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mikeszekely

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  1. Yeah, but the Flashbacks were more like toys to relive a little nostalgia. I kind of want the new Nintendo more for a display piece, and I'd probably just play those games (and the NES games it's lacking) on a PC.
  2. I'm really close to quitting Has/Tak Transformers entirely, so even though Legends Scourge and Blurr look loads better than the TR ones, I can't justify spending double on them. I am probably going to go for Ginrai over PM Prime, though. I'm passing on Wolfwire and Galvatron for sure, though. I just don't see myself liking them as much as Quadruple U and Mania King.
  3. Maybe I'm weird, but I kind of like it when they immortalize the shortcomings. I like KFC's Ditka (Blitzwing) better than the other two because it's the only one that has a jet that looks like the animation model instead of trying to look like the MiG the original toy was based on.
  4. The Gundams in Wing were F-91/Victory sized, smaller than the RX-78 and way smaller than stuff like the Nu. I think the scale sort of works out some big suits, like Nu or Sazabi, are roughly the same size at 1/144 as the Wing Gundams are at 1/100.
  5. Alright, last of the ToyWorld Constructicons: here's Bulldozer, their Bonecrusher. Well, here's the thing. Take a minute to check out TFC, Maketoys, and GT's versions of Bonecrusher. They all have one thing in common... none of them look anything like Bonecrusher. Maketoys has a cab for his chest, GT's chest is molded to look like the blade, but what the heck is going on with that head? TFC's comes the closest, with at least part of the blade on his chest, but ultimately still misses the mark. Bulldozer's blade becomes his chest. His driver's seat roof folds to his back. He's got green tread legs, even little faux-tread feet. And while a lot of people at TFW2005 like to complain about his head, which I'll grant isn't a prefect Sunbow head, it's a fair mix of cartoon and toy details that, unlike the other not-Bonecrusher's out there, is immediately recognizable as Bonecrusher. In other words, ToyWorld got a lot of important Bonecrusher details right that make him superior to any other 3P Bonecrusher available at the time of writing. I was especially disappointed with how generic and unlike Bonecrusher GT's turned out; ToyWorld's Bonecrusher vs GT's is absolutely my number one reason for going with Constructor instead of Gravity Builder. There is the matter of that translucent purple chunk on his chest... Like Allocater and Concrete you can easily remove it, though. Now, I think it doesn't make a huge difference if you leave it on or take it off of Allocater, and I think Concrete looks better without it but it's a minor improvement. For Bulldozer, though, it's basically a necessity. There's even a nice, flat pentagonal area for a Decepticon emblem. There are other confusing choices, though. I mean, while I can excuse the purple on his abdomen and crotch as being toy-accurate, even if I prefer the cartoon's green... what's going on with his arms? Why purple? Is it because of the Studio OX design? Way I see it, ToyWorld had two choices: silver, like the toy, or green, like the cartoon, and they screwed up. Reluctantly, I'm forced to admit that the Combiner Wars version of Bonecrusher probably has the better aesthetic, although the engineering of the CW version pales in comparison to Bulldozer. As the left arm of Constructor, Bulldozer's accessories are basically the same as Unearth's. You've got your screw hole covers, your extra bit of tread, gun, combined-mode forearm, drill, and hand. Only this time the hand is the left hand! Actually, if you look closely you can see that the elbow connectors are different on the forearms. The one that comes with Unearth only fits Unearth, and the one that fits Bulldozer only fits Bulldozer. His articulation is basically the same as Unearth's, for good and for ill. Same hands and wrist swivels as the other five, waist swivel, hinged swiveled head, and bicep swivel we've come to know and love. His shoulders rotate and have 90 degrees of lateral movement, and like Unearth he's got a flap* on the side of his shoulder that moves out of the way to accommodate the motion. He doesn't have the transformation joint, though, so he is limited to just the 90 degrees. He's got the same double-jointed elbows as Unearth as well, however, fully extending his arms makes them look freakishly long. Unless he's in a pose that requires the use of both joints, I like to collapse his arms a bit so that the lower joint is nestled into the forearm. His legs are basically the same as Unearth, so like Unearth he's got plenty of forward/backward hip rotation but limited lateral hip movement so he can't spread his legs very far apart. Same soft ratcheted knee with 90 degrees of bend and a bar behind his knee to keep the treads in place. And he's got the same thigh swivel almost totally negated by the tension of the treads. His feet are also functionally the same as