mikeszekely

So I got the Megatron/Ratbat one. Did some digging, and apparently the product codes were accidentally swapped, and Amazon goes by the codes. That probably explains why the Megatron/Ratbat set (two Voyagers) is priced $55 while Pax and Shockwave, a Deluxe and a Voyager, are priced more at $70. I don't know if anyone's contacted Amazon in the States about it, but an Australian contacted their Amazon rep and the response was basically, "you ordered the thing with this product code, we sent you the thing with that product code." I guess a lot of people who only wanted one of the sets will be upset, especially if they thought they were getting a deal on Megs and Ratbat. As long as they still send me Pax and Shockwave later I don't really care if they say they're shipping me a box of $55 Twinkies. Oh, and since you did wind up with Megs and Ratbat, PSA... Megatron's knees are probably swapped. I'll post more details about it later with a review of the set, but I want to finish Wave 3 of Evolution first.

Huh. I have the Shockwave/Pax set due to arrive tomorrow, and the Ratbat/Megatron set showing as but shipped and due in August.

Soundwave is available to preorder on Pulse and Amazon.

I kind of feel you on the anime thing, but I never really considered myself a fan of anime any more than I'd say I was a fan of sitcoms. Some I liked, some I didn't, though I can honestly say there was a lot more I liked in the '90s than I do today. All hope isn't lost, though. Occasionally Sunrise throws us a bone and gives us new Gundam in the Universal Century timeline. I thought Gundam Unicorn was quite good, and I thought the first Hathaway's Flash movie was good enough that I want to see the sequel. For something that isn't Gundam I've been enjoying the Ultraman series that's on Netflix. Even Star Trek... yeah, agree on Discovery and I'd say it's true for Picard, too. But have to watched Strange New Worlds? It's the most Star Trek the franchise has been since TNG.

The first two weren't great, but...

