mikeszekely

Hey, I got a notification that Unique Toys' Nero was delivered! Unfortunately I'm 150 miles away in Erie for the weekend...

They're remaking Fatal Frame?

Speaking of Galvatron, a lot of people with the misassembled shoulders on the Kingdom version are just turning them around, so the pins face outward. Some people have even started making 3D-printed fillers for the pin holes. While it does fix his robot proportions, I haven't been totally satisfied with that solution. For one, the pin holes are potential 5mm ports for attaching Weaponizers and Fossilizers. Two, there's a tab on the treads on the backs of his arms that can tuck into those holes. For three, it leaves his shoulders still misaligned in cannon mode. Fortunately, Youtuber Patriot Prime has a solution. The gist is pretty simple. You want a visit your local NAPA and look for this specific set of trim removal tools. They run about six bucks. In my case, they didn't have it in stock but I was able to have them order it for me to pick up in-store the very next day. Oh, and while there's four pieces in the set you really only need the one that's flat on one end and forked on the other. They're nylon tools, so they shouldn't scratch your figure, and the forked end allows the tool to slide into the joint and kind of wrap around where the pin goes through. Next, run a hair dryer over the shoulder and bicep to make the plastic a bit more pliable, then wedge the forked end into the seems on Galvatron's shoulder. You want to work them apart enough to really slip the whole thing down the side with the pin. Carefully pry the joint apart; you'll feel the pin pop. Work the pin out and set it aside. OK, now this is the scary part. The pin actually fits into a tube that runs through the shoulder joint. Turn the bicep so that the seem in the bicep is lined up with the side of the shoulder, and pry the whole thing apart enough that the tube slides out of the ring in the joint and you can work the whole arm off. Now, note the orientation of the joint. It's sort of D-shaped, with a smooth curve and a flatter side with molded detail. You want to line things up so that the smooth side is facing up, and the pin side is on the back, then pry the shoulder open enough to get the tube back into the ring. Smush the whole thing together, then put the pin back in. Find something with a 5mm peg- Patriot recommends a Power of the Primes combiner foot, because it gives you a lot of surface area to push on. Put the peg into the hole behind the pin, and push the pin back in. Voilà! If everything goes well your Galvatron should be right as rain, with the shoulders the way they were designed to go together. I did this to mine, and while it's a little scary to be bending the plastic so much there's no obvious scratches or stress marks after I got him back together, and the joints are as tight or tighter than before I fixed them. Hopefully later batches of Galvatron and the toy-style Gen Selects ones will already be fixed at the factory, but in the mean time if you get a Galvatron with bad shoulders it's definitely fixable with the right tools.

I think there are companies out there that could do a better jet mode. I think they don't want to. It's like wanting a chibi Porsche mode for Cliffjumper, the weird biplane design for Blitzwing, or the uncircumsized shuttle for Astrotrain... the animation models followed the toys, and aren't real-world accurate. And people sometimes prefer animation accuracy to real-world accuracy.

I like how the foot transforms; that alone has me curious to handle one. Like I said, too soon to commit to replacing all my Seekers, but if they do some of the colors Maketoys did that are a bit harder to come by (Acid Storm, Sunstorm, G2 Starscream) I'd definitely bite.

I think I like it, in both modes, better than MP-52. Still not sure I need to replace MT's, but if the price is right I might check it out.

You're not wrong. A melee suit like Barbatos in a team FPS? Dom Trooper? I get wanting an pretty iconic suit like the Dom, but the SEED version? And Methuss... Because who the heck wants to play as Methuss?

At the time Beast Wars came out I was 16 and wrote the whole premise off as incredibly stupid. I ignored the franchise entirely until Robots In Disguise was on and a friend pointed out that it had Optimus and Ultra Magnus and they were both trucks again. I did watch the show eventually as an adult, and I grew to accept it with its strong writing (for a kids show) and G1 ties. I can admit that it was good, and I've been buying the Kingdom figures. But to this day I still prefer mechanical beasts like the G1 Predacons to robots that turn into organic-looking animals. Yes, I get that a big robo-monkey isn't much of a disguise, but robots turning into actual gorillas seems worse to me somehow.

