mikeszekely

My friend was really hyped for the announcement but I fell asleep and missed it. No regrets. My PC is still good enough.

I've got a tiny yet somewhat anticipated release on my hands. Do good things come in small packages? This one is Studio Series 86 Core-class Steeljaw. I get that Core-class figures are small and don't get a ton of budget, but c'mon. What's up with that face? He's barely got any cat ears, and there's a seam running right down the middle of his head that I can't get to close any more than that no matter how hard I squeeze. The seam doesn't look great on the top of his head, but the split in the bottom of his jaw makes him look like one of the aliens from Predator. Hasbro put some red paint inside his mouth and some splashes of white on his teeth, but I'm not painting the teeth helped or hurt when his fangs are more like little nubs. I do kind of want to give Hasbro some credit for engineering Steeljaw's mane into a proper box around his neck area. And at first glance he's got his wing guns. But those guns seem a little big... and they're not even attached to his wings! I can't be the only one amused by the placement of that rivet in the middle of his posterior, either. If you have a cat, you know what I mean. I'm thinking a lot of Steeljaw's budget when to accessories. As it turns out, his back and tail are a separate part. His wings are, too, and they plug right into the holes on the sides of the back. There's an alternate back that is missing a tail and has the round parts of the wings pre-attached but not the wing portions are clipped off. And finally, there's a big gold speaker. Steeljaw's articulation is, to be frank, terrible. Nothing in his head or jaws, nothing in his tail. Each of his four legs are pinned at the shoulders/hips and can swivel, but they can't spread or swivel, and he's got no articulation in his elbows/knees or wrists/ankles. Since they' just pegged in you can change the angles of his wings a bit, or you can swivel the guns on his hips. That's it. To use the speaker with Steeljaw, first you have to remove the regular back with the wings, then pop on the alternate back piece. It has a large tab on the top that fits into a slot on the side of the speaker. Are we supposed to pretend his wings and tail turned into a speaker? I don't remember that from the cartoon at all, and certainly not the '86 movie. The more likely use for the speaker is with Kingdom/Legacy/SS86 Blaster. The back of the speaker is sort of a squarish opening with a little notch. Line up that notch with the back of Blaster's hand and it'll slide snuggly over his fist. While we're at it, since Steeljaw's backs use a 5mm peg to plug into a hole on his body, you can also plug them into 5mm ports on Blaster's body, like the ones on his forearms. Steeljaw's engineering is very simple. His back and wings partsform right off. His front legs fold back, then his back legs tuck underneath, leaving his hip guns tucked neatly along the sides. The section with his mane and head folds forward then splits in half and splays out to the sides. You finish him off by tucking the halves of his head in. I like that the one side of him has a painted reel and a window to the see the tape spooling... but why is the other reel not painted? Both the faux reels on the other side are. I don't have much to say about this mode's aesthetics... it's a rectangle, what do you want? You want it to do stuff? I guess you can turn him cassette face down and plug his back in. With the little gap where his mane sits higher than the hinge and the flat part of the back that normally sits against his main sticking up it almost looks like a seat. Maybe Steeljaw's alt mode is secretly some kind of Star Wars landspeeder? I don't know what you're supposed to do with his accessories, really, but the rectangle itself does fit into Blaster's chest, and that's all we really wanted. So there you have it... objectively, Steeljaw's not very good. Better than Ravage, at least, but worse than Ratbat, Laserbeak, or the humanoid cassettes. And Ravage, at least, has the excuse of being a Micromaster. At retail he was packaged with a whole second tape at the price that Steeljaw alone is going for. Why? I'd have gladly given up on the extra back and speaker if Hasbro would have even just added elbows and knees to Steeljaw himself. The value isn't here. And yet, Soundwave's had two different releases for Laserbeak, two for Ravage, a Ratbat, and both Micromaster and Core-class releases for Rumble and Frenzy. Later this year we're finally getting a release for Buzzsaw. So far Blaster's just had Eject, whom he came with, and Rewind, who came with his Twincast repaint. For a lot of us, Steeljaw is filling a gap, and I sincerely hope Ramhorn comes sooner rather than later. If, like me, Steeljaw is going to fill a void in your life then by all means get to filling. If you're more of a Season 2 guy and don't feel like Blaster really needs tapes, though, you'll be saving money on an honestly pretty poor figure.

