mikeszekely

I can't believe people are still cheering on Comcast. I'm saying this one more time, better the Mouse gets Fox than Actually Satan.

Of all Zeta's Combaticons, this was the one I was most interested in. This is Whirlblade, their version of Vortex. With his turquiose thighs and head and his purple torso the instinct again is to suggest that Whirlblade is a toy-inspired Vortex. The red vents on his chest are even G1 sticker details. And yet, with his large, kibbly shins, cockpit feet, purple shoulders, and giant backpack I'm forced to conclude that, yes, he's kind of toy inspired, but he's also largely an original design, and that's due to him having entirely the wrong alt mode. And yes, with all of that kibble he does suffer aesthetically in much the same way that Take Off does. If I'm being totally fair, though, Whirlblade isn't quite as bad. Before we move on to accessories, I want to show him with Studio Series Leader Class Blackout. Hmm... So accessories... Whirlblade comes with a gun that, while not turquoise, is molded with a general shape that reminds me of Vortex's gun from the cartoon. He's also got two of these missle pods. The tips are spring loaded and can be launched by pressing a button. Whirlblade's articulation is pretty similar to Take Off's. His head is on a ball joint that can look up and down slightly and tilt sideways a good bit. His shoulders can rotate, and like Take Off he's got a joint inside his shoulder that can move laterally 90 degrees and a transformation joint that connects his arm to his torso that'll give him another 90, but on Whirlblade they're both friction joints with similar tolerances. His biceps swivel. His elbow is only a single hinge, and due to the size of his forearm he can't even get 90 degrees out of it. His wrists swivel, and due to their transformation he's got a little in/out bend on his wrists as well. His hands are identical to Take Off's. He also has swivels under his chest and at the waist, and a ratcheted bend to his right. His hips can move about 60 degrees forward or backward, and a little short of 90 degrees laterally on soft ratchets. His thighs can swivel, and his ratcheted knees get about 45 degrees of bend. His feet can tilt up quite a bit, but not really down. His ankles can swivel as well as pivot about 45 degrees. Like Take Off, his gun is a 5mm peg that fits into his hand, which is molded into a 5mm grip. I haven't found a use for the launchers in robot mode short of leaving them were they go in alt mode. One thing to note is the intakes on his back. The instructions indicate that the black part goes up, so the triangle points down. This has them sit a little lower and it looks a bit more streamlined from the front, but they can't be pushed back as far. The box are has them inverted. They push back further out of the way of his shoulders, but they also stick up higher. They do have swivels, though, so you can kind of angle them so they look like cannons. Sorry for the double negative, but his backpack kibble is never not in the way. So that alt mode... Whirlblade turns into Blackout in alt mode. That is, he turns into a Sikorsky MH-53 Pave Low, and that's just wrong. I mean, if I'm being totally fair, Vortex's G1 toy looked like it was designed to not really look like whatever helicopter inspired it (I've heard it suggested that it's a Kaman SH-2 Seasprite or one of its variants), and the cartoon even less so (I thought UT's Votex looked kind of like the cartoon, and I think it looks most like part of the Black Hawk family). But it's safe to say that Vortex is probably meant to be an attack or a search and rescue heli, not a transport helicopter that weighs over three times more empty than a Seasprite's maximum takeoff load. Some designer at Zeta just thought that since they were making a helicopter transformer they might as well use the helicopter from the movie even though that'd be like making a Starscream toy that turns into a C-130 Hercules. Actually, the reason I was first interested in Whirlblade wasn't as a Vortex toy; I wanted to make a G1-style Blackout. Speaking of Blackout, here's Whirlblade with Blackout again, and when they're together you can see some problems with the proportions. Whirlblade is shorter from nose to tail, but wider and taller. The struts on the sides are smaller, and the cockpit area looks pushed in on Whirlblade. It's almost like a chibi Pave Low. I wonder if the weird proportions are because of the combined mode and trying to maintain arm proportions? If so, that just reinforces the notion that this was the wrong helicopter to use for Vortex. From underneath you can see that, much like Take Off, Whirlblade is kind of a shell former with panels on his arms and legs unfurling to almost completely cover the robot parts. Again, the is an example of making sacrifices in robot mode for the sake of the alt mode, which isn't my preferred way of doing business, and honestly with the extra rotor blades I'm not even sure if that'll play out any better for arm mode. He does have working landing gear, and the "missiles" peg into struts on the side of the helicopter. Maybe someone should have told Zeta that those are supposed to be fuel tanks? If there's a spot for his gun in this mode, though, I can't find it. He does have flip out landing gear. I think it's accurate to a real Pave Low, and it does roll. Whirlblade again feels like a solid, well-made figure. On material quality and tolerances he's better than UT's Vortex. And from some poses his kibble even seems less obstrusive than Take Off's. However, that's just because a lot of it was moved to his back, and it's actually more in the way there. I think Take Off also benefits a bit from looking more like Blast Off, with a Blast Off-appropriate alt mode, than Whirlblade looks like Vortex. So I'm forced to say basically the same thing I said about Take Off: as a solo figure meant to represent Vortex in your collection he's a failure and I can't recommend him. But time will tell if he's worth picking up just for their Bruticus.

