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mikeszekely

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  1. mikeszekely
    Over a year ago I covered MMC's Shiftlane, their version a Rollbar, a retool of their version of Swindle. And then... well, nothing for a long time. But I don't really do full reviews for repaints, and I don't buy nearly as much 3P stuff I used to (and when I do, I don't really buy repaints). But... I did get the rest of the set. So the first one after Shiftlane was Chops, the MMC version of Ro-Tor. Now, the animation models for Robots In Disguise were a lot closer to the toys than the G1 Combaticons. MMC cleverly flipped Shiftlane's torso around. For Chops, they remolded the front of his torso. For the most part, that works for him. The new torso is pretty cartoon accurate, and aside from having Vortex's little feet he's accurate enough down through the legs. MMC tucked Vortex's tail and use the engine nacelles to make for more G1 cartoon-accurate, but that actually works against Chops, since Ro-Tor's toy-accurate arms were clearly the helicopter tail. Ro-Tor also shouldn't have the little arm guns that Vortex does, but Chops has all the same accessories that their Vortex did. Transformation is the same as Vortex, which is to say it's still my least favorite of the set. The helicopter mode was designed to walk a fine line between G1 cartoon-accurate and a realistic Seasprite. Again, it's the kind of thing that worked pretty well for the Vortex version, but the RiD animation was much closer to the simplified look of the toy. To that end, I don't think that Chops came out badly, per se. The realistic helicopter is fine, but some details are a bit off. Why isn't the nose red? Where's the gray panel on the side? The third release was Astrolift, aka Movor. Again, MMC made a few modifications to make the mold a bit more RiD-accurate. He's got new feet, and a partly new chest. As with Chops, the new chest is indeed more accurate, but the faux wheels are kind of unnecessary. And while the arms are made from the front of the shuttle, same as Blast-Off, details like the visible pink cockpit windows are missing. I'm not sure why MMC didn't just paint a fake windows onto part of his arm where the actual cockpit could cover over it. As for the shuttle mode, well, Movor always had more realistic colors than Blast-Off, and the realistic look pretty good with MMC's (fairly) realistic design (the engine bells are still wrong). It's worth pointing out, though, that in the cartoon Movor was drawn rather strangely, with small wings, a rectangular fuselage, and sharply angled engine nacelles, so aside from the colors Astrolift isn't exactly cartoon-accurate here. Another thing to note is that Movor was animated with the larger cannons from the toy over the wings/near the rear of the fuselage. Since MMC's Blast-Off didn't include those, neither does Astrolift... just the smaller pistol, which still folds up and tucks into a spot near the top rear of the fuselage. The fourth release was Fortiflex, their Armorhide. Fortiflex has remolded hip skirts, which better resemble the trapezoidal hips of Armorhide's character model. From the waist down, no complaints. From the waist up, though... well, Brawl's animation model was pretty different from the G1 toy, with a much smaller chest and treads for shoulders. Armorhide's animation model, being closer to the toy, kept the big tank chest and the arms where the treads were on the backs of his arms, not the front. The remolded chest does sort of look like the front of the tank, but it's clearly not as protruding, and no changes to the arms means you've got treads and dark browns where we should have tan bits from the top of the tank. Tank mode is still looking sharp, though. Again, MMC likes realistic details so we've got the periscope, mirrors, and working hatches. Although Armorhide didn't use them in the cartoon, he's still go the rear-mounted double-barreled gun that came with Brawl. Megalith, aka Mega-Octane, finishes up the set. I don't think it's particularly controversial to say that Onslaught was the weakest of MMC's Combaticons due to being the most hampered by the all-in-one gimmick, and that's certainly still the case with Megalith. However, MMC's Onslaught, due largely to his transformation, was always a bit more toy-ish than the other four, and this is something that works in Megalith's favor as the wheels on his torso and the extra kibble on the backs of his shoulders are all cartoon-accurate now. Even the large orange pelvis is. You just have to squint and remember that it's all supposed to be pelvis, regardless of where his hips and waist swivel are. As far as mold changes go, the only difference is some minor changes to the molds of his chest panels. Note that he comes with both an orange version of Onslaught's original gun, as well as the gun and boxes from the upgrade kit they did for their Bruticus. Transformation is the same, and the truck mode is basically just Onslaught's in a different color scheme. I suppose the grill could be a little more