His pocket square also makes for a little white-and-red stripe. His wardrobe choices are clearly very intentional. 😁

I decided to pick up Gundam Breaker 4. Only a few missions in, but here's my early impressions: Good: Way better than New Gundam Breaker... Bad: ...but not as good as Gundam Breaker 3. Ugly: I bought it on Steam, and my main display is a 32:9 5120x1440 ultra-wide OLED. And, what with Bandai's proclivity to develop primarily for console, the game really wants you to have a 16:9 display, but unless you play in a window (where it drops to 720p) it also insists that you play in desktop resolution. In my case, the game decided that the best way to get from 16:9 to 32:9 is to drawn the full width of the monitor and simply cut the top and bottom of the screen off. Not only could I not see half of what was going on, I actually couldn't see basic HUD elements. I was eventually able to get the game into a more playable state by first going to the Nvidia Control Panel and, under "adjust desktop size and position," change the scaling from "aspect ratio" to "no scaling" and checking the box where it says "override the scaling mode set by games and programs." Then I went into the game's config file and manually edited the resolution settings to 2560x1440. Now when I launch the game I have a 16:9 image that fills the vertical height of my display and simply leaves the sides black.

Since Chris Latta died Todaro was picked to voice Starscream when they had the first few episodes in theaters a few months back. I assume the Decepticon badges are upside-down because, in the cartoon, the badges on Starscream's wings are upside-down when he's in bot mode.