So, the DK-19 upgrade kit really went a long way toward making a pretty good Hasbro Titan even better. But could Scorponok be even better? I did want a second set of those shoulder cannons. And his shield is kind of flat and dinky; in The Headmasters the Zarak Shield was Scorponok's answer to Fortress' Master Sword, so maybe it should be a bit more impactful. Well, yeah, DNA's got me covered there, too, with another kit- DK-21 (20 was SS Devastator, in case you were counting). Beefier shield, check. Another set of articulated shoulder cannons, check. I could stop there, but we also have a new set of scorpion legs (mostly). That's everything in the plastic packaging, but again there's a bag tossed in with this set's first-run gift, a translucent visor for Scorponok. Oh, and a bag of screws. Installing the visor is pretty easy. If you start to transform him so you can see behind his visor you'll find a screw. You'll have to undo that screw (and since the whole hinge is friction clipped in place you can yank it off if you need to to get better access to the screw). Slide the visor out, slide the new one in, and screw it back in place. The idea here is that the translucent visor allows you to see Scorponok's eyes behind them. In execution, though, it's a bit more like a translucent pinkish-orange than red. Just my personal tastes, but I'm going back to the opaque one after this review. Not really complaining, though; options are good, and this is supposed to be like a bonus gift. Installing the new legs requires the most work out of any of the parts in this or the DK-19 kit. First, find the wheels (marked with blue arrows) and pop them out. Set them aside. Remove his entire tail, too, by pushing it off the friction hinge (marked with orange arrows). Set it by the wheels. Splay out the scorpion legs, then find the four screws I've marked with blue arrows. Unscrew them, then you can remove the whole purple parts that the legs are attached too. Replace them with the DNA parts, then screw them back in place with the screws from the baggy. Now, go back to the old legs. Notice how the legs have a hinge where they're connected to the purple part, a big knuckle that connects the first segment to the second, and then the tip. Push at the knuckle so that the outside segment and the tip come off the inside segment. Take the part of the leg you pulled off, and push it into the DNA leg, repeating until you've transplanted all the legs to the DNA parts. Then pop the wheels and tail back on. As for the shield, you just take the Hasbro one and stick it onto the DNA parts. Note that the entire shield doesn't fold the way the G1 shield does; instead, you have to remove the sides from it, and only the inner section folds. And the extra set of cannons replaces the Hasbro ones, so you have one set on the front of his shoulders and one set on the back. Of course, Scorponok does have a number of 5mm ports, so you can feasibly use all six. For G1 accuracy, though, I'm packaging the original cannons away in with the original legs. And now, here we have Scorponok fully-armed with both kits. I'd say that bigger shield and the second set of articulated cannons are an improvement (and, depending on your preferences, maybe the visor, too). However, the effect is a bit less impactful than DK-19's. As with DK-19, an upgrade kit that only improves one mode at the expense of the others isn't ideal, so let's look at his other modes. DNA did work out some storage for the new shield parts in scorpion mode. Begin by removing the sides of the shield, and folding the inner piece. Stuff it into the hollow on the back of the scorpion's tail, with the one side of the pedestal poking through under the tail hinge. It doesn't lock into place, but when you put the original shield part in place under the tail as you normally would it'll hold everything in place. So far, so good. Now, DNA suggests putting the extra cannons onto the sides of the robot legs. You certainly can, but again for G1 accuracy I like them on top. The sides