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I mean, for a big company like Ubisoft, sure, you can afford to make an engine like Dunia in-house, but for most developers it's cheaper and easier to license someone else's. Unity was extremely popular until the debacle around changing their payment structure. Now Epic is claiming that around half of all next-gen games in development are using Unreal Engine 4 or 5. As for types, seems like every time a game gets popular it spawns a a sub-genre of imitators. Just look all all the "Souls-likes" out there. Heck, Fortnite got started by doing PUBG's schtick, but their latest Lego update looks like Minecraft to me. Actually, the whole Lego Minecraft thing is just the first game-within-a-game they've planned, as they've also announced in-game games Rocket Racing from the team being Rocket League and Fortnite Festival from the studio behind Rock Band. So Fortnite is actually Roblox now.

Arkane? I know they're kind of in the doghouse right now because of Redfall, but Dishonored, Prey, and Deathloop all slap, to use the modern vernacular. I'll be keeping an eye on Blade.

As I sit here waiting patient-ish* for Deathsaurus, whom I expected to be the last figure I reviewed in 2023, Hasbro had the audacity to start sending me 2024's figures. Of course, instead of sending me a nice big box with all the figures from one class it's coming in scattershot, so I'll go in the order I'm receiving them. So pretend we've already rung in the new year as we check out Legacy United Voyager-class Animated Optimus Prime. Compared to Prowl, Animated Optimus' G1-ification is a bit more subtle. His head sculpt is lacking the chin of the cartoon, but Prime's chin wasn't as huge in the first place. His thighs, knees, and feet could be narrower, but the overall shapes of the limbs are pretty good, with the tapered boxes that Derek Wyatt might have drawn. Although they molded in G1-ish arrows on his forearms and vents on his shins that the cartoon never had they resisted the urge to paint those details (of course, they also didn't bother to paint the yellow bits on his helmet, feet, or marker lights, or the black treads on the bottoms of his feet. I think the one thing that I really don't care for would be the torso, though. There's a double hinge where the grill sits, recessed on his abdomen, while the chest portion itself sticks out and hangs down, replacing the cartoon's T-shape with a body that looks like he drank a few too many oils with the Constructicons. And what you see on the front is pretty much what you see on the back, too. Hasbro managed to get the wheels on both sides of his ankles, but a bit high. We can see that again he's missing some yellow, this time on the backs of his hands. He does have his light bar on his back, but otherwise he's fairly clean- no unnecessary smokestacks on his forearms, no bumper kibble on his legs. Optimus comes with his signature axe. It's kind of cool that it does the extending handle that the cartoon did, but it leads like 40 of the shaft being weirdly thick. Frankly, I'd have trade the expanding handle for a static, one-piece axe and some extra paint on the main figure. Optimus's head is on a hinged ball joint, so he can look up and down a bit and swivel no problem, but he doesn't really have any sideways tilt. His shoulders swivel and can move laterally 90 degrees. His elbows are double-jointed and can curl a combined 180 degrees, plus his wrists swivel. His waist, too. His hips can go almost 90 degrees forward, backward, or laterally, and his thighs swivel. His knees, although just a single hinge, can bend something like 160 degrees. His feet have a slight up/down tilt, but they're also on a double-hinge for transformation. Using the double hinge will quickly break the sculpt, but you kind of use it to get poses with more up/down feet tilt. Oh, and the ankles pivot around 75 degrees; they could in theory go 90, but the wheels are in the way. Optimus can easily hold his axe by sliding the 5mm shaft into one of his fists. There are 5mm pegs on the sides of the fat part of the shaft, too, and you can just barely manipulate his arms to get him holding the axe with his second hand on one of those pegs... shame they didn't give him butterfly joints. The axe also has a 5mm port in the thruster on the back. It's cool that you can use a blast effect (not included) to get that look from the cartoon. When not in use, you can use one of the 5mm pegs on the sides to attach the axe into a 5mm port on the lightbar on his back. Speaking of ports, Optimus also has one on the outside of each shoulder, on the outside of each forearm, under each foot, on the outside of each leg just below the knee, and in the middle of the wheels on both sides of his ankles. Plus, if you really want more, you can pull the lightbar off. Underneath, you'll find a whole trio of 5mm ports. From the waist up, Optimus' engineering is just a bit like the original Animated Deluxe-class toy. The sides of his torso fold down and out to bring out the bumper and front wheels, his arms curl up around his head to make the sides of the cab, and the lightbar hinges up over the top. His legs enjoy more complex engineering, with the lower legs splitting in half and wrapping back around over the thighs. One really nice touch, something they definitely didn't have to do, is on the inside of his chest. There's a little molded steering wheel and dashboard details in there. The truck itself seems to have undergone a more drastic makeover to get it to fit more with Legacy than with OG Animated. The cab has less exaggerated proportions. There seems to be more armor around the bumper (although the gap in front of the grill is accurate). The reason seems to be hide the front wheels, giving him the illusion of two wheels close together on each side like he was drawn in the cartoon, instead of the six he actually has. Kudos for getting one blue light and one red on the lightbar, something the original toys never managed, and some molded taillights. But minus kudos for the way his feet stick up on the back, and a lack of paint on those taillights. When it comes to stowing Optimus's axe in alt mode, you've got a lot of options. There's the 5mm port on the roof (or again, three if you remove the lightbar), two on either side of the cab, in in the middle of each of his four rear wheels, and two where you're looking at the bottom of his feet. And while just about any of those holes will accommodate the pegs on the shaft of the axe, you'll note that one side of the axe itself also has a peg. I like to use that peg into the hole on one foot (with the peg on the shaft tucking into the hollow underside of the other foot). It kind of centers the axe on the back of the truck where a hitch might be... if Optimus had a trailer. Or was compatible with the trailer from another Optimus. How do I judge this figure? In a vacuum, as a transforming robot toy, it's fine. Decent articulation, sturdier joints than the old toys, and no dumb automorphing gimmicks. As Animated Optimus? I'm beating a dead horse, I know, but I have to say it again- if Hasbro wants to take characters from other series without a real G1 counterpart and give them a G1 makeover, like Bulkhead and Knockout, I'm into that. But if you're taking a character that does have a G1 counterpart, like Optimus Prime here, why G1-ify him? I mean, side-by-side with Earthrise Prime, was his makeover enough that these two look like they belong on the same shelf? Not to me they don't, and even if they did, G1 already has an Optimus. As for Animated fans, the bit of G1-ification that Hasbro did do is just enough for them to (rightly) complain that it's not really accurate. Frankly, Hasbro should tried to make a better cartoon-accurate toy than to adapt Wyatt's unique style into something slightly more WFC/Legacy-ish. At the end of the day, and I say this as someone who didn't actually like the original Animated toys all that much, you're better off with the original Animated Voyager Optimus Prime if you still have him.

Apparently the Reactivate two-packs are shipping from GameStop. Ironically, it was also announced that the game is getting until sometime next year (at least) so that the devs can dump their current engine and use Unreal Engine 5. Now, I suppose it's possible that if they were using UE4 that maybe the switch to UE5 won't be that bad, but in my experience switching engines mid-development is unlikely to be completed in a single year, and very often get games canned for being way late and easy over budget. There's a real chance that we're going to end up with figures as a tie-in for a video game that never happens.

