mikeszekely

It's really not helping that the only time I can really play it is at night after my wife and daughter go to bed. To be fair, though, I'm not sure it's as scary as I was expecting. There's some pretty unsettling stuff that's gone on, but they're pretty scripted things. When it comes down to actually gameplay, though, it's mostly been "Isn't this place creepy?" punctuated by "hide from that dude with the shovel."

So Resident Evil 7 is pretty creepy.

When it rains it pours, eh? After getting Kultur I decided I wanted the other DJD members. Anarchus was in stock at BBTS, so I ordered him and he shipped out today. No one had Cynicus, though, but there was talk of another run,so I just tossed him in with my preorders at TFSource. Didn't expect to hear anything until after CNY, but I got the in-stock notification today. He'll have to wait until Deathclaw comes in before I'll ship him, but just like that I've basically got my February toy budget. And it's not even actually February yet. Regarding other recent 3P news, J4ZZ was going to be my Jazz but after watching TCP's review I might have to pick up Downbeat. I think Promotion has sort of a neat look, but one that's not really doing it for me. I think GCreations's Prime looks amazing as a display piece but he didn't look like a fun toy, so he's out. Finally, saw TCP's preview of Ditka. Compared to Gewalt, I like how his jet mode looks more like the G1 toy and animation model than Gewalt's stab at a more realistic MiG. I think the Tank mode makes Gewalt's look like CHUG. Not loving the bot mode though; hopefully KFC can clean that up before release. Not that it matters; I need a Blitzwing that's Transportation Captain sized. Gewalt and Ditka are both to big for me.

Hooray for PC!

I'm sort of surprised Skullface reviewed GCreation's Prime. I've seen him struggle with way easier toys. That said, I'm glad he did, because A) if he can do it, I can do it, and B) even when I don't agree with him I find myself really respecting his opinions lately. He's one of five guys I watch regularly, and of the others two seem to be overly positive on what they review (Emgo and Ben of Ben's Collectibles), one has been updating fairly infrequently (Vangelus), and one has gotten kind of lazy with his reviews (Peaugh). I know I can count on Skullface to be thorough and be honest about anything he sees as a negative.

Ah, the first two sessions mostly run together for me, because they were my favorite episodes but my family could really only afford minibots. The Insecticons and Sideswipe were the only ones I remember owning, and I know I had Sideswipe well before the Insecticons, so I just assumed they were in season 2.

