mikeszekely

Hey, David, I finally got my Deathclaw, too! And since I'm now going to review him, I'll remind everybody that he's TFC's take on Nautilator/Lobclaw. I think I've established the size of TFC's Seacons in my reviews for Bigbite, Cyberjaw, and Mentarazor, so instead of getting out ol' MP Prowl I decided to just show him with two other recent toys that I've really enjoyed. Now, aesthetically Deathclaw is kind of a mixed bag. On the one hand, TFC did some that that works pretty well for me. I like how TFC integrated his claws into his arms (they simply came off on the G1 toy, or you left them on his back), and while his beast head is on his back his beast legs cleverly blend into his robot legs (although they're actually part of his feet). It gives him a very clean look overall. Generally speaking, his visual style meshes well with the other TFC Poseidon team. And the mostly-gray torso and shins with mostly-blue/green arms and shins is mostly accurate (although the exact shades are debatable, as has been the case with this entire set). Two things really bug me, though. First up is his head, which is molded in the same drak gray plastic as his hands and biceps. I swear TFC just got lazy here. It would have been bad enough, although more accurate, if it had been done in black plastic, but what he really needs is some orangey-yellow paint on his mouth plate. The other thing that's bugging me is the red paint. I get that a little on his pelvis and his knees sort of calls back to sticker details on the original toy, and sure, it looks visually cohesive with Ironshell... but Nautilator isn't supposed to match Snaptrap (that's Overbite's job). Nautilator is supposed to match Seawing, and Mentarazor doesn't have a lick of red on him. I mean, I've heard complaints about the yellow on Deathclaw's arms (and, as you'll see in beast mode, his beast head), but at least that matches Mentarazor. Aesthetics aside, Deathclaw comes with a bunch of accessories. There's his gun, which has the same opening-flip-out-barrel gimmick as the other limbs. He also has two swords and two other... things... that can be used as melee weapons. Additionally, he comes with the left hand of Poseidon, his gun-mode handle, a pair of combiner connectors, two pink things that I'm not entirely sure about (and the instructions don't mention) that might have some use in combined mode, and a new flap and neck joint for Poseidon's head. The complaint seems to be that people thought Poseidon's head sat back too far, and these new parts allow the head to sit farther forward. However, getting the pin and the old parts out seems to be more trouble than it's worth. Articulation-wise, Deathclaw is pretty similar to the other Poseidon limbs. His head is on a ball joint with a little upward tilt and a little lateral tilt, but man can he look down! His shoulder pads are on ball joints that are hinged on his torso due to his transformation so they don't interfere with his articulation, but they do require some additional finagling to get them work with his arm poses. On the topic of arms, his shoulders are ratcheted for both rotation and lateral movement, of which he gets a little over 90 degrees. He has double-jointed elbows. The top one is a very tight ratchet (so tight I'm a little afraid to break it), and the bottom one is a friction joint. He doesn't actually have a swivel in his bicep; instead, it's between his elbow joints. While that means that he can only use both joints if they're lined up, the friction joint will actually allow his arm to bend until his forearm starts bumping his upper arm, so not a big deal. His wrists and waist can swivel, although you have to be mindful that his beast head doesn't catch on any of the tabs on his butt. His hips are ratcheted, and he can get just under 90 degrees forward and backward, and just over 90 degrees laterally. He's got thigh swivels just under the hip joints. His ratcheting knees get about 90 degrees of bend, although you'll almost certainly have to reposition the beast legs. Now his feet are a little odd, although probably less so than the other three limbs. Basically, the foot is attached to a ball joint in the middle, but the ball joint is hinged at the base to the outside of his shin. So, his foot can rotate, it can tilt