November Hauls!

[Onslaught Six]

True enough--ClaPrime is nuts on the secondary market. (Thankfully, the insane fetishization of Classics and its related lines have made prices on RID stuff go down a bit.)

Anyway, the mailman had a present for me today--G2 FOC Bruticus! And I gotta say he's...not bad!

Okay, the moulds have their own problems. I knew that, and it's hard not to be a little disappointed regardless. (This is my first time messing with the moulds.) And I'm a little disappointed in the colours, because...well, Hasbro cheaped out, as expected, I guess. The toy has about half as many paintapps as the back-of-box and promo pictures showed. Most of these are incidental things like the blades on Vortex's swordguns or the top of Blastoff's guns, which are painted on the protos but totally bare on the production version. But the biggest misstep is on Bruticus and Onslaught's heads.

The early pics showed Bruty with some rad extra purple details on his head which are gone on the production version. Meanwhile, Onslaught's head was shown as black, whereas on the toy...it's purple. They painted the visor, at least, but a purple head is very very annoying--I might have to ruin the resell value on this beast and paint it black. Other than these, though, all of the paintapps appear to be intact--everyone's camo looks as good (or bad, depending on your preferences) as you'd expect.

Other than that, though, everything is cool. Box is great--I get the feeling it's a little "empty," but it's probably just sticking with the original G2 theme. It looks great against my TFCC G2 Ramjet box and, I would think, the 2010 Botcon set's box. (Dom, do you still have that box? ...how much you want for it?) At $60, he's also the cheapest way to get A Bruticus, and he's actually still available on Amazon right now, so if you feel like it's worth it even with a few less paintapps than expected, take the plunge. (FWIW, Amazon also has all five of the Combaticons at $15 each, which is nice and even, and if you buy at least two of them, shipping is free!)

[BWprowl]

My big Tutti-Frutti-Bruty came in last night too (ended up having to pick it up from the distribution center myself at like 9:00pm, OnTrac really is the worst shipping company ever). Haven’t gotten much fiddle time with him yet, but suffice to say he’s big (actually a bit bigger than I was expecting, combined), gloriously colored (I actually prefer the purple head on Onslaught) and comes in a really cool box (part of me almost wishes I’d bought two; I can almost consider displaying one of these MISB, it looks really good in-package). It’s gonna be one of those toys I really need to comb over to get the most out of it and really ‘get’ the whole thing. I only discovered that what I thought was Swindle’s gun was actually his and Brawl’s guns put together right before I went to bed last night, for instance. But at first pass, he’s a damn cool toy to have, and getting this cool exclusive version for less than the price of any other version, without having to hunt for all the components on the pegs? Fricking icing, man.

[Dominic]

Amazon Bruticus would be my second choice, behind the upcoming Takara release, if I were to get any pressing of that mould. (At least the G2 colours are valic in context with the game.)

The "Classics" Prime (and by extension Magnus or Nemesis Prime) is over-rated. I do not hate that mould. But, it is far from perfect. It has the double grill/stomach cheat. And, the truck's side panels are cumbersome on robot mode. I am hoping for a new/better Prime in the "Generations"/"Classics" aesthetic.



Dom
-still rates "Cybertron" Prime very highly.

[BWprowl]

Amazon Bruticus would be my second choice, behind the upcoming Takara release, if I were to get any pressing of that mould. (At least the G2 colours are valic in context with the game.)

Dom, you aren't even going to play the game, why are you so hung up on these toys being in colors from it?

The "Classics" Prime (and by extension Magnus or Nemesis Prime) is over-rated. I do not hate that mould. But, it is far from perfect. It has the double grill/stomach cheat. And, the truck's side panels are cumbersome on robot mode.

Isn't Prime having the extra stomach-grill pretty much an established thing, at this point? Powermaster Prime/Ginrai did it all the way back in 1987, and Laser Prime did it a few years later with fake windows and a grill for a vehicle mode he didn't even *have*. It's just one of those design elements he's going to have regardless of whether it's formed by the incidental vehicle parts or not, I don't know that it can be called 'cheating' in this case.

I am hoping for a new/better Prime in the "Generations"/"Classics" aesthetic.

No. Heeeeeeeell no. We get at least two new Optimus Prime toys every year as it is, that's plenty. This line is already going way too far into GI Joe territory for my tastes, we don't need to take it even further. Classics Prime is absolutely fine and I am 100% happy with him as my Geewun Prime toy.

Spoiler

Also MP-10 is pretty much what you're looking for, there.

Dom
-still rates "Cybertron" Prime very highly.

