mikeszekely

Have you played it? I'm not super big on SRPGs. I bought SD Gundam G Generation Cross Rays and couldn't get into it, played one of the Disgaea games on the PSP and didn't care for it, played the GBA Final Fantasy Tactics and couldn't get into it... but on the other hand, I did kind of like Transformers: Battlegrounds and I loved the Project X Zone games on the 3DS. Not sure if I'd like this one or not.

Pre-COVID my wife and I would visit her family in Beijing, which for us usually meant a short flight from Pittsburgh to Detroit, then a 12-13 flight from Detroit to Beijing. And I'll tell you, there's something about being bored out of your mind six hours into a flight and knowing that you're only halfway there that'll turn a movie you wouldn't give a second glance at on Netflix at home and turns it into an Oscar contender.

I've never bothered to finish Cybertron, and didn't collect the original toyline, so I shouldn't be interested in him. But I'll probably get him anyway. ...assuming Walmart actually honors their preorders. I have preorders for the "toy" versions of Gears of Bumblebee. They haven't filled those; my preorders just say "by March 31st." But apparently Gears is showing as in-stock and if you place a new order you'll have him in like two days.🤨 While I didn't have the original Cybertron Sideways, I did have the Ratbat repaint that came with the Springer repaint of Evac. I'd say based on that my wishlist will be replacing the ball joints with hinges and swivels, giving him ankle articulation, and that the weapon-thing with the pop-out blades be removable.\ I'll probably get Excellion, too. I thought the mold was pretty good in Hot Shot colors, might as well get it in Hot Rod colors. I think a lot of Western naming for Unicron Trilogy characters was kind of weird. Rampage gets changed to Wheeljack (despite looking way more like Sideswipe), so then later the guy who's definitely supposed to be Wheeljack winds up getting called Downshift. Roadbuster is renamed Ironhide, despite have almost nothing in common with previous Ironhides. As for Excellion, I think that's just Hasbro trying to make one of the main characters Hot Shot to reinforce the idea of a trilogy, despite the fact that Galaxy Force wasn't supposed to be a sequel to Micron Densetsu or Super Link.

Or any other matter, really.

Oh yeah, I'd nearly forgotten that. ... And now I want them to do a RoboCop vs Terminator game.

If you're not into RoboCop, it's a solid but definitely not triple A shooter. If you're into RoboCop, though, it's the best the franchise has seen in decades, with a story set just after RoboCop 2 with Peter Weller reprising the role of Alex Murphy.

Walmart exclusives. Preorders should open at 10:00am ET/7:00am PT on Thursday, March 13th.

I'm pumped! I loved Rogue City, it's the only sequel to RoboCop 2 I'll acknowledge.

I'm planning to buy a Zephyrus G14 with an RTX 5070ti when they're available, then waiting until fall to worry about my desktop. The RTX 4070 I have isn't bad, I can get 60-100 FPS in most of the games at 5120x1440. My Core-i7-9700K's been the real bottleneck.

I mean, kinda sums up the entire Missing Link line. But I'm pretty sure that's the same price as Sunstreaker and Cordon.

The price of the 9070XT is set so that you look at it and the price of a RTX 5070ti and say, "this is clearly the better deal!" The price of the 9070 is set so that, after they sell through the XTs, people desperate for a GPU will say, "it's almost as good" and pay the $550, until AMD caves and lowers the price. They did almost this exact same thing a generation or two ago.

Well, the reviews are coming in. Ray tracing has improved, as has FSR, though FSR isn't as widely supported and ray tracing is still behind Nvidia's, especially if the game uses path tracing. But for raw performance the 9070XT is pretty on par with the RTX 5070ti for $150 less. If buses partners can keep them in stock at MSRP, I might be switching to Team Red for the first time in around 20 years. The 9070 is a bit of a head scratcher, though. It's not actually bad, and on paper looks to compete with the non-ti 5070, but it's priced so closely to the XT version that you might as well spend the extra $50. If they dropped the price another $50 it'd be a compelling budget choice.

Aside from software updates, the Taycan hasn't really changed from the 2020 through 2024 models, right? I'm shopping used Taycans in my area, and it looks like I can get a base '22, or 2020 4S for around the same price and mileage. I know the 2020 Taycans had a bunch of problems, but shouldn't they have been addressed through recalls and software updates? EDIT: Nevermind. I found a Porsche-certified preowned base '23 with less than 6000 miles, Imma jump on that. Just have to have it transported from Dallas to Pittsburgh.