of the big shield fold in on themselves, and you can stick them on the sides of his arms. It'll do, but honestly I'm not loving it any more than I'm loving the gun on the tail. I suppose simply leaving the shield off with the gun is an option. It's how we did it on the G1 toy. We can also observe in this mode the advantage of the new legs. See, on the original legs they were built so that they they could move up and down where they're hinged to the body. They were also build so that the front two legs one each side were once piece, and the back two legs were one piece. While they could move independently of each other at the knee they were forced to move as one at the hip, then. The new DNA legs improve this design by first separating the legs. Now each one can move up and down independently at the hip and the knee, not just the knee. But, they also added a hinge just below the hip that allows for forward and backward movement. The legs can now spread out into better crawling poses. Was this something I thought Scorponok needed? No. But it's something I'm glad to have now that it's in-hand and installed. We'll flip him into base mode, now, and check on that. Well, as was the case with the old shoulder guns and touched on when I reviewed the DK-19 kit, the DNA shoulder guns can go in the same place as the stock ones, holding up the leg panels to make towers out of his arms. It's just a matter of finding a place for the other set. You could stick them on the leg ramps, like I did yesterday, or leave them on his shoulders... pretty much anywhere you can find a spare 5mm port works. The folded-up sides of the big shield can plug into the arms, similar to how DNA has them in scorpion mode. It's not the prettiest, but bulking up the arm-towers doesn't bother me the way adding kibble to the arms in scorpion mode does. The sticking point is what you do with the middle section of the DNA shield. DNA suggests just putting it at the end of the main tail ramp, where it doesn't actually secure in place that I can see, and would be a major road hazard for anyone driving down that ramp. So, no, I'm not a fan. That being said, someone discovered another solution. Pop the original shield part off the central structure. Fold the DNA shield up, and put the Hasbro shield on it. Then, get Scorponok ready by tucking his legs in like you would for bot mode, and opening the trap door. Drop the folded-up shield combo into the hold, so the pedestal is resting on the scorpion legs. Tada! You technically don't have to open the trap door, but the pedestal doesn't lock in place and I've found that the gap it sits in with the door open helps keep it in place. Now, this does move the central structure forward, and you're giving up the trap door storage, but the central structure sitting a bit forward from the arm towers is pretty G1 accurate, and it certainly seems like a better option than blocking the ramp. Or, you know, you could just leave it off to the side, yeah? While DK-19 was a slam dunk, I think it's a bit easier to be on the fence with DK-21. The new scorpion legs with the added articulation are nice, but not essential. The bigger shield looks a lot better, but even if it was kind of small he still had a stock shield, so it's not as needed as the gun from 19 was. The extra shield parts also don't integrate into scorpion or base modes as well as all the parts from 19 did. Finally, while having four identical articulated shoulder cannons is good, the cannons in 19 plus the stock cannons at least give you four total cannons. In other words, DK-21 improves Scorponok, but in a nice-to-have sort of way and not a way that feels essential like DK-19. So, I'd put it to you like this- you should definitely get DK-19. If you have DK-19, you have the money to spend, and you want a more complete upgrade then go for DK-21, too. But if you get DK-19 and you're content you don't need DK-21, and if you're not getting DK-19 I would suggest skipping DK-21, too, as it really needs DK-19 to feel like a complete upgrade.