Has/Tak's non-movie, non-current-cartoon lines have a very G1 focus. While the various Classics/Henkei/Universe/Generations/Legends/whatever lines have had a little more freedom to re-imagine characters than the slavishly cartoon MP line, and while some toys have used their comic book appearances, Windblade and Drift are the only characters that are original to the current run of IDW comics that have received a toy. That's kind of a shame, because James Roberts is a fantastic character writer; not only are there several interesting new characters, but the IDW More Than Meets the Eye versions of some characters like Skids, Tailgate, Swerve, and Whirl have become the definitive versions of those characters for a lot of fans. While Has/Tak might be neglecting this field of untapped potential, 3P companies are not. One of the more notable companies doing IDW-inspired toys is MMC, and tonight we're looking at Kultur, their version of the Decepticon Justice Division's Tarn. Kultur's a pretty big fellow, although I was kind of surprised to find that he's really only half a head taller or so than Serpaphicus Prominion's core robot or Maketoy's Rioter Despotron. Actually, he comes in a smaller box than Seraphicus did. Kultur is noticeably broader, though, and very solid. Maybe a big part of why he seems so much bigger than he really is is that he just exudes so much presence. And perhaps part of the reason he exudes so much presence is because he looks like he stepped right out of the comic book. Since he's not a G1 character, I'm not sure how familiar most of you are. Here's a picture of Alex Milne's design for Tarn. I mean, I really have to start nitpicking little details like the fact that Kultur's fusion cannons are roughly even but in Milne's art the cannons are offset so the one looks a little shorter in the front and a little longer in the back, or the pinky-purple on his abs don't make the same lines as the art. Kultur is still 99% accurate to the source material, and that's a lot better than most toys get. Honestly, if all of MMC's Reformatted figures were this accurate to the comics I'd have a lot more of them on preorder. Part of the reason Kultur's box is so small is because he comes in alt mode. Another part is because he doesn't have much in the way off accessories. Really just his double fusion cannon, which consists of three parts; two cannons, and the middle section that holds them together. And yes, the two cannons are not the same. That is, again, totally accurate to the comic design. I guess you could argue that he does come with one other accessory. As comic fans know, that big Decepticon symbol of a face is a mask, and MMC made it removable. Now, fans of the series were guessing at Tarn's identity behind the mask. Fans guessed at one, and that character does seem to be who MMC based the head off of. Without giving too much away, Tarn didn't turn out to be that character. However, that character didn't exactly have the most unique face, nor the did the character Tarn really turned out to be. So while the face behind the mask isn't spot on, the differences are mostly in the forehead and Kultur's face can still arguably pass for Tarn's real face. Kultur's head is on a ball joint with a hinge where it connects to his torso. This gives him good range down, fantastic range up, and just the barest hint of sideways tilt in addition to the standard rotation (seriously, if I don't mention that a head rotates in a review just assume that it rotates 360 degrees, because it's honestly more noteworthy if it doesn't). His shoulders have a soft-ratcheted hinge for lateral movement, about 90 degrees, but end in a ball joint that provides both rotation, the lateral movement between detents, and even a little forward/backward butterfly movement. His biceps and wrists are on swivels. His elbows are double-jointed and bend well over 90 degrees, but as Scyla noted the combination of his large fusion cannons and his large shoulder pads combine to hinder exactly how you pose that arm. His hands have a fixed thumb with fingers molded into a curve and pinned at teh base knuckle, with the index finger being one separate piece and the other three fingers being one solid piece. His waist swivels, and although it seems to be intended as a transformation aid he's even got about 45 degrees of forward ab crunch, which I love. He's got universal hips with ratchets that do 90 degrees backward, a little less than 90 degrees forward, and friction for 90 degrees of lateral movement. He has thigh swivels just below the hips, and ratcheted knees that bend 90 degrees before the treads on the backs of his shins meet the backs of his thighs. While YMMV, I think that's perfectly adequate for most poses. Yes, it's true that his knees are actually double jointed and could bend more if the treads weren't in the way, but the second joint is really for transformation. I rarely find myself bending knees more than 90 degrees, and when I do it's usually on flyer-types who go on stands, not burly guys like Tarn. His feet have good upward tilt, more than enough downward tilt, and at least 45 degrees of inward ankle tilt. Plus his toes are hinged and can tilt upward about 30-40 degrees. Knee and shoulder/cannon clearance issues aside, you won't have a lot of trouble finding cool poses for Kultur, and with excellent tolerances even on the friction joints and those comic-accurate big feet to provide a solid, stable base he'll have no trouble keeping those poses. Kultur's alt mode is a Cybertronian tank. Kultur's not as comic-accurate in alt mode as he is in robot mode. That being said, it's certainly close enough. I mean, there's an argument that Kultur's transformation is too simple, and a few more parts might have made for a more accurate alt mode. While I can think of maybe a few things MMC could have done differently, it's pretty obvious that some of the stuff is anime magic (or whatever you call the comic book equivalent of anime magic). While I think Rioter Despotron is a useful comparison for bot mode (people want to know how Tarn sizes with Megatron), I swapped him with J4ZZ for an alt mode comparison (people want to know how tanks scale with MP-ish cars). Tarn's treads don't actually work, and there's no wheels in them. Some people might complain, but I think wheels would have spoiled the look of his shoulders in robot mode and working treads that split in half like that are, again, comic book/anime magic, so I'll give that a pass. The little guns in the front are on swivels and can aim left and right but not up or down. The cannons, on the other hand, can swing up and down a little where they peg into the central piece. The central piece itself can turn a little to the left or right. You can get more range out of it if you unplug it about half way. You can also take the cannons and their connector off. That'll help you get the clearance to open the "cockpit" on his back and the panels on his toes to reveal eight missiles. The ones on his back seem to just be molded in, but the blue ones in his feet are actually separate pieces. They're not glued or pegged into their holes, so be careful that they don't fall out. Way back when I first started collecting 3P toys MMC's Feralcons were among the first I bought. At that time, I debated on whether or not to collect the whole Reformatted line before deciding to focus on combiners. I have to say, after being rather disappointed with Seraphicus Prominon I was glad I hadn't been back to this line. Kultur is the total opposite of that. Excellent quality in plastic, build, paint, and design, with a simple but fun and effective transformation that'll encourage me to keep him at my desk to fiddle with. Although, like Scyla, I do wish they had included a better way to keep the halves of his shoulders together (it's really not too bad, though, if you push the outside half in it'll overlap some of the greebles oon the other half. That joint is honestly tight enough that it mostly stays in place, but that overlap keeps it from moving too much when it doesn't). He's an almost perfect representation of the character he's meant to be, and that "almost" is the worst I can say about him. Now that my combiners are mostly taken care of, Kultur has me taking another look at the Reformatted line. While I can't say that I'm in for everything, I've already put in an order for Anarchus and a preorder for a restock of Cynicus to help fill out the DJD. If you can, I do highly recommend Kultur. I know that 2017 is young, but despite his minor flaws Kultur is definitely the early favorite for my figure of the year.

Stopped at Walmart for a few groceries I forgot to get when at the regular grocery store. Even though I keep saying I quit Hasbro Transformers, I saw Legends-class Kickback and decided to go ahead and complete the Insecticon trio. He's... ok. I mean, aside from the ridiculously large arms he certainly looks like Kickback. I like that you can pose the wings so they're pointed up. Four of his insect legs are kind of just chilling obnoxiously off his back, but they're less obnoxious than Shrapnel's. As glad as I am that all three Insecticons eventually got made in this scale, it's pretty obvious that they're from different lines in different years. While black is pretty much black, the purple doesn't match on any of them, nor does the gold. (Side note... I actually had all three Insections as a kid, and they were some of the few Season 2 characters I had that weren't mini bots. I should really pick up the Platinum series reissue...) Kickback comes with no accessories. Articulation is what you'd expect from a Legends-class toy; ball joints at the elbows, shoulders, and hips, hinge at the knee, no waist, ankles, or wrist. Surprisingly, his head a hinged swivel and not a ball joint or mushroom peg. His antenna don't move. Again, his alt mode is pretty ok. I wish his legs collapsed a little, but it's mostly pretty G1 and looks fine with the others. The one big change, though, is that his arms peg behind his body and stick out the back to form a grasshopper-ish abdomen. It looks ok from the top. From the side, though, you can see some very obvious robot arm chilling out down there. Also, while his forearms tab onto each other, they don't tab to his butt or connect to his back anywhere but his shoulders, so his insect body feels less than cohesive. Due to the shape of the yellow translucent plastic at the corner of the wings, they really can't extend any more than this. He can fold his wings down, though. And I know that it's mostly a Titan Master gimmick, but I love that his chest opens up like the G1 toy did, something I'd have loved on Shrapnel and Bombshell. So, here's the deal. If you already have Shrapnel and Bombshell, go ahead and pick up Kickback. He's not as good as Bombshell (I think I might like Shrapnel better in insect mode, too), but he's ok and he completes the set. If you don't have Shrapnel and Bombshell, though, I wouldn't start collecting now.

I'd like to help, but my only experience has been with super glue, and like you I've found it to be pretty useless.