They do, just not sales to us. They care about selling to data centers, who spent about $115 billion on Nvidia's chips last year. By contrast, their gaming-focused products made around $11 billion.

I preordered Vortex and Alchemist, as well as the Carnivac/Fisitron pack.

Basically, there's (probably) not a good reason to buy an RTX 5070 for gaming. The 5070ti can at least claim an advantage in RT and DLSS, but (as long as AMD's claims are close to true) the 9070 XT looks like more performance for the same price.

Man, I figured ordering from Hasbro Pulse would be the best way to get a Takara figure, because it's like "official" or something. Pulse is official, alright. Officially last, since I'm just now able to talk about a figure it seems like everyone else had months ago: MPG-09 Super Ginrai. My initial thought is that it's kind of neat that Ginrai is similar in size and proportions to the original toy. Of course, the deco is a bit different; he's got blue eyes (my original has blue eyes because it's a reissue, not the original 88 release), he's got some blue on his hips and upper thighs, no silver on his chest, no stickers on his knees, more yellow on his pelvis, etc (and that's not even touching on differences between the original Takara Ginrai vs the western Powermaster Optimus release). These changes are largely to bring Ginrai in line with his appearance Super God Masterforce; that said, there's a release as MP-60 Ginrai that has a more toy-accurate deco. A complaint I've heard from some, usually fans who think of this as Powermaster Optimus and not Ginrai, and who think that Powermaster Optimus should essentially be G1 Optimus with a new trailer and a combining gimmick, have bemoaned the fact that Ginrai's back the entire front of his cab. That strikes me as kind of weird... it's ok for a toy to have a fake grill, maybe even fake windows, for the sake of animation accuracy but then the real parts have to be totally hidden? Leaving them exposed, that's where they draw the line? While it's quite possible that the G1 toy's cab back, fake front was actually an attempt at a more cartoon-accurate Optimus, the simple fact is that Takara leaned into the design and Ginrai having the front of a truck on his back is cartoon accurate. Regardless, this is fine with me. As someone who actually didn't own a original G1 Optimus as a kid, Powermaster Optimus was my first real Optimus toy and I've got a lot of nostalgia for it. The fact that MP/MPG Ginrai is so similar to the original toy kind of makes him seem like a Missing Link version... Which, maybe, is a good way to look at it. Because, despite a version solicited as MP-60, Ginrai is NOT in-scale with with previous Masterpiece releases. Of course, some of that depends on how big you think Ginrai should be. I mean, if, as Powermaster Optimus, he's basically G1 Optimus with a new trailer, you could argue that he's Generation-scaled, standing almost exactly as tall as SS86 Optimus. He's significantly shorter than the MP-10/MP-44-sized Power Baser. Now, I've heard some people suggest that because Ginrai wasn't much taller than the Headmaster Juniors, and a scene with Minerva and Wheeljack at the same height means that Minerva is Wheeljack-sized and Ginrai only slightly bigger than that, so Ginrai should be smaller than Optimus. Those people should remember that Wheeljack died in the 86 movie, though, because we don't have to go by the often wildly inconsistent sizes depicted in the cartoon. We have official sizes from official production materials... Optimus Prime is six meters tall. And Ginrai is supposed to be ten. That's right, Ginrai is actually supposed to be bigger than Optimus. One more size comparison, here he is with the Perfect Effect and Maketoys versions. You get quite a few accessories with MPG-09, and quite a bit fewer with MP-60. Both versions come with a transformable Powermaster figure. Both versions come with the two smaller black guns, and both versions come with the two yellow blast effects. That's all you get with MP-60, though. With MPG-09, you also get two larger rifles, a smaller, static Powermaster figure, a stand adapter, two chōkon effect parts, some shoulder parts, two alternate hands, two alternate heads, to gray guns, and a trailer, as well as a sheet of stickers. Here's the transformable and static Powermaster figures (middle) with Fans Hobby and G1 on the left and Perfect Effect and Maketoys on the right. The static figure has no articulation. The transformable one has ball joints in the shoulders and hips, hinged knees, and hinged ankles. Not a ton of articulation, but to be fair, it's pretty similar to all the others versions. Ginrai himself has pretty fantastic articulation, though. His head swivels. There's not really any downward or sideways tilt, but he can look almost 90 degrees up. His shoulders swivel, and they move nearly 90 degrees on a soft ratchet, while another hinge on the other side of the swivel can bend another 90 degrees. He's got dedicated butterfly hinges as well. His biceps swivel, and despite being a single joint his elbows bend about 180 degrees. His wrists swivel, plus they have some up/down tilt. His fingers are a single part molded into a curl, but they are hinged at the base so his hands can open. His waist swivels, and he's got not only a little forward ab crunch but a little sideways lean as well. His hip joints are on swivels that lower them, allowing the actual ratcheted hips to go 90 degrees backward and over 90 degrees forward