mikeszekely

Menasor was one of the worst (if not the worst) of the Combiner Wars gestalts, and the Legacy version was a huge upgrade. I hope the rest get similarly upgraded! Until they do, though, it occurred to me that the Combiner Wars/Power of the Primes are about the best we've got, so at one point I went and picked up a used Takara Computron with Perfect Effect hands and feet. Piranacon already has ankle and finger articulation, so I left him alone, but I grabbed KO PE hands and feet in silver, white, and black for Bruticus, Superion, and Defensor, respectively. I'd like to get an upgrade for Abominus but I can't really find one at a reasonable price. I'm not counting Devastator or Predaking since they're way out of scale. So who'd that leave? Volcanicus. And, again needed to buy something to hit that $150 free-shipping mark, I wound up buying the Transform Dream Wave TCW-06T kit, even though Volcanicus is also one of the worst gestalts Hasbro has done. As I said, this is the 06T version, which I believe is a slight recolor of the original release meant for the Volcanicus gift set redeco. So what do we get with it? What does it do? Well, for starters, you may recall that Slag and Sludge came with guns and hands but not swords, Snarl and Swoop came with swords and hands but no guns, and Grimlock came with feet and... well, just feet. So the first thing TDW addressed is the missing weapons. Weirdly, we get doubles, though. Two guns for Swoop, two guns for Snarl, and two guns for Grimlock. Plus, two swords for Slag, two swords for Snarl, and two swords for Grimlock. What's interesting is that all the guns are simply doubled- two of each, both black. But the the swords come one in plain black plastic, one with the blades painted with a nice yellow-to-orange fade (which is, in fact, the easiest way to tell if you have the regular or T version of the kit... the blades are red on the regular). With two hands each, though, you'd likely want to use one gun and one sword for each Dinobot, right? So, really, instead of using all that plastic to double up everything that they did give, I'd kind of rather they instead made a new gun for Sludge. Sure, he came with one, but it's the same one as Slag's, and accurate to G1 Slag but not G1 Sludge. Oh well. Oh, and I suppose Swoop's the one guy I do want two guns for. because I'd like them to go on his wings like the G1 animation model. And they're supposed to! There's molded fins that are supposed to double as tabs that fit into the slots meant to lock his wings in place in limb mode. I don't know if it's due to different tolerances between the 06 and 06T kit and the retail PotP Dinobots vs the gift set, but there was zero chance that they were going to attach to my Swoop's wings. I even tried on the toy-style Gen Selects Swoop, and nope, not going to happen. The rest of the kit is lots of parts that are really meant for combined mode... a new chest piece, and new back piece, some pelvis armor (front and back), parts to bulk up the thighs, some fillers, new hands and feet, and a pair of swords (again, one solid black and one with the yellow/orange fade). I'm going to let you guys in on a little secret... at this scale, at retail prices, I actually don't care if some partsforming is necessary, as long as the gestalt is good. Save the clever all-in-one engineering for MP-scale stuff. So on that note, I'm actually fine with a box of parts that serve no purpose except as combiner bits, but TDW seemed to feel that everything should have a use. So, the chest, back, and front of the pelvis combine to form a shield of sorts. The front of the pelvis? Another shield. Thigh fillers? Stick them together and you've got a shield. The other fillers? A pair of guns. But wait, there's more! The feet come apart, and each foot contains one part that's like a mini missile pistol and two rifles, while the black part can be yet another shield. The hands fold over on themselves to be still more guns. And the toes... well, they're just leftover. I'm a little curious why they managed to turn everything else into a shield or a gun but they couldn't be bothered with the toes. That kind of half though out attitude carries over into storing the kit in dino modes. The chest/back/pelvis shield can attach to Grimlock's back, and it's even got bits that allow you to store both of Grimlock's guns. And you'll find some 5mm ports on the hips of Snarl, Slag, and Sludge that you can plug some guns into. But you're going to quickly realize you have more weapons that you do 5mm ports to store them in. I'm not really mad though. With all the regular doesn't-turn-into-combiner-bits swords and guns they included I don't actually need more guns and shields, for either robots or dinos. So as far as I'm concerned just because they can be weapons doesn't mean that they're not all just a pile of combiner bits. And to that end, let's get him combined. We'll start with the limbs, because they're the easiest. You just replace the Hasbro hands and feet with the TDW ones. That said, while the quasi-official configuration is to have Swoop and Slag as arms and Sludge and Snarl as legs, I recommend swapping Slag and Sludge. You're also going to want to open up Snarl's tail. We'll get to that in a minute. Most of these parts are actually going to go on Grimlock. So get him into his normal combined mode, then grab the TDW chest. There's gold tabs that will fit into gaps in his original chest, so lift Grimlock's dino head, slide the chest on, then use red clips to grab onto his stock waist before pushing the dino head back down. Next, turn Grimlock's arms so that instead of facing forward his dino hips are more downward-pointing, at an angle. His robot forearms won't be able to be tabbed in this way, but that's alright. Get the new back piece, and you'll find tabs that fit into slots on the stock back (be sure the hinged back inside is pointed up). When the back piece is attached you can plug the 5mm ports on Grimlock's forearms into the angled ports on the armatures sticking off of it to lock everything in place. Now we'll add those filler bits hat could be used as pistols. They're simply to help cover over Grimlock's robot hands and make that area look more solid. They attach by sticking a slot on their backs into tabs on Grimlock's shoulders. While he's on his back, we can install his new butt. Start by taking Grimlock's legs out of the official combined mode and straightening them back to bot mode, then spreading them a bit. The new but has a winged post with a port on it. That port will plug into a peg on the stock Volcanicus crotch, and the wings will keep him from bring his thighs back together too closely. The finish securing the butt, take the side skirts and fold them over. Slots on them will fit onto tabs on Grimlock's thighs. With the butt in place we can attach the new crotch. All you want to do here is stick the angled tabs on the back into cutouts on the stock Volcanicus crotch. The difference, as far as the crotch itself goes, is kind of minimal, but you'll notice that it fills in his waist and better matches it with the red from the new chest. We have to attach the legs before we go any further, and this is why we have to adjust Snarl's tail and why I suggested swapping Slag and Sludge. You'll notice that, with the reconfigured legs, Grimlock's tail kibble is now on the front of Volcanicus' thigh. Sludge's head can't quite get out of the way, forcing you to either turn Volcanicus's lower leg out at an angle or to bend his knee. Slag's head, though, can get out enough. Meanwhile, while Snarl's tail can't actually move out of the way, you can open it to allow Grimlock's tail to sit in between the segments of Snarl's. In any case, one you have somebody attached in the lower limb spots, you can attach the thigh fillers. They fit onto the sides of the thighs, with a flap that goes across the front and pegs onto the little nubs for Titan Master feet that happen to be there, while another flap fits around the back of the thigh and clips over the inside edge. Not gonna lie... the "before" Volcanicus looks terrible. Just irredeemably wonky proportions all around, (but especially bad if you're not using the extra hands as torso filler). But with the kit, I dare say he actually looks pretty good. The new torso parts bulk up and fill in, raising the combiner ports helps him look less gorilla-armed, and simply having smaller, five-fingered hands, larger feet, and thicker thighs does wonders for his proportions. No one's going to mistake Volcanicus for something that might go on an MP shelf- Volcanicus is still largely limited by his constituent parts, meaning things like gaps in places you don't really want 'em, dino limbs that aren't really tucked away, and elbow joints formed from the waist and knees of the arm bots, complete with thigh gaps. But the upgrade Volcanicus no longer looks like trash next to Legacy Menasor, and that's really enough for me. We can arm Volcanicus up with his swords; his hands have 5mm cutouts in the palms, and despite their large size the swords have 5mm peg-shaped bumps on the handles. They ahso have 5mm pegs on the hilt, and you can plug them into the 5mm port on the center of his new back (if you're just using one sword) or into the 5mm ports on the backs of the armatures that secured Grimlock's forearms (if you're using both swords). Note that the swords are fairly hefty, and the wrist pegs have hinges. On my copy he had trouble holding the sword straight because his wrist would want to bend down under the weight. Speaking of the wrist hinges, in addition to adding that bit of articulation the new hands have individually-articulated fingers with three hinged knuckles on each finger, plus an additional hinge to allow the fingers to splay outward. The thumb has two hinged knuckles plus a ball joint at the base. The ball joint allows the thumb to both swivel and fold over the palm. Aside from the hands, I'm not sure that the kit really adds or subtracts from the articulation of the base gestalt. Like, he's got ankle pivots, but unlike Combiner Wars the POTP feet always did. His shoulder, bicep, elbow, waist, and knee articulation is unaffected. He has a thigh swivel, which I think he did before. The only thing he doesn't have is lateral hip movement. I think he technically did before, but I also think that you weren't practically going to use it anyway. Transform Dream Wave doesn't seem to have the experience that, say, DNA or Perfect Effect do. They have big ideas, which I applaud them for, but tolerances are sometimes an issue. Even still, this kit is a drastic improvement over stock Volcanicus, and if you're displaying Volcanicus on a shelf somewhere and you don't mind some extra partsforming you really should consider picking this kit up. That said, the stock figure is still Volcanicus. With Volcanicus being a newer creation, not from the original cartoon, and the Studio Series 86 Dinobots killing it, I wouldn't advise hunting down Volcanicus just to get this kit for.