With the Cores out of the way, we can move on to the Deluxes... half of which haven't arrived yet. As for the remaining half, well, one of them is a package refresh of Tarantulas. I reviewed him the first time, and the TLDR if you missed him is that he's a pretty decent figure, but not one we need to cover again right now. So, that just leaves the one Deluxe I did get... Legacy Evolution Deluxe-class Beachcomber. As the sole Deluxe-and-up sized G1 character that wasn't a throwaway character for one episode and actually had a G1 toy (that's a mouthful), I expect Beachcomber will be the most-anticipated figure from this wave. Which, frankly, says a lot about Legacy Evolution and this wave in particular, because Beachcomber (the character) kind of sucks (which doesn't explain why I have six of them... G1, POTP, Evolution, Magic Square, and Dr Wu from left to right, with X-Transbots not pictured). Frankly, I thought Power of the Primes Legends-class Beachcomber was plenty good enough for the character. Could he better with a Deluxe-class budget, though? Well, there's some effort to make him more cartoon accurate. Hasbro painted the darker gray on his chest, and replaced POTP's toy-sticker tampo with a cartoon-accurate Autobot badge. There are sculpt differences, too, that seem a bit more Sunbow, but like a lot of the smaller Deluxes he seems a bit chunky. I'll also note that there's some silver on his shins that aren't on the animation model... in robot mode. I will say that the Deluxe budget does help him clean up, though. He's lacking most of the hollow gaps you'd see on a lot of recent Hasbro figures. There's even flaps on his calves to hide the void his thighs will hide in when he transforms. And unlike POTP Beachcomber, the part of his rollcage that's on his backpack tucks in instead of dangling off him like a cape. Another way Evolution Beachcomber beats POTP Beachcomber (and technically the G1 toy, while we're at it) is that he comes with accessories. For one, we get a gun, because maybe you should have decided you were a pacifist before you joined the Autobots, Beachcomber! And, because Hasbro is definitely aware of unlicensed third parties and what they're doing, you get one of the parakeets from "The Golden Lagoon." Graduating up to a Deluxe mostly improved Beachcomber's articulation. His head seems to be on a ball joint, so it swivels but also has a very limited up/down/sideways tilt. Unlike the POTP toy, that's the only ball joint. His shoulders rotate and can move laterally around 75 degrees. His biceps swivel, and his elbows bend around 90 degrees. He's got wrist swivels and a waist swivel. His hips go forward, backward, and laterally 90 degrees. He's got thigh swivels, and his knees bend 90 degrees. No up/down tilt on his feet, but his ankles can pivot around 60 degrees. Beachcomber can hold his gun in either hand, and he's got additional 5mm ports on the outsides of his forearms, the backs of his shoulders, the backs of his heels, and two on his back. The parakeet, which is a bit rubbery, can also plug into any of the 5mm ports. You can plug it into a hand if you want it to look like it's perched on his fingers. The parakeet's peg has a 3mm hole in it, though, and there's a 3mm peg on either side of his collar if you'd prefer to have the parakeet perched on his shoulder. Increasing his budget didn't really do much to increase the engineering, as the transformation is nearly identical to the POTP toy. You tab the legs together, including the section of rollcage in his heels. You stretch his torso, causing his head to recede into his chest. You bend his legs at the knee to cover his thighs, and connect the front and back of the rollcage. And you tab his arms into his sides. The main differences are that the Deluxe also has seats in his heels that tab into his back, the arms don't just tab into the sides, they tab into his feet, you need to untuck the back of the rollcage, and you need to open the flaps on the backs of his legs before you fold them over, then close then up once you're done. As with the robot mode, Beachcomber's alt mode is fine, pretty cartoon-accurate, but a tad chunky. Like, the whole thing seems wider than it should be, which does the front end no favors as the the cartoon-accurate gaps for the knee hinges are more squares than rectangles with a flat blue space between them. You've got the accurate rollcage with the engine behind it, and a pair of seats like the cartoon, but the skid plates on the sides seem to stick out too far from the seats. The silver on the shins becomes a now-accurate silver chevron on the hood, but it's missing an Autobot badge. All four rims are nicely painted. And while I appreciate that Hasbro made the headlights out of separate plastic I sort of think blue on everything except the lenses would look more cartoony. You have access to 5mm ports on the sides of the vehicle, on the engine, and near the rear tires, and you'll probably want to use one of those for the parakeet. A new 5mm port was also revealed on the nose of the vehicle. This is why the gun has a 5mm peg on one side. You can arrange the the gun to become a bumper for the buggy. That said, I'm not loving the asymmetry of a 5mm handle poking up one side and a gun barrel sticking out of the other. But that's ok! The 5mm peg handle and a protrusion from the back of the bumper actually form a c-clip, and the gun is meant to clip onto the back of the rollcage. Hasbro's repeatedly demonstrated that they can do a lot more with a Deluxe-budget than they can with a Legends/Core, especially on fairly simple figures. Beachcomber is another example of Hasbro delivering a pretty great minibot, even if that minibot is Beachcomber instead of Gears, Windcharger, Powerglide, or Seaspray, all of whom I'd rather Hasbro did (although I recently found out that BMac is a big Seaspray fan and has been advocating for a new Deluxe-class Seaspray... fingers crossed!). So, yeah, he gets a recommend from me.