up and down, and he's got inward and outward ankle tilts, but using any of it means you have to swing the hinge out enough so that the foot has clearance. Mostly I think this works fine, but for more extreme poses his foot will become off-centered from his shin. His toes are also jointed for transformation, but you can't do a lot with those joints in bot mode that you can't do easier by moving the whole foot. Also worth noting is that, as previously noted, the beast legs are attached to his robot feet, so you kind of have to pose his legs, then pose his ankles, then arrange the beast legs so they're smooth against his robot legs. Oh, yeah, and the translucent spikes on his toes can swivel up and down. He can hold his gun fine; there's even a notch in the back for the claw kibble on his forearm to sit in. He can also hold the swords, although they seemed extremely tight. I'd be a little worried about scraping the silver paint off, or stressing the hands. He can hold the thingies, too. I don't know what they're supposed to be. An axe? There's a hinge on the peg so he could flip the blade around the other way. I dunno, if they weren't part of Poseidon's sword I'd leave them in the box. Of course, Deathclaw doesn't actually need any weapons. You can transform his arm into his claw mode while he's in robot mode. Also, the top of his beast head can unpeg from his pack and peg onto the side of his arm to make a shield. Be careful, though. Perhaps due to the paint, the fit on his arm was tighter than the fit on his back, so when I went to remove it I actually pulled the head off it's ball joint, leaving the peg in his arm. Inspection of the ball socket showed some serious stress marks. Deathclaw turns into a lobster (or perhaps some sort of crawfish or claw shrimp... I'm not a carcinologist). He's a pretty big boy, too. Again, he's predominantly blue/green with black legs and mostly-gray claws. The translucent black is an acceptable stand-in for gray in my book. He does have some blue/green on his claw, but that's the trade-off for having blue/green forearms. Aside from his eyes, the yellow is somewhat out of place but it does serve to break up all the blue-green and, as I said earlier, is visually cohesive with Mentarazor. He could probably use more gray in beast mode; the gray on the G1 toy comes from it's robot torso forming its back, but Deathclaw's robot feet and beast head hide most of his robot torso. I don't really mind it that much, though, since my experience with lobsters is that they're pretty uniform in color (again, not a carcinologist). What I do mind, again, is the totally out-of-place red that doesn't match Mentarazor at all. Aesthetic qualms aside, Deathclaw's alt mode is probably the most fun of the bunch. The top of his head is on a ball joint for a little wiggle, the bottom jaw is on a hinged ball joint, and the shoulder pads form the sides of his mouth parts are also on hinged ball joints. Combined, you can definitely open and close his mouth. His whiskers are ball jointed and made of soft plastic, so they too can be arranged how you like. His claw arms have all the same joints as his robot arms and have plenty of range, plus the actual claws are on hinged ball joints at the base for opening and closing, plus the outside claw has a hinged tip. His eight beast legs are all on ball joints at the base, with hinges immediately after the ball joint, in the middle, and at the tip. This does allow for some posing of the legs, but the joints aren't strong enough to support Deathclaw's weight so he really just sits on his lobster tummy. Just like the other limbs, he can carry his gun in beast mode. There's a little spot in his tail where his gun handle can slide in (and those spots are neatly hidden by his knee pads in robot mode). If I'm being fair, my complaints about Deathclaw are really mostly subjective complaints about TFC's aesthetic choices. Those are the kind of details that you have to decide, on a personal level, if they bug you enough to be deal breakers. If they're not, what I can tell you is that Deathclaw is a very solid toy, probably the best of the Poseidon limbs so far. He's a fun toy that manages to be a fairly clean robot and a pretty cool robot lobster. If you're thinking about getting him, I say go for it.