Of all Zeta's Combaticons, this was the one I was most interested in. This is Whirlblade, their version of Vortex. With his turquiose thighs and head and his purple torso the instinct again is to suggest that Whirlblade is a toy-inspired Vortex. The red vents on his chest are even G1 sticker details. And yet, with his large, kibbly shins, cockpit feet, purple shoulders, and giant backpack I'm forced to conclude that, yes, he's kind of toy inspired, but he's also largely an original design, and that's due to him having entirely the wrong alt mode. And yes, with all of that kibble he does suffer aesthetically in much the same way that Take Off does. If I'm being totally fair, though, Whirlblade isn't quite as bad. Before we move on to accessories, I want to show him with Studio Series Leader Class Blackout. Hmm... So accessories... Whirlblade comes with a gun that, while not turquoise, is molded with a general shape that reminds me of Vortex's gun from the cartoon. He's also got two of these missle pods. The tips are spring loaded and can be launched by pressing a button. Whirlblade's articulation is pretty similar to Take Off's. His head is on a ball joint that can look up and down slightly and tilt sideways a good bit. His shoulders can rotate, and like Take Off he's got a joint inside his shoulder that can move laterally 90 degrees and a transformation joint that connects his arm to his torso that'll give him another 90, but on Whirlblade they're both friction joints with similar tolerances. His biceps swivel. His elbow is only a single hinge, and due to the size of his forearm he can't even get 90 degrees out of it. His wrists swivel, and due to their transformation he's got a little in/out bend on his wrists as well. His hands are identical to Take Off's. He also has swivels under his chest and at the waist, and a ratcheted bend to his right. His hips can move about 60 degrees forward or backward, and a little short of 90 degrees laterally on soft ratchets. His thighs can swivel, and his ratcheted knees get about 45 degrees of bend. His feet can tilt up quite a bit, but not really down. His ankles can swivel as well as pivot about 45 degrees. Like Take Off, his gun is a 5mm peg that fits into his hand, which is molded into a 5mm grip. I haven't found a use for the launchers in robot mode short of leaving them were they go in alt mode. One thing to note is the intakes on his back. The instructions indicate that the black part goes up, so the triangle points down. This has them sit a little lower and it looks a bit more streamlined from the front, but they can't be pushed back as far. The box are has them inverted. They push back further out of the way of his shoulders, but they also stick up higher. They do have swivels, though, so you can kind of angle them so they look like cannons. Sorry for the double negative, but his backpack kibble is never not in the way. So that alt mode... Whirlblade turns into Blackout in alt mode. That is, he turns into a Sikorsky MH-53 Pave Low, and that's just wrong. I mean, if I'm being totally fair, Vortex's G1 toy looked like it was designed to not really look like whatever helicopter inspired it (I've heard it suggested that it's a Kaman SH-2 Seasprite or one of its variants), and the cartoon even less so (I thought UT's Votex looked kind of like the cartoon, and I think it looks most like part of the Black Hawk family). But it's safe to say that Vortex is probably meant to be an attack or a search and rescue heli, not a transport helicopter that weighs over three times more empty than a Seasprite's maximum takeoff load. Some designer at Zeta just thought that since they were making a helicopter transformer they might as well use the helicopter from the movie even though that'd be like making a Starscream toy that turns into a C-130 Hercules. Actually, the reason I was first interested in Whirlblade wasn't as a Vortex toy; I wanted to make a G1-style Blackout. Speaking of Blackout, here's Whirlblade with Blackout again, and when they're together you can see some problems with the proportions. Whirlblade is shorter from nose to tail, but wider and taller. The struts on the sides are smaller, and the cockpit area looks pushed in on Whirlblade. It's almost like a chibi Pave Low. I wonder if the weird proportions are because of the combined mode and trying to maintain arm proportions? If so, that just reinforces the notion that this was the wrong helicopter to use for Vortex. From underneath you can see that, much like Take Off, Whirlblade is kind of a shell former with panels on his arms and legs unfurling to almost completely cover the robot parts. Again, the is an example of making sacrifices in robot mode for the sake of the alt mode, which isn't my preferred way of doing business, and honestly with the extra rotor blades I'm not even sure if that'll play out any better for arm mode. He does have working landing gear, and the "missiles" peg into struts on the side of the helicopter. Maybe someone should have told Zeta that those are supposed to be fuel tanks? If there's a spot for his gun in this mode, though, I can't find it. He does have flip out landing gear. I think it's accurate to a real Pave Low, and it does roll. Whirlblade again feels like a solid, well-made figure. On material quality and tolerances he's better than UT's Vortex. And from some poses his kibble even seems less obstrusive than Take Off's. However, that's just because a lot of it was moved to his back, and it's actually more in the way there. I think Take Off also benefits a bit from looking more like Blast Off, with a Blast Off-appropriate alt mode, than Whirlblade looks like Vortex. So I'm forced to say basically the same thing I said about Take Off: as a solo figure meant to represent Vortex in your collection he's a failure and I can't recommend him. But time will tell if he's worth picking up just for their Bruticus.

Imagine if Zeta does a Movor repaint, and the shuttle is actually white...

