Third party toy discussion (stuff that's been released)

Figures, collectables, customs and collecting.
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Clay
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Third party toy discussion (stuff that's been released)

Post by Clay »

We really need a thread for this, as they're kind of a thing now.

I'll start! They're expensive, but pretty neat, eh? Looking forward to completing Feral Rex in a few days, myself. You?
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Knightdramon
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Post by Knightdramon »

Buying odds and ends here and there [almost exclusively MMC figures]. No real urge to complete feral rex NOW, so I'm just early birding the newest figures.

Has anybody watched a video review of hasbro's windblade? That was the review that firmly pushed me away from Hasbro's mass releases :lol:

Will preorder MMC's Felisabre and Azalea in October, and just get the rest of the Predacons [bar Talon] as and when. :up:
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Post by Skyquake87 »

Much as it disgusts me to admit it, I have just seen this fellow:

http://www.allspark.com/content/2014/09 ... 1_01/#main

And I could seriously be tempted by some updated Terrorcons.

This not-Blot looks pretty good. Are Unique Toys up to scratch on the QC front?
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Post by Warcry »

Knightdramon wrote:Has anybody watched a video review of hasbro's windblade? That was the review that firmly pushed me away from Hasbro's mass releases :lol:
Didn't even realize she was out yet. What did they screw up this time?

On-topic: I don't care about combiners so 99% of third-party offerings aren't for me. In general, though, I think the quality of the merchandise (and the relative price points) have gotten much better over the last couple years as the market has shifted more and more towards MP-style figures and away from Classics-style reinterpretations. Each of the major third-party designers has a style of their own and none of them mesh well with the official Deluxes and Voyagers. Designing stuff that's aiming to replicate the cartoon models seems more up their alley, and stuff like Scoria or Quakewave or the MMC Predacons fit in better with an MP collection than Defender or City Commander or Giant/Hercules ever did with Classics. The prices line up a lot closer with the official stuff, too.

The only third-party item that tempts me is Hexatron. I am decidedly not a fan of all the unnecessary grooves and ribbing all over his legs, wings, etc., but otherwise I think they captured Sixshot's look nicely. He seems to be quite poseable, and all five alt-modes seem to be...well, no crappier than they were on the original. The price is in line with official stuff, considering the size and complexity of the thing, and I'd be surprised if Hasbro could make a fully-functional modern sixchanger that was any smaller or less-complex (triplechangers just barely work as Voyagers, and Generations Leaders aren't better in anything but size judging by Jetfire and Megatron).

Reviews seem to be mixed, though. Does anyone here have the thing? What are your impressions of it?

Judging by the pics I see of it online, I get the impression that nobody actually transforms their Hexatron. Is it frustrating to get into the alt-modes? That's be a big strike against it, because I like to transform my stuff quite a bit even if it's always displayed in robot mode.
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Post by Denyer »

From a not-owning perspective Hexatron looks alright (albeit somewhat over-detailed). Robot mode, anyway... six-changers don't lend themselves to anything other than vague shapes as alt modes.
Skyquake87 wrote:This not-Blot looks pretty good. Are Unique Toys up to scratch on the QC front?
Yeah -- can vouch for the Metroplex head, Mania King, Soundmixer and Salmoore. Soundmixer feels a little bit cheaper, possibly because of the head sculpt.

Am sure I'll be back to this thread... thus far I've picked up a fair mix of 3P stuff with a favouring of Fansproject (headmasters, Bruticus, Insecticons, stray individuals). No particular quality problems, touch wood.
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Post by Knightdramon »

Warcry wrote: The only third-party item that tempts me is Hexatron. I am decidedly not a fan of all the unnecessary grooves and ribbing all over his legs, wings, etc., but otherwise I think they captured Sixshot's look nicely. He seems to be quite poseable, and all five alt-modes seem to be...well, no crappier than they were on the original. The price is in line with official stuff, considering the size and complexity of the thing, and I'd be surprised if Hasbro could make a fully-functional modern sixchanger that was any smaller or less-complex (triplechangers just barely work as Voyagers, and Generations Leaders aren't better in anything but size judging by Jetfire and Megatron).

Reviews seem to be mixed, though. Does anyone here have the thing? What are your impressions of it?

Judging by the pics I see of it online, I get the impression that nobody actually transforms their Hexatron. Is it frustrating to get into the alt-modes? That's be a big strike against it, because I like to transform my stuff quite a bit even if it's always displayed in robot mode.
Got the black version, which is arguably the coolest thus far.

First off, your life will be easier if you have the figure in hand, look at packaging shots, throw the damn instructions in a bin and watch video reviews.