Yep. So they might as well do their Titans as cost-effectively as possible.

Out of curiosity, what more were you hoping for? If they ditched the motorized walking gimmick I'd think the new Titan Trypticon should have hips and knees that bend, plus bending elbows, rotating shoulders, hands that open and close, a mouth that opens and closes, a neck that can bend up and down, and it looks like he might have ankle tilts. Beyond that, I'd really expect neck rotation, but you can't tell if he does or doesn't from this pic. Lateral movement in the hips and shoulders would be nice, and again we can't really tell if he does or doesn't have that. I think it's a safe bet that he doesn't have any waist articulation, but I just don't see Hasbro putting in the design and engineering to get him one. Tail articulation also seems like something a 3P could pull off in a $500 toy, but not something Hasbro would bother with. Besides, too many improvements would probably change the design enough that people would be pissed at Hasbro, anyway.

There have been several 3P toys I've wanted, but a lot of them have been waiting on a back burner while I've directed a lot of my focus toward combiners. And recently, I've noticed some stuff on my list, especially some MMC stuff, has been selling out at stores and going for ridiculous prices on Ebay. For whatever reason, that motivated me to pick up a figure I've had my eye on ever since he came out. So tonight, I give you Salmoore, DX9's take on the Gobot Cy-Kill. Truth time... I think I've mentioned, either here or in the official Transformers thread, that my family was kind of poor when I was little and I didn't have many Season 1 & 2 Transformers because my parents simply couldn't afford them. What they could afford, though, were the next best thing... Gobots. I had a ton of Gobots as a kid. Although I preferred Transformers, I watched the Challenge of the Gobots cartoon just as much. So when a 3P company makes a high-quality homage to main Gobots character like Cy-Kill, I'm going to take notice. Obviously, Salmoore is a heavily-stylized take on Cy-Kill, but that's probably for the best. The animation in Challenge of the Gobots wasn't super hot, and the Bike Robo toy that Cy-Kill was based on was pretty simple. What DX9 has done here is to craft a figure with more detail and better proportions that doesn't look out of place with Transformers toys... indeed, he's fairly similar in size to an MP car or a modern Voyager. Despite the heavy makeover, Salmoore is still undeniably Cy-Kill. The head and face are the right shape and colors, but he looks more mechanical and less like a guy with yellow teeth and gray stubble. His chest and hips are red with yellow markings, but again more detailed. His thighs, arms, and abs are white like the cartoon, and the black lines on the cartoon where the engine pegged in on the toy are now silver-painted vents. There's a also some gray and black breaking up the white on the arms and some gunmetal on the thighs. He's got real arms and hands instead of the bendy struts with weird curly hands, but he retains the tires on his shoulders. Likewise, the foot rests on his shoulders mimic the overly-simplistic handlebars of the original Cy-Kill. His mismatched feet are white and gray, and he's missing the yellow marks on his knees, but his shins are still predominantly blue. I think Gobots fans looking for a cartoon-accurate, Masterpiece-style Cy-Kill might be a little disappointed with the liberties DX9 has taken, but I personally think that Salmoore successfully creates a modern Cy-Kill that doesn't look stupid next to a modern Transformer while staying true to the character. Salmoore comes with a handful of accessories. There are, of course, his tires, which are rubber on chromed wheels. He also has pair of translucent spiked covers for the tires, and a pair of chromed guns. The barrels on the guns can collapse into them. That seems to be more for transformation, but if you want a Cy-Kill with smaller guns it's also an option. Salmoore's head is on a ball joint with a hinge at the base. Naturally, it can rotate and he can tilt is head to either side a little and look down a little. Due to his transformation, you can use the hinge to have him looking straight up. He has universal joints for shoulders and rotation is not a problem. He can extend his arm laterally a bit less than 90 degrees before the tires on his shoulders start bumping the foot rests. If you take the tires off he can go a little further, but the white tips on his shoulders still get you less than 90 degrees. Due to his transformation, he technically has a reverse butterfly joint as well, but this is actually a small complaint for me because the joint relies entirely on friction to stay in place, and his shoulders don't actually peg into his torso. He has bicep and wrist swivels, and double-jointed elbows that let him touch his shoulders. Again, though, if you turn his bicep out a bit and then bend his elbow his forearm will start to collide with his tires at about 90 degrees. His hands are solid pieces shaped so that 5mm pegs will fit in them. He has a waist swivel and thigh swivels. His hips are universal joints that can move 90 degrees forward, backward, or laterally. Small complaint #2, the foward/backward joints on both hips were pretty loose on mine, but I opened up his waist, took the legs out, and put a little Future on the mushroom pegs and everything's right as rain now. Both knees can bend well over 90 