mikeszekely

Yeah, the G9 OLED. I love it, it's the same height as my old monitor but the way it curves into my peripheral vision is so much more immersive, especially in racing games. Turns out to be better than I though for productivity, too... I finally get all those dual monitor people.

I installed STALKER 2 but I haven't started it yet. I'll be playing at 5120 x 1440, which is a bit fewer pixels than your typical 4K setup. I think my RTX 4070 should be up to the task, but my i7-9700K is getting a bit long in the tooth. I'm planning on replacing my PC, but I'm waiting until the RTX 5070 is a reality.

In general, yes. Maybe not quite as good as GB3, but far better than New Gundam Breaker. The story was decent, if a tad short, and the selection of gunpla kits is pretty solid. I think my biggest complaint with it is the way you can upgrade parts. On the one hand, it lets you keep using your favorite gunpla, but on the other hand once you have your favorite gunpla it makes getting new parts less interesting because you're only going to wind up using them as upgrade fodder. I've heard others complain that it can get a bit repetitive, but as a Musou fan I think I'll never get tired of hacking my way through swarms of mooks. That said, I played on PC, where I could run it on my desktop maxed out at 1440p at over 100fps, and could still stay at or above 60fps at 1080p medium on an ROG Ally. I'd be concerned about performance on Switch, which is capped at 30fps, but if you're ok with that and the Switch is your only option then go for it.

Generally speaking I prefer injection molded upgrades to 3D printed ones. However, there's just not as many injection-molded kits out there... Perfect Effect seems to have vanished, Nonnef was affected by the hurricanes, and DNA's output has been both slow and an infuriating crapshoot swinging wildly between kits that are absolute must-have upgrades and kits that create as many problems as they solve (and often don't even solve the main issue I had with a figure). So on a whim I decided to to pick up a few 3D printed kits after all. My single biggest complaint with the Orion Pax figure that came in the SDCC Fractured Friendship pack is that they took the gun that came with Gamer Edition Prime and stuck a block in the gap to give it a 5mm peg. It just looks awkward. In search of something better, I found this set from BDT Studio. It's a pair of comic-accurate rifles and a pair of adapters. The sculpt of the rifles themselves is pretty good, and BDT painted them a nice gunmetal color. You have look pretty closely under bright lights (like I'm doing for pictures) to notice the print lines. However, I absolutely loathe BDT's penchant for 3D-printing their weapons with holes that they affix a plastic tube into instead of printing the handle. Despite my misgivings, the handles certainly seem secure, and they fit snugly in Pax's hands. However, they don't really have any bot mode storage. As for alt mode, that's where the adapters come in. The idea is that you're supposed to remove his arm guns then plug the adapter into the port that the arm guns were in so that you have a new port facing outward and a peg pointing backward. The peg plugs into the back of the rifle, and the arm guns plug into the new ports. Now, I think this would look terrible even if it did work, so I don't know if I'm disappointed or relieved that it doesn't even actually work. The new ports are way too big for the arm guns to plug into; they just fall right back out. It seems like an over-engineered solution anyway, when something like a slot molded into the rifle itself that fit over the tabs on the back of the truck would have been a lot easier and better. At around $16 these guns aren't exactly cheap and I hate the alt mode storage. But they're the only comic-accurate rifles for Pax I can find, so I guess my recommendation comes down to how badly you want to replace his stock gun and how much it matters to you that the replacements are accurate. TFSafari, where I buy my kits from, offers discounts based on how many upgrade kits you buy in an order, so I decided to toss in these Shockwave Lab smokestacks for SS86 Optimus Prime. As you can see, they're pretty similar to the stock smokestacks; maybe the paint is a little shinier. They don't even look 3D printed. Some assembly is required. You'll need to remove these two screws from the back of Prime's shoulders. The front of the shoulder and the joint will stay attached to the torso, while the back of the shoulder, the smokestack, and the entire arm will come off. Once the arm is off, swapping the stacks is as easy as sliding the original one out of the groove and slipping the new one into place. Given how similar they are, you might be asking what's the need for a kit like this? Well, for one, the new stacks fix one of my few complaints about SS86 Prime, in that they're much more snug than the stock ones. You're far less likely to bump them out of place when you rotate them. But the other difference is that the tips are actually holes, which makes for a slightly more realistic look. I can't say that this kit is necessary, especially for $11, when you could just use floor polish or something to tighten up the stacks Prime already had. But the quality here is pretty good, should you decide that this is the way you want to go. As long as we're talking about Shockwave Lab smokestacks, there's also this kit, but for Legacy Deluxe-class Prime, that comes with smokestacks and a few fillers. Unlike the SS86 ones, this time there's a much more noticeable difference. The stock stacks only had the holes one one side of the exhaust shields, and they're very shallow. Plus, they're bare gray plastic. The Shockwave Lab stacks have deeper, more visible holes and are painted silver like the ones for SS86 Prime. And, once again, they have the hole in the top of the exhaust pipe. Installation is super easy (barely an inconvenience), since Legacy Prime's smokestacks are simply pegged into his shoulders. All you have to do is pull them out and plug the new ones in, and they're a nice fit. As for the fillers, the red ones go in his back and are meant to cover the gaps and pins in the butterfly transformation joint. They're kind of a pain to get in, because if they're not sitting right they'll actually block his arms from transforming. Once they're in, though, they'll stay in with no issues. The silver pieces fill in the gabs in his thighs. They're painted silver, which doesn't make them a perfect match for the bare gray plastic his thighs are molded out of, but installation was simple enough. I guess the thing is, neither his back nor his thigh gaps really bothered me. I'd have preferred they fill in the gaps around the 5mm ports on the bottoms of his feet, since they face up in truck mode. Alas, that's something you don't get a filler for. Despite being a bit underwhelmed by the filler parts, of the three kits this is the one I actually do recommend outright. At $11 it's the same price as the SS86 smokestacks, but the filler, underwhelming though it may be, at least adds to the value. Plus, unlike the SS86 stacks, the ones for Legacy Prime are more obviously an upgrade.

