4D Master
Zombie Kong
Someone once pointed out to me that my buying habits are skewed towards the way Americans shop. Pinoys, will usually target one toy when they set out to do some toy hunting. They will seek out that toy, and failing to procure it, they will go home, perhaps frustrated, but with that money still in their pocket.
I can’t do that.
What usually happens is I’ll target something (in this particular case, the last wave of the Iron Man 2 figures), and failing to find it, will shop around until I find something that doesn’t necessarily fit into my collection, but looks pretty cool and will allow me to rid myself of the cash that is burning its way through my pocket.
This is exactly how I got the Chap Mei figures, the Ghost Brigade, April O’Neil, the T-1, Bulma, my squad of Cybertron Seekers and dozens of others. I don’t normally regret getting any of these since they’re pretty cheap, and have a high fun vs. cost ratio. This time was no different.
This little bad boy is Zombie Kong.
That’s right. ZOMBIE. KONG.
The name alone is enough to satisfy me that the Php 200.00 (around $4.50 US) I spent on it wasn’t wasted. It’s part of the product catalog of Fame Master, another toy outfit out of Hong Kong. They make the 4D Master line, which features different figurines and models that are broken up into pieces and require assembly. Zombie Kong here is from a sub-line that is sold in trading boxes like Japanese gashapons called “Mons Wars”.
It’s an awful name, I know.
Awful name or not, it’s a pretty decent toy. Like the rest of the 4D Master line, the figurine comes packaged in pieces which you need to assemble. No tools are required. There’s a runner that has several tiny pairs of balls attached by a bar which you use to connect pieces of the body together. It’s a chore pushing those little ball joint connectors into place, but the end result is a figure with several joints with some excellent range.
He certainly could have benefitted from elbow and wrists joints, but you can’t expect the world for Php 200. As it is, he’s got a neck, shoulders, and hips. The fab five. The joints are technically ball joints, but the clearance issues due to sculpt limit them to little more than swivels.
But the sculpt makes up for the lack of articulation. Apparently, the 4 “D”s in 4D Masters are height, length, width, and detail. Ah, Engrish. Ain’t it something?
This little guy certainly has a lot of detail. I’m not sure if he’s really a “zombie”. He does have some bones poking through and some brainage on display on the top there, but with the huge green eyeballs growing out of the bubbling exposed flesh, he looks a lot more like an unfortunate mutant. Either way, it’s a cool looking thing.
There are some paint issues on mine. There’s some spillage of the pink where it’s washed into the black parts. The worst is underneath his intestines where the pink’s dripped onto the fur of his crotch. I figure it’s ok, since it just looks like internal juices pooling there. I’m sure it’s an easy fix, and again, it’s Php 200.00.
I do wonder why the face comes assembled already. Kind of took some of the fun out of it.
Whatever. The wickedness of this little figurine has convinced me to go out and get the other 3 figures in the line; 2 dragons Ancalagon and Galegon, and Cyborgic-Rex. I may have a harder time getting an Ancalagon as he was partnered in boxes with Zombie Kong and this was the last piece I saw in Toy Kingdom Megamall. I’ll probably either have to expand my search perimeter, or just try and order it direct from China…
Probably not the later, since there’s so much stuff that looks interesting on their site (dragons, military figures, dioramas, etc.) that I might get tempted into getting other figures as well.
If you have kids, though, you might consider getting them hooked on this line instead of Transformers or GI Joe. There’s a lot of great stuff on their site that can get kids’ imaginations going and also stuff that can get them interested in science, history, biology. Sometimes I worry that kids these days could use more of that kind of stuff.
Oh, sweet! A new poster for Sucker Punch! God dammit I’m excited!
Reveal the Shield
Lugnut
Ah, Transformers Animated (TFA).