degrees, but his left leg can technically bend slightly more than the right. His heels are fixed, but the front half of either foot is on a ball joint and can provide very good inward or, if you're into that sort of thing, outward ankle tilts. His left foot can tilt up and down a little on the ball joint, but the ball joint in his right foot is hinged at the base for transformation. Practically speaking, that means his right foot has much greater downward tilt than the left. The wheel covers just fit over the wheels on his shoulders to give him a menacing, spiked look. The spikes are very sharp, so take caution when handling them. I think it's a nice option, but honestly the bare wheels are more Cy-Kill in my book. Since they aren't used in alt mode, I'm content to just leave them in the box. He holds his guns just fine, but with a simple 5mm peg instead of the handles and tabs or slots or whatever gimmicks used in a lot of MP and newer 3P toys, he'd better. Salmoore's alt mode is a motorcycle, but it's a much more drastic change from the original Cy-Kill than his robot mode. Some of the details are still there... he's still got the seat at teh back, the white front with the yellow headlight, the chromed engine, and chromed tail pipes, but a lot of the blue is showing on top while the red is mostly hidden. There's nothing about it that immediately says "Cy-Kill" to me. On the other hand, though, it's a drastically more realistic motorcycle than Cy-Kill/Bike Robo. Indeed, it's one of the nicest motorcycle alt-mode on any Transformer I own (granted, that's a pretty limited pool right now with just Scout-class ROTF Elita-1, Generations Wreck-Gar, Generations Chromia, Legends-class Groove, Deluxe-class Groove, Prime Arcee, Maketoys' not-Afterburner, and Maketoys' not-Groove to compare it too). DX9 incorporated a lot of nice touches to the motorcycle mode. There's the aforementioned rubber tires and chromed wheels, the chromed foot rests, and the chromed engine (which folds out from his back instead of being a separate piece like the original toy). His guns integrate into his alt mode, with the barrels linking into the engine and forming the bike's exhausts. The seat has a textured, rubbery coating to give it a leathery feel. You can also see, just under the seat, that there's a fold-out panel inside is leg that serves no purpose except to fill the gap between what is his calf and what is his thigh. He's got red-painted and translucent yellow tail lights. He's got a fold-out kickstand, and his handlebars are on ball joints to help you pose them with any figures you might try to put on him. And the blue plastic, while not painted, does have a nice metallic sheen to it. It's clear that DX9 didn't want the motorcycle mode to be an afterthought. A motorcycle robot that's the size of an MP car in robot mode is going to be necessarily out-of-scale with they're both in alt mode. Heck, as you can see with Groove and Prowl, that's true if the motorcycle bot is a Deluxe. I don't really care, though. I've said it before, and I'll say it again, in a universe where a space shuttle and a jeep are both limbs on the same combiner bot-mode size is far more important than alt-mode. I want a Cy-Kill who can hang with my mostly-Voyager-ish Transformers, not an itty-bitty Cy-Kill whose bike mode scales perfectly with Prowl's Nissan. Once we decide to ignore issues of scale, the inevitable question becomes, "Who can ride on him?" Well, size-wise, a Deluxe-class Transformer looks like a good fit. A Voyager or MP car bot looks like it's probably too big, but I'll confess that I don't really know jack about motorcycles and I could be way off. If you're going to put a Transformer on him, depending on the amount of articulation and alt-mode kibble you might run into some trouble getting him on the bike. CW Blast Off here can't turn his wrists to get them on the handlebars and he's having trouble getting his feet near the foot rests. Unfortunately, I don't collect anything but Transformers, so I don't have any human figures to put on him. Salmoore isn't perfect. I've already mentioned two small complaints and pointed out a few minor issues with his articulation. I've also mentioned that, subjectively, someone might prefer a more faithful toy like the new Bike Robo. Another gripe I have is that his transformation, while pretty easy once you know what you're doing, does involve working his shoulders around the chrome engine parts, and the clearance there is pretty ridiculous. The instructions (which are mostly useless as they're too dark and too small to really see what you're supposed to be doing) even caution you to pay attention to how you have the shoulders rotated. Even when everything is lined up right the edge of the shoulder is still basically rubbing past the chrome. For the most part, though, my objective complaints are relatively minor and my subjective one is more of a pro for me than a con. Salmoore is pretty much exactly what I'd expect Cy-Kill to look like if the Gobots were reimagined as Cybertronians, and he's the right size for my collection (which is more than I can say for the new Bike Robo). I love him; my actual biggest complaint isn't about the figure itself, it's the lack of other modern Voyager-sized Gobots to go with him (AFAIK, there's just DX9's Invisible with a new head and paint job as Crasher). And if the worst thing I can say about this Cy-Kill is that I can't find a good Leader-1 for him to fight, I'd say he's a pretty easy recommend.

