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mikeszekely

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Everything posted by mikeszekely

  1. 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.
  2. mikeszekely
  3. 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.
  4. mikeszekely
    I wish I had a microcenter. Closest one for me is like a 4 hour drive.
  5. 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.
  6. 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.
  7. 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.🤷‍♂️
  8. 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.
  9. 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.
  10. mikeszekely
    New Stranger Things collab.
  11. 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.😄
  12. mikeszekely
    I think I like this head better than the Sunbow one...
  13. 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.
  14. mikeszekely
    They need to ditch the monkey.
  15. mikeszekely
    I didn't, but I built a Batocera system for my friend maybe a year and a half ago. I loved it, been meaning to build one for myself but I wanted enough power to play PS2.
  16. mikeszekely
    Good, thanks for asking. My daughter's at a point where I have to watch YouTube videos about how to do math just to help her with her homework...😆
  17. mikeszekely
    I mean, I've been hanging out at MW since I was in college, like 25 years now. I haven't met a single person from these boards in real life, but there are people that I interact with enough that I like some of them better than the friends I do have IRL. As for social media, I used Twitter mostly to keep up on sports and news that I might not see otherwise. And I seriously just started using Facebook this year to get in touch with an old high school friend. So I guess it's a little hard for me to feel nostalgic for something I never stopped using because the thing I never used got crappier. Still, cheers bud, we definitely agree on one thing. We got a relatively small community compared to some other forums and junk, but frankly, I think we're a tighter knit for it. Kudos to @Shawn for keeping the lights on all these years.
  18. mikeszekely
    Yeah... it's supposed to be gray prototype, colored prototype, and finished product. And it's cool that the finished one has more cel-shading than the regular SS release, and that there's a rifle this time... but the two prototypes have me scratching my head. I get that they want to give the designers some spotlight and show of the design process, but release a book or something. Don't try to talk me into dumping $85 on three copies of the same figure in decoes I don't want or need, especially when there are so many other decos they could use that would get me to open my wallet... Nemesis Prime, Ultra Magnus, dead gray Optimus, Shining Magnus, Delta Magnus, etc.
  19. mikeszekely
    This. I heard DDR5 could go up by as much as 70%.
  20. mikeszekely
    It's a more complicated question than you might think. It's going to depend a lot on what games you're actually planning to play—actual performance difference on various games at 1440p can range from the 5070ti doing around 40% better at something like GTA 5, to both cards being neck-and-neck at Marvel Rivals or Black Myth Wukong, to the 9070XT performing around 41% better at Rocket League. And that's before you take into account how you feel about stuff like AI upscaling (Nvidia's DLSS generally does a better job than AMD's FXSS, but both are improving at a good clip, I've used both, and both are generally OK) and frame generation (I'm not sure what the consensus is, but I strongly prefer not to use either). Then there's stuff like ray tracing, which most people will tell you Nvidia is much better at, but I'll toss in the caveat that whether you need to use RT at all depends on the game; Control looks way better with it, The Outer Worlds 2 looks pretty much the same to me whether it's on or off, and some games like Indiana Jones require it. If you want a simplistic answer, though, they're fairly close in performance on average and should net you 60fps or better on most games at 1440p. See what's on sale (especially this close to Black Friday/Cyber Monday). I'd consider spending a little more on the RTX 5070ti if the gap is pretty close, but if the gap is larger than, say, $50, you can safely save your money and get the 9070XT. Or do like Az said, get the monitor now, wait and see what GPUs come after CES in January.
  21. mikeszekely
    Having forced my friend, who'd never see Tron, to watch both it and Legacy BEFORE we saw Ares, I can't blame Ares for killing any nostalgia I had for the original Tron. Like, as a kid, the Recognizers and Lightcycles were cool, and I know I spent an afternoon throwing frisbees at my brother after catching Tron on TV. But as much as I dig the Atari-era aesthetics and they way they imagined programs doing their thing like people doing jobs, the story was a plodding mess. So much time is wasted on the human characters, especially the implied love triangle between Flynn, Alan, and Nora, that add nothing to the plot. Watching Flynn in the games is cool, but then it's back to meandering. Find Tron, and use Alan's code to take down the MCP? Fine. But no, they gotta drag in Yori, and they gotta stop and talk to Dumont, and Tron has to die but come back later... it's just boring at times.
