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I mean, at an MP level with an MP budget and MP engineering, yeah, I want the real alt mode. On one of Hasbro's $25 Deluxes, though? When's the last time we had a real licensed alt mode that wasn't from the live action movies? Close enough's been close enough for years. Sometimes not even close enough... looking at you, Legacy Breakdown.😠 But here, specifically, I know stuff like Siege Sideswipe gets a pass, but the Aerialbots are going to get nitpicked to death for real-world inaccuracies that are still cartoon accurate.🤷‍♂️

You can have real-world accuracy (if Hasbro would bother to license the alt modes, which they won't) or you can have cartoon accuracy. You can't have both. Does Slingshot look like a real Harrier? Nope. But that's looking pretty dang cartoon accurate.

The other Age of the Primes Deluxe I managed to pick up so far was Air Raid. Sadly, this means we'll have to wait a bit longer for Slingshot, but at least we've got one Aerialbot to look at. In some ways, I think Air Raid had his work cut out for him. Compared to basically all of the other Prime Wars-era combiners the Aerialbots were arguably the best ones, good enough that a company called Ju Jiang tweaked and embiggened them and sold it as an alternative to Zeta's MP-scaled bots. Side-by-side, though, AotP Air Raid really does look like an improvement to me. The overall proportions are better. His chest doesn't need to be extra wide to accommodate that chunky Combiner Wars peg. The gold sticker-esque details are gone, and the excess red on his knees and shins has been reduced to small squares. The Autobot badge as been moved from his shoulder to his chest (and said shoulders don't have those spikes). He can wear is backpack with the wings open. It all adds up to being far, far more cartoon accurate. I do have a few notes, though. I actually still prefer the metallic blue on CW Air Raid's head. It's weird, because the G1 toy had silver on top of his head, and I feel like Sunbow colored him grayish blue to reflect that it's a different color than the white that makes up the rest of his head, but the blue on CW strikes me as more correct. Maybe because Sunbow did use a different gray for Air Raid's face? CW Air Raid interpreted that as blue head, silver face, but AotP is walking it back to silver head, gray face. My only other complaint are the black hips. I get that he'd only get so many runners, and perhaps that black plastic makes for stronger joints, but it really doesn't match anything. Red or white would have been a better choice. For that matter, I think maybe a white torso with red paint instead of a red torso with white paint might have been a better (if unrealistic by budget) call, based on the Sunbow art. Air Raid comes with two guns. They're not super detailed, but as near as I can tell they are a pretty decent match for the cartoon. You also get his vertical stabilizers, which are separate parts that peg in place. Air Raid's head is on a ball joint. He doesn't have much downward or sideways tilt, but he can look up pretty well in addition to turning his head. His shoulders swivel and move laterally a bit over 90 degrees. Unlike CW Air Raid, they're not ball joints. His biceps swivel, and his elbows bend 90 degrees. No wrist swivels, though they are at least separate parts this time. His waist swivels. His hips can go 90 degrees laterally and backward, and slightly over that forward. And, again, not ball joints this time. His thighs swivel, and his knees bend 90 degrees. Like his hands, his feet are seperate parts now. They can't tilt down, but they do tilt up, plus his ankles can pivot 90 degrees. He can hold his guns in either hand. He also puts the "stab" in "stabilizer," as he can wield them like some kind of knives. That said, you'll probably just plug them into the ports on the backs of his legs. The only other 5mm ports he has are on the undersides of his wings, if you're looking for a place to stow his guns. In broad strokes, Air Raid's transformation is not that different than the Combiner Wars toy. Turn the head around, and double-hinge the nose and intakes up and over. Open the legs and double hinge the backs up and over the thighs. Fold down the horizontal stabs. Tuck the arms into the sides. The only real differences are that you either need to spin the vertical stabs (assuming you already had them plugged in), fold in his fists, and (and this is the big one) instead of doubling-hinging his shin up and over his thigh his shin flips up 180 degrees over the thigh, and his feet fold down against the inside of his shins. Aside from his arms not being tucked in as tightly, when viewed from some angles AotP Air Raid is definitely an improvement. For one thing, the silhouette is a lot closer to a legally-distinct F-15 than the more F-14-ish CW version (even with the vertical stabs are too far inward, sitting on top of the engine bulges instead of along side them). Two, while perhaps a bit less interesting visually, the simple white stripes on the wings and the stubbier nose are both more cartoon accurate. From other angles, though, Air Raid's definitely got some issues. As I noted, the arms jut out from the sides. This is because while they do peg in place, they don't actually tuck in at all. The molded exhaust details are a nice touch, but they don't line up at all with the engine humps. And then there's his feet. Look, I know as Macross fans a lot of us are used to more streamlined transforming planes, and I've often suggested that it's an unrealistic expectation for Transformers given that, a.) they have to be cartoon accurate, b.) often were bricks of robot strapped to the underside of a plane in the G1 days, and c.) are limited in engineering due to their limited budget. That said, is there really nothing better they could have done with his shins and feet? They take an already chunky block of robot hanging under a plane and make it even thicker! Why not swivel them around to the sides, behind his arms? Honestly, without the added thickness of his feet, the jet mode really wouldn't be that bad (by Transformers standards). As I mentioned, if the vertical stabs were already plugged into his legs, all you need to do is turn them 180 degrees. They never need to be removed. As for his guns, you can plug them into the undersides of his wings and it looks fine. The panel on his chest with the Autobot insignia can flip forward as "landing gear". Nevermind that it's like a quarter plane-length behind where an F-15's actual landing gear would be, it's at least enough to keep him from tipping forward onto his nose. For the most part, Air Raid's a definite improvement over the Combiner Wars version. In bot mode, it's amazing how much better proportions and working ankles can make for more dynamic poses, and honestly just replacing the ball joints in the shoulders and hips with hinges and swivels is a big upgrade in my book, plus the deco is far more cartoon accurate. The jet mode is also much closer to the cartoon (and an F-15) than the Combiner Wars version. It's just a shame that his shins and feet add so much thickness to the underside, turning what could have been a slam dunk into more of a goofy-looking underhanded free throw. Still, the greatly-improved robot mode and the mostly-from-some-angles improvements to the alt mode are enough to make me prefer Air Raid over not only his Combiner Wars version, but also over his wave mate Solus Prime. He makes me eager to get my hands on Slingshot. Frankly, that's enough for me that I'll give him a recommend.