Unearth's as well, with the same articulation, but it's a nice touch that they don't look identical. That's in keeping with the G1 versions, and something that the Combiner Wars versions missed. *By the way, this flap needs to be carefully threaded into a slot on his forearm when transforming him into bulldozer/arm mode. Oddly, ToyWorld made the green panel on one side of his arm a flap, but it's the wrong side for the shoulder flap. So, not only are you still carefully threading the shoulder flap into place, but you've got an arm flap that seems to serve no discernible purpose. Bulldozer turns into a Constitution-class starship... just kidding, he turns into a bulldozer. Not the most creative name, eh? With the simple roof instead of the little cab and the swath of purple on the front Bulldozer is actually more accurate to both toy and 'toon than CW Bonecrusher. Plus, he's got the benefit of real working treads and looking like a piece of heavy equipment instead of a cartoon in three dimensions. I do have one complaint, though, and that's the blade. It's actually smaller than the CW toy, despite being a bigger toy overall. Plus, it folds up for transformation, which is fine, but it doesn't stay tabbed together as securely as I'd like, making it look even smaller. The blade has a trio of hinges, one where the arms connect to the blade, one where the arms connect to the body, and one along the arms close to the body. He has a peg hole for his weapon in Bulldozer mode, but you have to move the roof. On the plus side, there's an extra hole, so you can have him carry Shovel's gun since Shovel can't. Bulldozer's an odd case. IMHO, I think he's the weakest of the set. Part of that might be because Bonecrusher is my least favorite of the Constructicons. Part of that might be because he's got the same limited articulation as Unearth while not nailing his character as well as Unearth does. Part of it might be the little tolerances, like the looseness in the tabs that hold the blade together in bulldozer mode or the inability of the tabs on the edge of the blade to hold his chest down in bot mode. Part of it might be that, while he doesn't have the major sort of QC problems that Burden has, he's got the worst fit and finish of the set. I have a misaligned pin going through the gray piece on the inside of his left forearm, he had more sprue marks and flashing than even the most amateur Gunpla, and a tab on his left arm was completely sheered off out of the box (fortunately, there's two tabs and everything still holds together fine in vehicle/arm mode). Despite my complaints, I'm still going to recommend him. With the Combiner Wars Bonecrusher or this as your runner-up... ...ToyWorld's Bulldozer, for all it's flaws, is still the best Bonecrusher toy you can buy. Besides, we've come this far. We're in it for the combined mode, right? Well, the answer to that question is coming tomorrow.
  6. With HGs you almost have to. Even when they give you stickers it'll only be enough for maybe half the verniers.
  7. Giant looks great combined, but even before I started building Constructor, Poseidon, and Hades I was already feeling like the Maketoys/Fansproject combiners are too small when matched with Uranos, Ordin, Feral Rex, and Warbotron. It was easier to overlook when it was 3 small to 4 large, but now I'm tossing Hades and Poseidon into the mix, to say nothing of how they're dwarfed by Constructor. It's the main reason why I'm debating picking up TFM's Menasor. As for Gravity Builder... after their Scrapper and Mixmaster I was fairly set to go in on them. The prototype pics make GB look great and the size fits my collection better, plus I'd later see some neat features like the hidden missiles in the combiner hands. If combined mode is what you're after, GB is definitely looking like a good choice. But I take my combiners apart and play with them sometimes. GT's Scrapper looked great, but when I saw ToyWorld's it looked better. I had some issues with ToyWorld's Mixmaster, but it looked like I'd have more issues with GT's Mixmaster. Little things like that were nudging me to ToyWorld's camp, but again, the two biggest reasons I ultimately went ToyWorld will be talked about in the next two reviews.
  8. Yeah, you're absolutely right. I was thinking they needed to be clipped because the deck moves and because that's how it's packaged in the box, and for some reason was thinking it needed to be unclipped to rotate because CW Devy's treads are fixed to the chest and only the top rotates. I realized I had it backwards whenever I put the forearm on him and stuck him with the other four reviewed bots.
  9. I can't exactly give a comparison review of the GT guys, but let's just say that the reasons I went with ToyWorld will be covered in the next two reviews. If I had the money to burn I'd consider doing both, though, especially since I'm running out of combiner characters and I can start to think about double-dipping. Maybe because I just finished a Devy I'm thinking my first character double-dip will probably be Menasor, though.