I know, what with this being a Macross board and all, that the hot Transformers-adjacent topic is God of Flame. Yes, my copy arrived and I've had him for a few days, but like I said in the gray market Valk thread I also happened to get a case of COVID. Five days of quarantine and most of a course of Paxlovid later, I'm finally up and about and ready to talk about some of the stuff that's been piling up on my to-do list. However! The temporary table and poor lighting I've been using since my in-laws arrived just flat out isn't going to cut it for God of Flame. Just not big enough. I need my regular space back. We won't have to wait too long, though, as my in-laws are going home on Wednesday. In the mean time, I have a consolation prize for you... Dr. Wu's latest two-pack, Wasp and Wingman. It's had to convey just how tiny Wasp is. Crotch height to SS86 Bumblebee. Mid-torso to Newage's v1 Bumblebee. Belt-high to Wingman, his own pack-in buddy. I mean, Dr. Wu started this line with figures like Optimus that were roughly the size of a G1 Micromaster, then figured Bumblebee needed to be even smaller so he put out a figure closer to a G1 Headmaster in size. So, maybe his head sculpt is a little soft (still better than Newage's). Maybe his waist/pelvis is just a stick, and not properly yellow. Like the Studio Series toy, the wheels on his feet don't fold in, but unlike that toy there's nothing else under his feet, which leaves him stuck tilting his feet and standing on the inside edge. And he's got a bit of a backpack, but certainly not the worst one I've seen on a Bumblebee figure. To be honest, at this scale, I can forgive a lot... especially when it's still better-engineered and more accurate than Hasbro's own larger Core-class Bumblebee. Wasp doesn't have a gun, which is pretty standard for Dr. Wu figures, but he does come with an alternate head. Ostensibly it's the G1 toy's battle mask. Practically, I think it's just a pre-tooled head for the Goldbug repaint. I'm fine with the cartoon face, but if you want to swap you just pull the stock head off the ball joint and snap the other one on. Wasp's articulation isn't the best. His head's on a ball joint that can't tilt sideways or look down. It does swivel, though, and he can look 90 degrees straight up. His shoulders are hinged ball joints. The balls provide the swivel and 90 degrees of lateral movement, while the hinges (which are really for transformation) give him some nice butterfly joints. No bicep swivel or hand articulation. Elbows are hinged and bend 90 degrees. No waist articulation. His hips are ball joints that get over 90 degrees forward and backward, and about 90 degrees laterally. The motion of the socket around the ball is all the thigh swivel he gets. His hinged knees bend 90 degrees. Due to his transformation his feet can tilt down 90 degrees, but not up, and he lacks ankle pivots. Wasp's transformation is fairly straightfoward. His feet tab together, and the sides of the car unwrap from his heels. His backpack folds up over his head, giving you the clearance you need to fold out his rear wheels. His arms use the hinges on the ball joints to swing behind his back; make sure you've got his elbows bent and the arms oriented so that the hands point toward what's becoming the rear of the car. You'll know you have it right when tabs on the back of Wasp's neck plug into slots near his wrists. Bend his feet down, then use the hinges in his torso to bring his hips out and under, tucking them against his arms and lining up the front of the car. Then it's simply a matter of folding the back and wheels into place and lining up the sides. Zoomed in this close you're probably noticing things like the sloppy paint on his taillights, or the bulges for the hinges in his rear bumper and the back of his roof. Yes, those things are there, and fair criticism, but again I feel like I have to stress how tiny this thing is. From his front bumper to his rear, Wasp is only a tad longer than the pistol SS86 Bee comes with. At this scale, I'm less bothered by the hinges and more impressed by the painted bumper, headlights, and spare tire, or the molded hood and boot covers. We're really talking about a car that looks like a toy for the small-Deluxe that is SS86 Bee. Again, a car that's smaller than the original Newage Bumblebee, but unlike Newage, actually has working wheels. Maybe I'm too forgiving, but at this price and scale, I think Wasp is a pretty great Bumblebee and totally worth getting. Well, as long as you're cool with his pack-in buddy... ...Wingman, aka Cyclonus. And, man, you can really see how far Dr. Wu has come when you put Wingman with his Galvatron, which was one of his earlier releases. The sculpt and proportions on Wingman are a lot better. Wingman is still a Micromaster-scale figure, though, and fairly simple. It's too bad that the Doctor wasn't able to copy a bit more from the excellent Kingdom figure. Instead, Wingman's nose is just chilling on his back, with some flaps lying on his calves. No accessories for (this version of) Wingman. As far as articulation goes, his head swivels but has no tilt. His shoulders use ball joints for swivels, but they're not cut out to allow any other motion. He relies on hinges for a little under 90 degrees of lateral shoulder movement, and on the wrong side of the rotation at that. His elbows bend 90 degrees on ball joints, and they can be used as bicep swivels. No wrist or waist swivels. Ball-jointed hips can go 90 degrees forward, backward, or laterally. As with Wasp, the motion of the socket around the ball is all you get for thigh swivels. His knees bend 90 degrees. His toes have hinges for transformation that let you tilt them down, nothing up. He does have hinges for just under 90 degrees of ankle pivot. Transformation is, again, pretty simple. Spin his head 180, then fold the nose up over it. Tab his legs together, then use the sliders to collapse his thighs. Fold his toes down, and use the flaps on his calves to fill in the gap behind his cockpit. To avoid clearance issues, rotate his forearms inward 170 degrees as you double hinge the wings from behind his shoulders, locking the wings into his elbow gaps. Then double-hinge his arms out from his chest and down to the sides of his legs. As with Wasp, I feel like I can forgive stuff like the visible hands, the hinges on top of the nose, on top of the wings, and on either side of the cockpit, the short and blunt tip on the nose, even some of the gaps where his shoulders don't quite align with the fuselage or the wings with his arms. Why are his wings kind of curved, though? It's an odd design choice, but ultimately still a minor issue on what's otherwise another well-done, tiny figure by Dr. Wu. It's especially nice that both the normal G1 decos come in the same box. This time, the alternate decos were IDW Cyclonus with Bugbite, SG Cyclonus with Goldbug, and SG Goldbug with translucent Cyclonus (of which I might have picked up one more set if only Goldbug had come with IDW Cyclonus, but it's still an improvement). And at around $25 for the pair, as always, they're priced fairly competitively with Hasbro's own Core-class releases at a smaller size that does even better at making Hasbro's Titans look big, making this pair another easy recommend from me. Actually, having Galvatron and Cyclonus really makes me want a Scourge now... good thing he's in the works, along with Warpath, Cliffjumper, Shockwave, Megatron, Prowl, Smokescreen, Bluestreak, and the Insecticons. I've said it before, and I'll keep saying it, I'd love for Dr. Wu to do the entire Sunbow cast at this scale.

As someone who's first Valkyrie was the Fugu Jetfire, I'm going to preorder the VF-1S from ThreeZero. They've got a good rep, and I want to see what they do differently than a KO Yamato/Arcadia.

Funny you bring this up. I loved the PSP games, but when M30 came out I was a bad point financially and couldn't justify importing it. On a whim I finally gave RPCS3 a go. I've had some minor graphical glitches, no audio during cutscenes, and a few outright crashes (save often!), but I've managed to put over 30 hours in so far.