Well, all the '80s big screen revivals would have to give way eventually to '90s junk. I mean, the first Bay Transformers movie was almost 10 years ago, so if it got made on '80s nostalgia then the target audience for '90s nostalgia is the same age as the '80s kids were back then. But hey, I'm an '80s kid and I liked Power Rangers. Of course, at the time I had no idea what a sentai show was, but the idea of five people with mecha that combine to make a giant robot that fights giant monsters? That description was close enough to Voltron to get me watching (although I was out before Turbo).

I checked a few local stores, I guess places like Target and Walmart were only taking online preorders? I'll maybe just check then out on these day.

No thanks, I already watched X3: X-Men United.

I still think it doesn't hurt to contact the retailer for Eligos. Like I said, most of these 3Ps simply don't respond to emails/Facebook/Weibo if it's not in Chinese, but sometimes retailers can get replacement parts. Even if it's your fault and the retailer doesn't want to give you a replacement part for nothing, sometimes they'll sell you a part. I think BBTS might even sell parts even if you didn't buy from them; I was talking recently to someone who got a replacement wrist connector for a Warbotron Bruticus from them. I think it ran maybe $5-6. As for ToyWorld, have you checked the status of your claim on their support site lately? Like I said, they went totally dark for a long time, but since switching back to the green I've heard tickets are moving again. Not that it excuses the months of silence, but you might not be SOL yet. I think you'll like Constructor, especially the V2 version with all the more G1 touches. That stuff (the green thighs, the lat fillers, the new head) really address a lot of the complaints I had with him. I think I still prefer Gravity Builder, though.

