mikeszekely

I've said before, but one of the few contributions brought by the Bayverse films I actually really liked was Barricade. So when Barricade was announced as one of the first Studio Series Gamer Edition figures I wasn't complaining. But maybe I should have been... let's take a look at this Deluxe-class figure. Barricade's inclusion in the War for Cybertron game almost seems like an afterthought, like someone at Hasbro wanted some names that would be recognizable to people who'd seem the then-recent Transformers film. So High Moon stuck him in the very first level of the Decepticon campaign... and that's it. The role of car-guy in the rest of the Decepticon campaign would go to Breakdown, and given the game's heavy G1 influences a Stunticon makes a lot more sense. I can't prove that Barricade's inclusion was just to appease Hasbro, but I think my theory holds water when you really look at High Moon's design for him. He's generic, mostly gray, and rather similar to the model used for Breakdown. There's not a lot about his design that recalls his Bayverse counterpart, and certainly none of the G1 blue-and-pink Micromaster. Still... it's a step up from painting Prowl black and purple and calling it a day. That said... I'm not sure Hasbro did such a great job capturing what we see in the game. The overall sculpt is decent, but crowded with kibble the game's model didn't have. The gray arms, shins, and pelvis are ok, as are the black thighs. His helmet and torso shouldn't be black, though, they should also be gray. If anything should be black, it's his gray feet. I wonder if Hasbro was working off of earlier High Moon art that depicted Barricade with more black than he actually had on him in the game? From the sides and back you can get a better sense of the kibble problem. Some of the backpack, with the boosters jutting out, is actually game-accurate, but it's lost in a huge chunk of his alt mode mode that isn't accurate. Likewise, his hips do have wheels in them in the game, but they're really in his hips, not on massive chunks of kibble that run along his thighs. Speaking of the wheels, again I wonder if Hasbro was looking at concept art instead of game files. In the game they had some gray but were mostly a glowing purple- Hasbro might have been better off using translucent purple plastic like they did for Siege Barricade. But High Moon's concept art does depict them as mostly black, with a Cyberverse-esque ring of purple light. Barricade's sole accessory is this gun. It does appear to be game accurate, but it's a bit of a bummer that he doesn't get any melee weapons the way Bee and Prime did. There's no way to sugarcoat this next bit... Barricade's articulation is atrocious. His head is on a ball joint, with an overly-tight swivel, limited up/down tilt, and no sideways tilt. That's not exactly true... he can tilt his head, but only when he swivels it. Actually, he can't not tilt his head when he swivels it. His shoulders are ball joints, and they swivel fine but only move laterally about 45 degrees. His biceps swivel, but with minimal clearance between the armor on his forearms and the armor on his shoulders, and his elbows only bend about 60 degrees. His wrists are ball joints, and they do swivel, as does his waist. Ball-jointed hips go 90 degrees backward, but only about 60 degrees forward and a bit under 45 degrees laterally. His thighs swivel, and his knees only bend 45 degrees. His feet tilt up, due to transformation... and you'll probably have to tilt them up a little bit, giving Barricade a kind of Michael Jackson Moonwalker lean, because he's a tad back heavy but has no heel spurs. So it's a shame to report that his foot tilts are probably the weakest joints on him, at least on my copy. Then the icing on the cake, no ankle pivots. I know, occasionally a movie figure will sneak into the Studio Series line without ankle pivots, but for the most part I thought those days were behind us. I guess Hasbro figured we were going to be made about the poor articulation anyway, so they might as well save a buck. Barricade, like Prime, has the gimmick where is right arm (and only his right arm) can be removed just elbow the elbow to reveal a 5mm post. That post plugs into his gun. And for the record, I checked, you can plug Barricade's gun onto Prime, but Barricade's shoulder has too much armor and Prime's gun has too much stuff on it for it to fit onto Barricade. When he's not using his gun, you can store it on Barricade's back by using a tab on one side into a slot on his backpack. Which I appreciate, since Prime lacked bot-mode weapon storage. Prime did have storage for his robot arm, though, and Barricade's got that too. You simple use a similar tab on the arm and the same slot on his backpack. And... yeah. I know that their forearms turned into guns in the game. And I get that it's a gimmick that the Studio Series Gamer Edition is set on capturing. But honestly, I think I'd prefer the hollow underside with a 5mm peg that fits over the forearm and into the fist. As it stands, what we're getting are weapons guaranteed to only work with this toys and run you the risk of losing the figure's actual arm in the process. I'm sure, with all that kibble, you're probably not surprised to know that Barricade is largely a shellformer. His feet fold up to his shins and do make the grill, and his lower legs make up most of the front of the vehicle. The rest of the front, with the wheels and headlights, is the kibble on the sides of his thighs swung into place on armatures. His forearms rotate 180 degrees, then his shoulders shrug downward to make the sides of the vehicle. But the top of the vehicle, its cockpit, is made from kibble that dangled off his calves, and the entire rear third of the vehicle is his backpack. Credit where it's due, though, Barricade winds up with a surprisingly large alt mode, given that he was roughly the same height to the top of the head as Siege Barricade but now he's something like 30% larger than the Siege toy. Unlike the robot mode, Barricade's alt mode is extremely accurate to the game. The sculpt is just about perfect. Event the rear of the vehicle is what you see when you're playing the game. And this time the balance of black and gray is mostly correct; I think they could have made the bumper black, but that's about it. My only real complaint is the lack of purple. Sure, they got some on the roof and the headlights, as well as a bit of purple lines in the cockpit. But he needs more along the side, in the wheels, and on the back. Barricade's weapon can mount onto the top of his vehicle mode. There's a squarish protrusion from the top of the gun. This protrusion plugs into a cutout in the purple glow area on top of the car. With Prime, Hasbro seemed to know they'd have to work to convince us to upgrade from the old Deluxe, especially given modern Voyager prices and the slightly shorter height of the new figure. But Hasbro mostly succeeded in my book by giving me a toy with better accessories, better articulation, better bot mode proportions, and a better transformation. Barricade is the polar opposite. It's as if Hasbro figured that with no prior War for Cybertron Barricade to compete with that we'd be happy to get any figure, then phoned this one in with lazy engineering that resulted in a kibble-covered robot that doesn't pose well due to totally inadequate articulation, the bare minimum in accessories, and colors that aren't even accurate to the game. The only redeeming quality this figure has is the alt mode, but that's simply not enough to excuse what is otherwise a massive step backward in Transformers designs. I don't recommend buying this. But, between this travesty of a figure and the fact that he completely botched the colors on Velocitron Scourge, I do recommend that Hasbro moves Sam Smith off Transformers and onto something like My Little Pony or NERF.

