mikeszekely

I guess a ton of stuff's been announced in the last couple of days? I guess for me the highlights are Neverwinter Nights 2 Enhanced Edition, Persona 4 Revival, Marvel Cosmic Invasion, The Outer Worlds 2, Onimusha: Way of the Sword, Mecha Break, and Deadpool VR.

Not so long ago, Hasbro took Armada Optimus Prime, a large toy but one notorious for poor articulation even by the standards at the time, and gave us a modern version. That version was smaller and missing most of the gimmicks of the original toy, but it looked good and it definitely had better articulation. This year Hasbro is again updating an old Optimus Prime toy with poor articulation, but this time they're doing it at the Titan scale. This here is Age of the Primes Star Optimus Prime. Since I first discovered it I've loved the design of Star Optimus (or Star Convoy, as it were). He had enough of the traditional design beats- chest windows, tummy grill, red torso, blue helmet and lower legs, face mask, and antenna ears. But he was amped up on '80s/'90s Japanese super robot anime energy. He was bigger, with a little extra gold and black added to his normal color pallet, a maedate-style crest on his forehead akin to a Gundam, smokestacks swapped for double-barreled shoulder guns, leg wheels swapped for tank treads, and a prominent gold star on his chest. I loved the design so much that I bought the 2005 reissue, and despite the toy's lack of articulation (it's seriously a solid brick with arms that swivel at the shoulders and bend at the elbows, that's it) I loved the gimmicks. With Hasbro running the brand more tightly in modern times my hopes for a modern version were dwindling. In 2019, Takara retooled Power of the Primes Leader-class Optimus, replacing the Sunbow Orion Pax with a "normal" Optimus Prime, then retooling the combined mode into something slightly resembling Star Convoy. If the "evolutions" intent with the regular release was to show Orion evolving into Optimus Prime, then this figure showed Convoy evolving into Star Convoy. But the robot didn't have great proportions, the chest windows were wrong, the star wouldn't stay in place, and the alt mode was totally G1 Optimus, not Star Convoy. Around the same time, MMC released Stellarus Convoy, an impressive unlicensed figure with good articulation that mostly captured the heroic proportions of the manga, but lacked the gimmicks of the original, suffered from QC issues, and it still had a less-than-accurate alt mode. Fast forward to the present, and Hasbro's decided to crank out figures of the Thirteen Primes, aka the thirteen original Transformers created by Primus. Knocking out characters like Prima and Solus, who pretty much only exist as lore, not a problem. But what about the Thirteenth Prime? Canonically, the Covenant of Primus made the Thirteenth Prime Optimus, who chose to be reborn as an ordinary Cybertronian in the Well of All Sparks, hence becoming Orion Pax. It was not a popular take; I love Optimus as much as the next guy, but to me part of his story is that he's just a regular guy who becomes a leader because his courage, conviction, and compassion causes him to take a stand against against Megatron's tyranny. He's special because he's not special (something that the Transformers One film did a good job conveying). And we have a ton of new Optimus Prime toys. Hasbro's solution to coming up with a toy, then, is to take an obscure Japanese manga-only version of Optimus, update and mass release it, and let you decide if it's literally an upgraded "ultimate" form of Optimus Prime or something else. And aesthetically, man did they do a good job! The new Titan hews very closely to the original toy, but tweaks the proportions to make them a bit more heroic, gives him better hands, and cleans up his solid, undetailed back. My sole complaints are the bit of trailer panels on the sides of his legs, and the lack of gold on his pelvis. His antenna are even hinged, and can range from nearly straight ala the original toy to more exaggerated, manga-esque positions. As a Titan, Star Optimus is giving up far less than Armada Optimus did. On the right, we have all of the original toy's accessories, minus some ramps. And on the left, we can see that the new toy has them all- the crawler vehicle (that becomes Prime's calves), the black truck, a small Hot Rod, the little turret (which doesn't separate from the base like the original did), and his rifle. But on top of all that, Titan Star Optimus also comes with six blast effect parts, the Zodiac orb, the Silver Matrix, and a bullet. The two yellow ones are the multi-segmented ones that first came with Siege Jetfire. The orange ones are the multi-segmented one with two extra tips that came first came with Siege Omega Supreme. The blue one, though, I believe is new. Obviously, one big improvement with this toy is articulation. His head swivels, and he can tilt his head down but not up or sideways. His shoulders rotate on ratchets, and more ratchets allow them to move a little short of 90 degrees laterally. His biceps swivel, and his ratcheted elbows bend 90 degrees. His wrists swivel. His thumb is fixed and his finger are all molded together in a permanent curl, but they are pinned at the base so he can open his hands. His waist has a ratcheted swivel. His hips can go backward 90 degrees, laterally a little over 90 degrees, and forward just under 90 degrees due to interference from his hip skirts. All that motion is ratcheted. His thighs swivel. His ratcheted knees bend just a little shy of 90 degrees. His toes tilt downward, due to his transformation, and his ankles pivot about 60 degrees. The base of the turret gun folds up so that Star Prime can hold it like a pistol via a 5mm peg. The Silver Matrix can be held like a hilt, with the blue effect part acting like an flame blade. It's a neat idea, but it looks way too small for him. Unlike the original toy his shoulder guns are not permanently affixed. Rather, they are attached via 5mm pegs which means he can also hold those in his hands. The barrels can move up and down. His regular rifle can also be held in either hand, using both a short 5mm peg but also a tab that fits into a slot on his wrist to help lock it in place. The extra support is helpful because the Silver Matrix (a gimmick invented for the 2019 Generations Selects release, BTW) has a peg on it that allows it to plug into the barrel of his rifle. The folded-up turret gun then uses a peg to plug into the hole on the Matrix. This combined weapon is an homage to the Big Bang rifle, the name for when you took the rifle of the Generations Selects toy, split it in half, and mounted its Silver Matrix between the halves. You may have noticed in the previous pic that the bullet fits into a groove in the rifle. Once it's installed, I see no reason to ever remove it. Likewise, if you open up Star Prime's chest there's a little pedestal with an round indent and a peg hole. The Zodiac orb fits in there, and can stay there through transformation, so I see no reason to remove it. When Titan Star Prime was first revealed, I know some people saw that Hot Rod and thought, "What, why is his wing on his legs? That looks so bad it makes the Core-class version look better!" I think what those people didn't know is that this Hot Rod, despite being roughly Core-class in size, is a direct homage to a Micromaster Hot Rod that came with the original toy. It copies elements from the Micromaster, like the engine on the back of his head, the wings on his legs instead of his back, and basically the same transformation. The big difference is that the exhaust pipes and engine are are painted silver, and the chest details are paint instead of a sticker. Well, that and a