Transformer Space Pirate AHOY! Thundertron!

I have a thing for Pirates.  They are cool and there aren’t many Transformers that are classed as pirates, so when I learned of Thundertron here being a pirate, I had to snap this guy up right away!  Annoyingly though he didn’t get released here down under.  But luckily the good folks at Amazon provided a way, and at half the local price as well.  Nice, but not surprised really.

Game Review– Sonic & SEGA All Stars Racing.

It’s been a while since I’ve done a little game review, and so here I thought I would go back a bit and get a crackalacking on one.  As a result, I have chosen Sonic and SEGA All Stars Racing as my review.  Why? Because I quite like it and would like to lead into Racing Transformed later on.  So away we go!

Queen’s Gate Puchitto series…

Since I appear to be going through some of these silly random ‘lucky draw’ figures, here is another set I found.  These characters are based off the off-shoot from Queen’s Blade, Queen’s Gate.  This ‘story’ allows for femme fatales from other universes to join together in the Queen’s Blade books/world.  I mainly got this set as they have versions of Alice in there.  And she tickles my fancy. 

The whole set Comprises of Lili from Tekken, Dizzy from Guilty Gear, Mae from King of Fighters, Iruha (from I don’t know) and Alice from some eroge and Alice in Boost form (who is the ‘secret’ character).  Please note that some of these following shots could be classed as NSFW. Although very mildly

New styles of Masterpiece Convoy

Finally, after taking these images when I first got the toy I am going to post them on my blog.  I’ve been putting this off, as I ended up taking a massive HEAP of pictures.  Thus, here we go. 

Masterpiece 10, Convoy.  This guy is a redesign for the Masterpiece line.  Smaller in stature and cleverly designed, he lacks a lot of the weight and chunk of the original Masterpiece Convoy, but is a much more poseable figure with good weight distribution and is closer to the cartoon look of Convoy/Optimus than the first.  Hard to believe, as I thought that MP1 was a pretty impressive figure and looked pretty bang on, but this guy has a few little additions, that while not that much individually make for a smoother and better proportioned robot AND vehicle mode.  Let’s have a look see.

Touhou Sofubi, Sakuya & Reimu

Now these are some little figures I picked up somewhere on some trip sometime.  Why did I get them?  I can’t really remember.  I got Sakuya because she fits in nicely with my ‘Violent Maid’ collection.  As for Reimu, I have no idea….

As it turns out, they are from the same line as this Aya I picked up a while ago and still love now.

Unboxing Metroplex

I’d been looking forward to this guy for a while and after I finally had him in hand, I was not disappointed. 

He arrived one overcast morning and I trekked out to pick him up from my loyal Post office..  Realising it’d be a big box, I had come armed with a trolley.  He’s not that heavy, but very very bulky.

Cheerful Japan Nendoroid Miku

A bit after the big earthquake, tsunami and subsequent nuclear cock-up (nice one Tohoku Denryoku) , actually, that should be cock ups,  Good Smile Company launched a money raising campaign called ‘Cheerful Japan’ where they refashioned some toys, gave them a flag or something and a whack of money went to help the people in the Tohoku region to cope with the triple blast they got. 

This Miku is a Nendoroid, so a cute and cuddly ‘chibi’ version of Miku.  I don’t generally get Nendoroids as instead of having articulated joints, you have to swap over arms and stuff, but hey, this was a special situation.  Although not all are bad.  Sonic is pretty good and this one is cute.

Bot Shots Jetfire video review

Been looking at some videos I have and hadn't been able to edit yet due to time constraints, so here I am with a lovely little review of the Bot Shots version of Jetfire.  Short n Sweet.

1980s Bad guy Goodness–Classic Mumm-Ra!!!

Although I never watched much of Thundercats, nor did I get many of the original toys, somehow I ended up with an original Mumm-Ra (as a kid) and somehow, it disappeared somewhere.  Sad days because as I think back to it now, Mumm-Ra was actually my favourite 1980s cartoon bad guy.  He looked cool!  As a result, I really really, really wanted a Classic Mumm-Ra.  They did Lion-O, so why not Mumm-Ra??

Eventually, Bandai did make a Classic Mumm-Ra.  Sadly though, while my first release Lion-O was made in the 8 inch scale, Old Mumm-Ra here has been relegated back to six.  Of course they then released a shrunken 6 inch Classic Lion-O.  He did have an angrier face, but (funnily enough) that wasn’t enough for me to care.  Sadly my Classic Mumm-Ra is a good 2 inches shorter than Classic Lion-O.