I debated on whether or not to wait on this review, but an update I got today makes me think it'd be awhile if I wait, so we're going to do as is. Here's TransForm Mission's Carnage, aka Breakdown. I'd say he looks about right, compared to the other GT/TFM cars. And he's definitely got a lot of details you'd associate with Breakdown, like the door arms, the tires on the shoulders, the mostly white torso broken by a line of blue, white/silver forearms and thighs, blue shins, blue hands, front of the car on his back, and an ab vent. The head has mostly the same boxy blue shape with a red face that the cartoon does but opts for the toy's yellow eyes. As much as I do really love Fansproject's version of Breakdown, Carnage is definitely striking me as more Breakdown-y. And where he does depart from G1, with stuff like the guns on his wrists, the lights on his knees, the weird angle of the shoulder tires, the ab vent being silver instead of blue, silver vents on blue hips and crotch instead of a silver/white crotch, the goofy feet... well, that's mostly still accurate to TFM's source material, which wasn't actually G1 but Don Figueroa's IDW design. (And in hindsight, it's curious to see how some of those details made it onto Combiner Wars Breakdown, including the silver ab vent and circular details on his shins that definitely recall Don's knee lights.) When you get down to it, TFM actually captured a lot of that detail, including the way the tires are folded into the shins, the four little red dots under the white part of his chest (they look sort of gray or purple in my pics, but trust me, they're red), and the layered paneling on his lats. Fortunately, TFM didn't go with Don's head, which struck me as a G1/Bayverse hybrid (a style which thankfully didn't hang around for long in the comics). Instead, they went with probably the best smirk since Warbotron's Swindle. Carnage's lone accessory is his gun. Like Disorder's, it's done in purple plastic with some gunmetal paint around the barrel. I think most of you know by now that, just as with Fansproject's Menasor, the combiner parts will come with Motormaster. Carnage's articulation is ok, but there are a few hangups that Disorder didn't have. His head is on a ball joint, and he's got very good up range but no lateral tilt and, due to how short is neck is, no real downward tilt. His shoulders are disappointingly on ball joints, and they're a little tighter and a lot squeakier than I'd have liked. He can, of course, rotate his shoulders with no really issues and he get maybe 100 degrees of lateral movement. The ball peg is hinged in Carnage's chest, so he also gets a slightly forward/backward butterfly motion, which I do dig. His biceps, wrists, and waist all swivel. His elbows are oddly double-jointed. Now I saw oddly because usually a double joint is a good thing, but in this case only the lower joint really works for an elbow and it gets him a little over 90 degrees of bend. The other joint bends backward, like the joint Disorder uses to collapse his arms in alt mode, despite Carnage's arms not needing to collapse in the same way. Carnage's hands are like the other GT/TFM toys and the MP cars with a fixed thumb and all four fingers molded as a single piece with a single joint at the base knuckles. His hips are universal joints that can do 90 degrees forward, backward, or laterally with the hip skirts on hinges so they can move out the way. He does have thigh swivels, but the thick thigh pieces will collide with his crotch and prevent you from turning them too much unless you spread his hips more. Honestly, I think that's ok, as you're probably not going to need a very dynamic thigh swivel unless you're putting the hips in an equally dynamic pose. Things start to go south when we hit the lower leg. Due to the aggressively-designed rear of the car sitting at the back of his leg his knee bend is limited to about 45 degrees. Then there's his feet, which are just weird. They basically consist of a thin piece hinged at the back of his leg that folds up to form the base of his foot, then another thin piece that hinges up from that over a gap in his shin to form both his toes and the front of his shin. In theory, the hinge at the back of his leg can tilt his foot downward, and the hinge itself is pinned on so that it can rotate for inward ankle tilt. In practice all but the slightest of adjustments will pull the front of the shin away, revealing a huge empty gap and spoiling the look. He holds his gun nice and tightly with the tabs on then handle slotting nicely into his palms. Carnage's alt mode is a Lamborghini Sesto Elemento, which is neither his G1 Countach mode nor his comic book's unspecified but fairly Gallardo-esque alt mode. Actually, I think the Sesto Elemento is a fairly clever choice, not just because it allows for Breakdown to be a modern car that's still a Lamborghini but because a fairly signature part of Breakdown's design is the red on his hood. The red indented triangles are actually part of the Sesto Elemento's design, so it gives Carnage that signature Breakdown red on the hood while keeping the overall paint job clean and understated (well, as understated as Lambos get). Unfortunately, the attention to the real-life car details that TFM put into Disorder seems to have waned a bit. While they captured the hexagonal vents over the engine, the aggressively-angled side view mirrors, the unique fuel door, and the general angles, the rims are fairly generic compared to the Sesto Elemento's and there's no intakes in front of the rear wheels. While Disorder was sort of plain, being almost entirely painted in gunmetal, the mix of blue, silver, red, and white makes Carnage pop. You'll notice, though, that the white paint isn't a simple flat or glossy white, but a pearlescent white. It's similar to what GT used for J4ZZ, but a little cooler. I don't know if it's the call I'd have made if I were in charge. I think it worked for J4ZZ but somehow strikes me as less appropriate for Breakdown. Less subjectively, the undetailed silver-painted triangles that pass for headlights are easier to loose in the pearlescent paint that they were on Fansproject's. As was the case with Disorder, Carnage's gun folds up and pegs in under the hood. He cleans up fairly well, too, without much in the way of obvious robot parts hanging out down here. I'm sure even his hands could be turned another way. Side note, I really wish GT would have done something similar with J4ZZ instead of putting a place to tab his gun onto the roof. You'll notice mine is missing half a spoiler. If you've seen other reviews, you may have heard that the spoiler comes off pretty easily (as do the side view mirrors), and that's true. At least it is for the half that's in the picture. The other half was sheered off out of the box, with some of the blue plastic still stuck inside, which is only part of my frustration with this figure. And that's pretty much the case all around. Disorder is a frustrating mix of smart and shoddy. He's got paint all over. All that white is paint, the silver rims are paint, even the break calipers are picked out in red. But the paint is applied less than neatly in spots; on mine, you can sort of see in this pic how the panel between the hood and the door doesn't match, like it only got a base coat. I don't think it's as obvious from the pictures, but there's some rough spots on the roof and hood where it looks like the paint wasn't fully dried and stuck to the foam when they boxed it. The tires are rubber, but the spoiler is a poor plastic that wouldn't have broke on mine if they'd used the same sort of rubbery plastic J4ZZ's spoiler was made of. His robot mode is close to a perfect balance of Don's IDW design and G1, but those feet are horrible. Now, there's no question that my perception is likely tainted from getting one that's broken. I do think, if I'm being fair, that Carnage is still a good figure with some flaws. But the fact remains that Breakdown is my favorite Stunticon, and I really wanted him to be as good or better than Disorder, and that's just not the case. He's the only Breakdown that scales with the MP cars, although for a lot of MP collectors he simply isn't G1 enough. I also don't know that anyone's really done a better Breakdown; as much as I do like Fansproject's he's not perfect either, and he's really small. Still, people looking for a Breakdown standalone to add to their collection might want to hold off to see if someone else does him better.

