MichaelandChrissy.com

I went to Toys R Us the weekend after Botcon to see if they had the new “Power Core Combiner” figures.  I found the three 2-packs (one basic-sized figure and his mini-con partner) that make up the first wave there.  They looked much better than I though they would. I decided to pass on them though, not because I didn’t like them, but because I had just spent way too much money on toys at Botcon.  I could wait until they came out at Target later.

Well, Target restocked this weekend, and they got all of the new deluxe-sized figures in.   I got “Hunt For The Decepticons” Jetblade, Sea Attack Ravage and Ironhide.  Basically everything but the new Battle Blade Bumblebee, since I’m just not into collecting Bayblebees.  I did get the “War For Cybertron” Bumblebee though, because he’s awesome, and the War For Cybertron Optimus Prime.  I haven’t completed the War For Cybertron game, but these figures look great.

I picked up the other two figures from the Generations line: Drift and Thrust.  I’ll definitely be buying the Blurr repaint and the Dirge remold when they come out.  And because they were on clearance for seven bucks each, I bought the “NEST Global Alliance” Tuner Mudflap and Strike Mission Sideswipe.  It’s the only Mudflap that I own, and most likely the only one from the Bayformer Twins that I’ll ever own.

Although Target didn’t have the Power Core Combiner 2-packs, they did have the first two 5-packs.  I picked up the Aerialbots and the Combaticons.  Although it’s a shame that the limbs are considered “drones”, and as such don’t transform into robot modes, the combined modes do look cool.  Plus there’s the added bonus of being able to put the limbs on the figures from the 2-packs.  And I went back to Toys R Us today to pick up all three of those.

Normally, Chrissy and I go to Botcon together and get a Primus package for each of us.  The Primus package entitles you to an exclusive set of figures, which usually end up being very expensive on the secondary market.  We buy two sets of all the exclusive figures.  Chrissy will sell her stuff on eBay, and this will pay for our trip in most cases (maybe not a trip to Disney World, but it would still help offset our costs).  This time, however, I had an awful lot of trouble.

Chrissy put the exclusive toys on eBay for a five-day auction.  Many other people put their own sets on eBay, and the ones that sell first get the most money.  Five days was too much time for people to wait and compare our auction with others.  It would have been better to put the items on a three-day auction because the ones that ended first all got higher bids.  We could have easily made a few hundred dollars more if we had ended the auction sooner.  The problems didn’t end there, so the blame isn’t completely on Chrissy.

The winning bidder on our box set was from China.  The auction stated that it was for US bids only, but somehow this person ended up winning anyway.  As opposed to canceling and re-listing the item, we decided to go ahead and ship it to China.  However, shipping to China costs a lot of money, more than twice what we had stated for domestic shipping.  We had to inform the auction winner that shipping would now be $65 instead of $30.  He was not happy, but decided to pay the extra money to ship the item internationally.

The rest of the auctions ended without incident, although not totaling as much as I would have liked.  One guy even won three of our items, so we agreed to reduce the shipping on multiple wins.  I took everything to the post office and got in line.  I grabbed a bunch of the boxes they put out for free and wrapped everything up in bubble wrap off the shelf.  I began filling out address slips and insurance forms.  The post office normally supplies Priority Mail packages for free, but now they have a new service for Flat Rate Shipping which cost a little more.

I didn’t realize that the boxes that I packed the items in were Flat Rate Shipping boxes, and therefore I got reamed on shipping.  The boxes that I thought should have shipped for $7 or $8 ended up costing $18 each, including the insurance and confirmation.  Much more than what I had charged: $10 to one guy and $15 to the other guy with the multiple auctions.  So that was $36 on shipping for two packages that should have cost around $15.  And the post office had closed while I was in line, so it was too late to switch back to Priority Mail boxes.

When I got home from my two-hour stay at the post office (I had international forms, shipping confirmations and insurance forms to fill out), Chrissy informed me that one of the packages had not been paid for yet.  Why am I shipping something to a guy for free?  So I had to call the main hub to retrieve the package.  A few hours later, the Gary hub called back to let me know that it was being sent back to my local branch on the next truck.  I couldn’t just take the package back the next day, I had to get a refund on the shipping first.  On the third day, the winner, and I use that term loosely, paid for the auction.