cartoon-y, but I think it's fine overall. Of course, if you're this far in, you're probably not in because you want the Decepticon Commandos, you're probably in for Ruination, so here's Eversus, the combined mode. Like Megalith on his own, I think Eversus benefits a bit from the toy-style torso. You'll notice that the head and chest are the ones that came with the Bruticus upgrade kit; Eversus does NOT have the Blast-Off chest and G1 cartoon Bruticus head were stock on Onslaught. The chest is painted with details from the Japanese release of Car Robots Dorailer. However, while the torso goes a long way toward the Ruination look, being designed first and foremost as Bruticus does hold him back in a few ways. His left arm lacks the big red guns from the RiD Ro-Tor toy, just the little ones from Vortex. And his elbow bends like Vortex, whereas the cartoon had the side of the helicopter as the front of the arm. Likewise, the front of his left arm was the side of Movor, and presented as white. The biggest difference, though, is that Armorhide connects backward in the cartoon, with the turret on the back of his leg and the front of the tank as his knee. But Brawl was designed to match the G1 cartoon, with the turret on the shin. The other reality is that in RiD Ruination frequently flipped his arms and legs, with Armorhide as the right arm, Rollbar as the left arm, Ro-Tor as the right leg, and Movor as the left. But since Bruticus only had his "standard" configuration in the G1 cartoon, MMC only designed their Bruticus with the single combination, so that's the only one that Eversus gets. So, I guess the question is whether or not the whole set is worth it. And I think that's an interesting question. On the one hand, the strong toy aesthetics and Megaltih and, by extension, the core of Eversus, actually seem to work better for Ruination than they did as Bruticus. Plus, while MMC was competing at the time with Zeta and Unique Toys, there really hasn't been too many takes on Ruination, and certainly not at this scale. I think, despite the compromises that come with being designed as a Bruticus first, this is a solid take on the characters and it goes great with Fans Hobby's Scourge. Top it off with better joint tolerances all around than Bruticus, and I'd say that I'm quite glad to have this set. But, the thing is, there are enough quirks with these designs that I don't really want to own two of each of these molds. And in the years since MMC first released their Bruticus, we've gotten another take on an MP Bruticus from Magic Square. So while this set does satisfy my desire for Ruination, it also makes me want to sell the MMC Bruticus and buy Magic Square's.
  2. mikeszekely
    Tyrant's great, but I want one that scales with SS86 Megs, not MP-36 Megs.
  3. mikeszekely
    Not super surprising, they can't sell it at a loss and make it up with licensing fees the way consoles do. Also, what even is console pricing anymore? Used to be they'd go down in price as they aged. Five years ago both the Series X and PS5 were $500, today they're S650 and $550, respectively. My money's on $600 for the 512GB Steam Machine.
  4. mikeszekely
    I'd love to see Hasbro explore lots of designs for lots of characters, but they seem fixated on Timelines doing endless versions of Optimus vs Starscream and Bumblebee vs. Megatron. And sadly, at a sort of "Deluxe+" price. I'd personally love a version of the IDW stealth bomber Megatron that scales with the SS86 toy.
  5. mikeszekely
    G2 Swoop & Sludge as well as Timelines samurai Optimus & Starscream are available to preorder on Pulse.
  6. mikeszekely
    As I understand it, the impending ban prevents the sale of DJI's stuff in the US, but doesn't prohibit you from owning or using DJI drones in the States. Maybe my in-laws can get one for me...
  7. mikeszekely
    Sludge isn't my favorite... but he's not my favorite in G1 colors, either. I unironically love blue-and-green Swoop. My second-favorite deco after yellow Grimlock.
  8. mikeszekely
    It's a shame, too. I'm imagining a hot pink Snarl and Jazz's Doritos color would cook on Slag.
  9. mikeszekely
    Because that's essentially the case. When G2 launched (very late '92 and ’93) changes from G1 were pretty minimal. Make Prime's trailer black, use metallic paint on some mini bots, flip Sideswipe's colors, release Jazz in normal colors but change the stickers, etc. Blue Grimlock and the red and green Snarl and Slag are from that '93 wave (after releasing in their G1 colors in '92). I feel like the more garish colors started to appear in '94, when they started releasing the G2 versions of the Scramble City combiners (along with more original molds like the Laser Rods). The G2 colors for Sludge and Swoop, as well as yellow Grimlock, are based on concept art for toys that were planned for ’94 or '95 but never released. FWIW, I always liked yellow Grimlock better than the blue one. That concept art is also where we got delightfully hideous stuff like Doritos Jazz and Watermelon Mirage from that Walmart-exclusive G2 collection a few years back, BTW.
