mikeszekely

Scramble Valkyrie! That and Gundam Wing: Endless Duel were some of the first games I played on an emulator (ZSNES), and my first taste of import gaming. How hard have you been hunting/how bad did you want one? I have one, already set up to soft install a custom firmware with a couple of emulators. Haven't touched it since my daughter was born, though, and I could probably be persuaded to part with it.

I didn't buy a OS Seeker, but I did buy something else that also doesn't quite fit with my collection. On a whim, I decided to grab me a copy of Maketoys' Despotron, their take on a Masterpiece Megatron. Aesthetics tend to be extremely subjective, and I think the various attempts at an MP Megatron illustrate that fantastically. A lot of people seem to really like DX9's Mightron's head, and have criticized Despotron for being "too stylized". Yet the panels and marks on his forehead aren't simply Maketoys' doing their stylizing thing, and they're not without precedent. MP-05 had them. CW Megatron had them. Andrew Griffith, Joe Ng, Alex Milne, and Don Figueroa have all included details like Despotron's on their Megatron artwork. The fact that I named a couple of artists who have worked on Transformers might have tipped you off on a crucial fact: I'm a fan of Transformers comic books. I read the Marvel comics. I read the Dreamwave comics. I read the Devil's Due G.I. Joe crossovers. I have read and continue to read IDW. I say this fact is crucial because it means that while the G1 cartoon is certainly part of my concept of Megatron, it's not my only impression of him. I think someone who only knows Megatron from the G1 cartoon can dismiss Despotron as being too stylized with legs that are far too thick. Meanwhile, I think that the animation in the G1 cartoon was ranged from ok to awful, and while I'll gladly concede that MP-36 is definitely the most animation-accurate rendition of Megatron I'm not sure that the gray color, high waist, and skinnier proportions of the animation model really fit with my mental picture of Megatron. Something else to consider is that Takara has been moving in a direction that has become increasingly slavish to the G1 animation models. Now, I'll leave that up to you guys to decide for yourselves if that's a good thing or a bad thing, but I think it's fair to say that MP-36 looks like the animation in three dimensions, while MP-10 looked more like a model of an actual robot whose design would be simplified for animation. So, for me at least, Despotron has two things going for him. First, his beefier proportions make him look like a bot who could actually stand up against MP-10's Optimus Prime, and second, the overall design and detail on Despotron seem like a better aesthetic match for MP-10 than MP-36. One other thing I want to point out about Despotron's design and aesthetics, and that's the fact that Despotron is probably the cleanest Megatron figure you can buy. His back is tidier much tidier than Mightron and a little better than MP-36, and while Apollyon probably has the cleanest back he's really just shifting a lot of kibble to his legs, where Despotron is still pretty tidy. Now, I don't think a little kibble on the back is a deal breaker in a figure, and I'm not automatically saying something like Mightron sucks because he has a backpack. I'm just really impressed at how well Despotron cleans up. Anyway, moving on to accessories... Despotron naturally comes with his Fusion Canon. Does that even really count as an accessory, or a part of Megatron's body? He should come with an Energon mace. I say should, because mine didn't have one in the box. Don't worry, I contacted the seller and the mace is on it's way, but I got no pictures for you. What I do have are pictures of the four faces Maketoys included. The teeth-gritted, angry face is fine. The laughing face is, I think, a little over the top for me (although it seems based on a cover by Guido Guidi for IDW's All Hail Megatron, a cover that was in turn inspired by Brian Bolland's work on Batman: The Killing Joke, so good job, I guess?). Honestly, I was prepared to say stoic face is the way to go, but that sneering smirk face has just the perfect amount of emotion I want to see on my Megatron. Whichever face you prefer, swapping faces is as easy as popping his helmet off, pulling the face off the tab, slotting a new face onto the tab, and popping his top back on. Despotron's articulation is pretty good. His head is on a ball joint, with adequate upward range and more than enough lateral tilt, and he can look down until his chin touches his chest. His shoulders are ratcheted for rotation and a hinge for lateral movement. With the faux hammers on his shoulders extended they'll limit his lateral movement a tad, but if you fold them back in he can get a full 90 degrees of lateral movement. He has bicep swivels, and although his elbows are only a single hinge he can bend them well beyond 90 degrees. His wrists swivel. His hands are close to MP-10's, with a fixed thumb, an individual pointer finger with a hinge at the base knuckle and one additional hinge for pointing, and the other three fingers molded as a single piece hinged at the base knuckle. Interestingly, they have the same grooves molded into the palms that Maketoys' Cross Dimension figures do, so while they look kind of tiny in his fists the weapons that come with them fit securely in them even with his fingers open (the only other Re:Mastered figure I have is Gundog, and he uses the more traditional tabs on the handle into a slot on the palm). One thing I was delighted to discover is that he has a ratcheted ab crunch. It's not huge, but you can get about two clicks worth. His waist and thighs swivel, but the friction is pretty tight. The various bits of hip armor can move out of the way of his hips, which ratchet forward and backward just a hair shy of 90 degrees. He also has ratchets for his lateral movement; he can get a little further from 90 degrees than his front/back motion, but he does at least have enough clicks that you can get him in a variety of poses without going from stock straight to wide A-stance. His knees are double-jointed, both ratchets, and can get about as deep a bend as his elbows. His ankles have a little upward tilt on a hinge due to his transformation, nothing downward, and another hinge provides about 45 degrees of ankle tilt. The two biggest problem areas are his ankle and his knee. The tilt for transformation is just a friction hinge, and some more extreme poses make him want to tip forward. As for the knee, there are sliders in the leg for transformation. It's possibly an "individual results may vary" sort of thing, because on my copy the right leg is fine, but the left leg doesn't stay locked in the fully extended position as well as I'd like. All-in-all, though, I think you should be able to get most of the poses you want as long as you're careful. This being a G1 Megatron, and not a modernized G1 Megatron like the Combiner Wars toy, Despotron turns into a Walther P.38. I'll be honest, I think Apollyon and Mightron have better gun-mode proportions. Despotron looks kind of stretch out, like he's longer and the grip is thicker front-to-back than it should be. If that's a trade off, though, I can live with it. MP-05 are notorious for having transformations that many owners go from robot to gun to robot then swear to never transform them again (this is the case for my MP-05, which is why it's not in the above picture). Mightron doesn't seem to bad from what I've seen, but Maketoys has delivered a Megatron with a simple, clever, and intuitive transformation that's actually fun to mess with, and I'll remind you again that it does so with very little in the way of kibble on the robot mode. As for the gun mode, he's certainly got his share of panel lines, a few screw holes that I really wish Maketoys would have included covers for, and from this side a particularly noticeable groove on the barrel, but there's plenty of detail as well, right down to the P.38 etched onto the side. Despotron looks a little better from the other side, although there's still a number of panel lines, some gray plastic hinges, and some red plastic peaking through on the grip. Sadly, the safety is molded in place and doesn't move. It's a bit of a disappointment that Maketoys didn't include the stock and silencer that Megatron always had in the cartoon. Here's the thing, though... I don't know a lot of people who are going to buy a Megatron to display in gun mode. Indeed, I think a lot of people are open to newer versions of Megatron being a tank because if you're going to have a robot as big as Megatron mass-shifting into a gun to be used by his troops, you might as well have a really good robot toy and a separate, non-transforming gun-mode representation for other toys to hold. We've got that representation numerous times with numerous MP figures. When you have a robot mode as good as Despotron's, with a transformation as nice as Despotron's, I'm prepared to say that Despotron's alt mode is good enough. Until Apollyon came along, MP-05 was the best we could get in a Mastepiece Megatron. Today, in the first half of 2017, we're blessed to have not just Apollyon as an alternative to go with our MP-10s but three other attempts. Four options, each with their own pros and cons, each with their own slightly different aesthetics. For a change, I don't feel like telling you that I do or don't recommend Despotron, I feel like telling you that you win regardless of which toy you chose to represent Megatron in your collection, so get the one that you personally find the most appealing. What I will tell you is that, for me, that's Despotron, and that's because Despotron has the strong proportions I want, the right amount of detail, solid articulation, excellent transformation, and he's silver instead of gray. If that's what you want, then sure, I highly recommend him, but if you already have and are happy with Apollyon, you think Mightron's less exaggerated proportions are more aesthetically pleasing, or you really prefer the animation accuracy of MP-36, that's fine too.

