Jump to content

Transformers Super Thread 9


eriku

Recommended Posts

Picked up RTS Tracks and Jazz here in Spokane, Wa. Great homages to the originals, esp Jazz. Tracks' legs only bend about 30 degrees, and hopefully, if the preliminary shots of his Wheeljack remold/repaint are any indication, the new inner leg pieces will allow for better poseability.

Finally found Dirge at Target after giving up on finding him, so now I have all three Hasbro Conehead Seekers.

Terradive, beyond his nasty orange color scheme, features a refreshingly different look and transformation than typical jet mode Transformers. Cool fig, I have to say.

Still looking for Highbrow...haven't seen him anywhere, and I dig the retro Transformers. Plus, he's a P-38...love twin boom aircraft. I have the scout class classic hotrod and bi-plane figures (terrible with names)...both are great little figs.

Looking forward to upcoming Perceptor, Wreck-gar, Scourge, and Lugnut figs. Having pulled out my original Jazz and Tracks figs for comparison to their new incarnations, I can't help but revel in how far toy technology has advanced, or how spoiled kids are now. The original car TFs cost 13 bucks a pop and they were bricks. Ok, they had die-cast...so they were solid heavier bricks, but bricks nonetheless. I'll take the new over the old anyday.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I only just recently found Classic Dirge---QC varies widely, always bad. None were perfect, went with third I found. (I found 2 others weeks ago, but had to pass as they were godawful just looking at them in the package).

The paint apps don't look too bad on mine. The right intake (acft right, that is) has a small streak of silver paint where it globbed up and left a tail...basically looks like a silver sperm cell swimming across the surface. Fortunately, it all falls within the silver painted area with no bleedover into the black. The rest of the paint job looks pretty crisp and clean. The detractor on my fig is all the sprue marks. One can tell the parts are hastily snipped off, barely trimmed, assembled and painted. Oh well, whadaya expect for an $11 toy made by people paid on the serious cheap? Now if blatant sprue marks started showing up on my Yamatos....grrr

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yup, lots of sprue marks too. Mine actually has a chip/chunk missing right behind the cockpit, didn't notice until I had transformed it. Paintwise, I had red splatters on the black area and incomplete coverage of the black over the blue. (and as I said, mine was the best of 4 I've seen)

The insignia on the wings often angle, nearly all of them look like that (including ones I see online in reviews etc)---mine's the only one I've seen with well-placed insignia.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hadn't noticed it before, but the "noses" of both my insignias point slightly outboard. It's very slight, but the insignia on the right stab sits a hair more aft than the left. The panel line passes through the purple paint in the "ear" on the right side, and barely touches the purple point within the white outline on the left. Still, I'm not going to fuss..it's a cheap toy made cheaply, and overall the figure looks decent and has no other major flaws (that I've found so far).

Besides, one can look at military acft and detect flaws in their paint jobs as well. I've worked on and around them for 19 years. Don't even get me started on corrosion and dirt.

Edited by M'Kyuun
Link to comment
Share on other sites

That video has made me quite ambivilant about Rodimus Prime. I have issues with his legs/waist area, and a major gripe about the huge gap between the chest and back (especially in Hot Rod mode). I'll admit that the small Matrix was a nice touch, but that gap has me reconsidering my purchase.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

FansProject Protector Reviewed

Now this one...yeah I like this a lot.

And just like that, I swing back into the "must buy" camp. *sigh* Why do I even bother trying to keep my paycheque at this time of year?

That being said, that review was equal parts narm and hilarity. I didn't care for the reviewer's delivery (I think Peaugh does a better job) but the fourth-wall breaking subtitles more than made up for that. Several times I had to pause the video to laugh :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

That reminds me--anyone else notice that Youtube just started "splitting up" all their files, and it causes hell? Everything loads slow, skips, glitches, and the audio is often out of synch at the end of the movie. It really, really sucks. I suspect there'll be enough outrage in a week or so that they'll do something about it maybe, but for now---Youtube just sucks.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

And just like that, I swing back into the "must buy" camp. *sigh* Why do I even bother trying to keep my paycheque at this time of year?