or sideways. His thighs swivel. His knees are double-jointed, though you might not realize it because the upper joint is locked in place. Combined they get nearly 180 degrees of knee bend. His feet tilt up around 60 degrees, and although they don't tilt down his toes can. He's got about 60 degrees of ankle pivot. As an ostensibly MP figure, the black guns have tabs on the handles that fit into slots in Ginrai's palms. He can actually hold either the smaller or the larger ones, though the weight of the larger ones is a bit much for him Both sizes are compatible with the yellow effect parts. The other effect parts have tabs that plug into the slots on Ginrai's palms, for those times when he needs UNLIMTED POWER!!! Er, wait, wrong franchise. The Powermaster figure folds up and plugs into Ginrai's back, much like the original toy. It seems to stay in via friction, as I see no other obvious connectors. The grill is spring-loaded, like the original toy, and has the unfortunate tendence of releasing while you're manipulating the figure, launching the Powermaster into parts unknown. Ginrai's transformation isn't quite as simple as the G1 toy, but it's surprisingly not that far off. His waist swivels so the back of his legs become the hitch instead of the front, and his toes fold into his heels. The actual trailer hitch folds out from his calves and tabs together with his legs. The entire front of the cab hinges away, giving you room to fold in his head and ribs. His forearms open so you can fold in his hands, then the arms sort of separate from the shoulder joints so that they can swing around in a matter similar the G1 toy. However, instead of curling up over his chest his forearms use a hinge above the elbow to bend outward and tuck into the sides more like a G1 toy. Honestly, it feels like something that could have easily been done with a regular Leader-class figure. Once again, the result is almost exactly the same size as the G1 toy... Which makes it smaller now than both Power Baser and SS86 Optimus. It's similar in size to Perfect Effect, but still larger than Maketoys. Takara seemed to try hard to match the G1 toy here. The pattern of molded details and rivets are largely the same, and the silver tripe only runs partly along the sides like the original toy rather than all the way around like a G1 Optimus. There are a few improvements, though, like the headlights being separate from the bumper, painted marker lights on the bumper, and a bit of filling in and reducing the visible hinges on the sides. It's still not great from the back. Note that the single wheel on each side of the rear is accurate to the G1 toy and the Masterforce cartoon. If you have MP-60, pretty much all you can do with the truck mode is to fold the handles up to reveal some 5mm pegs. These pegs fan plug into ports on either side of the hitch on the rear. Technically, you can pull the front of the cab open and the smaller static Powermaster can fit inside like he's driving, but MP-60 doesn't come with the static figure. The transforming Powermaster can't fit so he can't drive. If you bought MPG-09, though, you got his trailer as well. There's definitely a similarity with the G1 toy; some blue on the top, a big plug arm to connect the trailer to the cab, a front of the trailer that's clearly robot arms, and even blue panels and some red details that don't need to be that way, they're just mimic the G1 trailer that did. There's some improvements, though. The arm that connects the trailer to the cab has panels that hide the gap behind it and help secure the arms in place. The rear has molded details that actually look like a trailer door. And, near the middle on the underside, there are fold out feet that allow the trailer to stand on its own. To complete the look, you can plug the larger black guns into ports on the top, and the gray guns into ports on the sides of the arms. If you really want to store everything, well, you kind of can't (as there's no real storage for the effect parts, stand adapter, or alternate hands and faces). But you can store the smaller guns, as there are slots in front of the handles that fit onto tabs on the backs of the bigger guns. And the rear of the trailer can open, revealing small compartments that you can stuff the Powermaster figures into. With the G1 toy. The new trailer is a little larger, and his arms stick up a bit too high. And a quick shot with SS86 Optimus, Fans Hobby Power Baser, Perfect Effect with the Legends Ginrai trailer, and Maketoys Thunder Manus. Despite being a bit larger than the G1 trailer, I think the cab/trailer combo looks more proportional than Power Baser. Speaking of Power Baser, his base mode was rather reimagined, as was the Takara Legends version. So I really appreciate that MPG Ginrai's trailer not only has the base mode from the G1 toy, but that is practically identical. There's even some similar molded details and some tampos that act like a simplified version of the G1 toy's stickers. Of course, the real point of the trailer isn't a base mode, it's to combine with Ginrai to make Super Ginrai. The differences in Super Ginrai mode between MPG-09 and the G1 toy are a bit more obvious. MPG-09 is taller, with more heroic anime proportions than the squat, big-headed original (though it throws into doubt the idea that Ginrai only gains five meters of height in this mode. He's also sporting the red fingers, red crotch, and blue eyes of the cartoon, and though there's molded details the blue on his chest and the