Robots turning into organic animals never jived with me, regardless of the in-universe explanation. That concept art looks ok to me. And whatever will be, will be. As a Transformer fan who's watched all the other films I've learned to expect the worst, knowing full well I'll watch it anyway. That way, if it turns out to be moderately ok like Bumblebee then I'm pleasantly surprised.

Well, yesterday I looked at something very small. How about today we get large? This is DK-19, an upgrade kit from DNA for Earthrise Scorponok. Well, if you'd asked me when Scorponok came out, three of my biggest complaints were that 1) he didn't come with a gun and cover like G1 Scorponok did, 2) he only came with two of those double-barreled cannons while G1 Scorponok had four, and 3), he had these flat purple panels with some silver paint on them in place of the thicker chrome parts G1 Scorponok had on his legs. I said as much at the time, and even suggested DNA would probably fix it. He we are, just a over a week to the day since then, and we have a DNA kit. One that includes a big orange gun, a cover for the big orange gun, another set of double-barreled guns, and some parts to bulk out those flat leg panels. Maybe someone at DNA is on Macrossworld, eh? Also included are a pair of ankle fillers, and a clear face mask. Note that the face mask is listed as a first-run gift, and was packed in plastic bag inside the box without an actual spot molded into the inner packaging. Installing this kit is pretty simple. We'll start with the gift. Just take the horns off Scorponok's head, clip the sides of the mask onto his ear holes, then plug the horns back on. I suppose it does sort of enhance the G1 toy look, and it's more Headmasters accurate. It also spaces his horns out a bit more from his head, which I dig. I can't say that I felt like I really needed this, but in-hand I think I'm lukewarm to it where I expected to outright hate it. DNA would have you outright replace the original cannons with theirs, which have independently-articulated barrels. As I said, though, the G1 toy had four total, so the more accurate solution is to have one set on the fronts of his shoulders, but the other set on the back. Your call, but I'd go with DNA on the front and stock on the back (for now). The ankle filler is installed by taking the end of the piston-looking part and plugging it into a port (screw hole?) on the inside of his leg, marked in blue, then clipping it over the hinge on the back of his leg, marked in purple. This will leave a flap covering the open gap on the inside of his foot. Remove the flat purple panels with the silver paint from Scorponok's legs, then plug them into the DNA parts. Plug the new combined part back onto his leg. It does bulk it up, but it lacks the smoothness of the original chrome parts on the G1 toy. Again, maybe if I painted the entirety of the original part silver? I'm not sure, but I find myself wishing that DNA replaced those panels outright with something a big closer to the G1 toy's. Still, DNA's solution isn't really any worse. Lastly, we have the big gun. The gray cover snaps onto it, like the original. Then, although it looks like it has a handle that should fold down, there's just enough of a lip that it doesn't move. Which is fine! There's actually a 5mm peg, and it plugs into the orange circle on either claw (which is also like the original toy, if I'm not mistaken). And here we have our fully kitted-up robot, and I think that's definitely an improvement all-around, yeah? Sure, I have some quibbles about the leg panels, but the problem there still stems from the original Hasbro parts. Likewise, there's his dinky shield, which is a Hasbro problem again. But the ankle fillers do their job, and the gun and extra shoulder cannons are two big-ol' checkmarks off my wishlist. If anything, the improvements DNA made to add articulation to their shoulder cannons makes me want another set to outright replace Hasbro's (stay tuned). Robot mode improvements are great and all, but not if they adversely affect the other modes. So, we'll flip him into scorpion mode, and yes, DNA included storage for the big gun. Instead of folding out the last segment of his tail, you'll notice that the other side is a hollow hexagon. And the butt of his new gun has a hexagonal shape that fits right in. As for the rest, nothing changes with his head, and the leg panels go on the sides of his legs same as always. You keep one set of guns on his shoulders, then I put the other set onto his robot shins, G1-style. The mask stays on, and the ankle fillers are supposed to. That said, they do push his legs apart a bit. Not so much that you might find it to be a problem; his tail still tabs in place onto them. It's just enough that it's noticeable and it bugs me. While we're at it, I really don't care for the rifle on his tail, either. Of course, you could just set his big ol' gun off to the side, like you had to with the G1 toy. That doesn't bother me. There's no major changes to the base mode, either. You transform it the same, you use a set of shoulder cannons to hold up with leg panels the same, even with the extra DNA parts on them. Just like the G1 toy, you pull the cover off the gun then plug the gun on one leg and the cover on the other to make towers, which I like. Then, if you're using both set of shoulder cannons, it's just a matter of finding a spot for them. At the ends of the purple ramps works. The G1 toy kept them on the underside of the orange ramps, which are formed from the bottom of his feet on the Earthrise version. Sadly, while Hasbro crammed 5mm ports on the bottom of like every other WFC figure for blast effects, Scorponok doesn't have any, so his extra cannons can't go on those ramps. The other problems I have are one minor, and one more major. The minor one is that there's nowhere for the mask to when Zarak is in robot mode, as he might be if Scorponok is in base mode. I can't fault DNA too hard for that, though, since the mask is technically a gift and not officially part of the kit. The other problem, which will either not bother you or really bug you, is that the ankle filler means the green panels on Scorponok's legs don't fold over and sit flush. If you think that just makes the green and purple panel collectively look more like a ramp then it's probably not a big deal. But if you're like me, and G1 accuracy is your thing, the green panel needs to sit flush and the purple one sticks out at a 90 degree angle to replicate the hatches you could open on the G1 toy, where you could stick the elevator and the claw arm. DK-19 technically does everything I asked for in a Scorponok upgrade. Could it have done a little better? I mean, it could have included four shoulder cannons instead of two so they'd all be articulated, but push comes to shove it gave me the extras I wanted. It could have replaced the leg panels with something a little more G1, but it still provides something to improve the stock ones. The ankle fillers do mess with the scorpion and base modes, but only a little, and removing them, either just for those modes or simply to not use them at all, is still an option. And you get the big gun he was so sorely missing, with the same integration into base mode that the G1 toy had. So, yes, I do suppose DK-19 could have been a little better, but even as it is it's a huge improvement over the stock figure. Another lingering concern you might have after my last DNA review, DK-20 (their set for Studio Series Devastator) is that this kit could be junk like that one. But, nope, it's solid and everything fits well. So, while it's not a cheap upgrade on an already expensive figure, if you have Scorponok I highly recommend you pick up this kit. I just makes him feel more complete.