I'm into open world Ubisoft, so I'll definitely keep Outlaws on my radar, along with the Phantom Liberty Cyberpunk expansion, Starfield, Avowed, Forza Motorsport, and Metaphor.

I thought it was ok. Kind of on par with the 2007 movie.

I'm hearing this will be part of the Velocitron collection. So... Dragstrip was a Walmart exclusive, Dead End's going to be a Walmart exclusive, but if the rumors I'm hearing are right Wildrider is a Target exclusive (and comes with dead Prowl). Huh.

Brace yourselves for a long one. DK-40 isn't the only kit I got. I also picked up DNA's DK-38 upgrade kit for Legacy Menasor. So let's see... looks like we've got two new thighs, a new front of the pelvis, two new hands, a new chest, a larger sword, some shoes, an important (if unimpressive) extender for the trailer hitch, a bag of screws, and five parts whose purpose is not immediately clear, three gray and two purple. We shall henceforth refer to them as "bits and bobs." Well, we've just opened the box and I already have two (relatively minor) complaints. The first is that this is a kit for Menasor, not the Stunticons. That means that there's no rifle for Motormaster. Well, that's OK, I got a loose rifle from a G1 Menasor for relatively cheap back when I got Motormaster, and I do believe that it might be the best rifle for the Legacy toy anyway. But the second complaint is related. Sure, there's a big sword so Menasor doesn't have to use Motormaster's tiny one, but there's no Menasor-sized rifle. And that, as we'll see, might be a bit more problematic. But let's get this kit installed and see what it does do. First, we're going to remove these screws from the bottom of Menasor's hands. When you open them up note that there's a ratchet part, you'll need to remove that and stick it into the DNA hand. Then it's just about capturing the wrist and screwing the new hand back together- use the smaller screws DNA included (there's only enough of the small ones for the hands, and then the rest of the DNA screws are the same after that). So what's new with DNA's hands? Articulation! The stock hands are molded fists with 5mm ports... which is fine on smaller figures, even up to leaders, but for Menasor and up it's a bit inadequate. Even the crappy hand/foot/guns from Combiner Wars have at least a hinge at the base. Well, the DNA hands have each finger individually-articulated. There's hinges at the all three knuckles, but a hinge to allow for finger spread. As for the thumbs there's hinges at two knuckles for curling the thumb and one at the base for folding the thumb over the palm. More articulation is always better than less, so this is a pretty significant upgrade. Next up is the pelvis. Turn him over and remove five screws from his back side. With his butt removed you can lift out the waist on it's mushroom peg and the hips and thighs, along with the ratchets in the middle. Before you toss the original pelvis, note that there's two ratchet parts inside that you'll have to move to the new pelvis, and that getting them into their nooks is probably the hardest part of this operation. Once it's done, side the new front onto the waist, drop in the hips/thighs, and replace his butt with the original (but using the DNA screws this time). What's different here? Seems DNA tried to stay close to the look of the original, but for some weird reason took the concave purple area and made it convex. The main difference, though, is the hip skirts that fill it out and cover the hips a bit more than the stock part. You technically don't even need to do this part if you prefer the stock pelvis, so your mileage may vary on this one. The thighs come next, and this step seems to be the one most people are complaining about, but there's at trick to it. OK, first, undo the two screws on the inside of the thigh. Carefully split it open- there's a spring inside pushing on the gray part in the combiner port. With both pieces of the thigh off, slide the outside part of the DNA thighs onto the hip's mushroom peg. Take the original spring, put it over the little peg on the original gray piece, then line it up into the thigh. Now, you'll notice that the spring will want to push back out when you try to put the other side of the thigh on. What you want to do is grab the lower leg and place it into the combiner port. This will provide enough tension to keep the spring from just pushing everything back out while you put the other side of the thigh back on (with DNA screws). The result here is pretty obvious- longer, thicker thighs. Proportionally, Menasor's stock thighs are too short. This does fix that, but it'll make his legs kind of long-ish overall because his lower legs are still too long. OK, now the chest. To install, you have to remove the stock chest by taking this tensioned rivet and forcing it out. Then the replacement chest, which just has a simple peg. And we can complete our Menasor upgrade by taking his feet and just sliding them forward into the slippers. If you did it right, the peg on the back of the inner edge of Menasor's foot will clip under a hook on the inside edge of the slipper. And here we have our upgraded Menasor. His feet are a bit bigger, which is fine I guess. They do feel a bit more stable than the stock ones. And the longer thighs make him look less gorilla-armed, as noted, but he's still kind of leggy because his shins are a bit long. Or maybe his torso isn't long enough. Not sure. One thing I am sure of is that if you were enjoying all your combiners being about the same size (save for the way-too-big Devastator and Predaking) that Menasor will now be a head taller than the rest. The new hands are great, the new pelvis is a lateral move from the old, but the chest... I'm not a fan. Normally, I do prefer a toy-style look to Menasor, but the problem here is that the red of the toy-style chest doesn't really work with the purple on the cartoon pelvis- the toy has a yellow-bordered red rectangle on the pelvis, and some red and yellow on the tops of his thighs. And what's the point of making the chest more toy-like if he's still got the cartoon head? Well, with Menasor upgraded and put back together we can arm him up. And to do that, we'll fit his new sword into either palm using an MP-style tab on the handle that fits into a slot on either palm. And hey, he looks pretty good, and all his joints are holding it just fine. But, the MP-style tab/slot comes with a distinct lack of 5mm ports. Which in turn means that he can no longer hold Motormaster's smaller sword (not that you'd want him to), but also none of the various 3D-printed Menasor rifles floating around out there. This makes DNA's lack of an included rifle a bit more of an issue, because no one else is going to support DNA's hands. Oh, and what about the gun from the turret you make from the leftover trailer bits? Menasor can't carry that anymore... at least not stock. OK, so first we're going to want to store Menasor's new sword. And that's pretty easy! On one side of the new hitch part you'll find a slot. That slot fits into a tab in the hilt of the sword. With the hitch attached