About Us : Direct-pivot.top

Yeah this just feels like a bot built site to suck money from gullible people.

 

Fuck man! I'm sorry to see that. That's lousy.

I quite enjoyed that one, to be fair.

Intriguing, right? I'm hoping Voyager scale and imagining a very superficially cybertronian mode.

Commiserations to everyone invested in the footy!

I 100%-absolutely-fan boy-no objectivity at all-hopelessly loved the Predacons. So, combiners were cool but by early '87 they were already a bit passe, taken over by the Movie cast in my affections (Time moved quickly and I was fickle back then). We all knew the drill; team of similarly themed vehicles that'd combine into a big boy. Got it. But then the Predacons came along and I was thrilled by a combiner team all over again. They were great. They seemed like the nastiest, hardest bastards in the Decepticon ranks, kind of like a proto Decepticon Justice Division without the ideological commitment. No wonder both Megatron and Shockwave were employing them as the nuclear option.

I was first introduced to them in 'Prey' two parter, significantly the first original UK material Furman had produced since 'Target:2006' had concluded. After seven weeks of some of the blandest American stories and an ok Christmas themed tale I was hungry for high drama. And man, did I get it. This was probably the first time I'd seen 'the death of Optimus Prime' (I hadn't actually seen the movie by this point) and throughout the story the threat seemed so real, he seemed so outclassed, that I totally bought the ending. It wouldn't have worked if the Predacons hadn't been such powerful and charismatic designs. And Geoff Senior, at his TF peak, rendered them with such attitude and ferocity.

And of course there was that wonderful little bit of serendipity that Furman exploited with Divebomb 'stealing' Swoop's name. Like any nerdy detail loving TF fan will tell you, Divebomb was the name Swoop originally had on the G1 show bible. To adult eyes it seems incredibly silly that if you beat someone in a fight you can have their name, and an ongoing feud thrown into the bargain, but back in the 80's when I wasn't even into double figures it felt like a very real and compelling grudge. Sadly after the inevitable Dinobot vs Predacon match this crowds trundled off into background character obscurity. For me, only Bludgeon's iteration of the Mayhem Attack Squad came anywhere as close to being as legitimate a threat as these guys.

When I got back into collecting around late 2012 I began to watch reviews on youtube. The gut response of which 'never released in the UK' reviews I sought out first was telling. Constructicons? Nah. Omega Supreme? Shrug. Trypticon? In time, sure. Fortress Maximus and the Predacons? Fuck yes! I almost felt like I was a wee kid again, looking through those old G1 catalogues with eyes wide with wonder. Except now the catalogue moved. And had awkward and cringey narration.

When I got a big redundancy settlement payout from my old job I splurged on the Platinum Edition Predaking. Sure, I guess I'd have liked to get an old school version with the yellow, but in the end it didn't matter. It was the Predacons. They turned up on the Saturday before I started my new job and I was almost like a kid of Christmas Day, opening the box excitedly and taking each one out to admire, inspect, and sticker up. It was an awesome feeling, but I couldn't shake that buzzing little voice in the back of my head that kept on saying "shit, these are a bit fucking weird aren't they?". The size and stockiness of Predaking is definitely way cool and I love the way he stands apart from the 'Scramble City' style teams. It really makes you feel like you've got something really special in your hands. But he's as ungainly as he is impressive. There's something just a little more elegant and well, playable about the 'Special Teams'. Many of the design solutions feel very 'un-transformery' to me, which makes a lot of sense when you read about the designer.

Things start to get really awkward when you get down to the individual bots. Sure Rampage and Divebomb look pretty cool in robot mode, but Tantrum and Headstrong just look...like dweebs. Like, they were very likely bullied at school. Razorclaw is, as they say, problematic. He looks cool. All the hard work that the lion's head on his chest and that magnificent, malevolent head sculpt are doing is utterly undermined by those arms. Those stubby, stupid looking arms. "Yeah, but Astrotrain?" Yeah, but RAZORCLAW! The fucking leader of one of the coolest Decepticon teams. He should be a total hard bastard of a toy, and with those arms he never will be.

I really like all the beast modes. Sure, they're kind of flamboyantly weird, but that's something I'm totally ok with when it comes to Transformers. More so than stumpy arms, obviously. There's a definite care and attention gone into the design of the beast modes and it makes the wonkiness of some of those bot modes all the more frustrating. These guys really do make me feel so incredibly dissonant and discombobulated. Like, I think they look fantastic together. They rock team colours in a way that the Constructicons don't (for me, of course). Each one stands as an individual, distinct from his team but clearly a member of it, in much the same way as the Dinobots and Insecticons. But then the whole effect just gets skewed but the weirder aspects.