Hasbro seems to be in a hurry to get all the Legacy Evolution Core-class Dinobots out, even as they take their sweet time with the SS86 ones. Because Swoop's wavemate is Scarr, a new-ish Dinobot. With no other toys of Scarr to compare with, I'll just leave him here with Swoop for a sense of scale. Despite this being Scarr's first ever toy, Scarr can actually trace his origin's back to 2013, where he appeared in IDW's Transformers: Monstrosity series (spelled "Skar," but maybe that was too close to the Marvel character "Skaar" for Hasbro to trademark?). His appearance was extremely brief, with no alt mode shown, but with his big shoulders, tapered forearms, the placement of the red and gold on his chest, and the blocky head with the bulging ear vents and the little spike on top it's clear that the designers intended Scarr and Skar to be the same character. With naught but a few bits of Livio Ramondelli's uniquely-styled (but often hard to discern) artwork it's hard to critique Scarr's aesthetic. He's packing some kibble and some hollow calves, but that's kind of par for the course on a Core-class figure that also combines. What details are present seem to be pretty accurate, although I think a bit more red and gold paint on the chest and a bit of color separation on the thighs and forearms might have been nice. Scarr comes with a single accessory. Like Swoop's, it's actually molded in gray and painted black. While it nominally has other purposes, it's very obviously a fist, with a single spike coming off of it like Robocop. It kind of reminds me of a certain G1 accessory... That's the fist that came with G1 Bristleback, of the Monstercons, who's Japanese counterpart is Gairyu. Hmm... Anyway, Scarr's head can swivel, no tilt. His shoulders are on ball joints for swiveling, about 60 degrees of lateral movement, and a little butterfly motion around the ball. Transformation hinges allow him to bring his shoulders entirely in front of his chest. However, he lacks any other arm articulation; no bicep swivels, no elbow bends, no wrist swivels, nothing. He does have a waist swivel, though. His hips are ball joints and can go 90 degrees backward and laterally, and a little over that forward. Ball joints in the knees act as thigh swivels and also allow him to bend his knees just short of 180 degrees. No foot articulation. Scarr's accessory has a peg on it, allowing him to hold it in his own fist with the spike pointing outward. So if you squint it's kind of a gun. Transformation is, again, super simple. Using both the ball joints and the hinges, bring is arms in front of his torso so they can tab into each other. Flip the dino head over his robot head, so it tabs into the arms, and fold the combiner peg into his dino chest. Spin the waist 180, tab his legs together, then bend them at the knees so that they cover his forearms and connect with this shoulders. Arrange his dino feet, and then plug his accessory onto the 5mm peg on his butt to make his tail. With no alt mode in the comic, the design team was free to make Scarr any prehistoric reptile they wanted, and they chose an Ankylosaurus. You can see his shoulders and shins form the shelled back, and if we squint again the obvious fist becomes his tail club. Now, I'm not complaining about his alt mode, I think Ankylosaurus are pretty cool and a worthwhile addition to the Dinobots. But, you know, they could have done a new new figure of Slash, the raptor from Power of the Primes, if they wanted sixth Dinobot. They could have done Paddles, the Plesiosaur. They could have G1-ified Scorn, the Spinosaurus from the Bayverse. But they pulled an obscure character from a flashback in an obscure comic and very deliberately gave him an Ankylosaurus alt mode, with an accessory that looks very much like the one that came with Bristleback, who in Japan was a Gairyu, and Gairyu happens to be an Ankylosaurus on a team with a T-Rex, a Pteranadon, a Triceratops, a Brontosaurus, and a Stegosaurus. At this point, there's no way that Hasbro isn't planning on retooling these guys into Dinoking/Monstructor. But I digress. Well, there's not a lot that Scarr can do in alt mode. His only articulation is that all four of his dino hips rotate. Nothing in the knees or feet, no head articulation. Well, I guess you can swivel the tail on the 5mm peg, but I don't see the point. Much as Gairyu turns into Dinoking's left arm, Scarr turns into Volcanicus' left arm. I mean, the combiner peg is really a 5mm peg on a hinge, and you could plug him into the right side if you wanted, but the thumb is molded onto the fist such that it is the left hand (and Swoop's two accessories are not symmetrical, as one of them has the right thumb and the other doesn't). To get to arm mode you just fold the combiner peg out, remove his tail, unfold his robot legs, spin the waist 180 degrees, and get the dino limbs out of the way (or, from robot mode, just bring in his arms, fold up the dino head, and tab his legs together like you would for dino mode, then just stop). In the hollows of his legs you'll find a square peg that fits into the hole on the wrist. And we're looking at the same issues here that we had with Swoop... you can technically use the waist swivel as a bicep swivel, and you can technically use his hips and knees as an elbow bend, but the hollow backs of Scarr's legs make for a hollow forearm, and there's no wrist swivel so it seems you're expected to pose him sort of gorilla-armed. Anyway, Scarr's a bit of a letdown after Swoop, but he's really more like par for the Core-class course, hampered by budget and the need to combine. He's ok. Better than Sludge, about the same as Slag and Grimlock. I'm not really recommending him, but I'm not really not recommending him. I'd assume most people by now have already decided if they want a little Volcanicus or not, and will buy Scarr or not based on that decision regardless of what I say.