sticker details on his knees and shins there's no color there. The tranformation, much like the base Ginrai, is similar too but slightly more complex than the G1 toy. More of the sides of the trailer fold into the panels on the sides of his legs, while the backs of his legs are no longer made from the trailer. Rather, the back half of the top of the trailer folds onto his back. The back of the trailer swivels into his calves, giving him "feet" that are below the edges of the trailer panels on the sides of his legs. His arms unfurl pretty much the same as the G1 toy, but his forearms open so the hands can fold out rather than slide out on the JG1 toy or molded lumps on the western G1 toy. The extra height does make him bigger than both the Takara Legends Super Ginrai and Maketoys Thunder Manus... He still falls well short of Power Baser, though. Articulation isn't quite as good in Super Ginrai mode as Ginrai alone, but it's still pretty good. His head still can't really look down or tilt sideways, but he can tilt his head up and swivel it. His shoulders rotate on ratchets. The round bits on the tops of his shoulders can open so he can move his arms nearly 90 degrees laterally, and though it's on the wrong side of the swivel joint an additional hinge can be used to get more lateral movement if you wish. As with regular Ginrai, he's got dedicated butterfly joints as well. His biceps swivel, and his elbows bend a little over 90 degrees on a single hinge. His hands swivel and bend in/out a little. His fingers are now hinged at the base and the middle knuckles, and his index finger is separate from the other three, plus his thumb has a hinge at the base. His waist swivels on a ratchet, and he's got 45 degrees of ab crunch. His hips ratchet 90 degrees forward and laterally, and about 45 degrees backward. His thighs swivel, and his single-jointed knee ratchets bend about 140 degrees. Due to his transformation, his entire shin-foot thing can tilt up and down, and the sole of his foot can click inward on a ratchet a single 30-degree click to keep his feet flat despite not really having ankles. The gray guns properly peg into his shoulders, and he's meant to hold the larger rifles with the same tabbed handle, slotted palm mechanism. Note that there are four peg holes on his back, which can give you a place to store the smaller guns (for now). There's also peg holes on the soles of his feet for Generations-style effect parts. Speaking of effect parts, not only are the big rifles also compatible with the beams Ginrai comes with, but so are the gray shoulder guns. Likewise, his palms still work with the chōkon effect parts, and for maximum anime accuracy you can remove the gray guns from his shoulders and plug in the extra shoulder bits which exaggerate the natural shape at the edges of his shoulders. Swapping Super Ginrai's head is super easy, barely an inconvenience. Just grab it and slide it forward. Aside from the stock head (middle), you get a slightly more stylized head, and one that's identical to the stock head except it has red eyes like the G1 toy. Likewise, you can open up his forearms like you're going to transform him and slide out his hands, swapping them with entirely blue ones. Blue hands match the slide-out hands on the JG1 toy; all red hands to match the Powermaster Optimus toy would have been cool, but Takara technically only produced this for the Japanese market I get why there's no red option. Oh, this is also where the stickers come in. If you want a more toy-style Super Ginrai, you can use stickers to add the blue to his chest, give him a yellow crotch, add the stickers to his knees and shins, and replace the cartoon Autobot insignias on his shoulder and trailer with toy-style ones. However, to truly have a toy style Super Ginrai you'd have to buy MPG-09, put the stickers on the trailer, AND buy MP-60 to replace the cab. Honestly, I don't know why they didn't just skip MP-60 entirely. They easily could have made the red-eyed head a swappable one and included stickers for the silver ribs and colored knees. It's one of a few things that have kind of soured me a bit on this release. Don't get me wrong, I think MPG-09 looks great in both modes, has tons of articulation, and is pretty easy to transform. It's a good figure! But, it's also a bit small for an MP. The size and simplicity make me think that, with a few less accessories, plastic instead of diecast, and a little less paint, Hasbro could have sold this figure as a Commander-class. If not Commander, then certainly the new smaller $150 Titan. And at even $150 I'd have strongly recommended it; I think it's a pretty good fit with Generations. It's not $150, though. At $280, it's nearly double that (and even more if you want a toy-style one and replace the cab with MP-60). Put another way, MPG-09 cost me $10 more than all six of the Mecha Invasion Constructicons. And at that price, I'm looking at a few sprue marks. I'm looking at one particular tab on his backpack that likes to pop open. I'm looking at a Powermaster that pops out if you look at him funny (and one that the ball joint on one hip sheared off the second time I transformed it). I'm looking at effect parts and a static Powermaster slug I don't need... heck, I don't really need the extra hands, heads, or shoulder bits, and one set of rifles for both figures would have been fine. Ultimately, I think I'd have to give Super Ginrai a soft recommendation. He's a good, maybe very good, but overpriced figure not-quite-MP figure.

