When I was a kid, Transformers have been a big part of my life. The very though of vehicles that can turn into robots was a big amusement for children at that age. It WAS the late eighties and not a lot of toys that can transform. And a toys that can both transform AND combine? Every kids would want to have them.
At that time only a few stores sells transformers, mostly small hobby shop. Even then, they don't have every kind. All the information I have for all the different TFs was from the brochure that came with each toy.
I, for one, spend most of my time oogling the brochure at the pretty robot pics and wish there's some relatives that are nice enough to bring me a new TF :P.
Funny thing is, I actually got couple of gestalt parts. Some relatives came and give me and my cousin parts from the same sets. So the only time I can succesfully combine them if we play nice with each other.
But, like most kids at that age, I didn't take good care of my toys. So I lost all of them growing up.
That's why, when I was presented with the opportunity to own a 'close to perfect' G1 Menasor gift set. I didn't hesitate even if it's against my 'no knock off' policy. Mind you, I never own a menasor parts, but the gestalts always intrigue me, especially since I saw them combined with metroplex to create a mighty cybertronian city.
Menasor come in a gift set box, and at the first glance looks exactly like the old original box. Although, at closer inspections, people with keen eye can tell it's if lower quality (a bit) than the original.
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| From Toy Review |
Back of the box is just like the original, even with the bots power sheet. They even gave you the red tinted plastic to read them!
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| From Toy Review |
When you open the box you'll have the toys presented just like the original, except for a couple of differences:
- in the original, the weapon come in plastic sprues. While here, they came in a bag of plastic
- the rub sign is missing from the bots, they actually include them in a sticker sheet so you can apply them yourselves.
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| From Toy Review |
Replica of the original stickers are included and even a really good reproduction of the original instruction.
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| From Toy Review |
I spent about 30 minutes applying the sticker. The quality of it are pretty nice, although a pair of scissors and art knife would come in handy trimming them to perfection.
Out of the box and with sticker applied, the toya feels almost as good as the originals (as far as I can remember) but well better than the original Bruticus encore (now I know why people talk crap about encore bruticus quality)
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| From Toy Review |
The surprising parts is that this knock off have die cast frame! I feel that is quite a feat for knocknoff. It sure add balance and overall niceness of each figure.
Deadend
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| From Toy Review |
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Breakdown
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| From Toy Review |
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| From Toy Review |
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| From Toy Review |
Hasbro/Takara actually release a modern version of breakdown for the Hunt for the Decepticon
Movie Line, with new articulation, similar alt mode, in scout size.
If only they release the rest of them in modern form even in scout size.
Wildrider
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| From Toy Review |
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| From Toy Review |
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| From Toy Review |
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| From Toy Review |
Modern day version of wildrider is a repaint of classic rodimus and released exclusively in Japan from E-Hobby
Dragstrip
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| From Toy Review |
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| From Toy Review |
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| From Toy Review |
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| From Toy Review |
Drag strip is the racer of the groups. In IDW he's blurr's racer rival.
In modern day, hasbro repaint classic mirage into drag strip and released exclusively to asian markets.
Motormaster
Motormaster is the biggest of the stunticons, but also the brickiest in bot mode. It's essentially you turn thtruck trailer upright and flip the front part as feet. Lol!
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| From Toy Review |
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| From Toy Review |
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Combine to.....
Menasor!!!
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| From Toy Review |
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| From Toy Review |
Ok, to be honest, this is not for everyone. Even before they combine, they already feels blocky.... Very blocky compared to today's standart.
Plastic quality is well above your average KO. They use a semi hard plastic and not the 'rubbery' ones, too make it as close as the originals.
They even preserve some of the small details of the originals. The only problem I had at first was fitting the sword into Menasor's (not motormaster's) hand. Nothing a bit of a force wouldn't help.
Still, it is a nice reproduction for people who likes such a thing. Especially when they combine with a certain TFs that can transform into a base.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Another week, and we're getting close to the final presentation.
There's a couple of groups that can move forward and begin with their final presentation of their product and I'm actually giddy with excitement! Not just for the two groups, but for the whole class!
So I'll just keep it short and continue to the updates:
Selling Game
Nothing new on the presentation here, so no new pictures - sorry guys :P
Many adjustment to the rules and they undergo a very serious testing session this week with a bunch of expert gamers. These tester were brought in to try to come up with a strategy to broke their system.
Let's just say it's a kind of a success and they will have a new adjustment to their system next week.
Island Escape
Major new add on to the game!
Now every player have their own player board to keep track of their status and belongings. A couple of adjustment and new cards in the event deck. A few changes in the map
just a couple more step to the finished work!
Trick or Treat Game
This week we see a major changed on the board movement. The map became this Harvest-Moon-esque town.
The player have to run around, with a dice roll to visit each house to get their candies.
After testing, we found that this game, played with 6 player and will dice roll, doesn't involve a whole lot of player's decision (which is crucial in a game - otherwise it's just something running on it's own) and it took very very long to finish.