I sure have been talking about Optimus Primes a lot lately. Rise of the Beasts Voyager, ROTB Weaponizer, Studio Series Gamer Edition... and I know you guys know I have Armada Optimus preordered. I actually got pretty excited because I got an email from Pulse that I had a $90-some order shipping soon, and I got excited that Armada Op might be shipping early before I realized it was an order with a bunch of smaller stuff, including stuff I'd actually canceled already. Oh well, at least I'm not actually spending $90 right now. While we wait for Armada Optimus and any of the other figures I've got preordered, I do have yet another Optimus Prime we can look at... Deluxe-class Earthspark Optimus Prime. I like Optimus' Earthspark design, which strikes me (in bot mode) as more traditional than the evergreen Cyberverse version. I think this new Deluxe toy does a pretty good job capturing the cartoon. He could use a little silver or gray paint on his knees, and a little more red around the grill on his tummy. His pelvis isn't totally accurate, either, mostly because it's a recycled part from the Cyberverse toy, but they at least colored it correctly. Like I said, looks pretty good... from the front. Things are a little messier from the back and sides. For one, I'm not sure how Earthspark Prime is meant to transform in the cartoon, with the grill of the Prime-style truck suddenly flush with the windshield, but on a Deluxe-class toy Hasbro's solution is to give him a fake grill tummy in robot mode and then have the entire nose of the truck handing off his back. There's a bit of extra kibble on his forearms- I swear, one more hinge that could have folded it onto the back of his arm would have been divine, and the forearms are also missing the headlights seen in the cartoon. Lastly, there's the very hollow calves, very similar to the Cyberverse toy yet with new 5mm ports in them for some unfathomable reason. A pelvis isn't the only part that Earthspark Prime shares with the Cyberverse toy. Part of the back of his torso is also from the Cyberverse toy, and as you can see here they came with the same rifle. The only difference is that Earthspark Prime has a splash of blue on his. The rifle is fine, I guess, but a bit stumpy compared to the more G1-accurate rifle he has in the cartoon. You also get his axe, which is probably his more signature weapon in this incarnation. Props on Hasbro for painting the blades blue, since they do glow blue in the cartoon and the Warrior-class toy went yellow. But, less props for molding the axe in blue plastic, because the axe itself should be red. Finally, we get one of Mandroid's legs. I don't know why they're saving the torso for last, it's just that much more likely that I'll lose pieces before putting them together. Anyways... Prime's head is on a ball joint. It swivels, tilts sideways a bit, can't really tilt down, but it has a fantastic upward range. His shoulders are also ball joints that swivel, move laterally almost 90 degrees, and even provide a slight butterfly by moving over the ball joint. His biceps swivel and his elbows bend 90 degrees. For transformation his wrists are on ball joints so they can bend inward, but this also allows them to swivel. Alas, there's no waist swivel. His hips are ball joints that can go only about 45 degrees forward unless you also swing them outward to clear his pelvis, and a bit under 90 degrees backward. As far as swinging them outward goes, his hips move laterally 45-ish degrees. His thighs swivel, and his knees bend over 90 degrees. His feet can tilt down, but as this is part of his transformation that tucks his feet behind his calves you can't really tilt too far before messing up the sculpt. No upward tilt, but his ankles pivot about 45 degrees. Prime can hold either of his weapons in either of his hands, and the rifle is compatible with both Cyberverse and War for Cybertron blast effects. Prime can store his accessories in robot mode using a clip on his back, just below the backpack. A ridge on his rifle will fit into that clip, then the identical ridge on the other side of the rifle fits as matching clip on the axe. I suppose, if you wanted to, you could also stuff the rifle into the ports in his calves using the handle... but if you do, the barrel is long enough to interfere with knee articulation, so why would you? What's interesting is that Earthspark Prime doesn't share a ton of parts with the Cyberverse toy, and Earthspark transforms into a conventional truck like Prime Prime while Cyberverse Prime is the more traditional cab-over-engine tuck... but the engineering is almost identical. The main difference is that Cyberverse Prime rotates at the waist, with panels for the headlights flipping down from under his chest and the bumper unfolding from his arms, while Earthspark Prime rotates at the chest and has the nose of the truck on some hinges to fold down from his back to make up the entire front of the truck. It works, for the most part (and honestly about as well as you'd expect on a Deluxe-class toy). The front of the truck could maybe have had some marker lights painted, but is otherwise accurate. They painted the pipes in the nose, which is a nice touch, but neglected to paint the rims. Likewise, they painted the box-shape (fuel tank? tool box?) gray, but left the steps unpainted when they should also be gray/silver. There's also the small fact that that the sides get a little messy where you can see visible biceps and thighs, and the back of the cab is filled in with his rifle (which is actually necessary for transformation as it helps hold his legs in place). His legs are still pretty obviously legs, with no hitch for the trailer seen in the cartoon, and his folded-in feet just leave a gap instead of taillights. But, again, kind of par for the Deluxe course, especially in the Earthspark line where they seem to cut a few more corners. The rifle, as noted, is attached to the back of the cab as part of his transformation, but they didn't forget about his axe. It uses a clip to attach to the back of his legs under the truck, just behind the rifle's barrel, with the handle running between his feet. I gotta say, I was a little nervous going into this one, because while I did really like Bumblebee I was a lot cooler on Twitch and frankly I think Megatron was trash. Fortunately, maybe because they borrowed so liberally from the also-good Cyberverse toy, Earthspark Prime came out pretty good. He's not without his flaws, some of which could probably have been addressed if they'd made him a Voyager, but honestly I quite like him for what he is, and I'd suggest he's probably worth picking up. BONUS ROUND! Earthspark Prime shipped with Earthspark Shockwave. Where Earthspark Prime borrowed subtly from Cyberverse, Earthspark Shockwave is the Cyberverse toy. There are no changes to the mold, only the colors. Aside from the vibrant yellow replacing the purple glow, I prefer the colors on the Earthspark version. The blue purple and darker accents seem more geewunny. You'll note that Earthspark Shockwave comes with the same rifle and hosed arm gun that the Cyberverse toy did, but Earthspark eschews the blast effect that Cyberverse Shockwave had. He also ditches whatever part of Maccadam Cyberverse Shockwave came with in favor of another part for Mandroid. In this case, it's a left arm. We already have a human-style left arm, so again I kind of wish we got the torso. But there's a good reason, I think, for giving us another arm instead. See, as far as I know, Shockwave is the only one of the initial eight Deluxes that comes with a Mandroid part that's a total repaint. Other figures in the line (at least up through Grimlock, not sure about Nightshade yet) are either totally new figures or more extensive retools. That kind of makes Shockwave the least interesting figure, the one you're mostly likely to want to skip if you're collecting the Earthspark Deluxes. And, you can! You'll get enough parts with the other seven to make a Mandroid with a human left arm. You only need Shockwave if you (A) like the new colors, and (B) want Mandroid to have a robot left arm. Which is exactly where my recommendation lies... skip Shockwave if you already have the Cyberverse figure unless you prefer the new colors or really want that other Mandroid arm.

I can't speak for retail en mass, but I managed a GameStop during the PS2 era. If you wanted a really popular game on day one like, say, Smash Bros Melee, we definitely sold out... but would probably restock after a few days. The flip side was actually the very small releases like obscure Japanese RPGs. GameStop used preorders to decide how many copies to buy and allocate to each store. We might only get two or three copies ever, and if you didn't preorder you were SOL.