the the sword, you can use the 5mm peg on the hitch to plug into the 5mm port on Menasor's back. You can even swivel it to get the sword hanging at an angle across his back. And that just leaves the bits and bobs... OK, start with the leftover trailer turret. Remove the gun, then open the bottom. Take the bit with the hinge, and slide it into the corner on side of the bottom so the peg on the bent hinge points toward the little wings, then close the other side to sandwich it in place. Speaking of those little wings, grab the two purple bobs and use the pegs on them to attach them to the 5mm ports on the wings. Now, grab the gray bit that looks a bit like a robot foot. There's little tabs at the top of the turret, near the peg where the gun sat. Attach the "heel" of the robot foot-thing using those tabs, then plug the gun back in under it. But not like it's sitting on a turret. Put the gun on so it's pointing straight up, with the robot foot on top of it. Last but not least, take the remaining bit and, using two pegs, fit it over the "step" in the turret, near the purple stripe. Now, slide the bottom of the turret over Menasor's hand, so the peg on the hinged bit we added plugs into a 5mm port just above his wrist. Balance the rest on his free hand, and you've turned his leftover trailer turret into a leftover trailer BFG with some extra bits and bobs on it! Well... it doesn't look very good, even with the extra bits and bobs, does it? And it's way too heavy... getting him in a pose without him falling over onto his face was a real bear. Honestly, I'd rather just leave it as a turret, especially since the various 5mm ports on it give you places to stow Motormaster's sword (and a gun, if you got him one), and maybe some of the other Stunticon guns, while they're in Menasor mode. And, unless you're a display and forget guy, you probably won't always have him in Menasor mode. Sometimes you'll want to have your Stunticons in alt modes. Or maybe in robot modes with Motormaster's trailer off to the side like Prime's. Right off the bat we have a problem... the new DNA chest is not compatible with transformation. You're expected to remove it and put the stock chest back on. I'll remind you that while you can pull the stock chest off, you clearly weren't meant to. I'd recommend just sticking with the stock chest all the time, making the new chest piece a total waste of plastic. Aside from the chest, though, the torso transforms just the way it always does, including plugging Motormaster's sword onto the purple clip. The hip skirts on the new pelvis are double-hinged and do not interfere with the thighs folding over. And the thighs have grooves so they line up properly, you just need to turn the thighs so that the combiner ports on the backs are facing each other. Once you have the torso in trailer mode, grab the new shoes. Unfold the panels on the bottom, and flip the toes over. Line it up in front of Menasor's chest, then fold the top down so that the peg and tab on the panel goes into the hole and slot on the new thigh part. Once both shoes are attached this the other panels will cover the old "front" of the trailer and lock together. Alright, now get the arm parts and transform them like you normally would... almost. You'll find that you're going to run into a problem- while the hand on the Dead End side fits over the pegs like the stock hand did, the hand on the Dragstrip side doesn't. It's too wide! Instead, DNA directs you make a fist and turn it the other way, palm down. Also, for now, leave the thumb on the Dead End side extended. Now take Menasor's new sword, pull the blade off, and split the blade into two. There's two tabs near the handle on the hilt on one side, they fit into notches in the trailer so the handle goes between the hands. Then you can fold the thumb extended thumb over the handle. If you have fit issues later, you may also find that extending the fingers on the Dragstrip side may help. Now for the leg parts. Fold the foot in, but don't close the panels yet. Take the purple bobs and you can loosely tuck them into the gap above the foot. Take the hinged bit and tuff it into the hollow space under one of the feet. Then you close up the panels and attach them together with the turret gun. You'll find that the parts of the blade have tabs on them that fit into a two holes near the combiner joints. Stick them there, then you can sandwich the legs onto the arms, and slide the front of the trailer on like normal. Grab Motormaster and the new hitch. Plug the peg on it into the port on Motormaster. Then the hole will fit onto the the peg that originally attached the trailer to Motormaster. We just have to store the remaining bits. DNA tells us to take the robot-foot-looking part and stick the square cutout at the "ankle" onto the same peg as the hitch. Meanwhile, a fin on the remaining piece is supposed to wedge into the gap between the arm sections of the trailer. But, guess what? Both parts fit so loosely that they're just going to fall off the minute I turn the truck right side up. I'd be pretty mad if those parts weren't useless in the first place. Well, good news! The new slippers extend the length of the trailer. That isn't just a necessity to cover over the longer thighs, it vastly improves the proportions of the stock too-short trailer. Better yet, it covers Menasor's chest, basically addressing all my complaints with Motormaster's alt mode. That said, the connection is a bit iffy. I don't think it's going to fall off, mind you... it's locked solidly onto the new thighs. That said, it's not actually attached to the stock trailer in any other way, and the sides are only held in place by clipping the front together. So where does that leave us? New hands, thighs, and sword, and a way to store the sword on his back that are improvements to Menasor (at the cost of making him a bit taller). New shoes that form a trailer extension, covering up the new thighs and combiner chest and improving the trailer's look and proportions in alt mode. Very nice! But they also come with a new pelvis that isn't all that different than the old, some bits and bobs that turn the leftover trailer turret into a BFG that's too big for Menasor to handle, and a partsforming chest that's just rubbish. And this is a relatively expensive kit. I really wish there was a kit that did away with the chest, the bits and bobs, and maybe the pelvis, and then shaved like $20 bucks off. Oh, wait. There is. There's a knockoff (that I suspect is actually from DNA themselves) going around under the name DKA-38 (as opposed to DNA DK-38) that does exactly that. Actually, I hear that the new hitch part is a bit improved to boot. So, yeah. There's some really good ideas in this kit that go a long way to improving Menasor, but you're better off buying the DKA kit to get what you need without paying for the parts you'll never use.

@M'Kyuun I see you painted Prowl's thighs. The black ones didn't bother me, but I'm realizing that not only did he not have black thighs in the cartoon that the G1 toy had gray ones. I'm wondering if silver might do...

