mikeszekely

5 hours ago, davidwhangchoi said:

If you notice on recent Outrun ports as in the photo above, SEGA had to change the car design as they no longer have the Ferrari license. They also had to get rid of the Porshe emblem on the AI cars in the game 

I wasn't aware of recent OutRun ports. Like, Arcade Archives or something? I guess it makes sense, though... those licenses expire. It's why you can currently only buy Forza Horizon 5 and the Forza Motorsport reboot but none of the older ones.

I'm a BIG Porsche fan, so there better be some of those in the movie, too.

5 minutes ago, JB0 said:

And the cynic in me says it'll be sponsored by GM. I hope you like Outrun in a Camaro.

Eww, that's just... eww.  I mean no disrespect to American muscle cars, but OutRun isn't OutRun without Ferrari.  The only way I'd accept anything less is if Ferrari simply won't play ball, but if that's the case they should go with a similarly-expensive Italian car with a similarly-ridiculous amount of power.

1 hour ago, davidwhangchoi said:

i hope the Ferrari they use is like the one in season 3 Miami Vice.

On paper it should be; that MV car and the one in the original OutRun are but Testarossas (F110), and the Testarossas was one of the playable Ferraris in OutRun 2/Coast 2 Coast. But I could see Ferrari (or Bay) insisting that they use a more current model like the F80 or 12Cilindri.

... And I don't know how I feel about that. The gamer in me says the Testarossa is more authentic, but the car nerd in me would love to see the F80 in action.

29 minutes ago, davidwhangchoi said:

will you do a review once it comes in?

That's the plan!

Got a notice from FedEx that I have an 11 pound package coming from Hasbro, but no emails from Hasbro. Based on part experiences that means Omega Prime is shipping.

Y'know... as much as I'm not a fan of what Michael Bay did with the Transformers movies, his style would probably work for Outrun.  Hot girl, lots of glamour shots of the cars, maybe some high speed chases (with explosions).  Pretty sure I've seen worse.

2 hours ago, M'Kyuun said:

 

I hope not; I hope Takara's more committed than that. While they've pushed some white Optimi toys as UM over the decades, G1 UM is synonymous with his armored look and I would hope that if they indeed choose to do him as a Missing Link entry, they go all-in and figure out a way to make the trailer work as his armor, even if it means a bit of partsforming to achieve the trailer and the armor. I think that'd be more acceptable in most fans' eyes than just a naked white Optimus clone. I believe they're up to the challenge; after 40+ years of making these things, they certainly should be.

It's not that I disagree, I just don't know how much faith I have in them not to go for the easy cash grab.

And it's not just the fact that the joints for Magnus don't line up with the cab. The cab used the fist holes to connect, and ML Convoy doesn't have those fist holes. I think it's probably pretty trivial to find a way to transform Magnus' fists, but what about the chest, waist, and head? How many changes do we tolerate before it's less G1 toy with articulation and more new toy? I'm just feeling a bit pessimistic about this one. 

Fortunately Grimlock should be much  easier for Takara to pull off.

45 minutes ago, Scyla said:

I wonder if the ML Ultra Magnus will be a white repaint of ML Prime, without the car carrier.

That, unfortunately, is an exceedingly likely possibility. 

On the plus side for you, if that turns out to be the case an ML Nemesis Prime would pretty much be a guarantee after that.

7 hours ago, sh9000 said:

And if Grimlock is getting a ML release I also still want an official G1 reissue.

While that'd be nice it's my understanding that the original molds for the Dinobots were either lost or degraded/destroyed.

Then again, I'd heard the same thing about Hound, and Walmart relatively re-released him in the animation accurate colors, and there's supposed to be decent KOs of them out there, so...🤷‍♂️

Haven't been to Target since last week, but they didn't have jack then. Looks like Walmart did a reset- the Transformers section moved, and now they've got lots of new Studio Series and Age of the Primes toys, plus Retro Gears and Bee, but nothing bigger than Voyager.

Waiting on Silverbolt, I guess. Amazon says he's delayed, but was due on April 2nd (better than some people, though; I had Amazon cancelled a bunch of orders). Pulse says November.

