mikeszekely

Well, I've been told that making the whole wing in one part without the gaps caused them to warp. Now, the rest of this is speculation, but if suppose they need another mold to make parts to fit in the gaps. The molds are expensive enough to have made that it probably would have raised the cost enough that they have to raise the price of each figure. And I think pricing Meteor was already tricky (especially for people thinking long term about getting 3-6 versions). For every one person who says "I'd rather they just charged $20 more and filled in the wings" there's probably two more who'd decide that's too expensive and they're going to stick with MP-11. For what it's worth, I didn't find the gaps to be much of an issue in hand anyway.

This is a long time coming, as he was sold basically sold out when I wanted to buy him. I preordered for the second run, but apparently the second run was held up by Gabriel. So here he is, eight months late: DX9's Richthofen, an MP take on Powerglide. Out of the box, I'm very impressed with how cartoon accurate Richthofen is. The face is spot on, he's got his blue, yellow, and red crotch details, and his forearms overhang his hands. DX9 not only managed to get the shape of the feet and shins cartoon accurate, with minimal engines on the sides of his legs, they even managed to mimic the cartoon's broader chest despite the fact that his alt mode fuselage actually tapers where his chest gets wider. And yet, despite being extremely cartoon accurate he's not taking that accuracy into the same bland territory that MP Inferno did, as he's sporting numerous panel lines on most flat surfaces. Really, the only negative I can come up with for his looks is that his feet are maybe too big, but that's a pretty minor negative. Size may or may not be a negative, depending on your sensibilities. For a mini-bot he's definitely a bigger fellow, as he's a significantly taller than MP Bumblebee and only slightly shorter than an MP car to the top of their heads (although his face is low enough that he sort of looks like he's a head shorter). Compared with some other mini-bots in my collection he's half a head taller than Brawny or Huff, a full head taller than Spindrift, and roughly the same height as Klaatu or Wavebreak. I guess some people will say Richthofen is too tall for a mini-bot, but judging by the way people talk about Aerialbots I'm sure there's at least a few people who'd argue that he turns into a jet and therefore should be Seeker-sized. Me personally, I think he's fine. Richthofen comes with a few accessories. We've got the parts to build a display stand, which is always nice when the alt mode is an aircraft. You've got yet another alien mask from "Hoist Goes Hollywood," so that's helpful if you've got a couple other characters from that episode with alien masks and you want to recreate a scene. You've got a tiny figure of Astoria from "The Girl Who Loved Powerglide," which does nothing for me, and his gun. I can't really recall if he used a gun in the cartoon or not, but I'm glad DX9 gave him one regardless. It's curious, though, how much it looks like the guns that came with MP Ironhide and Ratchet (and I definitely remember Ratchet using those guns in the movie). And, for that matter, MP Bumblebee's. Maybe that design is the sort of generic, standard-issue blaster on Cybertron... Richthofen's articulation is pretty good. His head is on a hinged swivel, so he can look down a little, up a little bit more, and turn his head. His shoulders can rotate, and the round part of his shoulder is on it's own hinge so it can move up 90 degrees and leave enough clearance for the joint inside to move laterally over 90 degrees. His biceps swivel, and his double-jointed elbows can curl the full 180 degrees. His wrists swivel. His thumb is fixed and his four fingers are hinged at the base and molded in a curl, with the index finger being an individual piece and the other three fingers molded together. His waist can swivel. His hip skirts are hinged at the front, on the side, and on his butt, allowing him to kick forward, backward, and laterally just a little under 90 degrees. His thighs can swivel just below the hip, and he's got an additional swivel just below his knees. Speaking of knees, they can bend 90 degrees. His feet can tilt down about 45 degrees and his ankles can pivot a little less than that. DX9 skips the whole tab/slot thing found on most MP-style toys. Instead, the shape of his thumb and palm create a natural groove for the handle, and the tension in his fingers secures the gun in place. Honestly, he holds is gun better than a lot of fingers I own, 3P and official alike, that do use the tab/slot method. As for his other accessories, spinning his face around as if for transformation reveals a slot on the other side. His alien mask can tab right into it. He can't seem to use the stand in robot mode, which is fine. And since she's not articulated in any way you can't really do much with Astoria besides pose Richthofen with her. You can open Richthofen's chest, though, revealing a red heart within. Richthofen's alt mode is also pretty close to the cartoon, but not as close as the robot mode. Some of the changes aren't unwelcome; both the cartoon and G1 toy had the engines as solid red chunks, but DX9 painted the edges silver (although it's a little sloppy on his right engine), they put the fans inside and either made them out of a gunmetal-looking plastic or painted them gunmetal, and they made the exhausts black with some silver paint, plus they put vertical silver stripes on his tail. Some of the changes may be out of necessity; some of the silvery color on his thighs shows on the side of the plane because they were trying to keep the (inaccurate) red on his thighs to a minimum, he's got little bumps on each wing where hooks that hold the wings in place for robot mode store, and his arms curl up under the wings but his forearms don't encapsulate his upper arms to make a solitary pod under each wing. And still others are just confusing; he's missing the point on the leading edge of his wings seen on both the cartoon model and the G1 toy, where a real A-10's landing gear protrudes forward from the wings. Overall, though, he's proportionally closer to the animation model than an actual A-10, so I guess that's a win. And I've gone on record as saying that I usually prefer sacrifices in alt mode (if necessary) to really nail the robot mode, so there's that, too. As for the engineering, a lot of it is basically a twist on the G1 toy. The back half of the plane does (mostly) become the legs, but the engines split and wrap around his calves and the stabilizers wrap around the ends of the tail to form his feet. For better robot and plane proportions his legs don't collapse, instead a small backpack slides down, with half wrapping between his legs, to cover his thighs. The front of his torso pulls out and spins 180 degrees so the plane tapers to the nose, and rather than tab onto his torso clips on his wings latch onto his backpack to hold everything in place. It's a fairly simple and effective transformation for the most part, although I do wish DX9 could have done a little more with the arms under the wings. You may notice that there's a pretty big split in the tail. Apparently when the first batch of Richthofens went out last year there was some complaints that the peg that holds the halves of the tail together was perhaps a little too tight. DX9 tried to correct that for the second batch, but I guess they over-corrected and now the peg doesn't really work. DX9 is aware of the problem and will supposedly be sending out replacement parts to retailers soon. On the underside you can see the tab we used to plug in the alien mask. You can also see Richthofen's landing gear, which is kind of useless as landing gear. You see, for whatever reason DX9 put one in the front, which seems about right, but instead of a pair in the back (whether they're on the wings or arms or not) they put just one in the back. So, Richthofen can't really sit on his landing gear. The wheels do actually roll, so it's effectively impossible to balance him on just the two wheels without him tipping over to one side or another. That said, there is a use for the landing gear, at least the one in the back. Rather than have a peg or tab or something on the stand, the end of the arm is a box. The rear landing gear fits into the box, and the weight in front of it pulls it against the back of the box, holding it in place. And that slot we tabbed the alien mask into? There's a tab on the side of his gun, too, allowing you to tab the gun into the same slot for some alt-mode weapon storage. Alas, the cockpit doesn't open so Astoria can't ride in him. By the way, the stand itself isn't bad, but it's one of those ones where if you want to change the angle at a joint you have to pull the arm off, re-position it, and then push it back into palace. I suppose this does make for sturdier joints, but I'd prefer ratchets. $80* might seem a little steep for a mini-bot, since official MP cars used to be around $70 and guys like Grump, Klaatu, Boost, Arkose, and Spindrift all ranged from slightly to significantly less expensive, and that's probably why I didn't buy Richthofen right away when he first came out (although it's worth pointing out that the price is the same as Brawny and Huff). But don't let the price put you off of this guy. The materials feel good, his joints are all well-toleranced so he's not at all loose or floppy, he looks so spot-on in robot mode you'd almost mistake him for a FansToys figure (or not, given how off Spindrift was), and unlike so many of FansToys releases (especially recently) he's simple and fun to transform. Powerglide might not have been my favorite mini-bot in the show, but Richthofen is possibly the best-executed MP mini-bot on my shelf. Strong recommend from me.