Fan boys may hate it for its heavily Anime-inspired style and obvious targeting of a younger audience, but you couldn’t deny the appeal of the TFA toyline. The Deluxe Class toys, like the fantastically designed Blurr, got a lot of the attention, but my favorites were from the Voyager size class. Blitzwing and Wreck-Gar were both excellent examples of fun toys with excellent sculpting and some innocuous action features, and despite his cost, so was Black Out.
The beauty of the line was that the character models for the cartoon were designed alongside the toys that kids eventually saw on shelves. This was totally different from the approach of the Generation 1 (G1), which took Japanese toys from disparate lines and incorporated them all into one continuity. Obviously, the result was far from stylistically coherent. Not one of the toys from the old G1 series had more than a passing resemblance to their on screen counterpart.
Though the cartoon and its toy line were short lived, it did have a measure of success. The new cartoon, Transformers: Prime, still shares the anime aesthetic and the extended human cast. Several of the characters have also made it out of the TFA continuity and broken into other sub-lines. Black Out was seen in the lineup for the first movie, and TFA Lockdown got an upgrade to join the Return of the Fallen line.
Lugnut is the latest TFA character to get the Generations/Classics treatment.
According to the biography on the side of the box, Lugnut is as dumb as a stump. If you ask me, being in charge of “gravity generators” that “spawn point singularities on impact” should certainly require some kind of degree, but apparently, our Decepticon friends aren’t so picky.
He’s packaged in robot form, which is a welcome thing. When Hasbro packed these things in their vehicle form, we always ended up with a box that was 2 times too big for the toy it housed. Allowing for wing spans, or tails, or gun barrels really made the required box size much bigger than necessary. Thankfully, the robot forms aren’t all that different in height or depth, so things can still be reduced while remaining standardized. There’s also less room for shifting, so I’ve seen less broken toys with these new packages.
After cutting away a few paper strings holding him in place, our friendly neighborhood atom smasher is free to lay waste to your desktop.
He’s a bad-ass compared to his previous incarnation. The TFA toys were generally rounded, with very few sharp corners, as is proper for a toy based on material for kids below 10 years old. The Reveal the Shield (RTS) Lugnut is much more industrial looking, with colors that look right at home on a military aircraft.
He also sports a lot more detail than Baby Lugnut. Instead of smooth, round areas, he’s bumpy and sharp. He looks the part of a brawler, a street fighter who likes fists as much as he likes guns and missiles.
RTS Lugnut is missing his predecessor’s “Power Mace” but gains the Punch of Kill Everything, or P.O.K.E. in the vernacular. His arms are spring-loaded and triggered by a lever underneath his wings. The canon is that if he punches the ground, Lugnut can cause a massive shockwave that stuns everyone around him. I’m guessing that’s what Hasbro’s talking about when they say he’s punching people in the face with black hole generators.
Ouch.
His second gimmick is a rocket launcher that is situated in his tail. It’s a ridiculous looking thing that comes up over his head in robot mode, and is completely useless in plane mode. I’d have preferred a bunch of C-clip missiles to use on his wings.
In his plane mode, this little launcher is particularly unfortunate: Look! It’s a boy plane!
Articulation of the robot is surprisingly great. Looking at it when the first product shots came out, I couldn’t see where they’d fit joints into this sucker. When I opened him up, however, I was surprised that he’s one of the most well articulated toys I’ve bought this year.
There are equivalents of all your favorite Marvel Legends joints, including thigh and bicep cuts. He’s even got a waist joint, jaw joint, ankle joints, and get this, articulated fingers!
Transformation isn’t really that hard, just takes several steps. The hardest thing to sort out is the nose of his fuselage. You have to get his head to line up correctly before you can close the two halves of the canopy.
I like the way they’ve engineered the wings in particular. The way you need to twist and fold it, the engine intakes becoming his fingers. Very nice.
The plane mode is absolutely stellar. I love what they’ve done with it. It’s a little different from the TFA version, this being a mix of B-24 Liberator and the B-17 Flying Fortress while the old one was a combination of the Heinkel He 111 and the B-25 Mitchell. I love that he’s got the shark deco along his body. Nothing says “imma gonna mess you up” like shark teeth.
