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mikeszekely

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  1. mikeszekely
    I preordered everything but Razorclaw (wake me when it's G1 Razorclaw), Wreck-Gar, and Jalopy. I wasn't a big fan of those fan-fic Junkions in the first place. Though, I might buy Jalopy if I happen to see him in stores one day; with his more traditional colors and Autobot badge he makes a better part of "Junkasaurus" than Axlegrease.
  2. mikeszekely
    Missing Link Optimus (and, to a lesser extent, Bumblebee) were interesting to me because it took a figure I (and I expect most Transformers fans) was incredibly familiar with, but gave it a more modern level of articulation and made a few improvements to eliminate the partsforming elements of the original. Missing Link Sunstreaker was interesting to me because I wasn't familiar with the original. Although the Missing Link version featured articulation and integrated hands that the original never did, it was my first time experiencing even the basic transformation engineering. The newest entry in the Missing Link line is interesting to me for third, brand new reason—because there never was a G1 toy. Yeah, we're talking about Missing Link Arcee. Note that she's based on an unreleased prototype, though there's a Missing Link version of said prototype. This made for a tough call on my part... the prototype version, with its different head sculpt and mix of orange and purple colors, could be argued as being more toy accurate. Except that it literally only existed as a hand-sculpted, non-transforming prototype. I'm not even sure if the images that were making the rounds were even of the physical prototype. Frankly, it's not certain that the toy would have actually been orange had it gotten further along in production, and I ultimately went with more traditional Arcee colors (though I wish they'd have kept the prototype head sculpt). Regardless of color, Missing Link Arcee gives a reasonable depiction of what a G1 Arcee toy might have looked like, with awkward shoulders, a flat chest, wide hips, and knock knees, though she still seems a bit more modern than the likes of G1 Kup, Blurr, or Hot Rod. Heck, her car kibble even cleans up quite a bit tighter than the SS86 toy! There seems to be a big departure here compared to the other Missing Link figures released so far. See, while Prime and Sunstreaker did come with stickers, if you wanted that look, their sticker details were actually sculpted and painted onto the toys already. Arcee, on the other hand, is looking pretty plain here. She doesn't even have an Autobot badge on her chest. But there are stickers that provide that badge, as well as covers for the screws on her shoulders and colorful bits for her toes and belly button. Her sole accessory is this pink gun. Although not a match for the gun she uses in the '86 movie (which the SS86 toy's gun is based on), I do believe that it's based on a gun she briefly used in the third season. If you want the movie-style pistol, well, I hear it comes with the prototype-colored version. Takara really wants you to double dip on this mold. Articulation isn't quite up to modern standards, but far beyond most of the actual '86 toys. Her head can swivel, and she can look about 45 degrees upward. Her shoulders, including the car fenders, can swivel, while a hinge gives her maybe 60 degrees of lateral movement. Her biceps swivel, and her elbows can bend just over 90 degrees. No waist or wrist swivels. Her hips can go about 90 degrees backward and nearly 180 degrees forward, though you have to move them out enough to clear per pelvis. Speaking of, they move 90 degrees laterally. She has a restricted thigh swivel; you can turn her legs about 45 degrees outward and just a touch inward. Her knees bend about 120 degrees. Her feet can tilt up and down about 45 degrees, and her ankles pivot about 45 degrees. Arcee can hold her gun in either hand. There are also peg holes on her backpack you can plug the gun into. The transformation is, honestly, kind of similar to the SS86 toy. Hinges move her hips to the rear of the vehicle, and her legs swing up so they can tuck under it. The front of her torso flips up to form the nose of the car, while the hood scoop, seats, and rear section with the fin are all parts of her backpack. The big difference is that SS86 Arcee has a lot more backpack to unfold, using it to make up more of the car's exterior while hiding her limbs. Meanwhile, Missing Link Arcee uses the arms to make the fenders and sides of the car, with her actual thighs making parts of the rear. And, y'know, maybe G1 toys didn't always have the best robot modes. But the vehicle modes were still pretty good, and that's definitely the case here. Not exactly cartoon-accurate, as she's significantly narrower with a longer nose that goes way past her front fenders versus the cartoon, yet it does so in a way that captures the sporty, almost hourglass shape the car had with wider