If I had to sum up my last two reviews, it'd probably be, "fine for kids, adult collectors should buy the Voyagers instead." So why, then, did I spend good money on the Weaponizers? Honestly? I did it for the little animal guys that they came with. After all, they've got standard 5mm pegs, so any old figure can use them. Why, I'd go so far as to suggest that they actually look better and not so oversized when paired with Voyager Prime and Primal instead of the Weaponizer Prime and Primal that they came with. Sure, as animals they have next to no articulation, but as far as I'm concerned Chainclaw and Arrowstripe are the real stars of the show. It's just a shame that I had to spend $16-$17-ish on each of them and get a figure I'll probably give to my seven year old after we go see the movie (sorry, Peanut, daddy's keeping the animals). Wouldn't it be great if you could buy these little animal weapons on their own, for a lot less...? Turns out you can... kind of. You can't actually buy Chainclaw and Arrowstripe solo, but for around $6-$7 each you can buy Battle Master Cheetor, Rhinox, and Skullcruncher. Wait, Cheetor and Rhinox? Now I'm kind of wondering why they didn't just call Arrowstripe Tigatron. Heck, even Chainclaw and Skullcruncher are existing G1 Transformers (although Chainclaw was a bear, so maybe they wolf should have been Carnivac?), so it seems odd to just make up a new name for the white tiger. But I digress. Like the other two, there's minal articulation here. Cheetor's legs swivel at the hips. Rhinox has ball joints where the brownish part meets the gray on his legs, but they're cut to allow swiveling and folding inward, not bending like knees. Skullcruncher wins the articulation lottery. All of his hips are ball joints, plus he can actually open his mouth. Cheetor turns into a blade of some kind. Not really a sword, since it points forward instead of up. On a figure with a 5mm port on the forearm I'd suggest mounting him like as an arm blade. Studio Series Cheetor doesn't have such a port, but my desire to have Cheetor wielding Cheetor won out. Rhinox is probably my second-favorite of the five. He splits down the middle and then each half folds back over on itself to make a gatling gun, but ultimately it's a little rhino with a gatling gun hidden in his butt, which gives me the giggles. Hey, if I were more mature would I be buying new versions of the toys I had as a kid? And then writing about it on the internet? And sure, I could have given Rhinox to Kingdom Rhinox, and little Rhinox is probably a better weapon than the ones Kingdom Rhinox came with, but I was too lazy to dig him out of the Beast Wars box and I already had Cheetor handy. If Rhinox is the second-best, Skullcruncher is the top dog... er, gator. He turns into a blaster, and if it weren't for the legs dangling off him I'd argue his alt mode looks the least like a deadly weapon poking out of an animal doing yoga and the most like a proper weapon on its own. So there you have it. Are these guys good enough that you should buy the Weaponizer two packs just for the animals? Probably not, but I did, so what do I know? But the individual Battle Masters? I'm always game for extra weapons... they come in handy when Hasbro does stuff like making Sunstreaker's engine is sole accessory, and in this economy they probably cost less than a coffee at Starbucks. I say go for it.

Preordering made sense when we were talking about a finite number of physical carts or discs, but when you can grab a digital copy whenever you please I always wait for a few reviews, maybe a patch or two, and probably a sale. Heck, I waited almost a year to buy Cyberpunk, bought it for $30, and was totally satisfied that I'd bought a totally playable game worth the money I'd spent.

I got it for Steam, which seems like the worst choice right now, but I can't complain since I got the key for free from a friend at EA. I installed it, but I haven't started it. I'll wait until after Tears of the Kingdom, maybe it'll be patched up by then.

And, just like we had Prime and Primal in the Voyagers, I'm following up Rise of the Beasts Weaponizer Optimus Prime with ROTB Weaponizer Optimus Primal. Like Prime, Primal is a Deluxe-sized toy with super simple engineering and paint. Like Prime he's sporting some paint, but this time it feels less minimal. That's partly because my unscientific eye test suggests that there's more... the darker grays on his shoulders, torso, and the sides of his calves, the silver on the outside of his forearms, and his blue eyes vs just the blue eyes and windows and silver sun visor, smokestacks, and pelvis on Prime... but perhaps also because Primal's "shades of gray" movie design is easier to emulate, even if it's not exactly the same as the Voyager. Speaking of not exactly the same, I'll note that much like Cheetor's mainline Deluxe is more similar to his OG Beast Wars design than the ROTB CGI or Studio Series toy, Weaponizer Primal has elements like the orb in his chest and a cutout in his mask for a visible mouth that are a bit more OG Optimus Primal than the final CGI/Voyager figure. I wonder if, at some point in development, the character models were closer to the original Beast Wars designs before some clown executive at Paramount was like, "they look too cartoony, make them look more like generic robots!" Anyway... as with Prime the gimmick here is that Primal trades his scimitars for a beast partner that turns into his weapon. This time we get a white tiger named Arrowstripe, who turns into a crossbow. For all his simplicity I thought Prime was decently articulated. Primal a bit less so. See, he's got no head articulation. Ball-jointed shoulders rotate and move laterally a bit under 90 degrees. Ball joints in his elbows allow for 90 degrees of bend and double as his bicep swivel. No wrist or waist swivel. Ball joints at the hips go forward and backward 90 degrees, but only about 45 degrees laterally. Also, the tiny amount of swiveling on the ball joint is the only thigh swivel you're going to get. His knees bend a meager 45-ish degrees. He's got no tilt or pivot in his ankles, but for transformation they do swivel. Arrowstripe fits neatly into either of Primal's fists. And, like Prime, he's got a few extra 5mm ports. There's one on the outside of each forearm, one on the outside of each calf, and on in the middle of his back. Where Prime had a transformation so simple I didn't bother with the instructions, Primal's is actually so simple I had to look at the instructions to confirm that that was really all there was. Basically, you fold the shoulder pads down, spin his feet around, use the double hinges in his knees to shift his lower legs forward and up a bit, then unfold the entire front of his torso (head included), spin it 180 degrees to swap the robot and gorilla sides, then fold it back up. That's it. And with so little changed from the back and sides I didn't even bother to do the front/side/back shots. You can pretty much tell what you've got by looking at the robot mode, and then looking at the newly-revealed gorilla torso and face. And... they look fine, I guess. Again, a bit more of a mechanical-greebly Beast Wars Primal, especially on the face, than the final CGI model, but also ultimately a "shades of gray" robot gorilla, and therefore passably Primal for the assumed demographic of younger kids who aren't getting the Voyager. I'll note that while the Voyager can't really do the bipedal posture Beast Wars Primal often used in the cartoon, Weaponizer Primal can't really pull off the quadrupedal stance of the Voyager toy. As you'd probably expect from the minimal changes between robot and ape, while in gorilla mode Primal can still hold Arrowstripe in his fists, and he still has access to the 5mm ports on his forearms, legs, and back. Well, I think Primal's aesthetics work better than Prime's, but Prime has a bit better articulation and a bit more effort to transform. Neither figure is particularly appealing to an adult collector, but their sub-Deluxe prices and relative simplicity should actually make them fairly appealing to their younger kids that I assume are the target audience for these figures.

