Jump to content

mikeszekely

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    12707

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Everything posted by mikeszekely

  1. mikeszekely
    Well there you go. Psycho transforms, so he's a Gobot.
  2. mikeszekely
    Because they have different name tags. Serious question, I've never seen Cobra. Did his car transform in the anime, or is that something Popy added when they produced the Psychoroid under their Machine Robo brand?
  3. mikeszekely
    The Psychoroid helpfully tells you that it's a Pyschoroid. Super Gobot Psycho, however, informs you that he is, in fact, a Future Machine.
  4. mikeszekely
    It's like someone said, "Hey, you know that name we've had for longer than some Gundam fans have been alive and thus synonymous with the brand? What if we changed it to the most generic thing we can think of?”
  5. mikeszekely
    Netflix's "throw everything at the wall and see what sticks" approach doesn't help. For every Disenchanted or Stranger Things there's twenty other Netflix Originals that I don't care about taking up real estate on the main screen. Meanwhile, shows I actually care about have long since migrated to Hulu or HBO. I'd probably dump Netflix except my wife likes watching Chinese dramas.
  6. mikeszekely
    I passed on Nicee; I just didn't have a need for a stylized Arcee. But I've had Mocha paid off at ShowZ for over a month now. I'm just waiting for her to ship. I guess there was some kind of factory delay?
  7. mikeszekely
    I didn't know about that one, but that's probably because I haven't used Netflix since Part III came out.
  8. mikeszekely
    Dunno about Front Mission, but can confirm that Chrono Cross is also coming to PS4, Xbox One, and Steam.
  9. mikeszekely
    Hulu just ordered 20 new episodes of Futurama.
  10. mikeszekely
    Also coming to Switch, a remastered Chrono Cross and a new Fire Emblem Warriors.
  11. mikeszekely
    Still my favorite Super Gobot. I still have mine, but one of the fins is broke.
  12. mikeszekely
    Super late to this party, but a buddy of mine turned me on to Letterkenny on Hulu.
  13. mikeszekely
    I'd hoped to get this up yesterday, but turns out Sunday's usually one of my busier days. We've had enough Constructicon appetizers, it's time for the main Devastator course! Ok, before we actually get him combined, we have the six Constructicons in their vehicle modes, and we have these combined-mode bits. But, Magic Square didn't want for you to just leave them off to the side somewhere. Nope. Instead, we'll take the pants piece, pull off the butt plate and crotch plate, and swap them so the crotch is on the back and the butt is on the front. Bend the knees out of the way, then you can use little notches on the combiner biceps to slide them into the thighs, with the rear half of his gun pegged between them. Now, you take the chest flap/head part and fold the dangly bits inward. Tabs on them will allow it to plug into the butt, and you just tuck the head up behind the chest plate as best you can. Finish it off by plugging the barrel of the gun into his butt, just under the chest plate, and you've got yourself... something. A spaceship? Drill tank? Whatever it is, it keeps everything together, and it at least looks like something other than a 80% complete Devastator. But flying drill tank spaceships aren't what we're after, a giant robot is. So we begin by putting Shovel Master and Roller Master into their combined modes. Note that Roller Master's gun is incorporated into his combined mode, in the heel, and that his torso has some sliders to get taller. Shovel Master connects to the pants by splitting at his legs and closing them back up around the T-tab in the knee. For Roller Master, unplug his mixing drum, slide the connector in, then cover the connector with the mixing drum. Bulldozer Master doesn't even really transform, you just have to undo him a little to get the arm attached. Excavator Master has the added step of pulling his shovel off, turning it 190, then plugging it back on. Really don't know why they made that connection a T-tab instead of a mushroom swivel. So, in theory, Crane Master is in combined mode when you stretch him out on the armatures in his waist and bend him around so that his front pegs into his back and flip one panel on the crane deck over onto the rear of his alt mode (or the front of Devy's chest). However, you need to open up some spaces to connect Bulldozer Master and Excavator Master. For Bulldozer Master, it's as easy as living up the crane control cabin, sliding in the shoulder hinges on Bulldozer Master, and closing it back up. For Excavator Master, though, you'll have to undo quite a bit, until he looks like the above picture. Slide the shoulder connector from Excavator Master forward into the back of the driver's cabin on Crane Master. Then put everything back the way you had it for alt mode. You can connect the chest piece by lining up three tabs on the back of it with two slots on Crane Master's bumper and one into the rear part of his vehicle that you did not fold a flap over. The armature with Devastator's head folds down, filling in the gap between the halves of Crane Master's alt mode and tabbing into the crane deck. For now, just ignore the dangly bits on the chest shield. One of the biggest challenges (and certainly the hardest bit to explain) is preparing Load Master. You're undoing a lot of his alt mode, but not quite taking him back to robot mode. You'll have something sort of like the picture on the left. Then Load Master slides over a bit sticking out of the pants. His arms slide back into place, further locking him in place onto the pants, but not quite in the same position as they were in truck mode. The flaps with the canopy go vertical, with tabs securing them into Load Master's arms, and once they're in place the legs fold back up and lock onto those flaps. Connect the top of Devastator by first lining up the pegs on Load Master's smokestack and cabin with holes under Crane Master (be advised, on my copy at least the tolerances weren't great there. Further secure things by tabbing the bottom of the chest shield into Load Master's grill and the vertical flaps you just tabbed Load Master's own legs into will plug into Crane Master on the other side. The dangly bits on the chest shield fold back, and tabs on them grab onto the underside of Load Master's smokestack and the side of his cabin. All