Yeah, about that... before my preorders for UT's Blast Off and Vortex came in I was already hearing about some of the issues I'd run into trying to pose Ragnaros in combined mode. Although my impression of the combined mode wound up being better than I expected my concerns about it and his size, plus the relatively low price of the Zeta limbs kind of motivated me to to check them out, too. So with (some of) the UT Combaticons fresh in your minds, this is Zeta Toys' Take Off, better known as Blast Off. Next to UT's Blast Off my gut reaction is to say that Take Off is based on the G1 toy. He's got the purple torso. He's got translucent panels on his pecs where the toy had stickers, and similar molded vents under that. But... that's kind of it. I mean, he's got black shins and the wings are folded on the sides of his legs, but the cartoon (arguably) did, too. His forearms are more cartoon (from the front), with the nose folded into his forearms instead of twisting into his hands. Much of the cockpit area is sitting on his back instead of his shoulders. The gray face plate is cartoon, the trio of ovals on his chest are cartoon, and the booster feet are cartoon, although they're a light gray instead of purple. Interestingly, they fold away for alt mode and don't transform into actual boosters, so the booster feet are purely an aesthetic choice. The shape of the arms and the booster feet aren't really Studio OX, either, although the brighter, coppery brown definitely is. If his purple torso and shoulders were black/dark gray and brown instead I'd actually say he's a cartoon Blast Off. Ultimately, though, it's not the purple torso that's holding Take Off back, it's the panels. Panels everywhere. Panels on his back. Under his chunky forearm is a panel folded onto a panel. His black shins are actually panels folded over the front of his lower legs. On the outside of his lower leg is a panel folded over, and on top of that are the shuttle wings, whcih are folded over on themselves three times. He's even got some panels folded and tucked inside the backs of his legs. UT's Blast Off might be a bit barrel-chested, but sheer volume of kibble Take Off is wearing is an eyesore. Despite being a combiner arm, Take Off doesn't come with a hand. He does come with three guns, though. I guess the G1 toy did, too, but by my count that's one more than he actually needs. Maybe I already found one to give to UT's Vortex? Take Off's head is on a ball joint, with limited up/down tilt, good sideways tilt, and rotation. His shoulders rotate, and there's a ratchet that moves the shoulder laterally inside the purple part 90 degrees. There's a transformation joint connecting the whole arm to the the torso you can use to get the lateral motion up to 180 degrees, and since it's friction it tends to move before the ratchet does. His biceps swivel, and although his elbow is double-jointed his forearm is so chunky you can't bend it more than 90 degres. His wrists can swivel, but you actually have to unpeg the fist like you're going to transform it to clear a tab right above it. Unlike the ToyWorld Constructicons or the Zeta Aerialbots, Take Off doesn't have individual fingers. Instead, the thumb is fixed and the fingers are all molded as one piece that's hinged at the base knuckle, like an MP car. He's got a waist swivel. Presumably for combined-mode arm articulation he also has a swivel just under his chest, and he can bend to his right almost 90 degrees at the waist on a stiff ratchet. His hip skirts hinge up and out of the way of his hips, which move about 90 degrees forward or backward on a friction joint and about 90 degrees laterally on a soft ratchet. His thighs swivel a limited but natural amount over the hip joint, and his knees can bend about 60 degrees on ratchets. His toes can bend down, and there's seems like there's a little up/down wiggle on his foot but the weight of the figure tends to push the foot flat. A dedicated hinge gives him nearly 90 degrees of ankle pivot. Although all three of his guns have little slots in them like the ones that come with Zeta's Aerialbots Take Off doesn't use them for anything. Rather, the handle is basically a 5mm peg, and his palms and thumbs are molded into 5mm ports. All three guns slide in fine and he holds them fine. If you unfold the wings a little you can also (barely) peg the gray guns onto his legs like the G1 toy. Forget the cartoon, forget the toy... in shuttle mode Take Off is neither. No cartoon purples. No single-pane purple window. Aside from a few gray accents Take Off looks to my untrained eye like a Boeing/Rockwell space shuttle orbiter painted brown instead of white. Basically none of the robot mode shows in shuttle mode, because Take Off is kind of a shell former. All those panels on his legs and forearms unfurl and to cover over his thighs, torso, shoulders, head, and forearms. If it weren't for soem hinges and peg holes you might not even know it transforms. While that's kind of neat on one hand, generally speaking I'd rather make sacrifices in alt mode to make a great robot mode, and a robot with chunky limbs covered in extra panels to make a great shuttle mode is pretty much the opposite of that. Still, combined mode is closer to shuttle mode than robot mode, so maybe it'll ultimately work out for that. About those peg holes... there's five on the bottom of the shuttle and one on either side near the rear. You can peg any gun into any of them, although only the gray ones have pegs on the sides instead of just the handles. The shuttle also has working landing gear. Unlike Unique Toys it even has the right number of engine nozzles, although as I said earlier none of them are made from his feet. Zeta did a lot of things right with Take Off. He feels very solid in both modes, and the materials feel better than UT's. Take Off makes for a pretty cool shuttle. But, his robot mode is a kibble-laden mess. Anyone looking for an MP Blast Off is much better going with Unique Toys', even with its own flaws. I can't recommend Take Off as an MP Blast Off figure on his own. However, it remains to be seen which is the better Bruticus.

Assault Horizon is terrible. I don't care if it says Ace Combat in the title screen, it's not really an Ace Combat game. Don't waste your time. Assault Horizon Legacy on the 2DS is actually really good, though... because it's actually a remake of AC2. Which is also good. 3 is great. I think it's criminally underrated, actually, just because the US version was so badly mangled vs the Japanese version. It has some of the most memorable missions in the series, IMHO. 4 is, mechanically, excellent. I think the early missions are a little bland after 3, though. 5 is a little goofy, but has decent mission variety. There's just one mission that's super annoying. 5 is, like I said, probably my favorite. A little short, but no bad missions. And cheesy, but good cheesy. 6 is pretty forgettable. Scratch that, I remember it having too many generic enemies. Coming off some of the older games, I was used to trying to down every enemy, but it just wasn't happening on six. Skies Of Deception was the game 6 should have been. Lots of aircraft, lots of missions, branching paths... An all around good time. Joint Assault is another AC on PSP. Used the same engine as Skies of Deception. I remember it being good, but not as good as SoD. Infinity was fun when you were in the air. But the F2P mechanics were terrible. The original Air Combat is a relic. I think it might have been pretty cool when it was first released, but it barely qualifies as a game compare to its sequels. Am I missing any?

I think Zero is my favorite of the series.