Well, it looks like the third wave of Legacy Evolution is trickling in, so maybe we can soon preorder the stuff they announced for wave 4 last week. But before we get too far ahead of ourselves, let's take a look at what we've got now, starting with Core-class Swoop. Ah, Swoop... seen here with Power of the Primes Swoop, but unlike the other Core-class Dinobots I've reviewed this little guy beat the Studio Series one to market, because despite a head start that had Leader-class Grimlock hitting three years ago we've yet to even see a prototype for Studio Series Swoop. Am I getting impatient? Maybe a little, but it does help that mini-Swoop is actually a pretty decent appetizer. Like, sure, the dino head on his chest is a bit bulbous, and there's a pretty unsightly hinge in it. I'd have liked to see the dino feet on his his knees, some panels on his shins, and his feet painted. If we want to be proper, he should really have some color separation on his legs by making his thighs the lighter plastic they used for his wings. His blue torso is really more like a splash of blue on his chest and that's it, leaving is flanks, pelvis, and back gray. His calves and the backs of his forearms and butt are hollow. But, hey, he's got the red stripes on his legs. And despite the flaws I've pointed out, overall his sculpt is pretty dang good, with wings that fold back like the cartoon. Consider that he doesn't have black shoulders, biceps, thighs, or a pelvis, and no black around his face, and you could say this Swoop is actually more cartoon-accurate than the PotP figure. Of all the Core-class Dinobots so far, Sludge comes with the most accessories... two! Molded in white, painted all black, they look sort of like Swoop's missile launchers if you squint and ignore the obvious curled fingers. For a Core-class figure hampered by having three modes, Swoop's not too shabby in the articulation department. His head's on a ball joint. He can't really look down, but it swivels, looks 90 degrees straight up, and has a slight sideways tilt. His shoulders are more ball joints for rotation and 90 degrees of lateral movement. His elbows are ball joints, bending just over 90 degrees and doubling as a bicep swivel. His waist can swivel, too. His hips are, you guessed it, ball joints, and they can go forward, backward, or laterally 90 degrees. He's got dedicated thighs swivels, and his hinged knees bend 180 degrees. There are small pegs on the backs of the accessories, allowing Swoop to hold them as guns. Swoop's transformation is pretty basic. Make him look up, pull the dino head up over his robot head, tab his ankles together and bend his knees 180 degrees so his feet plug into his back, tab is arms into his sides, and unfold his wings. If his feet folded up a bit better it'd be the G1 toy's transformation. And he looks fine. His back would be a bit cleaner if his feet did fold up like the G1 toy, and it'd be nice if his arms actually tucked in a bit closer instead of merely tabbing in place. A part of me would like to lament the lack of blue paint again, but the truth is you don't see much blue on Swoop if you're looking down onto his back anyway. In the cartoon, you'd see blue by looking up at his underside. But you're not really going to do that with this Swoop His dino head has no articulation, so while the figure can stand on his feet (although he leans forward due to the robot knee hinges) he can't look forward while standing... at least, not without separating the dino head from the robot head, leaving a big gap on the dino head and a very visible robot face. Hey, at least his wings have articulation, with hinges at the base and mid-wing for flapping. And the weapons can tab into his wings (they can be stored there in bot mode, too). To get to Swoop's third mode, that of Volcanicus' right arm, pull the combiner peg out of his belly. Unfold the legs, but leave them tabbed together, and spin his waist 180 degrees. Fold his wings back to robot mode. Then, take his two weapons and fit them together to make one fist. On Swoop's heels you'll find a pair of tabs. These tabs fit into a pair of slots on the fist. And, I'm starting to see some problems. The combiner peg is a 5mm port, so Volcanicus will have shoulder rotation, and a hinge will provide lateral movement. I could say that maybe Swoop's waist will be a bicep swivel, and his hips and knees will be a double-jointed elbow, Combiner Wars-style. But doing so would mean that the front of the forearm is really Swoop's very hollow calves. But the kick is that he'll have no bicep swivel, so if you want the 5mm port on the fist facing forward then Swoop's waist has to be turned so that Volcanincus' "elbow" curls in toward his body. Up to this point the Core-class Dinobots have been hampered by a low budget and the limited engineering that budget can buy for a toy that not only has to go from robot to alt mode, but also has to turn into part of another larger robot. I can't say I'm impressed with Swoop's arm mode, but of the four Dinobots I've looked at so far Swoop definitely has the best robot and best dinosaur modes. Is that reason enough to get him? I'd say if you've been collecting this set then yes, and you'll be happy that Swoop's the best one so far. If not, though, I don't think that Swoop has the same cachét as Grimlock to warrant a standalone purchase, nor is he so good that you'll want to track down the first three (although if you do, Grimlock and Sludge are still available on Pulse and Slag (as well as Sludge) will be re-released in the 4th wave of Evolution.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, Takara nailed the trains at the expense of the other two modes, and that's just not how you want to do a combiner.