  10. Let's get to wrapping up a Devastator, shall we? We'll start tonight with ToyWorld's Unearth, their Scavenger. I think that Unearth is, of the set, probably tied with Shovel/Scrapper for the most aesthetically what you'd want in a modern toy of their respective character. I suppose that it helps a lot that Scavengers Sunbow model was pretty close to his toy? In any case, Unearth has the flat-top head, the visor eyes, the and the face plate with the extra square. He's got the predominantly green torso with silver ironing board abs. He's got the purple pants look. If we're going to quibble, we could complain that his hands are black instead of green, that the gray tops on his shoulders should be green, that they added some gray details to the front of his shoulders, that his abs could have covered a little more, or that the red details on his chest are a little difference, but that is seriously just quibbles. Bigger complaints for me are the number of folding panels on his arms, or the large brick from the combiner peg behind his head, but visually he's definitely Scavenger, and I do feel he's a better-looking toy than Combiner Wars Scavenger. As with the other not-Constructicons in this set, Unearth is bigger than his CW counterpart and on par with the average torso-bot. Unearth comes with a ton of stuff in the box. As is the case with the others, he's got a gun for himself and a combined mode component. In this case, it's the right forearm and hand. The hand isn't attached to the forearm because you can alternately use the included drill piece. Additionally, ToyWorld tossed in a piece of replacement tread and some screw hole covers. Now, from the waist up Unearth is your typical ToyWorld Constructicon. His head is on a hinged swivel that has no problem turning or looking up, but his chin prevents him from really looking down at all. His shoulders can rotate where they're attached to the chest, and there's a joint there that will give you a little lateral movement but it's impeded by his shoulder vent things, and it's really for transformation anyway. There's a joint inside the shoulder itself for lateral movement and a flap on the outside you can move out of the way to do so. That joint will get you 90 degrees, so if you cheat it with the transformation joint you'll get a bit more than 90 degrees of lateral movement. There's also the requisite bicep, wrist, and waist swivels. His elbows are double-jointed, allowing him to touch his shoulders. And his hands are the same as the rest of the set with individually ball-jointed fingers. Things are a bit different from the waist down. Now, let me start by saying kudos to ToyWorld for designing a toy with working treads that turn into legs. Legs that can rotate forward or backward with ease, and ratcheted knees that can bend nearly 90 degrees with little guides that keep the treads in place. However, he doesn't have much lateral hip movement, unless you want to start unpegging his crotch, and likewise his has a thigh swivel joint but the taut treads prevent him from really using them. His feet are pretty neat, though. They're attached to armatures that are connected to the inside of his leg. The armatures can rotate, allowing him to tilt his foot up or down, then the feet can rotate on the armature to give him ankle tilt. Unearth turns into, as expected, an excavator. He's larger and more detailed than his CW counterpart, and as I mentioned the treads are working treads, which is pretty cool in a transforming toy. Unfortunately, his shovel lacks the articulation of the CW version. Basically, it can move up and down at the base, at the top, and at the bucket. No rotation. A nice touch is that the pistons along the boom all work with the joints. I'm not a fan of the way some junk sticks out of the front, although that's actually the way the original G1 toy was. I'd thought I might like it better if I could put screw hole covers there, but those holes are all needed to attach the forearm in combined mode. He's got a spot for his gun, as you'd expect. And the deck can rotate, but this is actually meant for combined mode and you have to unpeg two tabs in the back. While that frees up the rotation, it also means that the deck isn't secured onto the treads anymore. Despite the limited articulation in his legs, I'd definitely recommend Unearth. He looks good in both modes and doesn't suffer from any other glaring flaws. His transformation is relatively intuitive. He's an all-around good Scavenger toy, and in the top 3 for this set.
  11. So I wound up with a Titans Return Blurr after all. Shame about his colors (and lack of paint) because the mold is actually pretty great for a Hasbro toy.
  12. Hmm... I haven't played since the Romulan expansion. Maybe I'll give it another look... ...y'know, in a few years when my kids starts school and I have more than 10 minutes of free time.
  13. I was a huge fan of Mania King, so it makes sense that I'd love Tyrant. I know a lot of people are waiting for Sovereign, either because Tyrant isn't "Sunbow G1" enough or because a large portion of the community seem to worship the ground Fanstoys walks on, but from what I've seen so far it's no contest to me. I got Unearth and Bulldozer today, plus a shipping notice on Vulcan. I'm pretty happy because they complete my Devastator and my Defensor, and Devastator and Defensor complete the combiners that were in the US G1 cartoon.
  14. I downloaded it. Caught a Charmander immediately. Caught a Weedle at a buddy's house. Caught a Zubat and an Eevee at McDonald's. And in three days that's it. Most of the time I turn on the "game," watch the circle blink fit a few minutes, don't see jack, and go do something else. Needless to say, I've got a pretty low opinion so far.