I assumed someone there is a fan of the game? If there's more to it than that I'm not privy to it. Anyway, no point putting this off, since the combined modes are what people are usually in for. Behold, Ragnaros, Unique Toys' Bruticus. Out of the gate, there's a temptation to say that Ragnaros is more toy accurate than cartoon. I mean, he's got a big silver chest plate over a blue torso and blue thighs, with gray feet. Technically, you could even turn his left forearm and wrist each 180 degrees and have Vortex with his wheels pointed away from Ragnaros' body. However, there's a lot of differences, too. Obviously, even though you could turn the forearm 180 degrees, this is the official transformation for Vortex in arm mode. Rangaros' shoulder runs into the bottom of Blast Off, not the top. The front of Brawl's tank mode doesn't fold over; technically, the bottom of the tank is at the ankle, the back of the tank is at the knee, and the turret is rotated 180 degrees. And Swindle is sort of inverted vs the toy, with the top facing forward and the front facing down. And he's a jeep! Plus the feet, while not as stylized as Warbotron's, are still stylized and actually narrower than the vehicles above them. Slightly stylized, not quite the toy, not quite the cartoon. It'd be easy to write Ragnaros off as pleasing no one aesthetically, but I actually think the result is very pleasing. Compared to Warbotron or the Combiner Wars version Ragnaros has a somewhat streamlined form. You can still see that he's made up from a jeep, a tank, a helicopter, a space shuttle, and (kind of) a truck, but there's not a lot of kibble. He doesn't have chunks of Onslaught around his collar. He doesn't have obvious feet on his wrists, or wheels all over his thighs. Blast Off's wings and tail tuck in close and don't extend much beyond the rest of Ragnaros' forearms. Swindle's windshield locks down over the seats. No part of him is overly chunky. If anything, he may be too svelte. As much as I dig the aesthetic, I find the size to be a bit of an odd choice. Most 3P combiners are similar in size to Warbotron (I'd count Ordin, both Warbotrons, Gravity Builder, Poseidon, Havoc, ToyWorld's Dinobot Combiner, ToyWorld's Throttlebot combiner and Hades as that size, with GT's Defensor almost certain to be about that size and Uranos, Feral Rex, Ares, and Prometheus a little shorter but still taller than Combiner Wars). While the engineering and aesthetics or Ragnaros are far superior to Warbotron's, I'd say that Ragnaros is too tall for people wanting a Bruticus for that sort of collection. At the other end of the spectrum are the people who insist that Constructor is the standard that all MP-style combieners should be judged against. Both DX9 and X-Transbots have suggested that their Menasors will be around this height. Zeta's Superion will be around this height, and word is that FansToys' Superion could be even bigger. And, perhaps most damning, Zeta's Bruticus will be this tall. Ragnaros standing as straight as he can and Constructor is still a head taller with a relaxed A-stance, and the people who want a Bruticus that's as big as Constructor have that option available. To the head, Ragnaros is actually about the same size as Combiner Wars Devastator. Was this UT's intention? I mean, I do think I read an interview with CW Devy's designer where he suggested that CW/UW Devy was about as close to an official MP Devastator as we're likely to get. And I'm sure that there are plenty of people who want their combiners to be roughly the same size... but how many of them decided that CW Devy was too big for the rest of the CW combiners and picked up a cheap used Hercules instead? How many decided that they don't want CW combiners at all, they want MP-style, and CW Devy isn't cutting it? Are there really that many people who are using CW Devy as the standard for combiners in their collection, people who actually think that Ragnaros is neither too big nor too small? I digress. There's no new accessories to cover, but we can finally talk about what to do with some of the accessories we already looked at. For starters, out of the box Ragnaros' eyes are translucent, as if they were meant to be light piped, but there's no windows in the head to allow light to pipe in. As a result his eyes are as dead as GT's larger figures with their eye lights turned off. Fortunately, if you have the painted eyes from Blast Off or Vortex swapping them is a cinch. Ragnaros' face is just pegged on, so you simily pop it off, push the eyes out of the face, put the replacement eyes in, then peg the face back on. Immediate improvement, if you ask me. One nice thing about Ragnaros is that UT gives you options, but whichever way you go you can still keep all the parts attached. In his default toy mode you've got a big gray chest plate, and all of Vortex's and Brawl's parts stay where they are in their alt modes. But, you can take the chest plate off, and separate it into pieces. Then, take the cockpit and wings off of Blast Off and the intakes off of Vortex. they can be arranged to make a cartoon-style chest plate for Bruticus. But you don't just put aside the gray one. The part that covered Ragnaros' abs still goes over his abs. Then the center of the chest plate folds up and sits between the guns on Ragnaros' back. The bulk of the sides hook over the top of Onslaught's thigh armor, then fold over to cover Ragnaros' butt. Those flaps that go over the butt have small pegs, and the rest of the chest plate fit onto those pegs, turning the bulk of the chest plate into hip skirts for Ragnaros. All the invididual guns can get used up, too... if you want. The simplest gun for Ragnaros is to fold the handle for Onslaught up into the gun, revealing a larger handle for Ragnaros. But, you'll see that there are plenty of peg holes and even a few pegs on the gun, plus the top can open so the barrel can fold 180 degrees inside, revealing a less gun-like tip. Beyond that, it's just a matter of figuring out ways to arrange the other weapons. First we have just Onslaught and Blast Off's gun, which looks ok but also like it's missing a piece (A). Turns out Swindle's arm cannon fits pretty neatly under the tip of Onslaught's gun (B), but the barrel looks a little small for a combiner. You can remedy this by sliding Blast Off's gun over the barrel of Swindle's (C). Then it's just a matter of finding other places for Brawl and Vortex's guns, plus the Swindle's missile and the part that holds the missile and cannon on his jeep mode. This is just one of the combos I came up with (D); you'll see another in the next picture. I will say that I think the Onslaught/Swindle cannon/Blast Off combo looks best, as the rest of the stuff doesn't integrate as neatly. Of course, you can always store their weapons in their