Curious about the smaller Action Toys' Machine Robot figures and eager to finish off my Cy-Kill collection, I went ahead and picked up the smaller Bike Robo figure from their non-DX line. Of the four Cy-Kill/Bike Robo figures I have, this one is perhaps the most stylized with more thigh detail and a rather different pelvis. He's also missing the handlebars on his shoulders (more on this in a bit), but that's definitely anime-accurate. And unlike the DX version, which very much comes across as an MP Cy-Kill in Bike Robo packaging, the smaller Bike Robo definitely feels like it's trying to capture the style of the Revenge of Cronos anime. He's also a very tiny figure, falling in between the original Cy-Kill and the Super Gobots Cy-Kill in size. To give you another reference, he's a little taller than a modern Hasbro Legends-class toy, but shorter than your average modern Deluxe-class. He certainly comes with a lot of accessories, split between two trays. The first tray consists of Bike Robo himself and his personal accessories: his wheels, an axe that I assume is either from the anime or an invention of the designer, two handlebars, a kickstand, and a stand adapter. The other tray has the parts to build a display base. This is the only time I'm going to talk about the display base, but part of the reason they're in a separate tray is because the same parts come with every figure in Action Toys' non-DX Machine Robo line. The parts of the base can be configured in a variety of ways. Here's two suggested in the instructions. If you have more Machine Robo figures and more bases they can be linked together in larger and more elaborate ways. Bike Robo's articulation is... so-so. His head is on a ball joint, and he can't really look up but he can look down a bit. His head can also swivel, but it requires him to look down so the back of his head clears his torso. His shoulders are hinged inside his torso for transformation, then the arms are attached on ball joints, but combined they still only give him 35-45 degrees of lateral movement. They do, however, rotate fine and provide a slight forward/backward butterfly joint. His biceps can swivel, and his elbows can bend 90 degrees. No wrist or hand articulation. His waist can swivel. He has a very slight ab crunch, but it feels less like an intentional joint and more like his waist wasn't tolerances properly around with the diecast in his torso. His hips are ball joints, and he can kick a little over 90 degrees forward, about 45 degrees backward, and about 60 degrees laterally. He has actual thigh swivels, although his knees also swivel in addition to bending something like 160 degrees on, you guessed it, ball joints. The front of his feet are also on ball joints so he can tilt his feet up and down, as well as pivot (at least for the front half of his foot). He can hold his axe just fine in either hand. You can connect him to the display base by building in in some configuration with the jointed arm, then using his personal connector at the the end. A tab pegs in under his crotch then sits under the figure. It's worth mentioning, by the way, that each joint slides into an arm via a simple peg so the joints can swivel, plus the joints themselves are pretty strong ratchets. The weakest link is the part that connects them to the base, as it's a little loose and prone to popping out. As for his other partsforming bits, you can actually leave the kickstand attached where it goes in bike mode, and just angle it so his legs can still close. As for the handlebars, I don't know if it was intentional or not but they can plug into his heels and act as heel spurs. Since Bike Robo and DX Bike Robo share the same designer the engineering is extremely similar between the two figures, most notably the way the engine unfolds from the inside of their legs. Little Bike Robo eschews the translucent orange plastic used by his big brother (and the older Cy-Kill toys) in favor of orange paint. That's fine, mind you, but I wonder why they didn't make the top black like the original toy and Revenge of Cronos? Another thing I find sort of curious is that even though he's a smaller bike than Super Cy-Kill their wheels and tires are very close in size. Not going to lie, even though I found a place to stow them in robot mode I'm not a fan of the partsforming handlebars. I'm also not a fan of the unsightly hollowed-out squares on the showing on the wrists. That's a Hasbro move right there. I do find it interesting, though, that he's got a screw in pretty much the exact same spot as the original Bike Robo/Cy-Kill toy, at the front of the seat. You can store Bike Robo's axe in bike mode by poking the handle between his legs and sliding the skinnier part of it up into the notch where his stand connector tabs in. This is an official thing you can see in the instructions, but it looks pretty dumb. As for the stand, I guess you can set the bike on it. The way the arm of the base connects to both the base and to Bike Robo means you're probably not going to pose him in bike mode on the arm without something popping off. As the first new Bike Robo/Cy-Kill toy (that I'm aware of) to come along in 30+ years, Action Toys' definitely built themselves a neat little figure. It's got more articulation than either of the earlier figures from the '80s, and although he's technically got even more partsforming bits you can find places to stow them so you're not losing the engine piece like you probably did with your original Cy-Kill. And, although he's a bit bigger than the original toy, so are my hands, so the way Bike Robo feels in my adult hands sort of feels in my mind the way the smaller toy felt to my child hands, if that makes sense. However, I think price was Bike Robo's first downfall, as he was retailing for around $40-$50 from most places. For a figure that's smaller than a Hasbro Deluxe with a similar level of engineering and mediocre articulation that feels a little steep. If this guy had been $30 or under I probably wouldn't have waited nearly a year to pick him up (and they probably could have hit that price point if they'd skipped the display base). At this point in history there's also DX Bike Robo to consider. Yes, it's a toy that costs over double the smaller figure, but in addition to being double the size DX Bike Robo has the magnets, the extra Hanna-Barbera Cy-Kill faces, silver paint instead of silvery plastic, ratcheted universal joints instead of ball joints, better range in the elbows and shoulders, an actual ab-crunch, a transformation that doesn't involve removing the handlebars, and other small engineering tweaks. Bike Robo feels like a nice modern Gobots toy, DX Bike Robo feels like a premium Masterpiece sort of toy. It's a toy that's so superior to its smaller cousin that the higher price tag feels a lot more fair. My gut tells me that if you already bought Bike Robo, or you're already into the smaller Machine Robo line, you're probably not regretting your purchase. However, I'm going to say that at this point I can't really recommend him. While he is cheaper than the DX version I really do think you get more for your money with the DX version anyway. The only advantage the smaller figure really has at this point is that there are more Machine Robo figures available in that line but so far Bike Robo is alone in the DX line. But it's only a matter of time before that changes, too; I've already heard rumors that a DX Eagle Robo will be their next release, and like Bike Robo he's going to come with some more Hanna-Barbera options than the smaller toy. So unless you're already into the smaller Machine Robo line just skip Bike Robo and pick up the DX Bike Robo instead.