fenders and a narrower cockpit, a short, round butt, and a long, sloping nose in a way that Titans Return, Kingdom, and even MMC's third party version didn't quite get. My only real gripe is the corners of her pelvis sticking out a bit from under the nose. Weapon storage on G1 toys wasn't aways a give, but there are two holes near the fin on the back of Arcee's car mode. Either of them can be used to store her gun while she's in alt mode (they're the same spots you can use the store them on her backpack). Growing up poor, I had more Gobots than actual Transformers prior to the '86 movie, but in the Christmas of 1986 I got the entire movie cast save for Cyclonus, Scourge, Gnaw, and Springer. I've rectified that as an adult, and even posted here comparing the '86 toys to some modern Siege, Kingdom, and Studio Series counterparts (something I could update, what with newer SS86 versions of Magnus, Springer and Galvatron). Despite being an important part of the new-for-the-movie cast, and despite having her SS86 figure hanging with her modern movie counterparts, Arcee is not among my 1986 G1 toys. While not truly a 1986 toy, or even a reimagining of an '86 toy with additional articulation, Missing Link Arcee is a sort of "what if?" that can represent the character with my actual 1986 toys. I think that's all I really needed her to be, but the fact that she's kind of decent even by modern standards, with a lot less kibble on her than most Arcee toys, makes her the sort of toy I want to recommend regardless.
  3. mikeszekely
    I just don't care for FT's entire MO anymore. Announce everything so that you don't buy the competition, only to eventually get an over-priced, overly-complicated figure that values paint and diecast over posability and playability. Honestly, the only stuff coming out of TFCon that has my attention is MMC's stiff. Specifically their Constructicons. I looked at FT and XTB's Scrappers, but MMC'S looks to be the (G1) set for me.
  4. mikeszekely
    Same. Honestly, that's usually the same for me. I've had basically no interested in anything Cang Toys has done (I like Gundam, and I like Transformers, but it doesn't mean I want my Transformers to look like Gundam🙃), no interest in TFC's Abominus, the only Iron Factory stuff I ever bought was their Bruticus, and DST's Aerialbots did nothing for me. I dunno why, but their Constructicons grabbed me, though. Mostly same, WfC Trilogy, Legacy, SS86, and AotP are giving me a lot of what I originally wanted like 10 years ago but felt the mainline wasn't delivering at the time. That said, I don't mind more complex stuff if it's good, interesting, or clever, like a lot of what MMC does, or some of Unique Toys' Bayverse stuff. When I criticize FT's Aerialbots for being over-engineered, I don't simply mean they were fiddly. I mean they took five steps to do something that could have been done in two, and they somehow nerfed a waist swivel while doing it. You specifically mentioned how they managed to make Silverbolt less of a Concorde with a brick of robot underneath, for example, but they way I saw it, sure, that block of robot was thinner, but it was still there, despite all the extra engineering that went into smearing that robot brick out and jamming some of it into the fuselage. Worse, it broke up the line of windows where they added humps to fit everything, so the alt mode looked worse from the top, too. Nope, I meant DST. He's going to be part of their Constructicon set. You may or may not recall, when I reviewed their Hook, I showed that he had the standard upper torso mode, but also a leg mode. In a nod to the IDW comics, you can make Hook a leg in place of Scrapper (who was killed by Spike), and Prowl can form the upper torso. The head that came with Hook already has the crest for "Prowlestator."
  5. mikeszekely
    First look at Brawl's leg mode. I'm not loving it... I prefer the toy look in combined mode, so a tank with the front noticeably folded over and a silver foot. But it is sort of cartoon accurate, especially when you consider that Onslaught's frame will form the rest of the leg. Speaking of Onslaught... Prototype looking way better than Combiner Wars, eh? And they're going the Warbotron/Iron Factory route, Onslaught himself is forming the cab of the truck, the combiner bits are forming a trailer that can double as a gun emplacement. Sadly, it doesn't look like they're showing off the whole combined mode/frame. Looks to me like Bruticus' chest is folded into the the waist, with the backpack guns folded down over them, and Bruticus' thighs are folded backward. Then the flatbed portion of the trailer behind the guns is the back of Bruticus' leg and bottom of his feet, but the stuff under it with the rear wheels is his arms. And, last but not least (well, yeah, probably least for most of you) is the other Japan-themed Timelines back. Once again, since set 1 was Prime and Starscream, set two is Megatron and Bumblebee, as a boar and a flying squirrel, respecitively.