I actually haven't played the original, though I do own a copy on Steam. I should; I loved Control. Even though I didn't play the first one, I did buy the AW2. During Thanksgiving the Epic Game Store was giving out coupons for 30% off your total transaction, and all you had to do to get one was claim one of the freebies. Even though I don't really like EGS, I wound up getting Assassin's Creed Mirage (currently playing) and AW2 for $67-ish.

Early reports are saying that it's going to be Xbox Series and PS5 only, at least at launch. No PC is no sale, AFAIC.

The first season had it's issues, but I'd say it was tolerable. I actually liked the second season; I could do without the writers shoehorning Burnham into Spock's backstory, but the mystery of the Red Angel was kind of intriguing (at least, until they solved it in a pretty unsatisfactory way), and Pike and Spock were great. But the third season was, as you said, a huge plot hole, and quite frankly the move to the future was really less about the writers needing room to tell stories without worrying about canon and more an admission that the writers flat out did not understand Star Trek enough to get the canon in the first place. As bad as the third season was, though, somehow the fourth season was worse. And yet, despite hating most of the crew, despite hating the future setting, and despite disliking three out of the five main story arcs in Discovery, yeah. I'm going to hate watch it.

Way back Hasbro put out a three pack of Rise of the Beasts Deluxes in Target's Buzzworthy Bumblebee line, with Cheetor, Nightbird, and Wheeljack. It was mildly interesting, since the Cheetor it came with was closer to Kingdom Cheetor than the much-more-accurate Studio Series toy that released around the same time, and also because as of writing it's the only way to get Pablo (though the Studio Series version of Pablo is hitting early in 2024). Somehow I missed out of the fact that Hasbro actually released a second Buzzworthy Bumblebee 3-pack. Unlike the first, which kind of shelfwarmed for a time, I never saw the other pack in stores. After some searching, I was able to find a set without too much of a markup (actually below retail, since I had some store credit). As the Rise of the Beasts line is set to continue in 2024 (not just in Studio Series), I figured I'd put up a quick review in case these guys ever show up individually at retail. First up we have Bumblebee. Unlike most of the mainline toys, which wound up being smaller than their Studio Series counterparts, this Deluxe-class Bumblebee is a bit bigger. The sculpt is pretty good, but he's sorely lacking in paint. It's especially egregious on his arms, where his left forearm is made of yellow plastic and his hand is a separate black part but his right arm has some yellow plastic, but the entire inside of his forearm is a separate black part with the hand attached. This Bumblebee's backpack doesn't fold up as nice as the Studio Series toy, but credit where it's due, this one doesn't copy the same engineering Bee's been using in the Studio Series for years now, and correctly folds the front wheels onto his back behind his shoulders instead of in front of his door wings. Bee's accessories are a bit weird. He's got two knife/sai things, and what is clearly the bars and lights that cover the windshield in alt mode. Bee's head is on a ball joint with minimal up, down, or sideways tilt, although it swivels fine. His shoulders are also ball joints that rotate and move laterally a little under 90 degrees. His biceps swivel, his elbows bend 90 degrees, and his left wrist can swivel. His right wrist doesn't swivel, but the black part of his arm pulls out slightly, then flips 180 degrees before sliding back in to form his arm cannon. His waist swivels, though his back kibble gets in the way. His ball-jointed hips go forward over 90 degrees, but much less backward due to his back kibble, and a little under 90 degrees laterally. His thighs swivel, but again have some clearance issues. His knees bend 90 degrees. His feet have really good upward tilt. They can tilt downward, too, but doing so will tuck them into his calves for alt mode so you're limited on how much you can use that joint and still get a natural-looking pose. He's also got nearly 90 degrees of ankle pivot. The windshield armor uses a tab to plug into Bee's left arm, and he can hold his knives in either hand. Bee's transformation is fairly straightforward. Honestly, aside from less folding of the roof, wheels that end up on his back, and a less-complicated leg transformation it's not that different than the Studio Series toy after all. The Studio Series toy looks a bit better, but the mainline Deluxe isn't too far off, aside from the missing rally gear. It's not even actually missing. You can probably guess that the armor we plugged into Bee's left arm attaches over the windshield. Meanwhile, his knives actually hook together, then use some notches on one side to grab onto a pair of tabs on Bee's bumper. Overall, the articulation on this figure is fine, and I really like the more accurate wheel placement in bot mode and the way his right arm transforms into an arm cannon. It's almost enough for me to overlook the lack of paint. What does it in for me, though, is how poorly Bee's chest tabs into place, and how the panel with his head not only doesn't lock into place but wants to pop up, so his collar floats above his actual chest. Meanwhile, the Studio Series figure was one of the better Bumblebee toys in the line. You should probably stick to that one instead. Studio Series Airazor was one of the first ROTB figures I picked up from either the Studio Series or main ROTB line. While not a bad figure by any means, I was a bit disappointed that she reused Kingdom Airazor's engineering. Meanwhile, leaks were being shown of a different Deluxe-class Airazor, and this is it. Both figures do feature quite a few similarities, as you'd expect from them being the same character, but quite a few differences too. The regular Deluxe lacks the molded feathers on her thighs, has a totally different sculpt for the pelvis, has shoulder pads that can turn up like the Kingdom toy, and a different, more feminine head sculpt that lacks the mask the Studio Series toy has over her eyes. She also has more orange and darker browns, and none of the greens seen on the Studio Series toy. What's more, while there's likely concept art out there, Airazor never appeared in bot mode in the film, and I can't say which is more accurate. Quick look at the back and sides. Her wings are smaller than the Studio Series toy, and it actually reminds me of how Airazor's wings were so small in robot mode in the Beast Wars cartoon. I kind of wonder if the engineering for this toy was taken from a design originally being worked on for Kingdom or earlier. Anyway, Airazor comes with these shortswords. Are they more or less accurate than the Kingdom-esque blasters the Studio Series toy used? Who knows? What I do know is that her head is on a ball joint. She still doesn't have great up/down tilt, but better than Bumblebee's. No sideways tilt, though. Shoulders are ball joints for rotation and a little under 90 degrees of lateral movement, though a transformation hinge in the chest will allow you to push it a bit further. Biceps swivel, and her elbow bends 90 degrees forward AND backward. No wrist or waist swivel. Her hips can go over 90 degrees forward or laterally, but they have almost no backward movement. Her thighs swivel, and her knees bend 90 degrees. Her feet have excellent forward and backward tilts, but no ankle pivots. Her wings have swivels for spreading and hinges for flapping. Airazor can hold her swords in either hand via the 5mm handles, no issues there. If you only half peg a sword into her hand, then peg the other sword into the bottom of the same hand, her curved swords give the impression of a bow, which is kind of neat. Airazor's transformation is totally different than the Studio Series (or Kingdom) toys. Rather than try to find a place to stuff her robot arms, her arms become her bird legs. Meanwhile, her robot legs splay out, with the feet tucked in and the feathers on her calves extended, then they combine with her robot wings to form larger bird wings. Her robot head still folds into her chest, but her entire torso rocks away from her bird head, which swivels 180 degrees and stays connected to the top of her pelvis. Her wings and tail feathers flip up, and her pelvis and bird head rock back to lay in the newly vacated spot at the small of her back. I failed to do so for my pictures, but her shoulders should actually shift up over her collar, which makes her a bit less awkward than she appears here. Her swords have tabs on them and they plug into the underside of her wings. And... well, I can see why they didn't use this design for Kingdom or Studio Series. Don't get me wrong, sticking her legs into her wings shifts a lot of mass out of her bird torso, and in some poses the Deluxe toy actually looks better for it. However, using her legs in her wings also severely limits her wings' ability to articulate. Basically, she can flap her wings up and down, and that's it. She has no ability to fold her wings into a roosting pose the way the other modern Airazor's can. What's more, she lacks any head articulation, either. This limits her to looking straightforward, wings outstretched in flight... but her legs don't fold up enough to get into a flight pose. Her beak doesn't even open. So whether you're talking bot mode or bird mode, the Studio Series toy has better articulation. I'll also mention, though it could just be my copy, but the elbows are super lose. They'll droop backward holding weapons in robot mode, and struggle to support her weight in bird mode. Long story short, I like this Airazor more than the Bumblebee figure in the pack, but not enough to recommend her over the Studio Series toy. But hey, at least now I can say I've reviewed all four Maximals in both Studio Series and mainline ROTB forms. For the Autobots we're still missing a mainline Arcee, a Studio Series Pablo, and both for Stratosphere, and Nightbird is the only Terrorcon to recieve a mainline release. No, I didn't forget about a mainline Deluxe Mirage... he's the third figure in this set! My initial impression was a bit underwhelming, as he's almost entirely two shades of gray plastic broken up by a smattering of blue. And the colors aren't even in the right spots half the time... he should only have a little blue on his shins, not the whole thing. Most of his thighs should be silver, with a little blue on his hips. The mechanical details on his lower torso should be the darker plastic instead. And a little extra paint to pick out the lights on his chest and hips might be nice. And that's not even counting the very different head sculpt that is either based on an earlier design, or a battle mask he never used in the film. But then I took a deeper look at him. The molded details on his body are actually pretty movie-accurate, and he better captures the lanky proportions seen in the film than the Studio Series toy. And, ok, he's got some car kibble on his calves (and fake tires behind actual tires), shoulders, and the backs of his forearms, plus a bit of a backpack. There are tires on his shoulder kibble instead of behind his back. But realistically, that's less kibble, and more importantly less obtrusive kibble, than the Studio Series toy. Judging by his instructions, Mirage is supposed to come with a blaster not unlike the one that the Studio Series toy does. I can't confirm this, though, as my copy came with a second set of Airazor's swords. But anyway, Mirage's head is, you guessed it, a ball joint with very limited upward tilt and basically no sideways or downward tilt. His shoulders rotate and move about 90 degrees laterally. His biceps swivel, and his elbows bend slightly over 90 degrees. No wrist swivels, but his waist can swivel. His hips, which are ball joints, can go 90 degrees forward, almost 90 degrees backward, but only about 45 degrees laterally. His knees bend 90 degrees. He lacks any kind of foot tilt or ankle pivots. With the paint and the licensed alt mode, Studio Series Mirage is the clear winner in alt mode. And what's up with the wheels on the mainline figure? They molded them out of the silver-gray plastic, then painted the rims black when they should be silver, but left the tires gray when they should be black. I'll give credit where credit is due, though. Mainline Mirage isn't the pain-in-the-rear to transform that the Studio Series figure is. Again, I'm missing the blaster that Mirage is supposed to come with. But if I had it, it would have a pair of 3mm posts that fit into those ports on his bumper. I have to wonder... what was going on at Hasbro? I think this figure might be better than the Studio Series toy. If he had a more accurate deco, a licensed alt mode, and ankle pivots he'd definitely be better than the Studio Series figure. Why didn't Hasbro use this engineering on the Studio Series figure, then? Well, it's my understanding that Porsche had some weird rules for using the licensed 911. Like one of them was that the doors had to be one unbroken piece, which lead to them kind of dangling off the toy's hips, whereas here some of the door folds behind the rest into his backpack, while a good chunk of the door remains with the front wheels on his shoulders. I dunno. As a fan of Porsches, the Studio Series toy is worth it in my mind for the gorgeous alt mode, but this Deluxe might actually be worth checking out as the superior robot, especially if you're a customizer who can give him a more accurate robot deco. I myself am half tempted to grab a second Studio Series Mirage to see if I can't transplant the wheels and head onto this figure.