Combined, we can see that Magic Square was definitely going for that Sunbow look, what with the toe on his Mixmaster foot and the purple crotch and tops of his thighs. There's some things that NewAge got more cartoony, like the more slender proportions, the dark grays instead of blacks, the rounded fingers, the waist that doesn't look like Long Haul, purple on treads on both shoulders, and the block plus sign shaped knee over Scrapper. I prefer the greens and purples on NewAge better, especially when if you look closely you'll see that Shovel Master and Roller Master are a bit yellower than the other four Magic Square guys. That said, I like the extra details and burlier proportions on Magic Square's. Pants, forearms, and chest plate aside he looks more like a robot made out of construction vehicles than a badly-drawn animation model of a guy that's supposed to be made of Construction vehicles. A quick peek at the back. Magic Square's got more of a backpack, due to Load Master having a much larger truck bed hanging out back there. NewAge's is tiny, more superfluous, and kind of unnecessary because you can leave Long Haul off entirely and all you wind up with is a hole on the small of Devastator's back. I'll also point out that, as Sunbow-y as NewAge's Devastator is, Magic Square's is the only one that has Scrapper's arm heels angled backward the way the animation model had it. I'd considered that one of the advantages of NewAge's approach is that almost all of the joints were on the combiner part, so it'd have an advantage on articulation. Magic Square's is no slouch, though. Head's on a hinged swivel, no downward or sideways tilt but he's got about 45 degrees up. His shoulders rotate, and extend laterally about 60 degrees. His biceps swivel, and his double-jointed elbows can bend around 120 degrees. His wrists swivel. All of his digits are on ball joints at the base, so his thumb can swivel and fold over the palm and his fingers can splay out a bit, plus they all have one additional pinned hinge at the middle knuckle. His waist swivels, although his backpack can get in the way, and he does have a double-hinge in his waist that gives him a 60 degree ab crunch and lets him arch his back. The skirts on the front and sides of his pelvis are hinged, but his butt isn't. That would you a little under 90 degrees forward, 90 degrees laterally, and basically nothing backward (all on ratchets). However, the hips themselves are on armatures that can swivel down and afford you the additional clearance to do a high kick or move his hip 90 degrees backward. His thighs swivel, and his double-jointed knees bend nearly 180 degrees. I might have liked a bit more, but he does have some ankle pivot. Magic Square's Devastator uses the tried-and-true MP method of sticking tabs on the handle into slots on his palms, no muss, no fuss. Also, it isn't the prettiest, but I like that you can store Excavator Master's, Crane Master's, Bulldozer Master's, and Shovel Master's guns into their alt mode spots (yes, Crane Master's is the hole on the boom, and yes, I did file it out until the gun fit). As noted, Roller Master's has role as part of Devastator's heel. Only Load Master can't store his gun in his alt mode spot, because that spot's kind of tucked away. However, Shovel Master has holes on both sides, so you can plug Load Master's gun onto Shovel Master. Sure, Devastator looks a bit goofy with the extra guns on him, but I like that it's at least an option. Speaking of options... Devastator's face is just tabbed in on two spots, so you can pry that off if you want. You can also pull off his crotch plate, his outer thigh armor, and the purple bit from around the top off his thigh. Those parts swap out with an alternate yelling face, a silver thighs with purple knees and an alternate pelvis that are based more on the Studio OX design. I guess options are nice, but the thing is the appeal of a lot of the OX stuff, at least to me, is that it looks more like the toys, so I prefer that for guys like Menasor and Bruticus. For Devastator, though, the OX design wasn't much closer to the toy than the cartoon, so I don't have much attachment to it. Plus, it takes more than different thighs and a different pelvis- you need a gray mixing drum & gray treads on both Scavenger and Bonecrusher, you need to ditch the toe on Mixmaster, and you need a totally different head with eyes instead of a visor. An actual toy look would have yellow eyes, the green gun on the side of his head, purple forearms, and a green mixing drum. So yeah, I guess there's probably some people out there that just think Devastator looks better with the OX thighs and pelvis, but to me it doesn't go far enough to create a toy or OX look, and I'm just going to leave the cartoon parts on him. At this point, I have a lot of Devastators, and I think it's kind of interesting that the two best ones are both Legends-sized. Upscale either Magic Square or Newage and you could easily have a CHUG Devastator that beats Hercules or Combiner Wars. Add a few tweaks while you're upscaling and you'll have a better MP Devy than Gravity Builder or Constructor, hands down. But instead they compete for the Legends space, and it ultimately comes down to what you want on your shelf. It's subjective, sure, but I'd say that Magic Square's Devastator looks better and has a more powerful shelf presence- true for his constituent bits, too. But, with the exception of maybe Bonecrusher, whose feet are prone to cracking on the NewAge (but I believe they're making replacements), the materials are better on NewAge. The plastic feels more solid, there's some diecast in the joints, and there's more ratchets. Once you have everything put together on NewAge it's as solid as a rock, whereas Shovel Master's leg mode is rather tenuously held together (I had him come apart while testing the ranges on his hip joints). And, as I keep noting, while Magic Square has much more impressive engineering that, on a larger figure with better materials would pass for something you'd find on an MP, on a small Legends figure with the wonky tolerances and Magic Square's nylon plastic they can be a chore transform and manipulate. So while Magic Square's got the superior display piece, anyone looking for a desk bot they can play around with might be better served with NewAge. This shouldn't be taken as a slight against either set, though. Both are really great sets that I can recommend without hesitation.