If The One and Parkour both came out awhile ago, what was I waiting for before shipping? Well, something to hit free shipping. To ship Parkour from one store, I think it's more fair to say I settled on ordering DNA Designs DK-40 upgrade kit for Legacy Megatron. You get a few parts in this kit. There's a new dragon-mode chest, extra segments for the dragon tail, a new robot right hand, a new top for the robot head, a wig, and three new faces. Not gonna lie, I bought this kit just for the faces. Before we get to the faces, though, let's start off easy. Pick a segment on the bottom of Megatron's tail, and using a spudger or similar tool gently pry up the gold part. Do the same on the DNA tail part that has a ball socket. Gently pull Megatron's tail off of the ball joint you exposed, then insert the DNA parts by fitting the exposed socket on the ball joint you just vacated, then put the chunk of tail you pulled off onto the ball joint on the DNA part before replacing the gold parts. The gist here is that this makes Megatron's tail a little longer. Now, I didn't really have a problem with his tail as it was, but looking at the before-and-after pics I have to admit that his tail seems a bit more proportional with the extra segments. Plus, more segments means more joints, and more joints means more poseability. And while this does mean that his robot "pony tail" is longer, it still doesn't reach the ground or anything so there's no issues there. And for what it's worth, I think DNA did a really good job matching both the plastic and paint colors. If you didn't know he had an upgrade you wouldn't notice it. That said, if you do know it, you can spot some subtle differences. The purple paint is a little thinner, and the scales on the sides of the tail are mushier and less defined. For the rest of the kit we're going to have to break out the screwdriver. Starting again with the easier job, remove the two screws from the inside of Megatron's humanoid forearm. Remove the inner side. You'll find is hand has one of the screw posts running through it. Just slide it off and slide the new hand on, making sure the thicker side is on the bottom of the arm, then put his arm back togther. So what's the benefit here? Aside from folding downward for transformation Megatron's old hand had no articulation. DNA's hand has a wrist swivel, which I definitely like to see, plus the index finger is now separate from with articulation at the base and mid-knuckles. Not necessary in my book for a mainline Hasbro figure this size, but it's certainly nice to have. From here on out is a bit more involved, but the instructions make it look more complicated than it really is. Start pulling his head/tail/dragon chest assembly away from his body like you're going to transform him. On the red part that his head is sitting on and his dragon chest is hanging off of, remove the screw closest to the dragon chest (green). Loosen, but don't totally remove, the other screw (orange). When you pull them apart enough the head/tail will fall out. Then you can slide the chest off of the post (white). Turn the chest over. Remove the indicated screw and pull out the translucent orange part. Install the translucent part on the new chest, but DON'T use the original screw (for some reason- that's from DNA, not me). Instead, use the only screw DNA included in the kit. Once you've done that, you can slide the new chest back on the post. Here's a quick comparison between the original (left) and DNA (right). There's some significant differences... DNA used a lot less gold paint, especially on the chest but also by not overspraying the middle scales running down the abdomen. They also made the vents in the middle larger, and gave the ribs and sides a smoother, less scaled texture. DNA's also has those funky square cutouts, probably because of the hinges on the underside. I kind of think the DNA one looks cleaner, but prefer the extra gold on the chest of the original. That said, less gold is more cartoon-accurate, more gold more toy accurate. The main benefit to the new chest is supposed to be the aforementioned hinge. See, the original chest had no hinge, and kind of stuck out behind Megatron like a cape. But with the hinge, the new chest can tuck in against his butt. I guess that looks better? To be honest, while I can't honestly say that the old "cape" didn't bother me, I can say that it didn't bother me so much that I needed to "fix" it. And, sure, the DNA part is a minor improvement, but not so much that I'd call this part vital. It's more like it came with the faces I really wanted, so I might as well install it. Oh yeah, the faces. On the underside of the head/tail assembly there's a rectangular part with a cutout around a large round mushroom peg. Remove that rectangular part and set it aside (noting the orientation... the directions show you sliding it toward the back of his head, but they don't tell you that you have to rotate it 180 degrees to do that. When you're putting it back together later remember that the cutout points toward the back, the flat edge toward the front. Remove the screws Megatron's "ear" and the first tail joint, then pull the side of his head off. With the side of his head off, you can pull out his face and the translucent parts as one unit. With that unit freed, gently side the translucent part with the forehead crest and eyes off from the back of the face. Hang on to it! With that part out of the way, the top of the head is just loosely gripping the face and will come right off. Pick which face you want. You've got the original, which I didn't care for. I'm not sure what Hasbro was thinking with the default head... neither the original toy nor the cartoon had sharp teeth like that, and they combined with the slightly open grimace to make him look like a feral mouth-breather. The DNA faces are a bit softer, sure, and could probably use a bit of bluish tint, but overall they're significantly more cartoon-accurate and give you a better looking grimace, a more neutral scowl, and that smug smile that instantly calls to mind David Kaye's "yesssssss". That's the one I'm using for sure. So pop the solid red DNA head top on, slide back in the translucent part with the eyes, set the combined unit back into the head, close the head up, slide the part back onto the mushroom peg, fit it between the armatures it fell out of, and close it all back up. What, aside from cartoon accuracy, is the point of swapping a solid red top onto Megatron instead of the original toy-accurate translucent orange one? Glad you asked! You'll note that the DNA top has two slots in it that the original did not. Those slots are for the final accessory... the wig! Yeah, it's a "that thing from that episode" bit. Specifically, it's from the episode "Other Victories," where the Predacons are having a trial for Quickstrike. Megatron, as the judge, is wearing a wig. Personally, I don't really need it, am not going to display him with it, and will probably leave it in the box. That said... if they're doing the wig, they should have included a gavel, too. Oh well. Well, like I said, I really didn't like the original Hasbro face, and I bought this kit entirely for a replacement. On that, DNA definitely delivers, no complains there. I'm not really using the wig, but having it isn't a big deal, and as noted the solid red top is technically more cartoon accurate, so I'll call it a minor improvement. Likewise, I don't think the new dragon chest is anything exciting as it mildly improves a minor issue without actually fixing said issue, but a mild improvement is still an improvement. Then we come to the hand and tail. Again, neither were things that I felt I needed, but in person there's no denying that more hand articulation is better, and the tail does look more proportional. Ultimately I'm going to give this kit a recommend. It boils down to getting a vastly superior face for Megatron in a package with a lot not necessary but nice-to-have minor upgrades without any real drawbacks or introducing new QC issues the way DNA sometimes does.

I'd have preferred a translucent yellow chest (and doubly so for the real cockpit). But mostly Dreadwing's problem is that (aside from accessories) he's a straight repaint of Skyquake, and Skyquake was an amalgamation of Prime and Euro-G1, and the nods to Euro-G1 on Skyquake aren't actually applicable to Dreadwing. In other news, did you get the Walmart-exclusive G2 Dragstrip (sorry, "Shadowstrip")? Do you want a G2 Wildrider to go with him? Well, good news, I hear he's coming! Bad news, he'll be exclusive to Target. Worse news, in a two-pack. You want G2 Wildrider, you to buy him with '86 movie Prowl. "'86 movie Prowl?" I hear you saying. "I missed the Amazon two-pack and I need an Earth-mode Prowl! I actually want him more than Wildrider!" Yeah, I could see that, if he were simply the same Prowl figure with something like blue-painted windows or something to be more cartoon-accurate. But I didn't say cartoon, did I? I said '86 movie. So he's got a new head, complete with that "I'm dead" face he makes before coughing up orange smoke. And he's sporting his gunshot wound.