You know that one had a fake grill and windows, right?

[Dominic]

Wait, "Cybertron" Prime has a cheat-grill? Ah, damn. I have not fiddled with that toy in a while.

Either way, that kind of lazy design annoys me. I did not like it on the Power Master. I did not like it on Laser Prime. I did not like it in a boat. I did not like it in the moat.

Dom, you aren't even going to play the game, why are you so hung up on these toys being in colors from it?

I look for screen/page accuracy as a matter of principle.


Dom
-will check out MP Prime.

[BWprowl]

Wait, "Cybertron" Prime has a cheat-grill? Ah, damn. I have not fiddled with that toy in a while.

Dude, fake windows, fake grill, and neither looked anything like the ones the actual vehicle mode had. Recall that Cybertron Prime is pretty much a re-envisioning of Powermaster Prime.

This is the point I'm trying to make. Those parts aren't there because they're supposed to emulate parts that would be formed from the vehicle mode (hell, Cybertron Prime's transformation in the cartoon goes through the toy's exact motions showing the chest windows/grill actually being on the back) but because Optimus Prime Is Supposed To Have Windows And A Grill On His Chest. They're just a design element that's going to be there. It's kinda...kinda like the weird eyes and dino-face bits Transmetal Megatron in BW had. Obviously those eyes and that head-cresty-bit weren't formed from anywhere on his beast mode, they were just there because they looked cool as a design element.

I look for screen/page accuracy as a matter of principle.

Which I still don't fully understand, especially with something like this. If these were guys you'd actually seen in the game and really taken a shine too, I'd get it, but when you have no experience with the material, the toys' own merits should be the only ones that apply.

Side note fr'instance: Remember when the Spectacular Spider-Man cartoon toyline was out? Well they'd apparently redesigned a number of the toys at the last minute to be closer to the cartoon designs, as evidenced by the old models still being the ones pictured on the packaging and in promo materials. Venom and Doc Ock were both examples of this. Well I saw pictures of the Venom prototype, and absolutely loved the design, to the point that I would have bought it had it looked like that...except the redesigned version, apparently closer in design to the cartoon, didn't appeal to me nearly as much. Maybe if I'd actually watched that cartoon, I would have cared, but I wanted the toy originally just because of the toy itself, and being changed for greater screen accuracy actually *diminished* it in my eyes. Just an example.

Dom
-will check out MP Prime.

Just a heads-up, if you can find one of those things at TRU, it's gonna run you like 120 bux.

[annhell]

My November haul ... chicken pox.

Whoopee.

[BWprowl]

My November haul ... chicken pox.

Whoopee.

That does suck, and I hope you feel better soon, but I'd also like to say that I'm pretty impressed that you've apparently managed to avoid getting chicken pox until now.

Man, did I not post in this thing over the holiday at all?

Picked up the first New 52 Blackhawks trade on Wednesday. A friend of mine had been going on about wanting to read it (and complaining that DC canceled the series before he had a chance to get into it) which is the only reason I even noticed the trade on the rack, which caused me to catch that Mike Costa apparently wrote this thing, neat! So I snagged it. I'm halfway through so far, and it's not bad. Costa sure does love his military fiction though, doesn't he?

I also picked up Dead or Alive 5 for the PS3 on Friday, since they had it at BRE Software for fifty bucks, and I'd been wanting the game, but not *quite* enough to pay full retail for it (and I sure as hell wasn't pre-ordering it, I'm *avoiding* the bonus DLC on this one). First off, I'm quite happy with Tecmo for releasing the new DOA on PS3 (usually it's an XBox-only affair), and this new installment, which kicks off a fresh story arc after DOA4 wrapped a lot of things up, feels like a suitably fresh, new enough start. It's got a grittier, more down-to-earth feel than the more sprawling, high-flying fights the previous versions showcased. The levels here are smaller, but feel like they have more stuff in them, and more going on (the collapsing building level is as impressive as it looked back in the first preview). New characters are cool too, mostly. New girl Mila is fantastic, I wish I could play her better than I can, but I'm going to try to get better just because of how awesome she is. Rig is okay, but feels a bit slow for my tastes, and not in the powerful way I liked about Leon or the Spartan from DOA4. The Virtua Fighter characters are kind of a 'what?' inclusion, but it lets them stick more characters in, so hey. I really like how fully-realized the new Story Mode is, a step up from the fractured, hard-to-follow tidbit-based psuedo-arcade adventures the previous versions used, and as someone who really enjoys the story in DOA, this is a welcome revamp.