If they did a non-kai VF-19 (A, F, or S) I'd be on it like a fly on poop, but I'm not a fan of the Fire Valk.

It's got more Sunbow-ish lines, but unlike Tesla and Spindrift there's nothing about it that makes me feel a need to upgrade.

Just going to elaborate on this. When you fold in the panel on top of the hood so his head can pass through, this slot on the panel needs to plug onto this thick tab inside the chest behind the electronics. Out of the box, it's very tough, to the point I thought it was misaligned. And you can see on my copy that forcing it a couple of times has worn off some plastic. But you need it to be on all the way, so the panel is flush with the chest. If there's any gap the bottom of the panel won't line up right with his waist. If it is on all the way, the hinges in the shoulders should kind of "thoop" into place, and the panel should slide down into place.

I mean, it's a class or two down from Earthrise, so it's gonna be a downgrade from just about everything before it. But we have a Core-class Optimus, and it does look better than that.

Studio Series Gamer Edition Deluxe-class Gamer Devastation Optimus Prime It's... not great. Deluxe-class doesn't really go all that far anymore, eh? Not sure how many people are even going to want this, what with the excellent new Commander-class toy (or even one of the many Earthrise variants still floating around) doing the same thing but much better, but I understand that this is considered an A-Level product, which essentially boils down to Hasbro wanting a cheap version of the brand's most popular character on shelves for a long, long time. Of course, despite my negative first impressions I'm a big enough sucker to buy and review it when it comes out anyway, so... I guess I'll let you know.

You probably don't have it tabbed into the front of the car all the way. If you look behind the electronics junk there's a thick tab, and the underside of that panel has a slot. It takes a bit of force to really get it to click into place, and if it's not then the end won't line up right and seat properly into the abdomen. Do both of yours stay on? Wondering if I should buy another one and return the first one since the left arm pops off constantly. Anyway, for a better sense of scale, from left to right, this is the Jada Toys 1:32 KITT, Agent Knight, and the Jada 1:24 KITT.