alt-mode places; Swindle and Brawl's are especially unobtrusive there. I'll also say that while the rest of Swindle and Brawl's stuff does at least attach snugly Vortex's guns are as ridiculously loose in any of the pegs here as they are in Vortex's hands. They're so frustratingly wortheless in alt mode, robot mode, and combined mode that rather than try to thicken the handles I'm probably just going to toss them in the box and look for a different gun for Vortex. Well, the cartoon-style chest plate doesn't really make him that much more cartoony; he's still got a blue thighs and a blue torso behind the chest shield. Swindle isn't a pair of purple-striped yellow boxes unrecognizable as any vehicle. Brawl didn't turn into a block with a tank turret on one side and half a set of tank treads on the other. The feet are still gray. Vortex's tail didn't somehow turn into a pair of large wings. He's still got helicopter intakes on his torso instead of wheels. Then again, I'm already not sure if I'm on board with XTB's plan to make Motormaster essentially turn into Menasor all by himself with the Stunticon cars tacked onto the calves and shoulders like an afterthought; I'm not sure I'd want to guess what kind of engineering you'd need to make a totally cartoon-accurate Bruticus. In any case, I'm glad that UT included the option to make a cartoon-style chest plate, but I think I prefer the toy-style. Articulation-wise, Ragnaros' head is on a hinged swivel. He can look up about 35 degrees, but only a little bit down. His shoulders rotate on ratchets. The lateraly motion is double-jointed, both ratcheted; one at the combiner peg in Onslaught, one at the combiner port in the arm-bot. Practically, he still can't get much better than 45-50 degrees, though, because his shoudlers are so tall that they start bumping into his head. His ratcheted elbows get close to 90 degrees. His forearms can swivel below the elbow. He does have a little bicep swivel above the elbow, but on both arms it feels like something inside is resisting in a way that might break something when you try to turn them. Practically, you'd be limited anyway as the parts that make up their robot-mode backpacks would block you from turning them more than 45 degrees or so. The wrists can swivel. Each finger and the thumb are individually articulated with ball joints at the base and two pin-hinged knuckles. His waist can swivel; as designed it should be ratcheted but the ratchet was apparently poorly designed or poorly constructed and has failed on almost every copy. This is definitely the case with my copy. Fortunately, I'm not sure a waist ratchet is necessary. His hips can move about 60 degrees forward and 45 degrees backward on ratchets that are probably way too tight, and laterally about 60 degrees on a ratchet that's probably too soft. He doesn't have a thigh swivel, but he does have swivels below the knees. His knees bend about 45 degrees on ratchets that are ok, but with a little play between clicks. His toes can point up and down, but that's on a friction hinge that can't really support the weight of the combiner. His ankles likewise can pivot, about 45 degrees on Brawl and a little less on Swindle, but again they're friction joints where you really needed ratchets. Plus, the ankles themselves are rather thin pieces of plastic given how much weight they're supporting. On paper, his articulation isn't super hot, but it should be adequate for a combiner. In practice the knees are just wobbly enough and the ankles thin enough that you're going to get some lean. Depending on how you have his weight distributed with his arms the lean could be slight, or it could be severe enough that he wants to tip over backward. Or, more likely forward, and his toe joints aren't strong enought to stop it. Plus, he stands best with his legs straight. I used the pads that came with Brawl and Swindle, and on my desk he'll stand with his legs one click apart (45-degree A-stance), but on the base where I shoot my review pictures he kept doing the splits. Even on my desk once I started trying to get a pose with some forward motion on a hip and the arms not just at his sides balance issues with the knees and weakness in the lateral hip ratchets became an issue that kept knocking him over. This is likely why you're not seeing him in a ton of dynamic poses in online pictures; I'm afraid he might fall off my display shelf if I pose his limbs too much. With that in mind, he holds his gun fairly securely. A tab on the handle fits into either palm, although if you curl his fingers too tight around it they'll actually push the tab out. Even if you have it securely tabbed, though, you'll find the extra weight of it, especially the more Combaticon weapons you use, will just add to the challenge of posing him. And there you have it, folks. Five Combaticons that are good enough to be my MP Combaticons, but not quite good enough to keep me from thinking they might be placeholders until someone else (oddly enough, I keep thinking X-Transbots) does them. A too-big or too-small combined mode with cartoon and toy options that looks great, as long as you don't try to give him a pose that's too dynamic. A set that hits some notes incredibly well but brings enough aesthetic, engineering, and QC issues that I can't entirely recommend it. I'll say this much... if you're set on only buying one set of Combaticons, and you want them to perform in all three modes, this is the set to get. I think the alt modes are all fine, I think the robot modes range from good to good enough, and even with its problems I like the combined mode more than I thought I would. It beats Fansproject, it beats Warbotron, and it beats Combiner Wars/Unite Warriors all around. As for Zeta... well, we're actually going to get into Zeta a little later, but for now let's say while the combined mode might be worth considering I don't think the individual members are particularly appealing. However, there's also MMC's on the horizon. I'm a little skeptical, as MMC plans to integrate all of the combined mode parts into the bots, so the hands will be part of Vortex and Blast Off, the feet part of Brawl and Swindle, and the head, chest, and pelvis armor will be part of Onslaught. Prototype pics of their Vortex do look fairly promising, though, and arguably more cartoon-accurate that UT's. And, if you're really just in it for combined mode then maybe Zeta's not totally out of the running, either. Ultimately, Ragnaros gets a recommend as the best Bruticus available right now, but you really might as well wait another month until after TFcon Toronto, check out Zeta's combined mode, see if there's any updates on MMC's, get an idea of whether or not you might prefer one of them, and then decide if you really want to pull the trigger on Ragnaros.