Ok, so Kultur doesn't get lonely I picked up another figure that I can review tonight. Here's MMC's Anarchus, their take on Kaon of the Decepticon Justice Division. Off the bat, the first thing you'll notice is that, much like Kultur/Tarn, Anarchus' robot mode is pretty accurate to Kaon's comic book appearance. Sculpt-wise, we really don't run into much of an issue except for some minor quibbles on his forearms. He's got Kaon's dead eyes, although they could stand to be a little rounder, the dynamo in his chest, the electrical pylons on his shoulders, the treads on his shins, the big feet, and overall lanky build. From the waist down, he's just about perfect, with just a few extra details breaking up the white of this thighs. From the waist up there are a few more issues. I'll ignore the backpack, but as I mentioned his forearms are the most off. He has white near his wrists where he should have a pink glow, he's missing the red on the backs of his hands, he's missing the black that should be between the gold and his bicep, and the back side is missing alt mode details (mostly because his arms don't seem to end up where they do in the comics. He's also missing that pink glow entirely from his lats, and on his shoulders the pink glowing spots are painted gold. Anarachus comes with just two accessories. First up is his gun, which is ok. I mean, I don't recall him having a gun in the comic; I remember Kaon firing Vos, and fighting with lightning, but that's about it. Mostly I think the gun could really have benefited from some paint, especially on the scope. He also comes with a little drone robot. The drone's legs are ball-jointed at the body, and each leg has one hinged knee. Painted red eyes are the only thing that distinguish the front of the drone from the back. You can peg Anarchus' gun into a slot on it's back. Like the gun, he's ok, but nothing to get excited about it. As good as Anarchus looks, he does have a few issues with articulation. His head is on a ball joint. His head can tilt toward his chest quite a bit, but not backward. Note that I didn't phrase that as "he can look down." If you turn his head, whatever part of his head is facing forward tilts toward his chest. His shoulders are on universal joints that can rotate 360 degrees and move laterally over 90 degrees. The pylons on his shoulders hinged as well, so they can slide along the shoulder and not hinder his articulation. He has a bicep swivel just about his elbow. The elbow can bend 90 degrees, but there's also a transformation joint that can be used as a second joint to fold his arm all the way up if you don't mind messing up the sculpt. His wrists are ball joints so they can swivel, but they also have a little waggle. His waist also seems to be on a ball joint. He can lean back slightly, he has a small ab crunch, and he can lean sideways more than I'd care to, but due to the shape of his lats his waist swivel is limited. He has universal hips that bend 90 degrees forward, backward, or laterally with hinges on his hip skirts to move them out of the way. His hinged knees fall a little short of 90 degrees, and he has no thigh swivel. Instead, his legs can swivel below the knee. That sort of substitution works OK when he's standing in a fairly neutral pose, but he begins to look very awkward in more dynamic poses. He has hinges that provide about 45 degrees of ankle tilt, and another hinge lets him tilt his foot up and down just a tad. The front half of his foot is on a double hinge, though, and that'll get you about 45 degrees of upward bend and so much downward bend that he can very nearly fold his foot over in half. The drone can fold up it's legs and peg onto either forearm like a shield, but it's honestly pretty superfluous for Anarchus' robot mode. As for the gun, the combination of the hinge at the top of the handle and his unusual hand sculpt makes the gun look a little awkward in his hands. He also holds it fairly loosely. It won't fall out, but it may spin in his grip. I kind of like it when Transformers turn into stuff besides vehicles, and the less mechanical the more endearing (until you get to Transformers that become animals/beasts/monsters/etc, but that's another can of worms. Needless to say, I'm a fan of Kaon's electric chair alt mode and Anarchus mostly delivers. It might make the back look a bit less cluttered if his forearms became the chair's armrests, but Milne's art doesn't really indicate how you'd go about that. Besides, if you think about it, it sort of makes sense to slap all the electrical components onto the back. Anarchus' gun is fairly crucial to this mode, as it locks his arms together, locks his arms to his body, and locks his torso to his pelvis. So, while leg and foot rests can move, as well as the cap, the chair itself is fairly solid. The drone can split in half, and each half can peg onto one side of the chair. The legs of the drone can be positioned around anyone in the chair, providing extra restraints. It's a nice touch, but not necessary, nor is it accurate to the comic book, so the drone still is pretty superfluous. If you have any Legends-class figures, be they official or 3P, they'll probably fit in the chair, as would the forgotten Scout-class and other sub-Deluxes like some Fansproject/Maketoys combiner guys or MP Bumblebee. Deluxe-class figures might fit, if they're not too wide and they don't have too much back kibble. It's safe to say that anything larger won't fit. I'd have loved to have been a fly on the wall during whatever conversation led to this third mode, a mode that might generously be described as a scorpion. Did MMC's designers think that a robot that turns into furniture wasn't cool enough? (I don't know about you guys, but I'd love for Alex Milne to take an IKEA catalog and start churning out new characters.) Was it something that was always planned, or was someone messing around with a prototype, bent the legs up, and was like "hey guys, I made a scorpion!" and MMC just ran with it? Either way, it doesn't work super well. I mean, the tail out of the seat is fine, and the cap makes for a sort of bug eye, sure. But that's all on a big chunk of blatantly-folded up robot with super obvious hands, and having all the legs near the back means there's nothing to support that mass of robot. The double-hinged foot and heel spur do make a decent claw. However, they're sat kind of far back as well, and the robot arms and shallow knees limit how far forward the claws can bend. The below-the-knee swivel does give the claws a sort of wrist articulation, though, and the hips allow for a bit of up/down rotation. The scorpion mode is the only mode where the drone is actually required for the alt mode. However, this mode is a non-canon, tacked-on afterthought. The drone remains superfluous because this entire mode is superfluous. Congratulations, drone, you're going back in the box. After the sheer awesomeness that was Kultur, Anarchus is a little bit of a letdown (which is probably why Anarchus came first, eh?). As much as I like an ab crunch, I'm not really liking the ball joint for a waist. It's kind of a bummer that he can't hold his gun that well. It's kind of a bummer that his waist swivel is so limited, and that he can't really look up unless his head is on backward. It's a bigger bummer that his leg doesn't swivel at the thigh, only below the knee. The drone is mostly wasted plastic. On the other hand, if you can overlook his flaws Anarchus is a very comic book-accurate robot that turns into a mostly-accurate electric chair, giving IDW fans 90% of what they want in a Kaon figure and 89% more than Hasbro is likely to. And as stupid as the scorpion mode is, I can give it a pass because nothing was sacrificed in robot or chair mode to get there. If you're not a fan of More Than Meets the Eye then a lanky robot with electrical pylons on his shoulders that turns into a chair might not be something you associate with Transformers, and maybe Anarchus isn't for you. And that's OK. If you read MTMTE, if you know what the DJD is, and you want those characters in your collection (of if you just like seeing Alex Milne's art come to life) then there's really no reason not to pick Anarchus up.