I thought I would be able to pay less for shipping this time, so I took the items out of the Flat Rate box before going back into the post office.  They’re supposed to have Priority Mail boxes in the lobby, but they only had the tiny ones out and they insisted that I use the Flat Rate box again.  I told them that I didn’t want to pay $18 again, and that I just wanted the regular Priority Mail because these items were less than a pound and would probably ship for much less.  The total cost with insurance and confirmation was $19!  So I got reamed on shipping anyway and still ended up paying way more than I charged.

And now the lady at the post office hates me.

When we found out that Botcon was going to be held in Disney World this year, we decided to bring the whole family.  We confirmed that Chrissy’s mom and sister Cassie could come with us.  But that was six months before the actual event.  So it kind of snuck up on us, kind of like your birthday.  You barely know it’s coming until it’s already the day.  At least it felt that way to me.  Chrissy, on the other hand, had us packed and ready to go a week ahead of time.

We got to Florida a week before Botcon so that we could spend a few days in the Disney parks.  We had a lot of fun, but it was tiring because the weather consisted of 95° heat and 88% humidity the entire time.  Besides the heat, Harry Potter World had just opened across town at Universal Studios, so attendance was down in the Disney parks.  This meant that we got to try lots of fun rides that we had never been on before because the lines were really short.  So it all worked out.

Botcon was fun, but there were some downsides.  I missed the autograph session with Peter Cullen because I only showed up for the line one hour early.  The line started at 5 AM and it was completely filled long before I got there.  On the bright side, I did get a couple of chances to speak to Hideaki Yoke during the convention.  This is the guy that designed the original Megatron toy.  He has had a hand in every Transformers figure since Diaclone.  I have met Peter Cullen a couple of times in the past, but meeting Yoke-san was a real treat.

I met a lot of celebrities of the Transformers world over the weekend, but I also caught up with lots of friends.  This was the first year that I socialized with people at Botcon, mostly with people that I met on Twitter or Facebook.  It was nice to meet everyone in person.  Usually I just go and hang out with Chrissy for a couple of days and buy some toys, but this time I hung out with some people while Chrissy went out to the parks with the boys.  I took pictures of almost everyone that I met and put them on Twitter.

I like to hear what new stuff is coming out next year during the Hasbro panels, but mostly I go to Botcon to buy Transformers.  I have most of the modern figures, but I still need to fill in parts of my vintage collection.  This year I neglected to bring a Visa or MasterCard.  We only brought the Discover card to spend on, and of course none of the vendors accepted Discover.  I could still buy some of the figures from the ’87 and ’88 lines that I needed, but I could have easily blown another thousand bucks in the dealer room if I had brought a Visa.

We also attended an Awards Dinner on Saturday night.  This was designed to honor real people and fictional robots into the Transformers Hall Of Fame.  The dinner was pretty good, and we saw induction speeches from Peter Cullen, Hideaki Yoke, and Bob Budiansky.  I was surprised that music by Stan Bush was not used during the introductory videos, or that Scott McNeill was not asked to speak after the Fan’s Choice character was announced, since he was the voice of Dinobot in the Beast Wars series.

During the dinner, they announced the location of next year’s Botcon.  It will be in Pasadena, California again next year.  This is the same place as last year, but they’ll have a new movie to promote again.  Michael Bay and several actors from the movie made appearances last year, so I assume that plans are in the works to do something similar for Transformers 3.  This is the first time that Fun Publications has re-used a Botcon location, however, so I think that lots of people were upset (at least those that don’t live anywhere near California, like us).

The next morning, all of the hotel rooms in Pasadena were booked.  If I recall correctly, the problem last year was that convention hotels did not have enough rooms to accommodate all of the Botcon attendees.  Chrissy heard at Disney World that the Disneyland parks were completely different, so we might stay at the Disneyland resorts instead.  This means that I would have to rent a car and drive the twenty five five miles to Pasadena every morning in LA traffic.  I suppose that’s all right, but I’ll have to wake up extra early in order to make the Peter Cullen autograph line.  At least I’ll be able to spend the rest of the week at Disneyland with my family.