  6. mikeszekely
    And yet this is what they came up with. At that price. They're like a third of the way through the funding period, and they've got barely over 1000 of the 10,000 backers they need. I think it's way overpriced... if these were retail figures, it'd be, what, $20 a pop for 3.75" figures, and say $40 per lightcycle (a bit high, but prices I might be willing to pay, for Flynn, Tron, Sark, and the lightcycles, but to heck with Yori and generic badguy program). That's only about $180. I definitely don't need a light-up base for $80 more. Again, I'd have rather they had an actual Tron toyline with stuff from all three films... they I might get Sam, Quora, Ares, Athena, and Eve, a Legacy and Ares Lightcycle, one of those jet things Athena was flying around in, and some Recognizers.
  7. mikeszekely
    *hurries and fixes original post* I have no idea what you're talking about...🤫 I had three out of five of the FT Aerialbots and sold them. I don't miss them. If you like heavy blocks of robots with limited posability and unnecessarily complex engineering you might like them, but I didn't care for them, and I especially hated their Silverbolt. As for DST's, I guess I thought about them they way you think about their Constructicons... kinda neat, but ultimately not G1 enough to hold my interest. But I think that works out better for me, by most accounts the QC of the Aerialbots was much worse than their Constructicons. It's funny, I actually though this set wasn't G1 enough, either, but I wanted Scrapper because he looked cool and he's my favorite Constructicon. I liked him enough that when I saw Hook using his crane as a sickle I figured I'd try one more and liked that one enough to go in on the rest. Long Haul was a bit of a bear, but Bonecrusher is a return to form. Can't wait to see how Mixmaster, Scavenger, and Prowl turn out.
  8. mikeszekely
    I still kinda doubt it. Like, yeah, maybe I'd opt to bring XR goggles over a laptop on a plane or something, but I'm not leaving my house without my phone, full stop. So it's still, at minimum, two devices either way. And, while I haven't used the Vision Pro and have no familiarity with it's OS, Android XR is basically an AI-powered gesture-based front end for the same Android that's already running on a lot of phones. While developers can choose to make their apps more XR-friendly, there's not a lot of incentive for them to do so because Android XR runs standard Android apps already. Then the choice is watch Netflix on chonky googles while my phone stays in my pocket, or watch Netflix on my phone tethered to lighter and less conspicous glasses. I know, I'm sounding really down on the Vision Pro/Galaxy XR/Android XR. I want to like it, I want the tech to succeed, and I want somebody to do something truly interesting with the technology. But, as it stands, I just can't see a scenario where they do something that some some other device doesn't do better, with Viture or Xreal glasses if you really want that private big-screen experience.
  9. mikeszekely
    Sometimes a movie can make what you'd think is a decent return, but it didn't make enough profit for the bean counters.🤷‍♂️
  10. mikeszekely
    I had the original Vitures and had the same trouble with blurry corners. I bought the Pro version later. Worse speakers, but brighter display and less blurring on the corners. In any case, I agree that glasses like the Vitures are great for content consumption. That's exactly why I don't see the point of stuff like the Galaxy XR. Why spend nearly $2000 on bulky goggles when the Vitures Pros are $300 right now? Most of the apps your going to wind up running are going to be regular Android apps anyway.
  11. mikeszekely
    Instead of expensive, conspicuous goggles why not spend like half or less on XReal or Viture glasses and use them with the laptop/phone/tablet you likely already own? I use mine with my ROG Ally all the time to get some gaming in while my daughter is in her dance classes. That's why I'm struggling with stuff like the Apple Vision Pro and Samsung Galaxy XR. Meta already brought affordable VR to the masses, and XReal/Viture/Rokkid are providing more affordable, lighter, less conspicuous ways to use XR on existing platforms and devices.
  12. mikeszekely
    So Samsung just unveiled their rival to the Apple Vision Pro, the Galaxy XR. On the plus side, it's lighter than the Vision Pro, costs like half, and the Android XR OS is getting some praise for its usability and compatible with regular non-XR Android apps. But on the minus side, it's still like triple the price of a Meta Quest 3, and I'm struggling to see the actual market is for XR yet. While the Quest 3 can do some XR stuff, the main draw there still seems to be VR gaming.