Sorry, my package didn't come on the weekend like I expected... TFSource must have found a new, even slower method to use for their free-over-$150 shipping. But my package came today, and I wanted to get this up because people are already forming some pretty strong opinions. This is FansToys Rouge, their version of a Masterpiece Arcee. At first blush, I'll give credit where credit is due and say that Rouge is definitely a good-looking Arcee. The colors are good, the proportions are good, and they even captured little details like the red and pink patch above her (accurate) belly button and the elbow pads with the octagonal holes. And considering that her character model was basically a woman with a little bit of car on her shoulders I think that's quite a feet. I think the size is good, too, standing a smidge taller than Hot Rod and roughly chest-high to Big Spring. Things do start to become a little troubling on closer examination. The front of her torso doesn't tab in securely, and even when it does there's a visible gab through her torso. Another gap can be seen under her collar. But the most irritating thing about her bot mode for me is her backpack. Sure, everything does fold up in there pretty compactly, leaving her back fairly clean and almost entirely free of kibble that isn't supposed to be there, but the hinges in the arms connecting her backpack to her torso are a little weak. Worse, you can see there are flaps on the front that fold over and hide some of the folded-up car inside. Those flaps have slots in them that are supposed to fit over white tabs, but they just don't. And since the hinges those flaps are on are the loosest joints on the figure manipulating her at all will have them flopping all over the place. OK, I'd also argue that the default chest plate that Rouge comes with is a tad buxom for a robot. Fortunately, a second, less busty chest is included, along with a second pair of hands (whose only difference are the lack of tabs for holding the weapons), a gun I'm not super familiar with that has a removable stock, and a pistol that I think she used to shoot the tentacles inside Unicron. I'm not exactly a fan of the one gun being pink. Rouge also comes with several alternate faces. You've one one that almost looks like the default face, except that closer inspection will reveal that it has a subtle smile. You've got your "but Hot Rod and Kup are still outside the city" visor, you've got a yelling face, you've got a big-eyes-small-mouth anime face, and you've got what can only be described as a "Sweet Primus, what was FansToys thinking?!" face. I have to say that from early photos I thought I'd prefer the anime face, but in hand the default face is pretty spot-on. Arcee is pretty poseable, but her small feet and large backpack due create some challenges getting her to stand. Her head is on a ball joint and can look up and down a good deal in addition to swiveling, but her Leia buns and collar prevent her from getting much lateral tilt. Her shoulders are also ball joints, and can maybe 75-80 degrees laterally in addtion to rotating. Her biceps can swivel. She has double-jointed elbows that can basically bend 180 degrees. He technically has a wrist swivel, but it's really at the middle of her forearm. There's at transformation hinge at her actual wrist that lets her bend it up and down, plus an additional hinge at the base knuckles of her fingers that let her open and close her hands. She doesn't have a waist swivel, but she can bend sideways at the waist a little. Her hips are friction universal joints that can kick forward almost 90 degrees, backward a little less than 45, and laterally 90 degrees. She has thigh swivels, although her thighs are about 25% larger front-to-back than they are left-to-right so using them too much will ruin the sculpt. Her knees are a single hinge but they still bend 140-150 degrees. Her feet can tilt up slightly, down nearly 90 degrees, and her toes can bend up about 90 degrees. A hinge gives her an ankle pivot that's a little under 45 degrees. She holds her weapons OK using a method that's a little backward from the usual MP fare. Instead of having tabs on the gun, the tabs are on the inside of Rouge's fingers As you curl them around the handle of either gun they slide into a slot on the front on the handle. On the pistol, it seems that pushing the tab in actually causes the handle to split at the seam, which is a bit unfortunate. Swapping her faces is as easy as pulling the old one off and pushing a new one on. Swapping the hands means pushing out the mushroom pegs they're attached on, which feels like something you probably don't want to do often with such thin parts. And swapping the chest requires you to undo two screws, pull off the chest, undo two more screws to remove the folded white part inside, putting the white part onto the other chest, then screwing the other chest back onto the figure. Rouge folds up into a fairly neat,reasonably compact space car. She's even got little seats, some painted dashboard/center console details, and a steering wheel. I suppose she could be been a little curvier, but that's pretty subjective. The biggest objective issue, aesthetically, is the gap in the middle of the hood. I've been told that it's possible to push the parts around to minimize the gap, but honestly, it's not worth the effort. Transforming Rouge is a nightmare. Seriously, making enemies transform Rouge could be an enhanced interrogation technique. In all of the transforming toys I've bought over the years she is only the second that I'll never transform again after the first time (the first being MP-05 Megatron). People give BadCube a hard time but I'll happily transform Sunsurge every day for a month before I'd transform Rouge again. From the waist down she's pretty easy, but from the waist up she just explodes into panels connected by thin armatures, and her backpack unfurls to make up the front fenders (but not the headlights), the sides, and the entire rear of the car. That might not be so bad except there are serious clearance issues that force you to bend panels on hinges around other parts. Rouge doesn't roll particularly well. He rear wheels, due largely to the tension in her knee joints, plus she doesn't have much clearance. Her head actually splits like MP Sideswipe's, and her forehead is still basically dragging on the ground. You can actually see her peeking out from under the front. Still, as I said, it's a pretty accurate alt mode with translucent lights and the windshield on the front and painted taillights in the back. (I'm also kind of noticing how similar Blurr and Arcee's alt modes are... hmm...). There isn't any way to store her weapons in alt mode, which is kind of lame because she's got slots in her fenders. How hard would it have been to mold tabs on her guns that fit those slots? I'm going to come out and say it- I think that Rouge is probably the worst figure that FansToys has put out. For all the grief people give BadCube I think overly-complicated transformations are starting to become more of a FansToys thing (this, Sovereign, Koot, Apache... heck, even Spindrift, while not particularly difficult, was over-engineered in a way that made me think transforming him was harder than it actually needed to be). But, even though Rouge's transformation is easily the worst I've suffered through in a very long time, it's not just the transformation. It's the lack of polish; some joints too loose, others too tight, gaps in the torso, gaps in the alt mode, tabs that don't stay in well, and tabs that don't stay in at all. Frankly, I don't recommend her. If you're the type of person who just wants a good-looking robot mode you might find some joy in Rouge, as I've yet to see anyone do a robot as accurate as she is, and she's definitely better than ToyWorld's Arcee. But I'm so thoroughly displeased with her that just looking at her is making me angry. She's going on the shelf and I'm not touching her again, which is not how I usually operate. And I'm keeping her box handy so I can sell her later if MMC's turns out to be better... and I'm really hoping MMC's turns out to be better.