Toys that make ya go Woooooooo!

That’s what I like!
I bought this guy and Mr Sinister together from a pal online and interestingly this guy was an add on.  I didn’t care for him and only added him on to make the postage more worthwhile.  Mr Sinister was at the top of my list. 

Yet when I got them out of the box, he was the first one that I played with.  Best of all, I felt the need to do this:

Things are looking good!

Thus I bring us to the review for Toy Biz, Professor Xavier from the Marvel Legends.

Great Gaming Moments: Journey

Today I was cruising around the shops and saw some games on sale.  One of them was Journey Collector’s edition, which comes with a bunch of stuff as well as ‘Flower’ and ‘flow.’  I had already bought  Flower a while ago and found it a fascinating experience and knew that reviews of Journey were pretty good.

Crappy phone pictures inc.

Since I chase a different game experience, I decided to buy it for Journey.  Flow is a bonus.  When I got home, I booted up the PS3, played something on the hard drive to warm it up.  It seems to not read Blurays until it’s been on for a while.  Shame on you Sony.  My PS3 is only 4 years old and the bluray laser is a bit buggered.  My Sega Saturn on the other hand is 18 years old and works like the day I bought it…

Back on topic.

While playing, I think I got to the second level and there was another little fellow running around the place.  At first I thought that it was an NPC there just to help guide me along, I knew that the game was designed to have a bit of multiplayer and wasn’t too sure whether it was a real person or not.  It would make sense to have an NPC there though, just to guide you to things and let you know, exploration is one of the aspects of the game.

Turns out it was a real person.  With your limited communication abilities, which is essentially a ‘ping’ you go along helping each other through the level.  I came to the conclusion that my helper was another person, as they kept leading me to power-ups that would help my flying ability.  Curious.

Then the feelings that came with that realisation, I kept playing, I originally had no intention of playing for so long, but the thought of abandoning my companion was a tad distasteful.  Hell, I felt bad when I paused it to go boil the kettle and make a cup of tea…

Anyway, long story short, this other guy and I went along and he led me through the levels, it was strangely fun.  Occasionally his character would trip over in the sand, I’d hang around, ping him some help.  It was strangely fun.  No proper communication.  And yet we worked well. And Strangely fun.

We ended up finishing the game in that sitting.  The end, looked a bit bleak, but at a moment, you come good again.  My first thought was, “Where’s the other guy?  I hope he’s ok!”  Yup, he was fine.  We knocked off the final level and got to the obviously final point, and drew some thanks in the snow.  Then walked to the final gate together.

Game finished.  Now, it may sound a little bit drab as I describe it now, but I have to tell you, it was a rather moving moment.  Watching the credits, I sat through all of them thinking about the whole game.  It was truly something special! 

Amazing.

I haven’t had a game have such a profound effect since I finished Shadow of the Colossus. 
It’s interesting, as I think back on it, I suspect I wouldn’t have stuck with it so long in one go (because it might have been a bit samey) without meeting the other player.

At the end, it informs you of the the other players that you met on your journey through Journey.  I had such an enjoyable time, I felt compelled to send a little thankyou message to the other player.   Turns  out so did he.  I ended up playing through the game with a guy from Japan!

So the Great Gaming Moment of Journey is the Multiplayer.  Well implemented and it made the game!

I highly recommend this game, it is an amazing experience and despite it’s simple premise is pretty cool and very well done.  The graphics are pretty good and I was impressed that they managed to make various types of desert look so good.  Give it a crack!  Trailer embedded below for good measure.

Yet another Bumblebee

Dodgy Paint applications aside, I found this little fellow reasonably interesting.  As part of the latest Generations figures and packaged with an IDW comic book to help with the um, production of yet another Bumblebee toy, I was curious to see how it goes.  Other reviews of these Generations figures have generally been of the conclusion that they aren’t bad, but rather small.  My recent adventures with Transformers (Prime and FOC) have been less than exciting sort of making me float towards other figures that don’t transform.

Can these new Generations tickle me back to the shape shifting wonderful-ness?  After all, that is part of the reason why I bought this guy.

