danth

Ah crap, somebody get Toynami the hell away from the beautiful Beagle. The Beagle is supposed to be my spiritual salvation. Don't laugh, you've all seen the pictures. The thing is gorgeous. The Harmony Gold taint is strong, any association can bring ruin. Twoducks: Skip Rey. I love Mospeada, I love Rey, and I love the ride armors. But the CM Rey simply doesn't work in bike mode.

It was perfect in the sense that it didn't have parts breaking or falling off, everything lined up and snapped together tightly as intended, it's wheels could spin, it had tight joints, and it could hold the beam cannon. It was sturdy and it worked. Plus I paid only $30 for it new. And I had no problem getting Stig to ride ithe bike, although his fat legs did make it kind of goofy.

I think you're both right. I like the CM because it had the potential to be great. The Stig looks great in both modes, and nothing in the design is inherently wrong, but the windscreen breaking, the looseness of some parts, the non-spinning wheels, and the fact that I had to cut off piece of one forearm peg to make it work is pretty ridiculous for a tiny $60 toy. It's 2008 for god's sake, and toys in Japan are WORSE than they were 20 years ago? Look at the Gakken bike, that f*cker was perfect. I think it looks great, and the plastic doesn't feel or look cheap to me. The problems are bad glue and the fact that they made the design 90% perfect and then gave up on the wheels and forearm guards area. I opened my Ley CM the other night. Oh my god. The forearm are doesn't work AT ALL in bike mode. It's a f*cking joke. Like I said, they gave up too soon.

I just want to say something. Don't get your hopes up regarding the Megahouse. I believe, in all likelihood, the CM will end up being the superior toy, with the exception of the breaking windscreen. And CM might do a second release with fixed windscreens, or even replace broken windscreens. Overall it's a beautiful toy with correctable flaws. The Megahouse, on the other hand, is not PT, has really ugly proportions, and is coming from a company not known for great toys. All in all, I prefer my CM, with it's windscreen held on by sticky-tack, to the Megahouse, purely on looks. And I don't predict a better build quality for the Megahouse. But if you already like the looks of the Megahouse, by all means, go for it. I'm just saying, it might have problems too. And if they both have problems, I'll take the pretty one, which is the CM in my opinion.

What ever happened to Bandai's supposed plan to re-release the VF-2SS plastic model, among other models?

26 possible letters, 10 numbers...we'll say 9 numbers since they probably won't use both zero and the letter 'o'. Then four characters in the captcha code. The odds would be (1/35)^4. That's a 1/1,500,625 chance...of it happening to you on any given occasion. The chances it happening eventually on the internet with, millions of people seeing captcha codes every day, are much higher. God I hope my math is right.

Yeah, I'm in love with how they look, it just makes it that much more frustrating that the windshield brakes and the wheels don't spin. My windscreen is now being held on by sticky-tack. It probably holds better than glue, and it's easy to stick back on if it does come off again. If only I could find some that's transparent. Dude, am I the only one having trouble keeping my forearm guards on in bike mode? Especially the right one where the forearm guard's peg hits the metal wheel strut?

This is a great point. Some "opinions" are more like unfounded claims. But there's also this idea that criticism itself is bad, that a negative opinion is somehow less worthy than a positive one. That's what I don't like. I also don't like being subtley mocked for sharing an unfavorable opinion.

I can't take it anymore. I'm sorry if this offends anyone. If you complain about people on internet toy forums bashing toys, you're just a douchebag. Please. F*cking. Stop. There's nothing wrong with praising or defending a toy. And there's nothing wrong with bitching or complaining about a toy. That's the whole point of internet toy forums. We're passionate, otherwise we woudn't be here. But the old "if you don't like it then don't buy it" line is high douchebaggery. It really means "shut up." Seriously. If you're only happiness in life is buying toys, and our complaining is causing you to think critically about your purchases, you have my condolences, but we're not going to stop critiquing toys. And no, complaining about toys is not nearly as common on Macrossworld as defending and apologizing for toys, or lectures on negativity. For every complainer there are five whiny crybabies who think their toy is being maligned. PLEASE STOP THE CRYBABIES. And now that I've complained about complaints about complainers, the circle is complete.

You totally pulled a Borat.

I'm hoping CM will pull a Yamato and send out new windscreens to their customers (like Yamato did for the Garland's shoulders). Not sure how we in the US could get the replacements though.