It's like the Ark... I'm in it for the alt mode. Anyway, kind of a stupid review for you today, but I was bored and at Walmart and I picked up Rise of the Beasts Weaponizer Optimus Prime. The figures in this line are outside the usual Core/Deluxe/Voyager/Leader standard classes. What we have here is an Optimus Prime that's roughly the same size as a Deluxe, but with the simplicity of a Core-class (and maybe less paint). I'm not even sure where to begin with this thing, at least as far as aesthetics. It's recognizably ROTB Optimus. And given that it's a simpler, cheaper figure I don't even mind stuff like the hollow calves, the grill on his back, and the kibble wrapped around his fists. What I'm not loving, though, is the lack of paint. His entire arms and abdomen are red, and there's no painted details on his shins. I feel like just touching this guy up with a silver Sharpie paint marker would go a long way toward making him a decent cheaper Optimus. But do I need a decent cheaper Optimus? I already have a Voyager-class one, which is the one that would appeal to more adult collectors like myself. The obvious answer is that this isn't a Studio Series release or even a $30 dollar Voyager, it's priced around $16 and one might reasonably assume it's for younger kids, not adult collectors. But my personal answer would be the accessory. Weaponizer Optimus is not a "weaponizer" in the Siege sense. He doesn't come apart, and you can't turn his leg into a rifle for another figure to use. In this case, it means that he doesn't come with the usual rifle. Instead, he comes with this guy, the aptly-named Chainclaw. Chainclaw is basically a Battle Master (shown here with the Siege Battle Master Pteraxadon for scale). In one mode, he's a neat blue wolf with minimal articulation (his legs can swivel at the hips/shoulders, and that's it). But, he turns into a chainsaw weapon for Prime to use. On that note, Prime's head is on a swivel. His shoulders are hinged swivels that get 90 degrees of lateral motion, plus there are backward butterfly joints for transformation). His elbows are ball joints that bend 90 degrees and double as bicep swivels. He doesn't have an actual waist swivel, but due to his transformation he's got a mid-torso swivel. Hips are ball joints that go 90 degrees forward, almost nothing backward, and about 45 degrees laterally. Knees are also ball joints that bend 90 degrees and act as thigh swivels. No wrist or foot articulation. Prime can hold Chainclaw in either fist. And in a feature the larger Voyager toy lacked, this Prime has a few extra 5mm ports. You can mount Chainclaw to either forearm, the side of Prime's legs (on the higher wheel), or one of the two 5mm ports on his back. Transforming Prime is super simple, to the point that I didn't even look at the instructions. Tuck the head in, spin the upper torso 180, tuck the arms into the sides, fold in his heel spurs, tab his legs together, then bend his hips 90 degrees so that his elbows tab into his knees. Again, the truck is recognizably Optimus, with the usual simplifications you might see on a cheaper figure like a shorter cab with a visible gap (and head) in the back, a rear that's still obviously robot legs without even trying to hide the feet, and a lack of paint that does the molded headlights no favors. In truck mode, the 5mm ports on his arms are now on the sides of the cab, and are still available for weapon storage along with the ones on his wheels. Usually, this is the part where I recommend a toy or not, but I'm not really sure how to approach it on this one. I mean, the Voyager-class toy is clearly a superior toy and the one that most adult collectors should focus on. It's clear that Hasbro meant for this to be a cheaper alternative for the kiddos that see the movie and want an Optimus toy but whose parents don't feel like shelling out $35 or whatever on a Voyager-class toy they're likely going to break. Plus you get a cool wolf that turns into a chainsaw. So no, it's not a brilliant toy, but I get why it exists and believe there's a market for it.

Looks like Hasbro wants me to buy at least one more version of Siege Megatron. This one appears to be based on Alex Milne's miner Megatron.

Well, guess what showed up from Amazon today? It's Studio Series Gamer Edition Voyager-class Optimus Prime. Just when the confusion between the War for Cybertron video game from High Moon Studios and the War for Cybertron trilogy of G1-ish Transformers toys (and an accompanying Netflix series) was dying down, Hasbro decided to expand the Studio Series line into video games with a new Gamer Edition sub-brand. And one of the first figures they decided to make was Optimus Prime. Now, this exact version of Prime had already had a Deluxe-class figure released way back in 2010, and to be honest when I first saw the new one my initial impression was that it looked a bit cheap. In hand, though, side-by-side with the older figure, I don't think the new one looks bad at all. Indeed, the beefier proportions and cleaner shoulders are actually quite an improvement. The new figure isn't perfect... much of the alt mode's front end is hanging off his back, for instance, instead of the moving Autobot insignia you spend most of the game looking at. But, again, that's kind of true for the original, and in some ways things like the wheels on his back are improved. Plus, the new figure is a Voyager and a good head taller. That's better! I mean, he should scale better with other more modern Transformers, right? Well... that depends on how big you think Prime is supposed to be. The same size as G1 Optimus? SSGE Prime is a full head shorter than Siege/Earthrise/Legacy Optimus, roughly the same height as Rise of the Beasts Optimus. Personally, I think that's a little on the short side, but I'll give them the benefit of the doubt... maybe Prime gets a little bigger between games. Maybe a SSGE Fall of Cybertron Optimus Prime (which I definitely do want) will be a little bigger. Prime's got a few accessories, and they're more game accurate than the folding gun that came with the 2010 figure. You've got a blaster, an axe that comes in three parts and the Matrix of Leadership. Prime's head is on a ball joint that swivels and looks up pretty good, looks down a little, and has a very limited sideways tilt. His shoulders rotate and extend laterally a little over 90 degrees. His biceps swivel, and his elbows bend a bit over 90 degrees. His wrists and waist both swivel, which is an improvement over the original figure. His hips go 120 degrees forward, 90 degrees laterally, but only a tiny bit backward. His thighs swivel, and his knees bend 90 degrees. His feet tilt down slightly, nothing up, and his ankles pivot 45 degrees. All-in-all nothing spectacular, but still improved over the 2010 figure. The blade of Prime's axe can fold to be big on one end, small on the other or symmetrical on both ends. And the handle breaking apart into segments allows you to give him a long handle he can hold with both hands and an asymmetric axe head, like the game's cutscenes. Or you can give him a shorter-handled, symmetric-headed axe that you see him actually swinging in-game. As for the blaster, to again re-create that in-game appearance, Prime's right forearm can be removed to reveal a 5mm peg. that peg fits into a on the blaster. Don't worry about losing his arm, though. There's a small peg on it that allows you to plug it into a port on his butt. However, there's no storage for his axe or his blaster in robot mode. Despite the presence of a 5mm peg on the axe handle, there's no place to plug it into. There's a place for the Matrix, though... it's in his chest! It's nice to see that they painted the inside a gunmetal color. Do you remember how to transform the 2010 Deluxe figure? Well, forget it, because the new figure has a totally different and, in my opinion, easier transformation. There's just less fidgety panels and fewer parts that feel like they're getting in your way. I don't actually have a ton to say about Prime's alt mode. Aside from a few spots like in the bumper and on the exhaust pipes that could use a bit of that glow paint he's pretty accurate to the in-game model, but so was the first one. I like that he top of the back end looks more purposeful than just his folded-up thighs, but near as I can tell the gray of the folded-up thighs is more correct than the blue on this one. I'm also not a fan of the exposed hands on rear. Seems like it wouldn't have been too hard for Hasbro to have engineered some hinged flaps that could sit against his calves in robot mode and covered the fists with the in-game taillights, but what do I know? My copy also has a spot where the guy painting the red on the sides near the pipes went out of the lines a bit, but that might just be my copy. For the most part, though, it's accurate enough that it's fine, and that's all it really needs to be. Unlike his robot mode, Prime can store all his accessories in alt mode. Basically, with the axe in the symmetrical position, there's a notch on it that fits onto a tab on top of the gun. The gun itself has two tabs on the under side that fit into slots on the back of the truck. And that's really how it's intended, but I'll note again that there's a peg on the axe handle that hasn't been used yet. And where the robot mode lacked 5mm ports, the alt mode is actually sporting one on each side in front of the exhaust pipes, and two on the back near the slots the gun tabs into. So, y'know, options. Studio Series Gamer Edition Optimus Prime is by no means a revolutionary, must-have figure the way Earthrise Optimus was. But it is better than the 2010 figure in all the right ways- bigger, better proportions, better accessories, better articulation, and better transformation. If you're looking for a toy that represents this particular Optimus Prime, this is the one to get, and I don't regret upgrading from the 2010 toy. I just wish he were a little bigger, had some better accessory storage in robot mode, and covered up his fists in alt mode. I preordered the other Game Edition figures, which are also from War for Cybertron. Will Hasbro continue the Gamer Edition sub-brand? What other games could they cover? I don't know that I'm exactly champing at the bit for every design that appeared in the High Moon games- in fact, I don't know that I really care all that much about Bumblebee or Barricade. But I do rather like this figure, I hope WFC Megatron gets the same treatment, and then I hope we eventually see the Fall of Cybertron versions of Prime and Megs in Studio Series packaging before too long.