Tatsunoko Vs Capcom Character Collectin’

Crazy Old me and my fascination for figures from video games.  Sort of going along the lines of attempting to get the characters from the good old Vs. Capcom series of games (X-Men, Marvel Super Heroes, Marvel etc.) I had the rather pleasant opportunity to play Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom on the wii in both it’s original Japanese iteration and the rather changed English release.

Sadly though it also opened up my needs for a whole butt load more characters to add to my growing list of video game toy needs.  Most of which I did not know. I’d never heard of Gold Lightan, Tekkaman, Hurricane Polimar and a bunch of others before from the Tatsunoko side of things.   Luckily there were a couple I did know such as Ken the eagle and Jun the Swan from Gachaman (Battle of the Planets/G-Force) which I have always liked and the Capcom Roster was pretty good with Megaman and Roll added in for good measure as well as Yami from Okami and I always though Ammy was a shoe-in for this game, but she appeared in Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 (Yay!). I also liked how they adapted for the 3 button attacks and the slight changes to certain character’s move sets, such as Ryu.  But this isn’t a post about the game, this is about this toy.

I hadn’t heard of Tekkaman Blade until that game.  I also hadn’t had much to do with Bandai figures at the time, except for my limited knowledge of Chogokin (which was good), as a result, it was in my brain that this guy was a part of the Chogokin line.  Which he isn’t.  Sadly this affected my view of the toy somewhat as I was expecting some chunky metal awesomeness…

Galaxy Convoy from, um Galaxy Force… DUH!

Now finally, I have here one of my favourite Optimus Prime toys.  Actually that’s incorrect as it is actually a Convoy, Galaxy Convoy to be exact.  Nevertheless, out of all the Optimus Primes/Convoys of various descriptions this is at the top of my list as the one I like the most. 

I really like Galaxy Force.  It was the first Transformers cartoon that I watched in Japanese before the English and I loved the differences.  Especially since I was at the height of my Japanese language studies at the time, the characterisations were much better done than the English and it wasn’t until much after that it got forced into being ‘part 3’ of the Unicron trilogy.  I mean really it doesn’t fit very well at.  The surprise that Convoy shows at being able to combine with other Transformers is the main giveaway, especially since the main gimmick of the previous series was Transformers combining AND EVERYBODY did it…  Moving on.

Galaxy Force Convoy is a Fire truck, harking back a bit to the heroic days of Robots In Disguise.  Sure it is unlike any firetruck I have ever seen, but hey who cares, it’s a big red truck and it looks tough and cool!  I can believe it’s a fire truck.  Some how…

Impactor. What is this??

I am not sure if I am getting too cynical, or Hasbro is just floundering with ideas for my beloved Transformers line.  Here I have Impactor, a character originally from the UK Marvel G1 comics and was the leader of the Wreckers.

While I think it’s nice to get a toy of the guy, I am a bit saddened by the fact the Wreckers (for all intents and purposes a type of SAS for the Autobots) have been relegated to a recolour of the unfulfilled Fall of Cybertron Bruticus.  The Wreckers didn’t combine either, which makes this a bit odd.  More dissappointingly o i that as the leader of the Wreckers, Impactor has been made a recolour of the most horrid of the 5 toys, using the Onslaught body. 

I think you may have guessed that things aren’t going so well for Impactor, do they get better?

Owning Bill Murray

When I was going through the excitement of my Masters of the Universe Classics fad (let’s face it, that is exactly what it was), I also noticed that Mattel were doing some Ghostbusters figures.  I have always loved Ghostbusters,  I remember seeing it at the cinema and the scene where the librarian ghost gets all scary in the face, well, I got scared and covered my eyes.

I still love the movie and I also love Bill Murray.   Now I have a little plastic Bill Murray in his Ghostbuster outfit!  Let’s take a gander!

Never to be opened figures

San Diego Comic Con.  Oh how you torture me.  I saw this set planned for the SDCC a month or so ago and was a happy little jo-jo and sourced one straight away pleased with the thought of having a Legends Deapool for my collection.  It’s not until much later that I realised that these aren’t Legends figures in the 6 inch range, but the ‘Marvel Universe’ figures in the 3.75inch range.

Disappointment and happiness then flew in all at once.

On the minus side, I am still without a 6 inch Deadpool.
On the plus side, I am not at all feeling bad about leaving these guys in package.

Hasbro, being the despotic company they are rarely package items so that one can put them back in the package and make it look relatively like new.  This lot has worked well, since I already have a little Deadpool to play with, I can now look at these guys and leave them in their boxes quite happily, because with this set,
It’s ALL about the Packaging!