Nah. Even if they say this is still sweet in the Bayverse Rise of the Beasts is supposed to be set in the ’90s. Well before he went to pieces.

Someone wanna explain to me why this is Mirage, not Jazz?

I'm down for some new starships.

Basically Gundam Overwatch. Does my love of Gundam trump my dislike of multiplayer team shooters? Hmm...

Since War for Cybertron began Hasbro's released a number of Micromaster packs designed to give Siege/Netflix Soundwave, Siege Soundblaster, or Earthrise Doubledealer some minions. With Laserbeak, Ravage, Rumble, Frenzy, and Ratbat release I think they've covered the important ones (save Buzzsaw), but Soundwave does have more minions. And that's where Dr Wu comes in, with his Chatter set. Chatter comes in two parts, Orang Box, shown above with Siege Rumble and Ravage, and Eagle Box, shown with Frenzy and Laserbeak. Orang Box is supposed to be Beastbox, and Eagle Box is Squawktalk. Orang Box came out a little better, I think. I actually have him a bit mistransformed (the instructions suck, but you can actually turn his sides so that his shoulders are up and back a bit). He has a visible robot face on his butt, but he's definitely got an ape-like shape that's fairly similar to the G1 toy. Eagle Box is a bit worse off. He's got huge wings, but not the flip-out wing tips the G1 toy had. He's got little feet, which is cool, but his body is basically his little bird head and a tail, with very little in between. Unlike the Hasbro Micromasters, these guys came with some accessories. Out of the box they're attached to a sprue and have to be cut off (and, perhaps, repainted where they were cut from the sprue). Once they're separated you have two weapons for Eagle Box and two for Orang Box. Orang Box can look up and down, and his neck rotates but that results in more of a sideways tilt. His shoulders are on ball joints, so they can rotate and extend laterally 90 degrees. His elbows bend 90 degrees. His biceps swivel, but his wrists don't. He does have a waist swivel. His hips don't move forward or backward, but they move laterally for transformation. No thigh swivels, and no foot articulation, but his knees can bend 90 degrees. Eagle Box's head can tilt up and down, and his hips can move forward and backward (although both legs are one solid piece, but most of his articulation is in his wings. They're ball jointed at the shoulders with a swivel , then a hinge, then another swivel. All-in-all, not impressive compared to most other 3P toys but significantly better than the WFC Micromasters they supplement. The weapons tab into spots on the Box's backs. Orang Box and Eagle Box turn into... well, boxes. Like the other Soundwave Micromasters. They're about the same size, too, so this set was definitely intended for WfC; it's not really a substitute for an MP. Both boxes do fit inside Siege/Netflix Soundwave, although the fit was a bit tighter for Orang Box. G1 Squawktalk and Beastbox had a gimmick- they combined into a humanoid robot named Squawkbox. And so, too, does Orang Box and Eagle Box combine into Chatter. Chatter looks pretty good, I'd say. He's got the tape details on his chest, the purple upper body and blue lower body, and the white hip skirt you'd want, but with better proportions than the G1 toy. From other angles he does have a few flaws... mostly that he's got a monkey head for a backpack, and monkey legs dangling off his head like pigtails. His articulation isn't half bad. His head can swivel. His shoulders are on ball joints for rotation and 90 degrees of lateral movement. His biceps swivel, and his elbows bend 90 degrees. No waist swivel, due to how Orang and Eagle connect. His hip skirt can fold up, so his ball-jointed hips can move forward, backward, or laterally 90 degrees. His thighs swivel, and his knees bend 180 degrees on a double joint. His ankles can swivel, and they pivot 90 degrees. Eagle's weapons plug barrel-first into the back of Orang's, and the tabs on Eagle's plug into Chatter's shoulders. Well, Chatter certainly isn't an amazing figure. But, as I noted, neither are the official Micromasters. Personally I'd rather get a WfC Buzzsaw, Slugfest, or Overkill, but if a WfC Squawkbox sounds like something up your alley Chatter will do, and he's only around $25. Just temper your expectations.