It let me put it in the cart, but when I went to check out it said it was sold out.

For Eligos, have you tried contacting the retailer? I've heard 3Ps rarely respond to requests for parts, especially if they're not in Chinese. As for ToyWorld, did you submit a claim through their support site? I'd heard that they basically ceased all contact for a few months because they seriously underestimated the issues with Burden, but old claims are starting to be processed now that they've switched the factories back to green Constructors.

Didn't check the ugly one, but I guess I was to slow on the gray one.

TFSource sent me a whole replacement leg from the knee down for my Carnage. So, yay, but I can't help but notice the non-busted half of the original spoiler and the replacement half both have stress marks. Really wish TFM had used the rubbery plastic they'd used on J4ZZ...

I don't really care for the precedent it sets, because a future where every big publisher requiring its own client would probably be a big enough hassle that is quit PC gaming, but if I'm being totally objective Origin really isn't that bad. UPlay, on the other hand, is a buggy mess that is never have installed if Far Cry 3 hadn't been so good.

Gotcha. Not backwards compatible, either?

It was one generation ago and already HD. What does it need remastered for? Did your 360 RRoD?

Options are definitely good, and I'm certainly not begrudging them. I'm just surprised, I guess, that the stuff you're honing in on as more important is kind of flipped from what I'd focus on. That is, as you noted, a very good reason for why options are so good, though. And I definitely get the appeal of toy homages. It's a big reason why I went with the toy-colored Gundog instead of Willis. I'd also have no interest in a Bruticus with a purple and brown chest (no matter how much using Blast Off's wings makes sense) and yellow and green feet. Oh, but as for the gaps, I think the spots I marked in yellow are gaps, and the spot I marked in blue looks like you can see all the way through the figure. Might be that they've changed it since; this shot is still showing him with the Toyworld livery. But yes, I think that we are in agreement that Coolsville has his pros and cons. That's also true for Downbeat. It's just interesting how we determine which pros outweigh which cons to come to different conclusions. Anyway, speaking of options, while I'm definitely focused on 3P combiners I think you guys know that I've been filling out my collection with "core" characters. I'm looking to get some Insecticons... anyone have any strong opinions there? Fanstoys' Grenadier looks just about perfect to me. However, while the other two Fanstoys Insecticons look really nice, they seem like a pain to transform and play with. The Badcube ones look pretty good in a vacuum, but I'll allow that they don't look as good as the Fanstoys ones. Their Shrapnel and Kickback look a lot more playable, though. There's also the little matter of the Badcube ones selling in a 3-pack that's significantly cheaper than buying all three Fanstoys bugs. To be honest, right now I'm leaning toward picking up the Badcube pack and then possibly replacing their Bombshell with Grenadier.