While Legacy started fairly strong, I think even its most ardent defenders will have to admit that Legacy United made 2024 one of the weakest years Transformers has had this decade. The number of new molds spread across the four 2024 waves was paltry, and then they opened 2025 with a bonus fifth wave that was nothing but repaints and package refreshes. I've been dying for some genuinely new figures, and it looks like they're finally starting to trickle out. Today I stopped at my local Walmart and didn't find anything, but the next closest Walmart had half of the Age of the Primes wave 1 deluxes! And since the theme of Age of the Primes is, well, the 13 Primes, let's open with one of the titular Primes, Solus Prime. Let's talk about the Thirteen for a minute, shall we? They were originally conceived of as not necessarily Primes, but the as the first thirteen Transformers created by Primus. The seeds of this began when Simon Furman was writing for 3H Productions, but became a sort of canon when Furman wrote the DK-published Transformers: The Ultimate Guide, and was further fleshed out when Furman wrote Transformers: The War Within: Dark Ages for Dreamwave, which introduced the Fallen. Other characters, like the barman Maccadam, old Alpha Trion, and the Liege Maximo were tossed around as potentially being part of the Thirteen, and when Transformers Galaxy Force came to the west writer Forest Lee decided that Vector Prime must also be one. The notion of the Thirteen was kicked around a bit behind the scenes, with Fun Publications introducing some characters in their BotCon comics, and Hirofumi Ichikawa implying that Logos Prime (aka Cybertron Soundblaster) was one in a Beast Wars manga. And it was around that time that Hasbro a.) was developing Transformers Prime, and b.) decided they'd better sit down and figure out exactly who the Thirteen were and what exactly their deal was. And so, we got The Convenant of Primus, a real book based on an in-fiction book written by Alpha Trion that details the story of the Primes, and suffice to say that Alpha Trion and Vector Prime did indeed make the cut. While Alpha Trion has been leaked as a Voyager for later this year, there's been no mention of Vector Prime, and with the Legacy United figure being a recent release it wouldn't surprise me if we either don't get another one, or get a package refresh of this one. So, even if we exclude the SDCC Alpha Trion, I'm pretty sure Solus is actually the second Prime to be released. By this point, there have been a few depictions of Solus Prime, but this figure seems to borrow the most from the model created for the Machinima Power of the Primes series (though that model itself could be see as G1-ifiying the design from the Covenant). The shape of her chest, the largely purple-and-silver color scheme, the shoulder pads, the pointy toes on the feet, and the apron all take heavily from that design, though her head is arguably a bit closer to the Transformers One design. As a Deluxe she doesn't have a lot of stature, but it's a solidly-sculpted robot. Solus comes with these three accessories, but you can really think of them more as three parts of one accessory. The darker purple bit plugs onto the wide end of the gray shaft, and the other bit onto the 3mm peg on the other end of the shaft, and you've got the hammer known as the Forge of Solus. The Forge was a plot point in the Transformers Prime cartoon, with Megatron replacing one of his arms with the arm of a dead Prime so he could use it. The design here is not the Forge we see in Prime, though. Rather, it's almos exactly the hammer from the Machinima version, which in turn was the hammer seen in The Covenant of Primus but with the pink swapped for gold. Solus' head is on a ball joint with adequate up, down, and sideways tilt in addition to the standard swivel. Her shoulders swivel and can move laterally 90 degrees, plus due to her transformation she's got a 45-ish degrees of forward butterfly. Her biceps swivel, her elbows bend 90 degrees, and her wrists are on ball joints that swivel and bend inward. Her waist swivels. Her apron is actually three parts, all hinged, so her hips can move 90 degrees forward and laterally, and about 60 degrees backward before her backpack gets in the way. Her thighs swivel, and her knees bend 90 degrees. Her ankles don't tilt up or down, but they can swivel as well as pivot 90 degrees. To get Solus to hold her hammer, you have to slide the shaft up from the bottom of her hand and then plug the top onto the shaft. The butterfly joints and inward-bending wrists do allow you to get her in poses holding the hammer with two hands. Aside from her hands, she has 5mm ports on the outsides of her forearms, and one on her backpack near her butt. A peg near the top of the hammer can be folded out and plugged into the port on her backpack to give her bot-mode weapon storage. As much as I really like Solus' robot mode, her alt mode isn't doing her any favors. Transformation was simple but also frustrating. Some parts didn't want to line up, some parts seemed like they needed more clearance than they actually got, and way too many parts came off that weren't supposed to. On my copy, one of the flaps on the inside of her forearm came off, her grill came off, a panel that rotates on her shoulder pads came off on one of them, and her entire right foot came off no fewer than three times. And for what? The front half of her truck mode starts off pretty strong, but kind of quits halfway through. The front of her apron spins 180 degrees, but her apron is ultimately just draped over her thighs, which are still super visible from the sides. Her knees and part of her shins form the rear, but don't come close enough to not leave a huge gap. They could have designed this version of Solus any way they wanted to, but it's clear that they heavily prioritized the robot mode. I'd be more mad at it, but technically Solus wasn't supposed to have an alt mode, so... She can, at least, carry her Forge in this mode. You'd think the obvious thing to do would be to use the flip out peg to plug the Forge into her roof, the same spot she stowed it in bot mode. However, you might notice that one side of the Forge has a tab on it. That tab actually plugs into a slot near either knee so that the Forge attaches to the side of the truck instead of the top. I think Solus is a bit of a mixed bag. On the one hand, the concept of the Thirteen has intrigued me since I first read Transformers: The Ultimate Guide, and it as well as The Covenant of Primus are both on my bookshelf as we speak. Toy version of the Thirteen have been on my wish list for awhile. And, as a robot, I don't think Solus disappoints. I like the sculpt, and I think the articulation works well for her with her Forge. Her alt mode, though, looks like she stopped halfway through transforming, and with all the parts that fell off I found it to be more frustrating than fun. If, like me, you're planning a display of the Thirteen in their bot modes then Solus is probably worth picking up. But if your love of Transformers begins with the cartoon in 1984 and ends with the cartoon in 1987 and you're scratching your head thinking, "what thirteen original Primes?" then you're better off skipping Solus.