Mine is on the way. I expect to have a full review up for Kultur by the end of the week.

Regulars in this thread know that I initially went with Constructor. I think I had that thing completed and on my shelf for maybe a month before I decided it was too big and replaced him with Gravity Builder. And while I do wish GT's Bonecrusher was more like, y'know, Bonecrusher, I'm pretty happy with my choices overall. Constructor just didn't look right with any of my other combiners. I know there are a lot of people who want their combiners that size because they think it's more "MP," and I guess it's cool that ToyWorld is delivering, but I spent a sickening amount of money on 3P combiners last year, and I'm not starting over again just to get bigger ones. Right now I'm wrapping up Poseidon, I'm collecting the TFM Stunticons as they come out to replace M3/Intimidator, and I'm working in the Warbotron Computron dudes as my budget allows to replace Quantron. After that, it's "Warbotron-sized" or bust for me.

And here I was thinking I was cool for using "pilot" instead of "cow catcher". Glad you enjoyed it!

Alright guys, I really hope you enjoy tonight's review, because we're looking at a toy that hasn't been covered by any of the usual gang of YouTubers I watch. Tonight, we're looking at a third-party take on Astrotrain that isn't DX9's Chigurh or ToyWorld's Devil Star. This is Fancy Cell Toys' Transportation Captain. Right off the bat, the Captain is definitely a very G1 cartoon Astrotrain. He's got the gray and purple colors of the cartoon, with the purple head, the red and purple marks on his abs, purple on the the outside of his lower legs, the square panels on his hip skirts, the blocky, three-tiered torso, the vents on his shins near his knees, the panels that overhang his hands, and even (although you can't see it in this picture) the purple detail on the outside of that panel. And he does this without having obviously visible shuttle cockpit parts on his lower legs and feet, which is something that Chigurh, Devil Star, Classics Deluxe Astrotrain, and Titans Return Voyager Astrotrain have all failed to do. Fancy Cell did spruce him up a little with a few extra touches of purple on the forearms, shoulders, thighs, and shins, and crotch, some yellow on the forearms and the hip skirts, and a little more detail on the shin vents than the animation model provided, but I personally think those little extra flourishes help him pop. Regardless, this still arguably the toy that's the closest to his G1 cartoon appearance ever made at the time of writing. I didn't even think about it when I was taking the pics for this review, but you can even fold out the train wheels behind his head. Speaking of his head, if I do have one complaint it's that his head is on the smallish side. I think the one other area that might be a hangup for people aesthetically is his size. For me, he's a good size. Perhaps arguably too tall, as he's a head shoulder than iGear's Raptor Starscream, but still smaller than some of the combiner torso bots in my collection. However, while he is a good bit taller than an MP car and a little taller than an iGear Raptor, he's a little short compared to an MP Seeker. I don't care enough about the Sunbow scale chart to know where Astrotrain fits, but I know enough to expect that a lot of MP collectors will want Astrotrain to be at least that big, if not bigger. If you're into the toy look (or the IDW look, which seems to hew closer to the toy), Fancy Cell has you covered. You can pull the shuttle's tail out of his torso and split it down the middle over his chest. Fancy Cell also included a second toy-style head as well. Ultimately, Astrotrain is tricky to do and please everyone, because his animation model was based on a mistransformed prototype, his original Japanese release was white and black instead of gray and purple, and his American release swapped most of the black and some of the white for purple, but retained some black and still didn't have the cartoon's gray colors. I think the ability to split the tail and the toy-style head are nice options, but they obviously had to pick between cartoon gray and toy white. I think they made the right choice, but fans looking for a more toy-accurate Astrotrain may find the Captain lacking. Besides the alternate head, Transportation Captain comes with a bunch of other accessories. There's his gun, which aside from having more paint apps is pretty close to the G1 toy, two racks of missiles, four little Energon cubes, a Sky Spy-ish satellite, a boom arm, and a whole train car. The instructions seem to indicate that the missiles can come off the racks, but I couldn't see a way to do it without applying excessive force. The boom has a hinge in the middle, and the satellite can sit on the peg end. The solar panels on the satellite are on rotating hinges so you can turn and fold them. The Energon cubes are on the smallish size, but they were designed so that the one cube can fit into the Captain's grip. The train car opens up and gives you more options for your accessories. You can use the piece in the middle like a computer station for the satellite, and your can have stuff like the missiles stored like the Captain is saving them in there for later. Alternatively, the center piece rotates, and there's a slot for his gun. The gun can pivot up and down, and the missiles can be pegged on the sides, making for a pretty cool weapon emplacement. The boom goes onto a tiny peg between the two missiles on either missile rack, which themselves peg onto the sides, the barrel of the rifle folds down onto the floor, the satellite tucks in the space between with it's panels folded around the gun barrel, and the Energon cubes line up under the rifle's butt between to notches. With this arrangement, the train car can fold back up and all of the accessories except the second head fit inside. Transportation Captain's head is on a ball joint with rotation, minimal lateral tilt, but good downward and very good upward tilt (at least, using the default head). His shoulders are on ball joints with cuts at the top so he can get a little over 90 degrees of lateral movement. His shoulder rotation is hindered by his wings, which can only hinge backward a little. Despite the hindrance his shoulder rotation is still mostly in-line with what an average human could do, and therefore adequate. He has bicep swivels, and his elbows can bend 90 degrees. His wrists can swivel. His thumb is fixed and his fingers are all molded together with a curve, but a hinge at the base knuckles of his fingers allow his hand to open and close similar to an MP car. His waist