I haven't been to Hong Kong in awhile, but it looks like I have a reason to go back now, eh?

Y'know, I saw that at Target the other day and almost bought one, even though it looks really crappy. But if it was Megatron or Shockwave, yeah, I'd have definitely pulled the trigger. Pun intended. BTW, looks like preorders for the Titan Nemesis should go up May 2nd.

And following on the heels of last night's Voyager-class Optimus, today we've got the other Voyager from the first-wave Rise of the Beasts toys... who is also Optimus. OK, so this one's Primal, not Prime, but it's still kind of amusing to me that they're front-loading their Voyagers with bots named Optimus. Anyway... Primal here has definitely got that movie aesthetic that we saw on Studio Series Cheetor (but not so much the mainline Deluxe Cheetor). There are elements of the original Beast Wars character with the shoulder pads and Popeye forearms, and arguably even in the Optimus Prime-esque head, but the bright red, white, and blue robot bits on black gorilla fur have been replaced with a most monochromatic mixing of grays. Some of the "metal" parts could maybe have been a bit more coppery, but as near as I can tell it's accurate to the film. The proportions are a bit chunky compared to the CGI model, but there are the realities of turning a robot into a gorilla to contend with. Hence the butt flap, which kind of looks like his gorilla face turned upside down and only from the nose up. He comes with a pair of scimitars. They're fine, I guess. They could have used a little red paint on the handles, but they're otherwise accurate as well as character-appropriate. Primal's head is on a ball joint. He can look down a little and tilt his head sideways, but he can't really look up, and even the swivel is limited by his collar. His shoulders swivel and extend laterally 90 degrees. His biceps swivel, elbows bend 90 degrees, and his wrists swivel. His waist swivels, as long as you lift his butt flap so it can clear his hips... hips that go 90 degrees forward and laterally on big ball joints, but almost nothing backward. His thighs swivel, and his knees bend roughly 120-130 degrees on a double joint. His feet have no upward or downward tilt, and only the barest of ankle pivots. Primal can hold a scimitar in each hand. Alternatively, you can plug one into the top and one into the bottom of the same fist to give him the appearance of carrying a single double-bladed weapon. And when not carrying them, Primal can store his weapons on his back using tabs on the handles that fit into slots on his back. I'll note, though, that Kingdom Optimus Primal has shoulder cannons built into his backpack, and blasters that pop out of his wrists. ROTB Primal does not... he's just got his scimitars. Going from one primate mode to another never made much sense to me, and it never seemed to make for particularly involved transformations, what with his gorilla arms just being his robot arms with the shoulder pads down. In broad strokes, you're already familiar with this transformation- open the chest, rotate the bot head in and the gorilla head out, swap the robot chest for the gorilla chest, spin him at the waist. The main differences are small changes to the execution. Like, his robot feet don't simply fold up, his shins open up so they can tuck inside. And instead of flipping his robot chest around, the robot chest opens, to reveal the gorilla chest behind it. The gorilla chest splits open, which allows you to swap the heads, but also to allow the robot chest to slide in so the gorilla chest can close up over it. It's still very, very simple though. I dig the gorilla mode. I've long said that I prefer a more robotic animal mode to the purely organic alts of the original Beast Wars cast. But, weirdly, I also think that this figure has a more accurate gorilla mode. The robot thighs tuck into the gorilla hips giving him a curved tummy and an arched back of a mountain gorilla. Unfortunately, what the gorilla mode doesn't have a lot of is articulation. His gorilla head can look up, which is really forward with this quadrupedal stance. And it swivels, but again in this position is more like a tilt, which is especially true because his head lacks to clearance to swivel if you tilt his head down for a more bipedal stance. There's a second swivel that should let him look left/right when his head is tilted up/forward, but again it doesn't quite have the clearance around the hump at his collar. His arms have the same articulation as robot mode, which to be clear isn't really enough to get him in a chest-beating pose. With his robot thighs kind of tucked in under his butt plate his waist swivel is effectively locked and his knees are bent forward as far as they go. They can bend back on just one of the joints in his robot knee (the other being tucked under the butt plate) to an almost bipedal posture, but set weirdly far back. And with the front of his robot feet encapsulated in his thighs what little ankle articulation he had in robot mode is basically eliminated. Well, he can at least sill wield his weapons, or store them the same way he did in robot mode. My out-of-the-box, initial impressions of Primal were a bit more positive than they were with Prime. He seems like a decent match for what you see on screen in robot mode, and the gorilla mode is surprisingly striking. And yet, after handling them for awhile, it's clear that Prime is actually the better toy. Primal is lacking in articulation in both modes, and the result is that Prime just looks more dynamic, even when they're both just standing in a casual a-stance. That said, Primal's not a bad figure at all. If and until a better Studio Series figure is released ROTB Primal is a solid toy that should work fine in a movie collection.

