mikeszekely

While I sometimes get leaked Intel about what Hasbro is doing Takara is a total mystery. That said... It looks pretty obvious that they're doing MPM Sideswipe. The fact that there's two of them suggests they're doing both the RotF version and the convertible DotM version. MPG Hot Rod is causing quite a stir at the board that shan't be named. The silhouette looks an awful lot like SS86 Hot Rod. I find it amusing. I recall when 86 Hot Rod came out that everyone was saying it was so much better than MP-28 that Takara should just upsize it. Now it looks like they are upsizing it and everyone's mad. As for the "new Legends," I'm not sure what to make of that. The image is Lio Convoy... Are they doing an improved deco for Nemesis Leo? A different Lio Convoy deco? suggesting that the more-accurate T-spark remold of the Legacy toy is the first of a new line of improved Takara decos like Legends used to do all the time?

Oh please let this be the first of all five dinobots.

It might help if I knew a bit more about what kinds of tasks you do besides presentations, and what kinds of games you want to run. On paper, both of those Zenbooks should have similar GPU performance (Arc is slightly more capable, but Radeon is more stable with more mature drivers), both capable of playing most modern games at 1080p low-to-medium. Both also should offer more CPU performance than the Yoga, with the Intel CPU pulling away from the Ryzen by a wider margin. If you do decide to pull the trigger on another laptop shoot me a PM. I'm not sure if she'd actually want it, since she mostly uses her laptop for spreadsheets and web browsing, but that Yoga you already have should still be better than what she's using, so I might be interested in buying it off you if you're not going to use it.

Somehow I forgot that setting Batocera up properly involves literal days of scraping box art... Aside from that, I'm coming along. I've got the following set up with (nearly) complete North American retail sets (with a smattering of Japanese and European games) with box art for: Atari 2600 Atari 5200 Atari 7800 Atari Lynx Atari Jaguar Colecovision Intellivision Magnavox Odyssey 2 NES SNES Gameboy Gameboy Color Gameboy Advance Virtual Boy N64 Turbo Grafx 16 Sega Master System 3DO I should also have (nearly) complete sets, but hit my daily scraping limit so box art, for Sega Genesis Sega CD Sega 32X Sega Sega Saturn Sega Dreamcast Neo Geo AES Then, due to storage constraints, I have more curated collections with art for A variety of arcade ROMS that run in MAME TurboGrafx Turbo CD Bandai Wonderswan Nintendo Gamecube As well as curated sets that still need box art for Sony PlayStation Sony PlayStation 2 Sony PSP I've tested at least one game for every included platform successfully, so I know I at least have the emulator cores and BIOS files set up right. I'll start scraping again tomorrow, then I have to wait for my Sinden gun to come so I can see how it works.

I mean, yeah, those aren't gaming specs, but unless you feel you really only want one laptop and better gaming performance is a must I'd definitely keep it, the non-gaming specs are pretty solid. I'd go so far as to suggest if I saw the same laptop under $400 I'd buy it myself, as it's better than what my wife uses.

Honestly, because the G14 is small but powerful with a gorgeous OLED screen it's usually my go-to when I'm not at my desk. That said, I have an Asus Vivobook 15 with a Core i3 I bought for around $300 probably 4 years ago that I replaced Windows with Linux Mint and upgraded the RAM from 8 to 12 GB. For light duty it still holds up pretty well, and when it does slow down I can always switch from the Cinnamon desktop to a lighter one. It's useful to have whenever there's something I need to do that's just easier with Linux, like copying a ton of files to an SSD I set up for Batocera. I also picked up an Asus CX15 Chromebook for something like $120 during the back-to-school season. I was mostly curious because I'd never used ChromeOS before. As an Android phone user I liked that it was super easy to read and reply to my text messages on it, but for something basically just running a browser I found it to be kinda slow. Since I have one big ultra wide monitor for my desktop, the Chromebook mostly gets used when I want to use the Internet at my desk when my desktop is running a game. Finally, because I used to work in IT and I prided myself on being versed in both Windows and MacOS, I have an M1 MacBook Air. It still runs pretty great, but I may sell it to a friend who only uses Macs but is stuck with a very old Intel Mac Mini if I can find a good deal on a M3 or M4 Air. Mind you, a good deal is rarely less than $700, so I wouldn't say that a MacBook is ever a "cheap" secondary device. But for non-gamers that don't need a specific Windows utility the way Apple wrings the performance they do out of a system with just 8GB of RAM, the solid battery life, and the unrivaled stand-by battery makes them a strong choice for a primary device. What specs on that Yoga? Unless you really need more power I'd keep it just for the OLED display.

Not bad, nearly $1000 less than I paid 10 months ago. And with NAND chip prices going bananas I doubt you could build a PC that cheap right now with those parts.

Yeah, it's a lousy time to be into tech. My Batocera box is coming along... now that I finally got around to opening it up, yanking the SSD, and sticking it into a different computer to actually install Batocera. Tried to install Batocera on a USB drive, then using that boot to install Batocera to the SSD, but it failed. Then you have to put it back in back in the original box and boot it so Batocera can do it's initial setup, before shutting it down, pulling the SSD again, and connecting it to a third computer (this time running Linux) because that's still the easiest way to load the games. Of which, it turns out, I have a bit more than 1TB I want to use. Now, the Beelink SER5 I bought has a second m.2 slot, but a quick check online tells me that we're already at the point where even a 512GB drive costs about what a 1TB drive did a few months ago. I was originally hoping to do complete or near-complete North American sets for everything up to Dreamcast, but I'm going to have to whittle the CD-based consoles down to just what I might actually play, especially because I want to get a few PS2 and Gamecube games on there. But, hey, I hear Sinden light guns are pretty much plug-and-play with Batocera now, so I ordered one of those. I'll make sure the Time Crisis, Point Blank, Virtua Cop, etc games make the cut.