I bought one at launch. I've sunk an obscene number of hours into the Gundam Battle series, and there were a handful of other games I liked and would recommend, but generally speaking I was more into the DS. I think it has/had a better library on the whole.

Seems like you've gotten pretty good with that airbrush since I last checked in on you!

Here's the thing, though I hate to admit it... I passed on Spinout because of QC, but it's closer to what I wanted in Sunstreaker. I passed on BC because it just wasn't what I wanted in Sunstreaker. TT Streaker is very in-line with what BC offered, so I'm not really interested... but at some point there will be a $30 "Takasa Tony" KO of it, and at that price I'll probably bite just to have a Streaker on the shelf until someone like Maketoys comes along and does it better.

I picked up another figure, totally on a whim. He doesn't really fit in my collection, but here he is anyway. This is Planet-X's Jupiter, their take on Fall of Cybertron Optimus Prime. He's an interesting figure. It's obvious that Planet-X wanted to bring out more detail than the little Hasbro Deluxe, like the bits at the top of his shoulders and tons of pink-painted detail throughout. His forearms lack the Hasbro hollowness. He's got the game-accurate tires and thrusters on his back (although I was kind of surprised to see thrusters and faux tires molded but unpainted on the Hasbro toy, it's a little detail I'd never noticed before. I also think, although I'm not sure how well it shows up in photos, that the metallic-colored red and blue plastics used by Planet-X look much nicer than the plastics used by Hasbro. For all the greater emphasis on detail, though, I was sort of surprised to see that there are a number of things that are actually more accurate on the little Hasbro Deluxe, including the black paint on the windows, the silver under the windows, the gray hands, the silver vents on his cheeks, and the silver smokestack-things. I find it a little odd that Planet-X put the effort into making a FoC Prime that looks much better than the Hasbro but gets so many little details wrong. I also think that, for all the engineering that went into this toy, Planet-X could have put more effort into stowing the bumper than having it chill very obviously on his back. In case you're wondering, here's how he stacks up against other Voyager-ish 3P Primes... a tad shorter, and a lot bulkier. Jupiter comes with three accessories. There's a gun that's a fairly game-accurate Path Blaster, an axe, and a sword. It's been a long time since I played FoC, but I feel like the axe is about right. I don't really recall him using a sword, though. Jupiter's head is on a ball joint, and he's got decent up/down and lateral tilt as well as a swivel. His shoulders rotate and there's a hinge for lateral movement. His shoulder armor kind of gets in the way, but it's on some separate joints so you can finagle it out of the way and get nearly 90 degrees of lateral bend. He has bicep swivels, hinged elbows that'll get just a hair over 90 degrees, wrist swivels, and MP carbot-style hands with fixed thumbs and the fingers molded as a single piece hinged at the base knuckle. He has a thigh swivel, but unless you start undoing pegs for transformation a hinge on the small of his back will rub into his pelvis. While this does limit his waist articulation, I think the range he has is fairly natural. He has universal hips that, due to the shape of his thighs and the fixed nature of his pelvis, limits him to a little less than 90 degrees forward or backward and just about 45 degrees laterally. He has thigh swivels built into his hips that, again, are limited due to the shape of his thighs but again have a mostly-natural range. His knees can bend a little shy of 90 degrees. His ankles have a few hinges for transformation that can give him a little up/down tilt and a dedicated swivel for good inward ankle tilt. All-in-all, I think his articulation is adequate, but below what you'd expect from a modern $100 Voyager-sized 3P toy. In fact, the little Hasbro Deluxe version has better range in his neck, elbows, hips, and knees, plus it has an ab crunch and ankle rotation, and all he's losing are the opening hands. He holds his axe fine, and the Path blaster can be fit over his forearm to give Jupiter the gun-hand style of the game. It's just held on with friction, and not particularly well. Alternatively, you can fold the underside back and reveal a flip-down 5mm peg so you can have him hold it in his hands, if you prefer. He can also hold the sword just fine. Peg holes on his forarms will also allow you to mount the gun to his arm like Fusion Cannon, or mount the sword onto his forearm in a psuedo-TF Prime/Bayverse manner. One nice little detail that Planet-X included is that Jupiter's chest can open up and reveal a Matrix inside. The Matrix is removable, and seems to be made of blue translucent plastic with gold paint. While we've almost come to expect Matrices on larger Prime figures it's a detail I think PX could have gotten away without. So it's nice that they put the effort not just into including it, but in the molded detail behind it and the gray paint inside his chest. Jupiter's alt mode is, again, good but not perfect. Once again, I appreciate the little extra paint details, as well as the fact that they tried to give the rear end a bit more finished appearance than the Hasbro version. The problem is that the filling bits, including the quartet of exhaust pipes, are not game-accurate. The the thrusters that should be in that spot are sitting up too high, pegged onto his shins in a way that's eager to pop back out. Getting from robot to vehicle mode is also kind of a pain, especially his over-engineered legs. Another comparison pic with other 3P Voyager-ish Prime's. He's a beefy boy, I'll give him that. Jupiter's gun can peg onto his roof using two small tabs. On the plus side, it's centered up there, unlike the Hasbro toy. On the minus side, it's again not the most secure connection. A bummer here is that there really isn't much in the way of storage for his melee weapons. You can use the random pegholes on his gun to mount the sword or the hilt of the axe, but the axe won't fit with the blades on. You guys, I kind of don't know about this one. I hear a lot of great things about Planet-X, so maybe my expectations were too high, but Jupiter is kind of a pain to transform and he's got worse articulation than a $10 Deluxe. He's a hefty, good-looking figure with lots of detail, though. I want to say that if you're a FoC fan or a Planet-X fan, then Jupiter looks and scales better with a lot of the other WfC/FoC toys released by either Hasbro or Planet-X. But I also want to say that I'm not seeing anything here that's convincing me that Planet-X is deserving of the same sort of acclaim that companies like Maketoys or MMC get, and if all you're looking for is a Voyager-sized Optimus I think your money is better spent on the KBB MP10v or Maketoys Striker Manus.