64GB isn't going to hold much in the way of modern games, no. But if I decide to get one I'll pay the extra $120 to upgrade to the 256GB NVMe drive. And all of them support MicroSD cards.

I couldn't get with the motion controls the game used in it's original release, so this will be my first time playing it. It'd be cool if Nintendo re-releases Windwaker HD and Twilight Princess HD on the Switch, too. I did play those on the Gamecube back in the day, but skipped the HD re-releases because I skipped pretty much everything on the WiiU.

Whoops. I'll fix it.

This review is long overdue, as I picked up the figure in March or April from a certain store that I don't frequent so much anymore that offers stacking and free shipping over $150, so he'd just been sitting waiting for something else to come up (and half the stuff I'd preordered I wound up canceling and buying elsewhere when they decided to be the last place on Earth to get their stuff in). Anyway, it's Fans Toys Spindrift, an MP-style Seaspray. No, not the guy I reviewed back in 2017. No, see, X-Transbots came out with their own Seaspray, and it was pretty definitively better than the original Spindrift. Well, I guess someone at Fans Toys decided they didn't want to live in a world where an X-Transbots figure bodied one of theirs that hard. Rather than move to another planet they decided to just take another crack at Seaspray, and as a guy with a lot of Seasprays I found myself reluctantly picking up Spindrift 2.0 despite being pretty happy with Neptune. Well, we've just started and I have to admit that Spindrift 2.0 definitely makes a strong first impression. I mentioned in Neptune's review that while I thought he looked fine, due to my impression of Seaspray being colored a bit by the G1 toy, that he was definitely a little slim compared to the super chonky animation model. At that time, another reason I was cool with a slightly trimmer Seaspray was because it seemed like a necessary sacrifice to prevent the alt mode's proportions from being too wonky; at the time of Neptune's release ToyWorld actually had the most cartoony proportions in bot mode, and his alt mode was nearly as wide as it was long. And frankly, Neptune was a fat slob compared to the first Spindrift, who looked like Seaspray after his wife left him so he started hitting the gym. Whatever bot-mode sacrifices Fans Toys was willing to make then, they sure weren't willing to make them again. Spindrift 2.0 is cartoon-accurate to a fault. He's short, he's fat, his shoulders sit a little low, and he's not sporting any extra color on his torso. The only molded details (the slats on his chest, the rectangles on the sides of his tummy, the rectangles and circles on his shoulders, and the circles on his shins) are all present on the animation model. Yeah, I thought Neptune was a huge improvement over previous Seasprays, but side-by-side Spindrift 2.0 is definitely the more cartoon-accurate Seaspray. Spindrift 2.0 doesn't come with a ton of accessories. Neither did Spindrift 1.0, but Neptune sure did. On the one hand, most of Neptune's accessories are still in his box in my closet, and I'm fine trading accessories I don't need for a lower price. But on the other hand, Neptune cost something like $20 less than Spindrift 2.0, so what are we paying for besides the Fans Toys logo on the box? I digress. You get a pair of blasters, and that gray color seems to be paint. You also get an alternate, toy-style head. Now, it's been suggested and I'm inclined to agree that while the face, with the lack of eyes and the vents on the mask, are definitely G1 toy, but the rounder helmet on this head is actually more cartoon-accurate. Fans Toys' instructions imply that it's one head or the other, but I've been told that you can actually swap the faces out of the heads. In practice, though, I removed the screws but couldn't get either head to split apart, so it looks like I'm stuck with cartoon-faced square-head. Fans Toys has a reputation for making figures that look great on a shelf but don't always have the best articulation. That's certainly the case here, as I'd say that Spindrift 2.0 has what I'd consider the bare minimum amount of articulation for an MP figure, and less articulation than Spindrift 1.0. His head is on a hinged swivel, with just a little up/down tilt and no sideways tilt. His shoulders rotate and can extend laterally just over 90 degrees. His biceps rotate, and his single-jointed elbows bend 90 degrees. His wrists have swivels, but a transformation hinge blocks his wrists from rotating more than 45 degrees out and only a hair inward. His thumb is fixed, and his fingers are all molded onto one curled piece pinned at the base like an old MP carbot. His waist can swivel, but a transformation hinge under his beer gut will collide with his pelvis. That, at least, you can get around by either pulling his gut out like you're going to transform him, or pulling his torso upward (again like you're going to transform him). He does have a hip skirt that can fold forward, but it's a