That being said, that review was equal parts narm and hilarity. I didn't care for the reviewer's delivery (I think Peaugh does a better job) but the fourth-wall breaking subtitles more than made up for that. Several times I had to pause the video to laugh :)

Same here. I was about to cancel but that review feels like a very good commercial :lol:

Edited by Twoducks
Link to comment
Share on other sites

And just like that, I swing back into the "must buy" camp. *sigh* Why do I even bother trying to keep my paycheque at this time of year?

That being said, that review was equal parts narm and hilarity. I didn't care for the reviewer's delivery (I think Peaugh does a better job) but the fourth-wall breaking subtitles more than made up for that. Several times I had to pause the video to laugh :)

You should check out his Knightmorpher Annhilator review

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I like Vangelus's reviews, he has a lot of charisma which Peaugh and some others lack somewhat. I know that's their style, but Peaugh in particular I find sounds downright depressed sometimes. I like the way he shows the figure and the transformation clearly, and how he always gets the items before release, though. As entertainment, however, Vangelus wins out.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I only just recently found Classic Dirge---QC varies widely, always bad. None were perfect, went with third I found. (I found 2 others weeks ago, but had to pass as they were godawful just looking at them in the package).

I finally found one today. Only one on the peg, and even though it looked like the toy was crushed inside the package I decided to take my chances. Luckily the problem was that the toy just wasn't pegged together properly so when it got put into the bubble it went all frobbly. Aside from that and some slightly angled Decep. insignias on the wings, I got a nearly perfect specimen. No horrible sprue marks, no loose joints and all of the paint is remarkably crisp and clean with no slop anywhere. Even the tiny Decep. insignia on his chest is crisp and perfectly aligned. I don't think any of the last dozen TFs I bought had paint work as neat as this.

My one nitpick is a personal preference one: I'm disappointed that the wings are held on by rivets because I was hoping to unpeg them and swap them for bot mode so the tops of the wings are visible from the front. Not a big deal, just a tiny "aw shucks" for an otherwise excellent figure - possibly my favorite incarnation of this seeker sculpt so far.

Edited by eriku
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I finally found one today. Only one on the peg, and even though it looked like the toy was crushed inside the package I decided to take my chances. Luckily the problem was that the toy just wasn't pegged together properly so when it got put into the bubble it went all frobbly. Aside from that and some slightly angled Decep. insignias on the wings, I got a nearly perfect specimen. No horrible sprue marks, no loose joints and all of the paint is remarkably crisp and clean with no slop anywhere. Even the tiny Decep. insignia on his chest is crisp and perfectly aligned. I don't think any of the last dozen TFs I bought had paint work as neat as this.

My one nitpick is a personal preference one: I'm disappointed that the wings are held on by rivets because I was hoping to unpeg them and swap them for bot mode so the tops of the wings are visible from the front. Not a big deal, just a tiny "aw shucks" for an otherwise excellent figure - possibly my favorite incarnation of this seeker sculpt so far.

I lucked out too. Not with Dirge... I've seen absolutely no sign of him or Blurr. But, I went to Target today to see if there was any Hanukkah clearance. I'd already been to Target earlier in the week for some necessities, and checked for Transformers then, and didn't find anything. But today, I found a solitary Thunderwing.

It's impressive how he came out. His appearance is uncannily like a better articulated, more detailed version of the original Pretender with a bit more jet kibble on his back. Not gonna lie, there's a lot of it, although he doesn't come off as bad as, say, Silverbolt.

Jet mode is also evocative of his Pretender's jet mode, but with less stuff on it. From the top, it looks pretty good. From the bottom... well, he's a little chunky. They hide his head pretty well, and his legs are supposed to be his engines, but his legs are so leg-shaped and not plane-part-shaped that it's pretty apparent that there's a robot there. The worst part is that, like Jetfire, his arms don't transform at all. It's not really a deal-breaker though, since his bot mode is so good. One other thing I do like is that the nose pops out as a little "drone" that looks an awful lot like his old inner-robot's alt mode. Sadly, the drone doesn't transform.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

welp!

finally visited the local Target today and they got some interesting stuff there like:

SkullGrin (a non-blue recolor of Darkmount) and Mindset (a blue-repaint of Hailstorm). They got the usual rotf shelfwarmers clogging the pegs, but they also have...