  15. One more review before we get around to finishing ToyWorld's Constructor... today it's Minos, TFC's Hellbat. If you'll recall just a few posts ago to when I did Rhadamanthus, you'll remember that I said I didn't even know who the Breastforce was. For most people, you'd think that'd make the Hades team a pass, but I was intrigued when I saw this guy. The mix of dark blue and white, the sinister eyes, the bat-face helmet, well, really, the very idea of a guy named "Hellbat" I found intriguing. Like Rhadamanthus, Minos seems to take some of his design cues from the Victory cartoon rather than the original toy, including the blue head and silver mask, the white biceps, and the blue crotch (unless you count the sticers on the toy). The gold paint on his hip skirts does hew more to the toy's stickers than the cartoon, though. His torso seems to be where he departs the most from either toy or 'toon Hellbat. If we stick with the cartoon look, the white piece in the center of his chest should be blue, and his lower torso should be either white or white with blue abs. Like Rhadamanthus, his helmet is a little more subtle than the cartoon, but in this case I prefer it. Minos' helmet looks like a bat; cartoon Hellbat's helmet looks like a fish. It is, however, lacking paint on the bat eyes. Size-wise, he's fairly close to Rhadamanthus in height and therefore still bigger than a Uranos limb. His a much more svelte bot than Rhadamanthus, though. All-in-all, I wish they'd have colored the torso more correctly, but Minos is definitely a design I'm digging. On thing worth noting is that the directions and box art have you transform Minos' wings like the one on the right here. I personally prefer the way I've set the left wing, which is more like both toy and 'toon Hellbat. This being TFC, though, the wings are on pegs and can be removed entirely if you prefer. Also (not show) you can split the nose cone and flip the halves around so they don't hang past his butt (this is also true for Rhadamanthus). Minos' articulation is basically the same as Rhadamanthus: ball jointed head, shoulders hinged for lateral movement where the armor connects to the body and where the arm connects to the armor and mushroom pegged for rotation where the armor connects to the body, double-jointed elbows, bicep, wrist, and waist swivels, universal hips with thigh rotation, single-jointed knees, zero ratchets. The key differences here are that the shoulders have ridiculous levels of lateral movement, like 180+ degrees, but his backpack actually impedes his shoulder rotation. Also, he doesn't have the goofy feet that Rhadamanthus does. Instead, his thrusters are nice, fixed heels and his toes are all ball-joints for some up/down tilt, faux ankle tilt, and faux ankle rotation. Minos comes with a "gun," but the handle is too short and the pegs on his forearms too high, so he can't hold it securely at all. In typical Breastforce fashion, Minos' gun can also turn into a breastplate or an animal partner, in this case a bat. He's very stylized, reminding me more of a robotic version of the first boss in the NES Castlevania, the giant bat that was all face, rather than Koumoribreast. The red-painted eyes and the gold paint on the wings is nicely done, but they really should have painted the lower part of the bat's body blue where it lays over Minos' abs. All-in-all, he's kind of disappointing compared to Rhadamanthus' little buddy. In addition to his breast animal, Minos comes with hands for the combined mode. That's hands, plural. At first glance, I thought they reminded me a little too much of Uranos' hands. They even have the same palm connectors, so Hades can hold Uranos' gun. However, there's more difference than color and the nicely-pointed fingertips. Each finger has an additional hinged knuckle versus the Uranos hands, and the thumb has one on the ball joint. This gives the Hades hands more articulation, although a little splay would have been nice. The wrists are the same as Uranos, although the connector part for the Hades hands is a little longer. In alt mode Minos becomes a Dassault Rafale multirole fighter jet. I'll note that TFC did a good job capturing the details of the original toy with the white mark on the tail and the gold stripes on the wings. Like Rhadamanthus, they opted for a red canopy instead of orange, and that's fine. TFC also picked out some details from actual Rafale's, including the intakes and the bar on the tail, that the original toy was lacking (no refueling probe, though). On thing that's kind of interesting is that the tips of the wings look like they should have had missiles like TFC's F-16. If we look at the underside, though, we've still got the problem of having a folded-up robot chilling out down there. I'll note, though, that there aren't any stupid leg flaps wrapping around Minos' arms. Oh, I'll also point out the peg holes on the bottoms of the wings, which Rhadamanthus also has. Looks like you could put some missiles there. Could TFC be planning an add-on kit, like the Wings of Uranos? As with Rhadamanthus we've got a working cockpit and landing gear. The instructions indicate that you can put the breast animal underneath, as I've done in this picture. However, there isn't enough clearance for both the breast animal and the landing gear. That's not the only design tolerance issue Minos has, either. It's quite tricky to turn and flip the cockpit around from Minos' back to it's jet-mode position and vice versa. All-in-all, I do like Minos better than Rhadamanthus, but I feel like that's probably because I think he's got a cooler look and "Hellbat" is a cooler name than "Leozack." In reality, they have a lot of the same pros and cons, so my recommendation is going to be the same: if you're into Victory or the Breastforce he's good enough that you'll be happy with him, but if you're not interested in the character I don't think he's good enough to recommend outright.