Thanks, Az. I did the poll, and it definitely looks like I'm in the minority. Guess I still win, though, since I didn't spend 26 episodes hate-watching a show just because it was Macross since I genuinely enjoyed it.

Took my own advice. Now here's the thing... I don't own much in the way of G1 Transformers, either original or reissue. Partly because most of my favorite characters were season 1 and 2, when my parents were too poor and I was stuck pretending my Gobot ResQ was Ratchet, so I don't have any nostalgic feels for the original toys of those characters, and partly because even as a kid I was keenly aware of how poorly the toys matched their animation models. So, these Insecticons are the only case of me owning a toy I actually had when I was a kid. I've definitely got nostalgic feels for these guys, but I'm kind of surprised by how small they really are. I know that stuff I played with when I was five or six seemed bigger in my tiny child hands than they would in my adult hands, but based on the other G1 Transformers I have (Optimus Prime and Soundwave) I'd have still guessed that the Insections would be roughly the same size as a modern Deluxe. It's a little surprising to find that they're almost the same size as their newer Legends-class counterparts. Now I want to get some 3P Insecticons. If anyone has strong feelings about any of those, post them in the 3P thread, I'm curious to hear them.

Hold up... I didn't follow any of the Delta threads, because I was busy having a kid and what not and didn't really have a chance to sit down and watch it until we went to visit my wife's parents in China back in October. Was the general consensus here that they didn't like Delta? Because I thought it was much better than Frontier.

Really? I mean, I respect your opinion, but I find it to be quite the opposite of my own. I have a few minor qualms about Downbeat, but it looks like at least one of them can be fixed with some paint, and I love how his upper body transforms. He looks so much like the cartoon it's incredible, without being super bland like Takara's most recent MPs. I bought GT's J4ZZ because I dig a little modernization in my carbots, but Downbeat just screams Jazz to me, so I'm seriously considering selling J4ZZ and picking up Downbeat. Maybe in the spring; as much as I like Downbeat there's a few things ahead of him right now in my "really want this" list, starting with some Insecticons. As for Coolsville, I hate the flap behind his head. I know, that's kind of picky of me given that I tolerate it just fine on Gundog, but yeah. I get that some people want a Jazz with tampoed or painted racing livery, but "Mortini Racing" isn't working for me. His torso looks hollow and gappy, he looks like he's got hollow spots in his arms like MP Bumblebee, and I'm not a fan of asymmetric toy details on his knees. Good looking alt mode, though.

Whaaat? Not even on PC? Not that I actually care... I don't own a VR setup, and while I've been marginally interested in one I actually prefer the behind-the-plane view in Ace Combat so I probably wouldn't use it anyway. I'm just surprised is all.

Xbox One? PC?

Not for me. While I grew up on games like Mega Man, it's like the minute I turned 30 I started putting all my games on the easiest difficulty. It's like I just wanna play and have fun during my all-too-brief free time now; I can't be bothered to replay and master games the way I used to.

I don't know, I'm still pretty early in it, and I'm posting on Easy. I was doing fine until I got to a point where I was being chased with no weapons. I got turned around and ran right into the guy chasing me. He didn't exactly kill me so much as I decided to quit for the night. I'm looking the exploring and what not, and I'm fine when I have a weapon, but I hate being chased with no way to fight back.