That looks really good! Did you dry brush the scratches on his knees and shins? Someday I'm going to take the time to learn to do stuff like that. Y'know, after my baby girl goes to college or something... I'm in exactly the same boat. Actually, when I look at my collection and see Quakewave, Despotron, Meteor, the ToyWorld Coneheads, Backdraft, Salus, Sunsurge, Wrestle, Citizen Stack, and Carry representing characters that all have official MPs I think I might be more inclined to buy a 3P figure instead.

Woo-hoo! Finally! I already picked up a case in anticipation of this.

For me and Red Alert it's not so much that I'm buying the + version to replace the first MP-14, it's that I wanted Clamp Down for the police deco, realized that I still hadn't picked up Red Alert, and the + version was the only version available. Too bad I didn't wait a few more days. I'd have bought Blue Bluestreak instead of Red Alert and just picked up BadCube's.

Back when I reviewed TLK Voyager-class Optimus I said this: Well, I did. And I'm sure someone with, y'know, talent would probably do a lot better, but I'm pretty happy with how he turned out. The extra flames are Reprolabels, but everything else is paint from a mix of spray cans, paint pens, and brushing.

Yeah, I'm not sure how I feel about that. I kind of dig their Sideswipe, but ironically I opted not to pick up MP Sunstreaker because I thought BadCube's Sunsurge looked better with MP Sideswipe. With the blue windows and cartoony proportions on BC's Sideswipe I'm worried that he won't look good with Sunsurge. As for Red Alert, I think that BadCube's looks so much better than the official, but A.) I only recently ordered MP-14+, and B.) it took me that long to do it because Red Alert is possibly my least favorite of all the Autobot cars. I guess we'll see how the reviews go. If BadCube does a Deep Cover repaint of their Red Alert, though, I'm there. I'm that much a sucker for police cars.

With all the excitement over the new MPs I'm guessing that no one really cares about a year-old Deluxe I found shelfwarming at my local Target and only picked up because he's my favorite movieverse Decepticon. I thought about not posting my thoughts, but truthfully it's late enough that I don't feel like getting into a game but too early to go to bed, so I kind of had nothing better to do. Here's The Last Knight Deluxe Barricade. Right off the bat I'm noticing the size. Remember that the higher price tags on the Studio Series toys actually started with The Last Knight line, so there's a bit of sticker shock seeing how much smaller he is than the 2007 Deluxe Barricade at double the retail price (and yes, I did put some paint on the ol' 2007 Barricade to make him more movie accurate). That said, although I very much want a Studio Series Barricade based on the first movie or Dark of the Moon, I suppose TLK Barricade fits with the scale of the Studio Series figures. While scale is one of the selling points for the Studio Series in my book I think the big draw is that they are also supposed to pretty screen accurate. When I looked at Megatron he was pretty accurate if you overlooked some vehicle kibble. Prime needed more paint and likewise had some vehicle kibble not seen in the movie, but I was pretty impressed with the sculpt. So it's pretty disappointing that Barricade looks so phoned in. His head sculpt isn't too bad, and they tried to include some molded detail in his feet and shins, but it's like Hasbro didn't even try to get his arms or thighs right. As for his torso, he's missing some details around the hips, his pelvis isn't too bad, but while the front of his alt mode does form his chest it doesn't transform in any way to more accurately resemble his movie model, so he's lacking his badge. There's splashes of dark blue paint on a lot of his body, and they did paint the (some of) the lights on his chest, his eyes, and his knees, pretty much the only thing that's right are his knees. The unpainted gray plastic used for his hips and elbows looks especially bad. Scratch that, you know what looks especially bad? His back kibble. That's like 30% of his alt mode just hanging on his back, and aside from the doors folding in Hasbro did nothing to minimize it. Oh, and that non-accurate flap of car behind his head is probably there to hide the fact that only the front of Barricade's head is blue. The back of his head is the same ugly unpainted gray plastic used for his hips and elbows. He at least comes with a decent amount of accessories for a Deluxe-class toy these days. You've got the ring of arm-mounted guns seen in the movie, plus a pistol and a nightstick that I'm not sure he used in the movie but where definitely present on the character model. Sadly, the handcuffs that were on his character model are nowhere to be seen. All of the accessories that are included could have used some paint, but that's probably expecting too much from a Deluxe-class these days. Barricade's head is on a ball joint. It swivels fine, but both lateral and up/down tilt are fairly limited. His shoulders are on hinged swivels that rotate 360 degrees and move laterally a little less than 90 degrees. The kibble on his biceps can also rotate so it doesn't interfere with articulation, but at the same time it doesn't lock into any position. He has bicep swivels just above his elbows, which bend 90 degrees. His wrists can also swivel, but his waist cannot. His hips are on ball joints that can kick forward 90 and would be capable of kicking backward 90 degrees were it not for his egregious back kibble. He can also bend laterally 90 degrees at the hips. He has thigh swivels, and his knees can bend 90 degrees. Due to transformation his feet can bend up, but they can't bend down and he lacks any ankle pivots. It's worth noting here that pretty much every joint on him is pretty loose, even by Hasbro standards. That made posing him trickier than it strictly needed to be. He can hold his pistol and nightstick just fine, and yes, his fists do have molded knuckles that have the words "protect" and "serve" mirrored onto them. At least that detail is movie accurate. Another movie-accurate detail is that the pistol and nightstick can be stored on his legs, although they use tabs on the sides to fit into slots on his lower thighs instead of clipping into his hip armor. Alternatively, although I personally don't think it looks so good, the tabs on his weapons can also fit into slots on the outside of his forearms. The ring of guns can clip around his forearm, movie-style, although doing so limits his ability to hold a weapon in that hand. If you prefer to stow the launcher, you can put it on his back the same way you would store it in alt mode. Speaking of alt modes, Barricade looses even more screen-accuracy points for his car mode because Hasbro didn't bother to license with Ford. So, he doesn't turn into a Mustang, merely a fictional Mustang-esque car. The fake car has chunkier proportions, but I suppose still scales alright with Studio Series Bumblebee. He's still a lot smaller than 2007 Barricade, who actually does turn into a Mustang. There's some ways they tried to evoke the movie model. The lights in the bottom corners of the bumpers and the grill guard are right, as is the grill guard itself, although the actual grill and headlights are all wrong. The hood still has the two scoops. He's got white on the door, which properly reads "Police," although the car in the movie didn't have a Decepticon emblem. He's missing the "867" on the blue below the door and the front of the car, as well as the "911 Emergency Response" behind the front fenders. Likewise, his roof is similarly lacking numbers and is blue instead of white. His rear fender, which rides up too high, does have quoted text printed on it, but it reads "to punish and enslave" like his older form does, instead of "keep calm and hail Megatron" seen in the movie. The worst is his rear, which is off on pretty much every detail from the Mustang in the film, but most obviously is sporting a simple spoiler on the trunk instead of the large wing seen in the movie. At least he's got storage for his weapons. The ring of guns splits open and pegs onto his rear window. The pistol and nightstick actually plug into the same slots they use for bot mode storage. In fact, you can transform him between modes without removing any stored accessories. Kind of makes me wonder why they put slots on his forearms, though. Like I said at the beginning, I bought Barricade because he's my favorite movie Decepticon. I can't actually recommend him, though. The engineering on his just feels lazy- I mean, aside from the ridiculous backpack, I didn't mention earlier that his chest folds down over his head for robot mode but doesn't peg, tab in, or secure there in any way. His robot mode is inaccurate but ultimately recognizable, but his alt mode looks bad with the licensed alt modes of other movie toys. But the real nail in Barricade's coffin is Hasbro's price hike. I didn't mind it with the Studio Series, where the money felt like it was going toward better engineering and screen accuracy and I'd felt like they were some of the best mainstream retail Transformers releases in years. I tolerated it with TLK Megatron and Optimus, who had their flaws but were both pretty good figures in their own right. But Barricade feels like the sort of lazy, cheap junk Hasbro's been shoveling out for years now, the sort of junk that's been turning me off of retail Transformers. And if I'd skipped nearly all of the movie toys after the first one and a number of later Generations releases at $15-ish then $20 for is, frankly, a rip off.