can swivel. His front and side hip skirts are on hinges, so he can get 90 degrees of forward bend and almost 90 degrees of lateral motion on universal hip joints. His wing section does again get in the way when he bends his legs backward, but he can still get about 45 degrees and I think that's adequate. He has thigh swivels and 90 degree of knee bend. The front of his foot is hinged so it can tilt downward a little, and that front part of his foot is connected to his heel via a rod running through the base of the foot. The heel and the front of the foot can turn inward together to provide ankle tilt. He can hold his gun ok, but it's entirely due to friction. Although his hands do seem to have slots in them, there are not corresponding tabs on the handle of the gun. One of the other accessories really do anything in robot mode. As you might have guessed, what with the "train" part of the name "Astrotrain" and with the train car accessory, Transportation Captain does indeed turn into train. Once again, the Captain is probably the most cartoon-accurate Astrotrain on the market. He retains the steam locomotive form that recent HasTak versions have traded for modern bullet trains (or whatever the heck TR Astrotrain is), without the weird junk around the wheels of Chigurh. Like the G1 toy, the train wheels are just molded and painted onto the sides and the train actually rolls on four little wheels underneath. The windows at the back are translucent yellow to match the yellow windows on the cartoon. Really, the only deviations from the animation model are some added detail like the riveting, some gray and silver, and a little black to break up the uniform purple of the cartoon, and a more prominent pilot. The Captain even has the rocket nozzles on the rear of the train. This is, naturally, not a realistic train feature and therefore something that was omitted by both the ToyWorld and DX9 takes on Astrotrain. However, it is totally accurate to the animation model. Still, if it's something that bothers you, you can link the Captain to the extra train car accessory. That'll make the train mode a little longer, and provide a rear that you might actually see watching a train go by. The extra car also seems to be the only place to store any of his accessories while in train mode. Fancy Cell didn't forget about Astrotrain's other alt mode. I think, whatever your preferred robot-mode scale, any version of Astrotrain is going to scale poorly in shuttle mode. Then again, we're talking about a fiction where in one shot Starscream could barely duck inside yet later there was enough room for the Constructicons to form Devastator, so I can't really say that alt mode scale matters to me all that much. Aesthetically, he is once again the most cartoon-accurate Astrotrain, although this is probably his least screen-accurate mode. He's the only Astrotrain toy that has the cartoon's cockpit-peeking-out-of-a-collar look, although the collar seems to blend in with the fuselage instead of wrapping around it like the cartoon. His translucent yellow windows should actually be blue, but yellow/orange is also what DX9 and ToyWorld went with. The purple panels along the fuselage should also be gray to match the cartoon, with a large yellow and red marking, but going with purple seems to be an aesthetic choice to keep the purple on the sides of his legs in robot mode, so I'm ok with that. He's also lacking the humps where just before the rocket nozzles. The overall shape is closer, though, than the more realistic Devil Star, the stylized Chigurh, the obvious train parts on Classics Astrotrain, or the even-more-stylized Titans Return Astrotrain. The shuttle mode can't really interact with the train car accessory, but it can work with some of the other accessories. The missile racks can clip under each wing, and the handle of the gun can slot down into the hollow space vacated by the tail fin. Unfortunately, it doesn't really lock in place there, though. While not a proper shuttle cargo bay, there are panels on the top that can hinge open. You could probably drop an Energon Cube or two into the hollow space it reveals. Even cooler, there's tiny pegs just inside on either side that the boom arm can attach to. With the satellite on the other end, you can pose the Captain is if he were deploying the satellite in space. By this point, I've spent a lot of the review telling you how much more like cartoon Astrotrain this toy is than eveything else, so I want to take a minute to address what's not so great about it. What it really boils down to is that Fancy Cell Toys is no MMC, Maketoys, Fans Toys, etc. This is, as far as I know, the only thing they've ever released, and while it's not bad by any means it's definitely lacking some of the polish you get with the bigger names. For starters, the plastic isn't as good. Again, it's not cheap dollar store toy plastic, but it's not as good as what you're probably used to. It actually kind of reminds me of the plastic in the new Playmates Voltron toys. Second, some of the hinged panels will turn fairly freely to a point, then suddenly require a little more force than you'd actually want to use on a thin part. There's the aforementioned fact that the gun doesn't lock into the shuttle mode, or into his palm. That being said, it's still a very impressive piece for a one-off by a no-name company. He manages to pull off all three modes fairly close to Astrotrain's animation model. His transformation is much easier than Chigurh or Devil Star's. He gets his animation accuracy (again, across all three modes) and his easier transformation without sacrificing articulation. And despite having a fairly simply transformation, he's still got a few neat engineering tricks, like the folding panels that give him a uniform shape in robot mode and how they open and tuck into his wings to reveal his actual torso, or the way the sliders in his legs move and tab to lock in place. And I think all that good more than outweighs the bad here. Astrotrain was, to my recollection at least, a pretty major character in the cartoon, probably more than Blitzwing (and way more than Octane), and Transportation Captain is as much the Astrotrain I always wanted as MP-10 is the Optimus I always wanted. While opinions are subjective, I seriously can't understand why anyone would opt for Chigurh or Devil Star when this guy is an option, unless his smaller size really bothers you so much that you'd rather settle for Devil Star's funky proportions and toy-style design or Chigurh's passable robot mode but somewhat out there alt-modes. Needless to say, if you want an Astrotrain toy this is the one I'd recommend.