single flap for the whole front of his pelvis. His ratcheted hips can get maybe one click short of 90 degrees forward with the skirt down, or one click past 90 degrees with it folded up. His hip can go backward about 45 degrees, and friction laterally 90 degrees. His thighs swivel around his hip joints. His knees are ratcheted, too, and bend 90 degrees. His feet can tilt down a bit, mostly due to transformation, and they have just about 45 degrees of pivot. Why all the ratchets on a figure this small? I'd guess that roughly 75% of him from the waist down is diecast. Spindrift's guns fit into his hands in the time-honored tradition of plugging a tab on the handle into a slot on either palm. The fit is nice and snug. Oh, and notice the square on the middle of his tummy? While nothing is provided, if you have a Reprolabel or waterslide or something you can put an insignia on it. Then, like the original MP Bumblebee, you can spin it around to hide the symbol in alt mode, as the symbol-less look is both toy and toon-accurate. Ok, so there's definitely some things I prefer on Neptune in alt mode, like the windows and such, that make him look a bit more realistic. However, the largely featureless white rear is both toy and cartoon accurate. And, in a move that's kind of surprising given how stocky the robot was, Spindrift 2.0 has the most G1-toy-accurate proportions of the three. As you can see, Spindrift 2.0 is a bit longer than Neptune, and significantly longer than Spindrift 1.0. And from the front, he's less wide than Neptune and no wider than Spindrift 1.0. This is impressive, even with an extra year or so of engineering vs Neptune and four on Spindrift 1.0, but perhaps the most impressive thing here is something that you almost never hear about a Fans Toys figure- the transformation is actually pretty simple and clever. Really, transforming Spindrift 2.0 is much easier than transforming either Spindrift 1.0 or Neptune. Fans Toys's secret is that, unlike pretty much every other take on Seaspray, they don't try to collapse his pelvis into his body or use his actual legs/shins to make the yellow bars on the roof. Instead, parts of his forearm actually expand to cover his hands, his belly unfurls over his pelvis, and the section of the roof with the yellow bars is actually his backpack spun around to the front and double-hinged to cover his legs. In alt mode, Spindrift's propellers can spin, and he's got little wheels so he can roll. That's about it. Fans Toys included two different options for storing Spindrift's guns in alt mode. The first is that there are little hatches on the roof, above the front windshield. They're supposed to lift up, revealing a T-shaped hole that the handle of the gun can slide right into. On my copy, though, the one side opened kind of stiffly but the other only opened a little before it seemed to just jam up. Oh well. There are also flaps on the side of the white end, and if you lift them up you'll see notches with a slot in them. The gun handles can go down into the notches, with the tabs that secure them into his hands pushing into the slots in the notch to secure it in place. Then you can fold the flap back down. There's one other option for storing his guns. It's not mentioned in the instructions, but I can't imagine that it wasn't intentional, because it makes use of small tabs on the sides of the guns that have no other purpose. If you look at the underside of Spindrift, there's hollow spaces where parts of his feet folded out to make the sides of the hovercraft. There's just enough room in those gaps to tuck the guns into, and indeed you'll find slots on what is the inner edge of his feet that likewise don't serve any other purpose, but the tabs on the guns line up and fit into those slots perfectly. Also, holy crap does Fans Toys love their visible-from-behind screws! Did they really need three screws in each thigh? Well, there you go. Spindrift 2.0 is really good, you guys. Push come to shove, I think he's better than Neptune. Yeah, Neptune has better articulation, more accessories, a better price tag, and some details I do like in his hovercraft mode, but Spindrift has a cleaner, more cartoon-accurate look and better proportions in both modes, plus a better transformation and hidden weapon storage, which I always appreciate. Is he better enough that it's worth upgrading if you already have Neptune, though? The answer is subjective, but probably not. But, if you don't already have Neptune on your shelf because you've been rocking the original Spindrift or, worse, ToyWorld's Seaspray, then you should definitely upgrade immediately, because Spindrift 2.0 is the level of upgrade over them that Kingdom Cyclonus is over Combiner Wars Cyclonus. And if you don't have an MP Seaspray at all, Spindrift 2.0 is a no-brainer recommend from me. The pros are really good, the cons are minor, and with XTB's already out, DX9 more or less out of the game, and MMC afraid to release competing figures anymore this is likely as good as it'll ever get for a guy like Seaspray.