11 minutes ago, M'Kyuun said:

That said, had I had a crystal ball back when those toys released, I might have skipped them in lieu of XTB's current offerings. thus far, I've liked their approach, and while they're still leaning towards the toon look, it's not as severe as FT's. Moreover, their Long Haul is one of the best toys ever made of that character- his dumper actually dumps in truck mode and the shoulders are far better executed than TW's, which just flop about without any locking mechanism to prevent it.

Yeah.  At the time Long Haul was released I was still fully expecting to be all-in on MMC's and that's it, but now that I've Ground Bite in hand I'm really sorry I slept on Big Load.

12 minutes ago, M'Kyuun said:

Like the aforementioned floppy shoulders on Long Haul.

Couple of mine have loose joints now.  But there's other stuff that bugs me, like how Boncrusher's chest doesn't stay hooked on, the tolerances on all the panels jammed into Mixmaster's legs, Scrapper's lower legs being as thick as they are tall, Long Haul's difficulty standing up without the panels from the upgrade kit, etc.

14 minutes ago, M'Kyuun said:

I still love how the treads are fully functional on Bonecrusher and Scavenger, one of the major selling points for me when I bought them.

A little birdie told me that MMC's should have working treads.😉

15 minutes ago, M'Kyuun said:

Needless to say, I'm looking forward to this next wave of Has/Tak's Combaticons

Same, Vortex is looking very good (especially compared to the CW version).  But be warned, they're definitely using a frame for him like Superion and Menasor.

11 minutes ago, anime52k8 said:

Honestly, I think I like my decade old toyworld Devy more than Fans Toys version.

I think he's been fine as Devastator for a long time, but taking them apart for some of these recent reviews made the flaws in the individual bots stand out.

And it's not like you can ever have too many Devastators.

Until MMC starts releasing their Constructicons, the main competition to X-Transbots is going to be Fans Toys.  So, this would be their Scrapper, Gehry.

If Fans Toys had released Gehry when the only "MP" competition was ToyWorld I think we'd all be pretty satisfied.  He's a big boy, made of the sort of quality materials people have come to expect from Fans Toys with just about every surface painted.  He's super cartoon accurate, too, with the green lumps instead of wheels on his shoulders and the shins that are smooth boxes unblemished save for the simple round bits just below the knees.

Gehry's problem, though, is that he's not coming out alone against the decade-old ToyWorld set, he's come at very nearly the same time as X-Transbot's Ground Bite.  Traditionally I think these sorts of matchups have favored Fans Toys... compare their Cyconlus, their Seaspray (2.0 for FT), their Blaster, their Perceptor (2.0 for FT), their Cliffjumper, their Trailbreaker, etc, and FT has come out ahead (although not always ahead enough to justify their prices).  This time, though, I'm inclined to argue that Ground Bite looks a bit better.  Objectively, I think the purple FT chose is a tad too red, and he's a bit too wide.  Subjectively, the plain sculpt is maybe a bit too Sunbow for me, leaving Gehry a bit lifeless.  Oh, and there's also the backpack.  FT seems to have over-engineered the shovel to shrink it down in the name of... what, cartoon accuracy?  I went back through a couple of clips of Scrapper in the cartoon, and his shovel wasn't so narrowed.  And so much of that condensed mass is just random dangly kibble flaps.  Then there's the fact that his front wheels are stuffed into his butt.

I'm not necessarily holding it against him, but Gehry comes with fewer accessories, too.  You get a big green chunk of... thing.  You get his trumpet, and you get his gun.

On his own, Gehry's articulation is a bit sub-standard, which is even worse when you compare it to Ground Bite's above-average articulation.  Gehry's head is on a hinged swivel with almost no downward range and about 45 degrees of upward tilt.  HIs shoulders rotate and move 90 degrees laterally.  His biceps swivel, and his elbows bend about 60 degrees.  His wrists swivel, but no bend.  His thumbs have a ball joint at the base and a single hinged knuckle.  Each of his fingers are individually articulated with a hinge at the base and a hinge at the middle knuckle.  He technically does have a waist swivel, but what you see in the above image is the maximum range you're going to get out of it because the wheels in his butt completely obstruct it.  No ab crunch, either.  His hips ratchet forward a little over 90 degrees, but backward only about 30 degrees.  Lateral movement is a friction joint, and it's also limited to about 75 degrees.  He has a limited thigh swivel, and his knees bend 90 degrees.  His feet tilt down and slightly up, with about 45 degrees of ankle pivot before you have to fold down his heel to clear the edge of his leg.