Sometimes you preorder something because you know you're going to want it. A new CHUG-scale Optimus for my Optimus Detolf? Heck yeah! Sometimes, though, it's FOMO. Fans Toys' insistence on small runs of overpriced figures sometimes means they don't just sell out, they pre-sell out, so you preorder their Jazz then later come to your senses when the early reviews talk about a PITA transformation and honestly it doesn't really look better to your eye than the Maketoys one already on your shelf, so you cancel that preorder. And occasionally, you FOMO preorder, forget about it entirely, then realize that you bought a new figure after you see the PayPal email. That last scenario is how I wound up with Fans Toys Parkour, their take on an MP Cliffjumper, despite feeling like I was pretty content with MMC's Hellion. Was I really content, though? I mean, I don't think Hellion looked out-of-place on my MP shelf, but the head sculpt was always kind of smallish and not one of their stronger sculpts. And his proportions are kind of weird with thin arms, a long, wide torso, a ton of gray tummy, and a short, narrow pelvis. Then there's Parkour. Now, I'll be the first one to call out Fans Toys' flaws, but sculpt isn't usually one of them. Parkour's proportions are pretty much spot on, and he really nails that Sunbow look down to the lines around his wrist. Credit to MMC where it's due, Hellion's overly-large chest is the actual alt mode roof, and while Parkour is able to nail that Sunbow look largely via a faux chest. Of course, MP-45 Bumblebee (as well as X-Transbots Toro) did the faux chest, and the results led to big, messy backpacks. And I can't really say that Parkour's back is the neatest, as he does have some flaps hanging on his back (basically the rear window and spoiler folded over the front windshield) like a cape. It's not the prettiest, and from the sides you can see gaps around the enveloped windshield. But I can't honestly say it's the worst, either. It's not nearly the gappy mess of origami panels that Bumblebee's is. Indeed, his actual sides under his arms are solid. Nor is his little kibble cape as massive as the half a car that dangles on the back of Toro. Parkour comes with the same sort of accessories you've probably come to expect with a Cliffjumper figure. You've got the skis for alt mode. You've got the bazooka. You've got a smaller blaster that looks nice, although I'm not sure how cartoon accurate it is. And you've got three replacement faces you can use instead of the default stoic one. There's a happy open-mouthed one, a more angry open-mouthed one, and a... well, I don't know what that expression is supposed to be. A slightly open-mouthed "uh, I'm going to forget I saw this" expression after stumbling on Wheeljack's search history? I don't know, but weirdly enough (given that I usually prefer the more neutral expressions) I kind of like it. Swapping faces is easy enough. There's a tab behind the face, and you pull it forward toward you, along with most of the head. Parkour's articulation is fairly standard, the sort of C+ effort where he checks all the required boxes but doesn't really go above and beyond, which is kind of typical for Fans Toys. His head can swivel, and a hinge allows him to look up 90 degrees, but there's no downward or sideways tilt. His shoulders swivel and extend laterally 90 degrees. His biceps swivel, and his elbows bend about 120 degrees on a single hinge. His wrists swivel, his thumb is fixed, but the other fingers are a single perma-curled part hinged at the base. His waist swivels, but there's no ab crunch. His hips are soft ratchets that go forward 90 degrees but only about 40 degrees backward, with the hip skirt moving up under the waist going forward (and sometimes needing a little manual adjustment coming back down). Hinged flaps on the side lift to give him a little over 90 degrees of lateral hip movement on friction joints. His thighs swivel, and his knees bend about 120 degrees on a single hinge. His ankles are actually ball joints, they swivel and he's got some limited up/down tilt. Unfortunately, his ankle pivot is similarly limited to well under 45 degrees. Parkour's guns have tabs on the back of the handles, and those tabs plug into the base of the palm going in toward the wrist. It works. And the working bipod and strong upward head tilt does allow Parkour to lay on his belly and aim his bazooka. Well, it's a Fans Toys figure, so you gotta figure that I'd have some complaints sooner or later. And, in a shocking revelation that I'm sure will surprise exactly no one, Parkour isn't very fun to transform. The rear bumper unlocks from his armpit and the entire rear third of the car explodes from his back, sandwiching his arms in front of his chest. That in and of itself wouldn't be bad, except that Fans Toys mixed double-hinged armatures, sliders, parts on ball joints, thin panels, and swiveling armatures into the mix. Now, generally speaking, what you're supposed to do will be pretty obvious, especially on subsequent transformations, but he's a tad finicky and in things are lined up just right the rear of the car won't want to tab together. Meanwhile, his legs collapse with minimal clearance an the entire nose and the doors unfurl from his feet. Then, just when you think you've got that in place, you're left with the backpack flap that forms the rear window, spoiler, roof, and front windshield, and the challenge becomes unfolding it so that the windshield tabs under the roof, then under the hood, and the spoiler into the rear while also lining up tiny pegs on the side windows to the underside of the roof. Really, I think Parkour's transformation is more intuitive than Hellion's, but Hellion's is easier to actually pull off. All that being said, Parkour's transformation isn't the worst Fans Toys has delivered, and it's a picnic compared to The One from yesterday's review. And hey, you might actually want to transform Parkour! OK, so I'm sure I've told this story before, but I was in my 30s before I realized Cliffjumper was supposed to be a Porsche. The penny racer style of the original toy carried over into the animation, and I took Cliffjumper for some kind of Japanese kei car with similar proportions to a Beetle. Indeed, even after knowing that Cliffjumper's supposed to be a Porsche I still have a hard time seeing the animation model's hard angles, big red bumpers, and continuous rows of red rectangles for headlights as the more tapered nose, black bumpers, pop-up headlights, rectangular marker lights/turn signals flaking a front plate bracket, etc of a Porsche 924. So when it came time to choose between Toro's realistic 924 alt mode (that didn't really look like Cliffjumper) or Hellion's semi-realistic, semi-chibi car I went with Hellion. And as good as Parkour's bot mode is, I'm pretty sure his alt mode is why I preordered. Parkour doesn't even pretend to be a Porsche 924. Fans Toys went all-in on the Sunbow look, actually delivering the "kei car" I remember from the animation. He's even got the overly-simplistic raised circle on a recessed circle rims the animators drew. But that's not to say that Fans Toys phone it in, though. Parkour's got wing mirrors, sometimes but not always seen on the animation model. The windows are tinted blue, but aside from the rear window they're translucent, not paint. The tires are rubber, and he rolls great. The rims are chrome, and even the lights are done in red chrome to make them stand out but still cartoon-red. He's got a little molded scoop from the G1 toy, and unlike the animation model he's got molded door handles. Speaking of the door handles, Parkour's doors can open in alt mode. It's a nice touch that can be used when displaying him with some human figures from some angles, but if you actually look inside there isn't much to see besides Parkour's crotch. He doesn't have an actual interior the way Hellion does... but that's fine with me. Frankly, I think Hellion might have wound up a lot less compromised if they didn't try to give him a more realistic interior. As for alt mode accessories, he's got the skis. They attach by wedging the wheels between the silver outside of the skis and a curved inner edge that grabs onto the axels. Parkour can carry his guns in alt mode, too. However, the smaller gun doesn't attach directly. You need to first fold up the handle of the bazooka, which will reveal a tab. That tab plugs into a notch where the rear window meets the roof. The smaller gun's handle folds back, and the barrel twists, revealing a slot that fits over the fin on the back of the bazooka and allowing the gun to have the clearance to lay along the bazooka's barrel. Personally, as I don't care to display my Cliffjumpers with the bazooka, I'd have preferred a way to store just the small gun. But I'll note that Hellion lacked any way to store his rifle or bazooka, and the only way to stow his smaller pistol was to toss it (loose) into his cabin. When given a choice between Fans Toys and a competitor I tend to prefer the competition. Sure, the paint and diecast do make for premium-looking figures to stick on a shelf, but I'm not a display and done guy. I like to mess with my figures, so I usually prefer figures with more articulation than Fans Toys offers, and with more fun transformations than Fans Toys will give you, and that's without mentioning that Fans Toys are almost always more expensive. I went with XTB over Fans Toys for both Perceptor and Kup. I decided against replacing my Maketoys Jazz with Fans Toys'. My Huffer and Brawn are both still BadCube. With their track record of good articulation, fun transformations, and solid build quality I'm especially inclined to go with MMC over Fans Toys. I actually sold off Fans Toys' Arcee and replaced it with MMC's, and consider the Fans Toys one to be one of the absolute most miserable figures I've ever handled. I never once considered Fans Toys' Springer, using Open & Play's as a stand-in until MMC released theirs. I was totally prepared to hate on Parkour, then sell him off and keep Hellion on my shelf. And yet, while it's true that Hellion has better articulation and a smoother transformation, as I noted Parkour's not the worst Fans Toys has done on either of those categories. But really, Parkour absolutely murders Hellion when it comes to looks. Side-by-side I can't help but see how goofy Hellion looks, and how spot-on Parkour is. And so far Parkour is the only MP-scale Cliffjumper that totally eschews any semblance of a real Porsche 924 and goes all-in on the animation model the way I want. Really, it's no competition. Parkour is hands down the better Cliffjumper. Even if you already have Toro or Hellion on your shelf, Parkour is worth picking up as an upgrade. The only reason not to is if you're holding out for the Takara one, but even then from what I've seen I'd probably still go with Parkour.