  10. mikeszekely
    Coming in 2026, I can try not think about how I'll have spent over $500 on dinobots...
  11. mikeszekely
    My beef with the recent Walmart reissues isn't that they're reissuing 40+ year old toys when there are new better ones... after all, the new better ones aren't what I had as a kid. My issue with them is the new "movie" decos that are also not what I had as a kid. If you're gonna reissue a toy, make it as close to the original as possible so that I don't have to spend a small fortune on one made in the '80s with fingers crossed that it's still in good condition. But if you're going to get a toy with a new, more cartoon-accurate deco, it might as also have a new, more cartoon-accurate sculpt and new, more cartoon-accurate articulation while we're at it.
  12. mikeszekely
    I mean, I've done it before... But yeah, I don't think I'd do it now. It's far enough away that I'd have to charge my Taycan at least twice to make the round trip, and that's assuming that I just went to Microcenter and back. EDIT: Oh, sweet, I just looked and it looks like they opened one closer. Now I'd only have to drive two and a half hours.
  13. mikeszekely
  14. mikeszekely
    I want one so I can walk around in it, see good deals, and buy them on the spot. Definitely appreciate the offer, but short of seeing something cool and buying it on a whim I think I'm actually good.
  15. mikeszekely
    I wish I had a microcenter. Closest one for me is like a 4 hour drive.
  16. mikeszekely
    NGL, I'd consider it anyway, update the UEFI, and cross my fingers. Same GPU but a better CPU and more RAM than the Asus G700 I spent like $400 more on at the beginning of the year.
  17. mikeszekely
    I've got a desktop with an RTX 5080 and a laptop with an RTX 5070ti, plus a non-Xbox ROG Ally X. Not sure I really need a Steam Machine, but I'm absolutely in love with the idea. Could be the sort of competition for PlayStation that Microsoft just doesn't want to be anymore. I wonder if it can finally win over my console friends? I mean, yeah, it's really a PC in disguise, but with SteamOS, sleep/resume, and cloud saves it's going to deliver a familiar console experience for them. Depending on the price, I might buy one just to support it. The new Steam Controller is looking like an improvement over the original (which I still have!). Again, price is probably going to be a deciding factor. I could see getting it to use with the Steam Machine, but on my desktop I'm pretty content with my 8bitdo Ultimate 2. I'm more interested in the Steam Frame than I thought I'd be. I have a Meta Quest 3 and I dig it, and I could just hook it up to one of my PCs to play Steam VR, but the freedom of playing untethered is why the Quest has been my go-to for VR.
  18. mikeszekely
    I know I'm in the minority on this, but I've honestly never cared for any of Rockstar's games, and the GTA 6 delay doesn't Burger me because I was never interested in it in the first place.🤷‍♂️
  19. mikeszekely
    Hmm... I can't be sure, but the WSQK van does look to be some kind of custom Vandura... but Freakwency would need some serious remolding to resemble the one from the A-Team. Which absolutely should still be done. And be named Mohawk.
  20. mikeszekely
    Partially because they don't have to be budgeted the way the mainline does. It's not a Voyager, it's not a leader, it just is. And it doesn't have to sacrifice paint apps because a wave mate needed a higher-than-usual parts count. Partially, I suspect, because it's advertising. Hasbro's gonna charge you whatever they will after Netflix subsidizes it.
  21. mikeszekely
    New Stranger Things collab.
  22. mikeszekely
    Same. Wife drives an EV9 until the lease is up next summer. Then I didn't want to drive my Porsche in the crappy western PA winters, so I looked for something cheap with AWD and somehow landed on a Dodge Charger Daytona.😄
  23. mikeszekely
    I think I like this head better than the Sunbow one...
  24. mikeszekely
    Oh yeah, I bought a Porsche! ...wait, I think you meant the kid. Who is definitely something to live for... even if she will NOT be driving the Porsche when she turns 16.
  25. mikeszekely
    They need to ditch the monkey.
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