  22. mikeszekely
    Star Shuttle comes packaged with the creatively named Red Tank, aka Warpath. In some ways you could argue that Dr Wu did a better job than Hasbro, as he's got white on his shoulders that appears on the character model that the Kingdom toy missed, and the white in his torso leaves a bit more red on his tummy that, again, the Kingdom toy left white. However, a complaint I'm hearing is that Red Tank took the name a bit too seriously; he's a very vibrant red, not the muted brick color that I think most of us would expect. I can say that I definitely think they're right, he is too bright. However, it doesn't bother me a ton, YMMV. For such a tiny figure the paint is pretty good. I mean, the treads are entirely red plastic, so they didn't just paint the white parts, they painted the black between the wheels. Other than that, not a ton to note. He cleans up about as well as any Warpath toy. Like most of Dr Wu's little Extreme Warfare dudes, Warpath doesn't come with any accessories. I wonder if that's why he's done so many minibots? The G1 minibots didn't come with any guns, so maybe it feels more appropriate? Truthfully, I know a lot of people want Dr Wu to do more guns for these guys, but at this scale I don't really care. In any case, Red Tank's head lacks any real articulation. I mean, you can kind of have him look down, but it's really folding his head into his chest. Shoulders are ball joints that swivel and move laterally 90 degrees. Elbows are ball joints that act as bicep swivels and bend 90 degrees. No wrist or waist articulation. His ball jointed hips can go forward, backward, or laterally 90 degrees. The limited movement around the ball is also all the thigh swivel you get. His knees bend 90 degrees, and he's got a tiny downward foot tilt and little under 45 degrees of ankle pivot. Red Tank's transformation isn't super complicated. The head folds into the turret, and armatures shift the shoulders back and down so the arms can form the back half. The tricky bit is using the joints in the right order to line up the feet and legs, with the inside of the foot flipping out and up to fill in the gap between his legs; if you don't have the order just right or everything lined up, chances are you're going to pop a ball joint out of the socket. Like the Kingdom toy, the flaps that fold out of the feet still leave quite a bit of a gap between the front treads. The white/light gray plastic that leaves a white/light gray patch on the rear is more cartoon accurate, though. Is it a perfect rendition of Warpath? Probably not, but it's not the worst I've seen, and the tank is maybe an inch in length, so I'll cut him some slack. There's no wheels or rolling treads or anything, but the turret does spin, and the tank's gun barrel can be angled down slightly or up to about 60 degrees. A working turret is all you really need in a tiny tank, right? I'll say this for Red Tank... he's not my favorite Dr Wu figure, but he's not the worst, either. He's fine. The fact that he's a main G1 cartoon character means you probably don't want to leave him out, and the fact that he comes with the quite good Star Shuttle means you're probably going to want the whole pack anyway. So do it! Do it with the knowledge that the Datsuns are coming...