Special Ops Jazz ($9) and Dirge ($9.04)!!!

post-263-129211644983_thumb.jpg

Bought them two right away.

They also got those little ones (legends?-class) like Tracker Hound and Duststorm which is a mocha-repaint of Beachcomber.

Maybe the other Target have Blurr and the others. Wally's didn't have jack other than the usual rotf crap.

edit:

Jazz is so frickin' kewl!!!

post-263-129211865324_thumb.jpg

Edited by treatment
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I really like the 'bot mode on Fansproject Rodimus, I may have to think about it. Of course, I have the first-run figure so I'd have to go find the G1 color version. <_<

Got Jazz this weekend. Really great figure! Maybe in the next day or two I'll try to get a glamour shot of him.

Quick pic running amok in my wife's xmas town. :lol:

5259313094_48f8eed6a7_b.jpg

Edited by Grand Admiral
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I really like the 'bot mode on Fansproject Rodimus, I may have to think about it. Of course, I have the first-run figure so I'd have to go find the G1 color version. <_<

Got Jazz this weekend. Really great figure! Maybe in the next day or two I'll try to get a glamour shot of him.

Quick pic running amok in my wife's xmas town. :lol:

5259313094_48f8eed6a7_b.jpg

Heheh, looks like a scene right out of a G1 episode!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Quick pic running amok in my wife's xmas town. :lol:

Nice to see I'm not the only one who plants robots in their wife's Xmas display. :lol: Mine are typically planted wearing a santa hat "disguise".

Found a Tracks today. Aside from the dreadful tribal tattoos on his hood and his hips being limited by his windshield/chest, he's pretty cool. Of the two new car guys I prefer Jazz.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeah, the flight mode is so lame it may as well not be there at all. They could have, at the very least, given him a pair of clip-on wings that could have attached nicely to the posts where the side rockets clip to. Instead we got akwardly opening doors with dinky wing nubs that look more like an unofficial "fan mode" than any kind of real flight mode.

But still, I'm happy to finally have tracks. I also realized that his hip articulation was hindered because I didn't have his head/shoulder area pulled up far enough. >_<

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There's a Wheeljack fig in the works that's gonna be a repaint and retool of Tracks, and from the preliminary pics, he looks to be an even better toy than Tracks. The alt mode actually looks more similar to Wheeljack's G1 car mode than Tracks's Corvette.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm gonna try to find Tracks tonite since I'm hitting Wally's for the A-Team BD/DVD combo (if it exists there).

I might just buy another Jazz if I find him again tonite.

edit:

well, that Wally's indeed did a huge restock tonite and the TF-aisle was since overflowing.

overflowing with crap rotf-shelfwarmers, that is. all the pegs have are Ravage, Skids, Sideswipe, Arcee, Hailstorm... WTF!!!????!!!! :angry:

what a *@#$()%*# wasted trip.

even the A-Team bd/dvd combo didn't exist, so i had to settle with the bd-only version.

dammit! :angry:

Edited by treatment
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Picked up a Jazz also! Definitely check Target if you're looking for him, as mine was packed with all the Reveal the Shield stuff. My Jazz had a really really nasty sprue mark on the top of his head. I sanded it down then colored in the white plastic with a gundam marker, haha, worked out pretty well.

012ahv.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

still looking for jazz and tracks

Sorry I sold off my spares before you got a chance to reply to my PM! Was going to be passing the post office on Sat. morning so I really wanted to get a buyer ASAP to save on time/gas. I think I may stop by Target tomorrow to try to pick up another set, if I'm only able to find one of the pair, would you still be interested?

PM received :).

Edited by Keiichi
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...