  16. If Backdraft isn't up to MMC's usual standard but still better than Takara, then I'd still say go with Backdraft because I happen to think MP Inferno looks like butt. Of course, you could always wait for reviews. Speaking of reviews, here's another treat for you guys. Today we're going to look at another TFC product, but not another Hades guy. Today it's Bigbite, their Skalor (for US G1 fans) or Gulf (for Masterforce fans). While Rhadamanthus indicated that TFC was really improving their aesthetic design and plastic/overall quality, there was enough goofy engineering that still made it apparent that it was a TFC toy. I gotta tell you, though, that if I were unaware of the Poseidon project and you gave me a Bigbite and told me it was MMC I'd probably believe you. The feel and engineering is really good here. Aesthetically, he's fantastic. He keeps the general appearance of G1 Skalor but replaces some of the G1 blockiness with an angled, techno-organic look befitting of an aquatic-themed robot. Discerning eyes may notice that his hands and thighs are gray instead of purple¹ and blue, and he's got blue feet instead of pink². However, with his yellow face, blue head and shoulders, pink forearms and shins, and pink torso broken up by a swath of blue, it's still very much Skalor in appearance. I'm not always a huge fan of translucent plastic, but I have to say that where TFC used it for yellow, purple, and blue accents it's pretty nice. ¹ Darker purplish-pink... whatever you want to call it. Magenta, maybe. ² Very pale pinkish-purplish... whatever you want to call it. Coral, maybe. Curiously, he's a little shorter than Rhadamanthus or Voyager Brainstorm. He's thick, though, and I'd still say he's closer to Voyager-sized than Deluxe. Bigbite comes with a bunch of accessories. He's got two guns, which can either be wielded as smaller guns or you can open them and fold out a longer barrel to give him longer rifles. And he's got two swords cast from that pink plastic with some nice silver details. Don't hold me to this, but I think the swords will combine with future weapons to form the combined-mode sword. There's also the right combined-mode hand. It's a nice hand, with the thumb on a ball joint with two hinged knuckles, the fingers connected on a hinge with two more hinged knuckles, and a wicked looking spike on the back of the hand. It's a little odd, though that we have a hand since traditionally (if tradition is defined by box art King Poseidon's appearance in Masterforce) he's the right leg. I mean, even the box art shows Bigbite as a leg, albeit the left one. No worries, though, since Bigbite's manual has bot, monster, arm, leg, and gun mode. The other two accessories are the handle for gun mode, and a new piece used for his wrist/foot/gun barrel connections. Nothing out of the ordinary as far as articulation goes. His head is on a ball joint whose upward tilt is a little better than his downward due to his chin hitting his chest. He's got a decent amount of lateral tilt, too. His shoulders have a hinge for lateral movement that'll extend past 90 degrees and nice ratchets for his shoulder rotation. There's also a second hinge that's really for transformation, but you can get a little play out of it if you need to for posing. He's got a bicep swivel, and double-jointed elbows that'll go until his forearm sculpt runs into his shoulders. A nice attention to detail is the way that the sculpt continues in the exposed joints when his elbows are bent. His fingers are fixed, and his wrists do swivel, as does his waist. He's got universal hips with soft ratchets for forward and backward movement and hard ratchets for lateral movement, and his hips will go all the way forward and back and just shy of the full splits. His thigh swivels are just below the hips. His ratcheted knee will go about 90 degrees- be sure you're bending the actual knee and not the transformation joint. His heels on ball joints that provide a little ankle tilt but are mostly fixed, and the front of his foot is on a separate ball joint. He can turn his toes inward or outward, tilt them upward or downward with good range either way, and he has a little ankle tilt. In any case, he's got a wide enough base that balance isn't really an issue, and between the smart use of ratchets and the tighter friction joints he feels better all-around than Rhadamanthus. In addition to holding his accessories, his tail is pegged on and can be removed and held like a weapon. However, due to the spikes on his forearms, you have to turn his fist. One other little bummer is that, not counting his tail, he's got four weapons but no storage that I could see. You're kind of stuck letting him hold two of them and setting the other two aside wherever you store the combiner parts when you're not using them. Bigbite turns into a monster fish with stubby arms and legs... just like G1 Skalor/Gulf! Again, it's pretty close to the G1 design, but with some flourishes like bigger jaws and teeth. The gray joints are showing