I suppose some of the early 2025 stuff could come a little early, but as near as I can tell, this is the last official figure for me for the year... the Transformers Collaborative Knight Rider X Transformers Agent Knight. As a Transformer, Agent Knight is pretty basic. The back of the car is the back of his legs and the cabin is on his back like a dozen other Autobot cars. The front of the car is his chest, and it's the horizontal style favored by Jazz and the Datsuns, complete with door wings. It's a clean design that doesn't leave him with much kibble. I think where things start to go a bit awry for me is when we get down to the details. Like, there's nothing wrong with a black head and silver face, per se, but then you look at the silver on the sides of his helmet, and I have to wonder now if the helmet is supposed to be like hair with sideburns. And then there's his massive visor... is that supposed to be an homage to Michael Knight's Carerra Porsche Design sunglasses? Then I suppose all the blue paint on his pelvis and thighs is supposed to be like blue jeans (complete with molded panel "pockets"), but if that's the case, why not paint his butt and the insides of the thighs, too? For that matter, if Agent Knight's design is an homage to Michael Knight, the silver paint on his shoulders and his gray biceps would be better off black to match Michael's signature leather jacket. But really, why try to look like Michael Knight at all? Michael Knight, isn't the car, KITT's the car. Looked at that way, I think I'd have preferred a more Cylon-esque head, with the lightbar sensor for eyes and a mouth that looked like the three light columns that flashed inside the car when KITT was talking. No need for the jeans, either. In any case... Agent Knight's a pretty big figure. He's coming in somewhere between the old Earthrise Optimus and the new Studio Series one in height, and significantly taller than carbots like fellow collaborative Gigawatt. If you're wondering if he maybe scales better with Masterpiece cars, I'd say the answer is yes. He's only a head or so taller than MP Prowl (which some sense, given that the third-gen Trans Am was roughly a foot longer than a Datsun 280ZX). That said, I don't think Agent Knight really fits overall with an MP collection. Frankly, and this is just my opinion, but I think Agent Knight looks and feels a bit cheap. There's little things like the fixed hands (with a little plastic carved out of the backs), hollowed spaces in his inner biceps and back, the way his shoulders just hang there, and the fact that his roof doesn't actually tab in place on his back. You do get a few accessories with Agent Knight. There's a smaller pistol-style gun, and a larger gun that's probably an assault rifle or auto shotgun. You know, for all those times Michael Knight used a gun in the show. There's also a thing that took me a hot minute to figure out is supposed to be like Michael's comlink watch, despite looking nothing like Michael's comlink watch. Agent Knight's articulation is adequate. His head is on a hinged ball joint that can look down a bit, has very good upward tilt, and some sideways tilt in addition to the standard swivel. His shoulders are, disappointingly, on ball joints that swivel and move laterally under 90 degrees. Even worse, though this may be unique to my copy, the left shoulder pops off the ball joint constantly. I mean, I've yet to transform him without it coming off. His biceps swivel and his elbows bend slightly over 90 degrees. His wrists are actually ball joints, so they swivel but they can also bend inward for reasons that have nothing to do with his transformation. His waist swivels. The front of his pelvis is hinged, so the entire thing can lift up, but I'm not sure why since you don't need to move it to get 90 degrees forward and over 90 degrees laterally and backward on his hips. His thighs swivel and his knees bend 90 degrees. His feet can't tilt up, but they tilt down 90 degrees and can pivot around 75 degrees. His wings are hinged so they can move backward but also swivel up/down. Agent Knight can hold either of his guns, and any other 5mm accessory, in either hand. As for the comlink, you'll notice that Agent Knight has a groove with a slot on his left forearm. A tab on the inner edge of the comlink fits into the slot so the comlink wraps around the groove. Once you've installed it, there's no need to remove it as it can stay on through transformation and in alt mode. Agent Knight's guns have tabs that fit into slots on the backs of his door wings when he's not using them. They have to come off for transformation, though. Despite his size, Agent Knight's transformation is what you might expect from a Deluxe-class. Rotate his biceps 90 degrees inward, so the backs of his hands are facing forward, then swivel his shoulders backward 90 degrees on the ball joints. Rotate his waist 180 degrees, open his shins up, fold his toes under his feet, and fold his feet down 90 degrees. Tab his legs together. Lift his backpack up and out of the way, then untab his chest and lift it over his head. Rotate his head 180 degrees, then fold it into the void in his torso. Fold his legs at the knees so they wrap over his thighs. His feet will tab into his back, and you can close the shins back up. Fold a flap out from his behind his chest to fill the gap in the hood his head passed through. Tuck the tab on the back