If he were like Spinout, but improved, I'd be interested. Unfortunately he looks more like Sunsurge, and not necessarily a huge improvement.

I quit reading Salvatore. Not only could the guy not kill off a character, but when the passage of time between D&D editions forced his hand he came up with a ridiculous reincarnation plot to bring them all back. Wouldn't mind seeing Drizzt in a movie, though.

They could cheap out on plastic or materials, but AFAIK the designs were done and the molds were ready to go, and it's still basically what ToyWorld would have put out. I'm guessing that they're so cheap because Zeta doesn't need to recoup the money TW already sunk into them. And since they are so cheap, I think I'll check them out. If the other three turn it to be vaporware, no biggie. It'd be too big to replace Warbo Bruticus in my combiner display anyway.

You guys catching any of the drama with TW? For those that haven't followed, TW was working on a Constructor-sized Bruticus. All the sudden, they dumped their entire design team after implying that they're "robbers," and the first two TW Bruticus figures are up for preorder from a new company called Zeta Toys.

Whoops! Yeah, this was meant for the 3P thread. Better do something to get this thread back on track... So... MP-36 sure is scratchy with its glue plugs, eh?

You guys catching any of the drama with TW? For those that haven't followed, TW was working on a Constructor-sized Bruticus. All the sudden, they dumped their entire design team after implying that they're "robbers," and the first two TW Bruticus figures are up for preorder from a new company called Zeta Toys.

It's intermission, so here's the other guy I got. This is Unique Toys' Soundmixer, their not-Blaster. In hand, he seems kind of smallish. Maybe because the G1 toy was so big? Indeed, he's a little smaller than the Generations Blaster from a few years ago, but his head height is actually about the same size as an MP car. Of course, that means that he's not likely to wind up on anyone's MP shelf, but I'd say he works out to a nice Voyager-size for a CHUG Blaster. Aesthetically, he's a lot closer to G1 than a FOC Soundwave repaint. He's got the speaker shins, and some silver paint on his knees mimics some sticker detail on the G1 toy. He's lacking the red dots above his feet, but UT still worked some red in. Likewise, he doesn't have the funky hips of the G1 toy or cartoon, but he's still got some red-painted lines on them. The head is G1 cartoon, but with the toy's yellow eyes. Blue-painted details on his shoulders ape the original toy's stickers, and he naturally has a large yellow tape door dominating his chest, although the faux buttons under it are far too small. UT didn't just stop at the front, mind you. Silver paint helps highlight molded details on his back, and the sides of his legs sport all sorts of molded details in black, silver, and yellow paint. Soundmixer comes with a couple of accessories, and the bulk of them leave me scratching my head. There's a megaphone, which is ok, and a tape which is actually really cool... as well as chest armor, shoulder armor, and a visor. If anyone has any idea where UT might have gotten the inspiration for that at, please let me know. His head is on a ball joint with ok-but-not-great up, down, and lateral tilt. His shoulders are hinged his his chest and can move 90 degrees laterally, but he's got the old Warbotron problem of having the rotation on the other side of the joint so he can't really raise his arm while moving it laterally. His biceps swivel just above his elbows, which can bend 90 degrees. He doesn't have any wrist swivels, but his fingers are on a hinge at the base knuckle so he can open and close his hands like an MP car. He has a ratcheted waist swivel. His hip armor is on a hinge, but his hips are still limited to about 45 degrees forward and less than that backward, but he's got the full range laterally. He has a thigh swivel, and another swivel at the knee that's really for transformation. His knees can bend 90 degrees. His feet are on swivels so he can get about 45 degrees of ankle tilt, and due to his transformation he can tilt his feet up as well. So the all the armor fits on him. The chest piece is a little loose, but I'm not complaining because UT designed it to kind of wrap around the molding on Soundmixer's body, leaving him wonderfully free of any tabs and slots. To be honest, I think it looks stupid on him, and after taking this photo it'll all go back in the box, never to be seen again. His chest does open, and you can store the tape inside. As I mentioned earlier, the tape is cool because it transforms into a rifle. Honestly, with the stock and the scope and what not, it's actually kind of reminiscent of his G1 gun. Sure, it's a little blockier because it turns into a tape, but I think it's a much better gimmick for a toy this size than trying to make some crappy Rewind/Eject/Steeljaw/Ramhorn out of it. A big advantage that Soundmixer has over the Generations Voyager Blaster is that he actually turns into a boombox. I don't have him to compare, but I'd feel comfortable saying that he's a more Blastery boombox than the newer Titans Return Blaster. UT uses some careful arrangement of fold-out panels on Soundmixer's arms to blend them in with his waist, and larger panels fold out to cover his thighs and hips. Not too sure about the silver circles, though. The tape door still opens in this mode, so you can naturally store the gun inside. None of the other accessories belong anywhere in boombox mode, though. As good as he looks from the front, the back isn't as hot. The fold-out panels are only for the front, I guess, so from behind he's got gaps that clearly show his thighs, knees, waist, and even a little of his fingers poking out. Another thing I'd note about Soundmixer, something that's not clear from pictures, his that some of his joints are kind of loose. I don't know when UT made Soundmixer, so I don't know if he's from the "UT sucks" period or the "UT is improving" period. I'm pretty happy with him, though. While there are some noticeable exceptions like MMC's Reformatted line and Maketoys' Cross Dimension line, the 3P scene seems to cater to a portion of the fandom that's basically "MP or GTFO". But after seeing some recent MP-style toys like Eligos and even Takara's own MP-36 Soundmixer is a refreshing reminder of why I was interested in 3P in the first place... he's a quality Voyager-sized toy with better-than-Hasbro articulation and paint, an intuitive, fun transformation, and a great CHUG-style representation of Blaster. He's just fun, while so many toys being released these days are just tedious. So yeah, he's a little loose, and given the quality of newer 3P toys I might not recommend him at $80-$100, but I snagged him from TFSource for $50 and that that price I think he's an excellent Voyager-sized Blaster. Now if I could just get KBB to do a downsized MP Soundwave for him to fight with...

