Transformers: Energon & Beyond

[Chaddymac]

Yeah, Vector Prime's paint job (and how it looks 10 times better in the photos) is what made me hold off. But they all look better in the photos I suppose.
I'm just not interested in that one at all. It looks way too Megazord to me. If they're gonna do "beasts" then they should just do them. None of this, "We'll slip this one in to mix things up." kind of stuff. And then there's the big club with fire on the end of it...



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I saw $49.99 Starscream today, and I'm really not impressed. It looks like they took a smaller figure and enlarged it so that there was the same level of detail as a deluxe figure, but just bigger, with bigger features, etc. Very bulky and plane (no pun intended.) In this case bigger is not better, just more expensive.

Why make Starscream that big anyway?

I'd have gotten screamer if his cockpit opened and fit, I don't know, a Gi Joe figure. but it didn't and it doesn't so I won't.

[Adam]

Okay so I got my first shipment from Amazon today.

Thundercracker: Not very good. His "Thunder Hell" gun arm's shoulder won't stay put, and looks awkward when the force chip is used. Some good things though.. his right fist flips out, which is always nice. Someone said his head looked oversized, but he seems allright to me. One improvement that would have helped this figure is his legs.. they are ball jointed, but don't really have use for them in robot mode. They're too stiff and don't move smoothly. I do not recommend this figure.

Guardshell/Landmine: Articulation wise, this guy has it good. Everything moves smoothly unlike the previous stinker. Has a handheld weapon that doesn't suffer from clear plastic syndrome like 99% of Energon did. Only thing that dissapointed me was I wasn't clear on how his arms worked transformation wise. I though the shovels could be moved over his hands to act as boxing gloves. Sadly, the way the hands are revieled involes moving the shovels themselves. The force chip gimmick is interesting, and I like it mainly because its not a "use gimmick to fire missle" feature. On both back wheels, insert the chip and turn it like a key and the spikes pop out. You can pose him squating slightly and elevate the back end where the wheels are to simulate Guardshell's "tornado cutter", which is the name of his force chip attack in Galaxy Force. Guardshell/Landmine is recommended.

Dreadrock/Jetfire: Not too sure where people get that he is floopy from, although it could be that catch on his torso that holds the nose of the plane down isn't very strong. It's not weak enough to be considered floppy, on mine at least. His only other low point, is that are some gaps in his mid section. It's not hollow per se like Energon Mirage, there are just some gaps between the chest, back and tail end of the plane. One odd thing is that his back is not straight, but slanted. It looks a little odd, and certainly would have looked better straight. He is also a little back heavy, but if you pose him right, its not a big problem. Other than that though, Jetfire is a great figure. His wrists turn and can be pushed in the arms. Shoulder movement is good, even though they are the wings of the jet. The head sculpt is great, the best of all three recent Jetfire's. His head is also on a ball joint, so its movement is better than most. Twin rifles look good. There's an interesting gimmick with the torso catch. When locked in two small missle pods pop out just below the cockput windows. Really cool. His force chip gimmick is forgettable, all it does is pop up the gun on the tail section. Would have been better of you could swivel it face outwards. Legs are articulated in the same fasion as his Energon counter part, which was the really only positive thing about THAT figure. Overall, its a major step up from his Enegon incarnation, and a slight step above his Armada self. Reccomended.

Galaxy Convoy/Optimus Prime: Simply put, the best main line Optimus Prime ever. He is only beat by Masterpeice Prime. Articulation is excellent, only thing I missed was wrist movement. Normal mode looks good, even with the faceplate down. The rifle is cool looking, and the removable matrix gimmick is great! They haven't done that in a main line since Big Convoy. Lots of little detail all over. Super mode is the best its been since RiD. I really like this one because its not just extra armor (RiD), extra height (Armada) or new arms and legs (Energon). This time he gets a little taller, two massive guns and 4 little ones, and its looks awesome. The over the shoulders Hasbro version looks ok, but I prefer the series accurate under the arms version. There are two force chip gimmicks one on each of the big guns. The left guns opens up and has a light gimmick, but I don't have batteries in mine. The right gun pops out two additional missile launchers. I really can't think of any complaints about this guy... Highly reccomended.

[plasticfetish]

Guardshell/Landmine is recommended.

OK. You guys may have talked me into this one now.

Galaxy Convoy/Optimus Prime: Simply put, the best main line Optimus Prime ever.

Man... now I'm getting excited about this one.

[Adam]

I'd say if you're fine with Landmine's colors, go for it.