I started getting emails from both Pulse and Amazon about figures shipping... by the end of next week I think I should have the whole wave, save Megatron (and, I guess, Dirge, because I bought Dirge back in the Earthrise days). So if I were a betting man, I'd look for a "Transformers Tuesday" email and the wave 4 figures to go up for preorder as early as the 27th.

I preordered VNR Optimus and Antagony today (and Core Class Op, SS Primal, and SS Mirage the other day). I didn't get any ship notices for any of the wave 3 stuff yet, so I kind of figured there wouldn't be preorders for wave 4 yet. I'm thinking they may go up closer to Comicon.

I don't know what's up with that, they really made it sound like everything before VNR Optimus would be today. Well, usually the preorders seem to go up right after the previous wave starts going out, and while I've seen reviews popping up neither Pulse nor Amazon has shipped any of wave 3. If I get a bunch of "shipped emails tonight/tomorrow I'll know the preorders will be Thursday. All-in-all, it's a pretty unexciting wave for me, although I suppose it's marginally better than the third wave. I intend to get the entire wave. I also threw down preorders on Primal, Mirage, and the Prime/Bee set. I mostly want it for the trailer, but I never bought that version of Bee, either. I think Primal actually looks pretty cool. Mirage, like so many movie bots, looks like a kibbly mess in bot mode but I love that alt mode. I'm a Transformers fan, I'm a Porsche fan. When I was a kid I dreamed of owning the very 911 Turbo they used for Mirage in the movie, and today I'm saving up for a Taycan. I'm probably the guy this is for: The holdup is apparently on Target's end, and he's supposedly still coming. But for some reason felt that gray repaints of movie Ratchet and Bonecrusher, Cybertronian Jazz, and now a pair of Legacy multipacks need priority, I guess. Actually there's also Age of Extinction Junkheap. But yes, if Mark insists on doing original characters then I think garbage trucks and buses are criminally underutilized alt modes. Thanks, I've been really busy lately getting caught up on all the work I didn't do while recovering from a knee injury. But I still have a picture for you guys anyway, courtesy of the aforementioned Mark Maher:

-Deluxe-class Studio Series Mirage. Was wondering what happened to it, since they announced it back during the Super Bowl. -Leader-class Studio Series Optimus Primal. I liked the mainline Voyager, but bot mode especially looks so much better on this one. Apparently the Rise of the Beast toys will continue into 2024 and there will be more reveals at Comicon, but they're done with ROTB toys today. -Pulse-exclusive Core-class Optimus Prime with a trailer and the Bumblebee from the Bumblebee/Spike Buzzworthy pack. Unlike Legacy, the trailer actually comes with a Roller that can pull the trailer, and the Autolauncher drone is properly blue with the arm and antenna. -Legacy Evolution Wave 4 -Deluxe-class Shadowstriker. It's the one that previous leaked, the one that looks like Side Burn. I'm still betting on a Side Burn retool, but they're saying that she looks like Side Burn because the before Cyberverse there was a Shadowstriker in Universe that was a repaint of Side Burn. -Deluxe Bombshell. The one that leaked -Deluxe Strongarm. Her alt mode looks a little wide and low to be a truck, and it's because she's a retool of Elita-1. But the bot mode looks pretty nice. -Deluxe Detritus. It's a tan version of the leaked Earth-mode Hound that never came out. -Core class Snarl. Looks like the best of the Core-class Dinobots to me. Volcanicus looks OK... probably could use some real feet. If you missed Sludge and Slag they'll be repacked into Wave 4 with Snarl -Voyager-class Bludgeon. They're saying it's based on Milne's Bludgeon, but it's a fairly minimal retool of Tarn (new head and a new sword weapon). -Voyager Trashmaster. It's a garbage truck, and garbage trucks are criminally under-utilized in Transformers. Can still swap parts with the Deluxe Junkions. Mark hinted at a planned combined mode for the Junkions. -Leader class Dreadwing. Another one that leaked already. I don't hate it as much as some people do, but yeah, the translucent red is out of place, and the G1 Skyquake nods don't really apply. -Dead Prowl and Ironhide. I mean, the preorders already went out... -The Trooper pack. In person "Seeker" looks more purple than blue (Hotlink?). These figures will be up for preorder today, but they have reveals that will be available to preorder on Thursday. -VNR Optimus. The earlier Canadian release was a warehouse mistake. And for those that didn't follow it then it's Holiday Optimus Prime in G1 colors. -Antagony/Scavenger. It's Legacy Inferno redone in black and purple, but they're including the head from Transmetal Scavenger. Antagony is the last Gen Selects release for the year. They did mention that they'll have another reveal that they think we know about already. I suspect they mean the War Dawn pack with Dion and Aerial, which again was sold in Canada already but I believe was supposed to be a Comicon pack. I'll try to get picks up of the reveals later.