Glad you like Constructor, M'Kyuun. He's impressive, to be sure, but sort of unwieldy. Definitely happier with Gravity Builder (although I still hate their Bonecrusher), but to each his own. Some updates on my side, I bought the ToyWorld swords. It's super obvious that they're for the Dinobot combiner; the box has a big label of the combined mode and a collector's card in the box for "Dinoking". It's not entirely clear to me why they weren't included with one of the five Dinobots, but if I had to guess I'd say ToyWorld didn't plan to make it in the first place, and did so out of reaction to Shuraking's sword. In fact, the blades can be removed from the hilts, and they have two grooves on the sides. The grooves fit onto the sides of the hilt, so you can even recreate Shuraking's stupid sword with two blades. On the plus side, there are two handles that fit in the combined-mode fists, so you can have the combined-mode dual-wielding. You can also pop the handle off of one of the hilts and build a double-bladed sword of the proper kind (that is, a blade on either end and not two parallel blades on one end). If that weren't enough, you can take the handles off entirely, leaving the swords with 5mm pegs that most Transformers and many 3P toys can use. I also broke down and bought the Limited Edition GCreation Blade. No need to do another review; he's basically identical to the version of Blade I already reviewed. Seriously, the only difference is that the red torso, pelvis, and hip parts on the regular one are blue on the LE version. Probably not a necessary upgrade for a lot of people (I already have a buyer lined up for the red one), but it makes a huge difference to me. I did get one other thing in this shipment, but I'll leave it a surprise since I'll surely do a review for it later.

I need both, and pretty much any other UC MS they want put in the line, and not that friggin' Gold Frame Amatsu Mina.

Hey, you know what? Once you accept that you're not going to combine the GCreation Dinobots you can easily remove the Shuraking head. Just take two screws out of the bar it's on, then open the bar. Pop the neck out of the sliding track, close the bar back up, and replace the screws. Now that you don't have to hide the head, you can leave the gold chrome parts inside the dino neck even in robot mode, which solves my biggest complaint about Wrath.

Can't argue with that. Although someone suggested using Sludge for the torso. Probably wouldn't make as impressive of a chest, but there's a certain sense in using the biggest dino for the middle. Not to get you too excited, JB0, but not only did Scoria come with the black head in addition to the cartoon one, they also sold separately a replacement part to give him the toy-accurate smoked translucent dino head and red horns. I'd caution anyone shopping for Scoria the same thing I told M'Kyuun, though. Perfect Fusion is actually Fans Toys, and their Cesium is Fans Toys having another go at Slag because they weren't satisfied with the first one. I haven't been following the whole thing super close, but looks to me like the biggest difference is that they dino tail will store in Cesium's legs and his back will be cleaner in bot mode than Scoria's. Yeah, I probably will. I liked the Cybertron games, but I've never been super into the character designs from the games. Still thinking about checking out Vulcan and Jupiter at least, and maybe Aesclepius just because there isn't a good Voyager-sized Perceptor. Likewise, if they do a Shockwave or a Soundwave I'll probably bite. Yes! I know that MT gets criticized for making bots a little puffy with smaller heads, but I really dig that look. Must be from reading Dreamwave... Between this and Despotron they've really been knocking it out of the park lately. I haven't really been interested in MP-scale figures, but Maketoys is really tempting me to go all in on the Re:Master line. Heck, I already have Gundog...