Brawl shipped with the other Voyager in this wave, Amalgamous Prime. Which means, for those keeping score, we got the first two Deluxes over two weeks ago, then the Leader and both Voyagers right before Christmas, so we're just waiting for the other two Deluxes. Compared to some of the other Primes, Amalgamous has little source material to pull from. Some Primes, like Alpha Trion and Prima, were sort of established ancient Transformers before the concept of the Thirteen and were kind of naturally slotted in. Others, like Micronus and Quintus, were created to fill out the Thirteen's ranks after the concept was established, and were used to explain or tie together bits of Transformers lore, like "why Minicons?" and "why Quintessons?" But thing thing with Micronus and Quintus is that, for one, they had fairly clear designs in The Covenant of Primus, and two, they both eventually appeared in Transformers media, with Micronus being a sort of mentor to Optimus in Robots in Disguise and Quintus' Emberstone kicking off the creation of Terran Transformers in Earthspark. But then we come to Amalgamous. He's an important part of the lore, now... his artifact, the T-Cog, is the template for every Cybertronian's T-Cog and the reason why Transformers can transform. But on the other hand, he really hasn't appeared in anything outside of The Covenant, where he's described as constantly shifting forms. And the one picture of him is an almost Bayformer-esque collection of mechanical parts and crackling energies arranged in a multi-limbed monstrousity with something that might be a head at one head. I'd say that this toy owes less to The Covenant and more to Transformers One. I think they all have four arms and digitigrade legs, but the TFOne version seems to be where we get the color scheme, and AOTP Amalgamous' head seems to be based on details from TFOne's stomach. Maher and Yuki coaxed the design into a something a bit chunkier and a bit more greebly, to better match the aesthetics of the other ten Primes released so far, and with his mono-eye you can bet that they were thinking of characters like Shockwave and Whirl when they were deciding how different characters are descended from different Primes. Even still, the deviation from a more typical "humanoid" design makes him stand out a bit from the others. Amalgamous' weapon his a scythe. In The Covenant of Primus it says that his weapon was constantly shifting, but at one point was indeed a scythe, and he's depicted with a scythe in Transformers One concept art as well as in a hologram in a scene in the actual film. The blade can fold over, and the rear can be removed to reveal a little pistol, which I guess fists with the shifting nature of Amalgamous and his weapons. A translucent orange bit comes off the end as well. It's designed to look like the T-Cogs seen in Transformers Prime. But is that bit the real Transformation Cog, THE artifact of Amalgamous Prime? See, if you open up his head, you can pop out his mono eye, which turns out is just the 5mm port on the end of what appears to be a more traditional T-Cog, like the ones seen in Transformers One, in various IDW comics, and most originally of all, like the one Starscream's ghost had to steal from Trypticon to give to Unicron in the G1 cartoon. Anyway, Amalgamous's articulation isn't the best, likely due to his non-traditional design. His head's on a pair of hinges, as much for transformation as actual articulation, that lets him look down as his crotch but no real upward or sideways tilt. His head can swivel, but only insomuch as it's actually pegged in. The back of his head collides with his "neck," limiting him to about 30 degrees or so to the left or right. His shoulders swivel, but he's only got one shoulder for both arms on either side, so moving one automatically moves the other. They can at least move laterally independantly, and around 180 degrees at that. His biceps have swivels both at the shoulder and just above the elbows, which may be useful given that his biceps have a weird bend to them. Speaking of elbows, they bend 90 degrees. His wrists swivel, and they can bend inward. His waist swivels. His hips can about 90 degrees forward, backward, and laterally. His actual anatomical knees have swivels, but no bending; they're permanently set at a 90 degree bend. There is a joint below the yellow knees that bends from not-quite-straight to over 90 degrees forward, and a joint below that that goes from slightly forward to about 60 degrees backward. Foot tilt, I guess? His ankles pivot 90 degrees. Amalgamous can hold his scythe, his pistol, or the T-Cog in his face in any of his four hands. You'll also find 5mm ports and pegs in a variety of places all over his body. There's a gimmick we'll get to in a minute. As Transformations go, you can take the entire robot and turn him into this sort of walking tank without partsforming anything but his weapon. Open the front of his back and stuff the back of his back inside. Swivel his waist 180, and fold his upper body up. Swing his legs back and scrunch them into the space you emptied out of his back, and tuck his head into the space between his upper and lower body. Then just spread his arms out and balance him on his fingers. To complete the tank look, peg his scythe into his back so that the pistol on it is pointing forward. I mean... it's a thing. I'm not going to judge an alien robot with an infinity of transformations too harshly on "this is what they designers could come up with on a Voyager budget." The little boosters on his back are even a nice touch. I think my biggest complaint is his obviously tank-tread feet chilling on the top rear while he walks on his fingers. But as I mentioned, Amalgamous is supposed to have infinite alt modes, a sort of constantly-shifting form. How do you get that out of a Voyager-class toy? Well, I don't know if it's the only or even the best way, but the team decided that their way was going to be the Weaponizer route. Yes, you can transform Amalgamous without partsforming... but you can also break him down into these constituent parts and re-arrange him however you please. Though the instructions do include a number of suggestions. For starters, the front arms have wheels and the back arms have winglets. Bend the elbows up and you can connect them together into a sort of truck. Fold out the wings on the arms, stick them together, and you've got a little jet. You can also stick one of the shoulder-eye-thingies between them and make bits that look like drones. Get his legs and weapons involved, and you can build a little tank that kind of reminds me of a Zeon Magella Attack tank from Mobile Suit Gundam. The thing with all those "official" configurations, though, is that they just use Amalgamous' limbs. I messed around with him for a bit to try to work the body in, too, and wound up with something that looked a bit like a Magitek Armor from Final Fantasy VI, but I'm feeling like his best moves are probably to either stick with his standard non-partsforming alt mode or to not transform at all. Ultimately, my biggest problem with Amalgamous isn't really how weird he looks with the more humanoid Primes, his nowhere near infinite alt modes, or the fact that the handful of alt modes he does have aren't very good. My biggest gripe is how poorly his limbs and head are pegged in. Even when you push them in all the way, on my copy at least, simply trying to get him in a decent pose is likely to cause one or both of his legs to pop off, and I can all but promise you his head is going to come off, likely multiple times, when you don't want it too. His fighting with Quintus for me for the worst of the Thirteen so far; I feel like you can do more with Amalgamous so he's less outright boring than Quintus, but Quintus is just a boring Deluxe while Amalgamous is kind of a frustrating Voyager. If you're in for all thirteen of the Thirteen, well, I don't think there's anything here that's so egregious as to outright dissuade you from your mission. But if you're not committed to ALL of the Thirteen, Amalgamous is one you can probably pass on.

Hope everyone had a nice holiday. My wife and I don't exchange gifts, since we're fortunate enough to be able to buy most of what we want/need throughout the year whenever we decide we want/need it. So you could say that Santa didn't leave anything for me this year... but Kenneth the FedEx driver did, from Hasbro Pulse. So I got to spend some time on Christmas Eve unwrapping Age of the Primes Voyager-class Brawl. Brawl adheres to Hasbro's current penchant for making toys that skew a bit more toward the animation than they did the past. Right away, that leads to some noticeable improvements over the Combiner Wars version, like silver forearms, improved hip skirts, and a flatter chest with slots that I'll bet are actually for combined mode but do look like the cartoon's greebles, not to mention a gray head with orange eyes and a red mouth. Brawl also adheres to Hasbro's other current penchant for not quite committing fully to the cartoon. There's extra greebles on his crotch, and the vents on his shins are painted. Another slot that I assume is for combined mode breaks up the hexagon on Brawl's abdomen, and he's missing entirely the smoke grenade launchers on his chest... a detail that the Combiner Wars toy did have, even if they weren't painted. Still, I was honestly worried that Brawl could be worse. Menasor's leg bots had those kibble capes, and Superion's had those big ol' feet that sit under the jets. Breakdown and Wildrider shared entirely too many parts between them, and while I think Hasbro was a bit better about remolding the Aerialbots the actual engineering between both arm bots and both leg bots was the same. Hasbro clearly being tight with the budgets. And from this very own set, Vortex was kind of meh. I mean, he looks ok, but the arm kibble drives be a little nuts (more so because, despite not messing with him much, the flap with the stabs is super loose). However, Brawl has an edge here in that he's been bumped up to Voyager (and of the various class sizes, it seems Voyager has had the biggest percent price increase). Hasbro hasn't actually given me a lot to complain about here, short of nitpicking the fact that he's not as faithful to Sunbow as Magic Square in a manner that's 100% in-line with the rest of the post-Siege Generations soft reboot. Brawl comes with a few accessories. First, he's got his 85% cartoon-accurate gun. He's also got a pair of cannons. Brawl's head is on a ball joint- swivel, very slight downward and sideways tilt, slightly better upward tilt. His shoulders swivel and move laterally 90 degrees, plus due to his transformation he's got a bit of forward butterfly, too. His biceps swivel, and his elbows bend 90 degrees. No wrist swivel, sadly, but his waist does swivel. His hips can go about 90 degrees laterally and backward, though you may have to adjust the turret on his back, and a bit more than 90 degrees forward. His thighs swivel, and his knees bend 90 degrees. No downward tilt on his feet, but they can tilt up a little, and his ankles pivot nearly 90 degrees. Brawl can, of course, hold his gun in either hand. The cannons don't have 5mm pegs, though, so he can't hold those in his hands. What you can do is rotate the turret on his back 90 degrees and plug them into the turret, giving him a pair of over-the-shoulder guns. Want more options? There's a 5mm ports on his forearms you can plug his gun into (or other compatible 5mm accessories). And there's slots on the sides of his legs that his cannons can plug into. If you prefer less aggressive storage, Brawl weirdly has both a 5mm port on his back you can plug the gun into as well as a small slot that fits a small tab on the gun. As for the cannons, you can turn them and use different tabs to plug them into the same slots on the bottom of the turret, or you can plug them into the sides of the turret because options. If you weren't convinced that Brawl was benefitting from the extra Voyager budget yet, you will be after transforming him. His arms extend laterally, the little bits of treads on his shoulders open, and flaps on the insides of his forearms open to blend with the backs of his hands, then his shoulders rotate forward 90 degrees. The front of his chest opens so his head can fold down inside, then the entire chest (with the head inside) and shoulders disconnect from his abs and swing up. His waist swivels 180 degrees, and his feet and shins swing up. The bulk of what's left of his lower legs stretch out, sort of like Studio Series Megatron, to form much of his treads. Tab his legs together, then swing just the treads (not the knee joints) around to line up with tabs on Brawl's torso. Use Brawl's butterfly hinges to shift his arms into place, tucking them into his sides just above the treads. Speaking of, close the little treads on his shoulders and they'll tab into the ones that were in his legs. Finally, you can fold his shins over his thighs, collapsing his feet onto the backs of the shins as you do so. The turret is on a double hinge you can use to make sure you have enough clearance. Brawl's alt mode is clearly a baby-poop yellow/green/brown tank; that's probably enough for most people. Of course, I get to point out the visible gap where you can see the back of his head on the front, the gap behind the turret where his shins/feet don't quite cover his butt/hips, the gaps between his shoulder and biceps, and the gaps on the top near the sides where his arms don't totally reach his torso. I also have to point out the missing spotlight and smoke grenade launchers on the turret. Nitpicking a bit, I suppose. After all, the turret does swivel, and the cannon barrel can raise and lower. He rolls on little wheels in his treads. His gun can plug into his turret, and, in a first for an official Brawl since the G1 toy, he's got the cartoon-accurate cannons plugged into the rear of the tank, which can also be raised to nearly 90 degrees. So, I'm not going to sit here and tell you that Brawl is perfect... even on a Voyager budget I don't really expect Hasbro to pull off something like Magic Square did. Despite a number of minor quibbles, though, I feel pretty comfortable saying that Brawl is the best combiner component Hasbro's done in modern times that isn't a Commander-class toy. He's closer to the cartoon with better build quality than Combiner Wars Braw, and he's got better engineering than any of the Stunticons/Aerialbots/Constructicons/Vortex. G1 fans won't want to miss this one.