So, no joke, if Hasbro wanted to revive the Rock Lords brand as a separate toy line (or even as part of a Go-Bots revival) I'd be right there for it. My issue isn't with Rock Lords per se, it's with Rock Lords as new Transformers characters getting development budgets and slots in the lineup when they can't find the budget to make Breakdown a different car than Wildrider and a G1 season 1 cartoon mainstay like Gears hasn't had an update in almost ten years. I genuinely don't know what's going on over there, if they're giving designers free reign to get out the deep cuts like Devcon or mandating gimmicks like Fossilizers in a line aimed primarily at adults nostalgic for the '80s cartoon or what, but Hasbro needs someone else running the show for the Transformers brand.

Usagi wouldn't be my first choice for a DLC character, but I'm 100% in.

It seems like not that long ago when I was buying 3P stuff left and right, and actually swore off the mainline. Now? The last 3P stuff I looked at was in January. Like half a year ago! I guess it's a combination of having 3P MP-ish representations of most of the seasons 1-3 Sunbow cast and $150-$250 becoming the norm, but I've slowed down. To the point where I actually bought this figure months ago, but had it sitting in a pile waiting for that magical $150 "free shipping" milestone. This is SND's The One, a CHUG-ish take on IDW Optimus Prime. OK, it's not the more popular Don Figueroa IDW Optimus that's been done a few times by 3Ps (including the little guy on the right), this one's based on Andrew Griffith's design that first appear in Robots in Disguise #28. And in some ways, SND absolutely nailed it. The details on the legs, the gray joints at the top of the thigh, the wing mirrors on his chest, the outward-curving smokestacks, the (faux) arm wheels, the lights on the waist... it's all spot on. In terms of sculpt, my only real complaints are that he's a tad too skinny, and there's something just a little off with his head. I'm having a hard time putting my finger on it, though (aside from suggesting it might be a tad large). And The One doesn't just nail it from the front, either. He's not trying to hide a ton of kibble on his back. Indeed, the backpack he has is accurate to the comics. The only real deviation is that you can see the hitch on his heels, but Griffith drew the hitch on Prime's calves in the comics. What I do find disappointing, though, is the white. The comics are colored with a metallic sheen that tells you that pretty much everything you see as bare white plastic on The One should have been silver. Now, I'm not the type of collector that demands paint. I'm ok with bare plastic... when it's the right color. The white's just off, but I suspect that the designer was taking inspiration from Gunpla. Yeah, a lot of the parts on this guy are just kind of snapped on. The designer forgot to account for one thing, though- Gundam is white, Prime isn't. I guess I should also point out that although he's a bit shorter than a lot of MMC's Reformatted stuff, he's still a bit too tall to scale with Hasbro's mainline stuff. The One comes with a few accessories, and most of them are replacement hands. I know hands are more common with Legends stuff these days, but on a figure this size it again suggests to me that the designer was coming at this figure almost like Gunpla. Aside from hands, you get Prime's trusty rifle, a stand adapter, and a pair of energon blades that I want to blame on the legacy of Bayverse Prime, which might be true, but Prime did actually use them in the comics, so it's fair to include them. Oh yeah, The One also comes with a diecast Matrix. Would have been nice to have paint or colored plastic, but it is what it is. The One's head is on a hinged swivel, so he can look up a good bit, down a little, but no sideways tilt. His shoulders swivel and can move laterally over 90 degrees, and if you unlock them for transformation he's got some forward/backward butterfly. His biceps swivel, and his double-jointed elbows bend nearly 180 degrees. Note that the faux tires on his forearms don't really lock in place, so after posing his arms you will probably have to adjust the wheels separately. His wrists swivel, and there's a little inward wrist bend. His thumb is on a ball joint that can swivel and fold over his palm. His other four fingers are molded as a single part, permanently curled with a hinge at the base. That is, unless you swap out the hands- the others are perma-posed with no articulation. His waist swivels, and he's got a small amount of ab crunch/back bend. His hips move laterally nearly 90 degrees on friction joints, then nearly 90 degrees backward and 90 degrees forward on a ratchet. On his sides and back hip skirts flip up to get out of the way, but what's interesting is that in the front his hip skirt moves up with the hip, under his waist. And, since his waist doesn't actually leave enough clearance for the hip to get the full 90 there's a small joint at the top of his thigh that hinges just enough for him to get to 90. Sadly, as his legs contain a bit of diecast, they're a tad heavy and the friction between clicks is a little loose on the hips. Not ideal. His thighs swivel, and his knees are double-jointed. You won't get 180 degrees, but you'll be able to bend his knees until his calves touch his thighs. His feet have a slight up/down tilt, and about 45 degrees of ankle pivot. Unfortunately, this little bit of up down tilt is probably among the weakest of joints on him, so while he can pull off some cool poses it's not uncommon for him to just tip over backward because his ankles gave out. The One holds his rifle MP-style, despite being more CHUG-sized: tabs on the handle fit into slots on his palms. Swapping the hands is pretty easy, they're just pegged in. Simply pull and his hand will come off, then you can plug in whatever hand you can choose. The default articulated hands are the only ones that can hold his gun, though, and they fit for transformation. I didn't try the others, but the open hands and pointing hands definitely wouldn't, and I suspect the thumbs on the fists won't fit. So while they're nice options, I'll probably leave mine in the box in the closet. To use the energon blades, you open the outer flap on his forearm up toward is elbow (don't open the entire kibble flap backward toward the back of his arm). You'll see a slot near the end, that slot fits a tab on the base of the blade. As for the stand adapter, it clips around The One's undercarriage. And now, for the part where every positive thing I've said goes straight out the window. Transforming The One is a nightmare. I mean, you're probably not familiar with SND, right? Or if you are, maybe you might remember that they did an upgrade kit that turned Combiner Wars Optimus into a more MP-sized, Don Figueroa IDW Optimus. Well, there's a certain familiarity in the way the instruction book is formatted, but you don't even need to open the box to know why. The box is sealed with X-Transbots stickers, and The One ranks right up there with the very worst of Keith's over-engineered messes. Seriously, it took me over an hour to get this guy into truck mode, and I have cursed this much transforming a figure since Fans Toys' Rouge. There's a minimum of eight sliders that I counted. The front of his shins turn out to the side, rotate one one axis, then rotate on another axis just to flip around to the backs of his legs when there really isn't any reason for the front of his legs to end up there in the first place. But the worst is trying to tab his arms onto the middle section of a double-hinged armature. Everything has to be lined up just right, then you tab the parts with the tires in, and if you manage all that the next step is to bring the front of the cab over between the chest windows, which don't actually open with enough clearance to do so, and chances are something is going to pop off and his arms are going to come untabbed, forcing you to go back to three steps to try to line it all up right again. I very nearly quit at that point. This figure came out months ago, you guys don't actually need me to review it. But I powered on. It's a shame that transforming The One is such a colossal pain, because the truck mode is honestly pretty good. The cab is basically spot-on to the comics. We do encounter a bit of problems as we come to the rear, though. He's a tad too long, and most of that is because there's so much stuff extending back further than the rear wheels. Really, all that over-engineering and they couldn't find a way to collapse the legs better? If you could move the hitch forward, so it's over the wheels, then eliminate everything past the wheels he'd be pretty much exactly what you see in the comics. The One's hitch does have a shallow depression that looks like it can fit a trailer, but I don't really recommend it. For one, it's not a snug fit. For two, The One's a hitch is slightly too tall. But, and this is the big one, it's back waaaaaaaaay too far. The trailer would look a lot more natural if it actually pegged so it was just behind the red part on the sides, directly over the rear wheels. The One puts me in a bit of an awkward position. I would really like to see 3Ps get back into the CHUG game, so I wanted to support this project. I'd like to see more reasonably-priced figures, and this guy runs between $75 and $90, depending on whether you're buying from a domestic store or directly from China. And there are some definite positives here, like the articulation and the dead-on sculpt. If you'd also like to support more 3P CHUG offerings and you're interested in a pretty slick Optimus Prime action figure then this might be worth checking out. But do you want to transform your figures? Then stay far, far away from The One. Transforming this figure is enough to make you want to quit this hobby entirely and collect something less frustrating, like sneakers. Bonus fact! It's probably a little hard to tell, but Griffith's design was the basis for the "evergreen" design that became Combiner Wars Optimus Prime as well as Cyberverse Optimus Prime. I'm not exactly sure how evergreen the design truly is, though... while it was used for variety of merchandise and mobile games during Cyberverse's run, Earthspark has replaced it on TV and Rise of the Beasts Optimus has replaced it on merch.