Ok, so that last review post I promised... rather than doing a "Here's ToyWorld combined!" and then later a "Here's GCreation combined," I'm just going to do one comparative review. So first, here's ToyWorld's unnamed Dinobot combiner. And he's... ok. There's lots of blingy chrome, which I like. The tweaks ToyWorld made to their designs to make them more unified really pay off in this mode. I also like how Grimshell's dinosaur head sits on the chest, which I feel helps give the combiner a look that's distinct from Grimlock's. The bestial feet and clawed fingers seem very appropriate. The problems with this guy really boil down to three engineering issues. First, the space between the detents in his hip ratchets are a little too wide. This makes his feet want to slide and could lead to him doing the splits. Second has to do with how Grimshell's lower legs fold over his thighs. There's a joint that moves the combiner connect inward to allow Grimshell's lower legs to have the clearance to spin around, and the only thing holding everything in place afterward is a hinged flap with a peg that fits into hole on the combiner connector. It's not quite up to the task, though, and it pops loose when handling him. Lastly, there are the connectors themselves. There's a rumor that ToyWorld hadn't actually set out to make their Dinobots a combiner, and only did so when they heard about GCreation's. I can believe it, because all that they have to connect with are a few 5mm pegs and all that's necessary for transforming them (not that it's even covered in their instructions) to to basically move the heads and tails out of the way. Roar's tail actually comes off and is pegged onto the backside of the leg mode. So a few pegs go into holes on the ports in Grimshell's legs, and a few pegs go into holes on the feet, and that's all that's holding this guy together. The result isn't exactly stable. However, I don't think he's as had as a lot of people have suggested. I've seen a lot of pictures of this guy with his legs at really awkward angles, but as you can see I've been able to get him in a nice A-stance with a little patience. And the size is right, too. He stands at just about the same size as GT's Gravity Builder, which is perfect since I consider Devy and the Dinobots to be natural rivals the way Superion and Menasor are. And since Gravity Builder is about the same size as Warbotron and the majority of other 3P combiners, ToyWorld's Dinobot combiner works well in my collection. As far as articulation goes, I'm not really up for testing the ranges. Suffice to say, his head is on a hinged swivel, his shoulders rotate inside Grimshell and move laterally on the combiner pegs inside Iron Dreg and Spear. He's got bicep swivels, and dedicated ratcheting elbows that extend from Iron Dreg and Spear's torso's. His hips are identical to Grimshell's, he uses Grimshell's thigh swivels, and the red combiner connectors have a ratcheted swivel that makes for his knee joint. The feet parts have hinged ratchets where they connect to the legs to provide ankle tilts. The hands can rotate at the wrists, the thumb is on a ball joint at the base with two hinged knuckles, and the individually articulated fingers are hinged at the base with two additional hinges. Disappointingly, there's no weapon for combined mode. I'll note, somewhat cynically, that ToyWorld makes "combiner swords" that are sold separately that are pretty much perfect for this guy. Moving along, this is Shuraking, GCreation's Dinbobot combiner. Aesthetically, he looks pretty good, too. Still lots of chrome, although GCreation likes to use gold paint on some parts. I appreciate how the leg bots actually look transformed, and not like Growl and Thunderous just folded their heads and tails around (although Thunderous' head is very prominently dangling off Shuraking's calf). We still have the cool clawed fingers, and I like how CGreation incorporated Blade and Thunderous' guns to give Shuraking missile launchers on his forearm and big shoulder cannons. The torso and head, though, look very much like Grimlock got bigger and started wearing the other Dinobots. It's a shame that GCreation didn't try to give Shuraking a more unique appearance. A problem for me, although it may not be for you, is that Shuraking is just too big. Maybe if you're going to use him as a pseudo-MP combiner and have him go up against ToyWorld's Constructor, sure, that might work. But Shuraking is significantly bigger than the Warbotron-sized combiners, which makes him too large for my shelves. On paper, Shuraking should have similar articulation with ToyWorld's. He does have some extra wrist bends, but the awful engineering for how the knees connect make me leery of bending his knees, and the shape of Blade's torso pushes him out of the combiner port when you try to move the shoulder laterally. At least Shuraking has a combined-mode weapon, although it's pretty dumb. The large hilt that comes with Hammer has slots in it. You can plug both the large red blades into the outer slots to give him a really stupid sword with two blades. The slot in the middle is too big, though. You can't just put one blade into it and have him holding a normal sword. I thought maybe you could put the blades together in the middle, but nope. That doesn't work either. Even as a kid, I'd always wondered why the Dinobots were a five-member team like the Aerialbots or the Stunticons but they didn't combine. Yet, for something that never really existed (ok, there was a comic book in a 2004 Metrodome release of one of the Transformers DVDs in the UK), it's kind of interesting how similar GCreation and ToyWorld's combiners end up being. Both have gold claws and gold spikes on the their hands, both have gold toes, both have heads that are pretty Grimlocky, both have red spots on their foreheads, both have Swoop's wings on the combined back, and both use Grimlock for the torso, Slag for the right arm, Swoop for the left arm, Snarl for the right leg, and Sludge for the left leg. Both even have a similar gimmick where you can have a normal face, or pull off a part to reveal a bestial face. Shuraking's face is pretty scary. He's got a mouth full of sharp teeth with a molded gun inside. His skinny jaws can open and close. They sort of remind me of the fangs you see on something like one of the Devil Gundam's Gundam Heads, or the Walter Gundam. It's ok, I suppose. ToyWorld, too, has a fanged mouth with working jaws. It's a lot more cartoony, though. It almost reminds me Venom's appearance in the '90s Spider-Man cartoon. Can't say I'm a fan of it, but I think the head with the face plate is fine. The gold antenna further separate the combined-mode's appearance from Grimlock's, but if you're not keen on the partsforming required to put the antenna there you can simply leave them off. ToyWorld even included some molded detail in and around the peg holes so he looks just fine without it. I think it's fitting that we've come around to partsforming, because this is ultimately GCreation's downfall. Now, I'm not opposed to a little partsforming, but GCreation just got lazy with it. Not counting hands, feet, or individual mode weapons that integrate in combined mode, ToyWorld uses partsforming to fill in and bulk up the combined chest and to optionally give him antenna. GCreation uses parts to connect the arms to the torso, a tab that pegs into Hammer and does... something, to make a new, bigger pelvis, to make a new, bigger chest, to attach Blade's wings to the combiner's back, and to create posts to attach Thunderous' guns on the shoulders. And if it wasn't bad enough that I have to have all that crap just for combined mode (because no, I'm not counting the "shield" you can make from the pelvis and chest), you still have a ton of parts left over to put in a box somewhere. Actually, to attach the arms in combined mode, you have to remove these parts from Wrath. That's just stupid. It's stupid, lazy engineering. And what does all this get you? A combiner that's only mildly more stable. So ultimately, I'm going to suggest this (which is what I'm doing); if you want CHUG Dinobots because you want five individual robot dinosaurs, I'm ultimately going to suggest going with GCreation. Yes, they're a little bigger, and they're a little less fun to transform. And yes, I prefer gold chrome to smoked translucent plastic over gold chrome. However, I really think GCreation nailed a lot of the G1 aesthetics, the accessories are a lot nicer, and the use of paint (especially the metallic red) gives them a more premium look. If you want a Dinobot combiner, though, I think ToyWorld's the way to go. He's easier to transform, easier to assemble, doesn't require an obscene amount of partsforming, and doesn't leave you with a box of leftovers. The RGB stripes applied across all the Dinobots helps create a cohesive look for the limbs, and again I appreciate how having the T-Rex head on the chest helps the gestalt look visually distinct from Grimlock. I also prefer the smaller size, but honestly if Shuraking were identical in size the lazy partsforming really ruins it for me. I'll probably never de-combine ToyWorld's gestalt and display him with Gravity Builder, Havoc (to be completed), Hades, the two Warbotrons, Uranos, Poseidon, Feral Rex, Ordin, and ToyWorld's Throttlebot combiner. But I'm also going to keep the GCreation dinobots and display them in dinosaur mode, occasionally flipping them to robot mode. At this point, I think I should address the other options for Dinobots. I've said before and I'll say again that these guys aren't MP, so if it's MP you want you should look at Fans Toys or Gigapower. But there are other CHUG options as well. Planet-X is very well-regarded, but they're meant to be the Fall of Cybertron Dinobots. If you're cool with that aesthetic for your CHUGs, great; I might even try to get my hands on Vulcan (their Grimlock), but I'm not sold on the FoC aesthetic mixing with the "G1, but updated" look prevalent with the actual HasTak CHUG lines or 3P lines like MMC's Reformatted or Maketoys' Cross Dimension. Your other option would be FansProject, which I think is a better aesthetic fit for CHUG than Planet-X. However, they've yet to release a Snarl (and who knows if they ever will, at his point), while their Sludge and Slag seem to have interesting designs but seriously flawed executions. They seemed to have played it safer with their Grimlock, but ultimately they wound up with a very G1 Grimlock in robot mode that turns into a weirdly-proportioned T-Rex. Their Swoop is the only one I might suggest over GCreation or ToyWorld if you're open to mixing and matching.