Any reviews I'm working on are postponed for a bit. My daughter managed to bring COVID home in the first week, and while she's doing fine already I'm currently watching the Alien movies* with 102 degree fever so at least I'll be ready to watch Romulus after I get better. *Of course I've previously seen Alien and Aliens, but I'd never bothered with Prometheus or Covenant. **And that's certainly all of them. Alien 3? Resurrection? Never heard of them, pretty sure you're making stuff up because there's no way they'd kill Hicks and Newt unceremoniously off screen, kill Ripley, then bring her back as some kind of human/Xenomorph hybrid clone. That all sounds bad and stupid.

Mine arrived today, the after arriving at my local hub for the third time. Took me all day to transform him into robot/Battroid, because that chest is scary tight, so I haven't even removed anything but the figure itself from the packaging. Full review soon-ish in the 3P Transformers thread (because to me, this is Missing Link Jetfire), but everything @Chronocidal said is ditto for my copy.

I was very briefly doing some creative type stuff and bought a 27" LG 4K IPS. And it was fine (I still have it connected to a second PC), but 4K is still tough, even with a moderately good GPU (currently running an RTX 4070). I wound up treating myself to a Samsung Odyssey G9 OLED. It's a 32:9 ultrawide- basically like two 16:9 27" screens in one slightly curved display, but since it's 1440p my GPU is pushing around a million fewer pixels. It was expensive, but I gotta say I'd never go back. On games that support it 32:9 is a lot more immersive, and despite but doing a ton of actual work I'm still finding the extra space extremely useful. But the real game-changer for me was OLED. I didn't think it's be a big a difference as it turned out to be. Both displays can do bright color just fine (and both support HDR), but the contrast is so much better. I had a screensaver running on both displays, and the difference in "black" was crazy. On the OLED it's really black, on the LG it was more like a bluish-gray. As for Anandtech, that's one of those things where my initial reaction was, "what a bummer!" But I can't remember the actual last time I visited their site. I heard most of the staff is moving to Tom's Hardware, which seems like a good deal.

When I tried (with NordVPN) I couldn't get in from their Tokyo server, but their other Japan server worked. They just didn't have Zero, SDF Macross, DYRL, or Macross II available yet, but that was around two weeks ago. Apparently they were added now.

The best would probably be that epoxy that comes in two tubes that mixes together or a cyanoacrylate glue + activator like Loctite Plastic, but that's probably a bit messy for a smaller job. Tamiya makes a cement for ABS, but I'm not sure where you'd find it at a reasonable price.

For Decepticons you're missing Buzzsaw (but if you can live without him, the only way to get him is to buy Legacy United Soundwave... then again, that'll also net you a Rumble, so...), and the Combaticons. You may also want a bigger Megatron, since he's a little short compared to the upcoming SS86 Optimus. Good news, though, SS86 Megatron and SS86 Construticons are coming next year, and we're expecting Combaticons in the mainline in 2026. Are you doing the 86 movie/Season 3? For Autobots, I guess I'd need a list of what you have, but it's a safe bet you're missing Windcharger, since everyone is waiting on an update of him to finish the Season 1 Autobots.

Doesn't look like I'm getting mine today. USPS been drinking or something.

I'm sure they'll take care of it, one way or the other. ShowZ's got good service. But that's still a major bummer.

Mine should be here tomorrow. And due to peer pressure, I bought a Valk... but it's a Hi-Metal R VF-4G, so probably not a great comparison. I got a G1 Jetfire, now, though, and I'll use that with my review. Unfortunately the vertical stabs broke.😭

Grabbed it on Steam this evening.😉 Too bad SOTN and Rondo of Blood are still stuck on PlayStation...