Some of his alt-modes aren't much to look at---wolf, spaceship and apc are my favourites. The "tank" is just the figure lying down with the legs up, the "gun" is just the spaceship with the waist folded the other way.

He takes a lot of handling to get used to and appreciate his quirks---he's madly poseable, VERY stable, has got little tricks here and there not apparent from the get go, he's huge [bigger than MP10 and MP13] and what strikes me as very, VERY surprising is his weight.

He's heavier than both Soundwave and Starscream [masterpieces] and he's cheaper than either.

If you want the most bang for your buck, go for the black version---you get two AWESOME stag cleavers and an extra helmet. Original version has got Drift-like swords with scabbards that get in the way. Continuum version [not yet out] does away with any kind of melee weapons, gives him two smaller, chromed guns and remoulded chest wings and helmet.
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Post by Clay »

I have the first version of Hexatron (well, the second or third production run of it), and quite like it. I'll spill the beans after class tonight.
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Post by Paul053 »

I have a reivew, if you are interested in reading it.

He has a 7th mode. :) I called it wolf warrior mode.

And here is a showdown between him and Optimus. :D

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Post by Warcry »

Thanks for the feedback, guys!
Knightdramon wrote:First off, your life will be easier if you have the figure in hand, look at packaging shots, throw the damn instructions in a bin and watch video reviews.
Instructions? Ha! They won't even be unpackaged. Figuring out how to do it is half the fun!

I (eventually) figured out all ten of Gigatron's modes, so I'm at least going to take a crack at them all if I get this guy.
Knightdramon wrote:Some of his alt-modes aren't much to look at---wolf, spaceship and apc are my favourites. The "tank" is just the figure lying down with the legs up, the "gun" is just the spaceship with the waist folded the other way.
That sounds more-or-less identical to the original, TBH. Wolf and spaceship are the only two that I even remember the look of without a reference pic, honestly, so as long as they got those right I'm willing to give the other modes a bit of a pass on looks.
Knightdramon wrote:He takes a lot of handling to get used to and appreciate his quirks---he's madly poseable, VERY stable, has got little tricks here and there not apparent from the get go, he's huge [bigger than MP10 and MP13] and what strikes me as very, VERY surprising is his weight.

He's heavier than both Soundwave and Starscream [masterpieces] and he's cheaper than either.
It really shouldn't be a surprise that he's heavier than Soundwave, should it? I mean, Soundwave's entire torso is hollow.
Knightdramon wrote:If you want the most bang for your buck, go for the black version---you get two AWESOME stag cleavers and an extra helmet. Original version has got Drift-like swords with scabbards that get in the way. Continuum version [not yet out] does away with any kind of melee weapons, gives him two smaller, chromed guns and remoulded chest wings and helmet.
Nah, I want a Sixshot toy, not some random 99% black sixchanger dude. It'd be a choice between the original and the new, G1-ified release, I think. :)

I find the original's Drift-swords random and baffling, and don't like how the scabbards look. On the other hand, the original guns look way nicer than the chromed ones on the reissue. I'll probably end up getting the new one just because of the price, if I go for it.
Paul053 wrote:I have a reivew, if you are interested in reading it.
Thanks! Lots of good info in there, and the pics are very helpful too. The alt-modes look a lot better than I feared they would, and it's good to hear that the beast mode has at least some articulation. I love the way he scales with MP Grimlock, too. That's exactly as big as he is in my mind's eye.
Paul053 wrote:He has a 7th mode. :) I called it wolf warrior mode.
Oh, I imagine that like all sixchangers, he's got way more than one extra mode if you go looking for them. :)
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Post by Denyer »

Paul053 wrote: I called it wolf warrior mode.
The fact he turns into Anubis definitely raises my level of interest. Didn't realise he was MP Grimlock size either.

Coming back to Geoff's earlier point about combiner teams... I might not be into gestalts particularly, but individual team members offer variety to a collection and are an excellent way for designers to get creative because the Scramble City moulds were generally little not-particularly-detailed blocks.

Prefer it when they stick to square-ish heads, though.
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Post by Warcry »

Denyer wrote:The fact he turns into Anubis definitely raises my level of interest. Didn't realise he was MP Grimlock size either.
If Anubis is what you're after, I think we need Knightdramon to give us that same pose using his Black Hexatron. :glance:
Denyer wrote:Coming back to Geoff's earlier point about combiner teams... I might not be into gestalts particularly, but individual team members offer variety to a collection and are an excellent way for designers to get creative because the Scramble City moulds were generally little not-particularly-detailed blocks.
In general I'd agree with you, but I don't find that many third-parties do a very good job of that. Most everyone seems to concentrate on making a fantastic, huge combined mode and then doing whatever with the limbs, sometimes ending up with stuff that only vaguely resembles what they're trying to homage when it's not combined. I don't expect that to change any time soon either, since this fandom has always had an inexplicable-to-me obsession with gestalts and general indifference for the smaller robots that make them up.
Denyer wrote:Prefer it when they stick to square-ish heads, though.
Yes! I can't stand when toys designed after Scramble City limbs wind up with curved or spiky heads. The square, blocky nature of them all is one of the things that, IMO, makes them so charming.