Yay, this is what I want! A game!

Rounding out the Unique Toys "Stellar Warriors" (aka Combaticons), we have Rage Winterchill, the ridiculously-yet-awesomely named Vortex. Vortex, much like Blast Off, skews more toward the cartoon than the toy but isn't quite perfect. The most immediate thing is that he's mostly gray, including his head, eschewing the blue head and purple torso adorned with red and gold stickers the G1 toy sported. Likewise, the blue on his legs and chest are more of a steel blue than the G1 toy's turquiose. Of course, it's not just the colors. Vortex has the little guns on his forearms (although they could have used some blue), the little intake above the blue on his chest, two dark molded circles on his chest, intakes on his shoulders, dark patches on his shins where the copter windows are, and wheels on his heels. Due to sharing some engineering with Blast Off he's got the same overly-broad torso and even some shoulder pads, though. His forearms also lack the cartoon's round shape because they're made of the copter's tail. His left arm even has the tail rotor hanging off the back of his forearm. Those nose of the copter is split and just chilling on the sides of his legs. And I'd have liked more gray on his pelvis. Note that while I have his rotor blades arranged in a cartoon-style X as best I can Unique Toys actually means for them to fold up sort of like movie Blackout's. I don't have a problem with that in theory, but in practice the pins that hold the blades on are pretty loose. I have the strongest pointed up and the floppiest resting against his packpack, but I'll probably glue them into a permanent X. It's also worth pointing out that the intakes on his shoulders is a bit of partsforming, as they're moved from his back and tabbed onto his shoudlers. If you're against that sort of thing you can leave them on his back, though. The little forearm guns are also removeable, but as you'll see later it's not necessary for his transformation. Since they're removable, should we count the forearm guns and the shoulder intakes as accessories? Additionally, he also gomes with a combined-mode hand, a large gun, a pair of smaller guns, and another painted eye replacement for the combined-mode head. Again, mine was in the bag with the instructions, others have reported loose ones or not receiving any at all, UT says the eyes are a random gift, so if you should purchase Vortex you may or may not find them in the box. With similar engineering, Vortex's articulation is basically the same as Blast Off's. His head is on a hinged swivel, and he can look up or down about 30 degrees. His shoulders rotate, and they can ratchet laterally a little under 90 degrees. Unlike Blast Off his shoulders don't tab into the torso, so the transformation hinge is even easier to use as a friction joint to increase the lateral range to nearly 180 degrees. His biceps swivel. He's got single-jointed elbows, but they still get him 150-ish degrees. His wrists can swivel, and his fingers are pinned at the base knuckle with the index finger being separate from the rest. His waist can swivel, and due to his combined mode he can bend his torso to his right. His waist can swivel. His legs can move forward 90 degrees and backward nearly that much on a very soft, almost non-functional ratchet. As with Blast Off, getting the full forward range means you have to move the entire front of his pelvis since his hip skirts aren't separately hinged. Squeaky friction joints get him 90 laterally at the hips. His thighs swivel over the hips, which limits them a bit but still gives him a very natural range and looks better than a thigh cut. His knees bend the full 90 degrees since the backs of his legs don't have the same tabs Blast Off does. Due to transformation he has another swivel below the knee, should you want to make use of it. His toes and heels can bend down, and a hinge gives him 90 degrees of ankle pivot. Well, the intakes tab into his shoulders fine, but I'm sorry to say that he can't hold his weapons well at all. The guns spin around fairly freely in his hands; I was barely able to get them in place for this photo. A slight vibration would knock them loose. Meanwhile, his forearm guns are even looser. You can see in this picture that I wasn't even able to keep the one on his left wrist in place for the photo as the barrel would immediately droop toward the ground. Should you decide you don't want them on his forearms there are small peg holes on both the sides and the top of his guns that they fit into. The larger gun has a handle with tabs on it that fit into the hands of Unique Toy's Onslaught. The ratchet joints in his shoudlers will support it if he you want him in a firing pose, but it's a little too heavy for the friction joints in his elbows. Vortex's alt mode is a helicopter that's a bit more realistic than either the G1 cartoon or the G1 toy (although if it's supposed to be a real helicopter I couldn't tell you what it is). And yet, it's not really that far off from the cartoon. It's missing the blue stripes, and the second gray tone, but I have no idea how they'd work that in without them being visible in robot mode. The front of the copter has more realistic molded and painted windows than the single wrap-around window on the cartoon, but it's still black (in this case, dark translucent) on gray. He's still got a row of (painted) windows down the side, and another on his tail. The engine housing lacks the scoop of the cartoon, but again strikes me as more realistic, but it does have the intakes on the side. You can even upeg them and turn them around, setting them a little further back and pointing the black ends backward. As I alluded to earlier, if you leave the forearm guns pegged into his wrists they'll lie along the tail in coptor mode. Again, they should probably be blue, but this placement on the tail is cartoon accurate. Tehcnically toy accurate toy, if they were way bigger. That does leave Vortex missing the gun on his nose, though. You can, sort of, mimic that look by removing the guns from the tail and plugging them into the copter's chin. Unfortunately, you can't get just one symmetrically on the nose, though, and that does leave him missing the tail guns. Vortex's hand held weapons can be used in this mode as well. Using some hinges you can bend the guns around and plug them into the sides of the coptor, forming wings with mounted rocket launchers similar to an Apache's. Honestly, I'm not keen on the look, though. I feel like Unique Toys would have been better off if they'd just given Vortex a single blue rifle that could have fit between the legs/halves of the cockpit area with just the barrel sticking out of the nose. Blast Off and Vortex both felt like they were rushed out, perhaps to complete their Bruticus before Zeta did. Between the two, though, I definitely feel like Vortex suffered worse for it. Like Blast Off I had to file down some tabs that were way too tight, and even then I still have a little gap between the halves of his nose. But the thing is, a little tight is easy to fix with a file and some patience. Vortex has the opposite problem, with guns and copter blades that are far too loose. It was difficult to keep them in place for photographs. They're so loose that I'm not sure how well floor polish is going to work, which is why I'm thinking about glueing the rotors. To make matters worse, one of the ends on the central piece of the main rotor is bent so the blade pinned into it is always drooping, although that may be a YMMV sort of thing. Another YMMV thing to worry about is breakage. I've been pretty careful with mine, making sure to hold him by the midsection, but I've heard of a couple people ripping him in half at the waist trying to pull out the extending section for transformation. The struts for the landing gear are also fairly thin and I know of at least one person who broke theirs. Poor QC makes me even more hesitant to recommend Vortex than I was with Brawl. And yet, despite the QC and despite the liberties taken with the design this is still the most cartoon-accurate Vortex you can buy right now, and if a cartoon-accurate Vortex is a must for your collection this is your best option.