I don't know. I read about water coolers from time to time, and they seem like they're great for overclocking. I've never overclocked any of my systems, though. In fact, aside from the low profile cooler I bought for my NES build, I've always just used the stock cooler that comes with the CPU.

Well, here's the review I promised; TFC's Mentarazor, their take on Seawing/Kraken. I'm using the other Seacon limbs for comparison today, because I've shown how they size with other 3P toys and I'll show the next one off with an MP car or something. For now, I figured I'd just give a peak at how the whole team is coming along. And, yeah, they've been mostly pretty good, but a little stylized. Mentarazor is possibly the most-stylized of the bunch. Generally, I dig the light gray, minty green, and black color scheme... but that gray should be darker, that green should be bluer, and he's kind of lacking in the black department. Just going by the toy, the black should have covered that panel between the two circular protrusions, he really shouldn't have had any green on this chest, and his thighs and feet should have been black. I'll let the green feet slide, as well as the green panels on the sides of his legs, as they're kind of necessary to give him some green in alt mode. TFC also replaced the blocky ridges on Seawing's chest with yellow translucent bits and molded hoses. I honestly would have liked him to have at least had black thighs, but on the whole I don't mind TFC's take. Even the lighter gray is a fair match for his IDW appearance. Mentarazor comes with a bunch of accessories. There's two of the hand/foot connectors, the handle for gun mode, two pink bladed thingies, two guns, two silver pieces for the combined mode sword, and a combined mode foot. Like the other limb bots' guns, Mentarazor's can open up and have a longer barrel flip out. The foot is identical to the one that came with Cyberjaw/Overbite. Not pictured are some screw hole covers for his tail. Mentarazor's head is on a ball joint; he can't really look down at all, and due to the combiner port behind his head he can't look up if he's facing straight ahead. He has better up range if he turns his head a little and then looks up. He can also tilt his head sideways a little. His shoulders rotate on ratchets, and there's a hinge for lateral movement. His shoulder armor interferes with his lateral movement very slightly, but you can basically get 90 degrees of motion. He has a double elbow joint. The top joint is ratcheted, the lower joint is just a friction joint, and he can get a full bend (it's actually necessary for at least one of his transformations). He lacks a true bicep swivel. There is a swivel, but it's between the elbow joints. Despite the odd position, he still has plenty of range on the lower joint. His wrists and waist have swivels. Hips hips are universal joints, ratcheted for forward/backward about 90 degrees, and ratcheted laterally for the full splits. Kudos to TFC, his hip ratchets have plenty of detents so he doesn't go from stock straight to wide A-stance. His thighs swivel just below the hip. His knees are ratcheted and can bend 90 degrees. The problem is that there's a second transformation joint below his knees, and the ratchet in that joint is weaker than the one in his knees. When you bend his leg the transformation joint is the one that wants to go and you have to wrestle it down and you have to make an effort to hold it down and force the knee joint to bend. His feet are a little unusual, which has been par for the course on this set (although Mentarazor's are perhaps less odd than the other limbs). His feet are actually two parts, the front and the heel, and they tab together on the underside. Out of necessity, then is ankle is a pair of ball joints, one in the front and one at the heel. They can move in tandem to give him some inward/outward ankle tilt and that's about it. Now, if you untab the parts of his foot you get a little more inward/outward tilt plus some up/down tilt and rotation on toe half. His wings have a few points of articulation as well. There's hinges near his collar to raise or lower the armatures his wings are attached to, dual hinges attaching the wings to the armature so you can bend his wings back or forward, and the tips are on hinged ball joints so they can fold over the wings or rotate. The above picture shows them how the manual tells you to position them, with the points of the tips going up and the tips folded over the front of the wings a bit. If you prefer, though, you can fold them back so the tips are out of sight. You could also turn the tips so that they're pointing downward, or even flip the entire wing over on its armature if you want them sitting lower. Naturally, he holds his guns fine. He can also hold the bladed weapons with no problem, although they're clearly a case of being a part of the combined-mode sword first, smaller robot weapon second. They work a little better than Ironshell/Snaptrap's, though. While it's pretty clear that the silver bits are really just part of the combined mode sword if you put them together Mentarazor can hold it. The peg is just a little short. Mentarazor's alt mode is probably the weakest of the Seacons so far. He looks less like a robotic ray-monster and more like a vehicle with the propellers in his wings. The large eyes of the G1 toy are much smaller on the sides of the horns, and largely overshadowed by the unnecessary yellow bits on top. He's also entirely lacking a beast mode mouth or feet. More on that in a bit. His tail, traditionally black, is green with a translucent purple sting. Speaking of the sting, a real sting ray's barb is before the tip of the tail, and the G1 toy was anatomically correct. Mentarazor is not. (Although basically everything else about Seawing like the shape of the wings, the horns, and the eyes on the sides of the horn instead of on top of his head, and the mouth in front instead of underneath suggest that he's really a manta ray, but I digress). As with the bot mode, you can decide if you want the wing tips to point forward like the G1 toy or backward like a real manta ray. There are peg holes hear the little "claws" on the wing to mount his guns. You can either have the barrel pointed forward and the gun largely overhanging or you can spin it around like a fin. The tail has a trio of joints for articulation with the stinger itself being on a hinge. The last segment of the tail comes packaged separate from the rest of the tail. In theory it just pegs in place, but in practice the connection is looser than I'd like and it tends to fall off when you manipulate it. A look at his underside. He's a little fat, eh? I mentioned before that there's no beast legs, and that's frustrating because his robot arms became his beast legs on the G1 toy. As you can see, if TFC had just slapped some claws on his forearms that was absolutely doable. I can see how, due to his transformation, that a beast mode mouth wasn't really going to work here but the lack of beast legs is much harder to forgive. So... he's ok. He's a decent robot toy that fits aesthetically with the other Seacons released so far. He has probably the easiest transformation of the set. I can't help but feel like TFC just phoned in the alt mode, though. Given a decided lack of other modern Seacon options, though, he's still the best Seawing/Kraken we've got. Honestly, I still think I like him better than Cyberjaw/Overbite, but he's definitely not as good as Big Bite/Skalor or Ironshell/Snaptrap. And if you've collected all the TFC Seacons up to this point, chances are you're starting to think more about combined mode anyway.