I bought a new family car over the weekend, so when my wife was all, "we're out of bananas" and my daughter's going, "I want chocolate ice cream!" a late run to Walmart seemed like a perfectly reasonable excuse to play with my new toy. And while I was there I found some other toys, namely Rise of the Beasts (non-Studio Series) Voyager-class figures. So let's have a look, starting with Optimus Prime. So, I wonder what qualifies a toy for Studio Series or not. After looking at a few Deluxes, my best guess would be budget... that is, despite being labeled as the same classes, and despite those classes having the same price points, that the ROTB (and Earthspark) toys are cheaper for Hasbro than a Studio Series (or Legacy) figure. And Optimus Prime might be the most obvious proof of that being the case. We'd been able to see in the CGI of the trailer and other early promotional materials that Optimus in Rise of the Beasts is like 95% the same as Optimus in Bumblebee. So here's ROTB Prime with Studio Series BB Prime, and just, man. I mean, ROTB Prime is significantly smaller. There's clearly less paint overall on the ROTB toy, too, but so much of what isn't painted (and some of what is) is like the cheapest, ugliest gray plastic. It looks cheaper. The engineering is a lot simpler too, which leaves the steps dangling from his forearms (two more hinges would have broke the bank?), gaps in the shoulders, less mechanical details on his back, and wheels on his back that don't hide away. The gray plastic is more dominant from the rear, as you realize that his lower legs and feet are made from it and Hasbro just threw a little blue paint on his shins and toes. The cheapness even extends to his rifle, which is supposed to the the same one from the first movie and not the arm cannon from the trailer. Not only is it (top) smaller than the Studio Series one (bottom), it's more hollow and has far fewer and simpler details molded onto it. Prime's head can swivel, no tilt. His shoulders rotate and can extend laterally over 90 degrees. His biceps swivel, and although his elbows are single hinges they bend well beyond 90 degrees. His wrists are ball joints. It's tight, but they do swivel, and they bend inward for transformation. The molded details on his abs get caught on a hinge in his waist, so he has only a very limited waist swivel, but due to transformation he has a swivel below the chest, too. The aforementioned hinge is for transformation, but it can be used as an ab crunch. His hips can go about 90 degrees forward, 45 degrees backward, and 90 degrees laterally. His thighs swivel, and his knees bend 90 degrees. His feet have good up and down tilt in addition to about 45 degrees of ankle pivot. Prime can hold his rifle in either hand. The rifle can also be stored in a 5mm port on Prime's back, although you have to open the tires a bit to make room for the barrel. Transforming ROTB Prime has a lot of similar notes to the Studio series toy. He still rotates 180 degrees at the chest, his arms still tuck into the sides, kibble on his arms fills in the sides of the cab while kibble from his back fills in the front, fuel tanks fold out of his thighs etc. The reduced budget makes ROTB Prime's transformation smoother and less finnicky, though. Things tuck into place and panels tab down solidly. He is still smaller, though. One would imagine that an eventual Studio Series toy of ROTB Prime will be more film accurate. Like, he's got the new metal bars on the front of the cab, but the lights should be on the red part of the cab, not the bumper. The naked gray plastic "silver" stripe on the front of the cab should wrap around to the sides and then angle upward, and they don't. The fuel tanks should be round, not square. And, y'know, there's those big gray feet running along the back. With their hollowed-out soles Prime almost looks like a dump truck! More hinges to fold the flaps on the smokestacks over would be nice, too, but they are at least on the actual truck. Prime does have a hitch inside his follow feet, and you use it to store the rifle. There's notches on both sides for the magazine to sit in, too, so the rifle can either face backward like he's shooting 'Cons chasing him, or you can turn it around so the barrel's pointing into the cab for a more stowed look. What the hitch doesn't do, at least not well, is pull a trailer. The simple fact is that putting the hitch on the bottom of his feet, and folding his feet on top of his shins for truck mode, simply makes the back of the truck too tall. I'm not going to lie, the downright cheap appearance of this figure out of the package left a pretty negative impression on me. But after handling him for awhile, credit where it's due, ROTB Prime has good articulation, better proportions than the Studio Series Bumblebee Prime, and a more pleasant transformation. The truck mode isn't the most-accurate, but it's in the ballpark and recognizably Optimus Prime. And, I think we're getting to the real difference between the main ROTB line and Studio Series. It's not (exactly) budget, it's the audience. Studio Series is aimed at adult collectors, so it needs to look a little more premium. It can afford a little more complex engineering. And the ROTB line is the action figures for the kids. Can't comment on the "for kids" part, but I can confirm, ROTB Prime is a great action figure. He's just fun to put into dynamic poses. He's the kind of figure you can quickly flip back and forth between modes. Sure, he's not going to be the prettiest Prime in a display, but he's a Prime that's good for playing with, and I think that ultimately earns him a recommend from me (with the caveat that I'd like to see a good Studio Series version later).

Are you referring to the earth-mode retool of Siege Hound? It seems like Target delayed it, but it's on Hasbro's schedule for 2023 store exclusives.

Word on the street was correct, and Prime is live now on Pulse.

Word on the street is that preorders for Armada Optimus will go up on Tuesday the 18th.

It's a huge install, but at least the CPU/GPU requirements aren't insane like some recent releases.

Yeah, I'm not sure where I'm landing on this one. It's more G1 than T30 Metroplex, but still borrows some of T30’s design cues. And it's going to be smaller than T30. From the pictures they put up of the prototype with Magic Square's Devastator it doesn't look much bigger than Maketoys Utopia. Can't really say I need another Utopia-sized Metroplex, but if it's at least as big as the Titan Ark I might bite. I think they were saying 789 yuan, a little under $110 before retailer markups and international shipping. TFSource has it up for preorder at $220, which already didn't strike me as too bad considering it's cheaper than most Fans Toys releases, but the final price from a store line ShowZ could be closer to $150-180. Now, sure, $200 is still $200, and depending on their financial situation that might be a significant amount to spend on a toy robot for some people. But it's pretty close to what Hasbro charges for their Titans. For a 3P figure that size that's relatively cheap.

This may never apply to Transforms, and even if it does you can bet that it won't be until after Legacy Evolution. It's an encouraging sign, though. Personally, I don't actually mind the cardboard inserts, paper ties, or the accessories wrapped in tissue paper taped to the cardboard insert, but I utterly loathe the lack of a plastic window on everything smaller than Leader, so fingers crossed.