bit more articulation. His shoulders are ball joints so they can swivel but also move laterally about 30 degrees. He's got elbows now, and they're ball joints, so they act as bicep swivels in addition to bending 90 degrees. His hips are ball joints that can go 90 degrees forward and laterally, and about 60 degrees backward. His hinged knees bend nearly 180 degrees. Although this release doesn't come with any accessories specifically for him, he does have 3mm peg holes on his fists and he can hold Core-class accessories like the sword that came with that version of Hot Rod without issue. Note that the instructions specifically say that Hot Rod can sit inside Star Prime's chest. He doesn't lock in place, and his legs stick out and prevent his chest from closing back up, though. In alt mode Hot Rod can fit into the trailer of the little black truck, same as the original toy. However, the black truck does NOT have the spring-loaded launching gimmick anymore (and, oddly, swaps the orange door for a gray one). It's not all bad, though. The truck has picked up some new gimmicks. For starters, there's two 5mm ports on the top and one on each side (plus a peg on each side), allowing you to mount weapons like the turret gun, his shoulder guns, or even his rifle. Two, the cab (which has a 5mm peg on the roof now) comes off, and two gun barrels fold out from underneath. This, too, can be plugged into one of the ports on the trailer or carried as a pistol by Star Prime. The crawler rolls on wheels, now. It no longer has working treads or a battery so it can roll on its own. But, it does split in half now, so it can stay on Prime's calves without mucking with his articulation. Transforming Star Prime is somewhat similar to the original. In both cases the chest opens so the head can fold inside, the turrets swivel 180 degrees, the shoulders rotate forward 90 degrees and the elbows bend backward, the arms disconnect from his sides and fold up over his head, the waist swivels 180 degrees, and the toes fold down. In both cases the backpack folds down to fill in part of the trailer. The key differences are that the rear wheels fold out from inside the chest instead of behind the arms, the fists fold in with the grill on the other side instead of the grill being molded onto is fingers, his front hip skirt folds open to fill in part of the trailer, and the panels on the sides of the legs hinge up to fill in the rest. Both still mount their rifle and turret onto the trailer, though the bottom of the turret stays folded onto it instead of attaching to the rifle. In alt mode, the new Titan Star Prime is very faithful to the original, but there are some choices that could have been a bit better. For one, because his legs are actually legs and he's missing the large butt flap that the original crawler docked into, some of the detail under the trailer is missing. Two, the top of the trailer is a little gappier due to being made from his pelvis and not a big kibble backpack. Three, his torso is totally red plastic, so there's a red section at the front of the trailer (just behind his shoulders and above the rear wheels) that should actually match the trailer's gray and include the blue stripe. But perhaps worse of all, the trailer doors are a waffled mess, lacking the details of the original toy, including the silver stickers with the door numbers. The doors do open, though, and they even have those bits on them to connect them to stuff like Siege Prime's trailer shield, the Earthrise modulators, or some of the other Titans. Like the truck itself, Prime's leg/trailers lack the spring gimmick of the original toy. Actually, you can't even drive the truck straight in! The edges of the opening are too narrow, and there are squarish protrusions with peg holes on the floor. To install the truck, you have to open the front of Prime's shins, then the truck plugs down into it, with the square bits fitting into notches on the bottom of the truck. This locks it in place. The Silver Matrix use a peg to plug into one of the peg holes in the other leg. My first thought is that there's plenty of room in there, I can toss his blast effects and turret gun in there, too. However, there's two issues with that. One, the friction on the door, which is essentially his heel, isn't super strong, and the weight of the loose accessories can actually push it open, causing them to fall out when you're manipulating him in bot mode. Two, even if you can find a way to tighten that up, pivoting his ankles creates small gaps that stuff can fall out of anyway. If you plug the Silver Matrix into the lower port you can use it to kind of pin the turret gun and blue effect part in such that they can get down to the door/ankle gap. As for the rest of his effect parts, I've got a box filled with just effect parts I've inadvertently collected since Siege, so the orange and yellow ones can just go in there. It is a little disappointing, though, that with so much space in his legs they couldn't find a more effective way to store his accessories in them. The original Star Convoy toy didn't stop at big robot and big truck. Like so many big Transformers at the end of JG1, Star Convoy had a base mode. It's not super complicated; you basically lifted his back butt flap and removed the crawler, then his legs and pelvis could swing up. Turn the torso 90 degrees, open his chest, open up the legs, attach some ramps the crawler and hook it onto the other side. The turret gun gets stuck on the crawler so Hot Rod can use it, but the rifle stays in his hand. Like the truck mode, the new toy is very similar but also slightly different. His hips move like he's sitting, but his pelvis doesn't move, leaving the torso a little higher and the chest unable to reach the ground. It also means his legs don't stick out as far to the sides. His heels leave archways that weren't present on the original toy. There's no butt flap, so the crawler winds up closer to his body and doesn't stick out so far in the front. This is exacerbated by smaller ramps on the crawler. But, on the plus side, those ramps are actually on the crawler. They're not separate parts that I had to dig out of the box in my closet. Prime's head also hinges forward, sort of obscuring his face and making it slightly less (but still extremely) obvious that a chunk of the base is just robot torso. While I do have a few minor gripes with Star Convoy (and maybe some of them, like the ugly trailer doors, could be fixed with a third-party upgrade from DNA or someone), this was one of my most anticipated releases for the year and he doesn't disappoint. He looks amazingly good in bot mode, he's much closer than any other attempt in alt mode, and he actually has the base mode and gimmicks like the black truck, the Micromaster Hot Rod, and the detachable crawler that were so cool about the original toy. His joints are solid, he's got actual articulation manga-esque proportions. It's literally everything I love about the original toy but better, not a half-arsed attempt like the Generations Selects toy or a great robot but still lacking in other ways reimagining like Stellarus Prominon. What's more, while he's a big boy (even bigger than Stellarus), his smaller size compared to other Titans actually makes him so much easier to handle. I'd go so far to say that not only is Star Prime the best version of this character, he might very well be my favorite Titan-class release ever. Now, I get that as a JG1 character he doesn't have the widespread appeal that a Sunbow character might, and that $150 is still a big ask even if it is cheaper than several previous Titans, but if you have any interest in this character at all this is the version to get. Highly recommended.