It's supposed to resemble the G1 toy, with the weird head, yellow eyes, silver paint, swirlies on the chest, and gun barrel on the hip. As for Shockwave, it's pretty cool that they're doing him in the darker purple toy colors, but I'm quite happy with Quakeblast. EDIT: Cordon is looking hot. His head is so much better than Sunstreaker's. The only thing I'm not sure I'm digging is red eyes. I get that it's Diaclone accurate, but he looks downright evil. Maybe Cordon should have been a Decepticon?

What is it with giant heads on Takara Megatrons? Cartoon accuracy probably doesn't need to be adhered to so slavishly when you're working from bad '80s cells and bad '90s CGI. Side note, I could have sworn Cordon already had a name, so I'm digging around and I realize I was remembering a police Countach, but it was based on Sideswipe/Red Alert. Now I have MP-14C Clampdown on the way.

Yeah, I can't speak for all the variants, but I'm a sucker for police cars. I skipped the actual MP Sunstreaker because I already have Sunsurge, but I'll almost certainly pick up Cordon.

Actually, you can buy them for $79.99 (+shipping, I think maybe $14) directly from the Maketoys shop. They were always a recommend from me- I never liked the FT Reflector, so only the KFC ones were even in the running, but at that price they're a steal.

Better QC this time?

Disney's media empire is getting a little ridiculous, but I really don't like content in the hands of the people who sell you the cable to access the content.

I give the Bay movies a lot of grief for their robots looking like someone emptied the cutlery drawer into the blender (at least in the first three movies). I've grown to accept them a bit, even if the movies are getting progressively worse, but one design that kind of grabbed me even then was Barricade. Sure, he still had the cutlery in the blender look, but I think he pulled it off better than the other 'Cons in the first movie, and there's something I still really dig about him, like he's the anti-Prowl. So while I picked up MPM Prime because he's Prime and Bumblebee just because he was marked down, and I yawned at the announcement of MPM Ironhide, I really wanted MPM Barricade. My local TRU never got any in, so I wound up picking up the Takara version (which, at the same price the Hasbro version was supposed to be at TRU, is now cheaper than the Hasbro version at outlets like BBTS or TFSource). Yes, MPM Barricade is technically the most movie-accurate Barricade toy we've got. Maybe because, aside from the Human Alliance one (which was maybe hampered by having Human Alliance gimmick of places for someone to sit on both modes), all we really got were two Deluxes and a handful of Legends. Because, while the torso does some neat stuff to get a movie-accurate scrunched up look and proportions, he's still not totally right. The shoulders are the most obvious, as it doesn't even look like HasTak tried to get that right. They just folded the front fenders down and over the wheels on his shoulders. His arms are kind of where my gripes are in general, actually. While the movie model does have monstrously long arms his elbows were still under his biceps, and the white part of his doors with the "Police" print were on the outside of his biceps. On MPM Barricade his elbow is actually on the side of his bicep, and the white part of the door is on his forearm, desperately trying to hide the fact that his forearms are really a collection of ill-fitted panels with huge gaps you can see right through. Credit where it's due, though, everything that's not his arms looks pretty good. And I do like how the tires on his wrists split open. Barricade comes with two accessories. One is the big spiked wheel he tried to beat up Bumblebee with (although I thought it was more like a flail in the movie), and the other is a stand you can put it in when you don't have Barricade carrying it around. It's a shame he doesn't come with Frenzy. Barricade's articulation is... so-so. His head is on a ball joint so he can look up and down a good deal, tilt his head enough, and turn his head, but his chin gets caught on his collar so it can't go all the way around but what he can get is pretty natural. His shoulders can rotate on a soft ratchet and move laterally on a harder ratchet nearly 90 degrees before his shoulder junk hits his head. The shoulder junk is actually hinged, but it tilts in toward his head and therefore offers nothing to help his articulation. His biceps can swivel. As mentioned, his elbow is on the side of his bicep instead of under it, and it can bend 160 degrees or so on a single hinge. His wrists can't swivel, but his fingers and thumbs are hinged at the base knuckle (the fingers are one molded piece, though). His waist can swivel, although the kibble on his back interferes with it. His hips can move about 90 degrees forward, backward, or laterally, and the lateral movement is ratcheted. He has thigh swivels, but they're cut mid-thigh and his legs are much longer front to back than they are side to side, so using them really ruins the sculpt. He has double-jointed, ratcheted knees that get roughly 90 degrees using just the top, 90 degrees using just the bottom, or 90 degrees combined. No, that's not a typo; due the shape of his legs and the placement of the joints he's never going to get better than 90 degrees of bend. His feet can tilt up plenty, or down just a smidgen, and he's got 45 degrees of ankle pivot. The spiked wheel can clip onto a spot on his arm that essentially requires you to go halfway back to car mode. In the movies, the spiked wheel was his left hand, and attached to a wire so he could whip it around. Soft, unpainted gray plastic doesn't look particularly intimidating, it doesn't work like it did in the movie (for little bit he used it), and you can still see his robot hand where his elbow should be. I wish that instead of this they'd given him the gun he was using to execute Autobot prisoners in Dark of the Moon, because this monstrosity is going back in the box and into the closet. Barricade's alt mode is of course the Saleen Mustang from the first and third films. It scales nicely with Bumblebee or G1 MP cars. As is the case with HasTak MP cars, the tires are plastic. And yes, while black rims are screen accurate, they're left unpainted here. A glossier black paint for the rims would have helped them stand out from the tires, like Bee's painted rims do. The overall effect is kind of cheap. As for the transformation, like I said there's some new stuff going on in the torso area to get it more screen-accurate, and the forearms are a little more involved, but the gist of it is surprisingly similar to the original 2007 Deluxe toy (which itself was probably the best of the movie 1 toys). There are some tolerance issues getting his wings to move around the roof and vice versa. There's also one step in the instructions that has you split the light bar in the middle and rotate them so the clear sections point out to the sides and slightly down. They don't go out far enough to extend past his torso to been seen from any view but his back, and I don't recall his back being on screen long enough to know if that's accurate or not. I don't really have a ton to say about his alt mode. It's very accurate to the movie, but then again the old Deluxe was, too. The MPM moves some of the "643" markings to more accurate locations and has the "Emergency 9-1-1 Repsonse" bits that the Deluxe was lacking. He's got a painted-on license plate. He's also got a huge seem running across his door, but I guess that's the cost of doing business. Point of fact, the white part that goes with the windows to form his wings isn't actually on his wings in the movie, so I suppose they did it to give the door a more movie-accurate shape on his arm. I don't know, you guys. As a Barricade fan I'm happy to have one that looks a lot more like the movie than any other toy, but frustrated with his accessories, frustrated with his arms, and frustrated with the lack of polish on him. It's like they made an MP head, body, and legs and slapped arms you might find on a Voyager-class toy onto it, complete with unpainted wheels. If you're into the MPM line or Barricade he is still the best Barricade toy and the only Masterpiece version, so soft recommend from me, but he's definitely a weaker figure than MPM Bee or Prime. Side note, given how crappy, inaccurate, or both a lot of the first movie's toys were messing with the old Deluxe Barricade impressed me with how much they got right. It gives me hope for what Has/Tak might accomplish if they do a Studio Series Barricade.

