Reviews

Review – Transformers – RiD – Quillfire

Broken Record time again, I just love the unique style and designs of the Robots in Disguise Decepticon line up. Quillfire is no exception, with his porcupine themed robot mode. He also has a very unique squat shape to his design, which just helps give him more character.

Quillfire, unlike Steeljaw, has the benefit of being a late line figure. That is, he came out in wave 3 or 4, and the designers of the figures have had a chance to work out the new kinks that pop up every new Transformers line. The neatest part of his design is probably in his head, which Which despite having a hunched look, has an extra joint added that allows for side to side movement. Given that a lot of recent Transformers have kind of felt like they were cheapening out in places, the neck joint here really feels like a bonus. It’s something that could easily have been removed.

He also has a functioning jaw on his large head, which helps add to the ascetics in a good way. Additionally, despite his stocky design, the pose ability is pretty good. He does unfortunately have a pretty large ugly backpack just sort of hanging off of him, which is kind of meh and though the neck is cool, it is limited compared to your more traditional robot designs.

He is also incredibly brown, which admittedly makes him kind of bland to look at. He has a repaint named Scatterspike which has a very similar color scheme, which doesn’t help matters on his color scheme. Like most of RiD, the Transformation is pretty straight forward without too many steps or flippy panels. He includes two weapons, a hand held gun and a quill knife, both are able to be stored in Vehicle mode.

Despite his boring brown appearance, Quillfire, is a neat and fun little toy. His repaint Scatterspike probably has a slightly more interesting color scheme since it’s a dark shade of Red, if you are only interested in getting the mold once. Then again, the browns are a bit more military looking if that’s your thing. He’s a decent toy, just not much to look at.

Classic Ghostbusters (Mattel) (Ray Stantz, Egon Spengler, Peter Venkman, Winston Zeddemore)

Jul 12th, 2017

by Ramen Junkie.

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Mattel has released these same Ghostbusters molds a few times over the years. this particular release was from the sequel/reboot/remake Ghostbusters movie that came out recently, though for the most part these 4 figures are all the same. The most interesting contrast is how much better these 4 figures are compared to the 4 “new” ghostbusters they were released along side. This isn’t a knock against the whole “all female cast”, this is a knock against the sloppy looking paint and sculpts that the new Ghostbusters figures received.

There are 4 figures here but they are essentially all exactly the same aside from their heads. Some height variance might have been a nice touch but they all use the exact same body, with one minor variance, Peter Venkman has his pant legs untucked from his boots. It’s not a bad body or sculpt though, which is nice. There is enough articulation to recreate most poses you might want from 4 scientists in overalls. The hands are pretty basic but have some surprising bonus features due to the sculp. The right hand is sculpted to hold the Proton Pack gun, which it does well, it also looks fine for a neutral, free hand, at the sides poses, due to the trigger placement on the guns, the figures can also make a nice thumbs up (or down if you prefer) pose as well.

The articulation is also functional enough that the proton packs can easily be removed from each figure. The packs themselves are all identical to each other. There are no other accessories, which is kind of a bummer because they could have easily made a bit of variation by adding obvious accessories like a Ghost Trap, PKE Meter, and maybe one of those little slime grabber dealies they used a few times.

The main variation comes from the head sculpts, which are all nicely done and certainly resemble each of the 4 Ghostbusters. It is the source of my main gripe with these figures, the head sculpts are all nice individually, but there is an odd inconsistency in style. Ray looks considerably more “realistic” than Peter, who looks more like a Bill Murray cartoon.

Head sculpt style inconsistency aside, these are good figures. The body reuse and lack of accessories can certainly be a turn off at the full $20+ price however. Especially considering I believe the previous releases were considerably cheaper. It’s not related to these figures directly, but the apparently lack of quality int he new lady Ghostbusters line up is also disappointing.

Review – Transformers – RiD – Megatronus

Jun 15th, 2017

by Ramen Junkie.

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Megatronus was the first in a surge of Decepticons added to the Robots in Disguise line. Poor Steeljaw would no longer have to face the Autobot army alone. This toy has been released in a few versions, with and without a facemask and a few paint tweaks, this particular version covers the Megatronus release that was exclusive to Toys R Us.

I have to admit, I don’t follow the show, so I’m not sure where Megatronus falls into the hierarchy of things. I believe Steeljaw is actually the leader of the Decepticons and Megatronus is not the same character as Megatron, though the former is the namesake of the latter. Megatronus originally, in the Transformer Mythos was one of the original 13 Primes, and is more commonly known as The Fallen, though I don’t know if that title applies here.

Despite that he isn’t Megatron, he certainly kind of looks like Megatron, and whether or not he is The Fallen, he also feels “special” compared to the other Decepticons in the line. Primarily because he doesn’t seem to really have an animal theme, like the other Decepticons. He’s very much just a tank robot.

Another sign that this guy isn’t Megatron is his complete lack of a Fusion/arm canon. Instead, Megatronus comes with a little sword weapon, which can be weilded in a variety of ways. It can be mounted on one arm as a blade weapon, or held like a standard sword. The tank most also works both with and without the sword attached.

Probably the coolest part of this toy is the transformation. Hasbro has been doing a lot of interesting things lately with Transformations, and Megatronus has some cool tricky that keep the Transformation elegantly simple. The legs in particular, formed from the treads, do a neat little fold over trick. Also notable, since the entire torso is the turret of the tank and the treads are the base, he ends up with a fully rotating turret and a usable waist joint.