I expect that it'll be a new mold- no more reusing Siege Prime's legs. I expect they'll hide the wheels, both in leg mode and the ones on his butt (comparing with Earthrise), likely with an upper body transformation closer to MP-10 than ER Prime. I also expect they'll give him the little fuel tanks that were also missing from the Earthrise design, and better smokestacks that don't have 5mm ports. I'd expect vents on his legs to be blue, not silver, and all the geometric details on his pelvis will be painted instead of just some. I think the truck mode will lack a white stripe on the cab. I expect the trailer will be closer in size to the G1 trailer, with, with the fold out supports for base mode, a bumper on the rear, doors that either fold down like the G1 toy or open with an extendable ramp like the MPs, and it'll look like a truck trailer door and not whatever Earthrise's was supposed to be. The trailer itself will likely not have the blue stripes. Inside, I think you'll get the repair drone and Roller, and the repair drone will be more accurately painted than ER with a proper claw and antenna. It'll probably be removable, with either wheels of it's own or an ability to combine with Roller. Finally, I expect it'll come with a more-accurate, better proportioned ion rifle, a Matrix of Leadership, an energon axe, and some effect parts. Mind you, that's what I expect, not what I know. The only leak I got was that it's real, the product code is F8514, and the EAN is 5010996211835.

Courtesy of a very reliable source, 2024 will see a Commander-class Studio Series 86 Optimus Prime.😮

OK, the last one might have just been Code Red, but this one is definitely Deathsaurus. 😁

They need to stop trying to sell my on the notion that a monkey, any monkey, no matter how big or strong, is actually a threat to the big G. Legendary needs to ditch Kong and bring on someone like Gigan for Godzilla to fight.