  14. mikeszekely
    Nope, mine came like a week ago. But I think Hasbro ships from Savannah, IIRC, and I'm on the East Coast. I know there was some bad weather in parts of the country late last week, including here (my friend's a part-time nurse who works one or two 16-hour shifts a week, and the joke is that it'll be nice all week and six inches of snow the one day she works). If it helps, though, I had an order at BBTS, and I paid extra to have it by my birthday last week (via FedEx). Didn't arrive until today. Spent four days driving 30 miles from one end of Minneapolis to the other.
  15. mikeszekely
    Seems I'm not the only one who thought this was an issue...
  16. mikeszekely
    I finally got around to watching Afterlife. And it was solidly OK. Far better than the reboot, I enjoyed that this was clearly a sequel to the original film made by people who obviously cared about the property. I enjoyed some of the nods to the first film; unlike @TangledThorns I liked when they reused music from the original. I thought the performances by Callie Coon, Paul Rudd, Logan Kim, and especially McKenna Grace were on point. My main complaints are that, while the performances were generally good, with a few exceptions (Phoebe's jokes, a few of the mom's remarks) the writing lacked a lot of the humor of the original in favor of making something that seemed targeted more for kids, the way the movie ignored Ghostbusters 2, and the fact that the movie was leaning a little too hard on the original. Calling Ray at his bookstore, making the kids the grandchildren of Egon, checking out the commercial from the original on YouTube*, sure, that's all well and good. Making Gozer the villain again, rehashing the bit with the Keymaster and Gatekeeper, though, and it starts to feel like you're trading originality for fanservice. *That reminds me, how in the heck does Phoebe tell Podcast that she doesn't believe in ghosts? I'd think the Ghostbusters driving the Statue of Liberty with an NES controller would have been a major headline around the world. Even if the second movie is moved to non-canon, the hauntings of the first film and the original Marshmallow Man happening in New York would have to be common knowledge in the US at the very least, and you'd think that ghosts would just be accepted fact in the Ghostbusters universe.
  17. mikeszekely
    Could save some money and go Legends. In that spirit, I've got here the third and final set of Magic Square Constructicons. First up, we have Crane Master, Magic Square's Hook. And, I have to say, it's interesting how both NewAge and Magic Square have tried to go for that Sunbow animation look the design choices they made to achieve that vs where they caved to the realities of making an actual transforming toy out of it. Both have the wheels in the bicep and shoulder, but Crane Master's are totally fake. Crane Master has green flaps over the taper at the top of his chest, but they're tabbed down vs floating like NewAge's and the Sunbow model. NewAge kept the taper even the whole way across, but Crane Master has a cutout space with a green area under his head, which is more animation accurate. The molded vents, though, is from the toy. Both have cartoon-accuate chests, but Crane Master's rectangular section is framed by a wider, more tapered area that gives him a stronger appearance. It's also broken up by some unsightly holes. Crane Master's pelvis is more cartoony, but his crotch doesn't hang down as much as the Sunbow, and again it's got an unfortunate slot right in the middle. Both went for the light gray legs, but Crane Master has bits on his hips that better mimic the bump outs on the Sunbow model. Plus, where NewAge caved and went the toy route of having his feet be the front of the alt mode, like the G1 toy, Magic Square actually tried to do the Sunbow thing where his right leg is all gray with a blocky foot and his left looks like his right leg with a chunk of alt mode on the side. They were nearly successful; Crane Master just has a little green panel on his right leg. I also like how, from behind, Crane Master does just a bit more to fill in his calves and collapse his crane onto his back. Like his partner, Load Master goes for the Sunbow and does some things better than NewAge, some things worse. The gray on his face is just a bit too dark; ideally it'd be more of silver, plus it's got a spot of orange that's just out of place. His arms and smokestack are also much darker than NewAge's, but I think that's actually better, and he does have the wheels on his shoulders. The front of the alt mode covers more of his torso due to it being a bit longer, leaving less room for a Decepticon emblem on his abs. The circular headlights are fine, the green rectangle is fine, the wide black grill is fine, and the smaller black rectangle between the green and the grill... well it's there, and it's accurate, but like Crane Master he's got a hole in it. His pelvis is mostly the same as the Sunbow and NewAge's, but they've gone and added some venting. Things get a little dicey at the legs. The edges stick out more, especially at the bottom, which is like the Sunbow since the animation model didn't actually have any feet. NewAge gave him big feet, Load Master has just little ones. So in some ways he does look more animation accurate, but his legs are also much thicker and they're pretty flat the whole way down. NewAge has that forward bend in the middle that the animation model does. Load Master doesn't clean up as well, either. He's got some flaps that just jut out at a 90 degree angle from his back, which if I'm being fair the animation model did, too, but on a much smaller scale. The rear wheels tuck into his calves, like the animation mode, instead of just hanging out on the backs of his thighs. But you can also see tons of gaps, hinges, and crevices where everything's just kind of folded up into the right shapes. These guys come with two small guns. The larger one with the scope is for Crane Master, the smaller one is Load Master's. Both look reasonably fine, I suppose, but I can't help noticing some plastic-saving hollowed in spaces. What is this, Hasbro? In