And when I first saw PotP Predaking I was thinking the design team must be out to recreate that very feeling. Like, that was him alright. That's 100% Predaking, with minimal updates to the core design of the character. But he looked really skinny. and disproportionate. He lacked that heft and menace that my mind's eye picture of Predaking. And the lion head looked too small (ok, now I'm just being petty and bitchy). And then more photos came and with every new set I'd go from thinking it was actually looking pretty good to thinking it looked dodgy as fuck.

So it was a wonderful surprise when I opened up the box and Predaking and all his component parts were actually pretty good. Obviously it was Razorclaw I got out first and man, he really works! Despite essentially being a big block with a lion's head and some legs and some dubiousness around the lion's hind legs and and rear, it's a fine beast mode, and it totally looks like the G1 character. It's when you transform him from beast to 'bot that you really get a sense of how far we've come since Combiner Wars Devastator. Now, don't get me wrong. I liked Devastator plenty. It was a game changer and a lot of fun. But the way that Razorclaw's legs tab together was my first clue that the engineering soloutions had taken a step up.

Inevitably Razarclow is blocky and yes, that chest is way to big for those limbs, but those arms certainly aren't stubby. I've waited years for a really good Razorclaw and, while he's not perfect, he really does look the part. Obviously, as a G1 TF:UK saddo, I wanted my Predacons and Dinobots to scale well with each other. That they don't is as much the fault of the PotP Dinobots as it is the Predacons, but at least I can have Razorclaw and Grimlock go toe to toe, right?

Well, no. Razorclaw is about a head taller than Grimlock, making all these guys very big Voyagers. While it irritates the scale fascist in me, at least I'm getting some value for money?

Rampage and Divebomb are pretty much more of the same. Admirable, but compromised bot with very blocky, and maybe not totally convincing beast modes. But the real problems come with Tantrum and Headstrong. They're not as awful as I thought they'd be and you can kind of ignore the problem if you squint right. But really, there is no pretending that they don't have a big block that's nearly the same width as their chest that goes from their shoulders to their ankles. It's an astonishingly crappy soloution to the 'where do we put the thighs', even though I could never come up with a better one myself.

But I forgive them, because the combined mode of Predaking himself is amazingly good. CW Devastator wasn't exactly the most poseable figure in the world. On a good day his arms would hold their position if you raised them up. But Predaking is incredibly posebale and dynamic. There's just something about the satisfying click of a strong ratchet. The ankle tilts are just as sturdy. Another problem I had with Devy was that the limbs would untab in a variety of ways as I moved him around, but Preadking stays tabbed up tight right up until I push the ankle tilts to a ridiculous degree.

But the main sell is that predaking looks fantastic. He was always the biggest of the combiners, so it's very fitting that he gets the Titan treatment. Some have complained that his waist is far too tiny, but I can't say it bothers me in the slightest. He looks every bit as imposing as he should. The thing that really impressed me was the way the limbs attach to the torso. They've really got the most out of every component, particularly the Divebomb's wings/backpack form the waist and the wings.

From the rumours around the next Generations trilogy I'm beginning to think we've seen the last of the Titans. That's a real shame if this is the level the design team are working at. It can't help but feel like squandered potential. But if this is the last Titan then they're going out on a high point.

 

@Imperator,
Really like those lightning effects and will be picking some up for my MMC Kaon in the near future.

World Cup = France have been consistently the best team and would be deserved winners but it would also be an amazing first for Croatia if they pull off an upset so it'll be an intresting final.

 

Had a semi rough night last night, sleep was something that didn't want to happen, so, considering POTP is now on YouTube I thought I'd give it a shot and it was awesome, I was asleep with 3 episodes, perfect cure for insomnia  

 

You totally had me mid sentence!

 

I've managed to make s'more! If anyone has any tips don't hold back I still feel like a noob at this:

 

Is Earth Wars good? I was playing forged to fight for a couple of weeks but realised it was sucking up my time with no actual end goal. Mobile gaming is a dangerous path! Totally not like collecting plastic toys...


Is anyone reading the new Unicron comics? I haven't read the IDWverse in a while, is it looking like its worth joining in for the last chapter or should I just wait it out for the reboot?