I caught LTT's preview of the Xbox Ally family. What the Microsoft team is doing on the Windows side is pretty interesting, and I'm more interested than I initially was. For me it's really going to come down to price and the performance delta of the Xbox Ally X over the original Ally X. ... Wish they could have made the screen a little bigger. After 40 years of 20/20 vision I'm starting to need reading glasses. The Switch 2's bigger screen is starting to spoil me.

Well... I haven't checked Pulse, since all their dates were already like November, but Amazon has been emailing me left and right moving around shipping dates for both Studio Series and wave 2 of Age of the Primes. Looks like AotP is moving up from later in the fall to September, which is cool... except then this guy just randomly shows up today- Voyager Class Heatwave. Heatwave is a retool of Legacy Bulkhead, and normally I'd wait to cover him in a repaint roundup, but 1.) the only other repaint is Crasher, from the Kingdom version of Mirage, but she's actually a package refresh from the previously Walmart exclusive Velocitron line, 2.) the rest of the wave seems to be new molds, and 3.) the rest of the wave is far enough off that I don't think there were even preorders for Onyx Prime yet. So... we've got new fronts on his shoulders, a new torso cab, new head, new thighs, and new outside edges of his forearms... ...oh, and one new flap, since he doesn't have the wheels on his back that Bulkhead does. But the rest, including the inside edges and backs of his shoulders, are the same. For the most part, I think it works ok. He's a bit fat, due to his cab sticking out so far and alt mode details normally formed by the Rescue Bots' hands being permanently present, but I've always thought details of the mold (especially the alt mode) seemed a bit off for both Animated and Prime Bulkhead. At the time I wrote it off as "g1-ifiying" him, but now I wonder if they had Heatwave in mind all along. Heatwave does get brand new accessories, namely a ladder, an axe, and a gun/sprayer nozzle. Articulation is the same as Bulkhead's. The sprayer nozzle fits over his hand, and he can hold the axe via the 5mm handle with the other. The ladder can be plugged into his arm as a (very ineffective) shield, like Bulkhead's tarp, but you're better off plugging it onto his back. That's where the Rescue Bots version of the character keeps his. Plus, with the ladder on his back, tabs on the nozzle and axe allow you to plug them onto slots on the ladder for storage. Transformation is 99% the same as before, except with Bulkhead you don't have to remove his tarp and you have to fold out the wheels on his back. Heatwave's ladder doesn't stay plugged into the same spot. Instead, you have to partsform it so that slots on one end fit into tabs on the backs of his thighs, and notches on the other end allow it to sit over his feet. This leaves the ladder resting at an angle, higher at the back and lower near the cab, which is how the ladder sits on the Rescue Bots toy/cartoon. The cab comes off pretty well, with the grill, windshield, and yellow flashers being quite close to the original design. The back of the truck works less well. He's got the fuel tanks from Bulkhead; not sure why they didn't remold those parts to better resemble the panels (presumably where the hoses would connect) that were on the original toy. Likewise, there's the visible robot thighs and crotch kibble, and the "bed" of the truck that's gray instead of red and devoid of fire truck details. There's also the flap that Bulkhead's tarp would sit on. It does nothing but hang of the back of the cab as obvious kibble. To me, it seems like it'd be a good place to mount the nozzle, so Heatwave could spray fires in alt mode. But no, since the nozzle is designed to cover Heatwave's hand the 5mm peg can't reach the port on the kibble flap. It might have worked if you flipped it upside down, but that peg-like protrusion on top is smaller than a 5mm peg (but, near as I can tell, bigger than the 3mm ones used for Core-class figures). No, according to the instructions both his axe and his nozzle are meant to tab into the ladder again, like bot mode. However, the slots on the ladder happen to be about the same size as the slots on the back of his legs, where Bulkhead's tarp would plug in, so you can technically plug them along size the ladder as well as on it. Heatwave is, ultimately, and alright figure. On some levels the mold almost feels like it was meant for Heatwave more than it was meant for Bulkhead, but in other ways it almost seems like they didn't remold enough and a few more minor tweaks would have really made a big difference. It's kind of neat to see Rescue Bots original characters being brought into the G1-esque fold, but Heatwave doesn't seem to have gotten the extra sauce that Chase did. And for the largely G1 crowd here, a remolded Voyager of a Rescue Bot is likely a harder sell than an original Deluxe. Ultimately, I think it depends on how much you like seeing the Rescue Bots as members of the G1 team. If that appeals to you, then Heatwave is a perfectly serviceable companion to Legacy Chase. I wonder if they'll get around to Blades and Boulder to round out the main Rescue Bots cast? To be honest, as someone who's been saying we need more garbage truck Transformers and who's always down for more fembots, Salvage and Quickshadow would be welcome, too. Maybe more*. But if Rescue Bots really aren't your thing, G1-ified or not, then I don't think you're missing too much if you just skip this guy. *Titan-class High Tide?

I don't understand the marketing. Freedom from Windows? But it still has Windows on it. Do they mean because it does Xbox Cloud streaming? I can game from the cloud on the regular ROG Ally/Ally X now. Nice to see that both versions now have two USB C ports, and the X version retains the extra RAM and larger battery of the current Ally X. The X version gets the Z2 Extreme, but the regular only gets the Z2 A? The screen seems the same as the current model, and I kind of hate the chonky new grips. Unless the Z2 is a HUGE upgrade I'll stick with my Ally X.