The third figure in the pack is Deluxe-class Wheeljack. More than any of the other Rise of the Beasts designs, I think Wheeljack's has the fandom extra riled up. In one camp, you have the fans arguing that different Transformers continuities have characters with radically different designs as other same-named characters, it's unreasonable to expect ROTB Wheeljack to look more like G1 Wheeljack, and that ROTB Wheeljack is perfectly good design on his own. In the other camp, you have the people pointing out that this isn't a different continuity, that Bumblebee had an established Wheeljack design and it wouldn't have the VFX team on ROTB to use the Bumblebee head and trade in the brown for green and red. I guess you could say I was leaning toward the second group... I don't mind if he's a van instead of a sports car, and I didn't feel like the sky was falling just because they didn't stick with a design closer to Bumblebee, but I definitely would have preferred if they kept it closer to Bumblebee. That was before I got this figure in hand. Now, I haven't seen Wheeljack's CGI model, so I don't know how accurate this toy is or not. And going in, sure, I knew he had the big goggles and no ears. But now I see that those aren't goggles, they're glasses. And he's got suspenders, for crying out loud! No, what happened is someone working on this movie though, "Wheeljack's an engineer, how do I portray visually that he's smart? Oh, I know! I'll make him look like an offensive nerd stereotype!" At least the toy is a fairly cohesive robot, which is a step up from Nightbird. But something tells me that, once we do see the CGI model, that paint is going to turn out to be an issue on this figure. I mean, take a look at his hands. I assume that they're going to be black/gunmetal in the film, so what does Hasbro do? Airbrush a little gunmetal on top of his fist... while leaving the entire rest of the fist unpainted. Wheeljack's sole accessory is this gun. I have no idea if it'll turn out to be movie accurate or not, but there it is. Wheeljack's head is on a ball joint, and it can swivel. In theory it can look down, but on my copy it pops right back up, and there doesn't seem to be any upward or sideways tilt. His shoulders are ball joints, and they can rotate and move laterally 90 degrees. Technically the ball joint's stem is hinged for transformation and he could have some butterfly, but his shoulder pads don't have much clearance around his chest. His biceps swivel, and his elbows bend a little under 90 degrees. No wrist articulation. His waist swivels. Hips are more ball joints, and they get 90 degrees backward, fall short of 90 forward, and get 45 degrees laterally if I'm being generous. His thighs swivel, and his knees bend 90 degrees. His feet are on hinged ball joints that will get a little upward tilt, plenty of downward tilt, a swivel, but a pretty minimal ankle pivot. His gun can plug into either fist. And, this not being a WFC/Legacy figure, you're not going to find an abundance of 5mm ports to store his gun that isn't a fist. That said, there is one 5mm port on his back. Like Nightbird, Wheeljack's alt mode feels a little smallish. Getting there isn't too difficult. It's pretty obvious what you need to do, the trick is that there are some steps like rotating his door wings, which are made of translucent plastic, and folding them in or jamming his toes under the front of his roof that don't leave you a lot of clearance while you're working. Well, I might not have seen Wheeljack's CGI model for his bot mode, but I've seen the actual Volkswagen Type 2 they used, and like Nightbird they kind of messed it up becasue they didn't license it from Volkswagen. So instead of the VW logo you've got a small Autobot insignia and a pair of grills that the actual bus doesn't. They squared off the headlights and the marker lights on the roof, made the turn signals blue instead of orange, and lowered the lights on the bumper. The mix of brown and white is mostly fine, and they molded some junk on the roof that could be the actual bus' roof rack, but they left it white instead of a dirty silver, and the rims are unpainted. The rear is missing the window and much of the white, due to being made from the robot shins. And weirdly, while "T.V. Pablo" is printed on both sides, it's missing the "Reparacion de" before it, and the whole "Reparacion de T.V. Pablo" should stretch all the way from the rear to the side windows. The list of services is also missing from the sides. All that said, I don't actually hate this alt mode. Indeed, I like the idea of a transforming VW Bus, I just wish they would have got the license. Maybe in the future he'll get a Studio Series toy... There's nowhere to hide Wheeljack's gun, but at least he can carry it. You can use the same port that was on his back to have the gun facing forward. Or, if he's being chased and you want the gun mounted to fire behind him there's a second 5mm port amidst his roof rack. Wheeljack is... ok. I mean, I have issues with the design, but I'm not going to ding the toy for being faithful to a bad design. What we have here is relatively clean robot mode, a fairly straightforward transformation, and an alt mode that I kind of like but would have liked more if they licensed the actual real vehicle and got a few more details right. While it's definitely my hope that a more accurate Studio Series figure could come at a later time, unlike Nightbird I think ROTB Wheeljack is good enough if you don't want to wait or risk that a SS figure might never come.

Sorry this one's going up kind of late- busy day. But the second figure in the set is Deluxe-class Nightbird. Nightbird feels a bit insubstantial. I reckon that has a lot to do with her slim limbs. Combined with her large chest and copious hip kibble her proportions strike me as being kind of off. Overall I thought she's a bit small, but with TLK Drift and Dropkick for scale I guess, no, she's about the same height. Well, I have seen a render of Nightbird's robot mode, and the thin limbs and overall head sculpt are fairly accurate. I think one of her problems comes down to where and how they arranged her kibble. Like, the shoulder armor... she has some in the movie, but it's curved and less like what you'd see on a samurai. The toy has a ridiculously long crotch, but the rest of her skirt is absent. The film version has some hip kibble, but not nearly as much as the toy. They probably should have moved some of the kibble that's on her hips to her back, as she's missing wings that the CGI model has. Lifting her chest up and pushing it back a bit would also show more of her midsection instead of allowing the front of her alt mode to dominate her torso. Mind you, that's just the issues I have with the sculpt. Only the outside edges of her lower legs, part of her forearm, and some of the underside of her chest should be that brownish color- there's way too much of it here, and not enough dark gray/black. She's missing some purple, too, mostly in her midriff. Ironically, the purple knee pads shouldn't be purple. Onto accessories. She has two. There's a claw, done in that ugly caramel color when it should be black/gunmetal. She also comes with a sword. I like the purple paint on it, even it I don't think it's movie accurate. Nightbird's head is on a ball joint, but the shape of it limits her up/down/sideways tilt, and even interferes with her ability to swivel her head. Her shoulders are on ball joints that can rotate and move 90 degrees laterally, although the post itself is hinged for transformation which gives her a little extra slump/shrug. Her biceps swivel, and her elbows bend 90 degrees. No wrist articulation. Her waist swivels, but now we're going to start running into issues where her hip kibble gets in the way- in this case, her backpack catches on it so she can swivel a little under 90 degrees in either direction. The hips are ball joints, and she can get over 90 degrees forward but the kibble keeps her from getting 90 degrees backward, and the cut of the ball socket limits her lateral movement to 45 degrees. Her thighs swivel, and her knees bend a little under 90 degrees. You can kind of argue that he's got a double knee joint and that the upper knee joint actually gets 90 degrees on it's own, but here's the thing... the upper joint, used for transformation, is in the middle of her thigh, well above the purple knee pad. And the actual knee is just below the knee pad. Using the upper joint as a knee looks extremely unnatural. Finishing up, the black part of her foot collapses but I don't think that really works as foot articulation, and her ankle can pivot about 180 degrees. All-in-all, I could probably excuse the fairly limited range on a lot of her joints if she were a big bruiser sort of character, but on a ninja? It's pretty disappointing. She can hold her sword, which is rather short, in either hand. There's also a 5mm port on the outside of both forearms, just above the wrist, where you can plug in the claw. Nightbird's robot mode might not be small, but her alt mode definitely is, as she's now noticeably out-of-scale with Dropkick and Drift. Transforming her is 75% super simple with out her hood lifts over her head with a flap to fill in the neck, arms tucking into her sides so the front wheels are in the right spot, and the backpack unfurls to form the entire top and tail of the car. The other 25% is kind of a pain, as you have to fold up her legs in just the right way (which the instructions do NOT illustrate properly) to get the sides of the car to line up. Hasbro really did Nightbird's alt mode dirty. I'm a big fan of the Nissan GTR/Skyline family, but Hasbro apparently didn't think it was worth licensing Nightbird's R33 alt mode. The too-tall grill separated into two segments looks more like a Pontiac G8 than an R33. The hood scoop is centered when it should be over the left edge. The purple on the mirrors and rims is accurate, although the shape of the rims isn't, and the purples don't match when they should. They slathered yellow around the headlights, which shouldn't have that copper color around the housing but the lenses should probably be silver (or, they're recessed enough on that actual car that they could be black, as they're usually in shadow). Speaking of copper, Hasbro has copper paint running around the skirts (accurate!) but misses the rear bumper (not accurate). The rest of the car should be gray. Here, it's mostly gray, but there are unsightly tan hinges in the door and the back of the roof. Worse, for some reason I can't fathom, almost the entire hood is tan. It's wrong, and it's ugly. Oh, and the R33 in the movie has a big wing on the back. It's not exactly missing from the toy, though. Rather, this is where her accessories come into play. The claw splits in half, and the halves tab into spots on the rear of the car, on the taillights. Tabs on the end fit into holes in the sword, and... well, that's not what the spoiler looks like on the actual car. The sword and claws can stay on her back for robot mode, too, but it's an all or nothing sort of thing. Can't store the sword without storing the claw. This non-Studio Series toy has way too much copper/brown, poor articulation, poor accessories, and an ugly too-small alt mode. I guess the question is, which is the anomaly here? Cheetor or Nightbird? Much like the Earthspark Deluxes feel a bit cheaper than a Legacy Deluxe despite sporting the same price, is the Rise of the Beasts line going to be cheap compared to Studio Series? Or will other releases be good like Cheetor, and Nightbird just happens to be a swing and a miss? Maybe the third figure in the set will give us some answers, but for now avoid this Nightbird figure and hope she gets justice in a later Studio Series release.