I also love the LU-6 NU-7 painted on his wings. Whoever thought to throw that on is a genius!
The one thing that I don’t understand is why they decided NOT to include BOMBS with this bomber. Underneath each wing, Lugnut’s got 3 C-Clip ports each. Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but so far, we haven’t gotten anything that resembles a bomb from the recent Hunt for the Decepticons, Generations, or RTS toys. The closest was Tracks’ missiles, which are too small and the wrong color. He would have been perfect if they had given us the ordnance he needs.
Before you run out and get one, keep in mind that this is the American release under Hasbro. If you don’t fancy his drab olives and greens, you might like the purples and blacks of the Transformers United version from Takara. Just remember that it’s likely to cost you at least Php 2,300.00 (about $50.00 US), which is about Php 600.00 more than I paid for this guy.
Whichever you decide to get, you’ll still be able to do this:
GERWALK, BRO!
Pursuit of Cobra
Commando Snake Eyes
It has been awhile since my last GI Joe review. With the mediocrity of the of Rise of Cobra toy line it’s no wonder that it’s one of the lines that I lost track of. With few exceptions (Desert Ambush Scarlett), most of the figures that came out after the movie were pretty terrible (*ahem* Cover Girl *cough*). I still can’t understand why the costume designers gave movie Snake Eyes a mask with molded lips. Who thought that would be cool? It’s like the Bat-nipples from that Schumacher movie. That and the Big F***ing Guns pretty much ruined the whole line for me.
But then I started seeing shots of Hasbro’s follow up, Pursuit of Cobra (PoC). The new line was focused on re-imagining our favorite characters from the old TV show, much like Transformers Classics did to that franchise. The new figures were more realistic, and sported colors schemes that didn’t look as if a kindergartener had finger painted them. They were also better accessorized, with more guns, more gear, and more display options. With several army builders on the Cobra side, this made the line irresistible to me.
It was too bad they weren’t available here in the Philippines.
Luckily, I’ve met some pretty cool people and one of my fellow collectors was able to get a few figures from waves 1 to 4 shipped home.
The ride home from Megamall was spent looking at these new figures and drooling in anticipation. I couldn’t wait to try them out. As soon as I got back, I started opening them one by one and with each new figure, I was convinced that this really is going to be the best line for 2011. It’s hard to beat the playability of these toys; there’s just so much you can do with each of them. The best one by far though is Mr. Arashikage himself, Snake Eyes.
There are 3 Snake Eyes figures in this line, 2 of them are part of the “Desert Battle” group which features figures geared for Desert Combat. The first was in Wave 1 and was originally set to be the “Arctic Threat” Snake Eyes, but was re-colored and re-purposed. This version is the second version, the “Commando” Snake Eyes from Wave 3.
The packaging of the PoC line is EXACTLY the kind of packaging I prefer for figures. It has clear text on the front identifying the figure and toy line, a large, clear window displaying the figure and it’s accessories in a manner that won’t warp the toy, and no annoying tape or twist ties. The back has an explanation of the line and it’s sub groups, as well as the requisite GI Joe bio card. While I do miss the old cards with all their pseudo-military gobbledygook, I can’t help but be distracted by the unbelievably photography on this card back.
It is awesome. So awesome I feel the need to Google a more potent synonym. How about “splendiferous”? Yes, the toy photos on the back of these cards are splendiferous.
This splendiferousness (splendiferocity?) is that they’ve gone back to what they did with Sigma 6, creating dioramas and lighting the toys in them, taking group photos. This both LOOKS better than the stuff they do on their Marvel lines, and showcases more of the toy line. The photography carries to the catalog included in the pack, too. Underneath the figure stand, folded nearly into oblivion, is one of four old school poster catalogs featuring a scene from one of the missions (Desert Battle, Jungle Assault, Arctic Threat, and City Strike).