  13. mikeszekely
    Yeah. I think I'm good with my non-Xbox Ally X for awhile yet.
  14. mikeszekely
    With names like "Forklift Warrior," "Hook Warrior," and "Load Warrior," I thought this next guy would be something like "Bulldozer Warrior." But maybe something was lost in translation, because Dream Star Toys' version of Bonecrusher wound up being called "Pushing Machine Warrior." Pushing Machine Warrior is, broadly speaking, more of the same from DST. Gorgeous metallic greens and purples, curves and facets that give the bot an almost organic shape, and minimal visual cues that really recall the G1 character. No tread legs here... it's actually his arms that form the treads. The almost entirely green color of the animation is broken up by purples on the chest and gray thighs. But he's not totally unrecognizable. The vertical green "straps" flanking the purple on his chest with the red details do a rather good job of recalling G1 Bonecrusher's shovel chest. The shovel isn't his chest, though. It's mostly folded into his calves. The cab protrudes a bit, but it's far from the worse backpack we've seen on a toy. A few flaps of tread adorn his arms, but the bulk of the mechanical bits can be passed off as shoulder pads. All-in-all, Pushing Machine Warrior suffers from minimal kibble. Forklift Warrior, with his sole gun, is starting to turn into something of an outlier. Pushing Machine Warrior does have his gun, but he's also got a pair of translucent red-bladed shortswords. Also a big honking leg for the Megatron build-a-figure (that we'll talk more about once he's complete). Pushing Machine Warrior's head is on a ball joint with great up, down, and sideways tilt. His shoulders rotate on ratchets, but lateral movement is a ratchet in the chest, on the wrong side of the swivel (a common problem on these Warbotron offshoots, and one less easily overlooked on a more expensive "premium" figure than on the Mecha Invasion guys). They're a bit limited to under 90 degrees, mostly due to the treads on top banging into his head. His biceps swivel, and his double-jointed elbows bend nearly 180 degrees. His wrists swivel, and his fingers are individually-articulated with three pinned knucklers on his fingers, while his thumb has a ball joint at the base and two pinned knuckles. He's got a ratcheted waist swivel with a small ab crunch. His hips use a soft ratchet to move 90 degrees forward or backward, and a stronger ratchet for 90 degrees of lateral movement. His thighs swivel, and though his knees are double-jointed (both using ratchets) the kibble in his calves does stop his knee bend at just over 90 degrees. His feet can tilt up and down, and his toes have a separated up/down tilt, and his ankles pivot 90 degrees. Aside from the shoulders, you should have no trouble getting this guy into some sweet poses. Assuming you can get him to hold his weapons. The thin handles on both the gun and the swords have small slots cut into them. These slots should, in theory, fit around little tabs in his palms. In practice he seems to hold the swords ok, but the gun just immediately comes off the tab, leaving the friction in his fingers to do all the work. And, alas, there's no other storage for the gun in his robot mode. The swords can go on his back, though. There's little pegs on the hilts, and they fit into these little ports on the sides of the cab on his backpack. Transforming this guy is, once again, not particularly hard when you know what you're doing, but made difficult the first time by confusing, unclear instructions. There's some swiveling involved, but his arms turn entirely into the treads. His torso opens up and his head folds into the cab, and the bulk of his upper torso. His legs kind of explode, folding over his calves, but with a number of panels that have to be unfolded just right to make up the front end and shovel. while his feet lay over what's left of his torso to form the rear. Then the cab kind of swings back in and plugs on top. From some angles I think he look like a pretty cool bulldozer, though from the rear his obvious robot toes and the ripper dangling off his robot chest are a bit obvious. DST designed the swords to use their hilt pegs to plug in hear the front of the treads, then the handles unfold and attach to the shovel. This would probably be a good idea, were it not for the obvious red blades, and the fact that they don't secure anywhere along said blades, making them extremely prone to simply popping off. That said, the hinges in the sword handles do allow them to articulate with the shovel, which has a few joints and collapsing hydraulic pistons. The treads don't work, and there's no wheels for him to roll on. As for his gun, it folds up into a neat little package. That package, you'll note, as some little pegs on it. Those pegs can plug into a port on the inside/underside of his chest as part of the ripper. The back of Megatron's leg can open up to reveal a fist inside. Swing it out, close it back up, and fold in the heel and toe and you've got one of Devastator's forearms. Untab the treads, rotate them, and tab them back, remove the gun and scrunch up the ripper (it doesn't actually lock into place as near as I can tell) and fold back the shovel on Pushing Machine Warrior. You'll find a T-peg that slides into the top of the leg-turned-arm, and two clips will fold down to lock in into place. And that's his arm mode. I'm not sure why the DST Aerialbots never really did anything for me, but once again I'm digging the overall design and aesthetic of their Constructicons. Pushing Machine Warrior is another win in my book, I just wish they'd work on their instructions.