He can hold his gun and trumpet much the same way most MP-style figure do, with tabs on the accessories that fit into slots on his palms.  I'll note that the tab on the trumpet is such that you curl his fingers through the loop under the keys.  That's actually movie-accurate.

While there's no storage for his weapons in robot mode, if you're worried about it there is storage on his back for the big green thing.

Transforming Gehry's legs is pretty straightforward, perhaps even more so than Ground Bite.  Enjoy that part, though, because the rest of the transformation is decidedly less enjoyable.  A frankly unnecessary amount of the transformation is spent expanding his shovel and arranging the shovel's arms.  Then there's his own arms, which spin apart so that you can kind of wedge his shoulders into the front of the alt mode but stick his forearms along the sides.  The wheels move from his butt to the space his shoulders vacated.

If you just look at the part of the loader made from Gehry's legs it's fine.  The detail is pretty simplified, but that's kind of how the cartoon was even if it's not my preference.  Likewise, the roof over the open cab is more cartoon/toy accurate than Ground Bite.  But that's all the nice things I can say, because everything else is a mess of random parts smashed together in a way that's neither cartoon accurate, toy accurate, or realistic.  Lumps of arm kibble lay along the sides, lumps of shoulder kibble cover the front, there's no details in the "cockpit" for a driver, the arms connecting the shovel are just kind of there, and the shovel itself is covered in seams and gaps to facilitate the again largely unnecessary robot mode shrinkage.

It does, at least, roll.  And the shovel can be raised to about this height.

Alt mode weapon storage is as simple as plugging a tab on the underside of the loader's rear into a slot on the side of the gun.  The green hunk of kibble can plug onto the top of the rear, with a shovel-looking piece reaching down into the void that's supposed to be the driver's cabin.  I'm not sure why you'd actually want to store it in either his robot or his alt modes, though, aside from the fact that you really don't want to lose it.

Yesterday, I said that Ground Bite makes for an excellent Scrapper due to his robot and loader modes, but I expressed some concern over the leg mode.  Suffice to say, Fans Toys took the opposite approach.  All the complaints I had about Gehry's robot and especially his alt mode seem to be sacrifices in the name of his leg mode.  Because, yeah, XTB went the usual route of standing the loader up on it's front with the shovel as the toes and his robot arms as his heels, but FT used Gehry's thicker robot arms to connect to the shovel.  This in turn lifts the loader higher, which makes his robot legs form the Devastator thigh. The cabin flattens across the top, giving the cartoon-accurate square on the knee and semi-hiding his front wheels, while the back wheels fold inside his robot legs.  Meanwhile, some flaps change position on shovel blade to give him the two-toed look.

That green chunk we've been just sort of dealing with in his other modes becomes a vital part of the leg mode, as the bulk of it forms a cartoon-accurate angled heel, with the shovel-esque part reaching to sit between his robot shoulders to form a uniform bit on the front of the leg.  The result is a leg mode that fairly accurately captures the wonky Sunbow animation model, for better or worse. 

In leg mode, it looks like Gehry has a just under 45 degrees of ankle pivot, no up or down tilt, and just under 90 degrees of knee bend, and he feels solid as a brick (save for a flap in  the shovel where a tab broke off).  I don't have any real concerns about the combined mode here, and somewhat interestingly, it's actually easier to flip between robot and leg mode than robot and loader or loader and leg.

In the battle for your shelf, I think Ground Bite is pretty definitely the better Scrapper.  However, I did say yesterday that I think a lot of people care more about a Masterpiece Devastator than a Masterpiece Scrapper, and on that note Ground Bite's greatest weakness is Gehry's greatest strength.  So if you want a Masterpiece Scrapper, skip Gehry and get Ground Bite.  But if you don't care to transform your figures and you want the best Devastator, well, the tables have turned and you might want to pass on Ground Bite and grab Gehry and the other Fans Toys Constructicons. 