Prime is no-brainer to me.

[JediTricks]

I'm just not interested in that one at all. It looks way too Megazord to me. If they're gonna do "beasts" then they should just do them. None of this, "We'll slip this one in to mix things up." kind of stuff. And then there's the big club with fire on the end of it...

They will, actually, there's a whole beast-planet in this series so there will be more beasts, and not techno-animals like Energon's Terrorcons either.

I saw $49.99 Starscream today, and I'm really not impressed. It looks like they took a smaller figure and enlarged it so that there was the same level of detail as a deluxe figure, but just bigger, with bigger features, etc. Very bulky and plane (no pun intended.) In this case bigger is not better, just more expensive.

Why make Starscream that big anyway?

He has the crown, his guns just above his cockpit rotate up which the regular sized version doesn't, and the tip of the vehicle folds up, he has 1 flip-out blade weapon and 1 flip-out gun weapon instead of 2 blades, other than that he really does seem the same and too plain. The reason they did him big I guess is because at some point he'll end up going to the Giant Planet and getting supersized in the show. Personally, I think they have something wrong in their heads releasing biggie Screamer first.


Adam, glad to see you like Optimus too, sounds like you may dig him even more than I do, and I *really* dig him!

I hope to get Landmine tomorrow, along with the 2 basics I don't have.

[plasticfetish]

They will, actually, there's a whole beast-planet in this series so there will be more beasts, and not techno-animals like Energon's Terrorcons either.

I guess to be fair I'll just have to wait and see what they have out at Comic-Con before I pass judgement.

[darthvyn]

well, this has nothing with the topic at hand, but i actually picked up alt.grimlock a couple of days ago. looks good, not a real surprise since i already have wheeljack, except for the fact that he has TWO RIGHT HANDS!!! yep, the left arm has a right hand on it. maybe i should sell it on ebay as a "manufacturers defect..."

really, i'm just going to try to find the contact info for hasbro QC and see if they can't send me the left hand...

EDIT: just went over to www.binalternators.de and found out a lot of new info!!!

# July 2nd 2005: Doug Dlin confirmed at alt.toys.transformers that Hirofumi Ichikawa apparently won't write a background story for the "Binaltech Asterisk" subline.

# July 1st 2005: Zinc Panic reports a vast number of new Binaltech announcements, which are being confirmed by DragonX76 of TFans: BT-17, the Toyota bB (Scion xB in the USA) previously believed to be "Ironhide", will in fact be Skids. Even more surprising, however, is the announcement of a new sub-line, the "Binaltech Asterisk Series", which will apparently include remolds of previous releases, which will on top of that be coupled with female (!) drivers on a 1/24 scale: Broadcast (the Japanese name of Blaster), release date November 2005, is going to be a remold of Skids, with Lumina/Rumina, a news reporter, as his driver; Sunstreaker, a GTS version of Dead End, will be released in September, together with a racing queen named Junko; and Alert (the Japanese name of Red Alert), release date September 2005, is going to be a police version of Streak, with * (name still unknown), a policewoman, as his driver.

and here's some links

more pics of the proto ironhide/skids
http://www.tfans.com/talk/index.php?showtopic=27497

boxed prowl
http://blog.park4u.com/blog.asp?name=priplus&id=15378

out of box prowl
http://blog.park4u.com/blog.asp?name=priplus&id=15378
(his head looks kinda gundamish...)

[Adam]

PF


Galaxy Force/Cybertron beasts for your viewing pleasure (except Dinoshout/Undermine, because he sucks and has terrible names. And Saidos is poo-poo.)

Dinoshout/Undermine: http://tfkenkon.com/collection/act326/
Flame Convoy/Scourge pt1: http://tfkenkon.com/collection/act327/
pt2: http://tfkenkon.com/collection/act328/
Fang Wolf/Snarl: http://tfkenkon.com/collection/act329/
Saidos/cantremberthecybertronname: http://tfkenkon.com/collection/act339/
Tarrashaver/??:
http://tfkenkon.com/collection/act340/
Ligerjack/Leobreaker(Overhaul's upgrade): http://tfkenkon.com/collection/act341/


That's all of the beasts, there are more GF stuff on this page that you may not have seen.
http://tfkenkon.com/collection/collection.php

[kool-aid killer]

Im liking some of those beasts, but im not really feeling the Rhino guy, hes too rotund looking to be taken seriously. His beast mode is cool, but as a bot he is lacking.