So everyone’s pretty excited about the new “War For Cybertron” video game coming out on June 22nd.  By “everyone”, I mean all of my friends that are Transformers fans (family, regular friends, and coworkers could care less).  Unfortunately, I might not be able to pick up a copy when it comes out because I’ll be in Orlando for Botcon all that week.

I’d like to get a copy through GameStop so that I can get that Shockwave unlockable character.  Unless the unlockables only work on the console versions, as the rumors go.  If we’re lucky, there will be a War For Cybertron panel at Botcon to clear up the rumors.  It’s possible that they’ll be selling the game at Botcon too, which would rock.

Recon Ravage was delivered yesterday.  I ordered him eight weeks ago with a special booklet and two proof of purchase stamps, along with some money for shipping.  This was the first mail order exclusive Transformer to be released since 1986 (that’s the historic part), so I’m pretty happy to get this guy.

Chrissy called me and said, “You’ve got a package.”  I asked her who it was from.  “It’s a Transformer.”  This was pretty obvious, being a white box with the NEST Global Alliance logo on one side.  Inside the box was a MISB Recon Ravage, a $5 coupon towards a $20 Revenge of the Fallen purchase and a letter from Optimus Prime.

The main distinguishing characteristic of this Ravage from the original is the chrome plating.  Although this is popular with the latest Japanese toys, Hasbro hasn’t used extensive chroming since the Beast Wars era.  Sure, bits and pieces like weapons and such have gotten the treatment since the Transmetal line, but not to this extent.

The remaining paint is also striking, with nice use of red and yellow highlights.  Ravage has a single yellow optic replacing the purple one from the original (I hate that — he needs two eyes!).  I dig the silver Decepticon logo on his flank rather than the purple one that the original sported on its back.  It’s easier to see.

I opened up my original Ravage in order to take photos of the two together.  I’m wondering if I should have gotten one of the Canadian releases, just to have one in the package.  At any rate, I’m now anticipating the release of “Sea Attack Ravage”, since I love me some repaints.  I’ll post some updated comparison shots then.

Greetings, this is Michael Wilson, coming to you… FROM THE FUTURE!  In honor of Geekcast Radio Network’s Toycast fiftieth episode, I decided to call in from the year 2034, the fiftieth anniversary of the Transformers franchise.  Why go through all the trouble of trans-temporal communications?  Because I have to tell you — Takara-Hasbro-Sony has pulled out all the stops for their 50th Anniversary Robot Companion Optimus Prime.  He’s a human-sized replica of the original Optimus Prime, like a big-ol’ Masterpiece Prime in your living room.  He’s five feet tall, can transform by himself AND he talks in Peter Cullen’s voice.  Listen: “One shall stand, One shall fall!“.  They have Peter on ice so they can record his lines for Transformers forever.

To preface, Sony started marketing their consumer robot line, the “Robot Companions”, in 2019.  They’re old hat by now, used as butlers, dog walkers, and house keepers — but then the very vocal Transformers Party started demanding a Transformer version.  After the Transformers Party took the Senate in 2032, Sony finally acquiesced, partnered with Takara-Hasbro, and built one that actually transforms!  I have little need for a three-foot tall semi truck in my house (With wheels, no less! How quaint!), but Prime still functions as a consumer-grade household appliance in robot mode.  I’ve got him answering my holo-mail now, cooking me pancakes in the morning, and battling spam-bots in the front yard (they come to your house now!).

But here’s the best part (been waiting 25 years for this):  No more buying Prime repaints!  The nano-paint on Robot Companion Prime can actually change colors when you touch the Matrix in his chest.  I’ll just pop open the chest panels (whoosh!), and there’s the Matrix!  You can’t see it, but it shines with its own inner glow, and it’s big enough for an adult to hold up, Rodimus-style, to light their darkest hour.  There, now he’s white and pale blue for Ultra Magnus.  And now he’s Black and Teal for Scourge.  And now he’s green and yellow for Chupacabra Buster, that’s when Prime defeated the Chupacabras.  Well, that hasn’t happened yet for you, but just know that things get bumpy for the human race around, oh, 2015.

No, I’ve already said too much!  I’m risking quantum paradoxical synergies by just calling back like this!  Just know that this is the Transformers figure to wait for!  Try to stay alive long enough to own one of these (remember, 2015 is the rough patch!).  He was almost too expensive to afford on my retirement account, but he’s well worth it!  With any luck, the designer for 50th Anniversary Prime will hear this and make it their life’s work to build it, or else, y’know, this future might not exist.  So, this is Michael Wilson, signing off, FROM THE FUTURE!