If you're curious what I personally plan to do, I think I may continue to pick up X-Transbots' Constructicons (assuming their Long Haul get's a reissue) based on how good they look in their robot and alt modes and how (surprisingly) solid the QC and engineering is.  Based on my experience with Gehry (and from what I've seen of their next release, their Scavenger) I think Fans Toys' bots are just too expensive to have such compromised robot and alt modes, so even if their Devastator turns out great I'm out.  I'm looking forward to MMC's Constructicons.  Based on their track record with Bruticus and Defensor I'm expectingly delightfully clever yet fun transformations.  I think they probably won't have better robot or alt modes than XTB, or a better Devastator mode than Fans Toys, but are the most likely to average out the best across all three modes.

1 hour ago, Black Valkyrie said:

 

https://news.tfw2005.com/2025/04/16/rumor-missing-link-grimlock-ultra-magnus-coming-536765

 

I bet Magnus will be expensive, but I'd be interested in both of those.

You guys might have heard that there's another Devastator War going on.  I myself have reviewed, in the last two months, the entire set of Mecha Invasion Constructicons as well as Dream Star Toys' Scrapper and Hook.  While those guys represent some cool and stylized takes on the Constructicons I expect that there are quite a few people thinking, "yeah, that's nice and all, but I was kind of hoping for something with a bit more cartoon-accurate and with more modern engineering to replace Constructor."  Well, we're getting a few of those, too!  But which one is the right one?  With the way things are going I don't think I can realistically buy all six members from every set out there.  I can probably manage to buy Scrapper from every set, though (although 01-Studio and MMC's aren't out yet).  So the first one up will be X-Transbots' Ground Bite.

Out of the box, Ground Bite is making a strong first impression.  The colors seem spot on.  The proportions are good; he's not too wide, and he doesn't have the extra chunky limbs that ToyWorld's does.  He's got the tiered thighs and rib vents of the animation model, with silver, gray and red details on his chest and the stripes on his hip skirts that match the cartoon.  The round bits are present on his shins, and his head is on-point with a metallic red paint over translucent eyes.

With his shovel you'd expect him to have a bit of a backpack, and he definitely does.  However, it's pretty tightly compacted.  I mean, you kind of want the bucket to stand out, as I feel it's a part of the character's design, but everything else is pretty unobtrusive and you won't see it from a lot of angles.

Ground Bite comes with a lot of accessories.  There's his gun, which is maybe on the small side but otherwise cartoon accurate.  There's a pair of trumpets- one is for Ground Bite himself, the other is for Big Load, XTB's Long Haul who did come with one.  There's a chunk of partsforming Devastator thigh... I find it interesting that it's only the knee and thigh, and none of the hip/pelvis.  There's Devastator's chest plate.  There's a pair of green circular bits.  There's a sword that, if I'm not mistaken, Scrapper used to cut a car in half in the episode where they were making the Stunticons.  There's a plastic base piece, some stickers you can put on the base to make it looked like cracked concrete.

Ground Bite's articluation is pretty good.  His head is on a hinged swivel, which means no sideways tilt but he can look down a bit and up about 45 degrees.  His shoulders rotate and move laterally about 90 degrees, both on ratchets, and if you untab them from his torso you can even get a bit of forward butterfly.  His biceps swivel.  His elbows bend maybe 60 degrees or so.  His wrists swivel, and they're hinged so he can bend his hands back.  His thumbs have one hinge for folding them down over his palm, plus two hinged knuckles.  All of his fingers are hinged at the base with a second middle knuckle; the index finger is a separate piece, while the other three are molded together.  It strikes me as an atypical design for XTB, who usually do fully articulated hands with lots of ball joints, but if I'm being honest I prefer Ground Bite's.  Unlike earlier articulated XTB hands, these ones don't feel like they're going to fly apart on me.  Moving on, his waist has a ratcheted swivel, and he's got a little ab crunch.  His hip skirts move so his hips can go 90 degrees forward and one click short of 90 backward on a ratchet, and over 90 degrees laterally on a friction joint.  His thighs swivel, and his double-jointed knees (both ratcheted) can get a full 180 degrees of bend.  No upward tilt on his feet, but the toes can fold down 90 degrees.  They also swivel, which gives him a sort of unlimited ankle pivot.  If you're worried about it being like a fake ankle pivot, his heels also swivel so the bottom of his foot can remain flat, but they swivel independently of the front of his feet.