in his knees, he's got a little extra blue on his nose and gray on his back, he's got translucent blue toes, his lower jaw is pink instead of purple, and his underside could use a little more pink, but none of this is particularly hurtful. Indeed, I'd say TFC did a good job of keeping the head and lower legs pink, upper legs, body, and tail blue, and his monster arms and the fin on his back purple- even where they used translucent plastic. As a monster fish, he can't use his swords but his guns can mount onto his back. His jaw can open and close, and his stubby arms can rotate on his shoulders and his claws can turn in (mostly due to his transformation. You can unpeg them to cheat some lateral movement, but no elbow, wrist, or bicep swivel. His monster legs are his bot arms and have the same ratchety articulation. Then there's his tail. Each segment is on a ball joint so they can bend a little up/down or side-to-side, plus the can all rotate. It's a decently dynamic fish-monster mode. All-in-all, I'd say that Bigbite is an easy recommend, especially if you're into Seacons. I think TFC did a fantastic job hitting all the right notes that make you say "this is Skalor" while giving him an updated look that really suits and ocean-monster-robot. Everything here feels better than the Hades team. Bigbite's got none of the weird tolerance issues that plagued them, and there's a lot of smart engineering in the way the various flaps and covers on the fish body fold and collapse into his legs, but nothing feels complicated or over-engineered either. He's a toy that looks good, feels good, and is fun to play with even without taking the whole combiner thing into consideration.
  17. Well, my lust for things that combine got the better of me. Despite having never seen Transformers Victory, despite having to be told by David Hingtgen who the Breastforce was, tonight I give you Rhadamanthus, TFC's version of Leozack. Now, when I talk about aesthetics, I tend to compare a lot to G1, both toys and 'toon, because that's what I grew up with. But this time, I didn't grow up with him. I can tell you that I think he looks pretty cool. I like the white and teal, offset with gold and red accents. I dig the that his head is a face peaking out of a lion's mouth, although he doesn't turn into a lion and I have no idea why his head should be a lion. I absolutely love the smirk on his face. I don't know how to explain it, but he looks all-around better and crisper than TFC's previous efforts. For the record, the plastic feels a lot better than the Uranos guys, whom I like to compare Rhadamanthus to because they're all jets made by TFC. And... he's taller than a Uranos limb, but smaller than Blackbird. For other references, Rhadamanthus is a head shorter than the ToyWorld Constructicons, and pretty even with a tall Hasbro Voyager like Brainstorm. OK, I did some googling, and I guess the Leozack toy had an orange face and white head. Otherwise the toy looks like the cartoon. Rhadamanthus here has the cartoon's blue head and silver face, although his mane is a lot smaller. He's got a few color flourishes, like some extra green on his lower legs, some black on his chest, and red lines on his shoulders, he's got red accents on his knees instead of gold, and he's got black hands and gray biceps instead of white, but for the most part he's a very spot-on Leozack. It is curious, though, that for all the red accents TFC slipped onto Rhadamanthus they didn't paint the lion's eyes on his head. Articulation is fairly standard 3P. His head is on a ball joint. Due to his transformations, his shoulders are on a hinge in his chest as well is inside the shoulder armor. That gives him a shade over 90 degrees of lateral movement, then he's got the usual bicep and wrist swivels and a double-jointed elbow that will let him touch his shoulder. Despite carrying a good chunk of plane on his back, he has a waist swivel, as well as friction universal hips with built-in thigh swivel. If you move the skirt armor, he can kick 90 degrees forward and he can do the splits laterally, but back kibble limits how far backward he can swing his leg. The same kibble limits his waist swivel, but he can still turn bend enough to get "natural" poses. His knees can bend 90 degrees. His feet are a little weird... they're on a hinge and can tilt up and down, but the pin is simply capped on one side, so it's really only attached to the inner side of his leg. That spot itself is on a hinge, and that allows it to turn inward and give him ankle tilt. One thing I'll note here... none of those joints are ratcheted, and the friction on some of them is a little loose. Not Hasbro bad, but something to be aware of. Rhadamanthus comes with a single accessory, which is his gun. Which, in Breastforce fashion, transforms. For starters, it can become his animal partner, Lionbreast. Like Leozack himself, Lionbreast had a white head as a toy and a teal head in the cartoon, and TFC went with the 'toon look. The cartoon again had a bigger