– For a recorded version of this contribution, please listen to episode 50 of the GCRN ToyCast podcast.

So the only thing that we really know about the upcoming pre-Earth Transformers game, “War for Cybertron”, is that it will play like “Gears of War”. But what if you’ve never played Gears of War?  Don’t worry, I’ve played it to death, and it’s a lot of fun.  Take a look at some of the game play footage from early in the game:

Be sure to boost it up to 480 dpi for some higher res goodness, like you would see it on a PC (I played at 1200 dpi, so it was sweet).  Pretty much everything that you can do is outlined here in this short clip.  It’s fairly simple, but here are the main game mechanics demonstrated:

• Running vs Walking: Running eats up stamina and you can’t do it for long. And you can’t shoot while you run, because you’re kind of ducked down.
• Taking Cover: You can hide behind almost anything. While you’re under cover, the enemies are advancing, but you can pop up and aim (which zooms in on targets) or just blind fire around cover (low chance to hit).
• Tuck And Roll: You can dive forward, back, or side to side. It helps you evade gunfire or get to cover quickly.
• Health: Your health bar is the red Gear that appears around the targeting reticule. The redder it gets, the more dead you are. Ducking behind cover will make it go away so that you can fight some more.
• Weapons: You have three to chose from any given time, so carry the ones that suit your play style or the mission objectives. You can also fling grenades to kill enemies or crush their emergence holes. In this video, the player plugs the holes quickly, but up to six enemies come out if you don’t.
• Reloading: Ammo burns quickly, so you have to constantly pick up more when you find it (or from dead enemies). Also, you have to replace your clip quickly when your weapon runs out.
• Chainsaw Bayonet: That enemy get too close?  You can always melee fight with your chainsaw!

There’s a lot to love here.  The backgrounds are beautiful, and it really looks like you’re making your way through the ruined husk of a modern city.  The cut scenes flow fluidly in and out of the action, giving everything a movie quality.  The pacing is frenetic, and it only lets up when you hit a save point.  And then there is the blood, yes there’s a lot of it, especially if you enjoy chainsaw dancing.

I also dig the chatter.  Enemies throw taunts at you, and your AI-controlled squadmates taunt back.  Your buddies tell you where the enemies are coming from (“To your left!”) and sometimes call for help.  When you can take a breath, they talk about their lives before the war.  This really brings out the personalities of your team mates, making the story more interesting.

So, now that you’re up to speed, imagine this same concept with Transformers on Cybertron.  We’ve already seen footage of Bumblebee taking cover behind steel slabs that pop out of the ground (cover on demand?).  Converting to vehicle mode might be similar to running, fast but lacking an ability to return fire.  Each playable character will have two special abilities, which might equate to the limited number of weapons available to the Gears.

I can see the similarities here, which could be awesome when coupled with the established personalities and abilities of the core set of Transformers.  If Cybertron is rendered nearly as nicely as the locations in Gears of War, we could be in for a real treat.  Imaging small teams of Autobots, mowing down waves of enemy drones through the ruins of metal cities that go up for miles.  Or melee fighting with energon axes and glowing maces.  I see the potential.

The only downside is for people who enjoy first-person shooters, open-ended game play, or role playing aspects.  There’s none of that here.  You’re on a rail, stopping every so often to kill things and possibly watch a cut scene to advance the story.  One of the things that I liked best about the Transformers Armada game was the ability to backtrack to previous locations for new items and adjust your weapons/skills in inventory accordingly.  Despite the limitations, I played all the way through Gears about five times.

This is all speculative, however.  The game designers merely mentioned that the game would play like Gears of War, and we’ve only seen one trailer for the game.  But a lot of this does make sense, when seen in light of existing Gears footage.  This really makes me anxious to play this game.  It might be too derivative to the Best Game Ever, but it just might be the Best Transformers Game Ever.  I’ll hold my opinions until I see the online play.  Let me fight against player-controlled Decepticons!