Alas, no. Though, the can does detach from SS86 Magnus. Maybe I should check if Legacy Prime can pull it... You should be able to open the order from your history and cancel by item (so if you want to cancel the whole order, check all the items). If it won't let you, that means it's processing to ship imminently (at least, from my experience with the US version). Hasbro will sell it on Pulse. I've never been to California, let alone San Diego at Comic Con, but I've had very little trouble getting the SDCC exclusives over the years.

If it's Nemesis Prime we can work something out , because that's the one figure in the pack I don't want.

I was just coming to post that. Based on past history, I'd expect SS86 Megatron to go up for preorder around 1:00pm ET that day. Also, Target's doing a Geek-Out 2025 on June 13th. I've heard there will be a Netflix Optimus/Megatron pack (as if we needed more copies of the Siege molds), Devastation Sideswipe and Wheeljack (likely the Earthrise molds will cell shading), and a 4-pack of Deluxes Bumper (Earthrise or SS86 Bumblebee retool), Ultra Magnus (fairly sure it's a repaint of the toy-style Legacy Deluxe Optimus), and Horri-Bull (gotta finish those Headmaster Juniors!) vs Voyager Nemesis Prime (Earthrise, maybe?). EDIT: Right on Bumper and Magnus, Horri-Bull looks like maybe a retool of Skullcruncher, and Nemesis Prime turns out to be Animated.🤨 EDIT 2: I was right on Wheeljack and Sideswipe, but Prime and Megatron are the game WFC, not the Netflix ones. So the SSGE versions, but with a few paint tweaks.

Well, after spending the day with my Switch 2, I can confidently say that unless (like me) you're worried tariffs are going to drive the price up even higher, you can probably skip for now. The launch lineup is extremely sparse, with almost every good game being available on some other console*. Seriously, most people seem to be playing Cyberpunk 2077, and hey, if this is the first console some people bought that can play it more power to them, but I'll stick with PC for that. Mario Kart World is probably the only Switch 2-only game most people will look twice at, and... well, it's kind of just ok-ish. The open world map that's supposed to shake things up kind of doesn't. You can only play singleplayer, and unlike games like Forza Horizon you're not driving to different racing events. About the most exciting thing I found was the occasional P-switch that would start a short mission. The mission is always to get to a goal by a certain time, and the rewards seem to be stickers and maybe a new outfit. The meat and potatoes of the games is still Grand Prix, which is still a series of four races for points. I did two cups, and both of them started with a typical three-lap track, followed by three courses subdivided into three segments instead of laps. The idea is that one course flows into the next; these courses do exist as part of the open world. But since you're not actually racing in the open word it's not actually doing the game any favors. Rather, it reduces the variety of the courses as they start to blend together- and there's no Rainbow Road! Honestly, I think I'd rather play Mario Kart 8. The majority of my time with the Switch 2 was spent playing BotW with the $10 upgrade pack... a game that, as a Wii-U title as well as a Switch 1 launch title, I don't recall pushing the Switch hardware the way TotK did. Is it actually better on Switch 2, then? Actually, yes... right away I noticed textures like the filigree in the Sheikah ruins is a lot sharper, and HDR means the colors pop more. Going back, it makes playing on the Switch 1 look kind of muddy and washed out. Link's character model doesn't look all that different, though, and I've noticed several instances of shrubbery popping in. Ultimately, the gameplay is unchanged, and after awhile you kind of get into it and stop really looking for or noticing differences. I'd say if you get a Switch 2 and want to play BotW again it's worth getting the upgrade for it, but the upgrade for BotW isn't worth getting a Switch 2 over. Frankly, I think Nintendo should have stockpiled consoles for another month and launched it with the new Donkey Kong available. And while you're probably thinking it's pretty cool that you can use the Switch 1 Pro controller on the Switch 2, I think Nintendo did it more so all the Virtual Console controllers they've sold still work. Nintendo definitely wants you to buy the Switch 2 Pro controller, and they made sure you know it by making the old Pro controller unable to wake the console from sleep. *Even though the Remaster is exclusive to Switch 2, the original Bravely Default can still be played on the 3DS, so I'm not counting it as a Switch 2 exclusive. Hey, @Hikuro, I'm a little bit of a car guy so when you post a picture like that I'm looking at your dash, no the Switch 2. Is that an early 2010's Infiniti?

My wife bought a new microwave and stove last month, I think they both do wifi. I should figure out how that works...

Wow, the first SDCC set I can skip since PotP! Not that I think it's bad, but I'm fine with my Siege Jetfire and uninterested in Void Rivals.

Entire, no. Way too many, yes. I buy almost every mainline and Studio Series release; I've only skipped a few repaints/remolds if I think they were pretty poorly done, like Legacy Cyberverse Chromia being retooled from Legacy Animated Prowl. I don't do much in the way of Masterpiece, though. I think, prior to Ginrai and KOs of MP-44 and Megatron, I don't think I got an official MP since maybe Ironhide. I also don't really dip into the lines marketed more for kids, with the exceptions being the Cyberverse and Earthspark Deluxes. I haven't done the YouTube thing mainly because there's a lot of competition in an already niche market and the platform's algorithm heavily favors the established creators, so it's never felt worth it. I like writing, and I like you guys here As per my review, you might want to pick up Hashtag, too. I agree that Nightshade is probably the best of those three, but I think Hashtag's honestly better than Nightshade. 'Course, if you wound up getting four of the Maltos, then you're pretty much obligated to get Jawbreaker and complete the set. I don't know how easy he is to find anymore, though. He's on Amazon, but about $10 more than he should be. I don't think Pulse carried any of the Earthspark stuff beyond the first wave or two. Your best bet is to check your local Targets, that's where most people are reporting findings. While mine's pretty barren otherwise that's where I found him.