of the roof into his legs and line the hood up with the windshield. Close the door wings to give the car enough rigidity, then you can use swivels to bring his shoulders under the hood where they'll tab in place, while tabs on his forearms will lock his arms in place near his head. As with the robot mode, Agent Knight is definitely out-of-scale with Generations cars or other collaboratives like Gigawatt (or Code Red or the two Jurassic Park dudes), though he doesn't look quite so bad with Ectotron. Agent Knight is closer to being in scale with an MP Car. I'm not inclined to get out a ruler and check every dimension for the exact scales, but as I said a Trans Am should be bigger than a Datsun, so Agent Knight being bigger than MP Prowl is fine. I'll be honest with you, it's hard to say what exactly makes for an accurate KITT when they used something like five different cars in the show for every one picture you find of an actual show-used car you'll find a hundred reproductions of varying accuracy. Heck, websites talking about Knight Rider will often mix stills from the show with not-actually-KITT repros. With that in mind, I think Hasbro did a mostly OK job here. They got the license from GMC, and for the most part details like the marker lights, fuel door, etc appear to be accurate. The tires are nicely painted to match the show. Things are slightly more questionable at the rear, where we have the Knight Industries symbol in place of the blue California "KNIGHT" plate. The lack of a Pontiac badge is accurate, and KITT's taillights are red, but they sat behind a transparent black panel and would, most of the time, simply appear to be black. There's also no gap between the spoiler and the car. Oh, and I wish his arms hid just a bit better under the car. Of course, the most egregious difference between the actual car and Agent Knight is that massive chin. It's going to be a giant turn off if you're mostly in it for the alt mode. The simple fact is that's where the speaker and battery compartment are. You have to install three LR44 batteries (not including, forcing me to make a special trip to my local Walgreens). Once you do, you'll notice a button off-centered between the headlights... headlights which do fold open, mind you. Anyway, if you push that button the sensor bar will light up, and you'll hear audio clips that are either taken from the show or were provided from a pretty good William Daniels sound-alike. The lights do move back and forth like he's scanning, and they're quite bright. I think my only real complaint here is that there's some button sounds the first time you press the button, and if you stop playing with it for awhile he'll say, "KITT, signing off," with a number of clips in between. But I think all I really wanted was the swooshing sound. Aside from electronic gimmicks, Agent Knight rolls just fine. The tabs on his guns fit into slots on his shins under the car for alt mode storage. Agent Knight's a tough one. If you're primarily a Transformers fan, you're going to be frustrated at how out-of-scale Agent Knight is with your other mainline Transformers If you're primarily a Knight Rider fan, you can probably buy a 1:24 KITT replica and get a more accurate car. Of course, given that The Transformers debuted only two years after Knight Rider, and that Knight Rider's original run lasted until 1986, it's a safe bet that there's a lot of overlap between fans of both and this is the kind of crossover you really wanted to see in the Collaborative line because you've been dreaming of it for forty years. Like me, you might be able to overlook a few alt mode and scale concessions. It's still frustrating, though, that the materials and QC feel a bit worse than other recent collabs like Party Wallop. But therein lies my recommendation; if you're a fan of both Transformers and Knight Rider, then Agent Knight is probably a must-have for your collection, warts and all. If you're just a Transformers fan, though, there are better figures, including better collabs, that you could spend your money on. And if you're really a Knight Rider fan and don't really care about Transformers there are better non-transforming KITT toys out there.

I mean, I'm not going to judge anyone who's into the Unix Square VF-1. I hope it finds its audience. I just feel comfortable saying that I'm not its audience.

They're terrible. ...I'm in for both.

I sit about an arm's length from my own display, which was previously a 16:9 27" model. I thought I might like the extra vertical real estate, but I don't think I could do maybe more than an inch or two extra vertically without having to physically move my eyes to see the top and bottom- basically, everything seems smaller than it actually is in the store. I ultimately went with the 32:9, 49” curved (1000R) Samsung Odyssey G9 OLED when I realized that it's basically two 27” 16:9 displays. Honestly the way it wraps into my peripheral vision is far more immersive than a little extra horizontal space would have been for gaming, and on a practical level I've got the benefit of a dual-monitor setup without actually having two monitors. If you're really dead set on one of those two LGs, though, and you're sitting at that distance, probably the 45" curved. It's 21:9, has a higher refresh rate, and at 1440p you're more likely to get those extra frames.

Meanwhile, I'm getting emails from Amazon telling me mine's delayed.😒