Do I count as reputable? I should have her in hand next weekend. I'll be fair with her, but early reports are making me glad MMC is still working on one. That's because she's hit retail, and depending on where you ordered from and where you live people are starting to get their hands on her. My copy came in Wednesday or Thursday, in fact, but it takes about a week for TFSource to UPS stuff to me when I use the free shipping. If you've seen reviews for Lupus by guys like Emgo or Bobby Skullface you'll notice that they had issues with the cockpit staying in place in wolf mode. This was apparently an issue with the review copies that were sent out. This issue was apparently corrected before Lupus went to retail. I don't know if it was the issue itself or the fact that the issue was fixed before retail but wasn't communicated well, but FansToys apparently decided to stop sending out review samples.

Since I mentioned it, this is KFC's Transistor, their version of an MP Blaster. Heads up, before we start, there are two versions of this figure going around. This version is the red plastic version. There's another version where all the red is a metallic paint. I have no idea if there's any other differences. From what I've seen the metallic paint looked gorgeous, but was apparently very prone to chipping. At a glance, KFC definitely appears to have made a Blaster to match with MP-13. To be sure, there's some deviations from the G1 toy or the cartoon model. The most obvious his that he doesn't have the big, angled hips of the cartoon, although KFC did paint red lines on the hip skirts in a vaguely evocative fashion. The buttons on his chest have been moved down to his abs, too. This changes his proportions a bit, and makes them more dynamic. The rest is a matter of little details, like the yellow triangles on his shoulders (sort of simplified sticker detail, I guess), the yellow marks on his chest (they seem to have made that up entirely), some silver on his knees (made up), and some yellow on his shins (sticker detail, but should be silver). He's got more red on the sides of his lower legs than he strictly needs, too, but it's largely a necessity due to how he transforms. That's also the excuse for the extra panels folded up on his forearms. Not really sure about the bumps on his collar, though. His arms also have an odd design in that, when his arm is perfectly straight, his forearm is a little behind his bicep, and it looks like there's a joint that's angled back a little. That's not the case, though. In any case, as of this writing Transistor is probably the most cartoon-accurate Blaster you can get (although I do still have a soft spot for Unique Toys' smaller Soundmixer figure). You get quite a few accessories with Transistor. There's an alternate toy/Marvel comics-style head, a cassette and a purple cassette case, two gold speakers, two tiny gold blasters, two large rifles, and a bag with two alternate heads for the cassette, and alternate light-piped eyes for the cartoon head. The rifles' butts can fold down, and their barrels can be removed. More on that in a bit. They seem to be very G1-accurate, down the toy-style holes in them. The cassette, which the instructions name as Hi-Fi, is a sort of Masterpiece Rewind. He's the same size as MP Rumble or Frenzy, and like the Decepticon tapes one side is painted to look like a cassette while the other is left alone so as not to mess with his robot looks. Looks, by the way, that are pretty fine. I mean, if you saw him on a shelf next to the Decepticon tapes you probably wouldn't think twice about him being there, although a closer look would probably have you thinking that the face is a little muddy. The default face seems to be based on the cartoon. The ones in the little bag are G1 toy and IDW, both of which I think look better, although only the default head has paint on the back to match the cassette label. Personally, I'm going to swap the head out for the toy-style head. It's super easy to do... the neck is just a little post, and the head slides right off. Indeed, the head slides off far too easily. Hi-Fi's head swivels on its post, and you can use the transformation joint to tilt his head up. His shoulders are on hinges in his torso for lateral movement and can do 90 degrees, and they can swivel without any issue. A ball joint inside the shoulder pad gives him his bicep swivel as well as another 90 degrees of lateral motion. His elbows are double jointed and can nearly curl 180 degrees. His wrists can swivel. No waist articulation, but his thighs can swivel. His hips can move about 45 degrees laterally, then they're weirdly double-jointed for forward and backward motion so he can get something like 150-160 degrees. His knees can bend well over 90 degrees. His ankles are ball joints that allow for swivels, lots of downward tilt, slight upward tilt, and pivots. His guns peg very securely into his fists. His big issue (aside from his head being rather loose) is that his shoulder joints are pretty loose. I think, depending on what I paid, I probably wouldn't recommend Hi-Fi were he a standalone figure, but as an accessory for Transistor he's fine. As for Transistor, his head is on a hinged swivel so it can rotate as well as look up and down a little. You can cheat a little more upward tilt by moving the flap his head is on like you were transforming it. In fact, you might anyway because it doesn't really lock down. His ears also swivel in and out. His shoulders rotate and can extend laterally a hair over 90 degrees. His biceps swivel. Although his elbows almost look double-jointed there's just a single bend good for 90 degrees. His wrists swivel. His hands are, of course, KFC hands, so each finger and the thumb are individually-articulated and have ball joints at the base plus two additional knuckle hinges. Generally speaking I'm not a fan of KFC hands, but comparing Transistor to a more recent release like Paean makes me think that their ability to make hands has gone downhill, because Transistor's aren't too bad. The thumb's a little loose, but the other fingers seem adequate and they haven't fallen apart or gotten caught up on anything while transforming him. Moving along, his waist swivels. His front hip skirts fold up to allow for about 60 degrees forward and 45 degrees backward on ratchets. He could actually go farther forward than that, but it's not far enough to click the ratchet again and the leg will quickly drop back to where it did click. Lateral motion is also ratcheted, and the six clicks from straight to nearly 90 degrees is enough that he doesn't jump right into a wide A-stance. His thighs swivel, a little too loosely for my tastes. Ratcheted knees bend a little over 90 