I'm just frustrated. Most of the time Hasbro's been doing pretty well by me since Earthrise, right? Like I'm losing interest in spending $100-$200 on MP figures when $30 mainline figures are delivering what I want. But sometimes they just miss the mark (like Astrotrain). And they keep doing stuff like finding the budget for deep-cut characters like Devcon or newly-invented characters like a bunch of new Junkions (or, if the leaks are to be believed, guys who turn into rocks), but they can't manage to budget for important characters like Bombshell or Breakdown without retooling another character into a semi-accurate facsimile. Doubly frustrated because the characters Hasbro keeps cheaping out on are my favorite ones. If I had the money to get a 3P going, I'd focus on re-doing the figures Hasbro screwed up.

Following on that leak of Shadowstriker, here's another wave 4 Evolution figure: Bombshell. *sigh* Breakdown's my favorite Stunticon, Hasbro cheaped out and made and him 90% a retool of Wildrider. Bombshell's my favorite Insecticon, and wouldn't you know it, he's a retool of Shrapnel. Near as I can tell, it's a new torso, new head, new shoulders, but Shrapnel's arms from the biceps down and entirely Shrapnel from the waist down. I'll note that they don't show the back end of Bombshell's alt mode... probably because people are going to be miffed when they see toes pointing out the back. You know, people like me. I'm also not loving the black hips, gray hands, and gray biceps.

The articles mention who's producing it, but not who's animating it. The style seems awfully similar to Avatar: The Last Airbender (JM Animation) or Legend of Kora/Voltron: Legendary Defender (Studio Mir). Wouldn't be surprised if it's Studio Mir, they've worked with WB/DC before (the two Mortal Kombat Legends films, Death of Superman, Batman: Soul of the Dragon, and Batman and Superman: Battle of the Super Sons.

I think Takara's Hoist looks better than their Trailbreaker, but I don't really care for Hoist enough to replace the X-Transbots version I already have. Annoyingly, I don't actually have a Trailbreaker, and I might wind up with Takara's, but I really don't like the dark gray paint instead of black.

To be totally fair, this is Hasbro. There's a non-zero chance that he's mistransformed there. I'm in, regardless. Heck, I'm in it for the shaving cream accessory.

I was pretty much console-only back in the days of Diablo, and while I was aware of Diablo II as a major thing it sort of passed me by. I loved Diablo III... on console. I know a lot of PC Diablo fans complained that the skill trees were less trees and more like a straight line, and they have a hard time understanding why I preferred to play with a controller, but I think I was approaching Diablo III more like a twin-stick shooter than an ARPG. I did try Diablo II Resurrected and... I dunno. I think DII needed more than just a graphical overhaul. I'm sure it was fine at the time, but the grid-based movement just seemed too archaic to me. Couldn't get into it after playing games like DIII and Titan Quest. I'm definitely interested in DIV, but I'm not really in a huge hurry for it. I'm still working my way through Tears of the Kingdom, and my neighbor's been on me to play Jedi Survivor. I hear you can use a controller on PC this time? I think that'll be what I do... maybe pick up an ROG Ally and take it on vacation.

I was under the impression that the first Jurassic Park crossover didn't sell so well (it's still available and marked down to like $50 bucks), which, y'know, I kind of get that us '80s kids aren't as nostalgic for the '90s, but I thought it was a pretty decent set. But, yeah, I guess they're doing another one? Both figures appear to be new molds, so, neat. I'm in. This one's an Amazon exclusive. I don't know if it'll be on Pulse or not, so far no. Nevermind, it's on Pulse here. In other news, looks like Takara is looking to do a collab with Toyota and JAXA on a new Optimus Prime figure that turns into Toyota's new Luna Rover. Thing is, right now it's being crowdfunded on camp-fire.jp. If it gets funded, it will likely also make it's way to regular Japanese retail, but for right now it's a little out of my reach.