It was Stranger Things X Transformers Code Red, BTW. So yeah, with his window chest, blocky feet, and folded leg panels Code Red was sort of giving off Earth-mode War for Cybertron Trilogy Ironhide/Ratchet vibes. However, side-by-side with both that mold and the newer Studio Series 86 mold, you can see that Code Red shares no parts with either mold. The resulting figure is much taller than the other two, but with kind of weird proportions. His shoulders sit lower on his body, and they're actually shorter than either of the Vannette molds. His pelvis is also pretty thin, which gives Code Red a super narrow waist that's actually worse than it looks, as the kibble on his back makes his midsection look thicker than it actually is. He's got a bit more kibble on his back, mostly because he keeps his roof attached unlike the WFC Vannettes, but he doesn't have the more clever engineering of the Studio Series mold. I'll also note a bit of hollowing on his legs, which is disappointing to see on a collaborative figure that isn't bound to specific price point the way mainline figures are. Aesthetically, aside from Ironhide/Ratchet (or maybe ROTB Pablo) vibes, I'm not really sure what to say. Outside of the van kibble that makes up his torso, there's nothing really that ties him to Surfer Boy Pizza or Argyle. My first thought was that the ridges on his helmet were maybe meant to be like Eleven's electrode cap when she was in the sensory depravation tank, but it's not really a match for the one she wore when she was being used by the government, and she didn't wear one at all when she was at Surfer Boy Pizza. It also wouldn't explain the microphone boom on the right side of his head. The mic boom could be a reference to one that Dustin wore when trying to call the gang on his radio, especially given that Dustin kept announcing that that had a code red and this guy's name is Code Red. Anyway, Code Red comes with a few accessories. We've got a spiked club and an axe; I'm not sure if they're just random, or if it's supposed to be a callback to the gang's affinity for Dungeons & Dragons. We also have an effect part, a small block that one assumes is supposed to be a pizza box (but it doesn't open), and the Surfer Boy Pizza roof sign. Code Read's head is on a ball joint with adequate if unspectacular up/down/sideways tilt. His shoulders rotate and can move laterally 90 degrees. His biceps swivel, and his elbows bend slightly more than 90 degrees. His wrists are actually ball joints, so they can swivel and fold inward (for transformation). His waist does swivel, but only about 45 degrees to either side before his backpack gets caught on his hips. Speaking of hips, they can go a little under 90 degree backward, but a little over 90 degrees forward and laterally. His thighs swivel, and his knees bend 90 degrees. Due to how his feet transform they have no up/down tilt, but nearly 180 degrees of ankle pivot. Code Red's fist holes are your standard 5mm ports, so he can hold his weapons (or most Transformers accessories) in either hand. Code Red's axe has a 3mm peg on the top and a 3mm port in the bottom, and the club has 3mm pegs on both ends. This allows you to combine them in Code Red's hand to make a single larger weapon, as well as attach the effect part. What's more, both the axe an the club have tabs on them. The tabs allow you to plug them onto Code Red's "wings" for storage. They also allow you to connect the pizza box, which is fortunate as there's no way for Code Red to hold the box directly. The axe also has slots on it, and if you're feeling saucy (pun intended) you can use the slot on the club to attach it to the axe at a right angle. As for the Surfer Boy Pizza sign, you can pull out the front, then flip the top over to reveal a gun. What's more, the entire pizza box can slot into the top of the sign, filling in the gap created by the flipped-out gun barrel. The gun also as a 3mm port on the tip, which makes it compatible with his effect part. While I think Hasbro might have intended it to be fire, I like to imagine Code Red is loading pizzas into it because it's firing molten cheese at his enemies. As with his other accessories, you can store his gun/sign on his back by plugging the 5mm peg handle into the 5mm port on his back. While technically a new mold that doesn't use parts from WFC Ironhide or Ratchet, they actually do share quite a bit of engineering. You still have to open up his chest window a bit and fold his head into his chest. His arms still fold behind his torso, and he still rotates 180 degrees at the waist. His shins still open up , and the sides of his legs still unfold to form much of the side of the van. The biggest differences here are that his feet bend 180 degrees at the ankles to sit inside the van instead of forming the back of it, and and most of the roof and the side windows are formed from a non-removable backpack. The Volkswagen Group must be softening its stance on licensing due to the popularity of Transformers these days. Not only have they licensed the Beetle for Hasbro to make two G1 MP Bumblebees, one Walmart-exclusive WFC Trilogy Bumblebee, an MPM Bumblebee, and a Studio Series Bumblebee, they also licensed the Lamborghini Aventador and Centenario for Studio Series Lockdown and Hot Rod, respectively, and more recently Studio Series Mirage got a licensed Porsche 911 toy (next year's Studio Series Wheeljack is also a licensed Volkswagen Type 2). To retain accuracy with Argyle's Surfer Boy Pizza van seen in the Stranger Things show, Hasbro again obtained a license from Volkswagen to make Code Red a Volkswagen Vanagon. Code Red looks really good from the front. From the sides, I appreciate that they included details like the vents at the rear, side mirrors, and marker lights near the rear bumper. However, while the "Surfer Boy" and "Delivered hot to your door" are fine, the "Pizza" should be much bigger and closer to the front, and he's missing the telephone number entirely. Plus there's the large hinges bulging from the sides, the hinges that cut into the rear windows, and the unsightly gray hinges above the middle windows. From the back, again I like that they tried to capture real details like the taillights, the raised strip above the taillights, the VW logo in the middle, the "Volkswagon" on the left, and the "Vanagon" on the right, but the gray hinges break up the area where the license plate and keyhole would be, and I'm no clear why they couldn't have molded the sides of his feet so that when the swung around they lined up better with his shin panels to form the window instead of leaving those huge gaps. Also, in the show the Surfer Boy Pizza logo was painted on the window, with "delivered hot to your door" just under the window, and that's all missing here. He could probably have used a little silver paint on his rims, too. The sign gun plugs into the top to be the surfboard sign, and it's fine. To store his other weapons, you use the tabs that attached them to his backpack to plug them into slots on the hinges on the sides of the van, with the effect part and pizza box attached to them. And... it'll do, I guess. I don't exactly recall Argyle rolling up with a club, an axe, and a pizza strapped to the sides of the van, though. If you're like me, you might be inclined to ditch the club and the axe entirely; Code Red's sign that turns into a gun seems adequate enough. Although, I do like that the pizza can go into the gun. Fortunately, you can still stow the pizza inside the van. As you transform Code Red, with his head tucked in and his arms in place just under the roof, you'll notice there's a little space in his chest still. You can stick the pizza in there, then fold his waist to bring is legs up and finish transforming the van. The pizza is technically rattling loose in the van's cabin, but there's enough room that it doesn't actually interfere with your ability to transform him, and once he's fully transformed his waist will trap the pizza inside and prevent it from falling out. I don't really know where I'm landing on Code Red. On the one hand, Code Red is a very adequate figure with good articulation, good accessories, a simple transformation, and a mostly-accurate alt mode. And, as an homage to the '80s, Stranger Things and Transformers are, on paper, a good match. That said, the appeal of Ectotron and Gigawatt (and, to a lesser extent, maybe Ultimate X-Panse and the Jurassic Park collabs) is they are directly tying into other things from our childhoods that we might be nostalgic for. And while Stranger Things itself might tap into my nostalgia for the '80s, at no point while I was watching it did I think, "wouldn't it be cool if Hasbro made a Transformer version of Argyle's pizza van?" the way I genuine crave a Knight Rider X Transformers KITT, a TMNT X Transformers Party Wagon, an Airwolf X Transformers Bell 222, or an A-Team X Transformers GMC Vandura. It's not nostalgia, it's present-day pop culture. That's not necessarily a bad thing; I myself have all the Letterkenny Funkos on my mantle. If you're into both Transformers and Stranger Things then, just as a toy, Code Red's actually one of the more solid figures Hasbro's released in the Collaboratives. Solid or not, though, he's not really giving me the same endorphins as a guy like Ectotron did, and I'd really love it if Hasbro stopped collaborating with whatever and whomever (Volvo X Transformers, anyone?) and refocus on combining Transformers with other staples of my youth.