The writers have gone on record saying they weren't trying to make a blockbuster film or the tentpole of a new cinematic universe, they just wanted to tell a good story first and foremost. It's got a way to go yet before earning back it's budget, currently around $72 million worldwide this weekend (on a $150 million budget), but $72 million actually beats their projections ($65 million) and they seem pleased enough with the reception so far that a sequel is being discussed.

Well, not to diminish from today's excitement, but I found some non-Studio Series toys from Rise of the Beasts. Now, I found them as a three-pack in the Buzzworthy Bumblebee packaging at Target, but AFAIK they're set to be released individually under the regular Rise of the Beasts packing, so I'll be taking a look at them individually and giving them a recommend or not based on the assumption that you can pick and choose. Going left-to-right in the box, first up will be Deluxe-class Cheetor. Cheetor's kind of fascinating, since we already got the Voyager-class SS version, and we can see that the Deluxe-class toy is a very different figure. Ostensibly they're supposed to be representing the same version of the same character, but the Deluxe-class toy bears a much stronger resemblance to Kingdom or even the original Beast Wars Cheetor. He's got the cheetah chest, the blue, catlike face and the blue accents, the spikey helmet, etc. The cat shoulders behind his back are even more accurate than the Kingdom toy. And yet, despite the similarities, ROTB Cheetor isn't really a retool of the Kingdom toy, either. He shares no parts with that figure, and the parts he's made of include some of the browns, some of the mechanical details, and the clawed toes of the Studio Series toy. Assuming that the Studio Series toy is more screen accurate, it's like an amalgamation of original Cheetor and the ROTB design. I don't hate it, but I weirdly find myself wishing he didn't have the toe claws, that his pelvis and shins were blue, that his calves and hands were yellow. I wish this looked more like OG Cheetor than ROTB Cheetor. Cheetor comes with not one, but two accessories. Like the Kingdom toy, ROTB Cheetor's tail turns into a weapon, but where the Kingdom toy was meant to be held by the tip of the tail and sported an awkward pickaxe that curved back too far to really be useful, ROTB Cheetor's tail is meant to be held by the same peg that plugs it into his cat butt, and the tip of the tail folds back to reveal a dagger-like blade, making it a pretty satisfying improvement. But if that weren't enough, also included is a small gut-gun. Could use some pink intestinal details, but I'm not complaining. Not included is the spear that the Voyager toy sports. Cheetor's head is on a ball joint, and he can swivel and look almost straight up, but he lacks any real downward or sideways tilt. Shoulders rotate and can move laterally just a little short of 90 degrees. His biceps swivel, and his elbow bends again just short of 90 degrees. His wrists are ball joints so they can swivel, but they can also fold inward which is odd since it's not a transformation thing. His waist can swivel, although it's limited to about 45 degrees to either side. His hips can go forward just under 90 degrees, a little bit backward, and about 60 degrees laterally. His thighs swivel, and his knees bend just under 90 degrees. His shin armor prevents his feet from tilting upward, but he's got good downward tilt and 45 degrees of ankle pivot. Cheetor can hold his accessories by plugging the 5mm pegs into his fists. This not being a WFC/Legacy figure, he's not sporting any other 5mm pegs. Which isn't to say that he can't store his gun. There's a tab on one side, and you can use it to fit into a slot on his hip, or onto his back. Unfortunately, there are no such options for storing his tail. In fact, it's too long to even plug into his butt, since it's keyed so you can't even turn it to curve out of the way. Although he shares no parts with the Kingdom toy, the engineering of ROTB Cheetor is pretty similar. His robot head turns around so his cheetah head can come up off his chest and cover over it. The rear legs fold out of his robot legs. His arms fold into the chest, and the front legs fold from the back to his sides. You have to plug the tail into his butt, with his robot thighs filling in the back of the cat. There are differences, though. His robot tummy moves with the cheetah head to form part of the cheetah chest, and his robot collar opens up to make part of his cheetah neck. Panels on the sides of his forearms spin around to cover his biceps and help fill in the chest, but the forearms themselves are left fairly as they are on the cheetah's tummy. And rather than fold out of the shins, his calves open up to leg the can legs out, while his thighs actually lock into place. So, the elephant in the room is his very obvious robot hands. They definitely don't make for as clean a cat tummy as the Kingdom toy's, although it might have been a bit less in-your-face if they'd made his hands yellow. And he's sporting some of the techno-organic detail we saw on the Studio Series toy. Again, I kind of find myself wishing it were more OG Cheetor in appearance, but robo-hands aside I actually like what I see here. He's got a leaner, more cheetah-like shape than the Kingdom toy. Articulation's a bit worse. His mouth can open, but he's got no neck articulation. His shoulders are ball joints so they can rotate and move laterally a bit. His elbows can forward, but he doesn't have any paw articulation. In the rear his robo-knees allow the cat hip to go backward 90 degrees, and his cat knee can bend slightly backward and a little forward, but again no swivels, no paw articulation, and this time no lateral movement. We covered already that his tail simply plugs into his butt to become part of the alt mode, but I'm delighted to report that his gut gun actually folds up and plugs into a peg inside his tummy, forming his actual cat guts. Honestly, of the three figures in this jungle three-pack Cheetor is the figure I was the least interested in. After all, I have the Studio Series toy, which is presumably the more accurate figure, right? You might have noticed, though, that a running theme in this review is that I wish this Cheetor toy was even more like OG Cheetor and less like ROTB Cheetor. This is simply because I honestly like this figure better than the Kingdom toy. It's tough to actually recommend this figure- Kingdom is aesthetically more OG accurate, and (again, presumably) the Studio Series toy is a more accurate representation of the design in the actual film- it doesn't necessarily make sense to replace either of those figures for display purposes. And yet, of the three this is the Cheetor toy I actually like the best. Make of that what you will.

Rise of the Beasts. Sorry to get your hopes up.