon weapons. Still wish they call could have been a matching magenta. There is a flap on Abominus' chest for you to reveal his Enigma of Combination. If you don't want to reveal it, just don't open it. Unlike Volcanicus Abominus' Enigma can hide store without showing. Alas, Abominus doesn't have any weapons. Not a lot left to say about these guys. I feel like Hasbro botched Hun-Grrr pretty badly, but the other four Terrocons came out fine, for Hasbro Deluxes. And the combined mode is definitely one of Hasbro's best combiners. If you've enjoyed Hasbro's Combiner Wars stuff and were bummed that they ended the line before doing Abominus, then by all means collect this set because you'll probably enjoy this one, too. But if you long ago lost interest in Hasbro's main line Transformers because MP and 3P give you more of the articulation/engineering/size/cartoon-accuracy that you've come to crave then nothing here is going to win you back.

It totally would be... but I have to burst your bubble and point out that Magic Square is the company name, not the toy's.

Drawn from a looking-up-at-it perspective. Doesn't mean that a toy based on it should have that big a pelvis and that small a mid section.

I'm not a huge fan of the movie designs, but I love me some Primes. I have Challenger preordered, just waiting patiently for him to come in. Speaking of 3P Primes... after what feels like forever with MP-10 being basically our only option for a (G1) MP Prime, suddenly 3Ps we've never heard of are coming out of the woodwork to announce they're doing ones to go up against Takara's MP Prime 3.0. (Pic courtesty of TFW user Cheem the Rup). That'd be the Sunbow model, Takara, Magic Square, and Transform Element. I have some reservations with all three (and MP-10), and I think they're all a little too early in development to commit to any of them right now. But I'd say I'm leaning toward Magic Square. Takara's has got the squished midsection and giant diaper that made me pass on MP-36. TE's looks a little better, but still squished in the middle plus he's got MP-10's gorilla arms. I have some concerns about how MS's hips may articulate, and I don't think enough of the blue chunk on his crotch is showing, but I like the chunkiness and how it's more cartoon accurate than MP-10 but moe MP-10 than Takara or TE.

I think this is the first Steam sale in awhile that I avoided buying anything. I've got too much time and money tied up right now fixing stuff in my old house so I can hopefully still close on selling it at the end of the month. What money I did allow myself to spend I used on an NES Classic and a SFC Mini.

Haven't really shopped around, but a quick check on Amazon and the EU SNES Mini is around $15 more than than the SFC Mini. I looked at some reviews of the SFC Mini and I can read the Japanese in the menus ok (heck, 90% of it is katakana), so I don't think I need English enough to pay $15 for it. It's not like I'll be playing the default games anyway; I'll use the SNES Classic for SNES games. If I buy the SFC Mini it'll be 99% just to hakchi Retroarch and my GBA library onto it. (The other 1% is because the SFC and SFC mini have some of the most amazing box art ever). EDIT: I have no willpower, and my SFC Mini will arrive Tuesday...