Yeah, I like the story in DOA. One of the main reasons I *play* DOA is for the story. Clearly, I'm crazy.

[Dominic]

Which I still don't fully understand, especially with something like this. If these were guys you'd actually seen in the game and really taken a shine too, I'd get it, but when you have no experience with the material, the toys' own merits should be the only ones that apply.

The toys are made to compliment the media which is made to compliment the toys which....

You get the idea.

They damned well need to match up. Even if I like a screen/page-wrong toy, I am still bothered by the laziness evident in the lack of consistency in character models.

Just a heads-up, if you can find one of those things at TRU, it's gonna run you like 120 bux.

Oh screw that.


My haul:

-Friday: I avoid buying anything non-essential on Thanksgiving. But, I tread Black Friday like a Monday holiday. If I would normally pick something up on Friday, I pick it up.

-Blackhawks compilation: Ain't read it yet. Planning to read it next week, or maybe later this week.

-MU Kraven the Hunter: I planned to, (and actualy did), read "Kraven's Last Hunt" this weekend, so this figure was easy to pick up. MU Kraven is not accurate to the character as he appeared in "Kraven's Last Hunt". But, it is a very good generalized representation of Sergie Kravinoff. And, it is an excellent figure in light of more recent MU offerings. The legs have proper hip-jointing, rather than those terrible thigh-swivels. While I have seen poorly painted copies, when this figure is correctly painted, it looks amazing. (Ironically, despite the figure not being accurate to character's defining arc, the eyes are painted in a way that says "this man is crazy".) My only real gripe about the toy itself is the lack of a shot-gun. (And, no, I am not going to make a swappable/variant head joke.) Apparently, Hasbro has dispensed with the figure stands for MU figures. (The are likely assuming that anybody who is planning to display figure will buy stands and that kids are not going to care.) Newer Marvel figures include "comic shots", which are under-sized, and one-sided, trading cards depicting a character. Besides the irony of Kraven's comic-shot depicting him with a shot-gun, the art would likely be impressive on its own, if it the card were properly sized. As it stands now, it is just a glorified piece of chip art.
Grade: B

-a train pass renewal: Renewing a train pass before the first week of November is always kind of fun, as it means I can say (before December) that my transport is taken care of for the rest of the year. And, given that the local transit authority has made distribution of the passes even worse, I had to go in to Boston over the weekend to take care of it, making this seem like a more epic effort than it really was. (This trip also let me retrace the trip I took home from the hospital in 2004, which is an informal ritual for me at this time of year.)

-Kre-O Waspinator and Spinister: reviews in appropriate thread.


Dom
-no customizing this weekend, but plenty of reading.

[BWprowl]

The toys are made to compliment the media which is made to compliment the toys which....

You get the idea.

They damned well need to match up. Even if I like a screen/page-wrong toy, I am still bothered by the laziness evident in the lack of consistency in character models.

My point here is that you seem to be prioritizing for media-accuracy as relative to a piece of media you have zero interest in partaking of. I mean, I understand that you have little to no interest in the mold in general, but the way you continuously make a point of reiterating "If I were to get that toy, I demand that it be in colors that it is in that game that I'm never going to look at!" just screams of some serious issues.

Just a heads-up, if you can find one of those things at TRU, it's gonna run you like 120 bux.

Oh screw that.

It's a Masterpiece, bro. With a trailer. That's what ya get.
(Mind you, I'm not getting it either, as it's placed out of my price range as well. I could never bring myself to spend over $100 on a single toy. I think the most I ever have was like, seventy, on MP Grimlock.)

-MU Kraven the Hunter: I planned to, (and actualy did), read "Kraven's Last Hunt" this weekend, so this figure was easy to pick up. MU Kraven is not accurate to the character as he appeared in "Kraven's Last Hunt". But, it is a very good generalized representation of Sergie Kravinoff.

Again with the same sort of issue, but in a different direction. Are you...are you seriously knocking points off this toy for not looking like the character (or including a specific accessory) from ONE story arc in the entire history of the character? I mean, the damn thing's just sold as "Marvel Universe Kraven", it's not even like a Marvel Select toy meant to represent the character from that specific story arc. That's like me going out and buying a random Spider-Man toy, then complaining that it isn't orange and blue like he is in Marvel vs. Capcom.

Apparently, Hasbro has dispensed with the figure stands for MU figures. (The are likely assuming that anybody who is planning to display figure will buy stands and that kids are not going to care.)

Is Hasbro actually selling stands separately, the way Mattel did for the JLU toys? Furthermore, is Kraven incapable of standing up without a stand?