I'm a Trekkie and DS9 is my favorite, so I'm definitely not the best person to do a DS9/B5 comparison.

I never watched Babylon 5, but my it's one of my buddy's all-time favorites. I guess he's pretty hyped. Did they ever do a remastered version of B5 with new CGI that doesn't look like PlayStation 1-era cutscenes?

Some rumors from a reliable source. In 2024 we can expect- -Deluxe-class Cybertron Hot Shot. Presumably the sports car, known as Exillion in Japan, since they already did the Cybertron Defense version from Siege Hound. (Also, is it weird that I think I'd have preferred the Energon version of Hot Shot?) -Studio Series Core-class Steeljaw. Yeah, as they look to fill those Core-class slots they're resorting to giving us Lockdown's dog from AoE. -Deluxe Strongarm. I feel like I've mentioned this one before. -Leader-class Soundwave. Now, at this point a lot of people are gushing about the possibility of a new G1 Soundwave that isn't a retool of Siege and stuck in Walmart limbo. And I do have to admit that it'd be pretty cool to have him hit a Leader budget by giving us a Voyager-sized toy and packing in a bunch of tapes. That said, I have a feeling it's going to another Soundwave, most likely Cybertron (although I'd low-key love if they did a "comics universe" Soundwave with an APC alt mode). -SS86 Leader-class Springer. OK, this one might be the most interesting of all. I mean, I dig Siege Springer a ton, and I'd have been happy if they re-released that figure with a more movie-accurate deco. But Leader-class suggests this is a whole new mold, and SS86 means it has to be G1 Springer, not something like the unused Osprey from Revenge of the Fallen. My only concern here is that Hasbro doesn't have a great track record with Leader-class triple changers... Lastly, not a rumor but news with a ton of speculation. 2024 is the 40th anniversary of The Transformers, and Hasbro is apparently giving the 3D models of the original G1 toys to licensing partners to make toys with. While, fingers crossed, I'm hoping we can see some straight G1 reissues I suspect that we're going to see more re-imagined stuff. Y'know, like Optimus Prime pulling a Target trailer or something.

Personally I haven't had enough time with it (after installing my games and making sure they ran, I went and played on my desktop). Other people's testing suggests that when set to 720p, 60hz, 15w that battery life is comparable to the Steam Deck, but frankly I think the Steam Deck's battery life is pretty unspectacular. I'd guess that running at 1080p 120hz would theoretically drain the battery faster, but I'd also imagine that to even think about hitting that kind of performance you'd need to crank up the wattage, and that's what's going to eat up the battery. At 15w I had to set Jedi Survivor to 720p low with ray tracing off and FSR to performance to get "playable" frame rates in the upper 20s. Same settings in game, but plugged in and the APU at 25w i can get mid 40s. EDIT: Actually, Jedi Survivor turned it to be pretty much unplayable. I kept getting an error about running out of VRAM and crashing to desktop. I don't think that's on the Ally, though, as I'm heading reports of people having that issue on high end PCs with RTX 4090s. But it runs ok on my 2080, so, whatever. Diablo IV runs pretty good, though. 1080p Medium at 15 watts will get me into the high 30s to mid 40s, and if I plug in and crank it to 25 I'm in the high 50s. EDIT 2: Tried Jedi Survivor on the Steam Deck, even though it's listed as unsupported. I was able to log into EA's launcher and get into the game, and it ran about the same as on the ROG Ally- 720p low without ray tracing, FSR to performance, 15w, framerates in the upper 20s/low 30s. Not ideal, but playabled... until it crashed. I'm guessing it's the same VRAM leak, but I'm not sure because instead of crashing to desktop it locked up the Steam Deck so bad I had to hard reset. I guess we wait for more patches? I haven't had the issue on my desktop, and FWIW my desktop has an Intel CPU while the Steam Deck and ROG Ally both have AMD.