These guys came in Tuesday, but I've been really busy lately. Better late then never, eh? This would be Lashlayer, UT's ridiculously-named Blast Off (so ridiculously-named that I'm going to stick to calling him Blast Off). Now, the complaint I've been hearing the most is that Swindle and Brawl were really G1 cartoon accurate and that Blast Off isn't. I don't think that's exactly true, though... in their separate reviews I talked about where and how Swindle and Brawl weren't totally cartoon accurate, just a lot closer than previous attempts. And I think that's true for Blast Off, too. I mean, he's got the landing gear on his shins. He's got the curved "my forearms are made of cockpit" forearms. He's got the purple panel in the middle of his chest with the trio of black ovals. That purple is flanked by some black paneling, although it could have been wider. He's got the forehead crest of the cartoon. And, best of all, he eschews the purple toy torso for a more cartoon gray. Of course, like the others, the cartoon accuracy isn't perfect. His chest is a little too wide, and the bottoms of his pecs have translucent windows that fill in for molded vents on the original toy. His large shoulder pads are a departure from the cartoon's simple blocks... they're oddly reminiscent of Warbotron's version, if you ask me. But mostly, I think the biggest problem is the colors, which are sort of muted or washed out. The gray on his legs and torso should be nearly black. The browns should be a dark near-olive and dark chocolate, not this pale grayish-brown and extra creamy milk chocolate. Oh, and he's got feet. But... You can spin then 180 degrees and he can totally have cartoon-style booster feet. They've got some silver in them that's not entirely accurate, but I kind of dig that. The booster feet are a little smallish, but I think they actually work better. His legs are kind of heavy, and the boosters don't work as well as heel spurs. I was having trouble keeping the feet flat. But rotated around, the feet provide lots of support for heel spurs and the round boosters look fine even if they're not totally flat. On the subject of aesthetic options the shoulder pads are on a pin, so you can have them close to his arms or flared out like the Warbotron version. Anyway... Blast Off comes with few accessories. He's got a gun, a combined-mode hand, a set of painted red eyes, and a cockpit. The eyes are replacement's for the ones already in the combined mode head. Now, some people are saying that they got some loose in the box, and some people are saying they didn't get them at all. Apparently UT is saying that that the painted eyes are a random gift, and you may or may not get them. All I can tell you is that mine where in the bag with the instructions. Blast Off's head is on a hinged swivel, and he can look up or down about 30 degrees. His shoulders rotate, and they can ratchet laterally a little under 90 degrees. The shoulder is assembly is nominally pegged into the torso, but you can unplug it and use a friction joint for transformation to increase the lateral range to nearly 180 degrees. His biceps swivel. He's got double-jointed elbows that get him 150-ish degrees. His wrists can swivel, and his fingers are pinned at the base knuckle with the index finger being separate from the rest. His waist can swivel, and due to his combined mode he can bend his torso to his left. His waist can swivel. His legs can move forward 90 degrees and backward nearly that much on a ratchet, although getting the full forward range means you have to move the entire front of his pelvis since his hip skirts aren't separately hinged. Squeaky friction joints get him 90 laterally at the hips. His thighs swivel over the hips, which limits them a bit but still gives him a very natural range and looks better than a thigh cut. His knees bend nearly 90 degrees; it's just a small tab on the backs of his legs that prevents them from going the full 90. His toes, weather you're using the feet or the boosters, can tilt up and down a little, plus a dedicated hinge gives him 90 degrees of ankle pivot. Although it looks a little big for him, Blast Off holds his gun just fine. As for the extra cockpit, there's nowhere for it to really go in robot mode. If you leave it in the same place as alt mode it prevents a hinge from allowing the cockpit to fold onto his back. Best I could come up with was fitting it around the hinge for the nose and hooking the top over his backpack, then using tension from the nose to hold it in place. It'll stay, but it's not secure. Speaking of cockpits, there's his alt mode. The stubby wings are actually accurate to both cartoon and G1 toy. One again, the big problem is really color. Again, the lighter gray on the wings should really be almost black, and the dark lavender should be more closer to the rich purple of an eggplant. For cartoon accuracy the black and brown on the nose should be flipped, although this pattern is necessary for brown forearms in robot mode and still toy-accurate. The biggest problem is the two browns clashing. It's not totally inaccurate for there two be two browns, but the lighter brown should only be aroudn the boosters, not the back half of the fuselage. The black painted windows on the cockpit don't exactly match the purple of the cartoon and toy, but black does make them stand out against the purple. The shape is a little different. In the cartoon it was one solid window, and the G1 toy looked like it was intended to be solid but was broken by a seam. It's almost like Unique Toys decided to treat the toy's seam as a split and painted the window as two panes. Aside from color, my biggest gripe with the shuttle mode would be all the seems and gaps around the cockpit. This is easily remedied by dropping in the extra cockpit piece. Not only does it fill in the gap, but it gives the cockpit area a more realistic appearance. Just be warned, before putting the cockpit on him you might want to take a file and file down all the inside edges on the cockpit piece. Tolerances on Blast Off are a little off. In fact, I also filed down a few tabs and the inside surfaces of his shoulder pads. On other little gripe... his booster feet are the only engine exhausts on the shuttle, which puts him three short of an actual space shuttle. Granted, he could arguably be a fictional military spaceplane given the fact that he's a Combaticon, but it still looks very odd (especially with the flared spaces for boosters on the fuselage) and I don't think it's cartoon accurate. Anyway... he does have working landing gear with rolling wheels, although the rear landing gear have a tendency to fold back in. The instructions suggest plugging his gun into the top of the shuttle, but the hole is slightly too wide and the gun spins loosely in there. A peg under the shuttle works a bit better, although I'd guess that peg is maybe meant for a flight stand. Blast Off is by no means perfect. In fact, he's kind of frustrating because my biggest complaints, the colors and the tolerances, are things that could have been fixed. That said, the transformation is pretty pleasant, his articulation is good, and for all his flaws he's closer to the cartoon than the competition. I like him. I think the only thing that's holding me back from giving him a full recommend is that I'm a big Combaticon fan, and while this Blast Off is closer than efforts like Fansproject's, Warbotron's, or Zeta's, I'd still really like to see another company take a stab at them and really get it right. Unique Toys' Blast Off is good. For some people that's good enough, and if you think you'll like him then go ahead and get him. If you expect a great Blast Off, though, this one isn't quite there.

*sigh* I mean, the models are cool and all, but I was hoping that there was some news on the actual game...

Yeah, I think I already explained why the one thing definitely worse than Disney getting Fox is Comcast getting Fox...