Like I said, splendiferous.
Once you’ve gotten over the packaging, the awe continues when you break it open. The plastic tray is full to capacity with little black gear. There’s an alternate visored head, web gear, explosives pack, two swords and sheaths, two black knives, a knife sheath that attaches to his web gear, the web gear, a third fancier sword that looks like the one that came in various 25th Anniversary Snake Eyes figures, a rifle, a submachine gun, two different pistols, two suppressors that fit on the SMG and one of the pistols, and his display stand on top of the catalog.
Whew.
And it turns out his knee pads are removable, too. I didn’t know that until I checked www.yojoe.com. Jeez, Louise.
Two heads are better than one and PoC Commando Snakes is the perfect example. Hasbro’s included an extra head that features the louvered visor that many people are more familiar with. It’s easily switchable with the goggled version that he’s packed with. Simply pop off one and pop on the other. Personally, I prefer the visored version best.
His torso sports a textured sweater under the removable web gear. His right arm has the Arashikage standard tampographed (a method of printing detailed designs on irregular surfaces) in red while his left has the white GI JOe eagle logo. Aside from a glossy coat of black on selected areas like his gloves, that’s about it for paint. He is Snake Eyes after all, and Snake Eyes is best recognized in black.
The new figure also sports some great new articulation that Hasbro’s adopted for the line. Both his wrists feature a hinge-post that allow the wrist to not only swivel, but also tilt up and down.
Sure they’ve done this before, but normally, the hand tilts in and out, which was never very useful. Now, the tilt allows the hand to go to a position that lets the figure get into a pose that looks closer to a soldier shouldering his rifle. This is all kinds of cool and I’m infinitely glad they did it. It’s also great for any sword-wielding figures!
In addition to his rifle, he’s also got the two pistols and the Uzi. One of the pistols and the Uzi have small, long barrels poking out. These plug into holes on the tiny suppressors that are included. REMOVABLE SILENCERS? HELL, YES!
He’s also got the two knives. They’re smaller than the ones typically found in the 25th Anniversary line, but this time, they have functional sheaths. This was wowsome.
That’s right. This was so unspeakably welcome when I found it, I made up a word.
And to top off all this bad-assery, Snake Eyes can carry most of this gear on his person. He’s got a holster on his right leg that holds a pistol AND a suppressor (you could connect the second pistol to the suppressor and he can carry both), the two sheaths on his shoulder and right leg, his scabbards have pegs that fit into holes on his back and belt, and he can hold two more of the remaining three accessories. DAMN!
Even if you don’t like loading up you Joes, all of this stuff is nicely sculpted and doesn’t require any special fittings. You can use them for any of the Joes in your collection who were late to the party and didn’t get the good gear when Joe HQ was handing it out.
So far, this is the BEST 4″ Snake Eyes figure from any of the previous lines. It is better than either the Hall of Heroes (HoH) Commando Snake Eyes or the HoH Snake Eyes with Timber. It blows the Rescue Mission Snake Eyes out of the water. City Strike Snake Eyes? Feh! Paris Pursuit? No.
PoC Commando Snake Eyes is the stuff that Willis was talking about.
And guess what? He’s now available in local toy stores! Playkit finally decided to bring the line in and they started distributing these figures to stores yesterday (February 19, 2011)! Get him now.
Special Ops Jazz
Sometimes I think that Hasbro must have some kind of multiple personality disorder. How else do you explain the number of sub lines in their top franchise, Transformers? I could appreciate the Generation 1 (G1), Cybertron, Energon, Armada lines. They were all matched to corresponding cartoon series. They were also out only one at a time, one after the other. These days, we’ve got several lines being marketed all at the SAME time. I can understand having a separate movie line from the ones based on the original G1 aesthetic, but this goes far beyond that.
Right now at Toy Kingdom, you’ll see Powercore Combiners, Hunt for the Decepticons, Generations, and now we’ve got a brand new one to fill in while we wait for Dark of the Moon to hit; Reveal the Shield.
