Reviews

Review – Saints Row the Third (PC, Xbox360, PS3)

by Ramen Junkie.

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2011 – Volition – 1 Player (Campaign) Multiplayer (Online)
PC, PS3, Xbox360

The Good

Loads of fun Gameplay
Reminiscent of classic GTA
Amazing custom character creation with voices and interactions not just “faceless”

The Bad

The missions are kind of just a repetition of a handful of mini games
Kooky level may be too much for some people’s taste.

In Depth

Saints Row really has a comeback story behind it. The first game is apparently rather terrible. the second game is better but not great. It’s already saddled with being a “GTA knockoff” by default no matter what it does. Somewhere Volition has managed to get something really right because Saints Row the Third seems to be quite a hit among gamers. So much of a hit that THQ had decided to focus more on games like Saints Row over things like it’s failing Wii Tablet thing (U-Draw).

This thing is pretty long and image heavy, so you’ll have to click through to get the whole thing.

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Review – Marvel Legends – Juggernaut Wave – Wolverine

Mar 6th, 2017

by Ramen Junkie.

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Wolverine is arguably the most popular Marvel comics character. Spider-man is pretty up there and Deadpool seems to be doing pretty well, but Wolverine is, or at least was at one point, pretty up there. It’s a shame he doesn’t’ get more Marvel Legends figures really. I mean I know I complain about all of the dozens of Captain Americas, but Wolverine is way more popular then Cap. Maybe we just already hit Wolverine Saturation years ago and don’t need more Wolverines? Who knows.

While wolverine has had a few looks over the years, and some slight redesigns, mostly in how big his head fins are or how large his shoulder pauldrons get, he has had two basic looks, there is the classic Blue and Yellow design, which appeared in the previous X-men themed wave of Marvel Legends, and there is this Brown and Dirty Yellow design.

I’m kind of mixed on this figure. It’s a good figure. It’s got a good sculpt and paint. He is appropriately short as Wolverine should be. He even has swappable hands for claws in and claws out. I really wish Marvel Legends would do swappable hands more often. I’ve been spoiled lately by import figures.

What he really needs though is a swappable head. Wolverine can make some nice poses, but his head is just so…. Boring. A raging grimacing or open mouthed head would be a welcome addition to make him seem more dynamic. I like having the neutral head, I just wish eh also had an angry head. Wolverine is pretty known for being a raging animal after all.

The claws are also interesting. They aren’t the often used rubbery plastic that deforms and looks ugly. They are nice and crisp and solid. They tend to wobble a bit in their pegs though, making them hard to keep in alignment. I also worry about breaking them off a bit, since this sort of hard plastic tends to snap more than give under pressure.

Aside from the bland facial expression, this is a really nice Wolverine figure. Here’s hoping that the new Logan film will give us some slightly more action oriented Wolverine designs but given the track record of the X-men films getting ignored for toys, I doubt it will happen.

Review – Marvel Legends – Wal-Mart Falcon (6″)

Feb 27th, 2017

by Ramen Junkie.

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Poor Falcon, Major player in 2 Captain America Movies with a guest bit in Ant-Man. He’s even probably getting groomed up to be the replacement Captain America, if Bucky doesn’t get there first. Like Scarlet Witch, he’s gone for too long without getting a 6″ figure. I imagine a lot of this reason is his huge wings. This sort of accessory really doesn’t work too well with the current model of figure + BAF part. That’s probably part of why his release was a Wal-Mart exclusive along with a better repaint of The Winter Solider, in their own little wave.

The core piece here is of course, the wings. The wings are certainly very huge and very nice looking, however there’s no articulation in them. This is probably both good and bad. It of course sucks for pose variety. On the other hand, articulated wings on figures this size tend to amount to a hinge in one point that results in some funky gaps when extended too far in one direction or another. At the very least, some sort of hinge at the backpack would have been nice so the entire wing could swing up, down or straight out, but alas, it’s not there.

You can sort of fake a forward and backward sweep to the wings. The way the pegs work, they can peg on the front side or backside of the backpack, which will make them swing forward or backwards, depending on how they are pegged on. If the top and bottom holes were the same size you could fake an up and down sweep as well, though the coloring would be upside down with them turned upside down. Alas, you can’t actually do this since the pegs are different, probably done because of the coloration issue.

The base figure is decent, it looks like Falcon, he’s nicely poseable for flying and standing poses. He doesn’t come with any weapons though I imagine the budget mostly went into the Wings. He does include his little remote drone which showed up several times in Civil War.