addition to their individual pistols, this set comes with the bulk of what you need for combined mode. Magic Square is doing the same sort of pants pioneered by ToyWorld on Constructor back in the day and, yeah, I'm ok with it. I mean, it's how the G1 toy worked. I think having pants, a chest shield, and a head means more of Devastator will be made of the actual Constructicons than NewAge's, but it's also going to be five smaller parts you add on vs sticking the Constructicons on/in one larger part, so pick your poison. I guess it's something we'll talk more about later, when we do combined mode. OK, Crane Master's head is on a ball joint with limited downward and sideways tilt, but excellent upward tilt. His shoulders are hinged swivels that rotate and extend laterally over 90 degrees. His double-jointed elbows bend 180 degrees, and his wrists swivel. His waist swivels, and he's got 90 degrees of ab crunch. His ball-jointed hips seem limited until you untab his butt from his back, allowing it to swing downward and give him the clearance to get 90 degrees forward or backward and a little under that laterally. His thighs swivel around his joints, but they're a little limited. A single knee hinge bends a little over 90 degrees, and while his feet don't have any up/down tilt he's got nearly 90 degrees of ankle pivot. Load Master's head is also on a ball joint, but he's got absolutely zero downward and sideways tilt. Like his partner, though, he's great at looking up. His shoulders swivel and extend laterally 90 degrees. His biceps swivel, and a single elbow hinge bends about 120 degrees. His wrists swivel. His waist swivels, and he's got a bit under 90 degrees of ab crunch. His ball-jointed hips have a bit better range on their own than his partner, including the ability to go 60 degrees forward/backward and 90 degrees laterally. He also has the butt tab, though, to get the full 90 forward and backward. I'll note that my copy was untabbed out of the box, because the tab didn't fit into his butt slot. I had to file out the slot before I could get it to go. Moving along, his thighs swivel. His knees are tabbed in place and won't bend at all until you untab them, but when you do they're double-jointed and go nearly 90 degrees. Again, no up/down tilt on the feet but you've got 90 degrees of ankle pivot. Both figures hold their weapons fine but sliding the handles into their shaped hands. Of the six Magic Square Constructicons, I'd say Crane Master is my second least-favorite to transform. There's a lot going on to get the lower legs to form the cab of the truck, but it's not as unintuitive as their Mixmaster was. Crane Master has the purple stripe on the green part of the boom, and a purple segment where the hook is like the Sunbow model. I like that he's got fuel tanks breaking up the front and rear of his alt mode rather than a continuously flat surface like NewAge's; I feel like it gives him a shape closer to both the G1 toy and the Sunbow model, even if the Sunbow model was all-green. The headlights and grill give him some real-world detail, but detail that was present on neither the G1 toy or the Sunbow model. And he's a tad messy, with folded flaps on the rotating deck that stick out off the back, visible fake wheels above the real ones, and slots running through the side window and part of the crane control cabin. Crane Master's deck does swivel, and the boom and lift and stretch. It's sadly hollow on the underside, though, and it doesn't extend as far as NewAge's. I'll also point out that I couldn't find a place to store his gun in alt mode. It looks like there should be one; there's a small hole near the base of the boom that serves no purpose in bot or alt mode, and I can't imagine that it'll serve one in combined mode. It's too small, though; I can't push the gun's handle in at all. If it turns out that it really isn't needed for anything I might get a file or a drill and see if I can't enlarge it a bit. Load Master's engineering is a bit better and more impressive than his buddy's. It's neat because it actually involves making him physically wider. His legs, though, are a bit less clever than NewAge's. The bed winds up with some weird gaps near the cab, and it's so full of his legs that you can't actually put anything in it. Aside from the the bed, though, Load Master's looking pretty great. The rear tires have some molded detail meant to look like the truck's suspension, and as I noted his sides stretch out, panels unfold from his legs, and the cab on his left shoulder spins and connects with a panel from his backpack to get larger as well. Instead of shrinking the way NewAge's Long Haul does, Load Master seems to get bigger as he transforms. Do note, though, that this leaves a bit of empty space under his bed, and the panels that make up the top were kind of a pain to get together. The bed has no articulation, as the sides of it grab onto tabs at the back of the cab and lock into place. There are little holes on the sides, though, so at least Load Master can store his gun in alt mode. While I ultimately preferred Magic Square's Scavenger and Bonecrusher outright, I think this set is more along the lines of the set with Scrapper and Mixmaster. These guys look good, arguably (but subjectively) better than the NewAge versions (although I still wish the purple was a bit bluer). They've got great articulation and more technically impressive engineering. It's the kind of engineering that, on CHUG or MP-scaled figures, would be fantastic. On Magic Square's little Legends boys, paired with their too-pliable nylon plastic and wonky tolerances where some tabs just don't want to fit, though, and you start to think that maybe it's a bit much, a bit too ambitious. They wind up being figures that I'll either get into combined mode and leave them there forever, or get into combined mode for the review then display them in bot mode forever with NA's Devy because transforming them becomes kind of a pain. If you're looking for Constructicons you can keep at your desk and play with, the NewAge ones are just more fun to mess with. But if you're looking for a display, well, Magic Square's got your guys.