Reveal the Shield (RTS) is a line that is built around the classic idea of the Transformer “rub sign”. This is a small, heat-sensitive sticker that is black at room temperature. When you touch it, your higher body temperature changes the color of the sticker, revealing the faction that the robot belongs to.
One thing though; the temperature in the Philippines is often the same as body temperature. When I display this, or when kids play with it, there’s not much mystery. Oh, well. As play features go, at least this one’s relatively innocuous.
Jazz is one of the bots stuffed into this little sub-line, along with Windcharger and both the Autobot and Decepticon Legends and several other G1 characters. It’s a weird choice for Hasbro, since he’s a shoe in for the Generations line, that being a continuation of the “Classics” and “Universe” lines where all the G1 toys were re-designed to look like their cartoon models. It’s not that Hasbro dropped the Generations moniker; the Kup and Scourge will be coming out anytime now and they’re both under that banner.
Not that it matters in the end. I’m just glad to finally have a REAL Jazz; not a flub like that guy in the movies who gets his balls handed to him by Megatron.
This time around, he’s not a Porsche 935 Turbo like he was in G1. As far as I can tell (thanks, Google!), He’s a fictional car that is a cross from the 935 and his movie form, the Pontiac Solstice. Sure, I was looking forward to adding a Porsche to my collection (the silhouette of that car was so sweet!), but the new alt form isn’t too bad.
The transformation process isn’t that different from the original toy. His hood is his chest, his head is somewhere under the windshield, the trunk form his feet, and the roof is his back. Only this time there are a lot more little twitches to fit it all underneath his chassis.
Here’s what he used to look like:
Now he looks like this:
He really is a piece of work. Of ALL the Classic, Universe, and Generations figures that have come out, I’ve got to say that this guy is at the top of the food chain. Not only is he damn close to the original model, he’s got joints up the wazoo! Double hinge knees and ankles! He’s even got a ball jointed head with a fair degree of movement.
He’s got other things going for him as well. He’s got accessories. His gun fits under his hood, but bring it out and it folds out into a rifle.
Personally, I prefer the weapon folded up. It looks like a bad ass, beefy pistol that way.
He’s also got something I NEVER would have expected until I saw the photos on the Net. The speakers that he used in “Attack of the Autobots” are included as C-Clip parts that fit onto his doors. They can fold out just like they do in that episode!
Of course, they’re smaller than they appear in the show, and are a different shape, but it’s a welcome treat for fans of the cartoon. You can remove them as well. I’ve read that you can connect them to his rifle to make it into some kind of super weapon, but no thanks. I prefer them mounted and blaring saccharine pop songs at the enemy:
“BABY BABY BABY, OOOH!”
That ought to burn out more than a few Decepticon audio receptors.
Paint is about the only thing that he’s got going against him, insomuch as there is none to speak of really. I’m pretty sure that the racing stripes and numbers are all tampographed, so that’s good, but he really could have used a nice white base coat before it. The white and gray plastic is too translucent.
Still, I can’t say that that takes anything away from this toy. Paint has always been a lower priority to me when it comes to the criteria with which I judge action figures, and Jazz exceeds expectations on all the others. He cost me only Php 700.00 (about $16-17 US), which is fair in our corner of the world. At first there were only limited quantities of the figure reaching retail outlets and people were swiping them off the shelves as fast as they were brought out, but in the past few weeks re-stocks have been coming in.
If you haven’t picked on up, do it now. Or if you really are a stickler for paint, get the Japanese Henkei version. Just remember that it’ll cost about TWICE as much.
Happy hunting!
If you're looking for biased, one-sided views of toys and other assorted geekery, then you're in the right place. If you want objective, you'll need a blog written by someone who isn't an obsessive geek.
These are my views on various toys, movies, places, and things, along with assorted pictures and the the occasional link to stuff I find sufficiently geeky.
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Slangards
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