[JediTricks]

Vyn, that sucks about your Grimmy having 2 right hands! If you contact Hasbro now, there's a good chance they can get you a new one (they only replace stuff like that when they still are making them and they're in stock).

The "asterisk" line sounds too silly for me, but I'll wait and see. I really doubt that'll come out in the US though.

I don't like those wheels on Ironskids, I haven't seen any xBs around here with 'em.


Adam, Saidos is "Armorhide" in the Cybertron line. At least he ain't "Rhinox" though, I would have blown a gasket if Hasbro tried to pull that crap.


KAK, everybody seems to feel similarly about the Rhino guy, Saidos, his sideways-walking legs are too laughable.


I picked up 4 more Cybertron figs today, Jetfire, Landmine, Scattorshot, and Overhaul.

Overhaul is "Brawn" to me, no question now, he's got those G1 colors and the G1 character's alt mode. Overhaul's Key gimmick sucks IMO, and the projectile is so long that it sticks way out his back in both modes, I'm probably going to cut it down to fit better. I'd like Overhaul a lot more if his shoulders weren't such a horror show.

Landmine I was expecting to be slightly better, he's decent but IMO he's not the god some people were saying he was. His key gimmick doesn't actually need the key to work, but it's kinda neat.

Scattorshot is my favorite by far of this lot, he rules, and his are the first projectiles I can think of in a long while where they're actually shaped like missiles (he looks better without them though). The only thing I don't like about Scattorshot is the lack of leg articulation, and the dark visor that makes his yellow goggles look like huge eyes, but he's cool enough to overlook these things.

Jetfire, well, I'll talk about Jetfire in response to other's comments...

Dreadrock/Jetfire: Not too sure where people get that he is floopy from, although it could be that catch on his torso that holds the nose of the plane down isn't very strong. It's not weak enough to be considered floppy, on mine at least.

Mine is so bad that I'm taking him back, it barely holds at all, and since the armature holding his waist is designed to keep traveling, he is "floppy" to me. I hate this a lot, so much so that I'm probably going to ask for store credit instead of another Jetfire.

His only other low point, is that are some gaps in his mid section. It's not hollow per se like Energon Mirage, there are just some gaps between the chest, back and tail end of the plane. One odd thing is that his back is not straight, but slanted. It looks a little odd, and certainly would have looked better straight.

IMO, it's at least as bad as E-Mirage's, and it's so easy to see, even Clocker covers his gappy chest when his arms are down. I loathe how this figure looks from any angle that's not straight-on because of that gap. His slanty back just adds to the trouble, especially the empty way his waist is created.

His wrists turn and can be pushed in the arms. Shoulder movement is good, even though they are the wings of the jet.

His wrists don't turn on mine, I thought they did but the arm started coming apart when I did it. His shoulders DID come apart when I was moving them, the wings separate from the hinge piece intentionally to prevent breakage. The shoulders also get right in the way of the backpack gimmick, which was the final nail in this figure's coffin for me.

There's an interesting gimmick with the torso catch. When locked in two small missle pods pop out just below the cockput windows. Really cool.

This is pretty cool, I agree, but Takara and Hasbro both apparently went to stingy town and painted only the outer 2 missile pods yellow, leaving the inner 2 unpainted. I would rather they have not painted either if they were going to not do 'em all.

His force chip gimmick is forgettable, all it does is pop up the gun on the tail section. Would have been better of you could swivel it face outwards.

Agreed, should have rotated, that would have made it really awesome in fact. The key gimmick also changes the sound effect, though not for the better. (There are 3 sound effects when you press either thruster, when the tail is down and there's no key, it makes a weird whooshing sound, when tail is down and the key is in place it makes no sound, when the tail is up and no key it makes a really old-school electronic toy blaster repeating sound, and with the key it makes a noise somewhat similar to the weird whoosh.)

a bit of a brick in vehicle mode (Overhaul) 'cause the wheels don't roll.

Are we talking about the same Overhaul? I think you got a dud, mine rolls like a mad fiend. Wait, maybe you meant Scattorshot, he has micro-wheels under his treads which never is that great.

It's not that they don't move, it's just that with the way "he" sits (on all 4 wheels) they don't roll. He sort of slides along on his undercarriage.

Really, Overhaul? You sure? I just rolled mine, he is a champ even on smooth surfaces. I'm not sure I get what you mean about the undercarriage either, he's got decent ground clearance as he's an off-road jeep-type vehicle.

(Jetfire) $25 at my TRUs. I'm in the same boat, I was tempted but couldn't pull the trigger on that much $$ right now.

Whoops, was wrong there, he was $30.