Big Firebird Mocha (Mooka)

I don't buy a lot of Toyhax labels, because their MO these days seems to be to make sticker sets that cost nearly as much as the figure they go on packed with way more stickers than you actually need to add details no one asked for. That said, I did recently pick up two sets. The first set is for Studio Series 86 Ratchet. And frankly, most of what I just said applies here- it's $15, and comes with stickers that kind of mimic the G1 toy's to add details to his biceps, pelvis, knees, and the insides of his legs, plus options for red or yellow eyes and a red crest... which might be ok, except the G1 Vanette toys are rarely the go-to designs that you want referenced, and quite frankly on a toy meant to represent Ratchet's appearance in the 86 movie they just look busy and out-of-place. However, I think it's still kind of an essential set for three reasons. 1.) It gives him cartoon-accurate crosses for his shoulders (although you'll need to take a little rubbing alcohol to the "please don't sue us Red Cross!" designs tampoed on his shoulders already, if you don't want the corners peaking out from behind the sticker). 2.) Most importantly, it gives you red stripes down the sides of the ambulance mode. 3.) It also gives you cartoon accurate crosses for the sides under the stripes. Beyond that, I also went ahead and used the cross for the roof; I think it's a sometimes there, sometimes not detail in the cartoon but it's one of the few toy touches I don't mind. I also used some of the decals for the back of the ambulance- chrome for the bumper, a license plate, a red stripe, taillights, some extra lights near the top, the rear window, and the word "AMBULANCE" in black print. They're real-world ambulance details that, as they're on the back, don't stand out too much in alt mode, and are hidden under his feet in robot mode. I avoided any other ambulance stickers that would be seen in bot mode, even if only on the sides of his feet. The other set I got was for the Core Optimus and Bumblebee set. I wouldn't say it's necessary, but it's relatively inexpensive. For Prime's bot mode, there's the arrows for his forearms, yellow triangles and a yellow rectangle for his pelvis (which is good, because only the triangles were painted by Hasbro), a blue sticker for his crotch (which is molded but unpainted on the figure), some stickers for his toes and knees that are sort of toy-ish so I didn't use them, and blue stickers for his windows. Normally I don't use the window stickers, but in this case Prime's windows are painted, not translucent. The stickers are a similar shade of blue, but they have a sheen to them, plus there's windows for the sides of the cab, too. As for Bee, there's window stickers, a black triangle for his crotch, new headlights and tail lights, and some extra details for his rear. I didn't even bother with Bee's stickers. What actually makes the set worth it is actually the stickers for the inside of the trailer. There's a ton, and they help highlight molded details. For instance, I didn't realize that the two diaclone consoles are actually molded into the sides of the trailer. As a result, it's one of the few sets that (Bumblebee stickers aside) I really did use almost the whole set.

Last year Hasbro was shipping Victory Saber faster than it was sending it shipping emails. I think I got my notice from Hasbro a couple days after I already had him in hand. However, Hasbro almost always uses FedEx, so the trick was to sign up for FedEx's informed delivery. If you got an email from FedEx about a package coming from Pulse but nothing from Hasbro you could bet it was Victory Saber. Well, today I got an email from FedEx, and I was pretty excited! Friday was the cutoff to change your info, so Deathsaurus should be shipping very soon! ... But then I saw I did get an email from Hasbro. And it's not Deathsaurus.

I'm not sure how I feel about this. On the one hand, it seemed like a really cool idea and I'm a bit sorry to see it die. On the other hand, I never used it because I had no interest in the figures they used as the bases for the Selfie Series.