degrees. His feet can tilt up just a hair, down as far as you want, and pivot a little over 45 degrees. All told, I have no issues with his articulation. His guns have tabs on the handles that fit into slots on the palms, MP-style, and compare to other KFC/XTB stuff I have he actually holds his guns quite securely. Folding in the hands reveals pegs on the other side, and the speakers fit onto those pegs, allowing you to recreate that one scene from that one episode. Swapping heads is a little more involved. You have to remove the screw, then the head breaks up into four pieces (front, back, face, eyes). This is also how you'd swap the eyes, which I don't recommend because, like most light-piped MP-style toys, the eyes are pretty dead unless you have a strong light source behind him. The toy-style head is just two pieces, though. This means that the blue eyes aren't compatible with it. Aside from yellow eyes, the toy-style face uses silver instead of white, with more sharply defined cheeks and a more expressive mouth. It's a real shame that KFC didn't make the cartoon-style face look that good. Even though I think the toy-style head looks a lot better, it's not cartoon-accurate enough for me to leave it on him. Transistor turns into a boombox. While MP-13's transformation is similar to the G1 toy, just with extra folding panels to fill it out a bit, Transistor is almost a shell former. Instead of tucking his arms in and wrapping his legs up around them his arms slide backward, behind the legs, and panels unfurl from his legs, arms, and back to fill in the space between limbs and torso. It is interesting how his shins flip around to hide the detail near his ankle and expose fake folded-up feet, though. From the front, it's hard to argue with the results as it does very much look like Blaster. It also adds some thickness to the alt mode, with panels on the sides that are done up to look like a power button, volume knob, and balance knob on one side and equalizer sliders, a microphone jack, and a headphone jack on the other. The unfurled panels even have the dark semi-circles near the cassette door seen in the cartoon. Really, the only issues I'd cite are that the molded trapezoids with the molded triangles on them on the silver at the bottom should absolutely have been painted red to match either the cartoon or the toy, with the triangles being yellow if you want to match the toy, the fact that the handle at the top should be wider, with the base of the handle connecting over the faux feet, and that the handle itself should only be black in the middle. Pushing the last button on your right (his left) pops open the cassette door. Much like MP-13 the back wall can be pushed back so you can fit more tapes inside, and it's spring loaded to push them out. Hi-Fi fits inside no problem, as do the official Decepticon MP cassettes. In fact, they fit better in Transistor than in MP-13, where they'd often get caught up. As with MP-13 this feature does work in robot mode as well, I just decided to save it for the alt mode. One minor quibble would be that if KFC did sliding back wall in gray, either by plastic or paint, it's show through the translucent window as slightly more cartoon accurate. Transistor has storage for his guns in alt mode, but you pretty much have to decide that you're going to do it before you get too far along transforming him. Backtracking will require you to go back halfway to robot mode. The barrels of the guns slide into molded vertical peg holes on the small of his back. The rest of the gun folds up and stores on the unfurled back flap by pushing the hole in the gun over a peg on the flap then tucking it neatly into the hollow space inside. Those pegs are exposed on his back in robot mode, so technically if you unfold the flap just a little, so it makes a triangular gap between it and the rest of his back instead of hugging against his back you can use it to store his gun in robot mode as well. One of the beefs I had with Soundmixer was that from the front he looked great, but the back and bottom were a little unfinished. It's a little disappointing that despite the greater degree of panel origami Transistor has similar problem.s His back isn't too bad, as long as you don't mind the dark gray plastic of his biceps peaking out, especially with the tops of his guns filling in the trapezoidal gaps at the bottom. But the underside is arguably worse, still exposing the robot thighs but adding more hollow spaces, including a very large, very empty space left by his crotch after it splits. On the one hand, I don't think a lot of people are going to pose him without the ground he's sitting on covering up that unfinished bottom, so I don't think it's the end of the world, but on the other hand it makes me question whether all that panel-unfurling shellforming was really necessary. I guess the only thing left to talk about is KFC's reputation, which is that they make junk. Transistor feels like lesser quality than something you might get from Takara, MMC, Fans Toys, Maketoys, etc. Now, I'm not an expert on plastic. I don't have any stress marks anywhere, nothing feels fragile, and I don't feel like anything is going to break while I'm handling him (which is actually more than I can say for some FansToys' stuff I've looked at), but it does feel subjectively lighter or less dense. There's no diecast, and he's not real heavy when you pick him up. Subjective feelings about plastic aside, the paint on him is good where applied. Aside from his thigh swivels and the ball joints on his thumbs none of his joints feel too tight or too loose. I don't have trouble getting him to hold a gun or hold a pose. Aesthetically he looks like he fits in with the other MPs, especially Soundwave. Based on his transformation, his bland cartoon face, and the handful of minor aesthetic matters like his hips and the proportions of his torso, it's not hard for me to imagine that a company like Takara, FansToys, or Maketoys could come in and make a better MP Blaster. The thing is, the differences I'd imagine them making wouldn't be major, earth-shattering differences the way I think something like Maketoys' Meteor blows MP-11 out of the water, they'd be pretty minor things that would make the difference between a good figure and a great one. And that's where we really are here; Transistor is a good figure, maybe even a very good one. He's the kind of figure that I think most people could buy, put on their shelf, cross MP Blaster off their list and be perfectly content, even if nothing better ever comes along. And let's face it, MP-13 is five years old. Transistor originally came out three-ish years ago. He really might be as good as it gets for Blaster. Recommend.