I wish I was just teasing. I genuinely don't know what the second Commander will be. I've been saying that they need to do more, especially if they're gonna keep rolling out Combiners. You gotta figure Hot Spot's on deck, since they're doing Bruticus. But I still want Razorclaw, Scattershot, and Hun-Grr at minimum, Snaptrap would be nice too. And I'm not saying I don't want Raiden, Landcross, and Road Caesar, but I don't mind if they keep doing the JG1 stuff in Haslab. I haven't heard anything about either of those, but a Blackout would be cool. He and Barricade were about the only good things the Bayverse gave us, and while we've had a G1-ified Barricade since Siege a G1-ified Blackout would be cool.

2026, I'm told. Don't be too content, though. There's some good stuff coming in the next two years.😉 In fact, I have it on authority that Studio Series is getting a Titan in 2026, and instead AotP (or whatever year two will be called) will get two Commanders. One of which will be Onslaught, but the other...🤷‍♂️?

OK, so Earthspark. Hashtag's wave mate is none other than Soundwave, and unlike Prime and Grimlock (who were mostly retooled from their Cyberverse toys), Shockwave and Starscream (who were just repainted from their Cyberverse toys), or Prowl (who would have been more accurate if he was repainted from his Cyberverse toy, because for some dumb reason he was repainted from Hot Rod's instead), Earthspark Soundwave is a brand new mold that has nothing do with his Cyberverse toy. Don't ask me why, but I stuck the new toy on the right instead of the left. So, he's littler than the Cyberverse toy, and I think details that are different on the Earthspark toy like gray hands, blue forearms, blue feet, gray pelvis with no "buttons," blue face mask, etc, pair with a less-blocky design that make him a less obvious homage to the G1 design than most other Soundwave designs. I actually had to double check his Earthspark appearance to make sure that some of those differences weren't just to a lazy or inaccurate paint job, but honestly aside from a missing bit of red on his abdomen this is one of the most accurate decoes on an Earthspark toy. In any case, the head that looks like the Decepticon badge, the predominantly blue colors, and the gold trim around his chest are clearly Soundwave enough. Taking a peak around the sides and back, yes, he has wings. And yes, that's cartoon-accurate. I think it's safe to say that new takes on Soundwave will never be a tape deck again, because kids these days wouldn't even know what one is. The standard seems to have become some kind of kind of truck or SUV where they can work the Soundwave chest into the grill or hood... they did it with the Cybertron games, they did it with Robots In Disguise 2019, they did it in IDW, and they did it in Cyberverse. Heck, even if they're more like hovercars/tanks, it's basically what Bumblebee and Transformers One did, too. But you might be getting the sense that Earthspark went in a different direction... Soundwave's sole accessory is this gun. It's got an interesting sculpt, and it's nicely detailed with red and silver paint, at least. Soundwave's head is on a hinged ball joint. He doesn't have much room to look up or tilt his head sideways, but because of the hinge (for transformation) he can look down quite a bit. His shoulders are a bit complicated. There's transformation hinges inside his body that can move his shoulders laterally, connected to a ball joint for swiveling. The ball joint doesn't get much lateral movement, though, which would absolutely give him Hot Rod shoulders except that there's another hinge between his shoulder and bicep for transformation that gives him a little more lateral movement. Effectively, that comes out to just shy of 90 degrees with his arms down, and about 45 degrees with his arms up. His elbows bend 90 degrees, and they're hinges, not ball joints. His wrists are ball joints, though, which give him a wrist swivel and some downward bend. His waist swivels. His hips are, surprise, NOT ball joints. He can move them a little over 90 degrees forward, a little under 90 degrees backward, and well past 90 degrees laterally. His thighs swivel just above his knees, which bend 90 degrees. His feet are attached to his ankles via ball joints, which gives him swivels, some upward tilt, a lot of downward tilt, and a little pivot. But there's a transformation joint in the ankle that you can engage for more pivot, giving him a respectable 45 degrees overall. All-in-all, not bad for an Earthspark toy. Soundwave's gun, like his Cyberverse counterpart, is the only one he gets, so it has a 5mm port he can hold but also a notch that clips onto a tab on his back to be his shoulder cannon. Soundwave's backpack rotates and shifts, his chest opens so his head can tuck inside, his shoulders come together above his head, his forearms tuck against his sides, his waist spins 180 degrees, then he does the splits and his legs unfold and spread into big wings. It reminds me a little of Titans Return Mindwipe. Although not the first time he's had a winged alt mode (Cybertron/Galaxy Force and Prime, anyone?) it still feels like a super fresh design. Kinda curious to hear what @M'Kyuun is gonna say about this one. From the top and most angles, aside from his feet, I think his jet mode looks pretty dang good. It's thin enough, and it's cartoon accurate. Maybe if they'd molded some exhaust ports into the hollow backs of his thighs it'd be even more convincing. If you flip him over, though, the underside of the jet is still a lot of robot kibble, though. I don't totally hate it; his lower legs are the wings and his upper arms are the nose, after all. His thighs could have purpose if, like I said, they'd made ehxausts of them, maybe tightened them against his arms so you could imagine a path from the intakes on top of the wings through the arms and out the thighs. And though it's obviously his torso, I'll buy his body as the fuselage. I could imagine it opening up to deploy drones like Laserbeak while in the air. It's just a shame they couldn't have done better with his feet, and folded his hands into his arms. There's a 5mm port between the stabilizers on his rear. You can plug his shoulder cannon into it. Since it's just a peg it can swivel, and there's a hinge so it can be aimed upward a bit. I just wish it didn't stick up so far; it's not very aerodynamic. I feel like I'd have liked for it to flatten and mount on the underside... maybe on one wing, with an actual hand weapon on the other? Regardless of the little flaws, overall I love this toy. It's a neat design for Soundwave; I wouldn't mind seeing a Voyager-class version pop up one day when Earthspark is old enough for characters to get a mainline do-over. But even as a Deluxe, even as a more limited and cheaper Earthspark Deluxe, it's a very solid toy with a simple but interesting transformation, adequate articulation, and better-than-average cartoon accuracy. It is, by a wide margin, the best of the 13 (out of 14) Earthspark Deluxes I've looked at. Et's a cool design for a cool character in a relatively cool and relatively inexpensive toy. Even if you're not into the cartoon, I think it's ultimately a figure worth checking out.