OK... so for reasons I am not privy to, nor do I understand, Hasbro and Target worked out a deal to make Studio Series 102 Rise of the Beasts Optimus Prime an exclusive to Target's Buzzworthy Bumblebee collection. As they do with store exclusives, Hasbro sold a limited number through Pulse. Meanwhile, while Target did apparently stock a few in stores, they canceled a large number of preorders and quickly listed the figure as "discontinued," leaving quite a few collectors in the lurch. Those collectors barely had time to post their displeasure on the internet before KOs started popping up. A relative newcomer to the scene is a company called Baiwei, who'd previously done KOs of Studio Series Ironhide, Shockwave, Sentinel Prime, and Optimus Prime from Dark of the Moon. But since Baiwei was beaten to the punch on doing a 1:1 KO of ROTB Optimus they took a bit of a different approach and decided to KO a different unofficial figure (assuming that Baiwei isn't related to the original), Lemontree's LT-01 Lemon Prime. Lemon Prime released over two years ago, and was meant to represent Bumblebee Optimus, not Rise of the Beasts. It was a figure that seemed kind of interesting, but was overlooked by a lot of people because it was a bit over a head shorter than Hasbro's own Studio Series 38 Optimus- too big to be a Legends figure, too small for Studio Series. So the first thing that Baiwei smartly did was to make their version, TW-1027 Cybertron Commander, scale better with Studio Series. I think Baiwei made a few other minor changes to the mold (I'm not totally sure, as I myself didn't buy Lemon Prime), but they definitely made changes to the deco. Like SS-38, he's got black hands instead of blue, and he lost a lot of Lemontree's accents including some copper in some of the mechanical details on his legs and abs and some silver on his forearms. Also, in an attempt to ride the Rise of the Beasts wave, Baiwei removed the blue from the crotch and the red from lats, and added silver to the sun visors on his chest. Spinning him around, Cybertron Commander has also lost some of the red on the outsides of his forearms, blue on his calves, and fins on his smokestacks are painted silver. As a Bumblebee Optimus, while I do wish Cybertron Commander was closer to Lemontree's original deco, it's hard for me to fault Baiwei too hard here. Black hands, missing silver on the arms, missing red on the lats, missing blue on the crotch and calves? You can say the same about the official Studio Series figure. Meanwhile, Cybertron Commander has better proportions with less backpack, less forearm kibble, and much more accurately-shaped legs and feet. As a substitute for SS-102, he might pass at a glance but he lacks the circles on his knees (that technically didn't belong on SS-38), the sun visor isn't big enough, and the shins and feet have some subtle shape differences that mark them as Bumblebee Prime, not Rise of the Beasts Prime. Cybertron Commander comes with a lot of accessories. He lacks the stand and extra hands of the original Lemon Prime, but he's got the rifle. Baiwei also added rim covers, a second head based on SS-38's, two swords, an axe, an arm blaster, a translucent globe, and some extra gear for the truck bumper. Cybertron Commander's head is on a ball joint that can look up a little, down not too much, and only slightly sideways. His shoulders rotate and move laterally almost 90 degrees. His biceps swivel, and his elbows are double-jointed and bend nearly 180 degrees combined, and he's got a slight backwards butterfly due to transformation. Unfortunately, he doesn't have wrists swivels (or removable hands) like the original Lemon Prime did. His waist swivels, though, and he's got 90 degrees of ab crunch thanks to his transformation. His hips have a joint that swings the actual hip down and forward, allowing him to kick 130-140 degrees forward, and a respectable 90 degrees backwards or laterally. His thighs swivel just above his knees, which bend 90 degrees. Ball joints in his ankles allow his feet to swivel, tilt slightly up, and tilt a ton down, and a transformation hinge gives him 45 degrees of ankle pivot. Note that while most of his joints are adequate, the ankles on my copy were super loose, to the point where he had a hard time standing. I had to give them several coats of floor polish before I could take these photos. On that note, he also holds his rifle and axe a bit loosely, His swords, though, are quite snug. They're basically just 5mm peg handles and 5mm port fists, which means you can also give him SS-38's rifle, or share his weapons with any of the official Studio Series Primes. That also goes for his big arm blaster. It's simply hollow underneath, with a 5mm peg inside. That said, I wish the peg was closer to the barrel and the hollow section covered more of his forearm. It's like the wanted to make up for SS-102's little stumpy blaster, but over-corrected. It's also a bit heavy for his shoulders. As for the other accessories, as I noted before the extra head seems to be based on SS-38's. I don't know which is more accurate, but I prefer the longer ears on the Lemontree head. The translucent globe, another giveaway that this is actually Bumblebee Optimus, plugs into a port on either forearm and is for recreating the scene in Bumblebee where Prime orders B-127 to go to Earth. The wheel covers, also mean to represent Prime's Cybertronian design from that movie, have tabs on the back that fit into cutouts in the rims of the wheels. Personally, to me it takes more than different rims to make a truck a Cybertronian alt mode, so I'll leave those off and hope that someday maybe Hasbro will give Bumblebee Prime a toy with a proper Cybertronian mode. For an unlicensed third-party toy (or KO of one), Cybertron Commander has a very simple, straightforward transformation. In some ways it's similar to SS-38 with the way to upper torso rotates, the lats fold out, the arms tuck in, and panels on the arms help fill in the cab. The rotate and tuck in between his legs the same. Really, the biggest differences are that his shins don't fold up and stick to the back of the cab, and instead of using hip skirts to make the back of the wheel well on the cab and flipping the fuel tanks out of the back of the thigh, more panels fold out from inside Cybertron Commander's legs and stretch along the bottom, providing some mechanical details, fuel tanks, and the bottom of the cab, tires included. Oh, and one more big difference... Cybertron Commander requires partsforming. Yeah, you actually have to remove his backpack, and remove the little gray bits on the sides of his knees. Once you have the rest of him in truck mode, you can turn the gray bits so the part that was facing forward on his leg faces toward the cab, and the divot on the top is facing up (divot down would look like it simply rotated 90 degrees, the way SS-38's due, but it'll cause them to pinch against the tires and inhibit his ability to roll). Then, flip the keyed peg on the backpack and plug it back in to finish up the front of the cab. The result is pretty good. A little smaller than SS-38, and still a bit gappy between his robot thighs. His robot shins are also quite prominent, and he lacks a hitch to pull any kind of trailer. The back is a lot cleaner than SS-102, though, and the cab is cohesive. He's got rubber tires, which is a nice touch. Sadly, he lacks any method of storing any of his accessories in alt mode. \ As a replacement for SS-88, I think his truck mode is pretty good. The wider stripe on the cab and the design of the bumper do strongly suggest that this is Bumblebee Prime. I just need to take a little rubbing alcohol to the sun visor. A tab on the bumper lets you plug in the extra armor to make him better resemble Rise of the Beasts Prime. It doesn't quite pull it off, though. Although they molded the lights onto it that Hasbro seems to have missed, the overall shape of Hasbro's is more accurate. Likewise, the stripes on the cab don't angle up, the sun visor is too small and elevated, and he lacks the little wings near the smokestacks. Note that if you opt to use the bumper armor, you'll have to remove it to fully tab his backpack on in bot mode. Even if you don't mind his backpack being slightly untabbed, you'll have to remove it to flip the keyed peg around. A lot of people missed their chance to get Studio Series 102 at a reasonable price, and even those of us who did can point out many flaws with the figure, flaws that had me preorder DNA's upcoming upgrade kit for him the minute it went up. Cybertron Commander copied a design that was clearly meant to be Bumblebee Prime, but if you don't look too hard I suppose he could pass for Rise of the Beasts Prime, too. That said, from my point of view I'm expecting that DNA kit to fix most of my complaints about SS-102. Meanwhile, the more I look at it the more SS-38's huge backpack, clumsy forearm kibble, blocky legs, and pizza box flat feet bug me. I wish that Cybertron Commander's deco was closer to the original Lemon Prime's, but at the very least if I can get the silver paint off the sun visor Cybertron Commander makes an excellent alternative to SS-38 as my Bumblebee Prime. I mean, deco aside, my biggest complaints would be the loose ankles, which I tightened up with floor polish, and the bit of partsforming needed for his transformation. If I want to be really hard on him, I might also point out that the plastic Baiwei used doesn't feel as robust as Hasbro's, and you can even see some swirling in the red. However, all his flaws are pretty easily forgiven when I point out that Cybertron Commander can be had for $25 or less, well under the price of a Voyager and certainly less than I paid for either SS-38 or SS-102. So, know what you're getting into, but at that price he's an easy recommend as a figure that's going to look a lot better on your shelf than SS-38.

I'd preordered the Japanese version of him. I don't have any strong attachment to the character, but the concept is neat. After people started getting the Western version and I started hearing reports about QC issues and an overly-complicated transformation I cancelled my preorder. X-Transbots is gonna be X-Transbots, and I don't really need (or have room for) an MP-scale Punch/Counterpunch anyway.

Sat in Chinese customs for over a week.😩 Finally arrived today, but my wife and kid are off for Thanksgiving which maybe won't leave me with a lot of free time. I will try to have a review (with comparisons to SS-38 and SS-102) probably Sunday or Monday.

Killer W.H.A.L.E. Seaspray with Shipwreck, Hasbro. That one's a freebie.