Sideways and Excellion are up for pre-orders on Pulse and Walmart.com, though I don't actually recommend Walmart since they've yet to fill my preorders for the toy -style Gears and Bumblebee, but somehow had both show up in stock for new orders then sold out of at least Bumblebee. EDIT: Apparently Target is also doing a thing, now. They're going to unveil something Transformers every Thursday for the rest of March. Unfortunately, today's reveal is a reissue (or a lot of leftover stock) of Legacy Devcon. That said, I have it on good authority that the Perceptor pack with Ramhorn and Ratbat is next week and the Devastation pack (blue Runamuck and black Ramjet) will we in two weeks.

Lilo and Stitch is, quite possibly, my favorite Disney movie, so I'm less inclined to dismiss it outright than a lot of their other recent output. However, I still don't get Disney's perverse need to do live action remakes of all their older animated movies... especially when half the time "live action" isn't even that, it's just "realistic" CGI animation.

Have you played it? I'm not super big on SRPGs. I bought SD Gundam G Generation Cross Rays and couldn't get into it, played one of the Disgaea games on the PSP and didn't care for it, played the GBA Final Fantasy Tactics and couldn't get into it... but on the other hand, I did kind of like Transformers: Battlegrounds and I loved the Project X Zone games on the 3DS. Not sure if I'd like this one or not.

Pre-COVID my wife and I would visit her family in Beijing, which for us usually meant a short flight from Pittsburgh to Detroit, then a 12-13 flight from Detroit to Beijing. And I'll tell you, there's something about being bored out of your mind six hours into a flight and knowing that you're only halfway there that'll turn a movie you wouldn't give a second glance at on Netflix at home and turns it into an Oscar contender.

I've never bothered to finish Cybertron, and didn't collect the original toyline, so I shouldn't be interested in him. But I'll probably get him anyway. ...assuming Walmart actually honors their preorders. I have preorders for the "toy" versions of Gears of Bumblebee. They haven't filled those; my preorders just say "by March 31st." But apparently Gears is showing as in-stock and if you place a new order you'll have him in like two days.🤨 While I didn't have the original Cybertron Sideways, I did have the Ratbat repaint that came with the Springer repaint of Evac. I'd say based on that my wishlist will be replacing the ball joints with hinges and swivels, giving him ankle articulation, and that the weapon-thing with the pop-out blades be removable.\ I'll probably get Excellion, too. I thought the mold was pretty good in Hot Shot colors, might as well get it in Hot Rod colors. I think a lot of Western naming for Unicron Trilogy characters was kind of weird. Rampage gets changed to Wheeljack (despite looking way more like Sideswipe), so then later the guy who's definitely supposed to be Wheeljack winds up getting called Downshift. Roadbuster is renamed Ironhide, despite have almost nothing in common with previous Ironhides. As for Excellion, I think that's just Hasbro trying to make one of the main characters Hot Shot to reinforce the idea of a trilogy, despite the fact that Galaxy Force wasn't supposed to be a sequel to Micron Densetsu or Super Link.

Or any other matter, really.

Oh yeah, I'd nearly forgotten that. ... And now I want them to do a RoboCop vs Terminator game.

If you're not into RoboCop, it's a solid but definitely not triple A shooter. If you're into RoboCop, though, it's the best the franchise has seen in decades, with a story set just after RoboCop 2 with Peter Weller reprising the role of Alex Murphy.

Walmart exclusives. Preorders should open at 10:00am ET/7:00am PT on Thursday, March 13th.

I'm pumped! I loved Rogue City, it's the only sequel to RoboCop 2 I'll acknowledge.

I'm planning to buy a Zephyrus G14 with an RTX 5070ti when they're available, then waiting until fall to worry about my desktop. The RTX 4070 I have isn't bad, I can get 60-100 FPS in most of the games at 5120x1440. My Core-i7-9700K's been the real bottleneck.

I mean, kinda sums up the entire Missing Link line. But I'm pretty sure that's the same price as Sunstreaker and Cordon.

The price of the 9070XT is set so that you look at it and the price of a RTX 5070ti and say, "this is clearly the better deal!" The price of the 9070 is set so that, after they sell through the XTs, people desperate for a GPU will say, "it's almost as good" and pay the $550, until AMD caves and lowers the price. They did almost this exact same thing a generation or two ago.