Well, I'm not doing a vacation right now because I tore my meniscus. But I did indeed buy an ROG Ally. And I have to say, it's greatest strengths are also it's greatest weaknesses. I mean, the big one is Windows 11. With Steam Deck, you're limited to only compatible games from your Steam library (at least, without jumping through a bunch of hoops). Don't get me wrong, Valve's been doing an amazing job with Proton and I've found that most untested and even some unsupported games actually do run well on the Steam Deck, but it's a known issue that some games use an anti-cheat software that just isn't compatible. And while it is technically possible to boot your Steam Deck into desktop mode, grab the Battle.Net installer, add the installer to Steam as a non-Steam game, run it with Proton Experimental, install Diablo IV, then find the .exe and add that to Steam as a non-Steam game, it's a couple of hoops that the less tech-savvy might not feel comfortable with. But since the ROG Ally is running Windows 11, you can install pretty much any game from Steam... or Battle.Net, or Epic Store, or EA, or Ubisoft Connect, or Xbox, or Amazon Games, or GoG Galaxy. And yes, I do have all those installed on my desktop, and yes, I did install all those on the Ally. And, wouldn't you know it, the two games I happen to be playing right now are Jedi Survivor and Diablo IV, the former of which I do own on Steam but still requires the EA app, and the latter of which isn't available on Steam. So, compatibility is good! But out of the box I was only able to install those games on the Ally after setting up Windows, then downloading a truck load of Windows updates, then updating the BIOS/Firmware on the Ally, then updating Armory Crate app, then removing a ton of bloatware, then removing normal PC apps that would be totally fine on a laptop but I promise I'm not going to use Office on this thing. I unboxed the Ally at around 11:00am and I didn't test a game on it until close to 6:00pm. And about that Armory Crate app... it's basically Asus' front end for launching your games (regardless of what service they're on) and managing certain settings like how many watts the APU can draw or setting a maximum frame rate. And, it works... after you've updated it. But IMHO it's a bit ugly and barebones, and I often found myself exiting Armory Crate and going to the Windows desktop because it was just easier to do what I wanted there, despite only having a 7" screen for my fat fingers to poke. What SteamOS gives up in compatibility it makes up for in polish, the Steam Deck might in truth be a Linux PC, but unless you reboot into Desktop mode it behaves like a handheld console. I think the other main selling point for the Ally is power. Asus claims that the Ryzen Z1 Extreme chip in the Ally is twice as powerful as the custom APU in the Steam Deck. Benchmarks have been inconsistent; generally, I've heard that the poor showing the review samples made in May has mostly been corrected through updates, but at least one user claimed those same updates actually made his Ally's performance worse. Generally speaking, though, at 15 watts and the same game settings the Ally does indeed perform markedly better than the Steam Deck, plus you can even push the Ally's APU higher (though you'll probably want to be close to an outlet, as you'll run down the battery in under an hour that way). But then ASUS went and packed a 1080p, 120hz display on the Ally (vs the Steam Deck's 800p 60hz). But outside of lightweight indie games you're unlikely ever see that many fps. Depending on the game, you might not even be able to run it at 1080p. One final thing to note is the design itself. Totally subjective, but while I wouldn't suggest the Steam Deck's utilitarian design is "sexy," I prefer it to the aggressively "gamer" aesthetic of the Ally. The Ally does run quieter and is a little lighter, but I think the Steam Deck is actually more comfortable to hold and has better buttons. If you're looking for the TL;DR, the Ally isn't bad, and I think Asus priced it fairly aggressively, plus you can just pop into your local Best Buy and see if they have any. If you're a PC gamer with a large library of non-Steam games, or one of your favorite games isn't compatible with SteamOS, it's worth looking into. However, I think the Steam Deck is probably a better choice for most people looking to play a little PC on the go.