Well, despite Walmart cancelling a bunch of preorders mine's got from "placed" to "preparing" and is still set to arrive tomorrow. I'll let you guys know when it gets here. EDIT: I enjoyed my original Switch, but I enjoyed it at less when the framerate was dipping into the 20fps range playing Tears of the Kingdom. I'd already moved from console to PC for most of my gaming years ago, and stuff like the ROG Ally X has largely displaced my Switch for portable gaming. I wouldn't have bothered with the Switch 2- the price put me off, and the first game I'm truly looking forward to on it will be Metroid Prime 4- but I do like Nintendo's first party software, and articles keep popping up about how tariffs are going to make Nintendo raise the price. EDIT 2: Arrived at 7:15am. Doing the initial setup and transfer from my Switch OLED, then going back to bed.

Shouldn't be too hard to get working cables. It's probably not a bad deal, if the SFC was as solidly-built as the SNES then almost certainly still works no matter how yellow (and if you're comfortable taking it apart, it's possible to undue some of the yellowing), and if the Famicom is in good shape and works it's probably worth around $50 by itself. I think the real question is if you want to start down the rabbit hole of buying Japanese software. The cartridges/slots are a bit different on the Japanese systems. You can get adapters, but it's usually easier to find adapters to use Japanese carts on American hardware than the other way around.

Regarding today's Takara reveals... Hauler is cool. I might pick one up, if he's not too expensive, since I went with MMC for my Inferno and Maketoys for Grapple. Starscream looks cool enough. He's got that pseudo-G1 TFOne look in bot mode, with the Cybertronian alt mode from Bumblebee. Guess I get to look forward to buying at least three of those... Elita is not much of a surprise, as we've seen her before. She was supposed to be out in by May originally but she got shuffled. No real interest in either the Reflector/Thundercracker set or the Missing Link repaints. As far as Reflector goes, I have one of the retail and the toy-colored 3-pack with the camera bits (plus Scrapface) so I feel like I'm good there. As for Thundercracker, well, I've heard we might be getting Leader-class SS86 Seekers next year. The Missing Link repaints just don't get the point, or I don't get the point. I like a retro release to copy the original as closely as possible, and to me the draw of Missing Link is the retro toy but with more modern articulation. If I wanted a Bumblebee with modern articulation and a more cartoon-accurate deco I'd just buy SS86 Bumblebee (and yeah, SS86 Cliffjumper in 2026). Can't help but notice that Megatron's legs are looking a lot less blue in the official Takara images. Could be that they're renders/Photoshopped. Could be that the leakers are using cellphones that overprocess the images they take and the toy in-hand isn't so blue. Mixmaster's looking good, I think it's pretty smart to reduce the engineering and make the front of his cab the backs of his legs instead of his knees. Scavenger, though... waist up, good if hollow, alt mode good. But someone better change his diaper, that's one heck of a load he's got in there. Devastator, much like the Constructicons themselves, looks a bit like they started with the Combiner Wars versions, changed the scale, and made some improvements rather than starting fresh on a real cartoon-accurate Devastator. Which I guess is fine, since they did address my biggest complaints with the Combiner Wars set (Scrapper has elbows, Mixmaster has the right alt mode, Long Haul doesn't have absurd proportions, scales better with other combiners). I'm sure DNA will do some upgrades, too. I dunno, I'm not really feeling Liger Prime. And this is coming from the guy who collects Primes.

While Takara is doing Transformers Wild King in Japan and Hasbro is getting Transformers Cyberworld ready to go in the West, it seems Transformers Earthspark still has a few dying gasps left. I found this out at my local Target today, when I went it not particularly expecting to find any new toys but leaving with a pair of new Deluxes, the first of which is Hashtag. Hashtag kind of threw me, at first. I remember her being kind of blocky and bulky, but the figure here seems a lot more curvy and, dare I say, feminine. Well, turns out I'd only watched the first season of the show, which honestly I didn't care for much which is why I never noticed that there were two more seasons on Paramount Plus, with the last episodes releasing just this past October. Apparently Hashtag scans a new alt mode in season 2, and this figure is based on that design. To that end, the sculpt is pretty good for a Deluxe, with just a bit more arm kibble and a backpack that you wouldn't see in the show. Like many Deluxe-class figures from the Earthspark and prior Cyberverse toy lines it's really some odd paint choices that are her real problem. She has molded triangles and stripes on her knees that are left unpainted that should properly be blue and gunmetal & yellow, respectively, and her collar is painted silver but not her neck. The treads on her feet aren't painted. But weirdly, they painted the bottom of her chest blue as if there should be a window there, but her entire chest should be solid purple. Likewise, her pelvis is black, but it should be the same purple as her waist. Hashtag comes with a pair of accessories. First, she has a small pistol. Second, she has something like a pickaxe. I don't recall either accessory in the cartoon, but to be fair I've come to realize I've only seen about half the available episodes. Hashtag's head is on a ball joint that can swivel and look down slightly, but lacks upward and sideways tilt. Her shoulders are ball joints that swivel and give her about 75 degrees of lateral spread, but her shoulder and backpack kibble kind of limit the outward movement when her arms are raised, almost like Hot Rod shoulders. No dedicated bicep swivel, but her ball-jointed elbows allow for swivel in addition to 90 degrees of bend. No wrist or waist articulation. Her hips are ball joints that can go a little over 90 degrees forward, a little under 90 degrees laterally, and about 45 degrees backward before kibble gets in the way. Her thighs swivel, and her knees bend 90 degrees. Her feet are on ball joints so they can swivel, tilt up and down a little, and pivot a bit under 45 degrees. She can hold her pistol, no problem. The handle of the pickaxe does allow her to hold it as such, but there's another 5mm port on the side that lets her hold it more like a crossbow. She can also stow her weapons in bot mode. For the pistol, you have to lift up her backpack and fold out the flap inside. A tab on top of the pistol plugs into that flap, then you can tuck everything back up. Once you do, you'll notice a 3mm port on the bottom of her backpack that fits nicely with a 3mm peg on the pickaxe's handle. Transformation is simple, but effective. The backs of her arms open and her hands fold in. Her shoulder pads swivel up and line up with her arms, then her shoulders scrunch up so her arms tuck in against her body. the front of the truck hinges off the top of the backpack and slots in between her shoulder pads, and you also need to fold out the inner flap of the backpack before you tuck the roof against the arms. Her feet spin 180 degrees then fold flat, then her lower legs fold around just below the knee back over the sides of her thighs, tucking into the edges of her arms. That flap from her backpack fits between her legs to finish out the bed of the truck. And, yeah, truck. I thought she was a surveillance van, but since she'd originally copied one of GHOST's vans and GHOST is apparently disbanded after the events of the first season, I guess Hashtag rescanned a civilian truck. My frist thought was that she looks pretty decent, aside from some kibbly hinges on her tail. I mean, she's even got gold paint on her rims, painted headlights and marker lights on the front, and painted taillights on the rear. Alas, her rims should be silver, not gold. The black "grill" on the nose shouldn't be painted, it should be purple. The bumper bits below the marker lights should be gunmetal, and she should have silver door handles, running boards, and silver around the light blue stripe on the sides of the bed. Her pistol stows in alt mode exactly like it does in bot mode; lift the flap on the top of the bed, jam the tab on the pistol up into the underside of it, then push it back down into place. With the bed back in place you can use the 5mm peg on the handle of the pickaxe to plug it into a 5mm port on the bed. A tab on the bed will also fit into a slot on the pickaxe, to keep it lined up. I guess it's supposed to be like a two hook? Hashtag, like all the Earthspark Deluxes, is a step down in quality and engineering from what we're used to in the War For Cybertron/Legacy/Age of the Primes lines, sure. I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that, despite being called "Deluxes," they're a little cheaper than the mainline Deluxes. And while I didn't care much for the plot of Earthrise and its wasted potential, it did give us this menagerie of new characters. As someone who picked up Twitch, Thrash, and Nightshade during the initial build-a-figure waves when I had higher hopes for the show, I'm not sorry to see the line die but I am happy to get a complete set of Deluxe-class Maltos before it ended. What's more, despite a little kibble and a few color inaccuracies, I think Hashtag is actually the best of the five by a wide margin. I suppose, if you haven't bothered with the other four, there isn't much point in buying Hashtag unless you just really want another fembot in your collection. But if you were hoping to get all five of the new Terran Transformers living on the Malto's farm, I can confidently say that Hashtag was worth the wait. Hashtag isn't my favorite Earthspark Deluxe, though...