I think Terraegis pulls off a better Trailbreaker than Speedbump, but Artifex is a bit too heroic, a bit too much like a green Terraegis with a different head and different stuff in the truck bed. He's just not dumpy enough to be Hoist. I have to hand it to Badcube, Lorry has some tricks to make him a lot dumpier than Speedbump. Honestly, I kind of like that both companies did both characters, but each one got a different one better (at least in my opinion), because two different takes on characters that are traditionally remolds helps them feel more unique and less like you're buying the same toy twice. I was going to write a review tonight, but I spent too much time playing with the toy. I won't tell you what toy it is, but if you check back tomorrow you can Seacon for yourself.

This review is a tad overdue; I had him sitting in my stack since November waiting for more stuff to come out so I could ship him. Here's Maketoys' Rioter Despotron, their original take on Megatron for their Cross Dimension universe. Due to the whole original universe thing Maketoys is doing, Rioter Despotron obviously isn't your G1 Megatron. And yet, he's arguably much closer than the old Classics Voyager Megatron. He's still mostly silver with black hands, pelvis, cannon, and lower legs. He's still got the silver down the front of his legs, red biceps, and red accents on his abdomen. The fusion cannon still sits on the outside of his arm when his elbow bends forward. And he's still got a gun barrel on his back (two, actually). That's all more than we could say for the ol' Nerf gun. The Cross Dimension stuff mostly adds a large pentagonal section to his chest, a crest to his bucket head, the aforementioned second cannon, and changes some of the smooth, blocky shapes to angles and ridges. The overall results exude power and menace. Despite being only slightly larger than ToyWorld's Hegemon he feels like he should be much larger. Needless to say, I'm a big fan of this design. Here's a quick look at the back and the side of the legs, so you can see the little molded and painted details. Rioter Despotron comes with a few accessories. There's, of course, his fusion cannon and the two gun barrels. He also comes with a sword, and a silver pentagon. One end of the cannon comes off, and the sword can store inside. I like this a lot. One of my gripes with Striker Manus, their Cross Dimension Optimus, is that there's nowhere to store the rifle in robot mode outside of his palm, but everything has a place on Rioter Despotron. One other little accessory that Rioter comes with is a purple Matrix. This shouldn't come as a total surprise if you read the comic that came packed-in with Striker Manus. It's just a shame that Maketoys didn't paint it at all. While you're in there, if you don't like the big clear purple gem on Rioter Despotron's chest you can swap it with the silver pentagon. In my opinion, the purple gem breaks up the silver if you're the type that doesn't put faction symbols on your 3P toys, but if you do that silver piece gives you nice, flat spot for one. So it's nice that Maketoys gave us options. Rioter's head is on a ball joint at the base of the head that's hinged in his chest. He can turn his head, look up a little, look down a lot, and has a fair amount of sideways tilt. His shoulders can rotate at the torso and there's a hinge inside his shoulder armor. Something I really like that Maketoys did is that the shoulder armor looks like it'd stop his arms from getting 90 degrees of lateral motion, but there's a flap on the side of of the shoulder armor that actually allows you to get slightly more than 90 degrees. His biceps swivel, and although his elbows are single-jointed they basically bend all the way until is forearm starts banging on his shoulder armor. His wrists swivel. His thumb is fixed, but his fingers are hinged at the base with the index finger being a separate piece from the remaining three. His waist swivels, and there's just shade of foreward ab crunch. His hips are ratcheted for lateral movement, and he has no trouble doing the full splits. His hip armor is on hinges and attempts to move out of the way. He can bend his leg 90 degrees backward, but the thick silver part on his thigh still bumps his hip skirts so he gets a little less forward. He has thigh swivels. His knees are double-jointed, mostly for transformation, but the result is still more than 90 degrees of knee bend. His ankles are sort of like big double ball-joints. He can rotate his ankles, he's got good forward and backward tilt, and a good 45 degrees or so of lateral ankle tilt. The armor around his ankles is even hinged so it can bend out of the way of his ankle tilt. Due to his transformation, his toes can also bend downward. All-in-all he loses to Striker Manus in the articulation but still blows a lot of 3P toys in that department. Although Maketoys seems to have intended the pop-off section to be the front of fusion cannon barrel, you can (and I prefer) to flip it around. Rioter's sword and palms use the same slot-and-groove system that Striker Manus has, so it's easy to slide in and it stays secure in his palm. The fusion cannon uses the same slot-and-rail system as the gun barrels, and he's got the rails on both arms. So if you like options, you can put the fusion cannon on his back and the gun barrels on his arms for smaller, dual-wielded arm cannons. In fact, it's actually necessary to swap them (sort of) like this for alt mode. The rails on his back have a few points of articulation, too. Plus, the gun barrels can plug into the front and back of the fusion cannon for a really big gun. Technically he can carry the really big combined gun on his arm, but I like to swing it around his hip. It's sort of like Armada Megatron, although it actually reminds me more of Buster Gundam. Rioter Despotron's alt mode is a pistol... of a fashion. I'm not going to like, I know it's G1, but generally speaking I prefer tanks or what not to pistols for Megatron's alt mode. And the same lack of smooth, blocky shapes that makes him so menacing in bot mode makes for kind of a sloppy gun mode, in my opinion. I have to say, though, in hand it's not as bad as I thought it would be. He tabs together very securely, and I like how Maketoys did the "one leg for a handle, one leg under the barrel" thing that Classics Megatron did without resorting to the huge, shellformery wings. He's even got a spring-loaded trigger, and although he's lacking a trigger guard and the handle has all those jagged ridges it almost looks like a pistol you might see someone using in Star Wars. Also, despite the ridges, his handle is longer than Classics and thinner than Hegemon's, giving him the best palm-feel of the three. Striker Manus was rightfully praised for being sort of like Classics Optimus, but with much greater articulation and without a ton of kibble. Despite that, despite him being a very good toy, I got a him a few days after getting a KO of MP-10 shrunk down to basically the same size. When push came to shove, the Cross Dimension aesthetic seemed to clash with my other Autobots and MP10v became my de facto Optimus Prime while I debate whether I should sell Manus or not. Rioter Despotron, though, is different story. Yes, he's got that Cross Dimension look, but it seems to work so much better on Megatron. While I could tell you that Striker Manus is good toy and worth buying if you don't mind a separate shelf of just Cross Dimension figures, Rioter Despotron is an easy recommend either for a Cross Dimension shelf or just because you want a Megatron in this size. He is so much better than any Hasbro/Takara Voyager Megatron release, and he makes Hegemon look nearly as bad. Buy him, I say. I might not have reviewed him until now, but he's retroactively gaining a spot in my top 3 figures of 2016.