  23. mikeszekely
    Ever since Dr Wu released his version of Cyclonus I've wanted him to do Scourge, too, to complete the trio of new '86 Decepticons. Fortunately, I didn't have to wait long. This is Star Shuttle, Dr Wu's take on Scourge. Putting Star Shuttle with Destroy Emperor (Galvatron) and Wingman (Cyclonus) really show how far the good doctor has come along since starting the Extreme Warfare line. Destroy Emperor looks positively primitive next to his henchmen! But I personally think that Star Shuttle is a bit more sharply sculpted than even the relatively recent Wingman. As good as he looks from the front, as we spin him around we do see quite a bit of alt mode. You kind of expect that in the wings, but the outsides of his legs and his backpack almost completely hide his robot form when viewed from the back. Once again, though, I'm inclined to cut some slack to a toy that's shorter than a tube of Chapstick and costs about as much as a Deluxe despite coming packed with a second figure. This time he even comes with a weapon! To be totally clear, I'm not sure if every copy of Star Shuttle will come with a gun. The impression I got was that this is a first run/preorder bonus. Star Shuttle's got pretty good articulation for his tiny size. His head swivels, no tilt. His shoulders are ball joints that swivel and move laterally 90 degrees. His elbows are ball joints which bend 90 degrees and double as bicep swivels. His wrists don't swivel, but his waist does. Hips are ball joints that go 90 degrees forward and laterally, and nearly 90 degrees backward. He has actual thigh swivels just above his knees, which are hinges that bend 90 degrees. His toes have some up/down tilt, and his ankles can pivot 90 degrees. His wings are attached via ball joints, so they can spread and flap for more dynamic poses. Star Shuttle's tiny hands are too small to practically have peg holes, so instead the handle of his gun is sort of like a c-clip that clamps around his fists. Star Shuttle's transformation borrows more from the G1 toy than the Studio Series one, with his legs turning inward and his heels folding down to make the front of the vehicle. His backpack spins 180 and a flap folds out to fill in the gap around his thighs. His shoulders shrug up and his forearms turn to plug into his cape, which then wraps around to tab in near his waist on the underside. Then his head turns 180 degrees and flips up, collar and all, so his head crest plugs into the middle engine nacelle. I think his alt mode came out pretty well, turning into a solid, swooshable little representation of the 3-engined, aerodynamic brick we all know and love (or hate, not judging). I think the biggest knocks against it are the visible shoulders and ball sockets on the wing joints. To a lesser extent, the hinges on the backpack flap and wings also seem relatively larger than they might on a Studio Series or Masterpiece figure, but it's the tradeoff necessary to make a figure this tiny that's also durable. With no wheels to roll on, not alt mode weapon storage, and no moving parts the alt mode doesn't actually do much, though. I guess it doesn't have to. And if troop building is your thing (at this price, why not?), good news! While the Scourge version of Star Shuttle comes packed with an entirely different fellow we'll talk about next time, you can also buy a two pack of Star Shuttle with a brighter blue plastic and a very pale blue in place of white, so Scourge can hang with his Sweeps. And yeah, everything I keep saying in all my other Dr Wu reviews applies here. They're not mini Masterpieces the way Newage or Magic Square make their figures. They're relatively simple, relatively cheap Micromaster-sized figures that do a great job of making your Titans and Combiners look even bigger. Their small size and small price also makes them easy to collect. So once again, yes, I recommend Star Shuttle.
  24. mikeszekely
    I expect that'll be the case for most of the MW. Maybe a few purchases of Sureshot. In a fanbase that already skews more toward G1 than later Transformers, MW tends to skew even further into "geewunner" than average. I love the deeper lore, though, and the Thirteen have fascinated me since Furman first started cooking them up in his Dreamwave days/DK's The Ultimate Guide to the Trasnsformers, so I'm also very looking forward to Quintus and Amalgamous. I like the design and colors of the Japanese Lio Convoy and Big Convoy better than Optimus Primal, so I'm in for Big Convoy. I debated whether or not I really wanted Quickstrike or not. He made the cut because he was a regular (albeit late) member of the cartoon Beast Wars cast (correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that just leaves Depthcharge and Rampage, and then maybe the Transmetal versions of some characters, to wrap up the cartoon cast). Razorclaw, on the other hand, is based on a 2003 Universe toy and isn't even the original Beast Wars toy to bear that name... that'd go to a 1997 toy that turned into a crab. Agree bigly. I got Trashmaster, that's enough of that mold.
  25. mikeszekely
    I preordered everything but Razorclaw (wake me when it's G1 Razorclaw), Wreck-Gar, and Jalopy. I wasn't a big fan of those fan-fic Junkions in the first place. Though, I might buy Jalopy if I happen to see him in stores one day; with his more traditional colors and Autobot badge he makes a better part of "Junkasaurus" than Axlegrease.
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