Any good?

Nope! Before Megatron was revealed I'd have bet that was the case, but I'm happy to report that's not the case. They have similarities in that they're both tanks, both form their turrets from their arms and arm cannons with their back cannons making the barrel, and both have their chests end up at the front of the tank and legs (mostly) at the back. But that's about it. Near as I can tell, they have no shared parts. Transformation is quite different, too. Megatron's is sort of laying on his front, with his chest flipped up over his head. His legs rotate 180 degrees to form the rear treads, but the front of the treads are (mostly) his backpack. For Megatron, his waist detaches and double hinges so the bottom of his spine and the top of his pelvis are on the bottom of the tank. His head folds in and his chest flips up to form the front of the tank with the top of his torso. His back also opens up, and the joints that move the arms unfurl from inside his back. His shins combiner wars up over his thighs with his feet, which kind of tuck into the back of the tank, and his lower legs split, unfold, and wrap around the sides to form the entirety of the treads. IMHO, it's a more clever and interesting transformation, even if the turret still winds up looking kind of crappy. Anywho... kinda forgot about these Amazon-exclusive repaints until they showed up on my porch. They're a continuation of Amazon's previous exclusive capsules, in that they're a mix of Wreckers and Mayhem Attack Squad guys (with a little IDW comic stuff thrown in). In the first set, representing the Mayhem Attack Squad, we've got Carnivac. Carnivac himself is a straight repaint of Titans Return Weirdwolf, but he does come with some new accessories. Namely, we have a shorter tail sword, a brand new gun that's modeled after the G1 toy, and a new face. Now, there's a part of me that wants to say that Hasbro is pretty lazy here, reusing TR Weirdwolf for Carnivac just because they're both wolves when the G1 toys were nothing alike. Fact is, it actually does kind of work, though. As a Pretender, Carnivac didn't have the most detailed toy. In broad strokes, purple on the top with brown legs is correct. His chest is painted brown where the wolf's lower jaw sat (ala Slag). My biggest complaints are actually going to wind up being that his shoulders are too tall, he doesn't have the top of the wolf's head behind his bot head (again, ala Slag), and he has blue forearms and hands, which... ...is a concession to his alt mode, where blue forelimbs are now accurate. Though he still has molded eyes, he's got a painted visor like the G1 toy. His lower jaw and chest are accurately brown, too bad there isn't more of it on his back. There is some brown on his hips and thighs, which isn't accurate here but a concession to his bot mode. Most of the rest of his leg is blue; purple would have been better, and at first glance since it's covered in bot mode you might think there's no reason it couldn't have been, but a closer look tells me that those parts were on the same sprue as his forelimbs. The blue tail (which I believe is actually cast in purple plastic and painted blue) is accurate. Since he's repainted from Weirdwolf, Carnivac has to be a Headmaster instead of a Pretender. And we can see that while the face attached is new, the Titan Master carrying it on his back is the same. As a late G1 toy with a bad gimmick and no presence in the Sunbow cartoon or the Japanese sequels, Carnivac is a pretty D-list character (unless you were a fan of the Marvel comics). In that sense, it's a blessing to get any Carnivac, even if it's a repaint rather than a new mold. I just wish Hasbro would stop dipping into the dated, ball joint-heavy Prime Wars well. Carnivac's Wrecker opponent is Fisitron, aka Ironfist. Presumably, what with the Marvel character, Hasbro went with the more trademarkable Fisitron, a name which comes from his appearance in IDW's Last Stand of the Wreckers miniseries, where it was basically his screenname on the Cybertronian-equivalent of a r/Wreckers subreddit. With that in mind, you might be thinking, "Wasn't G1 Ironfist a sort of ugly butterscotch color? Why's he mostly gray here?" And the answer is, again, Last Stand of the Wreckers, where he kept the butterscotch shoulders, biceps, and pelvis but went with a light gray for his torso and lower legs. So my only real complaint, color-wise, is that his hands should be blue. Fisitron is a retool of Earthrise Hound/Detritus, who was already a retool of Siege Hound. While he is mostly Earthrise Hound, aside from a new head he's sporting a brand new backpack as well. And while he doesn't have the red eyes and headlights, or the big wheels under his chest or on his thighs that the G1 toy has, the mold does work surprisingly well for an IDW Ironfist. Again, my only real complaint would be Hound's bumper and winch. The backpack isn't the only thing new. He comes with this squarish bit, a yellow rifle, and a round bit. As a retool of a Siege toy there's lot of ports where you can mound the accessories on their own. However, the rifle fits inside the square bit with the barrel poking out, and the circle plugs on top of it, recreating the accessory of the G1 toy. Again, the bumper and which aren't doing Fisitron any favors, but with the new roof (which has a part that folds out of the backpack over his legs) goes a long way toward selling the idea that Fisitron is