I see that your location is Brazil, so maybe you're not familiar with Comcast. Here in the States the big telecoms, in collusion with the federal and state governments, have largely divided the country into territories where they operate with little to no competition. As a result the telecoms have been able to charge whatever they want for poor products and poor customer service while pulling in obscene profits. Comcast is one of the biggest (largest cable TV provider, largest internet service provider, and third-largest telephone service provider in the States). They're already dipping their fingers into other pies, as they own Universal Pictures Studios and a few television networks including NBC, USA, and E!. They've already struck an MVNO deal with Verizon (the #1 cell service provider), and they're reportedly in some kind of talks with Sprint, too. Heck, they even have a controlling share of the Philidelphia Flyers, an NHL hockey team. If all that sounds bad, it is. Comcast has twice been named the worst company in the US by Consumerist, twice listed as having the worst customer satisfaction by the American Customer Satisfaction Index, and at least once given an F by the Corporate Library for their corporate governance. They spend insane amounts on lobbying and have given jobs to the relatives of various government officials to try to get preferential treatment. They've been caught illegally deceiving customers about data caps and other things to get more money out of customers, and have been fined by the Federal Communications Commission for it (although the fine, a mere $2.3 million, is really just a slap on the wrist). And as terrible as they are, like I said they've worked out deals so they basically have no competition in their territories. Where I live if you want internet you can get dial up, you can get pretty slow DSL, you can pay obscene rates for cellular data (usually with a data cap), or you can get Comcast cable. There's no other cable and no FIOS options. For years my internet speed was around 15Mbps; it only went up because the government made a rule that you had to be at least 25Mbps to be considered broadband. Television? Again, Comcast is the only cable provider, and there's no FIOS here. The only alternatives are two satellite TV providers. So, even though their reputation isn't exaggerated and they're truly a horrible company, I'm stuck being their customer because there just isn't anyone else to go to. So please, believe me when I tell you that no matter how much you don't like Disney one thing guaranteed to be worse than Disney getting Fox is Comcast getting Fox.

Nobody should be cheering for Comcast, ever.

It's kind of funny how Takara has to release new versions of their old MPs to match the aesthetic of their more recent post-Hasui MP releases while I'm buying 3P-style MPs to match the aesthetic of MP-10, Sounddwave, and the Autobot cars.

I'm mashing, personally. I definitely want one. I already picked up a case, and I'm looking forward to adding more games to it. Counting the original 21, my SNES Classic has... Umm... Huh. I lost count. 177? 179? Over 175 games.

Ditto. Apparently he and whatever they're calling their Dead End are going to release at the same time in August. Price isn't bad, either. We knew that the $40 price on Crackup was just because of the KO, and quality-wise Crackup definitely feels like he's worth more. I'd have probably still been in at $80, so I'm happy with $60. Funny thing is, I'm not 100% in a Menasor that's that cartoon accurate, but if XTB keeps it up I'm going to at least have some great individual Stunticons.

Not sure if anything Az posted is really grabbing me, aside from Devil May Cry 5 (adios, Ninja Theory). Maybe Battletoads. But if you wanna throw in the stuff that's not in Az's post, there's Doom Eternal, Elder Scrolls VI, and Metal Wolf Chaos XD are all on my radar. And maybe some other stuff once I figure out how much of it is going to be an online survival game...

So by now I'm guessing that just about everyone and their mom knows that Takara is going to be releasing Optimus Prime in the MP line for the third time. I'd gripe about them doing Prime again instead of the boatload of characters they haven't done even once, but if I'm being honest 3P has done a pretty good job of doing the characters that Takara isn't, and we could all see this coming when we saw what an aesthetic mismatch MP-10 and MP-36 were. Now I love MP-10, and I'm not always a fan of the post-Hasui ultra-cartoony aesthetic that the official MP line has taken, but if I'm being honest MP-10 could definitely be improved on, so I was curious to see how the new version shook out. I mean, I guess I still am, but I'm decidedly cool on him after seeing the first pictures of the full robot mode. So imagine my surprise to see that a 3rd party called Magic Square has stepped up to the plate. Looks like their Optimus isn't going to have the super long arms MP-10 does, and his tires all hide away nicely. He seems to clean up exceptionally well. His torso looks much closer to MP-10 than the new one's though, which I like. I'm not sure I'm sold on this version; he looks a little thick, if you ask me, but so far I'm liking what I'm seeing, certainly more than the new official one.

Well, head's up, if you thought MP-10 needed some work in the arms and legs but liked the torso, and you think Op v3 has better arms and legs but you're iffy on the torso, it seems a 3P called Magic Square is doing an MP-style Optimus that looks somewhere between MP-10 and Op v3. I'll post more about it in that thread.

The legs and arms (smokestacks aside) do like like a big improvement over MP-10. It's the torso that's not looking so good. I'll reserve judgement until I see it in color, I suppose. I mean, I was one of those people questioning the need for MP-10 because I thought MP-01 was good enough, and I wound up being blown away by how much better I thought MP-10 was. But so far I'm not exactly impressed.

Well, his diaper matches Megatron's...

I dunno, seems to me like she brought up the valid criticism that Kennedy seems to have a lack of vision or direction for the franchise, dismissed it by saying that the first three Disney Star Wars films were financially successful, then suggested that the reason fans want someone like Dave Filoni to at least be brought in as a creative consultant is sexism. Now, I'm not naive enough to believe that none of the fans are blameless... you only need look at the harassment that drove Kelly Marie Tran off Instagram for a reminder of that. But people like Kennedy have been using the behavior of a few bad actors to dismiss legitimate criticism. Star Wars has (had?) enough of a hardcore fanbase that at least the first few Disney Star Wars films were guaranteed to make money; the fact that they're underperforming on just the fourth outing while Infinity War hit $1 billion in record time long after pundits said we'd get tired of comic book films is a strong argument for what a cohesive vision or lack thereof can do for a cinematic universe. Kennedy doesn't seem to get that, and neither does the author.

Not Volta, and not Pascal (the 10-series). Turing. And it sounds like Turing might not be ready this year after all, so I guess better luck next year. I think so, but I kind of lost track since I've been adamant about waiting on a new GPU. Who knows, maybe it'll be 9th-gen by the time I get to it. I heard the last "upgrade" was fairly minor anyway. And that makes sense to me. My personal rule is to upgrade every other GPU generation. The 10-series didn't seem to warrant an upgrade over the 970 I already have, but I don't know if it's the crypto mining or a lack of competition from AMD or what but they're taking forever to move on from 10 to 11, and my 970 is starting to show it's age. Considering I don't really do more than surf the net and game anymore on my PC I don't have a pressing need to upgrade anything else until Turing is ready, even though my 3770k has gotta be around six years old.