  15. mikeszekely
    Remaking the original is a bad idea. The CGI and special effects weren't the problem. Sure, they're not as flashy as Legacy or Ares, but they've held up reasonably well. The problem with the original is the slow pacing.
  16. mikeszekely
    You're correct. I don't know why I thought I paid less... eh, I'm getting old. Must have had something else shipped around the same time that cost $80. I'll have to edit my review, but really the takeway is that the Air Defense team is now fully equal in price to Optimus' trailer, and I dunno about that. The math ain't mathing, as my daughter would say. I 100% agree. Just like animators in the '80s couldn't shade silver, and now we've got a whole mess of people insisting that Optimus' legs and thighs should be white when they're clearly supposed to be the same silver as the toy. And if I'm being honest, I'd have preferred that NYCC Nemesis Prime was black. It's how Takara did the original Armada toy. But, like I said in my review, they're not just copying how the animation was done, it seems that the Hasbro version of the original toy was also dark blue.
  17. mikeszekely
    Nine Inch Nails has been pretty hit and miss with me, but YOLO. I just bought the Ares Soundtrack. I liked what I heard in the movie.
  18. mikeszekely
    A few more repaints, then I think I'm just waiting on a few crossovers and, despite it still being warm enough to skip a jacket most days, I think I'm done for the year. Up first we have Seaspray's wavemate, Retro Brawn. And... he's kind of unimpressive. To be honest, I was going to skip him entirely but I got to thinking, "well, I have Retro Gears and Bumblebee, and Seaspray's Retro (especially if they do eventually release a toon version), and I started getting FOMO. So when I saw him on a peg at my local store I grabbed him. So he does have a new head that matches the G1 toy. They also altered the colors of the green to better match the toy, they painted the windows black instead of blue, and they put a spot of black under the badge on the hood. But that's where they stopped, and that's kind of disappointing. I mean, I get it's a Walmart line and they're not going to dump a ton of money into remolding figures for it, but the stocky cartoon body doesn't match the clawed jank that was the G1 toy. But forget about giving him claws and shoulder pads, they could have at least tampoed some sticker detail onto his waist and pelvis. The moral of the story is don't be me. You have SS86 Brawn? You've got all the Brawn you need then. Coming from Hasbro Pulse, we've got a two-pack of G2 Dinobots. One of which is Snarl. There's some minor paint differences. Most notably they painted the eyes red like the toys whereas SS86 Snarl went for cartoon blue. Other than that, they used a slightly darker shade of red for the parts that were already read, and a lighter shade of red for the parts that were gray, and that's it. The other Dinobot is Snarl, and it's pretty much the same story. The gray plastic has been swapped for a greenish blue, and he's got a silver lower jaw, red eyes, and red horns to mimic the original G2 toy. He's also got black thighs and a black head. But there's no changes to the actual mold. It'd have been cool if they'd has some remolding; keep the dino kibble on the outside like the toys, for instance, but broad strokes this is probably fine. A bunch of Leader-class repaints with no remolding is probably a tough pill for a lot of people to swallow. Still, especially with Grimlock still on shelves, it's kind of cool seeing the team together but sporting more individualistic colors. Again, maybe not for everyone, but I say bring on the expected orange Sludge and green Swoop. Finally, we have our NYCC-exclusive Nemesis Prime. Unlike more recent Nemesis Primes, this isn't simply a black repaint of regular Optimus. This version, one of the first to actually bear the name "Nemesis Prime" AFAIK, actually had screen time. And to mimic the cel-shaded colors of that episode (also the Hasbro version of the original toy), Nemesis Prime is more dark blue than black, with a messed up face also pulled from the episode. Aside from the new head and colors, he's the same figure as the Commander-class toy, with the same Matrix, gun, and forearm pipe-guns. He doesn't, however, come