  18. mikeszekely
    Or I could just let @sh9000take care of it. 😉 I'm definitely in for Ironhide and Arcee- I already reviewed Soundwave, I have Ratchet, Wheeljack, and Brawn PO'd, and Pulse just put up orders for Ravage so I got that ordered. At KFC prices I got Wreck Gar and stopped. At Voyager prices I'm not just down for Junkyard, I'll take a retool for every unique Junkion model in the movie. Heck yes I'm in for Sludge! Swoop hasn't been announced, but he's been heavily rumored as a Voyager-class for later this year. Just need Snarl! I kind of don't care about any of the Walmart stuff. I don't buy Transformers that don't transform; more power to the people that do, but RED isn't for me. I was in high school when Beast Wars was on and I have no attachment to the vintage toys the way I do vintage G1. And for some reason, while I lap up every Diaclone-themed Gen Selects repaint of a G1 character I'm just not into the Beast Wars cast to go for figures that weren't in the cartoon. It might be one of those things were, if I'm at Walmart and I see them and there's nothing else grabbing me I might pick one up, but I'm not going out of my way and if I miss them I miss them. The Target stuff, though. Pass on B-127, I have the regular release and an unmasked head isn't doing anything for me (if it were RotF Bee, maybe). But Kup and Cliffjumper, yeah. I usually prefer translucent windows- I'd actually prefer them on Cliffjumper, still. But Kup looks better with the solid window, with the little bit of wear he had in the animation. And Cliffjumper's just a lot more screen accurate with the gray limbs. I'll probably wind up grabbing both.
  19. mikeszekely
    My kid had a snow day, which these days isn't a day off, it's a "Dad is the teacher" day. So I missed half the live stream. Fortunately (or not) those guys talk too much, so I didn't miss the whole thing. Anyway, to recap. -New Transformers VR game at the end of March. Could be cool. Looks like a rail shooter. It's listed for PSVR and Steam. I'll probably check it out on Steam, but I wish it ran on the Quest. -More TF crossovers in crappy mobile games, and the last issue of the King Grimlock mini series. Meh. New IDW series "War's End." Well, they gotta wrap things up, they're losing the license. -Calm, a company that makes sleep/meditation apps, is releasing a Transformers story where Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen) tells you about the history of the Transfomers. Meh. -New Studio Series reveals. BB Arcee and Ironhide, 86 Junkyard, Sludge, and Spike. -Walmart-exclusive Beast repaints Sandstorm (Scorponok), Nightprowler (Cheetor), and Buzzsaw (Waspinator). -Walmart-exclusive Beast Wars vintage reissues Scorponok and Tigatron. -Walmart-exclusive RED Knockout and Ultra Magnus. -Target-exclusive SS repaints in Buzzworthy Bumblebee that we've really already seen B-127, but with the Jeep Bee's head instead of the battle mask, and the repaints of Kup and Cliffjumper. Not sure when preorders are going live, except the RED stuff will be on Pulse at 1:00pm EST. I'm gonna eat now, I'll try to find some pictures later.
  20. mikeszekely
    Figures, I already transformed Ironhide (not as fun as transforming Medicus, BTW) and took alt mode pics. Medicus is slightly shorter. He's also ever-so-slightly narrower, and significantly shorter. That being said, I'm not clear on the minute differences between the (late '70s?) Nissan Cherry and the (early '80s?) Datsun Vanette. Ironhide's got a higher roof above his windows, plus he seems to have a taller suspension, but the windows and tires are similar sizes on both. I'd guess that Medicus is actually a smaller scale, but they're close enough that I can rationalize it as differences in the model years.
  21. mikeszekely
    I don't have MP Ratchet, since I'd picked up Voodoo's Salus to have him a little different than Ironhide. But I do have Ironhide, and I'll try to grab some compassion comparison pictures today. Just the vans, or the robots too?