This is the first and only 6″ MCU Falcon figure we’ve gotten so far. It’s a decent depiction, though the backpack could be better. I doubt we get a better version in the future though, any future Falcon figures will probably just use a repaint of this same wing pack now that they have the mold.

Review – Transformers – Titans Return – Blurr

Feb 23rd, 2017

by Ramen Junkie.

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Like Combiner Wars previously, Titans Return isn’t a total homage to only Headmasters. There aren’t a ton of Headmasters to pull from so some character who weren’t originally Headmasters get roped into the mix as well. I’m not super keen on picking up a lot of the non Headmaster Titan Masters, the way I passed on all of the non combining Combiner Wars characters. Blurr however is a character seriously in need of an updated toy, and this Blurr is a really good representation of the original Blurr, especially compared to the previous Generations Blurr. The old Blurr is a good toy, it’s not a particularly great G1 Blurr.

The best part of this updated Blurr is how lithe his design is. Blurr is known for being fast. He has a sleek fast car, he talks extremely quickly, he should have a fast robot. The Generations Blurr was based on the Drift Mold, and it had a ton of chunky car kibble that kind of restricted a lot of his movement. I mean no, the toy doesn’t move on it’s own, but it helps if the design conveys the idea behind the character.

Also, unlike the Generations Blurr, Titans Return Blurr’s vehicle mode looks much more like the original G1 Blurr’s Cybertronian car. The core difference is that the little Titan Master can ride in the car’s seat and drive it. Transformation is pretty simple but it works well and does the job very well.

The Titan Master is pretty much the same as all of the others in this line, aside from the little pop up head crest. In head mode, there is a little bit that pops up to form Blurr’s head crest. It’s a small but nice detail.

One last side note, this figure was remolded into Titans Return Brainstorm, and is exclusive to Walgreens stores. From what I can tell pretty much everything that applies to Blurr, applies to Brainstorm, though there is a bit of remolding. I don’t intend to pick up TR Brainstorm since I am happy with the Generations Brainstorm, but I wanted to point out that this mostly applies to the other toy as well.

The overall verdict though for Blurr is that it’s an all around really nice Transformer. He’s definitely one of the better figures in the Titans Return line up. Despite not originally being a Headmaster, the added gimmick of the little robot pilot adds some nice fun to the design.

S.H. Figuarts – Ranma (Female)

Feb 22nd, 2017

by Ramen Junkie.

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Getting Sailor Moon Figuarts was a surprise. But not a huge surprise when you consider there was a new redesigned series put out recently. Getting Ranma 1/2 Figuarts was the real surprise. For the most part the anime Figuarts I see tend to be based on newer anime and manga that I’ve never heard of. But here we are, with Ranma 1/2 in glorious highly articulated plastic form. Sadly it kind of seems like we’ll never actually get Panda Genma who was featured when these were announced.

The first release is the female version of Ranma. In case you are unfamiliar with the premise, Ranma is a harem comedy anime series and manga, which follows the various romantic relationships surrounding Ranma and his crazy pack of friends and enemies. The gimmick of the show, is that a lot of the characters carry some sort of curse, generally originating from the Jusenkyo Springs where they change into a different form and back when exposed to hot or cold water. In the case of the title character, Ranma transforms between a boy and girl due to Ranma falling into the Spring of Drowned Girl.

That’s a pretty gross oversimplification, but that’s the general idea. Originally shown in the announcement were both male and female Ranma as well as a giant Panda Genma, Ranma’s father. Ranma here is pretty awesome, probably my favorite Figuarts of all of the ones I own (though Tuxedo Mask is a close second).

A lot of what I like is just how well balanced she is, which is really essential given the martial arts nature of the series. Part of the plot of Ranma is that everyone has some sort of crazy martial arts fighting style. Being able to pose Ranma doing martial arts moves really helps sell the figure.

She also has a great selection of alternate faces. There’s a big smile, a small smile, a frowny serious face and the embarrassed face. That last one is a lot of fun since as one might imagine, a dude turning into a girl could result in a lot of embarrassing situations.

There is also a good assortment of accessories and alternative hands. The female version of Ranma also includes a hot kettle, which compliments the cold water bucket included with the male counterpart.

In case you can’t tell, I really like this figure. Probably the biggest downside is that she’s a little boring without some of the other Ranma Figuarts to go with her. Also, if you’re not a fan of the source material, there really isn’t a lot of incentive to pick her up. This is definitely the best Ranma figure available, since it both looks good and is loaded with articulation and parts, in traditional Figuarts style.