The Animated Happy Meal toys were the last good TF McDonalds promotion. I wish they kept with that trend of Transformers that actually transform.

 

Have the thighs slide together into one stick like MMC's Bruticus

 

God, I remember those. I had Ratchet and Bumblebee. I remember wanting them all. I don't what ever happened to the Ratchet & Bumblebee though. Probably got lost in the Great Saberclaw84 Purge of 2009/2010.

 

Don't get me wrong, I buy them because I'm a bit Siege OCD, but Micromasters belong in those plastic bubble vending machines outside stores.

Quite often they won't even peg together correctly, the plastic's nasty, and they're WAY overpriced.

 

POTP, Siege, Classics, and Combiner Wars Optimus Prime still look good in my eyes (and the two of those I have handled I would still say are decent figures).

However, I do feel that Earthrise Optimus Prime does negate the need to ever revisit the original G1 Optimus Prime design in mainline toy form ever again. We have the gimmick versions like Combiner Wars and Power of the Primes, and the high quality Classics, Siege, and now Earthrise Primes that either don't have a gimmick or have a less obvious gimmick.

Same with Starscream. It looks like they have nailed it with the Earthrise version. We have Starscream in his Cybertronian tetrajet form, as a Combiner, as a Leader Class giant, and the original Classics figure. I don't feel compelled to buy the complete Seeker lineup a third or fourth time.

Obviously Prime and Starscream are popular characters that sell well and will likely show up again if they do another Generations trilogy (Prime will almost certainly see a new figure in whatever War for Cybertron Part 3 will end up being), but if they do show up, I'd much rather see Prime Optimus Prime or Cybertron Starscream than an attempt to improve on what has already been done just fine.

 

I'd argue that we could try and get a couple more homage-type Optimus figures.
For example: Animated, Machine Wars, TFP, RiD01

 

I’m not one for British humor, I dunno, it just never ‘clicked’ with me. From what I have read, situational humor is common in British humor, and I hate situational comedy.

As for botbots, I think they are cute and neat, wish stores stocked them here.

Siege Apeface’s white isn’t THAT bad guys!

 

Nah, but his gorilla articulation leaves something to be desired.

 

Despite some claims of it being better-looking in person, I have spotted and saw Apeface in-person but I still think Apeface's white "plastic" parts looks terrible; It's a bizarre decision to use material like super dense white nylon on Apeface while normal standard white or off-white plastic could've done the job.

 

Have you bought it? Does the nylon feel better than it looks? I can't imagine they accidentally used it..

 

Maybe this is a “test drive” to see if nylon could be a better alternative?

 

I played with soneone else's copy of Apeface, and I won't really say it's cheap-feeling; But it just feels different and strange, like something out of a good quality 3D Printer ala Shapeways.

It's an ok material, but it also feels like the type of material that most early 3P companies uses and isn't up to standard to the material quality of current mainline releases.

 

That’s good to hear. I’m hoping someone (Nonnef, Toyhax, etc) makes a filler piece to smooth-out the back half of the shuttle. I think that’s my only hang-up with the figure having not yet handled it myself.

 

The TR and Siege figures may outclass it in robot mode, but for me Classics/Henkei Astrotrain is the coolest, most charming rendition of the character so far. I find it’s shuttle mode the best-looking compared to the gappy back half of the Siege version and the flat look of TR.

I also love the bullet train mode even if it’s a bit underdeveloped. For me, reimagined/updated designs are almost always more appealing than straight G1 rehashes.

Also, I love the pop of the paint scheme and chrome on the Henkei figure. And all that in the form of a deluxe class!

 

I really like him, but hate that they couldn't do better with the caboose (box accessory).

I can easily think of a way that they could have made it so that it would be
1) Caboose for train
2) rocket boosters for shuttle
3) armour for robot.
4) closures/panels for the back of the shuttle that bugs so many

and still carry the weapons.

Also they could have included a second missile launcher, that's just cheap for them to not have.

 

PREACH! Added bonus is that we got no less than three distinct decos on this one.

 

Beast wars mps are more impressive then g1 mps

 

That’s what happens when you make a million repaints based on a show filled with repaints.