2026 is slowly trickling in, I guess. I'm sitting on one Studio Series figure, since he's a repaint/slight retool, to cover in a Repaint Roundup. While we wait, we can talk about Age of the Primes Leader-class Big Convoy. Big Convoy (who, oddly, is named Big Convoy on the Hasbro packaging despite Lio Convoy being renamed Leo Prime), is a figure I've wanted in my collection for awhile. I think that's partly because I love it when you take an "Optimus" style head and slap it on a design that's mostly red and white (or light gray) and reduces the blue to an accent color... like Lio Prime before him, G2 Optimus and G2 Hero Optimus before them, and Fire Convoy/RiD Optimus after them. Of course, there's also the fact that Magmatron was a 2024 Commander release. I confess, though, to mostly being familiar with Big Convoy through clips of the Beast Wars Neo anime, which was drawn to make him look as heroic as possible (though I'd never really noticed how asymmetrical his arms are)... ...and I kind of forgot about the fact that a lot of the Transformers from this era were kibbly shellformers. Big Convoy is no exception; his own head is almost crowded out by "shoulder pads" made from large chunks of his alt mode head. The bits of mammoth on his forearms and calves are unmistakable, but I'll let slide for being fairly unobtrusive. His hip skirts, though, are mammoth legs that just stick straight out behind him. Like, how's this dude supposed to lay down on his recharge slab at night? He comes with a good number of accessories. He's got a little pistol that I don't believe the original toy did, and I have no idea if he ever used in the show. He's got two red hooks called "Mammoth Hakens" that the original toy did have, a Matrix that the original toy had, and a big ol' piece of mammoth kibble that the original had. So... Big Convoy's head is a ball joint with a limited up/down/sideways tilt. His shoulders swivel and move laterally 90 degrees, and dedicated hinges that give him butterfly joints. His biceps swivel, and his elbows bend 90 degrees. His wrists swivel, as does his waist. If you can work around the kibble, his hips can get just about 90 degrees forward, backward, and laterally. His thighs swivel, and there's an additional swivel just below the knee, though it's primarily for transformation. His knees bend 90 degrees, and though he lacks up/down tilt on his feet he does have nearly 90 degrees of ankle pivot. OK, lots of gimmicks to get through. So, he can of course hold his gun or the Mammoth Hakens in his hands. There are also 5mm ports on his forearms and shoulders where you can attach accessories like the Mammoth Hakens. Not pictured, just because I forgot at the time, the mammoth legs on his hip skirts can swivel around so they're pointing forward. There's molded details on the bottom, as well as 5mm ports for blast effects, because they're supposed to be hip-mounted cannons. When he's not carrying them, the pistol can plug into a 5mm port on his back. As for the Mammoth Hakens, if you open the kibble on the sides of his legs you'll find 5mm ports on the white parts where they can plug in. This is basically where they went on the original toy, except instead of merely being pegged it they were spring loaded and could be fired out of his legs like missiles. Speaking of, the armature holding the mammoth kibble on his back can rock back, and the kibble itself is hinged. You can move it just to get it away from his head, but you can also swivel it to reveal painted, non-firing missiles underneath. The tusks on the back kibble are removable (indeed, they're not installed in the box). They just plug onto pegs on the kibble. There are also pegs on the mammoth kibble under his forearms, allowing you to plug the tusks in there like melee weapons. Not that he needs them... the kibble can open to reveal "Mammoth Tonfas" you can flip out. Then there's the big chunk of mammoth kibble that was an accessory. Well, there's a 5mm peg on it. You could plug it into his arm like a shield... Or, using a 5mm port near the peg, you can plug it sideways onto a 5mm peg on his pack. The peg itself is on an armature that moves out a bit to help you get the clearance to get it around the other mammoth kibble on his back and hips. I think it makes him look busy and back heavy, but I suppose it's cartoon-accurate. Also, like the toy and cartoon, the kibble can half-heartedly transform into a large cannon, the aptly-named Big Cannon. The new AOTP version even has a fold out stand to help him keep it up that the original didn't, but on the other hand it doesn't have the firing missiles the original did. With the new stand, I can't help but think that it reminds me of the Hyaku Shiki's Mega Bazooka Launcher in Z Gundam. Finally, there's his Matrix. The butterfly joints allow him to bring his fists together so it can peg into both of them, like he's holding the Matrix out in front of him. When he's not holding it, you can flip open the front of his chest and plug it inside. It's an interested detail that the space behind the chest hinge is molded to look like Optimus Prime's tummy grill. OK, finally we can transform this guy! To do that, spin his head around and push his "ears" in. Take the back kibble and swivel 180 degrees, so the missiles are pointed straight up, and then fold them toward each other so they tab together. Fold them back, then use the red armature to fold them forward again over his robot head. Rotate his forearms so that the mammoth kibble is facing you, then use the transformation hinges in his shoulders to bring the entire shoulder joint behind his back, with his arms pointed straight back for now. Swing the mammoth legs on his hip skirts around, then fold the skirts up so the mammoth legs plug into the spaces his shoulders just vacated. Fold his heels in, open the kibble on the sides of his legs, then open the white part and fold his feet inside before closing the white part back up. Swivel his legs BELOW the knees, so his shins are facing each other, and tab them together. Bend his knees 90 degrees the wrong way, then use the hinged ball joint to swing the leg kibble around and inward to fill in the side of the mammoth. If you did it right, it'll tab in to two places on his side and one on his leg. Bring the small panel on the kibble around to fill in the top of the rear leg, then bring is arms down so that the peg holes on his forearms lock into pegs on the back of his waist. Bring in the big cannon to fill in his butt, back, and the gap in his head, open his ears, and you're done. In an effort to be more cartoon accurate Big Convoy eschews the two-tone fur of the original toy for a uniform brown, and he's got white eyes with painted pupils instead of green. Aside from the usual hinges, seams, and occasional visible robot kibble, he looks fine. I'll note that, while partsforming the tusks isn't strictly necessary, to have tusks that curve out-to-in in mammoth mode but also curve upward in robot mode you'll likely want to swap the right to the left and vice versa. The tusks and Big Cannon are part of his alt mode, then. The Matrix can just stay in his chest. As for the rest of his accessories, the leg kibble that turns into the mammoth's sides have a pair of 5mm ports each. You can plug one Mammoth Haken into each side, then plug the pistol onto one side so it's partially covering the Mammoth Haken. And... well, that's about it. The Front legs are hinged at the shoulders so they can move forward, but not backward, no swivels, no knees, and no ankles. His trunk has a quartet of hinges to give it some articulation, and his tail is hinged at the base so it can range from pointed straight down to pointed straight out his back. His ears can flap. And that's it for alt mode articulation. His head and rear legs are totally immobile. What's more, because the actually cannon doesn't swivel on the mammoth kibble the way the original toy's Big Cannon did, he can't do Mammoth Tank mode. The barrel of the Big Cannon is always in his butt, and can't come out of the head. Big Convoy is one of those toys that feels hard to judge. In a lot of ways, it's true to the cartoon and original toy... even when that means reproducing the flaws of the original design and delivering a shellformer with too much alt mode kibble. What's more, while Mark Maher and Tomoki Tatsumi clearly put a lot of effort into retaining gimmicks like the Mammoth Hakens and the Mammoth Tonfas, the inability to do Mammoth Tank mode feels like a step backward. I think Prime afficionados and hardcore fans will appreciate having this character in Generations scale with good articulation and many of his accessories will want him despite his flaws, but I think the G1 crowd or more casual US-only Beast Wars fans will find him a tad disappointing.