I mean, I don't know if that was the general consensus or not, but that's at least how I felt. Saw the first GI Joe in the theater and I thought it was boring and convoluted. Had no desire to see the sequel, but my wife and I were bored and I think we found the Blu-ray or something on clearance, decided to roll the dice on it, and rather enjoyed it.

@tekering What Blaster is that? I have the KFC one coming... No more from me... at least until TFC or Unique Toys'. Yes, but also yes. And G1 Prime has his Energon Axe, so it's not without precedent. I just don't recall that particular Options having that particular axe.

If you're not tired of Optimuses yet, this is Spark Toys Alpha Pack, their version of a War Within Optimus. Like I just said, this toy is based on Optimus' pre-Earth form seen in Dreamwave's War Within series, and it's very accurate to Don Figueroa's artwork down to the too-large arms and the too-small head. Seriously, finding discrepancies comes down to nitpicking little things like some gray panels that were red in the comics, or Alpha pack having two little yellow bits on his chest that weren't in the comic. (Also, is it just me or a lot of Optimuses based on Don's work? There's this, the GT IDW Optimus, some evidence that Don worked on Classics Optimus, and TFC is doing one based on a design Don did for a GI Joe crossover that was never used.) The toy has a lot of paint apps, including almost all the red parts having a metallic finish. However, I find his size sort of an odd choice on Spark Toys' part. At a head smaller than MP-10 (or MP-10-sized figures like Gunfighter II here), he seem a little short next to the other MP-ish Primes on the market. And yet, he's taller and much bulkier than even a large Voyager like Striker Manus or Planet X's Jupiter, so I don't see him working with CHUGs. Alpha Pack comes with his ion rifle, an axe, and a Matrix. The rifle is done in gray instead of the usual black, with an interesting light piping effect. The axe, which I don't recall him using in the comic, has some blue and silver paint. The Matrix is a single piece of plastic with gold and blue paint, and far smaller than MP-10's. Pack's head is on a ball joint so he can tilt his head sideways and look down a little, but he can't look up. His shoulders rotate on soft ratchets, but he can only move his shoudlers about 45 degrees laterally. He has a bicep swivel and, due to his transformation, another swivel just below the elbow. Those elbows, by the way, can bend 90 degrees. His wrists can swivel. His thumb is fixed, his index finger is is independently articulated with a pin at the base and a second pinned knuckle mid-finger. The other fingers are a solid piece, pinned at the base and molded in a curl. His waist can swivel. His hips can bend about 45 degrees backward, 60 degrees forward, and 45 degrees laterally, all on ratchets. His thighs can swivel. His knees bend just short of 90 degrees on soft ratchets. His feet can tilt up a little, and his toes can bend down, plus he's got 90 degrees of ankle pivot. All told, his articulation isn't the best, but I think you have enough to work with. His weapons use the typical style of having tabs on the handles that fit into slots on his palms. Both weapons aren't particularly secure, and the axe looks especially odd in his hand without more of the handle coming through the bottom of his fist. Alternatively, both weapons have peg holes that fit over pegs on his back for storage. The axe even folds up. As for the Matrix, there's a little nub inside Pack's chest and a matching divot in the back of the Matrix for it to plug in. Pack's alt mode is, again, fairly accurate to the source, or at least as accurate as the old Titanium figure. It doesn't have a trailer like he used in the comics, and his arms with are angled more up than back. In the comics his red shoulders kind of disappeared, but on the toy they had to go somewhere. But the position of the arms and shoulders are more or less the same as the Titanium version's. Size-wise he's tough to compare with MP-10, because MP-10 does a better job of compatifying. He's definitely shorter in length and height than Gunfighter II, though. Again, there's plenty of paint apps on this guy. There's even some in places you're not going to see often, including silver patches on the underside of the vehicle. The stars of the show here are the large rubber tires, especially the front wheels. I'd have maybe liked some paint on the rim to help it stand out more from the tire, but I can't say that it's wrong. The wheels do roll, and the whole alt mode does give off a nice "runs over Decepticons" vibe. The back of his rifle has a small flip-out tab. This tab mates with a slot on the top of the vehicle, allowing his rifle to be stored in alt mode in a fashion similar to the Titanium version. However, I can't find any place to store his axe. Considering how awkward it looks to me in robot mode anyway, I'm thinking I'll probably put the axe back in the box and into storage. The cockpit does open in this mode, although I don't know if it's intentional or just something that was necessary for transformation. Regardless, they put some effort into creating some molded detail in there, and they even painted it, something they didn't really need to do since that spot is covered in robot mode. I'm ultimately torn on this guy. Spark Toys definitely put some love into this figure, and he makes a good (if short) display piece. Limited articulation, trouble holding his weapons, and trouble keeping his torso tabbed together in robot mode make him a little less fun to handle than I'd like, though. When I ordered this guy I was originally thinking that I'd pick up Spark Toys' Megatron to go with him, but now I'm not so sure. I think if you're like me and you have one Detolf with nothing but Primes (or Primals) he's going to look good with them, but I wouldn't really recommend him otherwise.

I've heard that a good sound card can make a difference, but I'm no audiophile and I've been fairly content with onboard sound, as long as it supported 5.1/7.1 setups. And I vote build your own. Every now and again I see a good price on a prebuilt (did you know Walmart sells Omen desktops?), but after years doing computer repair I don't trust the prebuilt stuff to have standard mobos/PSUs/switches or cases with enough room to easily repair or upgrade.

That is pretty good. It's like buying Soveriegn and MP-36 and getting the Visualizers for free. And, ironically, it's your thoughts on the Visualizers I'm most curious about.

Got a present today... Sticker on his right knee is peeling, the wheels don't peg into his shoulders very securely, the shoulder joints are pretty loose, and he's got pretty significant chrome wear... but he's complete with both wheels, with both tires still on said wheels, and his engine piece. It's pretty tough to find a complete Cy-Kill, and at around $40 shipped I think I still paid less than I would for an incomplete Cy-Kill and buying the missing pieces separately, so I'm pretty happy. And I should have a Super Gobots Cy-Kill next week, and Action Toys' smaller Bike Robo is paid for in my stack but I'm holding off and seeing if I want to add anything else before I ship. Now, a question for you guys... do you think I should leave Cy-Kill as is? Or, should I remove the stickers, paint the knees, and touch up the chrome with a Molotow liquid chrome pen? Definitely strongly considering picking up more old Gobots. I think because I had so many at a younger age than Transformers they're definitely triggering more memories and more nostalgic feels for me. I'm more interested in trying to track down the old Gobots toys in reasonable condition than I am in the regular Action Toys Machine Robo line. But I'm still all in on any other DX Machine Robo toys they want to do.