Boy, I thought for sure I was pretty much done reviewing Transformers for the year. I mean, maybe Deathsaurus, if he arrives in time for me to put him through the paces, but it seems like Hasbro is having fun sending me stuff that wasn't due until 2024. Today, that means we're looking at the newest G.I. Joe X Transformers collaborative, Soundwave Dreadnok Thunder Machine. After the awful mess that was Bumblebee, Soundwave hews closer to Megatron in that he's mostly G1 but with a few extra bits of kibble here and there. Heck, from the knees up your brain almost discards the tires and kibble on Soundwave's arms and tells you that it is simply G1 Soundwave. But even where it's not, it's not so bad. The grills on his shins aren't terrible, and I honestly kind of dig his red feet for some reason. Honestly, compared to the other two, even the kibble isn't so bad. He's got tires in his calves, but that's fairly common even among regular Transformers. He's got a backpack, but it's not as big as Megatron's or as finnicky with loose bits of roll cage dangling everywhere. The worst kibble really is the bits of car on the outsides of his forearms and the tires on his biceps. Well, that and the antenna, but technically you can remove the antenna. I mean, it's not even attached in the box. That said, being better than Megatron and Bumblebee isn't a huge win. After all, like the other G.I. Joe collabs Soundwave is too big to scale with anything but other G.I. Joe collabs, and made from a pretty light, cheap-feeling plastic. He does come with quite a few accessories, though. You've got a double-barreled machine gun, some kind of large cannon, a knife, a chain, and a mini-cassette. He also comes with some of Hasbro's retro 3.75" G.I. Joe figures. This time, we get two instead of just one, Zartan and Zarana. Just like Stalker and the Baroness before them, they come packaged in blister packs on retro-styled cards that could pass for retail packaging if they weren't missing UPC codes. They both come with a stand, a weapon (rifle with a buzzsaw for Zarana, pistol for Zartan), and a backpack (so Stalker is the only one without a backpack?). In a first for me, Zartan's backpack does more than simply plug into his back. It opens up to reveal a storage space for an included mask. The mask is designed so that the edges of the mask tuck into the space between Zartan's face and his hood, so Zartan can disguise himself. Or maybe get ready to go to a Star Wars convention cosplaying as Qui-Gon Jinn. Anyway, like Bumblebee and Megatron before him, Soundwave's articulation is pretty poor for his price tag. His head is on a ball joint and can tilt up and down slightly, and sideways even slighter. His shoulders rotate and can move laterally 90 degrees. His biceps swivel, although the wheels on them can get caught on his shoulders, and his elbows bend 90 degrees. No wrist swivel, and no waist swivel. His hips can ratchet forward 90 degrees and backward a little less than that, and they move laterally 90 degrees on softer ratchets. His thighs swivel, and his knees bend 90 degrees on another soft ratchet. No foot or ankle articulation. Technically, the machine gun, cannon, and knife all have 5mm pegs, and even though his hands are larger they've still just got 5mm ports in them, so he can hold any of those accessories. However, he also has ports just behind and to either side of his head, and it seems obvious that the cannon is mean to go on his shoulder, G1 style. Note that you can pull the ammo belt on the machine gun to one side, and the molded bullets will push on little gears that make the barrels spin (which reminds me, the barrels are just tabbed in, and like the antenna are not attached in the box). His backpack has a flap you can fold down to reveal some small pegs. These pegs go into the feet of any 3.75" G.I. Joe figure, giving them a place to ride on Soundwave's robot form. If you'd like Soundwave to have both hands free, the knife has tabs on the hilt. These tabs fit into slots on the outside of Soundwave's lower legs, and the knife can stay there through transformation and into alt mode. Which just leaves the mini-cassette and chain. Well, there's a button on top of Soundwave's chest, and pushing it causes the door on his chest to spring open. The mini-cassette fits neatly inside... as should the Takara MP mini-cassettes, or G1 mini-cassettes. As it turns out, the mini-cassette is actually a redeco of MP Ravage. Which, y'know, is the best of the MP tapes, but I guess it's better than the G1 tape or, worse, the Siege version. And Ravage is where the chain comes in. It's made of a rubbery material, and one end fits over Ravage's head and snuggly around his neck. The other fits into a G.I. Joe's fist. While product photography on the back of the box has Zartan holding the chain, it's pretty obvious that it's actually meant to go with the Baroness that came with Megatron, as A.) the Baroness did this exact chain-on-Ravage thing in issue #3 of the Devil's Due Publishing G.I. Joe vs The Transformers, and was apparently iconic enough that an SDCC box set in 2013 had a Baroness figure and a non-transforming Ravage on a chain. At some point, First 4 Figures was also working on a diorama-style statue of the Baroness and Ravage, but it wound up canceled. I am curious, though... why is Ravage blue? My first thought was maybe this was an homage to the old Marvel comics, where blue was often used as a substitute for black... but the Barnoness chain thing is from a relatively more modern series. Maybe it's his Cobra uniform? I don't know. Anyway, the point of the G.I. Joe collabs is that they turn into G.I. Joe vehicles. Not like regular transformers turn into a representation of a vehicle, like how Studio Series Mirage is a 1:30-something-ish Porsche. I mean that in 1986 you could buy a Thunder Machine vehicle for your G.I. Joe figures to drive, and this Soundwave turns into a roughly 1:1 copy of that toy... which actually makes him a bit bigger than Bee or even Megatron. Soundwave's machine gun and cannon are vital to this mode, and I have to say it's actually pretty clever how they used the cannon to make the Thunder Machine's engine. His accessories aren't the only partsforming; the grills on his shins have to removed, tabbed together, then they attach to the nose of the vehicle. I think Soundwave is a tad less accurate than Bee or Megatron. Don't get me wrong, they got a ton right, from the Firebird nose to the various tampoed decals like the stars and RU0169 (with a backward R) on the sides. But Soundwave's blue plastic is a little brighter, and he's got light gray in place of dark gray/black for the guns and engine. The red running boards are broken up by a chunk of blue that Hasbro couldn't be arsed to paint. I guess they spent the paint on headlights, marker lights, and light bar instead. Typically, I do prefer paint to stickers, but I think you loose some of the sticker's details, especially in the red spots on the light bar. You kind of have to undo the back of the cabin and swivel it up to get it out of the way, but you can of course fit 3.75" Joes into either of Soundwave's seats. There's even some molded dashboard details and a steering wheel that turns. The running boards also have more of those little pegs for Joes' feet, so Soundwave can carry up to six Joes in this mode. Honestly, I don't know why I keep doing this to myself. While I watched the occasional episode of G.I. Joe as a kid, I was never super into it. I didn't have any G.I. Joe toys as a kid. And I already know that these G.I. Joe X Transformers collaborations don't scale with my other Transformers toys. Plus, compared directly to my other Transformers toys, they feel kind of crappy, have poor articulation, and extra kibble in service to their alt modes. So, just like Megatron, just like Bumblebee, no, I don't actually recommend buying Soundwave. There are cheaper, better Soundwave toys you can buy. These collabs sacrifice too much in the name of a gimmick, that gimmick being that they turn into vintage G.I. Joe toys that you can play with your vintage G.I. Joes. And the desire for such appears to be so niche that not only are both Bee and Megatron still readily available on Amazon, they've both been discounted (with Bee sitting at $48 and Megatron at $55). I have no room for these in their mediocre bot modes, let alone as part of a G.I. Joe collection. And yet, after posing them all together I found myself poking around eBay to see if I could find a couple retro figures of a few G.I. Joe characters I remember liking (mainly Cobra Commander, Destro, Duke, Snake Eyes, Serpentor, and Stormshadow, possibly Scarlett, Shipwreck, Roadblock, Flint, and Lady Jaye). Well, maybe I'll get those Joes yet, because Hasbro seems keen on continuing the line; next year we're apparently getting Sgt. Slaugher and a Triple T that turns into Kup. And, knowing full well I won't actually like it and have no room for it, I'll probably buy it anyway.

Well, as this year has been a pretty great year for videogames there have been several releases that I hadn't picked up because I was busy playing something else. I was pretty excited for the Steam sale that started today, figured I'd be able to go back and get some of the games I skipped on a discount. But... it's kind of disappointing. There's big discounts on the games that always get big discounts every Steam sale... so I have most of the ones I wanted. Newer games, though? RE 4 remake down from $60 to $40. Not bad, but not great. Hogwarts Legacy is down to $36, a little better, but I think I'm waiting for both of those games to go under $30 before I pull the trigger. Mortal Kombat 1 is still almost $50, and since I just play those for the story mode (yeah, weird, I know) that's a bit much yet. Armored Core 6 isn't on sale at all. (Neither is Baldur's Gate 3, although I already own it). Then there's the Epic Games Store. I have an intense dislike for Tim Sweeney and the Epic Games store, but right now you claim the current free game you get a coupon that you can use for 33% off your whole cart. Dunno if that stacks with the sale prices, but you can use it on regular-price games. And wouldn't you know it, they've got two very recent releases that aren't on sale that aren't even available on Steam... so I just bought Alan Wake 2 and Assassin's Creed Mirage for $67.