He can hold his gun or his sword the same way in either hand.  Tabs on either side of the handle plug into slots on his palms, then you wrap the fingers around it.  Aside from holding them, he doesn't seem to have any accessory storage in bot mode.

The trumpet works similarly.  There are tabs that fit into his palms, but you need to leave his hand mostly open so that the fingers can sit over the keys.  You can kind of wrap the fingers around the bottom loop of the trumpet, but the result isn't quite cartoon-accurate, not quite how a real person would hold a real trumpet, but somewhere in between.

One gimmick that doesn't require any accessories- there's a panel on Ground Bite's left arm that you can lift up to find molded computer details under.  It's a small shame they're not painted to help them stand out, but the entire gimmick is more "nice to have" than necessity, so I'm not going to ding him for it.

As for the green bits, you'll find that the wheels on Ground Bite's shoulders are basically tabbed on.  You can remove them (be careful doing so, the tabs are kind of thin), then replace them with the green bits.  This is mean to give him a truly Sunbow look, where Scrapper's wheels turned into round green lumps in the cartoon, if you're a hardcore cartoon purist.  It's something you might want to do if you plan on leaving him in robot mode or leg mode, but again those tabs are kind of thin and must be removed and swapped back to the real wheels every time you want to go to alt mode.

Speaking of alt mode... the transformation's actually pretty good!  I mean, XTB is still going to be XTB, so there are a few sliders and a few parts and panels that are a bit thinner than I'd like, but the engineering itself is pretty straightforward.  I think the most confusing part in the instructions are his legs, but once you've done it once or twice it's honestly pretty intuitive.

I think the end result is pretty good.  Yes, you've got some cartoon elements like the arms chilling on the sides and a bit of his silver thighs peeking out at you, but you've got realistic details like the exhaust and air cleaner over the engine, the bumper, grill, and taillights on the back, an open cab roof of the sort you might find on a actual wheel loader, and detailed, realistic arms connected to the bucket.

There's even a seat in the cabin, with a steering wheel and little levers for operating the shovel.

The tires are rubber, and the shovel can lift about this far.  If you turn him upside down, you'll find space between these green flaps, flaps that have tabs on them.  Collapse the barrel into the gun, and you can slot the tabs on the flaps into the sides of the gun to store it under the alt mode.

In a nod to the G1 toy, you can put the chest shield on Ground Bite's back.  However, doing so does require that you attach Devastator thigh, as the shield connects to it and not Ground Bite himself.

Speaking of, normally I don't like to cover the combined mode until I do my review on the entire combined mode, but since Ground Bite has to stand as a proxy for all of the XTB Constructicons, we have to take the leg mode into consideration now.  It's pretty typical Scrapper fare, with the shovel becoming the toes and his arms becoming the heels while the back end requires minimal transformation at all (basically just folding the air cleaner and exhaust back in and the cartoon round bits back out).  The steering wheel gets stowed away and the seat folds down, and the cabin kind of tucks in.  Some extra struts help hold the shovel in place, and panels fold out from the shovel to swap the realistic alt mode teeth with the two-toed look of the animation model.  However, I suppose a downside of the more realistic alt mode details is that the leg mode isn't particularly similar to the goofy animation model in the first place.

Of a more practical concern, while the thigh fits on tightly enough and does a lot of the heavy lifting in the leg articulation department, Ground Bite's waist does extend to give the leg mode an ankle pivot.  However, the extended joint is kind of small, and seems to have trouble supporting the weight of the leg above it.  The result is that the entire leg wants to lean backward.  Now, it's not enough to to cause him to tip over, and it's entirely possible that the weight of the rest of Devastator on it (and shifting said weight forward a bit) might make this a non issue.