Here we go again; FOC Sideswipe.

I tried avoiding this one for the longest time, since his base body is based on Jazz from the Fall of Cybertron toy with which I was not overly impressed I knew I wouldn’t like it that much.  I don’t.  But annoyingly they gave him a toy version of my favourite gun in the game.  Therefore I crumbled when seeing it in the shops and here he his.

So is he an improvement over Jazz?  Is the gun worth it?

Mobip Yoshika Miyafuji

Well, here is an interesting situation.  After watching the somewhat strange Strike Witches cartoon, I decided I needed some figures.  Not really expecting much to happen about that, I bought this Yoshika Miyafuji figure, which was made by Mobip.  They only did the one character as far as I know, which is odd.  Anyway later on it appears that Good Smile Company made a figma Miyafuji as well.  How very odd.  While I had the Mobip version first, I did review the figma one first.  Now finally here I have the Mobip version. 

What’s the difference?

Toybiz Age of Apocalypse Sabretooth

Sabretooth, Wolverine’s brother of sorts.  I am prone to loving a good nemesis character.  This here is Sabretooth from the Age of Apocalypse comic series that ran in the mid 90s, which was a post-apocalyptic story where Apocalypse successfully conquered most of the world.  The X-men were run by Magneto as Professor X had been accidentally killed in a time travelling accident.  Go wiki it, I quite enjoyed it.

In fact it was the series that got me started on comics.
This figure from Toybiz was a Walmart exclusive, which annoyed me greatly as it meant I would have trouble getting one as Australia doesn't have Walmart.  Eventually I did find one and here he is.  Sabretooth, member of the Astonishing X-Men and a good guy.  Crazy.  That’s why I liked the Age of Apocalypse.

Modern Ever-Living Mumm-Ra

Taking a break from Transformers, I though I would rip out a fellow that took me a while to get a hold of.  Mumm-Ra the Ever Living.  Not to be confused with Mumm-Ra the normal living.  As I watched the modern Thundercats show and enjoyed it, I decided that having Lion-O without Mumm-Ra is a bit like Optimus without Megatron, Harry without Voldemort, Drift without hateful angry Transformers fans.

So I pooled some resources and hunted this big boy down.  Actually, come to think of it, I have a feeling I bought this guy from a local Toys R Us when they first showed up on the shelves in Australia.  Not buying something online for once??  Heaven forbid!

I have noticed a trend of the bad guys not getting quite the same amount of love that the good guys get when it comes to toy design, which I suspect is entirely due to discrimination!  Or the fact that bad guys don’t appear to sell as well, which I think is a shame as normally the baddies are much more interesting than Vanilla Hero.  So how does Modern Mumm-Ra stack up?

Avoiding the Boxset. Shattered Glass Megatron

So, yeeeeaaahhhh…..

Sure I said after doing the  Botcon figures from 2012 that I would get about going through the  Shattered Glass boxset and then promptly followed up by doing Rodimus….  Weeeelll, I’ve done it again.  Megatron here was Rodimus’ bag buddy and therefore isn’t a part of the box set.  That all said though, after I finish this review, I have no other Shattered Glass characters to do except the box set.

See?  The silver lining.

WFC Megatron Revisited

 

So, after getting the Hasbro version of War For Cybertron Megatron, I eventually stumbled upon the Japanese version.  As a result, this won’t be a full on review as I pretty much covered what I wanted to with my review of the Hasbro one.  Being crammed into Takaratomy’s United line, This Megatron gets some additional sexiness with some shiny paint. 

The most noticeable difference being a much darker colour scheme.

Galaxy Force Starscream

Aaah, Galaxy Force.  Without a doubt this series is in my Top 3 of Transformers lines. Incidentally, my top 3 consists of Generation 1, Animated and Galaxy Force, but I can’t put one over the other, so there is no Number 1…



Old Starscream here is a bit of an odd one.  The Japanese release got a single release in show accurate colours, but despite being a major character in the show, the not Japanese release only got released in a two-pack with Vector Prime.  He was also painted vastly different too.  I don’t count that abominable Supreme Starscream which was a slightly modified version of this toy, but blown up to ridiculous size.  It was Horrid.  My main reason for getting this Starscream was because he appears to be based on the old ‘Tetra-jet’ as the fandom refers to them as.  Which is the triangle jet modes they had on Cybertron in the original cartoon. 