Since I didn't have any of the Dinobots as a kid, my ranking from most favorite to least favorite was entirely based how I liked the dinosaur they turned into... T-Rex > Triceratops > Pteranodon > Stegosaurus > Brontosaurus (and Brontosaurus > than Apatosaurus, which is why Sludge is a Brontosaurus!). But for the whole ToyWorld vs GCreation thing, I have thoughts on that now, but I also have one more review post. M'Kyuun, I'd love to take a look at and review the Fans Toys Dibots and even the Gigapower versions, but since my head canon (which works with combiners) has most transformers being similar in size (and that size being represented as Voyager-ish) they're both too big for my collection. The Fans Toys' ones in particular seem to be well-made with a heavy cartoon aesthetic and intuitive, fun transformations, but c'est la vie. On the topic of modern Swoops, while I liked Animated as a show I never had any interest in the toys. I can see the appeal of Animated Swoop, but what I think would be really cool is if someone like MMC tackled the IDW Dinobots. IDW Swoop has a lot of the same aesthetics as Animated Swoop.

Alright, last one. This is GCreation's Blade, their Swoop. Blade is an accurate Swoop, but only if you're picking details from from the cartoon or other sources and applying them to the G1 toy. The red body, the black shoulders and biceps, and the black outline around his face is toy-accurate. Gray paint on his shoulders, the blue and white stripes on his wrists, and red paint on his lower legs (that you can almost see in this picture) all stand in for stickers. Black paint on his chest replaces silver chrome. Like Spear, Blade's got the molded, painted details on his shins, and unlike Spear his wing shape is very G1. The red eyes are more Dreamwave than the toy's dark visor or the cartoon's blue eyes, though, and the yellow dino legs on his thighs are cartoon-style. I really only have three complaints, and one is really a matter of preference. First, I think his face is too small. If GCreation had pared back or skipped the black outline entirely and just sunk the whole thing back further into the red part he'd have more room for face and his head would still look proportional. Second, I think Blade's too tall in general. While all the GCreation Dinobots were taller than the ToyWorld ones, Blade is much taller than Spear, and taller than all of the other GCreation Dinobots except Wrath. The other thing is, like most of the season 1 toys, I didn't have Swoop (or any of the Dinobots) as a kid. Although I did read the comics from time to time, my impressions of Swoop were largely driven by the cartoon, and to me Swoop is blue, not red. (GCreation did do a limited run of Blade in blue. I happened to get all five of these guys for a bargain, but I'm already strongly considering buying the blue version, so if anyone wants a red GCreation Blade for a good price PM me before I put him on ebay). Blade comes with a bunch of accessories, and again I'm kind of annoyed at how many bits are for combined mode. We do have some pretty G1-style swords with silver and red paint, and some still sort-of-G1 missile launchers with painted red and gold tips, which are all fine. We've got another large translucent red blade, one with different molding than the one that came with Hammer, and another small hilt. No large hilt this time. Then we have the combiner hand, a part to help connect him as an arm in combined mode, and what I believe are parts to attach his wings to Wrath for combined mode. Because of the joints for his dino-neck, getting Blade's head positioned just right is a bit of a chore. When you have it, though, his head is on a hinged ball joint so he can look up a fair amount, tilt his head sideways, and look down into his dino head. His shoulders can extend nearly 90 degrees laterally on two hinges and a ball joint. He's got bicep swivels, and his single-jointed elbow can bend 90 degrees. He has wrist swivels, but his hands are molded into fists with no finger articulation. He does have a ratcheted waist swivel, but his pelvis is sort of T-shaped instead of rectangular, and his spine is actually behind his hips, so turning his waist too far can look a little odd. His hips can go 90 degrees backward, and over 90 degrees forward or laterally, with thigh swivels just below his hips. His ratcheted knees can bend almost the whole way over, until the backs of his thighs start to touch his calves. Well over 90 degrees. His ankles are tight ball joints, so he can tilt his feet up or down, tilt his ankle inward or outward, and rotate his foot. A hinge halfway through his foot lets him point his toes up or down. His wings have ratchet that lets you ankle them upward one click, and a number of hinges we'll talk about more in alt mode. Blade holds his blades fine. His gun/missile launchers can peg onto his wings. In this picture, I have the wings installed so that they fold backward, so the guns go onto the front. The wings are interchangeable, though, so you can easily reverse them if you want the gun/missile launchers on the back. Blade can also hold his gun/missile launchers just fine. He can hold the big sword, but the weight is really taxing the joints in his arms. The big sword has a peg hole on one side that can plug into a peg on Blade's back for storage, but there's no place to store his little swords. (I think I forgot to mention it, but Hammer's large sword has little pegs on the blade that fit into holes on his "wings" for storage in robot mode). I think this picture really says it all, doesn't it? If we're being totally honest, yes, both Blade and Spear suffer from compromises necessary to make them a combiner arm that's not weirdly disproportionate to the triceratops, but it's like ToyWorld just said "Ef it, he's a box now." GCreation retained a largely G1 transformation, with the arms collapsing toward the body and his legs folding over onto his back. Because of the combiner stuff inside his torso can't collapse, but panels on his chest slide over the gap left by the dino-head. His big problem is that he's thicker through his torso, from chest to back, because his torso and legs are a little thicker than they'd have to be if he weren't combining. His silver-chromed wings are huge, though, and with the right angles you can kind a lot of his back junk. As has been the case with this set, the dino head is toy-style smoked translucent over gold chrome. Blade's dino-neck has three up/down hinges to facilitate a variety of head positions, but no swivel. His jaw can open, and like most of the other GCreation dinos he's got a flamethrower in his mouth. His dino-legs have a hinge at the hip, a hinge at the knee, and a hinge at the ankle. There's no swivels or lateral movement, and no ankle tilts, but given how tiny his legs are I think it's fine. There is a small peg hole on his tummy that could probably used for some sort of flight stand, but no stand is included. Then there's his wings, which are huge. I don't have a measuring tape handy, but fully extended his wings are big enough to stretch from one side of my monitor to the other, exceeding the screen and reaching onto the bezels, and I've got a 27" monitor (if I put a wing tip in one corner and stretch to the opposite corner he falls short, so that'd be between 23.5" and 27"). Each wing is hinged where it connects to Blade's body, with a trio of additional hinges. I've looked at Planet-X's Caelus and FansProject's Volar in addition to Blade and Spear, and maybe Swoop's just a hard character to get right because I don't think any of them are perfect. Considering that he's got to be a combiner limb in addition to a robot that turns into a pteranodon, though, GCreation got an awful lot right. My real concern would be his size; while I'm strangely ok with MP Grimlock (or a Grimlock of similar size like Wrath) in a CHUG collection, and I'm OK with the Dinobots in general being larger than an average Transformer (who I'd consider to be Voyager-sized), a Swoop as large as MP Grimlock and taller than everyone who isn't Grimlock is pushing it for me. Were I open to mixing and matching Dinobots from different lines, and if I didn't care about the combining aspect, I might suggest something like Volar instead just because he kind of fits my mental picture of Swoop's size and physique. I do think that GCreation did a pretty good job here otherwise, though.