Do you need a controller for an actual Xbox, or a PC? If it's the latter, I've find that the Xbox controller, though sort of the standard, isn't all that great. For probably less money, depending on sales, I personally own and recommend the 8bitdo Ultimate 2. TMR sticks, Hall effect triggers, two programmable buttons on the back, two extra programmable bumper buttons, and a charging cradle that can but store the UBC receiver as well as double as a pass through for said receiver.

Could be the lighting; AFAIK the plane is in the front of the display, the bot in the back, and I'm not sure but I think on the second tier. Could also be because they're engineering samples and not the final product.

BTW, thought you guys might enjoy some pics from a Chinese trade show of unannounced AOTP figures. Prime Smokescreen. Someone reminded me that the original Prime Smokescreen got a Barricade repaint, and yeah, fingers crossed for that. I love the idea of a G1-compatible Barricade, but repainting Prowl was always super lazy (sorry, Guido). Animated Ratchet. It's funny, when I first heard leaks about this figure I thought it'd be a retool of Alchemist Prime. Actually, I'd thought that Alchemist would make a better Prime Ratchet, and that the Animated leak must have been mistaken. Well, turns out it's not Prime Ratchet or an Alchemist retool, it's a retool of Earthrise Trailbreaker. G1 Swerve. About what you'd expect. I'd have liked for his thighs to be white and his biceps and hands to be red, but as a retool of Gears it probably has to do with where those parts were on Gears' runners. And, oh yeah, G1-frickin' Powerglide. Bot's looking good, but the plane's looking a little rough. And hey, if he gets a Bad Boy repaint, we'll finally have Generations versions of all six eHobby Gobots.

My local Target didn't have much of interest. The only thing they had that I didn't was SS Nemesis Prime, and my copy's due to arrive tomorrow from Amazon anyway. Didn't check Walmart. When I was younger I worked in retail, and now I kind of hate shopping around Christmas. I could swing by Walmart after taking my daughter to visit my parents tomorrow, but with it being the last weekend before Christmas I'll probably avoid it and just be patient for Amazon/Pulse.