FYI, the pair of packs I posted about last night is available to preorder at Target. The trooper pack is sold out on Pulse, but you can still get Ironhide and Prowl's corpses there, if you prefer. I decided to order both from Target. If I see the Trooper pack in the wild I'll probably grab a second, and at that time I'll probably have an extra Thundercracker... I mean Seeker if anyone wants him and only him.

As opposed to one corpse in a box? Because I'm thinking I might get the set to go with this guy: And we know SS86 Brawn is coming, and SS86 Ironhide will be retooled into SS86 Ratchet. That's another box set of corpses waiting to happen. Here's hoping Hasbro's planning a new Windcharger soon so he and Wheeljack can complete the collection of SS86 corpses.

So... Transformers One?

Good news for anyone who didn't want to buy a dead Prowl to get a G2 Wildrider... turns out he's actually coming with a dead Ironhide instead. Also coming is a troop builder 4-pack, with a Quintesson trooper (Alicon repaint), Animated Universe Autotrooper (Siege Ironhide retool), G2 Universe Cybertronian trooper (Skullgrin retool), and a Decepticon Seeker (Thundercracker... no, seriously, it looks like it might be a darker blue, but that's about it). What's cool is that everyone but Thundercracker has an alternate head, so you really could buy two and troop build.

I liked Charlie. But yeah, on that note I rewatched Bumblebee with my daughter, and I'm watching that beginning scene in Cybertron and thinking "This is awesome! Why can't they just do THIS, but feature-length?" My understanding is that today is less about having a human character for audiences to relate to and more about CGI robots being expensive to animate.

Yeah, I don't want to get anyone's hopes up. I should have elaborated more but I was on my phone. Pros: Even though I can't stand Pete Davidson, and his character in the movie isn't much like G1 Jazz or G1 Mirage, he was actually pretty funny. Arcee was also great, and voiced by Susan Blu. I liked Michelle Yeoh as Airazor, and she had a decent amount of screen time. Scourge was a pretty menacing villain. Optimus Primal was the kind of character you'd expect a guy named Optimus to be. There's a scene with Bumblebee that put a smile on my face, and a scene very late that hints at a possible Hasbro cinematic universe. The overall plot was easy enough to follow without giant leaps of logic and continuity errors that seemed to plague the four films between Transformers and Bumblebee. Cons: The story starts off really slow, as they first spend way too much time showing, in detail what one human's family situation is and why he needs money but is having trouble getting a job, only to shift to another human character for a bit. After the intro scene, you're seriously looking at like a half hour before you see any Transformers again. When you do, Optimus is kind of an out-of-character jerk for most of the movie, while Bee gets pretty minimal screen time. That said, Bee's time on screen is massive compared to Rhinox and Cheetor. And for all of her screen time Airazor doesn't even transform into robot mode. Wheeljack turns up halfway through the movie, and he's just awful. Nightbird and Battletrap were potentially cool villains, but they're not really developed, as the Terrorcons seem content to use little Frenzy-looking dudes to do most of their business. All-in-all, Beast Wars fans are going to get a kick out of seeing some of their childhood heroes on the big screen, just like we did with Prime and Bumblebee back in 2007. Like the '07 movie, it's a mostly-entertaining popcorn flick, with too much human crap and underdeveloped Transformers. It's pretty and has lots of explosions. It manages to not be trash like most of the Transformers movies, but lacks the heart that Bumblebee had.

I'm going to try some floor polish. See if that helps. I could try to permanently lock the joint, but I'm loathe to do it since sometimes you actually do want that kind of articulation on a sword-wielding hand. Thanks, but TDW gets the credit. I really want to get my hands on their Abominus kit, but it seems like it's going for way, way, way too much on the aftermarket. Their King Poseidon set is still available, though I'm unsure if I want to spend money on that one. It looks really nice installed, but it seems like it was designed for King Poseidon to be kept in combined mode permanently. You have to remove parts from Turtler/Snaptrap that weren't really meant to be removed, you have to attach the parts that bulk up the thighs with screws, and to use the new elbow joints you have to pull the legs off of the arm bots, capture their pelvises inside the new elbow joints, then attach the legs onto ball joints on the new elbows. And after all that you don't even get new hands.