It's clear, though, that it was on XTB's mind, because this is where the stand comes in.  You'll find a hole under each arm, and four across the front of the shovel.  These holes plug into pegs on the stand base.  Unfortunately, it's unclear at this time whether the base will be a helpful display piece of an unfortunately necessary one.

Given X-Transbot's reputation for spotty QC, I'm happy to report that Ground Bite is an excellent G1 Scrapper.  He's solidly built and well painted.  The robot mode has well-proportioned, strong sculpt that walks a line that leaves him very Sunbow accurate without being overly blocky and devoid of details.  He's also well-articulated and comes with plenty of accessories.  The transformation is pretty straightforward once you know what you're doing, and while the alt mode strays a bit from the simplistic animation model it adds a ton of realistic details while remaining broadly accurate.  If you want a Masterpiece Scrapper for your shelf Ground Bite is a figure I can easily recommend.

However, I think a lot of people are more interested in a Masterpiece Devastator than a Masterpiece Scrapper, and that's where things are a bit more questionable.  The relatively small joint in Ground Bite's waist that essentially becomes the gestalt ankle seems like it could be a weak point.  Time will tell if it's actually a problem, but a lot of collectors might feel like they have to make a decision now before figures start selling out.  Paired with a leg mode that's definitely toy-accurate but doesn't quite match the Sunbow design and I suspect there are (or will be) better options of Devastator.

30 minutes ago, anime52k8 said:

So you're saying I should get this one.

Hey, it's gotta be for somebody besides suckers who buy everything to write Transformers reviews on a Macross message board.

Gonna do a little cleanup before the next waves start hitting (and Alchemist and Vortex have both be pre/reviewed in Asia, so maybe not too far off).  Here's all the recent repaints.

We're opening with Leader-class G2 Grimlock.  There's not a ton of difference between him and the original Studio Series release.  His eyes are red and he's got some painted sticker detail, but the biggest change is that the gray plastic was swapped for blue.  To be fair, though, that's pretty accurate to how the original G1 toy worked...

There's no changes to the mold, so we have to wait for an upgrade kit to give him articulated dino arms or his front teeth.  He even comes with the same accessories- gun, crappy Wheelie slug (painted to look like the Marvel comics, but still just as un-articulated and worthless), still no sword.  All-in-all, he's fine, if you've somehow missed this mold so far or are super attached to the blue one because that's the one you had as a kid.  But frankly, the Walmart version of the unreleased G2 colors is the better G2 Grimlock, while the less visually interesting Studio Series one has the benefit of being cartoon accurate.

Age of the Primes also gave us Deluxe-class Wasp, who's a essentially Legacy United Animated Bumblebee with a new head.  One the one hand, I do like this mold.  It's got its flaws, like the seriously wonky shoulders, but there's something I find interesting about the transformation.  Plus, I know Waspinator had a toy in the Animated line, but I don't think Wasp did, despite spending more screen time as Wasp.  So I think this is probably a win for Animated fans.

Then again, while I did like the cartoon I've talked before about how I don't like the stylized 2D designs of Animated as 3D objects.  So... I kind of think if you have one of this mold that's enough.  Especially if you're more into G1.  But like I said, I can see Animated fans being jazzed for Wasp.

While we're still Generations-adjacent, here's Walmart's retro Gears.  New head, lighter blue, silver gun instead of black, and some different paint apps to better represent the G1 toy's stickers.  Shame he still has the unpaintable gray parts in his elbows and fists, though.

The blue windows are black like the G1 toy, is is the strip on his hood and he's got his sunroof back.  Since it's not molded onto the original hood, they tampoed a Microchange "M" onto the hood.  All-in-all, a toy deco doesn't totally capture the wonkiness of the actual G1 toy, but if you like toy decos it's pretty good, especially with the new head.

Bumblebee, sadly, didn't fare quite so well.  Ditching the yellow pelvis and forearms and using black translucent plastic for the windows is nice and toy accurate, and the shade of yellow is better than the Kraft Singles color used on Neftlix Bee.  But, even it it happens to match the Walmart-exclusive G1 reissue with the new cartoon head from a few years back, it does NOT match the battle mask of the G1 toy.