It also looks cool.

Electro Disruptor Mirage

I’ve been meaning to get to this guy for a while.  I took the photos almost three years ago now and my experience (or lack thereof) with less colourful characters seems to show a bit in these photos.  I have decided to use them and have this post show on the 16th July 2013.  three years after I took the photos, as a sort of archival piece of sorts.  I’ll probably get around to redoing this as my skills and camera have developed and I think there is a lot of potential for this guy to be fun to photograph.  Even more so than Ghost Starscream.

It also helps that the figure itself (a recoloured Classics toy) is very good.

3rd Birthday Post and and Beast Wars Heinlad

Woooo!  Ladies and Gentlemen, boys and girls, I am proud to announce that through some remarkable show of both effort and resilience that I have been running this blog for a mighty three years!  Happy Birthday Tets’ Toys & Shenanigans! 

I first started this blog as a way to use the photos of my toys that I enjoyed taking so much, but would never get around to doing anything with.  It has worked beautifully in one respect failed in another.  It has worked as I do get a way to share my photos that I enjoy taking so much.  It has failed however in that now I have a hard drive full of pictures that I have taken “for my blog.”  Oh well.  You win some, you lose some.  On the plus side, I still enjoy taking pictures, as well as doing posts for my blog, although sometimes it can be a fair bit of work to get done.  I initially intended to have a post every couple of days, but that is quite a bit of work.  But there ya go, I am happy with the way things are at the moment and update when I can.  After all I don’t want to over do it and begin hating the things I love.

I’ve met a great bunch of dudes as well.  Special “howdies” go out to Westen who has a developing blog and youtube channel.  His video is a bit choppy, but he says some good stuff.  Drunketh from Horror movies and Beer for some incredibly amusing reviews of videos, movies, toys and of course beers. Gord, Colby, Heroic Decepticon and everybody else for the interaction and motivation and um, browse-ivation ( ?).

And so, to celebrate I have dedicated this post to the 3rd Anniversary.  Why?  Because it is the most amusing (quirky?) Beast Wars figure I know of.  Heinlad.  And I think that may summ up my blog effectively…

Legion Class Evac

This little guy is supposed to be a representation of the dude you ride in, in the Transformers Ride at Universal Studios Singapore and somewhere else.  There is the only place where you can buy a deluxe sized one, but they did have the fore-sight to make up a smaller Legion sized fellow for general release.  I grabbed it because I think it is cool.

 

Read on to find out why.

A Colossal purchase.

Actually I lied.  It isn’t a colossal purchase.  Just a colossal TOY! 

I must say that Colossus is my favourite X-Man character.  Hmm, Hulk, Juggy, Colossus.  All stupidly strong characters, see the theme there?  I bet there is a psychological reasoning for this somehow…  But that’s enough self psychology thanks.  This here is a review of the Diamond Toys (maker), Marvel Select (series) Colossus (character).  I bought this guy when I bought Juggernaut, because he was well priced and much like Juggernaut, is one I have seen and wanted but never really bothered looking for. 

I also thought, since the Marvel Selects have a tendency to be larger figures, he would be a rather nicely scaled figure to go with my recently acquired Wolverine.  So after all that effort, does he actually fit in to my newly started 6 inch Marvel characters line well?

Brainstorm of a G1 nature.

A year or so ago, I managed to gain another one of the beloved HeadMasters.  I have loved this concept since the day I got my grubby kiddy hands on Mindwipe.  Slowly but surely I am getting a few more toys that feature this gimmick and here I have a few shots of Brainstorm, one that I have wanted over the others for a while now.

Dodgy Phone review–Modern Lion-O

So today I am being a little lazy and didn’t have my camera with me when I cracked this guy open.  So I have since done a few extremely dodgy and crap pics with my phone camera of the 4 inch Lion-O.  Which I managed to pick up for two dollars.  I already covered my 6 inch Lion-O here and wasn’t going to bother with the four.  Until I decided to get some vehicles…  they’ll come later.

Marvel Vs Capcom Character Collecting

Hmm, so my recent Legends Adventures have inspired me to find a few more characters in my (generally) futile attempt to gather the cast of various Vs. Capcom games.  Slowly but surely I am getting a few characters together and now I am pleased to say that I have gathered the daddy of all awesomeness that shows up in the Vs. Capcom games.

You may have guessed, it’s The unstoppable Juggernaut.