I think this was probably inevitable after Evolution Prowl... Prowl's not one of my favorite Legacy/Evolution figures (and Legacy/Evolution has usually been less appealing to me than Earthrise and Kingdom), but yeah, I'm in.

Shadowstriker (Deluxe, Evolution Wave 4) was leaked. And... oof. That's a lot of kibble. And sure, her limbs are the sort of thin you tend to associate with fembots, but then I'm also thinking that aside from the head it doesn't really look like Shadowstriker. I mean, there's no front-end on her chest, no doors on her forearms, no wheels in her ankles, etc... For reference, But I kept thinking, I've seen that chest before. I know I have. Shadowstriker's gotta be a pretool, but for what? After racking my brain for a bit, it hit me. That's 100% Shadowstriker's head on RID 2001 Sideburn's body, kibble and all. All I have to say is if they're hitting the RID 2001 cast I better get a Leader (or Commander!) Optimus Prime/Fire Convoy...

This. Don't get me wrong, I love the open-world approach, but part of BotW's mystique was the way you felt like you were journeying into unknown, untamed wilderness with tiny pockets of civilization. You get some of that in the depths, but it's also a lot of been there, done that. Keep playing. Impa will give you a quest to check out these big glyphs. Doing so will unlock memories that reveal that Zelda's story is much more interesting this time around.

I wish a GPU cost the same as a console. For me to really upgrade from my 2080 on actual performance and not simply more ray tracing or more frames through DLSS it's more like two consoles. I'd need practically the entire budget from my last PC just for a GPU.

The Studio Series stuff from last week's reveals is up for preorder. Brawn already sold out on Pulse, but I was able to preorder on Amazon. Weirdly I can't find Prime, Megatron, or Cliffjumper on Amazon but I pre-ordered them on Pulse. Rhinox is still available at both as of 2:00pm EDT.

Hot on the heels of last Tuesday's announced Studio Series Rhinox... I went ahead and bought the mainline Rise of the Beasts Voyager-class Rhinox. Have we seen CGI of Rhinox's bot mode yet? Because, generally speaking, I think this figure is pretty much what I've come to expect from the Maximals in this movie. He's got a limited color pallet, he's got more mechanical details, but by and large he's still recognizably Rhinox. He's still got rhino toes on his wrists, the crotch armor, the round head with the chin strap, and chunky shins. I'd say the biggest departure from the classic Rhinox design is that he's got sculpted pecs and abs instead of a massive lower jaw for a torso. Even from behind, he's still got the rhino head for a backpack. Note that the horns are not attached out of the package, probably so they don't fall off and out of the open-faced packaging. Once they're installed, though, you don't remove them again. Here's a quick shot of Rhinox with Studio Series Cheetor and ROTB Primal. Aside from Cheetor being super tall I'm pretty ok with this scale, and I think they look pretty good together. Rhinox comes with his signature gatling gun saw blade thingies. The 5mm pegs on them have plastic that wraps around Rhinox's fists, making it look like his hand transforms into them, which is cool... but I'm wondering if they're even in the movie? I'll note that the upcoming Studio Series Rhinox gets a hammer instead. Anyway... Rhinox's head is on a swivel only, no tilt. His shoulders can rotate and extend laterally 90 degrees. His biceps swivel, and his elbows bend 90 degrees, but he has no wrist articulation. His waist swivels. His hips go 90 degrees forward and over 90 degrees laterally, but his backpack kibble prevents him from getting more than 45-ish degrees backward. His thighs swivel, and his knees bend 90 degrees. His feet have a slight up/down tilt, and 45 degrees of ankle pivot. Let that sink in... ankle pivot on the cheaper mainline ROTB toys, but none of two out of three (technically at least three out of five, since Cliffjumper is a retool of Bee) Studio Series Gamer Edition? As mentioned, Rhinox's guns plug into his fists with plastic that covers over said fists so it looks like the guns are his hands, or his hands transform into guns. Rhinox doesn't have any casual weapon storage, but there are 5mm pegs on either side of the plastic that covers over his fists on the guns, and he has 5mm ports on either shoulder. This gives you at least one option for storage, in case you'd rather have Rhinox wielding Rhinox (I do, and I kind of want mini versions of all my Transformers that turn into guns for the bigger ones). Rhinox turns into a rhino, duh. The transformation is very similar to the Kingdom toy, but simplified. Like, in both cases their lower legs open and expand to form most of the rhino's rear half, but ROTB Rhinox has the rhino legs just hanging out of his calves whereas Kingdom Rhinox has them fold out from inside his robot legs in a more complicated (and with less clearance) process. His chest doesn't have to fold up, and his arms don't reverse butterfly and collapse to push his shoulders back. Instead, the shoulders are connected to panels that rotate 90 degrees. OK, now I know we have seen the CGI for Rhinox's rhino mode, and... this figures ok. Broad strokes, it's definitely a mechanical rhino with a lot of browns and some silvers. Digging in, though, the impression that I get from the CGI is that Rhinox should be more like bare metal, and what brown he has on him is more like dirt or rust. Also, despite being a mechanical rhino, the CGI has a dynamic, realistic rhino shape, whereas this guy looks like someone turned a refrigerator on its side, stuck some cinder blocks under one end, then stuck some tree trunks and a rhino head on the other. The articulation in rhino mode is pretty consistent with that visual description as well. His jaws can open, but there's no head or neck articulation. His front legs can still rotate and move laterally at the shoulders, and he's still got the bicep swivels, but turning his rhino toes forward means he has no functional knee/elbows. He's got a little bit of forward/backward movement in what I think is the rear rhino knees, but no hips or ankles, and no swivels. Those 5mm ports on his shoulders, and the pegs on the sides of his guns? Yeah, they're not really there for robot mode. They're there so that Rhinox can carry his guns in rhino mode. Rhinox reminds me a lot of ROTB Primal. In both cases you can kind of tell that they didn't quite get the budget for paint and engineering that a Studio Series release would get, but neither of them seem to put out by that, and both of them have an aesthetic that matches Studio Series Cheetor more than the mainline ROTB Cheetor. So, the question is, why bother if the Studio Series toy is coming? Well, for someone like me, there's the fact that I could grab this guy right off the shelf while my wife was looking for white shoes for our daughter's dance recital... it's less about "this is the definitive movie Rhinox toy!" and more the experience of buying a toy on a whim at the store instead of preordering it months in advance on Pulse or Amazon and just seeing what that toy is all about. I reckon, though, that most collectors aren't doing that. So, I guess my next question would be whether or not the Studio Series toy is actually going to be better. From the pictures, there's things I like about it but I'm not loving how thin and weedy his legs are (both in bot mode, and the rear legs in rhino mode). For now, I'm inclined to suggest waiting for the Studio Series toy, but I'd definitely want to have the Studio Series toy in-hand to compare before I make a final call.