with a trailer. Instead, he comes with the Star Saber from Transformers Armada. Not the Vorpal Saber he wielded in the show, but I guess Hasbro figured that most fans would want the Star Saber more? The Star Saber is an awkward-looking sword, and that sword breaks into three smaller minicons. The Minicons are, of course, the Air Defense team- Runway, Jetstorm, and Sonar, from left to right. Note that I have Jetstorm mistransformed. His tail should slide back, then swing over his head to sit on his chest (a bit like Runway's). You might notice, however, the crack on one of the hinges. The tolerances don't seem to be right and the plastic is too thin for the stress, so I'm leaving it permanently where it's at. Aside from being the Star Saber, and aside from the fact that Armada fans seem to genuinely want more Minicons, I don't think they're much to write home about. They're a little larger than the Siege Micromasters, with slightly better articulation, but not by a lot. Moving back to Nemesis, he of course transforms into a truck. Although he doesn't come with a trailer, he can pull the one that came with Optimus. He can even combine with it; despite not technically needing them, he's got the head and fists for combined mode. Kind of makes you wish he came with a trailer of his own. What makes you wish it even more is the price tag. Optimus, as a Commander, was $90, right? Well Nemesis here is also $90. In other worse, he's giving up the trailer and extra play patterns that come along with it for a trio of honestly-not-that-great Minicons that turn into a sword. I dunno about you guys, but I'd have rather had the trailer. I mean, how does that even add up? Optimus' trailer has WAY more plastic and more parts than the Air Defense Team. I know, recent tariffs and price hikes would likely mean that Armada Optimus would actually cost even more, but still, a repaint of the core bot with some dinky and fragile minicons instead of the trailer is a really hard pill to swallow.
  19. mikeszekely
    All I know is I did my part... I dragged two friends to see it one night, and yesterday I took my family. Tron: Uprising was awesome. I should re-watch it next.
  20. mikeszekely
    I understand he wasn't always the easiest to work with, but when a lot of people were getting into Tekken I was a big time Dead or Alive fan. I only dipped out after Itagaki and Tecmo parted ways and DoA 5 was riddled with expensive microtransactions.
  21. mikeszekely
    My wife's the kind of person who sees that it got bad reviews so assumes it must be bad but also unironically likes the live action Dragonball and Avatar (The Last Airbender one). If it's colorful and has a few action scenes she'll be fine. As for my daughter, she's always been kind of indifferent to movies until she actually watches them. Even when she was little she never really wanted to go see like the new Disney/Pixar/DreamWorks/etc movies. Pretty sure the only reason she watched K-pop Demon Hunters (which she’s obsessed with now) was because my wife saw it in her Netflix queue and asked her to watch it together. But usually after watching the movie she'll say she liked it and talk about scenes from it days later.
  22. mikeszekely
    Well, that and the price.
  23. mikeszekely
    I saw it with some friends, but I'm thinking about taking my wife and kid to see it (though they're not super enthusiastic about it). But the only XD 3D showtime is during my daughter's piano class...
  24. mikeszekely
    This is a new thing from Takara, Transformers Overgear. No idea when or how much or what scale, but I can tell you 01 is Ironhide and 02 is Blackout. I know @M'Kyuun loves a good helicopter...
  25. mikeszekely
    Yeah, I caught a few benchmarks, and the performance seems to be just enough of an improvement to interest me but not enough to to $1000 interest me. I think if I was using a Steam Deck or the OG Ally I'd definitely bite, but I'm pretty content with my Ally X. More curious to see some benchmarks for the Legion Go 2. On the Z1 Extreme the Go seemed a bit less optimized (not to mention way heavier), but the Go 2 has a bigger OLED screen. Now that I'm at the age where I'm starting to need readers "bigger screen" is a surprisingly compelling feature.😅
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