Ever since I got my grubby little hands on X-Men: Children of the Atom (COTA) game for my Saturn (and subsequently got addicted to Street Fighter style games…) I have been impressed and scared of Juggernaut.  He was an absolute prick in COTA and would kick the crap out of me all the time.  He was HUGE! 

Now I have the Diamond Marvel Select toy of him.  Oh YEAH!

This game was my first meeting with old Juggy.  He looked like this when you got to fight him.

As you can see, Juggernaut is frigging HUGE!  That’s how I want my Juggy to be compared to my other toys.  Can it be done?

Liking my Comics: Legends Wolverine

After having so much enjoyment come out of the wonderful world of Archangel, I jumped onto Amazon.com and sought out the other figures I wanted from the line.  It turns out I got a few extra as well that I didn’t know I wanted…  Funny how that works… 

Long story short, I have Wolverine from the ‘Hit Monkey’ series, that is also the same series that Archangel comes from.  Oh and the good news? Online he wasn’t $30.  Huzzah!

Protoform Optimus Prime

This was one of the first Transformers released for the first Michael Bay Transformers movie, as part of the ‘preview wave, it consisted of this Protoform Optimus Prime, Protoform Starscream and a Bumblebee if my memory serves me correctly.

Being a sad man that loves hi Cybertronian mode Transformers, I naturally had to get the two Protoform toys.  I wasn’t expecting much since they jut transform into a large turd, but they are surprisingly surprising.

Welcome to Australia, have you paid your Barstard tax today?

Inspired by a comment from Colby on my “A Tale of Legends” post on the excessive cost of a Marvel Legends toy of $30 at Toys R Us in Australia.  I put it down to what I refer to as ‘Barstard tax.’  Which is essentially a mark-up on normal prices for no other reason than being in Australia.

I ranted on about this in a way back when the Dark of the Moon toys came out in my (cleverly named if I say so myself) “Dark Of The Moon figure price RIPOFF!”   That post was inspired mainly from the situation that had come about from a strong Australian dollar that had been around for a year or more at the time.  Transformer prices have improved a little bit for us, but not by much.  It’s now been about 3 years at least where the Australian Dollar has been equal or higher to the American dollar and yet most of our toys are at least an extra 25% higher or more, just because we are in Australia.

SuperCon Optimus Prime

Ooooh Armada.  You create such conflict in me.  On the one hand I love the PS2 game with the great character models and the toy line had potential with the Minicon connection thing.  I Would have loved to have seen this developed a bit more, say have the Minicons become actual armour pieces for the Transformers.  How cool would this scene be:

Megatron is about to rush a posse of Autobots, he is covered in minicons.  Megatron rushes in and the Autobots open fire, they exhaust their ammunition, thinking that Megatron must be dead as no-one would be able to withstand such an intense barrage.
The dust clears, Megatron is smoking but still standing defiant and unharmed.
The minicon armour he wore has taken all the punishment.  He shrugs his shoulders and flexes his chest, disposing of the previously living Minicon armour which crashes to the ground, still smoking and spent of all energy, only to rush the Autobot posse once more.

That was a scene that I have had in my head ever since I got Armada Megatron and worked out how many plugs he has.  Sadly it has never been done like that. So much potential never realised.

This Optimus is the Super-Con size of figure.  (i.e deluxe) and was brought out about midway through the series.  I picked it up because I quite like the look of Optimus here and to actually have a decently articulated figure of his Armada self was needed. 

Plus he has a Targetmaster.

Legends Archangel

So this is the spoils of my might Toys R Wot?? Adventure.  Ever since I saw him in the comic, I have had a soft spot for Archangel.  This can definitely be attributed to his sweet ass wings.  Man I always wanted some of my own.  They look so cool.  I think ages ago I picked up a little toy of Archangel, it had firing missile things on his wings, but they just didn’t have that “Wow” factor that Archangel’s wings need.  I have since lost/gave away that little fella and have been waiting for an appropriately wowsome figure since.

I knew of a few of the old Marvel Legends made by Toy Biz all those years ago and liked quite a few of them.  thinking back I should have picked some up, after all they were only $15 and that was when the Australian dollar was a lot weaker, so they were pretty good value for money, but I was getting out of general characters and focussing on Transformers. 

On my recent travels for Masterpiece Transformers, I discovered this nice version of Warren in the Legends line, which has been taken over by Hasbro.  It’s nice to finally see larger figures back, but sadly the price has jumped up to $30.  Still I guess they are better value than the $18 4 inch figures we get.  Is he worth it?