mane, but I think the realities of toys don't necessarily lend themselves to the stylized manes of the anime. It is curious, though, that TFC's unnamed lion has a white body and a lot of teal on his legs, though, when both the toy and 'toon had all black legs and a teal body. Also, I think Lionbreast is supposed to have wings. I have a soft spot for the little guy, though. He reminds me of Ravage. The other thing with the Breastforce guys is that their animal partner doesn't just turn into a gun, it can turn into a breast plate... because why wouldn't you carry your pet around on your chest when you're not using him as a weapon? Well, I'll say this, he's a pretty good breast plate. He blends in with Rhadamanthus' own details and adds more splashes of teal red, and some shiny metallic gold. However, this is also where Rhadamanthus has the greatest departure from G1, where Leozack's breast plate was pretty much teal with white-striped wings. I get that the G1 toy was pretty simple, but I kind of wish TFC had just rolled with it instead of coming up with a totally new split design. While we have him in robot mode... the combiner pegs are the same ones TFC has been using. So, that means that you can use Hades', Ares', Hecules', Uranos', or Prometheus' torso with each others limbs, if you're into that sort of thing. Personally, I'd have preferred they give up that compatibility for ports with modern engineering. On to the alt mode! As you'd expect for someone with a robot with a lion motif, Rhadamanthus turns into an F-14. Again, it's a good likeness for Leozack, opting for the 'toon's red canopy. The only real deviations are replacing the white-edged yellow stripe with a more white stripe and a metallic gold stripe, plus the tip of the nose is black instead of all-teal. From the top it looks decent, and fits nicely with the Uranos team. From the side, though, we can see that he suffers from the common jetformer problem of basically being a jet with a large chunk of robot hanging on the bottom. It's cool that the canopy opens, though, and non-Lionbreast can peg underneath. Things get really ugly when we look at the bottom. His head is hidden away and his legs tuck nicely up, but what the heck are his arms doing? If they were just held in against his sides, it'd look bad but I'd kind of accept it and move on. But instead TFC tried to engineer and awkward transformation that doesn't even leave them flat. They they get really weird by having you fold out panels on his legs to cup around his forearms. For what? They hide his arms about as well as a broom hides a fat kid. It's hard for me to give an opinion on Rhadamanthus that I think is useful to others. I can tell you that there are plenty of things that annoy me with him. I've already vented about his alt-mode and the ludicrous attempt to hide his arms, and I touched on his loose hips and lack of ratchets. I'll also mention that the vertical stabilizers are on ball joints and super floppy and I hate the way the combiner pegs are just chilling on the backs of his arms. There's also some issues with transforming him. Basically, the only way his hands fit into his forearms is so that the fingers will catch on hinge when you try to flip them back out. Also, his legs transform in a very Combiner Wars style, but the way his legs are built mean that the hinge for the horizontal stabilizers bump into the hinge for the arm-hiding leg flaps, preventing you from opening the back of his legs very wide. You really have the barest minimum of clearance necessary to transform his legs. However, considering that this is a TFC product, I have to stress that he's really improved from at least the Uranos team. Better hand sculpts, better plastic quality, gorgeous head sculp, nicely detailed, and hewing much closer to the source material than their previous combiners. I want to say that don't recommend him, but that's definitely me taking a figure of a character I know nothing about and digging at its faults. I have a feeling, though, that if you're more familiar with the character that you'll probably be pretty satisfied with Rhadamanthus. In either case, it's worth stressing again that this is NOT the TFC you love to hate on. The engineering could have used a little more work, but the quality is much better all-around. EDIT: While playing with him, I realized that Rhadamanthus has tabs inside his shoulders. You have to push his shoulders so they click past the tabs in his alt mode. It straightens out his arms and cleans them up a bit better, which alleviates some of my complaint. I do still think the leg flaps are dumb, though, and I stand by my belief that Rhadamanthus isn't quite good enough to recommend outright, but good enough that fans of Victory will probably dig him.
  18. Kinda this. I dig fire trucks, so I thought about it, but he's just not Inferno-ish enough for me. I think Wrestle makes a great Grapple, though... but I also think Grapple the character sucks and have no desire for MP Grapple in my collection.