  22. mikeszekely
    After completing their all-built-in Bruticus (which I really enjoyed), MMC is back at it on Bruticus' rival, Defensor. I've got the first one, Medicus, their Ocular Max take on First Aid, in my hands. Will the Protectobots be as good as the Combaticons? Let's take a look. It's funny, none of the Protectobots made much of an impact on me back in the day, and I'd say they've typically been probably my least favorite combiner team (either them or the Technobots, but at least the Technobots debuted in one of my favorite episodes). After First Aid's appearance in IDW's More Than Meets the Eye series, though, he's become a much bigger character for me and I'm glad MMC started with him. Medicus doesn't look like IDW First Aid (neither does GT's for that matter), but he does look very G1 cartoony! MMC got the details right, from the stubby feet on the ends of his chunky legs to the wheels on his chest. The head sculpt is perfect. My only complaint, and it's a minor one likely necessitated by the demands of his alt and arm modes, is that his proportions are just a tad off. His chest is a little too narrow, making his upper body seem a bit too long, and his lower legs are a bit too long and his thighs a bit short. I really have to hand it to MMC on this one- look how clean he is from the back. GT's First aid is positively covered in panels, and even other earlier efforts like TFC and Maketoys certainly had their backpacks. But everything tucks in neatly on Medicus. Anyway... Medicus comes with just one tiny accessory, this pistol. It's pretty cartoon-accurate, and the animation model seems to be a simplified take on the pistol the G1 toy came with, so it's fine. Fans of the G1 toy might lament the lack of the big double-barreled alt-mode cannon, but I'm fine without it. Those of you who picked up MMC's Combaticons will probably recall that, while very good figures, they did suffer a few articulation issues, mostly in the feet where the all-built-in combiner fists kind of got in the way. I'm pleased to note that MMC's designers seemed to have solved some of those issues, at least with Medicus. His head is on a ball joint that can look down a little, tilt sideways plenty, and look up a little. Using a transformation hinge you can get a bit more range, allowing him to look almost straight up. His shoulders rotate and can extend 90 degrees laterally. This is where my first real issue with the figure creeps in, though. The shoulders are attached to hinged panels for transformation. The panels have cutouts to fit around tabs on his back, but those tabs provide no real friction, and the hinges on the panels are looser than the actual shoulder joints. So, any time you manipulate the shoulders those panels move before the shoulder joint does, forcing you to pose the shoulder then realign the panel. Moving on, his biceps swivel, and his double-jointed elbows bend almost 180 degrees. His wrists swivel. His thumb is on a ball joint, and each of his fingers are individual pieces pinned at the base. However, they don't have any additional knuckles and are molded in a curl. His waist swivels, and he's got 45 degrees of soft-ratcheted ab crunch. His hip skirts are all on hinges, and with them out of the way his hips go a hair short of 90 degrees forward, 45 degrees backward, and 90 degrees laterally. His thighs swivel, and while not really intended or (IMO) useful in robot mode there's limited swivels above his knees that I expect are for the combined-mode bicep swivel. His knees are a single hinge that's good for 90 degrees, which I think is fine given the bulk of his lower legs. His entire foot can tilt up, his toes can tilt down, and his ankles can pivot a whole 90 degrees. I'll note while we're here that Medicus has flaps that help hide the combiner fist inside his legs, although another minor issue is that they don't like to stay tabbed closed. One more minor issue. MMC eschewed the more common standard of having tabs on the sides of the gun handles that fit into slots on the palm. Instead, they opted for a tab on the back of the handle. The tab fits into a cutout on his palm, but much like the cutouts on his shoulder flaps they don't provide enough friction to hold his gun in place. Instead, it's really the tension in his fingers that hold the gun. Fortunately, they're pretty tight and I haven't had an issue with his gun falling out of his hand or anything. If there's one thing that MMC does really well, one thing that elevates them above companies like XTB and 3P darling Fans Toys, it's their engineering. With Medicus, MMC really found a balance in a transformation that is simple and intuitive, so much so that you might not even need instructions, but is also clever and interesting, resulting in a toy that you'll actually want to transform and play with. And the alt mode looks good, too! First Aid is a Datsun Vanette, a relative of the Nissan Cherry Ratchet was based on. I expect MMC was trying to go for some realistic details, but I don't know Vanettes enough to suggest a particular model and level of accuracy. I mean, the boxy headlights and the turn signals blended into the black band across the nose look accurate, but most of the models I found with that configuration usually have a black bumper with fog lights. The shapes do conform pretty well to the G1 toy, though, except the G1 toy left the black band white and painted the bumper silver. Regardless, it's a lot more realistic than the simple geometry of the all-white animation model. Medicus also has some black trim running around the edges and painted door handles, and the black seals around the read windows and the absence of such on around the front side windows seems to be accurate to the real vanettes, if not the animation model. There are some lights painted orange on the rear; I do wish MMC would have taken the time to break them up, though- the rectangles should actually be three squares, orange turn signals at the top, red brake lights in the middle, and white reverse lights on the bottom. Medicus eschews the red stripe on the G1 toy, but retains the red "EMERGENCY" and the triangle in the circle seen on the animation model. Much has been made about the windows. For the front windshield and the front side windows MMC used a translucent plastic, but the rest of the windows are painted. MMC's reps have gone on record as saying that the materials used in his legs simply didn't have the clearances to cutout the windows and put separate pieces of translucent plastic. Your mileage may vary, but I think they did a decent job of tinting the translucent windows so that they're not such a bad match for the painted ones. Oh, and one more issue that may actually be user error on my part (I noticed later that I didn't have the slider in one of his legs fully extended), but I couldn't really get the rear of the ambulance tabbed together well. It seemed like every time I'd squeeze in one area and get everything in place it'd cause another area to pop open. EDIT: Definitely user error. In some steps in the instructions it looks like the heels just lay against the roof, and I had the combiner fingers tucked under them. Actually, you'll note that there's some slots on the heels, then fit into tabs on the inside of the leg and the fingers go over them, between the heels and the roof. Once I got them properly sorted (and the thumb properly tucked on the one half) everything fits together perfectly. Medicus rolls on rubber tires, and he's got one of the better attempts at storing his weapon in alt/combined mode that I've seen. The handle of the gun folds up, and there's a cutout space for it inside the flap under the front side window. You have to undo his transformation a bit to get in there, though, so it's best to stow the gun mid-transformation than after the fact. I'll save Medicus' combined mode for when I actually combine the whole team- hopefully MMC doesn't keep us waiting too long! Because, while Medicus isn't without his minor flaws, he's also one of the best 3P toys I've looked at in a long time. He's got a good cartoon robot mode, good articulation, good alt mode, and satisfying and fun transformation. There's no clearance issues, no material issues, no QC issues of any kind that I've come across. It's early to declare him a figure of the year, but if he'd squeaked out at the end of 2021 he'd probably have beaten anything I bought last year. Highly recommend this figure, even if you're not in it for the combined mode or the rest of the team.