Well, the reviews are coming in. Ray tracing has improved, as has FSR, though FSR isn't as widely supported and ray tracing is still behind Nvidia's, especially if the game uses path tracing. But for raw performance the 9070XT is pretty on par with the RTX 5070ti for $150 less. If buses partners can keep them in stock at MSRP, I might be switching to Team Red for the first time in around 20 years. The 9070 is a bit of a head scratcher, though. It's not actually bad, and on paper looks to compete with the non-ti 5070, but it's priced so closely to the XT version that you might as well spend the extra $50. If they dropped the price another $50 it'd be a compelling budget choice.

Aside from software updates, the Taycan hasn't really changed from the 2020 through 2024 models, right? I'm shopping used Taycans in my area, and it looks like I can get a base '22, or 2020 4S for around the same price and mileage. I know the 2020 Taycans had a bunch of problems, but shouldn't they have been addressed through recalls and software updates? EDIT: Nevermind. I found a Porsche-certified preowned base '23 with less than 6000 miles, Imma jump on that. Just have to have it transported from Dallas to Pittsburgh.

They do, just not sales to us. They care about selling to data centers, who spent about $115 billion on Nvidia's chips last year. By contrast, their gaming-focused products made around $11 billion.

I preordered Vortex and Alchemist, as well as the Carnivac/Fisitron pack.

Basically, there's (probably) not a good reason to buy an RTX 5070 for gaming. The 5070ti can at least claim an advantage in RT and DLSS, but (as long as AMD's claims are close to true) the 9070 XT looks like more performance for the same price.