  19. Well, I went to Target to get baby wipes, and I figured I check out the Transformers while I was there since I still need Sky Lynx. Sky Lynx was a bust, but they did have the first Deluxe wave of Titans Return. Some thoughts: Blurr - I passed on him. I liked the IDW-headed Drift remold from awhile back, and while it's cool that the the new one has the more classic alt mode I can't stand how he's a nearly solid blue in bot mode. Scourge - I picked him up because I've always loved Scourge's ridiculous space boat mode, and the previous Generations toy didn't scratch that itch for me. Objectively, though, the earlier toy is the better toy. Like Blurr, Scourge is lacking bot-mode paint, and the Headmaster gimmick gives him a shorter, wider head than you want on a Scourge. More irritatingly, I kind of wanted bigger wings, and doing so actually would have made him better in alt mode because they could wrap around under to cover the very exposed robot arms and chest. Meanwhile, there's some panels on his legs that fold out in alt mode to hold up the front end, but they break up the sculpt pretty badly. Hardhead - He's... ok. Simple transformation, no major surprises. I wish they'd gone for the cartoon face instead of the G1 toy's mask, but he'll do until Fansproject gives me a Function-X Hardhead. Skullcruncher/Skullsmasher - Function-X Crox doesn't come with any weapon besides a tail blade, and TF guns on Shapeways cost about as much as a Deluxe, so I figured I'd grab him and he could both stand in for Crox until I get around to ordering him, and provide a gun for Crox at that later time. But I gotta say, he's definitely the best of the first wave. His transformation is fairly simple, but I like the way the shoulders collapse into the crocodile neck. Plus, the crocodile head looks fantastic, with the inside of the mouth being molded from separate pieces than the outside, and it's fairly articulated on a ball joint. The crocodile legs are more limited, but I'd still say if you're curious about the line this is the guy to get. The line in general - Typical Hasbro hollow spots in the legs and forearms and floppy joints. The neck is especially loose. Basically, the head robot has a ball joint for its own articulation. The head robot's head pegs into the torso, and then his neck doubles as the big bot's neck. All three of the guys I got have one regular gun and one larger weapon with a seat for another head robot, a gimmick that works best on Hardhead. I've heard people saying that Titans Return is a step up from Combiner Wars... I'll say that as long as these molds aren't milked to death, I can agree, but you still have to manage your expectations. They're better, but not hugely so and not up the level of the older Generations figures.
  20. Well, to each his own; far be it from me to tell other people how to spend their money. But personally, I think it's no contest. To heck with official, Inferno looks like butt, Backdraft doesn't. If Backdraft were more expensive I'd suggest paying the extra, but to find out he's actually the cheaper option really clinches it.
  21. The real question is, do I want a new Classics Prime? Because that is Classics Prime, right down to the roof gun, paneled arms, faux grille-abs-because-the-real-grille-is-on-his-back. The resemblance is even greater when you compare Manus to Classics Prime with Fansproject's Parallax add-on. Personally, I think for my CHUG shelf I'm going to get Ku Bian Bao's MP-10v Voyager-sized MP-10 KO. It scales fantastically with Hegemon, whom I already have. It's moot to me, since I'm not into MP-sized figures. If I were, I'd definitely wait awhile to see how FP's and KFC's come along, but I'd be leaning toward KFC's Ditka, because screw MiG-25s, I want my Blitzwing to be the weird sort of short, wide bi-plane the animation model wound up having, and Ditka's the only one going for that. BTW, you guys, I should have some more reviews for you soon. Got the 10-day notice on MT's Vulcan yesterday, and I ordered the last two Constructor guys. But I also went a little nuts before the holiday so I'm going to have a few other figures in the next couple of days that we can look at.
  22. Eh. Don't get me wrong, I'm cool with the whole modern tank that turns into a robot that looks more like Bludgeon's pretender shell than his epically generic inner robot. But that head has gotta go. Do the G1 skull face, or do the IDW melty face, but don't do cranky robot jack-o-lantern face.
  23. They seriously didn't. Go ahead and try to find it. There are bootlegs, sure, but no official DVD or Blu-ray release. Closest you can get to owning it is to buy the digital episodes from iTunes (which doesn't help me since I de-Appled) or Amazon. Not available on Google Play.
  24. Hey, maybe Tron would have made Disney more money if they'd ever bothered to release Tron: Uprising on DVD and Blu-ray...
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