Yep, that's a dang fine-looking set of Combaticons, even if Space Shuttle is a bit too light. It's almost a shame we have to combine them (which, ok, I do it I want to write about it, but technically you could always use these guys for individual bots and keep using MMC's for combined mode...). Before we get started, we can do a little prep work by removing all their accessories, including arm guns, and transforming Heavy Gunner, Munitioner, and Tornado into their alt modes. We'll go in the same order as they were released and reviewed. Getting Heavy Gunner into combined mode is pretty easy. On the back of the tank we'll fold down the fuel drum to reveal a hole. Spin the turret, and on the front of the tank fold down a flap to reveal two round holes and one T-shaped one (or maybe I-shaped, I unfortunately hit that age where I'm starting to need readers). That trio of holes on the front of the tank will plug into pegs on top of the foot he came with. Fold up the calf, and there's a pair of tabs that fit into slots on Heavy Gunner's thighs. Munitioner will require a bit more work. Unhook the sides of the jeep from his hips, extend the double waist hinge, tuck the steering wheel in, remove the spare tire, and split the thighs. There's a gap between his legs that you need to wedge around a T-shaped peg on the gestalt foot. With the legs pushed back together with the tab between them, you can put the front of the jeep back into place and reattach the sides. Fold the gestalt calf up, and a tab will go into a slot on a hinge next to the steering wheel. Now for a little cleanup. Take the spare tire and plug it in between his seats, then fold the windshield down over it. Get the bumper and flip it over, which will reveal some grooves in the grill. The knee joint of the gestalt will slide into those grooves, and you're done there. For Heavy Gunner you'll have to split the back of the tank enough to work the T-shaped connector on the other knee down into it. We've got half a giant robot already! Night Tracer is a bit easier to begin in robot mode. Start to fold up the arms like you're going into truck mode, but don't fold the fists over. Spin his waist 180 degrees and open up his shins just enough to fold his feet inside (but NOT his heels, we'll need those in a bit). Splay open his green backpack. Special joints will allow you to extend and then fold back the biceps, then hinge them over so they're right up against each other. Another hinge will dislocate the elbow and allow you to fold his forearms against his back. On the backpack, swivel the gun barrels around to reveal bigger ones. Fold some flaps out to make the backpack wider; those flaps have tabs on them. Line up the backpack so that the forearms are nestled into cutouts for them, then close the flaps so the tabs got into slots on Night Tracer's forearms. Leave the sides with the cannons open for a minute, though. Lift the sides of his hip skirts up, turn his thighs 180 degrees, and have him do a split. Special joints will allow his thighs to split near the knees and hinge up like he's doing a Soundwave impression. His heels will hook into the backpack, and then you can close up the sides to lock everything in place. Extend the cannon barrels and that's it, that's Night Tracer's combined mode. You can attach him to the gestalt by sliding the T-shaped hole on his grundle over the peg on the gestalt waist. There's peg holes where Night Tracer's toes were, and another just above where he slotted onto the waist. Get the front of the torso and plug it on by lining up pegs on the inside to those holes. Fold the gestalt head down, and it'll tab on in four spots, onto tabs sticking out from Night Tracer's feet, and over the joints that folded the biceps over. That'll lock everything into place. So far, so good, yeah? But don't put the chest plate on just yet. Leaving it off gives us a bit more clearance around the shoulder joints. On that note, grab Tornado, split his tail, unhook his arms, fold them out of the way, untab the rotor, get it out of the way, and untab the sides so you can work with the legs. Split the legs, pull the sides of the helicopter out and flip them 180 degrees (but don't be like me and fold the bits along the tops of the sides back in, we're not going back to bot mode). Basically, you want to untab the top of the cockpit section, slide it out a bit, then flip it over so it looks like the first picture. Do that on both sides, then you can mash the legs back together, but leave the sides out for a minute. Tab the sides of the helicopter back into the chest, put the arm-engines back, and put the rotor back. Now here you have two options. The first, which is how the instructions actually show it, is to simply put the tail back together like normal. Easy enough. But, for completeness, I'm going to show you another way. Leave the first segment of the tail out, and there's a tab on it that'll go into the arm-engine. Fold the tail up at the second hinge, and a tab will plug into the first segment. Tuck the rear-most segments all the way around to the inside, folding up the stabilizers as best as you can. This look is meant to emulate the cartoon a bit more, but it does leave Tornado's head partially exposed. We can sort of cover his face by turning it back to its bot mode position, then taking the intake on his chest and double-hinging that panel up in front of his face. This will also reveal the attachment point for the gestalt shoulder joint. Lastly, get the gestalt's left hand. Tabs on it will fit into slots on the nose of the helicopter. Now you can close those sides up, locking the hand in place. I think it's easiest to start with space shuttle in robot mode, then transform the upper half of his body into the space shuttle. Splay apart his lower legs, folding out all the panels on the outside part that the wing attaches too. Fold open the panels on the bottoms of his feet, pivot his ankles, then fold the toes in and put the foot back into place. Use the double hinge on the inside panel to extend it, and fold up the tip of the vertical stabilizer. Use the double hinges on both sides of the legs to have them cover up over the thighs, then push everything back together. Rotate his waist 180, then you can attach the right hand by lining the four tabs up with four slots. Attaching Tornado is easy. You see that T-shaped peg on the left shoulder joint? It just slides right into that gap you created when you folded Tornado's chest up over his face. There's some extra steps involved with Space Shuttle, though. Untab the cockpit and bring it and the brown part it's attached to back, then angle just the purple part forward again. There's a little hatch you can open to reveal a groove. Line up the groove with the bottom of the shoulder joint and push it up into place, then close and tab up the cockpit again. Finally, like up these three big peg holes on the back of the chest plate with the three big pegs on the blue torso and plug them together. At last, we have Magic Square's Lord of War, their MP-style Bruticus! And he's going up against the reigning champ, MMC's Bruticus. So what can we see here? Well, it's kind of funny how they both copied different aspects of the cartoon. Like, MMC went out of their way to make sure that their Swindle did some actual transforming to resemble the animation model's yellow lump with a purple stripe, while Munitioner is still pretty clearly a Jeep. Lord of War has more cartoon-esque proportions in the torso, hips, and thighs, and his arms are oriented more like the cartoon (the sides of the vehicles are the fronts of the forearms). At time of writing, despite going super Sunbow on the individual robots, Lord of War has a blue torso, blue thighs, and a gray chest plate that doesn't look like part of Space Shuttle, plus gray feet. This is toy accurate, not cartoon accurate (though this is actually my preference, so I win!). While I have the toy/OX upgrade kit on my MMC Bruticus, by default he has a cartoon-style chest and feet that match the limbs. I feel like the toy look was always better for MMC's Bruticus, though, because the torso has the same wide chest, narrow waist, wide hips that the G1 toy has. MMC also has the front of the tank at the knee, not the rear, and it folds over. This is very G1 toy accurate, but not necessarily more cartoon accurate. It's more like Brawl becomes a rectangle with treads and turret. I guess the elephant in the room is size. I know a lot of people who passed on MMC's Bruticus, sticking with Zeta, because size/scale was more important to them than accuracy, and MMC's Bruticus was just too small for them (even with the extra height from the upgrade kit). Never really bothered me (my solution was to replace all the other combiners with MMC's, then they're in scale because they're equally short 😁). I didn't really think Unique Toys' Bruticus looked that bad until now. Very greebly, and the limbs look too big for the torso. If you've been using UT for your Bruticus, it's definitely time to upgrade. It's time to toss Zeta, too. They're basically the same height (I know Zeta looks a little taller here, but I think I don't have his head pushed on all the way), but Lord of War is so much cleaner and has better proportions. And, not that you can really tell from pictures, Lord of War is the most stable of the four. MMC's is pretty good, minus the loose shoulder ratchets, but UT and Zeta both want to lean. I remember when Zeta's Bruticus came out everyone was talking about how revolutionary pants were for a combiner, and how much stability they add... well, Zeta's Bruticus is the only figure I've ever had give out and fall off a shelf at 3:30am. I'm not at all worried about that with Lord of War. The individuals in this set all had pretty great articulation, so it pleases me to say that carries over into combined mode. His head swivels, can look up about 45 degrees, down until his chin touches his chest, and even has a bit of sideways tilt. The shoulders rotate, and can move laterally about 90 degrees. His biceps swivel, and his elbows bend 90 degrees. His wrists swivel and can fold back into a "stop" pose. Then each individually-articulated digit has a ball joint at the base and two addition pinned knuckles each. His waist swivels, and although it's ridiculously tight he's got that double-jointed waist dealie that their Primes and the first three Combaticons had (I think Tornado and Space Shuttle didn't because they had to build in Lord of War's elbows). That means he's got plenty of back bend or ab crunch. The hips are also like the smaller bots and drop down, allowing him to kick forward around 120 degrees, backward a little under 90, and laterally 90 degrees. His thighs swivel. His knees are actually pretty cool... there's buttons on the backs of the thighs that allow the entire joint to drop down, revealing that the knees are actually double-jointed. As such, they bend backward a little short of 180 degrees. The toes of the feet have a double hinge, so they can tilt up or down a bit, and his ankles can pivot roughly 90 degrees. Realistically, you're less limited by how he can move and more by his weight... it can be difficult to keep him balanced in more dynamic poses. Notice that his hands have slots in the palms... yet no gun? Hopefully Magic Square will make something available in the future. While he himself doesn't have a weapon, his constituent parts do. And you can store those accessories on his body! Tornado's arm guns plug in where they normally would go on the tail, just tuck the the hinges in tighter. Space Shuttle and Heavy Gunner's guns wind up in the same spots they go in alt mode, more or less, which sadly leaves them visible from the front. Heavy Gunner's double-barreled thing (or single, in my case) uses two tabs to plug into slots on the back of the calf. Likewise, combine all of Munitioner's weapons into their alt mode form and a peg on it will plug into a hole on the other calf. That just leave's Night Tracer and Tornado's guns, which plug into spots on the backpack. This set doesn't always have the most fun or intuitive transformations, but it's hard to argue with the results. We've got five excellent robots with five solid alt modes and one excellent combined mode. Aside from the transformations, the flaws are pretty minimal... Space Shuttle is a bit too light, the alt modes are maybe a little too cartoony if you like more realistic ones, the combined mode doesn't have a weapon, and the combined mode abruptly goes from a super cartoon team into a more toy-colored gestalt (which, again, is absolutely NOT a problem for me, for some reason I like most of my combiners to be cartoon robots with a toy-style gestalt). And to be totally clear, that last issue will be rectified, as Magic Square is already planning a cartoon upgrade kit. If you're on Zeta or Unique Toys (or, dare I say, Warbotron?), it's 100% time to upgrade. Lord of War demolishes them across the board. But should you replace MMCs? I think that's a tougher question. I think there's more to appreciate with the engineering in MMC's, and they tend to have more realistic alt modes. Plus, if you're a fan of G1 toy Bruticus, MMC's kind of captures the shape of the torso better. There's also the fact that MMC also has their Defensor out, and they're just starting to release their Constructicons. If you're going all-in on MMC, they'll scale better with each other. On the other hand, if you're mixing and matching, Lord of War scales better with combiners from XTB, Fans Toys, Zeta, DX9, etc. And, like I said, excellent robot modes, and a stable combined mode with better cartoon proportions and articulation. I alluded to it earlier, but the individual bot modes are good enough that you could use them as individuals with MMC's for your combined mode, if you wanted. Ultimately, for me, it comes down to something I said when I reviewed MMC's Ruination repaint. I'm not trying to take anything away from MMC here. I strongly preferred their Bruticus over Zeta and Unique Toys, even if it was shorter. The "all-built-in" engineering is pretty amazing. If they hadn't done the repaint, would I have bothered buying Lord of War to replace MMC's Bruticus? Who can say? But the fact remains that I get the experience of MMC's figures from the Ruination repaint, and I don't need two of them. So for me, yeah, MMC's Bruticus is done. After the holidays I'll put it up for sale, likely with a deep discount. Lord of War is my Bruticus from here on out.