 

I've got a bad feeling about these guys. Nothing about them says, 'We're here to save the day'...



Maybe they've come to fuck up @motorthing's delivery twat.

 

I'm waiting on the trade for Unicron, so I haven't read any of it yet and I'm avoiding spoilers as best I can. I did ask in the unicron thread, and though it can be read as a standalone, it seems it would make more sense and have more meaning if you've been reading the OP issues. So I guess I'll be picking those trades up at some point. Honestly, based on that, if you haven't been reading any of the IDW verse, especially since Revolution, I'd just say wait it out.

 

Yes, I have recently started reading the Lost light and Optimus prime again after a long time.(I will be reading the Unicron comics, I just need to catch up a bit)I have actually been finding the IDW comics very full on,"with the lore, and caminus and all that stuff" and (occasionally) confusing.Am I the only one?Personally I am worried about IDW ending their current Transformers series but when I think about it, a reboot is the right choice.I seriously am finding the IDW comics to be so "full on" in the sense of Pointless crossovers,stupid characters and an apparent increase in making charachters "edgy". Am I the only one who thinks this?

 

I agree about the stupid cross overs. It's gone way too far. It was one of the main reasons I dropped the OP comic. Seeing the GI Joe logo in every issue kept pulling me out of the story. And the 'events'. Blegh. I was fine when it was just the EDC because their adventures were contained within the book I was reading, but I don't care about having to read multiple series just to follow what's happening.

 

I stopped a while ago. I went back to it last year. It's a money sink, but the story is written by Furman, so keeping this in mind I kept print screens of the story during events.
I had already posted them without text to speech last year but it required reading. The only way to play the game managing to collect bots requires alliances, or $, but premium players
get lots of crystal gifts every month or 2.

No, I stopped IDW just about when wreck-gar appeared in Prime, I plan to pick it up eventually and catch up, maybe with a bundle. might want both digital and paper... meh. ciao

 

Yes, I totally agree. There are way too many generic bad ass types wondering around. And I absolutely have no interest in cross overs and forced shared universes with other hasbro comics. But at the same time I feel like I'm missing out.

I used to read RID a few years ago with Dark Cybertron and came back for the whole Windblade then Combiner Wars thing. But I couldn't really invest in any of the characters. And I got a bit sick of too much Optimus Prime. I would love the reboot to start post OP, but I doubt that's possible

 

I was soooo hoping we'd get a biker gang of Junkions running roughshot over Earth. That would have been cool to see. But no, it was just generic mob of sharkticons instead. Found the OP trades volume 2 and 3 on amazon for a tenner each. I think I'll pick them up. No physical Requiem of the wreckers though.

 

I basically didn't read much of Optimus Prime at all. I dropped RID2012 when it stopped being RID2012 because I genuinely didn't care for the human plot, and thought that GI Joe could fuck right off, and basically stuck to MTMTE/LL.

I only picked it up again with The Falling, as a lead-in to Unicron.

 

I know I have left it late but has anyone found a place still taking MP-41 BW Dinobot preorders? Robot Kingdom seem to be, but shipping to the UK is really high and I fear customs. The usual UK spots are sold out and unlikely to have general stock due to the Takara/Hasbro fallout.

 

SO just caught up with the last two episodes. I had actually forgot I hadn't finished it until you posted this morning.

Oh my god, its so bad! It feels like each episode takes forever when they're only 10 mins long. It's not even the animation thats the problem, when they bother its pretty good for an internet cartoon. But the story/dialogue/characters are all non existent. And hardly anyone ever transforms. There's episodes where they just walk for ages, and I think surely they could just turn into their vehicles and this would be other in a jiffy. I can see I'm beginning to rant so I'll just trail off before I get carried away...

 

This morning I remembered there was something else I wanted to get red on...


"But, Chris, Quickswitch's helmet was already painted red?"
Painted is right, that bugger was TEAL really!

Now it's red all the way through, baby!

Though even with a double dip the hinge has resisted a bit (it got protected by the top being open for first dip), there's a w-shape of paleness across it.

The camera is a bit kind to it as it's more noticeable by eye but I'll take that over rubbing paint though! SORTED!

 

Damn, that was my chance to empower females by buying robots.... maybe next time

 

I'm in absolute awe of all you guys who customise bots. I really want to try but I'm so hesitant to start on my one. Are there any physical meet ups for this? Failing that, is there anyone around London who wouldn't mind me popping by one weekend with some beers/food/both for some tf fun?