Then there's the crappy Cliffjumper Bazooka thing, the lack of alt mode storage for it due to the licensed VW alt mode, and the fact that you have to partsform him to get to said alt mode.  Long story short, I'd have strongly preferred this deco with a proper battle mask head on the Studio Series toy, not this one.

Alright, moving into Studio Series we have Gamer Edition Ironhide.  As the lone SS retool, I guess they had the budget to go hard on him.  He's got a new head, new torso, new shoulder pads, and a new weapon based on the EMP Shotgun from the War for Cybertron game.  He's also got the same axe as Ratchet.

He has a surprising amount of retooled parts for alt mode, too.  New front bumper, tweaked roof, and a new rear hatch.  The slots on said hatch are a little closer together, so he couldn't carry Ratchet's weapon back there, but fortunately the tabs on the shotgun are closer together, so it works.  Despite being slightly tweaked, the roof still has the tabs for the axe.

Gamer Edition hasn't been a particularly impressive subgenre for Studio Series, and if you've been skipping them Ironhide is definitely not the one to start with.  But if you have a couple, and you liked Ratchet, Ironhide's basically the same thing.

Lastly, coming out of left field (well, actually, Japan) we've got Bingo Sports Optimus Prime, a Japan-only retool of Studio Series Crosshairs as Age of Extinction/The Last Knight Optimus.  It's a fairly extensive retool, with a new torso, head, shoulders, and biceps.  He does have a new gun...

But if you'd rather, he comes with the same SMGs that Crosshairs did, and they store in his "coat" the same way they do on Crosshairs.

Speaking off, while the new torso and head isn't bad for a Deluxe, Crosshairs had a lot of kibble that we kind of ignored just because it was supposed to be his trench coat.  But Prime doesn't have a coat or a cape or anything like that, so on him it's straight up just kibble.

As with his bot mode, Prime is a suprisingly heavy retool.  The nose, the grill, the spoiler, and the sides are all new, really only leaving the roof, windows, wheels, and butt carried over from Crosshairs.  And on that note, you'll see that they both have a pair of notches under the spot for the license plate...

This notch allows you to (awkwardly) plug in his new gun.  And it's kind of weird that on a figure with so many new parts, the one place the new gun plugs into was a place that isn't new and already had holes despite the fact that Crosshairs did NOT have anything to plug into them.

I guess the question you might have is, "why even make Prime a Corvette in the first place?"  And the answer is simple... because the Corvette is a real car!  Bingo Sports, a Japanese company that helps buyers acquire high-end cars, sponsors a real racing team in Japan.  And their CEO, Shinji Takei, drives this Callaway C7 GT3-R.  Sadly, Prime is missing some of the sponsors, like the "Callaway" in the grill, "Pirelli" on the bumpers, "Japan Cup" across the windshield, etc.  But I think it's cool that Takara re-engineered a different toy that had a C7 'Vette alt mode into a Prime that turns into a real car with an Optimus-style paint job and Transformers branding.

That said, would I actually recommend buying it?  Probably not.  Like a lot of movie Deluxes, Crosshair's mold isn't that great.  And this is still a Deluxe, no matter how remolded or how nicely-painted, carrying a price tag around double a "normal" Deluxe.  I'd say most collectors don't really need this one.  That said, if you're a more Optimus-focused collector (like me) or you're into cars (like me) it's a pretty interesting bit of Transformers history.

On 4/12/2025 at 12:58 PM, sh9000 said:

but Skull Squadron variants are always welcome.

In the case of the 19P I think we're pretty close already.  Just repaint all the red as black, replace the Zora Patrol emblems with the UN Spacy kite, and slap some Jolly Rodgers on the vertical stabs.

Really hoping the speakers are just pegged in and can be removed easily.  It's always bothered me that they're swept forward.

6 hours ago, tekering said:

Yeah, that's what I meant.  It's larger, more posable, and distinctly GeeWunnier. 

OK, I misunderstood you.  I originally read "I'd prefer a figure that looked more like Fortress Maximus and less like a lazy Metroplex retool" as a critique of Big Mac, not a reference to the Has/Tak one.  I definitely feel the same way.  I part of me wants to replace my Takara Metroplex with the Siyang Vladivostok for a similar Geewunniness.