Yeah, I have Mario Kart 8 and both DLCs on the Wii U, but I'll definitely buy again for the Switch. While I'm at it, I'll be happy to buy all the games I own on Wii U again on the Switch. After all, I only have 4 of them (Bayonetta 2, Mario Kart 8, Super Mario 3D World, New Super Mario Bros Wii U).

Thanks. It's not serious, though. The pediatrician prescribed some antibiotics and she's already showing improvement. Anyway, those pics you requested... Black, red, and green lions. Only the black lion can pose with his mouth open. The other lions can open their mouths but they spring shut. Individual lion articulation is kind of meh. They can all bend at the hips and shoulders. Each leg has some kind of elbow or knee, and they can bend at the paw. The joints don't have as much range as you'd like, though. For combined mode the red and green lions can turn their bodies a little to the side, and their heads can turn like they're confused. The black lion's pretty much a brick full of electronics. Yellow and blue lions. They don't have waist articulation and can't tilt their heads like the red and green, but they can look up and down. The limb lions have soft rubber tails. I didn't pose them; that's just how they've bent after being jammed up inside for combined mode for the last two days. The black lion's tail is hard plastic and hinged at the base. These accessories are for Voltron. The shield comes with the green lion. The sword comes in two parts, oddly. Half with red and half with green. Notice the huge blotch in the black paint. The lion limbs also come with these stupid projectile launchers. They mount on their backs in lion mode, but do nothing in combined mode but drive up the price. The black lion doesn't come with any extra weapons or accessories. Each lion does come with a little pilot sled. The black lion's is hard, the other four are a rubbery plastic. Each lion has a door on its abdomen with a place the sled slots into. As I sad, plastic quality is pretty cheap all around. The rear limbs on all the lions but the black are also pretty hollow. Here's the weird gouge I mentioned. And like I said, the paint is just sloppy all around. Here are just some examples. Look at how the yellow paint splattered onto the silver claws, how uneven the white paint is around the green lion's mouth, what appears to be a smudgy finger print on the lower jaw, and how many chips are in the paint in general. I've mentioned that the joints are ratcheted, but as David noted the play between the teeth is really loose. Also, the lions' front legs don't really tuck as tightly as you'd like. The result is that Voltron's feet aren't exactly flat. Voltron combined. The springs in the lions' jaws provide enough tension for them to solidly hold the sword, and the green lion has a peg hole on his back fro the shield. Note how the black lion's shoulder has to rotate to raise an arm, but lateral movement is on the combiner peg. The rear legs do block the elbow a little, but he does have working elbows and rotating wrists. On the bottom, he's got working hips, thigh swivels, bending knees, and a little ankle tilt but not really enough for more dynamic poses. His wings also have a few points of articulation, but sadly he can't turn or tilt his head, nor does he have a waist swivel. Size comparison. He's a pretty big mamma jamma. I think everyone's pretty familiar with MP-10, yeah (which reminds me, can someone post a pic of SOC Golion with MP-10?). Anyway, I like that you can just walk into a store like Target and find these. And they're not horrible. But like I said, I feel like they're overpriced for what you actually get, and you're probably better off saving for SOC Golion.

I like Far Cry and Assassin's Creed. *Shrugs* Maybe this will be my favorite 3D Zelda...

I'd argue that the original Legend of Zelda was pretty open world. Sure, maybe you'd need a raft or ladder to get to a few spots, but you could get to almost any screen in the overworld from the start of the game, the bombs or the candle let you find tons of secrets without setting foot in a dungeon, and aside from needing the raft and the whistle the dungeons could be done in practically any order. That's what I'm really hoping for in the new Zelda, to explore and take the world as I find it instead of artificial obstacles forcing you on a mostly linear path.

Oh, there's definitely stuff planned for the Switch thatI want, just nothing but Zelda at launch. And even that I can wait on.

I'll try to get some up soon, but probably not until tomorrow. I was lazy last night, because my daughter's ear infection means she hasn't been sleeping well, and when a toddler doesn't sleep well no one in the house does. Plus tonight the wife is going to a concert with her friend, so it'll be just me and my cranky kid until late.

I'm not driving myself crazy trying to get one. I want one, but with it launching after the holiday season, if its anything like the Wii U, it won't be too hard to find after the initial rush. And it's not like the launch games are anything to write home about.