  23. mikeszekely
    I could definitely go for some Exo Squad.
  24. mikeszekely
    After the somewhat underwhelming Puffer & Road Ranger, Jackpot & Sights (who should have been Stepper/Ricochet and Nebulon), and Golden Tigatron (whom I didn't really talk about, but I posted pictures of yesterday and is the same as the regular Tigatron I did review but in orange and with a mutant mask head), the Golden Disk Collection finally delivers the figure we all really wanted... Deluxe Class Terrorsaur! Like the other Golden Disk figures Terrorsaur isn't really a new mold. However, compared to the new heads and paint jobs the others got Terrorsaur is a pretty extensive remold, with new thighs, shoulders & upper biceps, head, beast head, pelvis, chest, back, feet, wings, and at least parts of his torso. For taking one figure and remolding it into another when the originals were not based on each other, Hasbro did a pretty fine job, delivering a robot that's honestly a better screen likeness than his original toy. He's not without his aesthetic faults, though. His shoulders and biceps should be silver, as should his thighs and the spikes/claws on his feet, and the silver they did paint onto his knees doesn't belong. The result is definitely a figure that's instantly recognizable as Terrorsaur, but one that feels a bit drab and too red. I may take a little paint to him, myself. Also, due to having (I assume) very different engineering from the original, Terrorsaur's wings aren't inverted. I don't think there was any way a Deluxe-class figure was going to shrink them the way they seem to in the cartoon, anyway, so I'm fine simply overlooking that detail. Terrorsaur comes with a eponymous Golden Disk; I guess one of the sets had to! I think that's good, maybe, for someone who's been into Kingdom largely for the Beast Wars characters and wanted a Golden Disk but didn't shell out for the Ark, but it's a little redundant for me. You also get a gun; I feel like we've seen this gun before, but I can't place it. It's not particularly similar to the original toy's or the animation model's. Finally, you get these two little spikes. Don't miss them! They come taped inside the box, wrapped in tissue paper. I almost threw them out until some part of my brain said, "hey, wait, they probably stuck that in there for a reason!" Terrorsaur's head is on a swivel. That means he's got no downward or sideways tilt, but a transformation hinge can be used to get him to look up a little. Shoulders rotate and move laterally over 90 degrees. His biceps swivel, and his elbows bend 90 degrees. No wrist swivel. His waist does swivel, but you have to unlock it but untabbing his butt flap. His pelvis also has a hinged flap, but the purpose of it eludes me as it doesn't interfere with his hips, which go 90 degrees forward, backward, and laterally. His thighs swivel, and his knees bend well beyond 90 degrees. His ankles are ball joints, so his feet can swivel, tilt up and down, and his ankles can pivot. That said, the ball joints on Terrorsaur are much looser than Airazor. Terrorsaur holds his gun just fine in either hand. There are also 5mm ports on his arms, but that's technically where the spikes go. They're just to make his arms look a little more cartoon-accurate. There are also ports on the backs of his legs, just above his ankles, but I'm not really sure what you'd use them for in robot mode. I mean, he's got weapon storage already. There are tabs on the sides of his gun, and they can either plug into slots on his backpack or onto the side of his thighs. What he can't do, though, is interact with the golden disk, since he's got the same closed 5mm port hands as Airazor. Although the robot mode looks fairly different, Terrorsaur's engineering is nearly identical. The big difference is that there's a piece covering the chest that doesn't rotate when you tuck his robot head into his back, and instead his beast head is on a hinge on his back flap. The rest is the same, and... well, I guess it'll do, in a pinch. I mean, the robot chest is supposed to be the pteranodon's back, so he winds up with mottled spots where he should have a vertical row of yellowish scales running from neck to pelvis. Speaking of his neck, it doesn't quite look like it fits on his body, which is made up of a lot of robot arm and leg kibble. For his flaws, though, he's still an improvement over the original toy. You don't have a ton of articulation in alt mode. His head can tilt up and down, and his jaws can open. There's a neck swivel, too. His wings have hinges at the base that let them flap up, and disc hinges near his "hands" that let him stretch his wings out. On my copy, the right wing pops off that hinge with the slightest touch. There's another hinge that can be used the flap his wings down, but they actually have tabs and are meant to be locked in place. There are hinges mid-shin that let him bend his little dino legs forward, and he still has the ball joints in his ankles. That's about it. For weapon storage you can still use the slots on his backpack, now the underside of his wing, or his robot thigh. The spikes on his arms can stay in place, but I kind of like to pull them off of his arms and plug them into the backs of his legs. Terrorsaur might be a tricky character to truly do right, as his animation model is a bit different than his original toy was. Could this version have been better? Sure, especially with better paint to make his colors more accurate. And perhaps a dedicated mold would have allowed his robot chest to be his pteranodon back and inverted his wings for robot mode. But, to be honest, the original Terrorsaur toy was a mess underneath. I don't see us getting a screen-accurate transforming pteranodon in a Deluxe-class toy, at least not any time soon. Even with his flaws, this toy is a huge improvement over the original, and one of the last remaining "main cast" Beast Wars characters missing from Kingdom (Tarantulas, being the other, and heavily rumored to be appearing in Legacy). I say get him if you can, this one's got a recommend from me.