I'm planning on running out tomorrow to get a few last minute stocking stuffers and more wrapping paper, but I'm not hopeful.

If Kosinski isn't making his sequel it's kind of a moot point.

Ok, last one before we put them all together. MD-07 Space Shuttle, aka Blast Off. I suppose, after four of these guys, we kind of know what to expect, right? Cartoon accuracy, clean design, etc. And don't get me wrong, I do think he's got better proportions, especially in the biceps, pelvis, and on his purple bib. But... he's kind of a bit too light, isn't he? Looking at him on my desk, I don't think he's as bad under normal lighting as he appears in my photos, but he could definitely stand to be a few shades darker across the board. What's weird is when we look at him from behind, if the brown on his back was used for all of his brown parts, that'd be great. Tone down the red in his purples, and darken the gray a bit, and he'd be just about perfect. Like MMC's, he's even got the extra tail on his back. I do have to note that some of the gray on his forearms isn't totally cartoon-accurate, but they turn into parts that are supposed to be gray on his alt mode, same as MMC (which is why they also used gray there). And, while not my preference, they went with the cartoon-accurate purple forehead and gray eyes. Again, this one's between Magic Square and MMC. Zeta and Unique Toys just aren't in the same league. Oh, almost forgot... if you're looking at the wing on the side of his leg in those side profile pics and thinking "that looks a bit unfinished," it's because it is. I didn't realize until after I'd edited my pictures and wrote the first four reviews, but Space Shuttle is missing the filler part on that wing. The other side is fine, and you can see the lines that match the animation. I've sent in a support ticket, but fortunately it doesn't really affect anything. Blast Off comes with his gun, naturally. We've also got the pants, in toy-style blue, and both combiner hands. So... no alternate head with a brown forehead and purple eyes? Bummer. No gun for combined mode? Bummer. And no cartoon-style gray thighs and Blast Off chest? Not a bummer for me, but I know people wanting that cartoon look will be disappointed. I have it on authority, though, that Magic Square will be releasing a separate upgrade kit with new feet, pants, chest plate, ears and tips for the ends of Night Tracer's back guns done in a more cartoon-style and colors. But still no combined mode gun.😒 Articulation is still strong on Space Shuttle. His head is on a ball joint with a swivel, which means downward tilt until his chin touches his chest, slight sideways tilt, and the ability to look almost straight up. His shoulders swivel and move laterally 90 degrees on the correct side of the swivel, with transformation hinges on the other side getting him nearly 180 degrees of total lateral movement. His biceps swivel, and his elbows bend slightly over 90 degrees. His hands are the same as everyone but Munitioner, with a wrist swivel, backward wrist bend, ball joints at the base of all digits, and a second pinned knuckle in the middle of each finger/thumb. His waist swivels, and he's got a hinge for a little under 90 degrees of ab crunch (no back bend). He's got the drop down hips, so they can can move 90 degrees backward and laterally and a bit more than that forward. His thighs swivel, and his double-jointed knees bend about 120 degrees. No real foot tilt, but his ankles pivot 90 degrees. Space Shuttle's gun has a tab on the handle that fits into a slot on his palm, which sounds almost exactly like the other members of this set, but there's a difference. The tab on the gun is lower on the handle, and the slot is lower in his palm. Somehow, this seems to make a big difference, as Space Shuttle is the best of the five at holding his gun. Space Shuttle's transformation is kind of like Tornado's, in that the upper body isn't particularly complicated (though a bit wild, how his torso opens up), but his lower legs are the apparently typical Magic Square "explode the leg into a bunch of panels that basically turn it inside out" thing. I think, aside from being a bit light, he compares favorably with Magic Square on proportions and color placement (hard to tell from the control art, or even some episodes, but some other episodes do suggest Blast Off has two shades of brown). The windows on MMC's are more like an actual space shuttle's, but Space Shuttle's window matches the cartoon. I think Space Shuttle also has an edge of Zeta and Unique Toys; Zeta's has the most realistic details but is too fat, and Unique Toys looks like the grafted the front of an orbiter to the back of some other aircraft entirely. There's a little extra gray on the bottom between the nose and wings, but that's the sides of his robot chest, so I guess a call had to be made (correctly, IMHO). There's gray paint on the vertical stabilizer that MMC's was missing. Speaking of MMC, you'll note that Space Shuttle again has four engine bells, two big and two small, vs the five (three big and two small, not counting maneuvering thrusters) on an actual orbiter. A sad blow against realism, but as I mentioned way back when I reviewed MMC's Blast Off, four actually matches the cartoon. No real gimmicks hear like an opening cargo bay or anything. His gun's handle folds in, leaving a little peg that plugs into the top of the orbiter. Amusingly, there's a small landing gear that folds out from the nose, but that's it. He rests on those big chonky faux wheels on his shins... in other words, the fake landing gear on MMC's Blast Off is used as the actual landing gear on Space Shuttle. By this point you could probably guess what I'm gonna say... great-looking robot, lots of articulation, mildly annoying transformation to a good alt mode that happens to trade some realism for more cartoon accuracy. MMC's Blast Off is still good, but if you don't have a set of MP Combaticons (or if you're using Zeta's, like a lot of people seem to) then Space Shuttle is the one to get. In fact, I'll just come out and say that Magic Square made the five best MP Combaticons. But did they make the best Bruticus? Stay tuned...