Man, I figured ordering from Hasbro Pulse would be the best way to get a Takara figure, because it's like "official" or something. Pulse is official, alright. Officially last, since I'm just now able to talk about a figure it seems like everyone else had months ago: MPG-09 Super Ginrai. My initial thought is that it's kind of neat that Ginrai is similar in size and proportions to the original toy. Of course, the deco is a bit different; he's got blue eyes (my original has blue eyes because it's a reissue, not the original 88 release), he's got some blue on his hips and upper thighs, no silver on his chest, no stickers on his knees, more yellow on his pelvis, etc (and that's not even touching on differences between the original Takara Ginrai vs the western Powermaster Optimus release). These changes are largely to bring Ginrai in line with his appearance Super God Masterforce; that said, there's a release as MP-60 Ginrai that has a more toy-accurate deco. A complaint I've heard from some, usually fans who think of this as Powermaster Optimus and not Ginrai, and who think that Powermaster Optimus should essentially be G1 Optimus with a new trailer and a combining gimmick, have bemoaned the fact that Ginrai's back the entire front of his cab. That strikes me as kind of weird... it's ok for a toy to have a fake grill, maybe even fake windows, for the sake of animation accuracy but then the real parts have to be totally hidden? Leaving them exposed, that's where they draw the line? While it's quite possible that the G1 toy's cab back, fake front was actually an attempt at a more cartoon-accurate Optimus, the simple fact is that Takara leaned into the design and Ginrai having the front of a truck on his back is cartoon accurate. Regardless, this is fine with me. As someone who actually didn't own a original G1 Optimus as a kid, Powermaster Optimus was my first real Optimus toy and I've got a lot of nostalgia for it. The fact that MP/MPG Ginrai is so similar to the original toy kind of makes him seem like a Missing Link version... Which, maybe, is a good way to look at it. Because, despite a version solicited as MP-60, Ginrai is NOT in-scale with with previous Masterpiece releases. Of course, some of that depends on how big you think Ginrai should be. I mean, if, as Powermaster Optimus, he's basically G1 Optimus with a new trailer, you could argue that he's Generation-scaled, standing almost exactly as tall as SS86 Optimus. He's significantly shorter than the MP-10/MP-44-sized Power Baser. Now, I've heard some people suggest that because Ginrai wasn't much taller than the Headmaster Juniors, and a scene with Minerva and Wheeljack at the same height means that Minerva is Wheeljack-sized and Ginrai only slightly bigger than that, so Ginrai should be smaller than Optimus. Those people should remember that Wheeljack died in the 86 movie, though, because we don't have to go by the often wildly inconsistent sizes depicted in the cartoon. We have official sizes from official production materials... Optimus Prime is six meters tall. And Ginrai is supposed to be ten. That's right, Ginrai is actually supposed to be bigger than Optimus. One more size comparison, here he is with the Perfect Effect and Maketoys versions. You get quite a few accessories with MPG-09, and quite a bit fewer with MP-60. Both versions come with a transformable Powermaster figure. Both versions come with the two smaller black guns, and both versions come with the two yellow blast effects. That's all you get with MP-60, though. With MPG-09, you also get two larger rifles, a smaller, static Powermaster figure, a stand adapter, two chōkon effect parts, some shoulder parts, two alternate hands, two alternate heads, to gray guns, and a trailer, as well as a sheet of stickers. Here's the transformable and static Powermaster figures (middle) with Fans Hobby and G1 on the left and Perfect Effect and Maketoys on the right. The static figure has no articulation. The transformable one has ball joints in the shoulders and hips, hinged knees, and hinged ankles. Not a ton of articulation, but to be fair, it's pretty similar to all the others versions. Ginrai himself has pretty fantastic articulation, though. His head swivels. There's not really any downward or sideways tilt, but he can look almost 90 degrees up. His shoulders swivel, and they move nearly 90 degrees on a soft ratchet, while another hinge on the other side of the swivel can bend another 90 degrees. He's got dedicated butterfly hinges as well. His biceps swivel, and despite being a single joint his elbows bend about 180 degrees. His wrists swivel, plus they have some up/down tilt. His fingers are a single part molded into a curl, but they are hinged at the base so his hands can open. His waist swivels, and he's got not only a little forward ab crunch but a little sideways lean as well. His hip joints are on swivels that lower them, allowing the actual ratcheted hips to go 90 degrees backward and over 90 degrees forward or sideways. His thighs swivel. His knees are double-jointed, though you might not realize it because the upper joint is locked in place. Combined they get nearly 180 degrees of knee bend. His feet tilt up around 60 degrees, and although they don't tilt down his toes can. He's got about 60 degrees of ankle pivot. As an ostensibly MP figure, the