Sounds about right. On the Vita, the L button is for switching to command mode on Force stages, R is a modifier. For example, the the FA ZZ Gundam square fires the beam rifle, triangle attacks with a beam saber, R+square fires the beam saber guns, and R+triangle fires the head forehead cannon. Some stuff also depends on whether you're tapping a button or holding it. And Bayonetta 2. Which I don't know if they can actually do, because didn't Nintendo help publish it or something?

Well, we're getting close to the end now. Tonight we'll do ToyWorld's Swoop, who goes by Spear. So, in robot mode, that's not really a bad Swoop. With the blue eyes and chest he's obviously leaning toward cartoon Swoop. He's got the red picked out on his chest, the gray panels on the front of his legs, black feet, and mostly gray arms. I guess it's not exactly visible in this picture, but the red strip on the side of his leg is there, too What's interesting is that the majority of the red on the other four ToyWorld dinobots was just red plastic, but Spear's is all a metallic red paint similar to GCreation's. His face is a more red and visored, and he's got some red stripes on his shoulders and tiny red/blue/green marks on his shins to keep that continuity with the others in the set. His wings are shaped a little differently in robot mode, but I can deal with that. Really, the most jarring departure from G1 Swoop (aside from the chunkiness of his lower legs) is the black thighs and the lack of ptero-feet on them. For size, here he is with MMC's take on Swoop's Marvel G1 rival. That works for me. QC (among other things) seems to have been rushed on Spear. His wings, which just peg onto his back, don't look like they were toleranced properly. I have nasty stress marks on both sides of the blue plastic around the peg hole on both peg holes. This is NOT a one-off case, either, but a common issue with Spear. Accessory-wise, Spear's a pretty G1. He's got a pair of swords that are very close to his G1 sword, just done in translucent instead of solid red plastic. His guns are red instead of gray, but still a good match, with translucent red (non-firing, attached) missiles. Spear's head is on a ball joint. He's got a tiny amount of downward range, adequate sideways tilt, and so-so upward tilt due to the crest on his head banging into his back. His shoulders are on soft ratchets for rotation. A strong ratchet inside the shoulder gives him nearly 90 degrees of lateral movement, but a hinge for transformation will get his arm much further up. He's got bicep swivels, double-jointed elbows that'll get him well over 90 degrees, wrist swivels, and the fingers are on a hinge at the base of the hand. He does have a ratcheted waist swivel, but it'll push the ptero-head away from his torso. His hips soft-ratchet forward a little under 90 degrees and just a click or two backward (which is fine... how far can you move your hip backward?). They friction laterally 90 degrees. He has thigh swivels, thankfully just below his hips. His ratcheted knees can bend 90 degrees. His feet have hinges for about 45 degrees of ankle tilt and a little up/down foot tilt, plus there's an additional hinge that lets his toes bend up and down. His wings can rotate where they're pegged into his back, then there's three hinges before you even get to his chromed wings. There's a pivot near the dino claws that swing half the wing in or out, and just beyond that is a hinge to fold the wing down, but it stops at 90 degrees. He can hold his guns or his swords just fine. If his wings are closed the peg hole for his guns is covered. There are tiny pegs on the other side of his wings that you can store his swords on. And here's where Spear really falls apart. Spear transforms into... a winged box with a pteranodon peaking out. Seriously, Swoop's always had sort of a blocky alt mode, but this here is more Soundwave than Swoop. I kind of wonder if this was the best solution ToyWorld could come up with to give Spear the bulk in the legs to make a big enough forearm for combined mode? In any case, it's not good at all. You can improve him a little by fan-moding him. Gives him a huge butt, and he's still got his bot-mode arms on his back, but this might be the lesser of evils. And in keeping with the ToyWorld aesthetic he's got the silver chrome on his wings and the gold chrome on his dino face and dino legs/feet. Anyways, back to the official transformation... his wings are basically the way I described them in bot mode. One thing I didn't mention yet, though, is that there's a folding flap near the hinge. This is so that, if you use the pivot to stretch his wings, you can fold the flap over and peg the halves of the wing together, avoiding the gaps on Fansproject's Swoop. his guns cab peg onto the underside of his wings, and his swords can either peg on top of his wings or onto his backpack via small tabs on his robot forearms. His dino neck has a hinge for up/down movement, and another to look side-to-side His jaws open. His dino knees have a double-jointed hinge, and his feet are on a hinged ball joint. The rest of his body is a brick. I won't beat around the bush... Spear is a disappointment. His robot mode is ok, but his alt mode is horrible. While most of the time I think it's more important to get the robot mode right, I'd say the Dinobots are probably the exception where you really want to nail the alt modes. Now, if you're a twisted soul like me who thinks robots are always better if they combine and you're in it for the combined mode then you're probably stuck with him. But if you're just looking for CHUG Dinobots you'll probably want to look elsewhere for a Swoop.