Another day, another Combaticon. We're up to MB-06 Tornado, which would be their Vortex. Huh... Are we going to have a repeat of yesterday? If Onslaught was MMC's most-compromised Combaticon, Vortex was probably the runner up. His torso was narrower at the top and widened toward his waist, which is kind of the opposite of the animation model, his feet were like little vestigial stubs, and in a set that was pushing cartoon accuracy, he didn't even have the little nacelles on his shoulders. And once again, Magic Square has sauntered up to the party and dropped a figure that's almost too cartoon-accurate. I mean, the proportions are basically spot on, the landing gear is sticking off his hips in the correct fashion, and they've even managed to replace helicopter details on his shins with the cartoon's vertical black stripes. And, just like the other three, Tornado comes off clean, with no kibble that isn't supposed to be there. And man, that's just how good Tornado comes off next to MMC's Vortex, which was a revelation for me at the time. Unique Toys looks like they took the cartoon design and made it busier and bulkier. And Zeta's just looks like they took the G1 toy's torso and started stacking kibble on him until his limbs were more folded alt mode panels than actual body parts. Aside from the little arm guns, which are attached out of the box but do come off and get partsformed for alt mode, Tornado comes with his gun. He also comes with a big chunk of the upper body for the combined mode. One kind of wonders why this bit didn't come with Night Tracer and the chest shield already attached, and why Tornado doesn't come with a hand, but we've still got one to go, right? Once again, Magic Square doesn't dissappoint in the articulation department. Tornado's head is on a hinged swivel that can tilt down until his chin touches his chest and up a full 90 degrees. His shoulders rotate and move laterally 90 degrees. His biceps swivel, and his double-jointed elbows bend a total of 180 degrees. His wrists swivel and bend back, and his got individual fingers with ball joints at the base for swiveling and folding of the palm (thumb) or curling and splaying (fingers), plus one additional pinned hinge per digit. His waist swivels, and though he doesn't have the double hinge that the other three and therefore can't do a back bend, he still has one hinge that gives him 90 degrees of ab crunch. He's got the drop down hips, which can go about 90 degrees laterally and 45 degrees backward, but nearly 180 degrees forward. Tornado can axe kick Munitioner and Heavy Gunner in the face if he wants to. His thighs swivel, and his double-jointed knees can get around 140 degrees of bend. No up/down foot tilt, and unlike the other three he kind of doesn't have a full ankle pivot. The front of his feet do have a hinge that gives him 90 degrees of faux pivot, though. By now, you can probably guess that Tornado's gun has a small tab on the handle, and that the tab fits into a slot on either palm. The connection seems a bit better than on Munitioner or Heavy Gunner, though. It's kind of interesting that Magic Square and MMC both hit on the same idea... if the animation model gives Vortex round forearms, why not make them the engine nacelles instead of the tail, and stuff the tail into his torso instead? What's surprising is that converting the waist up into the back half of the helicopter is actually easier on Tornado, as I continue to find the clearance issues on MMC's frustrating. I've owned him for years, and I still don't think I've ever transformed him without the head coming off. Turning the robot from the waist down into the front of the helicopter is another story. Yeah, MMC's Vortex is probably my least favorite all-built-in limb to transform, but Tornado's got plenty of Magic Square's usual splaying the leg apart like a flower petal opening at the knees, then flipping and turning panels until they're basically inside out. It's the sort of thing where, even after you've done it once or twice, you still find yourself scratching your head and saying, "wait, how did this go again?". But hey, at least he's not a borderline shellformer like Zeta. So, subjectively, I might argue that MMC's Vortex is a much more realistic Kaman SH-2 Sea Sprite, and therefore better (Zeta and UT went for more realistic helicopters, too, but they seem to have gone for the wrong ones, namely a Sikorsky HH-53 Pave Low and a Sikorsky SH-60 Seahawk, respectively). Objectively, we have to talk about cartoon accuracy again. Tornado's got that rounded face, something almost halfway between Vortex's lumpy G1 toy and the almost too-round cartoon. He's got the single window that wraps around the front, with the quartet of windows on either side. He's got the two nacelles just chilling on either side, with the additional intake above the cockpit. Most impressively, he's got the guns on his tail boom, but they're sticking out on little winglets. MMC, Unique Toys, and even Hasbro all included those little guns but put them right up against the tail. And if you look at his control art, it almost looks like that's how they're supposed to be. But that's just the angle of the control art; if you actually bother to watch scenes of Vortex in the cartoon then sure enough those guns are set on winglets that actually give them the clearance to fire around the crew area. This makes Tornado inarguably the most cartoon-accurate helicopter. I'll note that he's not perfect, though. The nacelles on the sides are formed from Tornado's forearms, which begged the question; what to do with the nacelles on his shoulders? Well, they flip over the shoulders and you wind up with two additional exhausts behind and between the engines. To be clear, I don't hate them; Vortex' animation model does have that extra intake over the cockpit that Tornado managed to capture, plus they half cover a gap in the tail boom. That said, they're not cartoon accurate. You may have already noticed that there is another landing gear that folds out of the tail. You might also have noticed the barrel of his gun sticking out of the nose is a most cartoon-accurate fashion. In fact, part of the reason it's so much more cartoon accurate than MMC's is because instead of sticking the entire gun into the nose it really is just the barrel. So... what do you do with the rest of it? Magic Square doesn't really say. The handle does fold in, leaving the same sort of peg that the others have used to mount their guns to their alt modes, but there doesn't seem to be anywhere on the helicopter to plug it in to. Perhaps, when we combine everything, there'll be a place on the gestalt body, kind of like how on MMC's Vortex's gun actually plugs into Onslaught. For now, though, if you split the tail boom, unhook the arms, and fold them and his head down you'll notice a cavity where the tail resided when it was in his torso. Nothing really fills that cavity in helicopter mode, so you can kind of stuff the rest of the gun in there and close him back up. It'll rattle, as it's just loose in there, but it can't fall out unless you open him back up. So that's something, I guess. Although I do like the realistic alt mode on MMC's Vortex, MMC's Vortex has always been my least favorite of MMC's combiner figures. Yeah, I like him even less than their Onslaught. So I have no qualms about handing the "best Vortex" crown to Tornado. He looks better and poses better in robot mode, and while the transformation has its annoyances, frankly, so does MMC's, so at best they'd tie there. And subjective preferences for realism aside, Tornado's helicopter mode is more cartoon accurate. End of the day, this is yet another strong effort from Magic Square with just one more team member to go.

Yeah, but it's from the current comic book, apparently. At least it seems to be a separate kit, so you can skip it. The fusion cannon is the big fix for me, but I kinda want those gap fillers. Not sure if I'll get the full A kit or just the W.

After dealing with MMC's Defensor, Mecha Invasion's Devastator, Dream Star Toys' Devastator, heck, even Hasbro's own Superion and Devastator in recent months (years?), it almost seems like the norm is for the bots to be released in some kind of random order where you wind up having to have most, if not all, of the figures before you can begin combining anything. So it's kind of refreshing that Magic Square worked from the ground up. That's right, MB-05 is Night Tracer, their version of Onslaught. Daaaaaaang. Yesterday I suggested that the gap between Munitioner and MMC's Swindle wasn't so huge, but I think even MMC's most ardent fans will admit that Onslaught was the most-heavily compromised of their Combaticons, arguably of all their combiner figures, due to the all-built-in gimmick. Then here comes Night Tracer, casually strolling onto the scene and basically nailing it. Much better proportions than MMC's, with cartoon smooth shins, a nicely tapered torso, a pelvis that isn't faking it with part of the waist, etc. And in a case that's turning out to be pretty typical for Magic Square, he does it cleanly. Like MMC, he's even got the cartoon-accurate green/brown on the outsides of his arms. Pointing out that Unique Toys was a bit stylized is beating a dead horse, but I think it's worth pointing out that prior to Night Tracer I'd have actually suggested that Zeta had the best Onslaught. But Zeta has its own issues, like the massive shoulders, oversized back cannons, Popeye forearms, and lots of panels that are kind of just folded up and stuck in places. Night Tracer doesn't need any of that! He's so committed to looking like the cartoon that he's the only one of the four to copy the cartoon's odd decision to stick a bunch of wheels on his forearms. UT turned theirs to the back, but all three of the previous releases seemed content to treat the two-forearm-plus-one-bicep-per-arm placement as an animation error and went the toy route of one on each forearm and two on either side of the torso, but Magic Square looked at the animation model and was like, "yeah, we can make that work." I may have spoken too soon on combining these guys early, though. Night Tracer comes with his gun, and a big old chest plate for combined mode... and that's it. And before you ask, no, Onslaught does not turn into the entire torso, head, and chest of Bruticus. We're gonna need some more parts for that. But in the mean time, Night Tracer's head is on a ball joint connected to a swivel. So he can look down until his chin touches his chest, up about 75 degrees or so, but unlike the previous two he's actually got a little sideways tilt, too. His shoulders swivel, and they move laterally on a ratchet just over 90 degrees on the correct side of the swivel. If you need more, there's a transformation joint on the other side of the swivel that will get his arms straight up. His biceps swivel, and his elbows bend maybe 120 degrees or so on a single hinge. His hands are like Heavy Gunner's, wrists swivel and bend backward, every digit is an individual unit that connects to the hand via a ball joint, and every digit has one additional hinged knuckle. His waist swivels, and he's got the double-hinge that gives him almost 90 degrees of ab crunch or back bend, though unlike Prime and the previous Combaticons the hinges feel a tad loose on Night Tracer. His hips are again of the drop-down type, reaching backward 90 degrees and forward a bit over that on ratchets that feel a tad loose for my tastes, and laterally 90 degrees of sturdier ratchets. His thighs swivel. His knees are double-jointed and bend nearly 180 degrees combined. As with the hips, they're kind of loose ratchets, though, with a bit of play that makes him prone to tilting backward when you're posing him (not helped by the weight of the backpack). His toes bend up but not down, and his ankles pivot 90 degrees. Again, above-average articulation but he's let down a bit by tolerances. Compared to the preivous two, Night Tracer might actually have the easiest transformation. You gotta get the actual front wheels, fenders, and headlights out of his forearms, and get his arms up over his head. Then you move the turret out of the way to unfold the rest of the cab from on an inside his back, forming the roof, sides, hood, grill and the middle quartet of tires. With the front half done, rotate the waist 180 degrees and then the back half has the usual Magic Square annoyances... the knees have to be in just the right position, then the lower legs splay open into an array of panels that rearrange themselves into the back half of the truck. But of the three, I think he's had the least amount of flipping flaps. This is another case where I like a lot of the realistic details like wing mirrors, wipers, etc on both MMC and Zeta, and the big green hinges on the sides of MMC's truck are actually on the cartoon model. But, with the arguable exception of Unique Toys' big gap between the truck and trailer, they all did pretty good in truck mode. Guess it's hard to screw up a long, nearly flat rectangle with a hint of cab and AA guns. Overall, not a ton to complain about. You've got the sorts of details you'd expect, like the grill with the fins on it, two windows on the front, two windows on each side, the scoop in the hood, camo splotches, seven wheels to a side in the correct placement with a trio of green boxes between the middle and rear pair. But I guess this is where I have to nitpick minor discrepancies. As I mentioned, the green hinges on MMC's Onslaught, unsightly though they might be, and he's got smaller lights under his headlights that aren't on the animation model. Night Tracer can roll, and the entire turret can swivel and elevate a little. The barrels can move up and down independently inside the turret, also. Fold in the handle of Night Tracer's gun and you'll find a little hole you can use to peg the gun on top of the turret. The remainder of the trailer beyond the turret is too short for Munitioner or Heavy Gunner to catch a ride. All-in-all its a very serviceable, very adequate truck mode, but we already had very serviceable, very adequate truck modes. But it's not about truck mode, is it? Because after three prior Onslaughts, each with their own flaws in robot mode, Night Tracer comes along looking just about perfect and he's got great articulation to boot. There's simply no competition. Maybe one of the other sets will deliver a better combined mode, and if you only want one set and you care most about the combined mode then sure, maybe you want to wait and see how that shakes out. But Night Tracer is, hands down, the best MP-style Onslaught by a significant margin, and as such gets a strong recommend from me.