The only real issue with this toy is that, given the character and design, he really just feels too small. Megatronus really is a character who needs to be imposing, not this tiny little tank. It’s still a nice figure, he just may pair better with the legends scale than the other Deluxes.

NECA – Heroes of the Storm Arthas (Lich King)

Jun 14th, 2017

by Ramen Junkie.

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I have a real love/hate relationship with NECA. They get a lot of interesting licenses, and for the most part, do nice sculpt jobs on most of their figures. However they use some weird plastic that’s kind of flakey and prone to breaking and often results in stiff or stuck joints. There are ways to loosen them up but it just feels like a shame that the figures often don’t work too well out of the packaging. In many ways, they remind me of MacFarlane Toys of yesteryear, when MacFarlane was a huge presence in the toy industry.

Fortunately, I didn’t have any major issues with my Heroes of the Storm Arthas. Well, not issues that could be overlooked. Probably the only “real” issue is that the articulation is severely limited by his sculpt. Fortunately, Arthas isn’t really a nimble character, so he doesn’t really need a lot of dynamic articulation. The detailing on the sculpt is where this figure really shines too, which makes the limitations it causes more excusable.

The detailing across all of the armor is fantastic, there are tons of little greebles and spikes and such everywhere, all of them nice and clean and cleanly painted. The cloth cape is also a really nice touch and hangs very nicely off of his back. Some may take issue with how brightly colored his overall design is, this figures is based on Arthas as he appears in Heroes of the Storm, not how he appears int he Warcraft Universe, which tends to be more grayscale.

His sword, Frostmourne is very nicely done as well. The sculpt looks good and works from both sides with the wrap around horns on the hilt. Someone was also smart too in realizing that the stiff plastic of Arthas’ fists would never flex out enough to let the hilt in, the handle is removable, so you can slide it up in and reattach the blade.

This really helps him have a nice solid grip on the weapon, and the peg in the hilt fits snugly into the blade piece without feeling like it’s going to break. There is very little not to like about this figure, aside from the HotS vs Warcraft pain scheme. Personally, I kind of prefer it, since it helps accentuate a lot of the detail that would have otherwise gotten lost in an all silver colored design. His size is very nice as well to pair with other 6″ figures for an imposing undead king. Heroes of the Storm Arthas is an excellent figure, if you can find him anywhere.

Marvel Select – Age of Ultron Hulk

Jun 12th, 2017

by Ramen Junkie.

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As part of my quest to assemble a really solid set of MCU figures, I found that I was really wanting for a Good Hulk figure. The Marvel Legends version is pretty small and kind of all smooth and wimpy looking. The Figuarts Hulk kind of suffers from the same issues to a worse degree. Enter Marvel Select. Marvel Select is a separate Marvel line from Marvel Legends, that tends to be more available in specialty shops and is put out by Diamond Distributing. The main difference between Marvel Legends and Marvel Select, is the scale, which runs in the 7″ range as opposed to ML’s 6″ range. The Marvel Select figures also tent to have slightly more limited articulation, but better sculpts. The larger scale means a lot of the “normal” character don’t fit in with Marvel Legends at all. I have the Hawkeye MS, which is a great figure, but he’s be 8 foot tall in the ML world. Figures like The Hulk however, who are ambiguously large, work really well along side Marvel Legends figures.

Which is why I picked up the marvel Select Age of Ultron Hulk, as my Hulk. There are several different Hulks int he MS line, this one is specifically “from” Age of Ultron, though it’s a repaint of the earlier MS Avengers Hulk. I find that the paint apps on this release to be superior to the original version, the pants are a different color and there is a lot more shady sort of detail going on.

The sculpt is also really nice which is a lot of the reason I wanted this Hulk over the Marvel Legends Hulk. He’s got a lot of nice veiny angry detail going on all over his body and the face as a particularly great grimace going on. The joints used on the Marvel Select can both work in favor and against the sculpt, when in their resting postitions, everything looks nice and smooth, but when out of position they do look a little ugly. Mostly this is an issue in the legs.

The other primary driver was the sheer size of this Hulk. He towers over the Marvel Legends characters. His massive size makes him perfect to face off against the Marvel Legends Hulkbuster BAF from Age of Ultron as well. He’s also very solid, you can definitely feel the weight when posing and moving the figure, which really helps with stability when posting.

The posing is pretty good, though as I said, ML does have some limitations on it’s joints. I’m generally not a fan of the sort of hips used in this line, DC uses it on almost all of it’s figures, and it usually looks ugly as hell. On a larger character like Hulk, it works pretty well however, and it a bit less noticeable. The range on the elbows and knees isn’t amazing, he isn’t going to be kneeling very well anytime soon.

If you’re looking for a good solid Movie Hulk, the Marvel Select is definitely the way to go. The best part is that the Marvel Select line isn’t really that much more expensive than their mass released Marvel Legends counterparts, especially given how much larger and better painted they are. The Age of Ultron version is harder to find at the moment but I can’t imagine it won’t get a figure re-release for Infinity War. Also, just to beat a dead horse, this kind of touches on my wish that Marvel Legends would ditch the BAF gimmick and just make nicer figures.