This group get a lot of feedback not just from me but from other players and lecturers in the class, I think they might end up changing the rule AND the map at the same time.
Thief Game
The thief game also get some changes to its system. For instance, instead of the player knows who is the thief at the start of the game, the thief identity is hidden and the player other player have to move and guess the other player's behavior to determine the real Thief.
The system is in place, there's a little bit of adjustment to be done, but everything move to the right direction.
And oh, it's completely different to "Scotland Yard" now :D
Looking for Love Game
This 'looking for love' game although sounds interesting in concept, turns out to have a major problem.
The game, as in its state now, is boring to play after 2 maps, not to mention trying to finish all 5 maps. Most of the problem came to:
- Dice Roll movement
- a lot of space to cover in just one map (a player can reach the top of the map in 'just' 5 turns if the roll a 6 one after another, playing in two player might sounds okay, but after 3 players (or more?) it became a disaster in time :P
- no difference between the city; most of the city are the same with nothing to differentiate them with. Instead of feeling like the player visiting a new location each time, it feels like playing 5 same maps
Some changes in their systems and paces are needed here, so after a few discussion, and after suggestion, they seemed to have a new system ready to be used and now it's up to them to expand on those suggestions and ideas.
Like I said above, I can't wait to see the end result :)
Due to a combination of busyness/laziness/sickness, I didn't update the class progress last week. My bad. So here I am, just minutes away from taking off to class, updating my blog :P
(God, this connection is so slow when you need them the most :( )
Selling Game
Nothing new to report here, just minor adjustment to the cards and rules
Island Escape
Map already being made, although still on the rough side, more adjustment to the rule
Trick or Treat Game
This one is not available for review last week. This game is about Trick or Treating, where the player have to visit the houses in order to gain candies (as victory points), the will need various costumes and a lot of events will happens to them in each turn.
A lot to modify in this game, the game and its presentation is still very rough, imo
Thief Game
This one is a detective game. The players have to work together to catch the thief player. While the thief player give out a couple of hints in where he go and by what, the other player have to figure out where the thief actually is and trap them.
Pretty good and playable, but the bad things is, this is close to "Scotland Yard" but just in different skin. Lot will have to be reworked to make it dissimilar.
Looking for Love Game
Now this is a very interesting concept and a (planned) presentation. This one about three girls pursuing their love, who happen to be the same guy (lol).
They pursue them across the world and in whole different cities. They planned this to mix it with pop up book presentation, only time will tell how will that go :)
The look of this toys is very VERY close to the original product, with a couple of notable details. Of course, for the UNinformed (e.g. lots of parents EVERYWHERE), this toy could pass as the real deal. ESPECIALLY without the fugly package.
This Jazz is missing the light-pimping feature on his eyes, the side light on the front, transforming nunchuck exhaust, and the ball join on its neck.
It retain almost all of the original articulation (as you can see in the pictures)
I know, for some, this can be considered a blasphemy on the series., but consider this:
Transformer toys cost no twice, but almost THREE times its original value in the states. A TF movie deluxe that cost $12 in the states will easily cost Rp.300.000,- (about $31 on current exchange) here (I live in Indonesia, btw). This will make toys like this a luxury goods instead of, you know, toys for kids.
IF I have kids, most likely I'll be buying these cheap knock off for them and 'keeping' the original save for 'when they're older' :D. There is now way I'll let kids handle something so expensive if they could amuse themselves with something so cheap :D
Most people who's close to me would know by know, the most unexpected development in my life.
I became a university lecture, teaching Game Development Class.
Me.
Lecturer.
For most people who know me,
personally,
for a long time, that's probably the biggest joke in life :D
SO, never mind about that.
The point is, my class is about game development and it's divided into two semester. Well, it was planned that the class consist of IT students and design students, for some reason unknown to me, the class wasn't offered to the IT students.
SO to compensate, me and Erik, a fellow lecture, bent on teaching how to design a workable gameplay mechanic.
Without IT students
The result? We asked them to create a board game. Since, That way, we though, it would enable them to create a game without an IT students, and learn about gameplay design at the same time.
So, up to this month, 11th week not counting mid-term, after few weeks of theory and practice, they created a nice, playable and a very good Prototype.
Most of them, at least.
Selling Game
The first game we tested today, was a game about selling stuff to customer, the customer ask for certain things, and it's the job of the player to provide it to them to score points.
The Media is card game, there's still a lot to improve, for instance, a score board for easier tracking, but so far it's playable to finish.
The 2nd game tested was a game about escaping Island. A bunch of of kids stranded in a Island, and they have to escape. Actually, the means of escape is already there, but they have to pay.
So the kids have to treasure hunt across the islands, gathering coins while checking how much food they have, to get to the leaving ship.
It probably have the best reaction fo the two, with the students shouting "Huurahs" every time a harvest card event get revealed.
In their adventure the kids will get to find sunken ship, meet pirates ship, moneky island (not the game, in literal sense).
So if the groups in my class happen to read this, there's a keyword to describe what will happen
look it up.