black guns have tabs on the handles that fit into slots in Ginrai's palms. He can actually hold either the smaller or the larger ones, though the weight of the larger ones is a bit much for him Both sizes are compatible with the yellow effect parts. The other effect parts have tabs that plug into the slots on Ginrai's palms, for those times when he needs UNLIMTED POWER!!! Er, wait, wrong franchise. The Powermaster figure folds up and plugs into Ginrai's back, much like the original toy. It seems to stay in via friction, as I see no other obvious connectors. The grill is spring-loaded, like the original toy, and has the unfortunate tendence of releasing while you're manipulating the figure, launching the Powermaster into parts unknown. Ginrai's transformation isn't quite as simple as the G1 toy, but it's surprisingly not that far off. His waist swivels so the back of his legs become the hitch instead of the front, and his toes fold into his heels. The actual trailer hitch folds out from his calves and tabs together with his legs. The entire front of the cab hinges away, giving you room to fold in his head and ribs. His forearms open so you can fold in his hands, then the arms sort of separate from the shoulder joints so that they can swing around in a matter similar the G1 toy. However, instead of curling up over his chest his forearms use a hinge above the elbow to bend outward and tuck into the sides more like a G1 toy. Honestly, it feels like something that could have easily been done with a regular Leader-class figure. Once again, the result is almost exactly the same size as the G1 toy... Which makes it smaller now than both Power Baser and SS86 Optimus. It's similar in size to Perfect Effect, but still larger than Maketoys. Takara seemed to try hard to match the G1 toy here. The pattern of molded details and rivets are largely the same, and the silver tripe only runs partly along the sides like the original toy rather than all the way around like a G1 Optimus. There are a few improvements, though, like the headlights being separate from the bumper, painted marker lights on the bumper, and a bit of filling in and reducing the visible hinges on the sides. It's still not great from the back. Note that the single wheel on each side of the rear is accurate to the G1 toy and the Masterforce cartoon. If you have MP-60, pretty much all you can do with the truck mode is to fold the handles up to reveal some 5mm pegs. These pegs fan plug into ports on either side of the hitch on the rear. Technically, you can pull the front of the cab open and the smaller static Powermaster can fit inside like he's driving, but MP-60 doesn't come with the static figure. The transforming Powermaster can't fit so he can't drive. If you bought MPG-09, though, you got his trailer as well. There's definitely a similarity with the G1 toy; some blue on the top, a big plug arm to connect the trailer to the cab, a front of the trailer that's clearly robot arms, and even blue panels and some red details that don't need to be that way, they're just mimic the G1 trailer that did. There's some improvements, though. The arm that connects the trailer to the cab has panels that hide the gap behind it and help secure the arms in place. The rear has molded details that actually look like a trailer door. And, near the middle on the underside, there are fold out feet that allow the trailer to stand on its own. To complete the look, you can plug the larger black guns into ports on the top, and the gray guns into ports on the sides of the arms. If you really want to store everything, well, you kind of can't (as there's no real storage for the effect parts, stand adapter, or alternate hands and faces). But you can store the smaller guns, as there are slots in front of the handles that fit onto tabs on the backs of the bigger guns. And the rear of the trailer can open, revealing small compartments that you can stuff the Powermaster figures into. With the G1 toy. The new trailer is a little larger, and his arms stick up a bit too high. And a quick shot with SS86 Optimus, Fans Hobby Power Baser, Perfect Effect with the Legends Ginrai trailer, and Maketoys Thunder Manus. Despite being a bit larger than the G1 trailer, I think the cab/trailer combo looks more proportional than Power Baser. Speaking of Power Baser, his base mode was rather reimagined, as was the Takara Legends version. So I really appreciate that MPG Ginrai's trailer not only has the base mode from the G1 toy, but that is practically identical. There's even some similar molded details and some tampos that act like a simplified version of the G1 toy's stickers. Of course, the real point of the trailer isn't a base mode, it's to combine with Ginrai to make Super Ginrai. The differences in Super Ginrai mode between MPG-09 and the G1 toy are a bit more obvious. MPG-09 is taller, with more heroic anime proportions than the squat, big-headed original (though it throws into doubt the idea that Ginrai only gains five meters of height in this mode. He's also sporting the red fingers, red crotch, and blue eyes of the cartoon, and though there's molded details the blue on his chest and the sticker details on his knees and shins there's no color there. The tranformation, much like the base Ginrai, is similar too but slightly more complex than the G1 toy. More of