So I gave this a lot of consideration. 1. No, I don't even have space for all my Transformers. 2. Variable mecha only, but in a perfect world at least one of every major Variable Fighter until around the VF-25, when they started looking kind of samey to me. 3. I care far more about the mecha than the pilots. The only "hero" scheme I really dig is the white with yellow and black Skull Squadron deco, so I might go for Roy's VF-0S when I want a VF-0, Roy/Hikaru's VF-1S when I want a VF-1, Ozma's VF-25S for a VF-25, etc. Beyond that, I think I almost prefer non-cartoon designs- I think the YF-19 and the Emerald Force VF-19s are particularly bad, and I'd rather prefer some of the decos from the Variable Fighter Master Files books. 4. Referring back to 2, in a perfect world, VF-0, SV-51, VF-1, VF-4, VF-5000, VF-9, VF-11, VF-14, VF-17, VF-19, VF-22, VA-3, and VB-6. with the option to collect a few different model variants, later VFs, and Macross II or other non-canon VFs. I don't care if they're in-scale with any other toy lines, but they should scale with each other. 5. Collectability isn't a factor at all. I'll hunt for good deals on used figures, especially if it's just not available new anymore, but I'm definitely not going out of my way to collect older or rarer figures and paying out the nose for them. 6. Yeah, I'd like something a bit sturdier that can stand up to being handled, and I prefer as little partsforming as possible (ideally none). With all that in mind, I bit the bullet and ordered my first Macross toy... a used Hi-Metal R VF-4G. In a vacuum, I do think I might have preferred the premium Arcadia, but the fact is that the Hi-Metal R stuff isn't just cheaper they seem to have the largest selection of mecha, the largest number of variant models and decos for those mecha, and are the easiest to actually find stock of. I figure, if I like it I can start collecting other Hi-Metal R VFs, and if I don't like it I can either switch to Arcadias or just stick with my Transformers. When it comes I'll let you guys know.

As an American I'm aware of, but largely unfamiliar with, the ZX Spectrum. But I hear Brits talk about it the way us Gen X Yanks talk about the NES. If they ever did a mini console version (like they did with the C64 and the Amiga) I'd pick one up out of curiosity.

That's about the only element of Needlenose, though, and by that criteria it could just as easily be Combiner Wars Cyclonus or Silverbolt. Or next year's new Silverbolt, for all we know. Honestly, I think it might just be a new mold that doesn't look like the Fire Valkyrie in bot mode because it's not the Fire Valkyrie, it's a crossover (even though I'd be curious to see a Macross Valkyrie with the chunky robust playability of a Transformer...).

This is actually a really good point. Toho is notorious for how tightly it controls it's licensing (I blame that movie with Matthew Broderick that is definitely not a Godzilla movie). I mean, if you think about it, isn't every time they release a figure like Delta Magnus, Cordon, Riggorus, DK-3 Breaker, etc already a Diaclone x Transformers situation? But I'm not in charge of labeling these Takara crossovers (even if I should be).

Thanks for bringing this to my attention. Surprisingly, the two main Transformer sites I follow haven't mentioned it yet. That silhouette isn't much to go on, yet, so I'm curious but not really excited. As for the rest, well, I made a post in the Transformers thread.

Thanks to @DeltaE27 for bringing this to my attention, but the T-Spark stuff is continuing in Japan with a ton of crossovers. In fact, before the year is out, we'll be having preorders for Megatron Godzilla (Megodzilla?) and Optimus Kiryu (apologies for the crappy images, I'm literally grabbing screenshots from an hour-old YouTube announcement). EDIT: Preorders this fall, doesn't actually release until next summer. Sorry for the confusion. Kind of weird choices for repaints (and a light remold?), but as a Transformers fan and a Godzilla fan I'm into this. I just wish they'd put more effort into it. Like they could have remolded the dino arms on the Grimlock mold to make them look more like Goji's arms, added some spines, etc. And Laser Op was already hampered by using the Siege legs, it's going to feel extra dated after Commander Optimus hits. For something a bit fresher, how about a Zoids x Diaclone x Transformers Shield R Optimus in 2025? I'm not into Zoids, but I wouldn't mind having this for my Prime collection. Maybe Zoids fans would be peeved if the Shield Liger alt mode wasn't blue, but as a Transformers fan I think they missed a beat by not making him white and gold like Lio Convoy. And hitting closer to home (since this is a Macross board), it's just a silhouette but this is our first hint at a Transformers/Macross 7 Fire Valkyrie crossover, also in 2025. I can't think of a recent mold that has a silhouette like that. Nor does it have a particularly Fire Valk shape. I'm curious to see more. They also announced a Transformers x Monster Hunter, but didn't have anything to show. The rest of the video is Zoids crossovers (Spider-Man, Monster Hunter, and Patlabor, if you're interested, with the Spidey one being shown in both red & blue and black variants. Vid's on Youtube here, if you want to watch it yourself.

As long as the figure itself isn't damaged. The box itself getting a little beat up will actually make it look more like my Jetfire's box.