  25. mikeszekely
    My Walmart's almost always a bust, but I had to run some errands today and I stopped at both Target and Walmart. I was pleased to see Kingdom Blaster and Tigatron at Target, even though I'd already gotten both already. Walmart seems to be stuck a wave behind and limited to Deluxes for Kingdom, but I did find something in the Studio Series stuff... Voyager-class Soundwave! This Soundwave is based on his brief appearance in the Bumblebee movie, and honestly, the robot mode is pretty spot-on. Sure, maybe a little bit of panel lining to give some separation on his thighs, which are solid white chunks that, in the movie, were more like a couple of armored plates covering an inner frame, but I'm not going to complain that a $30 toy doesn't look as good as a $250 non-transforming ThreeZero piece. Indeed, Hasbro actually did use a fair bit of paint accents, including some silver on the face, waist, elbows, and shoulder cannon, red on the shoulder cannon, wrists, pelvis, chest, and eyes, white on the pelvis, and gold on the chest and shins. The result is a figure that's largely more screen-accurate than the Studio Series Optimus from the same movie. I'm surprised at how big he is. He's taller than the Siege and Netflix Voyagers (roughly the same size as Prime), and he'll tower over the previous Studio Series Deluxes. Soundwave comes with just two accessories. You get his shoulder cannon, which feels G1-inspired, and a his rifle, which definitely does not feel G1-inspired, but does seem fairly movie accurate. Soundwave's head is on a ball joint that can look up a fair bit but can't really look down and only has a little sideways tilt. His shoulders rotate, and they can move laterally 90 degres using a transformation hinge as long as his arm is straight at his side. Because the hinge is in his chest instead of the actual shoulder if you rotate his arm it can't really move laterally anymore. His biceps swivel, and his double-jointed elbows bend maybe 120 degrees. No wrist swivel. He does have a waist swivel, but it's under his pelvis flap so you have to lift it first. You'll also have to move that flap to get his hips 90 degrees forward; they can also go 90 degrees backward and a little under 90 laterally. His thighs swivel. His double-jointed knees bend a little over 90 degrees. His feet have a slight upward tilt, plenty of downward tilt, and ankles that both pivot up to 90 degrees and swivel. Soundwave's rifle can peg into either hand. Those hands are not molded in a way and his arms really lack the articulation for him to push the button on edge of his chest, but it's there. Pressing it will pop open a door on his chest, but so far nothing really goes in there. The Siege tapes are too big. That said, his instructions indicate that the upcoming Core-class Ravage will fit in there. As for the shoulder cannon, it doesn't actually attach to his shoulder. Rather, it sits on a hinged armature that plugs into one of the ports on his back (his right is screen-accurate, but nothing's stopping you from putting it on his left). The hinge allows the cannon to be go as low as the barrel resting atop Soundwave's body or nearly straight up in the air. While we're looking at his back, notice how clean it is. The red on his calves should be gold, there should be a little gunmetal on the back of his thighs and the vents in the middle of his back, and his butt should be white, but the molded details and overall shape are screen-accurate. Soundwave's alt mode is... well, it's a thing. To be fair to it, I don't think it's actually any worse than Siege Soundwave's "spaceship," and, although there's definite issues, it's closer to the concept art than you might think. Soundwave's mostly suffering from gaps were his legs and a folding panel from his back don't really cover his butt all the way, exposed knee and ankle joints, feet that kind of stick out instead of blending in, and side windows that were molded but not painted. But there's still some design choices going on that I question. The biggest one I have is that the concept art implies that his alt mode's cockpit is his chest. But rather than work with that, you actually turn him over, open his back, spin it around, and then there's a second chest window. Meanwhile, panels fold out from his shoulders that barely hide his head. I dunno, I just think they really phoned this in. The armature on Soundwave's cannon tucks into the barrel, and you can use a second peg to plug it into the back of one his arms. His rifle goes in the other one, and... that's actually accurate to the concept art. Soundwave's supposed to be some kind of hover car, I think. That said, I think they missed an opportunity. Like, if you leave his back in the robot-mode position, you can plug the cannon on top and he looks more like a hover tank. Indeed, there are 3D-printed kits popping up on Ebay to give him even better tank modes. I'm not really sure where I stand on Soundwave. On the one hand, his robot mode is very screen-accurate. On the other, his alt mode kind of sucks. On one hand, the Bumblebee movie designs hit a nice balance between organic shapes and lots of mechanical details but recognizable G1-influeced robots. On the other hand, so far Bumblebee has been a one-off without the same cultural impact that the Bay designs, love 'em or hate 'em, have had, and the characters in the battle on Cybertron has such a minor role that they don't feel like a necessity for a collection. Still, I think if you're a fan of the movie or the design I'll recommend him. The bot mode is worth it.
×
×
  • Create New...