I don't have a lot of gaps left in my MP-style collection, at least if I'm just counting US G1 cartoon characters. Taken with the fact that the number of companies working on MP-style seems to be dwindling, and a combination of inflation, less competition, and MP-44 showing just how much collectors are willing to spend causing prices to rise, and I'm feeling like I'm just not that excited even when I do buy a new figure. Case in point, I've actually had these guys in hand for nearly a month, but I just today got the motivation to take a few pictures and talk about them. These guys being Ocular Max's Motif and Pitch, their REmix versions of Rewind and Eject. If you've picked up the previous REmix versions of Rumble and Frenzy, then you kind of know what to expect: bigger, cartoon-accurate, articulated versions of the super simple G1 cassettes. We're just doing Blaster's humanoid buddies instead of Soundwave's this time. And they are indeed cartoon accurate. They have the cartoon-style heads with the little ears, normal eyes, and a face mask. They've got the square shoulders and sculpted abs of the cartoon. The pelvis details are reduced to a cartoon-style silver square on the belt and hexagon on the crotch. And their feet are intended to match their legs, though under some lights the diecast used in the feet doesn't quite match plastic used for other parts. They're still mostly flat, and still rely on some transformation tricks to thicken out some parts. Oh, and that molded detail on the sides of their shoulders? Cartoon accurate again. Both figures come with the same accessories. I photographed Pitch's (Eject's), but Motif (Rewind) has the same stuff. Just imagine black plastic instead of blue, and red paint on the faces instead of gold. Anyway, you get a pair of guns that walk a line between being toy and cartoon accurate. You get some extra shoulder pads. And you get three replacement Studio OX faces- a stoic one, a yelling one, and a smirking one. It's here that we're running into our first bummer with these figures. I don't have any attachment to the Studio OX designs. What I would have greatly preferred is a toy-style head (basically, the OX helmet and visor, but with a face mask instead of a mouth and the visor matches the face), or even an IDW-style head (similar to the toy-style, but with a blue visor and a camera on the left side). The irritating thing was that at some point there actually were toy and IDW-style sculpt done for these guys, and hand-painted samples were produced. But at some point MMC quietly ditched the toy and IDW heads, and I don't think an explanation was ever given short of one confused minor MMC employee saying he thought the OX heads were supposed to be convention exclusives (the convention-exclusive head was actually based on the '86 movie, and was basically the default cartoon head with bigger cheeks and pointier ears). Swapping the heads is done by removing the screw from the back of the head, separating the halves, then fitting the halves of the other head around the ball joint and screwing it back together. Anyway, articulation. Their heads are ball joints with adequate up/down/sideways tilt. Their shoulders can swivel and move laterally 90 degrees. Their biceps swivel. Technically, they have single-jointed elbows that bend 90 degrees. However, they have transformation joints near the the top of their biceps that can act as a double elbow, if you don't mind breaking the sculpt a little. Their wrists swivel, and their fingers are molded as a single hinged part so they can open their hands. They have a slight swivel under their chests, and more complete swivels at the waist, plus a hinge in their abs lets them lean back or crunch their abs forward about 45 degrees. Flaps on their pelvis move out of the way so their hips can go 90 degrees forward, backward, or laterally. Their thighs swivel. They have double-jointed knees that bend nearly 180 degrees combined. The front of their feet can bend upward, but they have under 45 degrees of ankle pivot. There's actually a few things you can do with the guns. The most obvious thing is that they have rectangular handles, and those handles simply slide into their fists. The handles fold in, though, to reveal a small square tab. That tab allows you to plug into slots on their backs for storage. Or, for better replicating the G1 toys, they can be plugged into the sides of their forearms. Speaking of replicating the toy, there are the included shoulder pads. These simply clip over the existing square shoulders and give them angled look that sticks out a bit further, to better mimic the shape of the G1 toy. However, they have to be removed for transformation, and that's a bit dumb, as the convention-exclusive versions had shoulders that had that angled look that replaced the square ones rather than fit over them, and those shoulders could be kept on during transformation. While I'm in complaining mode, something that you're not likely to notice just looking at the figure on a shelf but will absolutely drive you crazy when you handle the figures are the way their backs and chests work. Basically, the pecs and traps split in half and there are panels on them that swivel up to cover the head in tape mode. That's fine (although I've heard of a few people breaking the chests at the swivel point). The issue is that in bot mode they do not lock in place in any way, meaning that as you manipulate the figures they won't stay in place. The transformation for these guys might just be the easiest of all the REmix tapes so far. Tuck away the hands, swivel the panels on his chest and pack to cover his head, bring his shoulders up beside his head and scrunch the arm using the elbow and bicep hinges, then swivel the panels on the sides of the forearms around to form the bottom of the tape. Open the shins, then use the multiple knee hinges to collapse the lower legs onto the backs of the thighs, then swivel the thighs and tuck the leg up against the torso so the part with the spools tabs into place (if it seems like it doesn't fit, make sure you split the bottom of the feet and folded them out). The shins will double-hinge forward to fill in the sides of the tape. The A side of the tapes has tampographs that are at least somewhat reminiscent of the G1 stickers. Aside from no window to see the tape inside the cassettes, from that side they do look passably like cassette tapes. The B sides are pretty plain, although that's likely a necessity to recreate their robot modes in a cartoon-accurate way. As cassettes they don't do much. They do come with acrylic cases that could hold a real cassette. Sadly, as was the case with their Steeljaw, the inserts with the instructions do not fit inside the case, rather, they fit around it like sleeves. Also, when going into tape mode you'll notice slots inside the shins. The slots allow you to store their weapons, one in each leg, while they're in cassette mode. I have mixed feelings about these guys. On the one hand, even if it is a bit simpler than previous figures, the way MMC manages to move parts from a thin cassette to bulk out areas in the forearms and lower legs is still impressive, and these guys have pretty great articulation. And it's nice that Blaster's tapes are getting some love; not sure when Ramhorn is coming, but he is coming. And Blaster's tapes were the only ones I actually had as a kid. On the other hand, the chest and back panels are super annoying. Taken with the somewhat simpler transformation, and I wonder if these guys couldn't have used a bit more time in development. There's a lack of refinement here. A lack of refinement, and a lack of accessories, as the far more desirable toy-style and IDW-style heads somehow didn't make the cut. Long story short, I'd say I do recommend them, if you've been collecting the REmix tapes and you prefer their larger size for your MP display than the smaller KFC or Fans Toys ones, but also know that they're probably the REmix tapes that I find to be the most disappointing.

Generally speaking, multi-monitor setups are better for productivity (regardless of curvature), as it's easier to assign specific windows to specific screens. A single ultrawide with something like 1000R curvature is better for immersive gaming. Since I do mostly gaming I've actually been eying Samsung's Odyssey Neo G9 (yeah, I know, the OLED one is prettier, but it's less curved and I hear Windows has problem display high-res fonts on OLED displays). But in your case I'd maybe look at a three or four smaller display setup, like a 24-27" horizontal main display with a 21-24" display directly under it, then a vertical display on one or both sides.