The new NEST Global Alliance figures have a promotional item associated with them: Recon Ravage. But you have to jump through a lot of hoops to get one. First you buy the Bumblebee/Soundwave set to get the “Mission Guide” booklet, which has spots to attach two additional stickers from other figures. The stickers are buried inside specially reinforced packaging, so it would be very hard to cheat (not that I would).

Recon Ravage is a repaint of Movie Ravage with red and chrome highlights. It’s a nice deco, but not an homage or movie accurate. I’m not a huge fan of this mold, since it has no real vehicle mode, but it’s a limited edition Ravage so I’m drawn to it. The cool thing is that it’s the first Transformers mail-away promotion in decades. I remember sending off for the Omnibots when I was little. It was a thrill to get something rare in the mail, especially at that age.

I can see why we haven’t seen many mail-away promotions in the US though. The logistics of managing all of the entries and sending out all of the figures individually would be daunting. Hasbro mitigated this by outsourcing to another company. Another problem would be the short run of figures. It costs more to produce limited run figures, as we have seen with Botcon exclusives. Recon Ravage will be mass released abroad however, so it’s only limited in the US.

I’m surprised that Hasbro didn’t go the digital route. Every booklet filled out by hand will need to be entered by hand into the fulfillment system to be processed. If they had used unique number codes on each package, then people could have entered their own data online. This might have been open to cheating though, but unique codes have been used in computer software registration for a long time (and there is a lot of software pirating).

The figure should arrive in six to eight weeks. I’m tempted to get another one to keep in the package, since mail-away packaging tends to be minimal when compared to retail packaging. However, it might be easier to just wait and pick up the Canadian retail release on eBay later than to buy another NEST Alliance two-pack for the booklet. I’m sure this won’t be the last Ravage repaint though, since this is a popular character with the G1 crowd.

One of the time honored traditions of Transformers figures is the repaint.  Some people won’t collect repaints unless they’re another character entirely.  Some not at all, no matter how many identical Seekers  are produced.  I love’em.  If I already own one figure of a certain mold, I also want to own every redeco or remold of that figure.  I just like to see them side-by-side and study the contrast.

The problem that I have with repaints is when the new deco is almost identical to the older deco.  For example, I’m fine if they paint Optimus Prime purple and call him “evil”.  I think that’s cool.  I’ll buy it.  But don’t try to sell me another yellow Bumblebee with a silver stripe instead of a black stripe.  It’s not much of a repaint if you can barely tell them apart at first glance.  Such is the case with Activators Battlefield Bumblebee.

I’ve talked about my love of the Activators line before: they’re small, easy to transform, and cheap enough to collect any repaint that Hasbro cares to make.  Animated Starscream got two repaints from this line: Thundercracker and Dirge.  Both completely different color schemes and different characters.  The deluxe-sized Bumblebee got a really nice gold and brown Prowl-like repaint with Elite Guard Bumblebee, so we know that good decos are out there.

Bumblebee got a nice white deco in Patrol Bumblebee, but followed with another yellow combination with Battlefield Bumblebee.  What?!  After the pack-in figure with True Colors Shockwave got no repaint at all, this was just adding insult to injury.  There was potential here!  Maybe give him flames on the side and call him Team Rodimus Bumblebee?  Or they could have surprised us with a Japanese Animated-inspired metallic yellow deco.

Derrick Wyatt designed a number of characters with the same structure as Bumblebee for Animated, so Hasbro had many options for repaints with this mold: a blue one named Glyph (bonus for using a female Transformer), or a green one name Wasp, or a beige one named Bumper, or an homage to any of the G1 Throttlebots.  I’m just wondering how another yellow Bumblebee got the green light.

Target and Mars Candy teamed up to do a promotional item for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.  I sent in my receipts a couple of weeks ago and I got two M&M candy dispensers in the mail over the weekend!  The dispensers are pretty neat.  Each stands about a foot tall, which is bigger than I thought it would be.  They’re made of plastic, but seem sturdy enough.  Not sure how long these would last if I actually used them though.

There’s a knob on the front that looks like it could accept a quarter, but I don’t see how that would work since there’s nowhere for coins to go.  I guess it’s just for show. The knob still turns without any payment, however, and it then deposits M&Ms into the return chute . The downside is that there’s nothing to block the chute, so you better have your hand ready to catch them! The M&Ms in the picture are actually a paper insert (no real candy in there yet).