A Tale of Legends

On the hunt for some Masterpiece Transformers for some friends, I found myself wandering through the wayward aisles of my local Toys R Wot??  On the way, I spied the fact they had some Marvel legends Figures.
And let the Story begin!!

Perceptor Of Reveal The Shield fame.

Finally an update of ye olde Perceptor.  He hasn't had much love since the days of G1.  Yet at the end of the Revenge of the Fallen line we were graced with a few G1 inspired fellows.  Although theoretically they were part of the movie line.  Luckily these guys from the short run “Reveal The Shield” fits in better with the Generations line of figures, which I think was running at the same time, or so close that they felt like the same line.  The main ‘gimmick’ of this line was that they featured the classic old Rub Sign from days of yore (or G1 as it were).  Others in the line were Jazz, Wreck-Gar, Windcharger and Lugnuts.  They were all pretty good toys.

How is Perceptor?

 

Mumm-Ra, the almost ever living.

Just realised I had these photos sitting on my computer for ages and since I don’t have as much time as I used to for the photo taking, I thought I would go through the (rather) substantial back-log of pictures sitting on the old computer drive.

 

So here we have the delightful Mumm-Ra.  In  his old man mode.  This is the mode that he lives in before he summons his evil gods to make him ever-living.  This is a small figure.  I think from the six inch or so line.  It comes with the magical Thunder-Lynx gimmick, which I haven’t been able to test out yet, but I do have a Thundertank on the way.  Lion-O from the same series is here.  Let’s have a look at his enemy!!

 

Ouch I have a 2012 TMNT Splinter!

Classy pic. Includes ninja arsenal it says.  Sadly that’s a lie.  Splinter is always going to  be a hard toy to produce.  The robes that he seems to like make it very tricky.  I remember that the first Splinter had a cloth robe and limited articulation.  This one comes with a  plastic robe and limited articulation and no ninja arsenal.

 

Badly Shockwaved.

I have always had a soft spot for the logical emotionless Shockwave, so any iteration of the cyclopsian Transformer is good in my mind.  However one hasn’t really come about.  Aside from G1 Shockwave and Fall of Cybertron Shockwave the toys have been a bit disappointing. 

 

Always willing to give the new guy a go, I got Shockwave from Prime.  Actually I got the Japanese version which is ‘Transformers Go,’ to be more precise.  Not sure why exactly, I think it may have been due to the shinier colours and the different colour of his Beast Armour.

 

Gachaman, Microman! Ken the Eagle!

Too many 'man's in that title, it feels so awkward.

Aside from that however I have a video review of Gachaman (a.ka G-Force, a.k.a Battle of the Planets) Ken the Eagle.  Made by Takara in the Microman line, it is a figure I have been chasing down for years.  And now that I finally have it, well let's just say it isn't as super awesome as my head thought it would be.  It is still pretty cool though.


Please enjoy the video, I spent a while on this one as I got to grips with a new editing programme.  Still learning the ropes a lot with this baby, but there we go.

TMNT 2012 Shredder

You Know I am a bit disappointed in myself, for these Ninja Turtles figures I have been unable to come up with a witty/stupid (it’s all a matter of perspective) title pun. Nonetheless, I have here the mighty leader of the Foot Clan, Shredder.

 

Is he as funky and well done as the Turtles?  Or is he a bit of a wet fish like Kraang?

 

Long time no post, time for a haul

Well, it’s been a while since I posted a haulage post, but after a pal has gone to Japan and a little local fair, as well as online shopping and a few too many glasses of wine, here we go with a few pics.

My Ginrai, from “Gutto Kuru”.  Originally he came with two right arms… That's his properly done replacement.  Frenzy and Rumble of Prime, coz they have Gurren Lagaan faces on their chests (yes I am that shallow), Kreon Combiners (YEEEEEEAAAAH!), Ripclaw a nice lady dragon, but pretty boring lady robot.

The one Transformer that needs no introduction.

A Prime General Vehicon, Masterpiece cassettes of the Buzzsaw, Frenzy, Rumble, Ravage nature.  A bunch of stuff from a bud’s visit from Japan (thanks man )  that has some Strike Witches Luccini stickers, a saucy manga featuring the aforementioned witch, some chick from some gae with a big sword that looks cool that I like the look of, Hastune Miku music CD and DIVA F game for PS3, a Luccini statue thingy and some other stuff that I can’t make out from the thumbnail I am looking at.