the sides of the trailer fold into the panels on the sides of his legs, while the backs of his legs are no longer made from the trailer. Rather, the back half of the top of the trailer folds onto his back. The back of the trailer swivels into his calves, giving him "feet" that are below the edges of the trailer panels on the sides of his legs. His arms unfurl pretty much the same as the G1 toy, but his forearms open so the hands can fold out rather than slide out on the JG1 toy or molded lumps on the western G1 toy. The extra height does make him bigger than both the Takara Legends Super Ginrai and Maketoys Thunder Manus... He still falls well short of Power Baser, though. Articulation isn't quite as good in Super Ginrai mode as Ginrai alone, but it's still pretty good. His head still can't really look down or tilt sideways, but he can tilt his head up and swivel it. His shoulders rotate on ratchets. The round bits on the tops of his shoulders can open so he can move his arms nearly 90 degrees laterally, and though it's on the wrong side of the swivel joint an additional hinge can be used to get more lateral movement if you wish. As with regular Ginrai, he's got dedicated butterfly joints as well. His biceps swivel, and his elbows bend a little over 90 degrees on a single hinge. His hands swivel and bend in/out a little. His fingers are now hinged at the base and the middle knuckles, and his index finger is separate from the other three, plus his thumb has a hinge at the base. His waist swivels on a ratchet, and he's got 45 degrees of ab crunch. His hips ratchet 90 degrees forward and laterally, and about 45 degrees backward. His thighs swivel, and his single-jointed knee ratchets bend about 140 degrees. Due to his transformation, his entire shin-foot thing can tilt up and down, and the sole of his foot can click inward on a ratchet a single 30-degree click to keep his feet flat despite not really having ankles. The gray guns properly peg into his shoulders, and he's meant to hold the larger rifles with the same tabbed handle, slotted palm mechanism. Note that there are four peg holes on his back, which can give you a place to store the smaller guns (for now). There's also peg holes on the soles of his feet for Generations-style effect parts. Speaking of effect parts, not only are the big rifles also compatible with the beams Ginrai comes with, but so are the gray shoulder guns. Likewise, his palms still work with the chōkon effect parts, and for maximum anime accuracy you can remove the gray guns from his shoulders and plug in the extra shoulder bits which exaggerate the natural shape at the edges of his shoulders. Swapping Super Ginrai's head is super easy, barely an inconvenience. Just grab it and slide it forward. Aside from the stock head (middle), you get a slightly more stylized head, and one that's identical to the stock head except it has red eyes like the G1 toy. Likewise, you can open up his forearms like you're going to transform him and slide out his hands, swapping them with entirely blue ones. Blue hands match the slide-out hands on the JG1 toy; all red hands to match the Powermaster Optimus toy would have been cool, but Takara technically only produced this for the Japanese market I get why there's no red option. Oh, this is also where the stickers come in. If you want a more toy-style Super Ginrai, you can use stickers to add the blue to his chest, give him a yellow crotch, add the stickers to his knees and shins, and replace the cartoon Autobot insignias on his shoulder and trailer with toy-style ones. However, to truly have a toy style Super Ginrai you'd have to buy MPG-09, put the stickers on the trailer, AND buy MP-60 to replace the cab. Honestly, I don't know why they didn't just skip MP-60 entirely. They easily could have made the red-eyed head a swappable one and included stickers for the silver ribs and colored knees. It's one of a few things that have kind of soured me a bit on this release. Don't get me wrong, I think MPG-09 looks great in both modes, has tons of articulation, and is pretty easy to transform. It's a good figure! But, it's also a bit small for an MP. The size and simplicity make me think that, with a few less accessories, plastic instead of diecast, and a little less paint, Hasbro could have sold this figure as a Commander-class. If not Commander, then certainly the new smaller $150 Titan. And at even $150 I'd have strongly recommended it; I think it's a pretty good fit with Generations. It's not $150, though. At $280, it's nearly double that (and even more if you want a toy-style one and replace the cab with MP-60). Put another way, MPG-09 cost me $10 more than all six of the Mecha Invasion Constructicons. And at that price, I'm looking at a few sprue marks. I'm looking at one particular tab on his backpack that likes to pop open. I'm looking at a Powermaster that pops out if you look at him funny (and one that the ball joint on one hip sheared off the second time I transformed it). I'm looking at effect parts and a static Powermaster slug I don't need... heck, I don't really need the extra hands, heads, or shoulder bits, and one set of rifles for both figures would have been fine. Ultimately, I think I'd have to give Super Ginrai a soft recommendation. He's a good, maybe very good, but overpriced figure not-quite-MP figure.