The versus series has changed so much since Feddie vs Zeon, I don't know whether to be excited or not. I played Extreme Versus on the PS3 and didn't really care for it, but I'm playing Extreme Vs Force on the Vita and it's pretty good. What they really need is another Gundam Battle game. Gundam Battle Universe is my absolute favorite Gundam game.

I picked up the Revive HG Qubeley and Hyaku Shiki, the manga version HG Gundam Thunderbolt, the RG Skygrasper, and the RG 00 Qan[T]. I've only managed to build the Hyaku Shiki and the Qubeley. I'll say this, it was nice that Gunpla wasn't too hard to find for a change. Here, I have to go pretty far out of my way to find a store that sells them, but in Beijing they had some newer kits at a Japanese department store called Ito Yokado (Hua Tang, 华堂 in Chinese) that's maybe a mile down the street from my in-laws' place. Even better, we spent an afternoon shopping Gulou E St (Gulou Dong Dajie, 鼓楼东大街). It's an interesting place popular with the younger crowd. Lots of punk and goth clothing stores, video game stores, and a couple of toy stores. I managed to find most of them stuffed in the corner of one little shop.

GCreation's turn. This would be their Slag, Hammer. Once again, GCreation is opting for a very G1 toy look. The tampoed details on his shins and blue paint on his shoulders stand in for sticker detail on the older toy, and the gray on his face is much darker in normal lighting than it is in this picture. Combined with the red eyes, it's also very toy-ish. You probably can't tell from this picture, but even some of the molded details on his torso are lifted from the G1 toy. He's got the silver-chromed lower jaw on his chest, the gold-chromed feet, and the dino legs curled up on his lower legs. Aesthetically speaking, aside from my preference for a more cartoon-style red head with blue eyes, the only things I could find to nitpick are the lack of black on his abs, and the tampoed detail on his shins kind of make me question why nothing was done to mimic the stickers on the G1 toy's knees. Hammer comes with a bunch of accessories. He's got his swords, which I've actually come to realize are more like Snarl's and the ones that came with Growl are more like Slag's. I don't think that's an accident, though; Hammer's dino toes are on the front of his forearms, while Growl's are on the back. Those toes would prevent Hammer from holding Growl's swords. Moving along, we also have a pair of guns, a combiner hand, a large hilt for a combined-mode sword, a smaller hilt, and a large translucent red blade. The other two parts are used for combined mode, which is going to get huge minus points for making me hang onto that little square with a peg on it for nothing but combined mode. Hammer's head is on a ball joint that can look up a whole lot, tilt his head sideways more than I need, and look down a little bit. His shoulders are ball joints on the end of a double hinge, so he can rotate his shoulder and move it laterally over 90 degrees. He fixes a problem I had with Iron Dreg by putting some of the dino frill on hinges so they can move up and out of the way of his shoulders. He has bicep swivels and double-jointed elbows that can bend 90 degrees. His wrists can swivel, but his hands are a solid molded piece and can't open. he's got a waist swivel, hips that can go a little less than 90 degrees forward and backward and 90 degrees laterally, and thigh swivels just below the hips. His knees are soft ratchets, but the tail that makes up the back of his legs still sticks up a little too far for him to get the full 90 degree range there. His toes seem to be on ball joints, but there's very little wiggle. It's mostly just for rotating to give him a faux ankle tilt. He holds his swords and guns just fine. Alternatively, you can put the large red blade into the smaller hilt and have Hammer wield it. It's Final Fantasy-style oversized, and the lack of ratchets in his arm joints means it's also a little too heavy for him. Hammer's triceratops mode is as G1-toy as his robot mode. He eschews the silver chrome on his back and gold chrome on his toes that ToyWorld used on Iron Dreg because the G1 toy was gray-backed, gray-toed (although the G1 toy did, I think, have smaller chrome panels that could have been picked out in silver paint at least). He does have the silver-chromed neck frill, and the bulk of his head is toy-accurate chrome under translucent plastic with beautifully-painted metallic red horns. Some red and black paint on his sides stands in for more sticker detail. The one miss in this mode, and it's a pretty big one, is that his tail isn't translucent-over-chrome. It's a toy detail that they missed, but it wouldn't be such a big deal if they'd used gold chrome or even the gold paint they used on Thunderous and Growl's toes. Instead they opted for silver. Hammer's dino head can look up a little, but it's really for transformation and you'll quickly find yourself revealing his robot head. His jaw also opens and closes, but it's just the single hinge. A small, gold-chromed flamethrower can be angled down from the roof of his mouth. The silver-painted part of his tail is on a hinge so you can tilt it down, but again it's more for transformation and will break up the lines on his tail. His rear dino hips are on ball joints, mostly for rotation but there's a little wiggle in there. No thigh swivels, and his knees are double-jointed for nearly 90 degrees forward, over 90 degrees backward, or you can arrange them in opposition for a natural triceratops stance (I assume). His rear toes can bend down for transformation, and they're on mushroom pegs for faux tilt. His front legs are his arms, so you've got the shoulder joints (which are more of a butterfly joint in this mode), bicep/thigh swivel, double-jointed elbows/knees for 90 degrees forward and a little backward bend, and dino toes on mushroom pegs for faux ankle tilt. His guns can peg into his front hips/shoulders. And there we have it. We'll find out later how he works as a combiner, but as a toy on his own he's a good figure that closely homages the G1 toy. And once again, it comes down to GCreation having better paint and a more G1 toy-accurate design and ToyWorld having the toy that's less complicated and easier to mess with. Neither are MP, and both are perfectly good CHUG-style Dinobots.