The windscreen has a peg sticking out of it that goes into the bike. The peg is part of the windscreen. The windscreen is also glued to the bike. I think the glue chemically weakens the plastic around the peg until it's brittle and flaky, but doesn't form a strong bond between the windscreen and the bike. So the windscreen just flakes off when touched, leaving the broken peg behind in the bike.

Question for anyone who knows: Is the Tread cockpit/nose in bomber mode also the head in robot mode? They look so similar, I always wanted to think they were the same part.

Okay, about the wheels: They spin if the right forearm guard isn't attached and if the left leg guard isn't on too tightly. But if you spin the wheels with everything on, the right forearm guard will come off. In my opinion the CM is a flawed masterpiece. Nix the glue, drill a tiny hole in the left wheel strut, and make the wheel thrusters part of the axle, and you've got a perfect toy. Maybe they'll do a version 2.0.

Here's a mini review for the CM now that I've played with mine more. Pros: It looks great in both modes. And it looks much better in person. The proportions are spot on. If you thought the chest looked like cheap plastic in the earlier pictures (like I did), not to wory: it's metal. And the actual plastic doesn't look cheap in person. The CM can totally stand up on it's own in armor mode. With few exceptions, everything locks quite nicely into place with no gaps. Cons: There's a mushroom-shaped peg that connects each forearm guard to the vertical struts. One of mine was too narrow or short, so it won't stay snapped into the forearm guard. Building up the peg witha bit of glue might make it work. The windscreen will break. Mine did and likely yours will too. Unfortunately CM decided to glue the windscreen's peg into the hole it snaps into, and the glue made the plastic peg very weak instead of actually adhering it to the bike. So crappy glue and weakened plastic peg means broken windscreen. Also, the gun is glued to a spare hand, and my gun broke right off the hand the same way. The gun won't really stay in the hand without glue. A bit of strong glue can probably make everything as good as "new" but not as good as if the factory glue was never used. This is the flaw that really bugs me. The left forearm guard has a skinny peg that connects to the figure's forearm. Unfortunately, the skinny peg is also right in the way of the horizontal wheel strut in bike mode. So the forearm guard just barely hangs onto the wheel in bike mode, doesn't hug the wheel nicely, and is really only held in place by the vertical strut. I can't think of a solution for this besides drilling a hole for the skinny peg into the metal strut. The wheels don't spin. They should. For such a remarkable feat of engineering, they could't pull off a working wheel? EDIT:Okay, the wheels spin if the right forearm guard isn't attached and if the left leg guard isn't on too tightly. But if you spin the wheels with everything on, the right forearm guard will come off. Also, some transformation tips: The handlebars can be dialed, so you can get them out of the way and the wheel struts can stick straight up in armor mode. DO NOT TOUCH THE WINDSCREEN. Squeeze the little mushroom pegs as tightly as possible into the forearm guards for bike mode. At the metal base of the wheel hubs, theres a little metal pin. In armor mode, the pin goes to a hole in the white rotating plastic piece that the leg guards snap onto. If you trouble making it reach, unfold the back of the bike until it fits in, and the fold the bike up again.

I got mine today. Overall it's very impressive, but there is one major design flaw, unless it's just me: The left forearm guard can not attach to both the vertical strut and the horizontal strut at the same time (in bike mode). I hope I just did something wrong, because I've only heard about this problem for Ley's bike. But I have the problem on Stick's.

A two seater Fokker?

I'd like to know if Area88 is still alive.

EE bothered me way before I had any idea what it was. I just thought it was compression artifacing. I had no idea it was done on purpose! Anyone ever seen the old Black Magic M-66 DVD? I don't if it's intentional EE, but man, I've never seen lines look more jagged. Actually, I'm not even sure if what I'm complaining about -- smooth lines looking jagged -- is typically caused by EE.

Just wanted to share in the hatred of edge enhancement. It's the f*cking devil. A smooth, pretty, slightly blurry line is far better than a F*CKING STAIRCASE. EE poves that most people don't know how to leave things alone. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Dude, I definitely want this. I might have to set up a shrine to Shinji Aramaki somewhere in my house.

Yippee, my CM order from LAF Toys is processing! They look so pretty in the pictures! I hope they don't turn out to be pieces of crap.

For me it's similar. I'm hoping we get an announcement that Beagle or Megahouse or anyone really is also going to do a Legioss & Tread. Either that or we find out that the Legioss fighter is mistransformed in all the pics and the knees don't really stick out so far.

Crap, is that something that can be fixed with a screwdriver?

Never heard of them, but I've heard a lot worse.