Nothing to see here, move along.

I don't know how I feel about this.The price seems reasonable for it, but I don't know if I need portable PC gaming.

Power of the Primes wasn't great, and I think the Dinobots got shafted the hardest in that line. Of the four, though, I think Swoop came out the best (or at least, the least worst). Dorkside Toys had the Generations Selects version on clearance, so on a whim I bought him. This is more like a Repaint Roundup, even though I don't think I ever reviewed the original figure. If you're familiar with the original figure, there's not a lot going on here. GS Swoop comes with the same sword and the same fist/backpack/shield, and the same lack of wing-mounted missile launchers. There's zero changes to the mold of the figure itself, aside from the joints on the newer figure being noticeably looser. If I zoom in close on the upper torso you can see every change they've made. The most obvious change is that the gray plastic is a flatter gray color and not the swirly silver used on the PotP version, and they used red plastic for his torso instead of blue. Likewise, they didn't paint the inside of the dinosaur head gold, leaving the entire thing clear, but they didn paint some of the molded detail on his abs instead. This is all to homage the G1 toy, of course. However, the differences don't exactly boil down to toy vs toon. For one, the head wasn't remolded with the visor to me more toy-accurate. For two, the PotP version isn't really toon-accurate; the black trim around his head, the teal bands around his wrists, the black shoulders, biceps, pelvis, and thighs, and the red dinosaur feet were all toy-like in the first place. Flipping them into alt mode, I'll note the red lower jaw on PotP Swoop, carried over to GS Swoop, was also a G1 toy detail. So, yeah, I don't really recommend any of the PotP Dinobots. However, if you already have them then for $10 it might be worthwhile to replace the original release of Swoop with the Gen Selects version, if only to give the combined Volcanicus a more unified red on all his limbs. In the meantime, I'm looking forward to the heavily-rumored Studio Series Swoop, which I expect to be a lot more cartoon accurate, and would consider a toy-style repaint of that figure if it's good.

Hard to say. I know that they don't make much money on Titans, and basically none on Unicron. A smaller project could be more profitable if successful, and they could be more willing to let if fail if they have trouble getting it funded. Right... Except we know it's something Victory.

Hasbro confirmed the Ravage set. It'll be a Pulsecon exclusive, like I suggested, with a $45 price tag and an expected November release. I guess the question now is "when is Pulsecon so I can preorder?" More interesting news is that Hasbro announced a new HasLab will be coming soon, with the Transformers Victory logo. Nothing beyond that. Personally, I'm hoping for a WfC-style Star Saber and/or Deathsaurus. That said, an MP Deathsaurus to go with MP Star Saber, or a Liokaiser to go with the other Prime Wars combiners seem like possibilities.