Already? I thought I was playing it pretty hardcore, I'm just reaching Thirdborn. Ayup. I mean, they have to go on actual performance because they're lagging on things like ray tracing and AI upscaling. But what's sad? Moore's Law really is dead... we're getting close to the limit of what's physically possible with how the chips are manufactured. Can't keep shrinking the dies or packing it transistors. You can pump more power in, but an RTX 5090 can already drawn nearly 600 watts; you're going to need dedicated circuits from your breaker and an industrial cooler to drawn much more. Like it or not, you want more frames, AI upscaling is the future, and Nvidia's just plain better at it. They've gotten to the point where, unless I'm actively looking for it, I don't notice a difference in quality 99% of the time. (Not a fan of frame gen, though).

The second one. Some other stuff from the fair... Onyx Prime. He's sort of a triple changer. He's got this dragon mode. But also a centaur mode. Sideways and Excellion. Walmart exclusives, I think. Yeah, there's that Perceptor, too. He's getting the Blaster treatment... replacing the clear plastic of the prior release with painted bits, swapping black parts for dark gray, etc. But you'll probably buy him, because' he's coming with Ratbat and Ramhorn. And sure, Ratbat also had a release prior... but this one has his boosters. I think Percy and friends might be a Target exclusive. ...along with this two-pack of Devastation grunts. Amazon exclusive Carnivac and Ironfist... er, Fisitron. Bascially what I expected, though I'm surpised to see they actually put some new tooling on Ironfist. There's Diaclone-colored Topspin and Spinister, too. Spinister will basically be the same as the WfC version, but with darker colors inspired by the Marvel comics. And it's not news, but there's another peep at the other Hearts of Steel pack.

Alchemist is... Eh. I mean, I'd have maybe added some yellow, but that's Alchemist alright. Thing is, if you're deep enough into the lore to care about the 13 then you're probably buying regardless. Vortex, on the other hand, *chef's kiss*. The Hot Wheels collabs are pretty neat. I have Boneshaker in my garage in Forza Horizon, so seeing one that transforms into a robot is pretty cool with me.

Let's say, for the sake of argument, AMD isn't bs-ing and the 9070 XT is the same as the RTX 5070ti at rendering frames at 1440p with no upscaling or ray tracing. That's good and all... but upscaling and RT matter to me. So I still kind of need to know, how much worse is the 9070 XT at ray tracing? How much worse does the latest Zen 4 version of FSR look compared to DLSS? What kind of framerates both cards getting with RT on and upscaling set to Quality? Ultimately, to me, the RTX 5070ti might be worth $150 more (assuming it's eventually possible to get one at or near MSRP later in the year).

Yeah, I don't expect them to even match DLSS 3, let alone DLSS 4. I'm just going they've improved enough that i don't look at AMD's RT and FSR and immediately say, "Eww, I'll pay extra for an RTX 5070ti, thanks anyway."

So the 9700 and 9700 XT are actually going to be $549 and $599 (assuming you get get them at MSRP, though it does sound like AMD is working to have a lot more stock than Nvidia). Still concerned about AMD's ray tracing performance and FSR lagging behind Nvidia and DLSS, but I'm eagerly awaiting real benchmarks and proper reviews.

As someone who's been playing D&D since 3e, who's read most of the Forgotten Realms novels, and who adored the movie I'm cautiously optimistic.

Heads up, Walmart's collector's con is March 13-14. I expect a few Transformers exclusives like the Excellion repaint of Hot Shot and Sideways, but I think most relevant to the people here will be Deluxe-class Seaspray.