Yeah, I can be lazy.  So what?

Last day of too much food.

And here we are, on the final day of the holiday and desperately trying to cram in a few final bits of fun before I head back home to the unorganised drudgery of Australia again.  Whenever I go to Japan, there are three foods that I really looks for:

• Melon Pan
• Mr Donuts
• Mos Burger

Ok. Only one of those is a food.  The other are food chains…  oh well.

Thus commences the adventures of :

6th August 2012

Forgetting stuff, traditional food and Thermae Romae.

In my amazing, feverish fervour, I managed to forget to include some photos that should have been included in the August the 4th post…  The most annoying thing of all though was that I was actually looking for the these particular photos….

So I will carry on.  In my last post I mentioned briefly fireworks and children.  A winning combination in anyone’s language.  On a side note, I have an extra gig of ram in my little lap top and it’s running like a dream.    Anyway, back to the photos!!

After the jump.

Cup Noodles, Afros and Yokohama

So, after quite a long while of distractions, I have finally decided to pull my finger out and finish off the holiday I had in Japan last year.

>_>

Yearp, you heard right.

August the 4th 2012

The Fallen, Legion class toy review

This one comes with a super-duper real alternate mode!

Give me six and a half minutes of your life and I will give you the best video on youtube!



Bonus drinking game every time I say the word....

Chogokin Tetsujin #28

 

Since I have been getting into and somewhat impressed with the Chogokin series of toys from Bandai, I decided to get this guy.  Why?  Well I’m not too sure.  All I knew about him is that he is a remote controlled robot of sorts from the olden days of anime and the better half likes him.  I gotta admit that his cool chunky retro-style really appealed to me too.

 

After keeping an eye out for him for a while, I noticed that despite his modest original price, he commands a huge amount of money on the second hand/after market.  Actually, I should clear that up a little bit.  There were two colour variations for this dude initially.  One was a flat blue and another a metallic blue, with an extra character.  I decided to get the metallic blue.  Naturally, it’s the rarer more expensive one.  Luckily I found one a reasonable price.  And now we shall have a look at him!

 

Tails' Tornado Racer review

Just a looky look at the delightful Tornado Racer that Tails drives in Sonic and SEGA All Stars Racing.  Hmm, flyaliscious!

Fall of Cyberton: Bruticus

And now we come to the crescendo of the Combaticons.  Yes, it’s BRUTICUS!!  The wonderful combined mode of the team.  It has been a while since we saw a decent combiner form of more than a couple of Transformers.   Sure there was Energon, where the entire Autobot line was based on combining, but they were pretty bad.  Power Core Combiners only had drones and they didn’t transform.  Off the top of my head, (not counting re-issued G1s) the last one would be Railracer from the Robots In Disguise line. (I don’t think Minicons from Armada count…).

 

Hasbro used a type of connection port previously seen on the Power Core Combiners and adapted them to suit these larger deluxe sized figures.  It’s an interesting idea and has worked fairly successfully.  I acquired the amazon.com ‘exclusive’ version which also ended up on Toys R Us as well, but it has the lovely looking G2 colours on it.

 

 

Enough Blabber, we’ve looked at the individual components, let’s see how they go when we smash them all together.

figma Racing Miku 2012

Well a little bit late for 2012, but here she finally is.   Hatsune Miku from Vocaloid, made by the Good Smile Company as she is their mascot for their little racing venture.  On a whim I got the 2011 racing Miku and ended up really liking it.  It was a more mature version of Miku than what we normally recieve and I dug that.  After seeing a statue version of the 2012 version, I decided to get this figma one as well.

 

Now the collector in me says I should sign on for the 2013 version too.  Maaaaann…..

 

Enough of my slightly OCD characteristics.  I think the 2011 is my favourite Miku form.  Can 2012 surpass her?

 

Fall of Cybertron: Vortex

I am proud to present the final of the Fall of Cybertron G2 inspired Combaticons.  Vortex, without a doubt probably my favourite of the bunch for both robot mode and vehicle mode.  He comes with a nice pale blur for his main colour with the prerequisite purple camo splodges.  Which of course any helicopter needs really.  Not only does this guy look good in chopper mode, he also looks good in robot modes too.  So let’s have a look-see shall we?