Nope. I already think thought 24" figures were pushing the limits of practicality, both in terms of how much space they take up and in on unwieldy they are to try to transform and pose. Tell you what I do got, though... MS-04 Munitioner. Magic Square's MP-style take on Swindle. MMC's Swindle, though very good, struck me as a tad busy. He had kind of chunky legs with alt mode bits on his feet, gappy knees, and panels on his shins that simply aren't present on the animation model. And much like with their Brawl, Magic Square comes onto the scene with a smooth, clean figure that just nails the animation model. Seriously, they went to almost ridiculous lengths to get the cartoon look. MMC put faux wheels on their Swindle's shoulders, Magic Square put faux wheels on Munitioner's shoulders and on his legs- inside and outside, because that's how the animation model works. His smooth shins have a taper, but also the slight cutaway in front of the outer wheels because, again, that's what's on the animation model. He's got the purple hood chest like MMC, but also the smaller waist under it that the animation model has. Unique Toys' Swindle was one of their best Combaticons, but the extra greebles on his legs, the big fenders and real wheels on his shoulders, the dark biceps and wrist stripes, and the more muted colors speak of a time before everyone committed to going full cartoon. And Zeta's Swindle... was certainly a thing. So, aesthetically at least, I have to give the edge to Munitioner. Heck, the only thing I can find to complain about is his somewhat boring facial expression. Swindle needs a smirk. Oh, and would you look at that! Munitioner comes with an extra smirking face! He also comes with his arm cannon, his gun that's just a missile, and the bit you need to mount both to his alt mode. And if you were paying attention to what came with Heavy Gunner, you could probably guess that Munitioner was coming with the other combined mode foot. And just like with Heavy Gunner, Munitioner doesn't just look nice, he poses nice, too. Head is a hinged swivel, with downward tilt until his head touches his chest and upward tilt just short of 90 degrees. His shoulders swivel, with 90 degrees of lateral movement on the correct side of the swivel then almost 90 more on the other side of the swivel due to his transformation. Sadly, no butterfly joints, though. Biceps swivel, and his elbows bend over 90 degrees on a single hinge. His wrists swivel and can bend back, like Heavy Gunner's, but they're a tad smaller. As a result, the thumb is on a ball joint with one more hinged knuckle, and his index finger is hinged is separate from the others, hinged at the base and mid-knuckle but lacking the ability to splay like Heavy Gunner. The other three fingers are also hinged at the base and mid-knuckle, but they're molded together. His waist swivels, and he's got that double torso joint that gives him both a back bend and an ab crunch. His hips work exactly like Heavy Gunner's as well, giving him 90 degrees of backward and lateral movement but close to 120 degrees of forward range. His thighs swivel, and his double-jointed knees bend nearly 180 degrees. He has a very slight upward toe tilt, nothing down, and his ankles pivot 90 degrees. Once again, we have a small tab on the missile gun's handle that plugs into a slot in his palms, and once again it's a little on the small side and prone to popping loose. And just like Heavy Gunner's alt mode leftovers had a flip-out handle for him to hold it in bot mode, so goes the connector part for Munitioner's weapons. It doesn't really look much like a weapon, though, and I find myself wishing that there was literally anywhere else to stow it. As for his arm cannon, if you want it on the side of his arm so it doesn't get in the way of his elbows, there's tiny pegs that fit into the center of the fake wheels on his shoulders, much like MMC's Swindle. However, if you prefer the on-the-front look he often had in the cartoon (and on his control art), there's also a tab on it that fits into the front of his shoulders. Lastly, there's the alternate face. Swapping is easy, just tilt his head up so you can get under his chin and slide his face forward; it's just tabbed in. Pop the smirking face on by pushing the tab on the back into the slot on his head. In what I think is going to become a theme here Munitioner's transformation is a lot like Heavy Gunner's. You need to basically turn him inside out, as the real front wheels, fenders, and grill are inside is torso and need to trade places with his head and arms, and the process seems more complicated than it strictly needed to be. Once you have the top/front sorted, you again need to explode the legs into a variety of panels that end with the actual real wheels, sides, rear, and seat backs coming from inside his legs while his shins for the top of the rear and the outside edges of his legs forming the bottom. A bit of a tougher call than Heavy Gunner, I'd say. There are a few more details like marker lighst and what not on MMC's Swindle, but a few visible joints and more seams as well. Zeta gets immediately disqualified for having the wrong alt mode entirely, but I appreciate how well Unique Toys' has held up, with a bit more realistic details than Munitioner while also managing to be cleaner than MMC's. Then again, the space between his shins on the back of vehicle is actually on the animation model, and there's an argument to be had that the smooth sides are also more cartoon accurate. I do personally prefer a bit more realistic alt mode detail, though, so I'm a bit bummed by the lack of taillights. I can't help but note that amount of visible legs bits folded up but not quite concealed under the vehicle. Munitioner does have a steering wheel, but no shift knob or anything else in the interior. Well, there are the seat backs, but the seat cushions are just the tops of Munitioner's thighs. Yep, Munitioner's interior is mostly his butt. He rolls on his wheels. The connector clamps between his legs, then the handle of the missile folds in to reveal a little peg that fits into a small hole on one side of the connector, while a hole in the side of the arm cannon's barrel fits onto a peg on the opposite side. The connector can swivel like a turret, and the weapons can swivel on the connector to aim up/down. With no breakages this time! On the whole, I think the competition here is a bit more fierce than yesterday. I do still think that Munitioner pairs the best-looking robot with excellent articulation, but the transformation is a bit more tedious than Heavy Gunner's. I do prefer realistic alt modes, but there's a certain cleanliness to Heavy Gunner's super-Sunbow tank mode that Munitioner's visible leg kibble is missing. I'd still recommend him as the "best" Swindle, but the gap between him and MMC's Swindle is definitely smaller than the gap between Heavy Gunner and MMC's Brawl. Buy Munitioner to replace Unique Toys or Zeta, sure, but this isn't the figure that's going to sell you on upgrading from MMC.

Come to think of it, it's a bit sad that I've been playing this series for nearly 30 years and in that time "new" American planes have mostly been new variants of the F-15, F-16, and F/A-18.

You guys keep bringing up the animated movie, I keep tell you Street Fighter II V was the better animated product. Anyway, does the movie look good like The Godfather good? Heck no. But does it look it could be the same sort of dumb but fun movie as, say, Sudden Death.