6 hours ago, tekering said:

With Fort Max, I'd say the bigger, the better... depending on the asking price, of course. 😛

Well, especially if I'm going to have to pay a 145% markup due to tariffs, price is definitely a concern.  But after playing with a bunch of big combiners and Titan-class toys, no, bigger isn't always better.  I mean, 50cm, 60cm, 70cm, it's all still too small to be in-scale with Has/Tak's mainline figures, let alone any MP-style stuff, so I'd rather they just cap out around 45cm.  Big enough to convey that they're big, small enough to still work onto a shelf and handle without a team of assistants.

1 hour ago, davidwhangchoi said:

What's you personal top 3 current gen Musou games? I only really got into Dynasty Warriors during the ps2 days but getting that itch to get back into it this gen. 

If you have a Switch, I really loved Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity and Fire Emblem Warriors: The Three Hopes.  For a more classical mixup vs Lu Bu Dynasty Warriors 8 is good (9 was TERRIBLE).  I haven't played Origins yet.  Samurai Warriors 4 is good if you like Sengoku history, and if you're a fan of Dragon Quest both of the Dragon Quest Warriors games were good.  For Gundam specifically it's Dynasty Warriors Gundam Reborn, but in the US it was only released as a digital PS3 game.  I never got into the Orochi games or the One Piece ones.

7 hours ago, tekering said:

Well, it's got ankle tilt... 😉

But yeah, I'd prefer a figure that looked more like Fortress Maximus and less like a lazy Metroplex retool. 😒

If you're talking about the Has/Tak Titan, yeah, but if you mean Big Mac, it already does look more like Fortress Maximus and not a Metroplex repaint. It's even got most of the G1 toy's sticker details.

My biggest gripe with Big Mac is that he's too big.

5 hours ago, davidwhangchoi said:

did you like the gundam dynasty warriors style of games? 

I did, but I've been a fan of Musou games since Dynasty Warriors 3 on the PS2. There are better Musou games than the Gundam ones, and for Gundam hack-n-slash games the Breakers games are better, but if you like Musou games and Gundam then they're still fun.

7 hours ago, azrael said:

They never said the slots weren't already occupied, just that it had 3 M.2 slots and 2 bays.

I get that, and I didn't expect to find three empty M.2 slots, but I figured maybe three with one occupied by the system drive. If you're already advertising that you have bluetooth and wifi 6 just don't count that as an M.2 slot even though it's technically in an M.2s slot, because very few people are willing to give up wifi and bluetooth to add another SSD.

Nice! I never played the Breakers on Vita, just PS3 for the first two, PS4 for the third, and PC for GB4. I did play Gundam Seed Battle Destiny (good, but not as good as Gundam Battle Universe on the PSP) and Gundam Extreme Vs Force, which I seem to recall reviewing poorly but I loved it for the solid single player campaign.

New PC arrived. Asus ought to step up their QC... Out of the box it kept giving me errors about being unable to continue the Windows installation. Fortunately I used to fix computers for a living, so it wasn't difficult to get into Windows Recovery, run a factory reset, and then get it setup. Another minor complaint is that Best Buy advertises it as having three M.2 slots and two 2.5" bays. Well, the only way you're getting three m.2 slots is if you pull out the Bluetooth/Wi-Fi module; there's only one free slot. As for the 2.5" bays, there's room in front of the PSU but no mounting hardware- no cages, no sleds, no caddies, nada.  I put my 2TB game drive in the M.2, and for now I installed my 3TB  3.5" bulk storage drive by screwing it into the bottom of the case with a single screw. Down the roads I'll probably get a PCIe NVME card and a 4TB SSD to replace it, but I'm kind of irritated that a case that's probably 20-25% bigger than my old one can't properly fit a 3.5" drive.

On the plus side, I went from 45-50fps on a medium-low mix and minimal ray tracing on AC Shadows to 60-65fps on High with the ray tracing cranked all the way up. So once I get all my stuff reinstalled and my settings tweaked the way I like I'll be quite happy.

EDIT: tried Ultra High and was in the high 50s, so I dialed back a few things like fog, shadows, and clutter and was able to get over 60 with with good stuff still maxed.