AAAAH! TF:FOC Shockwave looks so good!!!

[Shockwave]

Like the fake cockpit on the RTS legends Starscream

[JediTricks]

No way, dude, there's all that damn translucent green. Shockwave should have No Green At All.

Eh, G1 Shockwave had yellow for his eye which isn't that far different, I thought it played ok since there was still plenty of purple. Had the gun arm been purple or gray instead of green, I would have given the remaining green translucent an easy pass.

Because the game designers came up with something impractical as a real toy, so the real wheels in his chest are hidden by a panel, there's still only 4 wheels showing in bot mode. It'd be way worse if the real wheels were on his slippery feet and they put facades on his forearms, IMO anyway.

Or they could have just designed the toy the way it's clear the game model is "supposed" to transform with the arms coming from underneath the chest like...every other iteration of Jazz ever. Even the crappy movie toys got that right!

And also, their way of hiding the wheels isn't very good at all, because you can 'still see them.' Why can't they flip down inside his chest, like ROTF Sideways?

I can give you that they did a shitty job hiding the wheels, the figure is not that great IMO, I already said that.

I can't answer to why they didn't use the front end interior, although I'd guess because there wasn't enough room with the head, legs, and torso taking up more of the underside than other Jazz figures; but I do wonder why the windshield with roof ends up as a backpack instead of the arms. Let's face it, TF teams have pulled this crap before, the phoned-in car bot is nothing new. I do see what you are getting at, but calling out the facade wheels for what's clearly a larger design problem is what made the confusion to me.

It should be a collaborative effort. But that said: Fuck the players. I'm sick of game companies making everything piss-easy, too.

It is a collaborative effort, but Hasbro isn't as strangle-control-crazy as a Lucasfilm type of situation.

Kup doesn't have the same thing at all? Kup has a chest that resembles his old toy and animation model, mostly because that's a part of his character but the vehicle he now turns into doesn't look like that at all. It's like how in MTMTE, Wheeljack still has a Lancia Stratos roof for his chest even though he doesn't transform into that at all. When he does transform, it just ends up on the bottom of his vehicle mode. That's the same thing, and that's 'not' Fake Kibble at all.

Generations Kup has a fake version of his G1 design which is a total pretense - there's a clear windshield that comes out of nowhere in the vehicle mode, that is fake shit dude.

The game model has very specific visual cues in bot mode, wheels on the forearms and wheels in the feet, but in order to cram all the legs and arms and excess bulky stuff they designed on the figure into a car mode, it'd be impossible. Look at the scale of the chest hood, the car would have to balloon out to fit it all in.

That's the game designer's problems. I'd rather we not get shitty fake kibble anymore. And with the announcement of TF4, I just know it's going to happen again in 2014.

No, it's the toy designer's problem... obviously.

Energon was a different design ethic, a simpler design school meant to appeal to kids and to be simpler on show artists since it was simple computer-based. And they weren't trying to harken back to the mainstream interpretations of the characters as much, they were content to make new characters, the game does not have that luxury. Also, Downshift had a facade chest, and Rodimus sorta had a facade torso.

The game could have that luxury just as much, Hasbro is just afraid to try new things now.

Bullshit, the game is a license, they took as much liberty as they already dared, they're not trying to create a new audience, they're trying to pander to an existing audience, that's why it says "Transformers" at the top of the packaging.

You bring up Downshift but that just shows you're not understanding what I'm pissy about. That's...not a fake chest. That's just a chest that looks like a different Wheeljack's chest. If it were a fake chest, it would look exactly like Downshift's vehicle mode roof. Or stuff like Fire Convoy's chest. Those are just robot parts, they're not fake kibble. Fake kibble is when something is made in a way that it 'looks like' that part transforms into part of the vehicle mode, but it doesn't. Not when it just looks like a different version of the character or something.

Sorry, it's hard to know just what you're being pissy about when you're all noise and little signal, to borrow a euphemism from Dom.

[Onslaught Six]

Kup doesn't have the same thing at all? Kup has a chest that resembles his old toy and animation model, mostly because that's a part of his character but the vehicle he now turns into doesn't look like that at all. It's like how in MTMTE, Wheeljack still has a Lancia Stratos roof for his chest even though he doesn't transform into that at all. When he does transform, it just ends up on the bottom of his vehicle mode. That's the same thing, and that's 'not' Fake Kibble at all.

Generations Kup has a fake version of his G1 design which is a total pretense - there's a clear windshield that comes out of nowhere in the vehicle mode, that is fake shit dude.

No, I really don't think that is Fake Shit. Think of it like this: Remember Speedbreaker? Speedbreaker has the engine from his vehicle mode hood on his chest. That's simply a fact--the engine in his vehicle mode is the same as the one on his chest. Fake Shit would be if the engine on his hood ended up on his back or something, and he had another, sculpted engine on his chest--the implication being that's how he actually transforms, rather than the engine ending up on his back. *That* would piss me off.

What Kup's got is just revealing robot mode details. They 'resemble' his old animation model, sure, but the fact that he turns into an entirely different truck makes a difference here. If Kup's vehicle mode front actually looked like that, then yes, he'd have a Fake Chest, but he doesn't. It's just like Fire Convoy, who has a chest that resembles traditional Optimus Prime details, but since he turns into a fire truck with a vehicle mode front that looks almost nothing like that, it's just Robot Mode Detail.

[Shockwave]

So, how does MP-01 Prime fit with this? Is his chest fake kibble? Because I think the intention there is to still make it look like the vehicle mode front is his chest even though the "actual" vehicle mode front wind up just above the Matrix or something.

[Tigermegatron]

No, I really don't think that is Fake Shit. Think of it like this: Remember Speedbreaker? Speedbreaker has the engine from his vehicle mode hood on his chest. That's simply a fact--the engine in his vehicle mode is the same as the one on his chest. Fake Shit would be if the engine on his hood ended up on his back or something, and he had another, sculpted engine on his chest--the implication being that's how he actually transforms, rather than the engine ending up on his back. *That* would piss me off.

a good example is TM1 Megatron. who has his beast head on his robot chest. but the real beast head is on his robot back pack.

[Onslaught Six]

No, see, that's the opposite of what I mean, because--while it has eyes and some reptilian detail--I don't think it's intended to be his beast mode head. Especially in the context of the show, where it 'very' clearly isn't. The TM1s were all about organic detail in the robot modes.

[BWprowl]

No, see, that's the opposite of what I mean, because--while it has eyes and some reptilian detail--I don't think it's intended to be his beast mode head. Especially in the context of the show, where it 'very' clearly isn't. The TM1s were all about organic detail in the robot modes.

TM Megs's chest always weirded me out, with the eyes and all, but I think in a good way. It's a pretty distinctive design, and a cool one.

Hey, maybe the wheels in FoC Jazz's feet aren't supposed to be from his car mode after all! Maybe he just...has wheels in his feet?

[JediTricks]

Hey, maybe the wheels in FoC Jazz's feet aren't supposed to be from his car mode after all! Maybe he just...has wheels in his feet?

I was originally going to play that card (even with a "maybe he has a second set of wheels in between the first set of rear wheels!"), but my research showed that he is an existing model from the first game and O6 is correct about his front wheels being his hands and his back wheels being his feet, it's really clear that's what's intended going by those models. No, Hasbro (and/or TakaraTomy?) muffed the transformation completely, it seems clear that they just phoned it in because the game design was too much bulk in robot mode to get it all into car mode, so they went the easy route and picked the battles they did.