Already? I thought I was playing it pretty hardcore, I'm just reaching Thirdborn. Ayup. I mean, they have to go on actual performance because they're lagging on things like ray tracing and AI upscaling. But what's sad? Moore's Law really is dead... we're getting close to the limit of what's physically possible with how the chips are manufactured. Can't keep shrinking the dies or packing it transistors. You can pump more power in, but an RTX 5090 can already drawn nearly 600 watts; you're going to need dedicated circuits from your breaker and an industrial cooler to drawn much more. Like it or not, you want more frames, AI upscaling is the future, and Nvidia's just plain better at it. They've gotten to the point where, unless I'm actively looking for it, I don't notice a difference in quality 99% of the time. (Not a fan of frame gen, though).

The second one. Some other stuff from the fair... Onyx Prime. He's sort of a triple changer. He's got this dragon mode. But also a centaur mode. Sideways and Excellion. Walmart exclusives, I think. Yeah, there's that Perceptor, too. He's getting the Blaster treatment... replacing the clear plastic of the prior release with painted bits, swapping black parts for dark gray, etc. But you'll probably buy him, because' he's coming with Ratbat and Ramhorn. And sure, Ratbat also had a release prior... but this one has his boosters. I think Percy and friends might be a Target exclusive. ...along with this two-pack of Devastation grunts. Amazon exclusive Carnivac and Ironfist... er, Fisitron. Bascially what I expected, though I'm surpised to see they actually put some new tooling on Ironfist. There's Diaclone-colored Topspin and Spinister, too. Spinister will basically be the same as the WfC version, but with darker colors inspired by the Marvel comics. And it's not news, but there's another peep at the other Hearts of Steel pack.