a Humvee and not a Jeep. Just like the G1 toy, the (combined) accessory plugs into the roof. It lacks the gimmicks of the G1 toy, though, so the barrel doesn't pump and the ammo drum doesn't spin (unless you spin it yourself... it is just a 5mm peg). I'm sure there's a handful of G1 purists who had Ironfist as a kid and wish that Fisitron were more accurate to the original toy, but again we're talking about a character who had really no appearance in any Transformers fiction until Last Stand of the Wreckers. What's more, Last Stand of the Wreckers is one of the most popular stories that IDW published, so for the majority of Transformers fans who even know who Ironfist is in the first place the IDW version is the definitive version. End of the day, though, these are both two extremely D-list late-G1 characters (in Ironfist's case, so late that he was repacked unchanged for G2). Fans of the old Marvel comics might want the set for Carnivac, and IDW fans (like me) will enjoy Fisitron, but the majority can probably ignore this set. As for the other set, we open with Mayhem Attack Squad member Spinister. Now, the original Siege release was already in accurate G1 toy colors, and mostly accurate to his appearances in IDW comics (save for later when his head was colored light gray with a purple mask). This new version is pretty similar, save for the blues below the belt and on his mask being darker and, his rotor and hands swapped for a darker gray (almost black), and his arms switching from pink to blue. Near as I can tell, it's based on his Transformers Universe profile in the Marvel The Transformers #65, but throughout the late Marvel run he was colored fairly inconsistently. The G1 toy was a double Targetmaster, a gimmick that was omitted from the Siege figure. Hasbro is rectifying that now; aside from colors the only difference between this Spinister and the Siege one is that he comes with repaints of the Targetmaster buddies that came with Needlenose and Windsweeper. Spinister has a very cool transformation that uses just one of his legs to make the cockpit while tucking the other up underneath and using his feet to form the wings. If you missed him the first time, he's definitely a toy worth checking out. If you didn't miss him, though? I mean, I strongly prefer the original colors, and I'm not super into the Targetmaster gimmick in general. But even if you were gung-ho on making sure Spinister has his Targetmaster pals, well, Singe was released as a standalone Battlemaster during Siege, and Hairsplitter (renamed "Shrute") came with Siege Skywarp in Amazon-exclusive Decepticon Phantomstrike Squadron pack. So if it were Spinister and his guns alone I'd say (again, unless you missed the Siege release) that he'd be an even easier pass than Carnivac and Fisitron, except... ...his opponent is Topspin, a Diaclone repaint of Titans Return Topspin. Who, aside from the Diaclone deco, is unchanged from the original toy. But here's the thing... we all know that Topspin goes with Twin Twist. And there's definitely some of us who picked up the Diaclone deco of Twin Twist when Amazon released him in their earlier Wreckers collection. People who thought, "man, I really hope they do a Diaclone Topspin to go with him." Well, it's that dang monkey's paw... you can have your Diaclone Topspin, but you gotta pay double and take a Spinister you don't really want or need, too. It's a dang shame, too, because, yeah, he's got too many ball joints and lacks the ankles that have become standard in the post-Siege world, and yeah being a Titans Returns figure means he's a Headmaster now, but is still a pretty cool mold, so it's hard to say no to him. I liked the regular deco, but I also dig this Diaclone deco. Man... Whether you're talking about the original releases or the Diaclone decos, Topspin and Twin Twist just belong together as a pair. So, I'm forced to rule thusly: if you don't have Siege Spinister, you should get this set for Spinister. If you do have Spinister already, then it's up to Twin Twist. Did you get the Diaclone version of him? Well, then you're obligated to get this set for Topspin, whether you want Spinster or not. The only way I can tell you to pass on this set entirely is if you already have Spinster and you're passing on BOTH of the Diaclone Jumpstarters.

I'd say that's definitely the way to go. Not only could you mount it directly to a new mobo with more NVME slots, you could fill all the mobo's NVME slots and still stick the adapter into a free PCIe slot (which a future mobo will almost definitely have) and have even more NVME storage.

No official word yet. I've heard June 10th (which would be like a Transformers Tuesday, maybe with a livestream?), but I've also seen June 11th and June 16th as potential dates from Entertainment Earth's cryptic clues on the drop zone calendar. Soon as I know something more definite I'll let you guys know.

Yeah, the hip skirts are fine. It's supposed to be his black pelvis, but the flaps on the front move with the thigh, like 86 Optimus.

I'm getting the DK-59 kit and a KO SS86 Prime to make into Skybound Prime, but I'll note that if you're* fine with the pistol 86 Megatron comes with and don't really want/need the Optimus parts and Megatron arm DNA is also (pre) selling just the fusion cannon for about $6. (*The plural you, as in everyone reading this post, not you specifically @sh9000, who I expect is still in for the whole kit.)