In spite of being rather nonplussed by Hasbro's Combiner Wars stuff, their Air Raid is basically the perfect example of what I want in combiner homages (and what almost nobody actually seems to want to make).
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Post by Denyer »

Yeah, I'm thinking I might get the Air Raid and Breakdown, although as I really like TFC F-15 Eagle with the reprolabels more as something to fiddle with than display.

The fact that combiner limbs don't necessarily get as much love and care makes it easier to be selective with collecting -- TFC Structor works well as Scrapper, Warbotron Heavy Noisy is a really nice Brawl, etc. but I'm not feeling at all completist. It took Quantron to get me interested in a gestalt (although I did end up going after the FP Bruticus when I saw one for significantly less than the more speculative eBay prices).
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Post by Clay »

Knightdramon wrote: Some of his alt-modes aren't much to look at---wolf, spaceship and apc are my favourites. The "tank" is just the figure lying down with the legs up, the "gun" is just the spaceship with the waist folded the other way.
I think you're showing an ignorance of the original toy here. :) I've had the original Sixshot since 1987, so I feel completely qualified to say that Hexatron is as good as it's gonna get for Sixshot's design. It's surprisingly faithful to the original; if you've handled it, you can figure out Hexatron easily. And most of the extra bits and bobs in the transformation are for tabs that lock everything into place. This is good! For comparison, after 27 years, all of Sixshot's non-ratcheted joints are getting droopy.

At any rate, I display them on the shelf side-by-side. I had thought of writing a review, but could only ever come up with this sentence: Hexatron is Sixshot remastered and in high definition. It works, though.

Here are many pictures!

http://s50.photobucket.com/user/claywya ... t=3&page=1

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Post by Warcry »

Denyer wrote:Yeah, I'm thinking I might get the Air Raid and Breakdown, although as I really like TFC F-15 Eagle with the reprolabels more as something to fiddle with than display.
While I think the TFC F-15 looks pretty cool, it really doesn't look like an 80s Aerialbot at all. Hasbro's Air Raid (updated jet mode aside) looks like it stepped right off of a cartoon cell or model sheet. Sadly that's not the case with any of the other Combiner Wars stuff, so I guess it was just a happy accident.
Denyer wrote:The fact that combiner limbs don't necessarily get as much love and care makes it easier to be selective with collecting -- TFC Structor works well as Scrapper, Warbotron Heavy Noisy is a really nice Brawl, etc. but I'm not feeling at all completist. It took Quantron to get me interested in a gestalt (although I did end up going after the FP Bruticus when I saw one for significantly less than the more speculative eBay prices).
I'm of two minds on that. Though I like the general look of the combiner limbs, I can't say that I like any of them enough to pay the $80-$100 that any of the ones that caught my eye would cost. Heavy Noisy in particular looks like a spot-on perfect Brawl, but I'm about as likely to shell out for that as I would be for a spot-on perfect Masterpiece of Gears or someone -- which is to say, not at all.

A really good Skydive, First Aid, Scrapper (Structor doesn't do it for me, I'm really attached to the toy's proportions) or Lightspeed might do the trick, since I love those characters and wouldn't be at all opposed to owning MP-scale representations of them, but nobody's even come close to making me want their stuff yet.

(I'm also a bit sad that, among all the eight different iterations of third-party Dinobots, nobody's making a Snarl that passes muster)
Clay wrote:I think you're showing an ignorance of the original toy here. :) I've had the original Sixshot since 1987, so I feel completely qualified to say that Hexatron is as good as it's gonna get for Sixshot's design. It's surprisingly faithful to the original; if you've handled it, you can figure out Hexatron easily. And most of the extra bits and bobs in the transformation are for tabs that lock everything into place. This is good! For comparison, after 27 years, all of Sixshot's non-ratcheted joints are getting droopy.
You know, I was really hoping you guys were going to convince me not to buy him... :(

Okay, fine. I'm sold. If he gets here in November and sucks, it's all you guys's fault! ;)
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Post by Denyer »

Not sold on any of the Dinos? FansToys got me on-board when they kicked off with a Slag homage.

Have also decided to do a pick-and-mix at the smaller scale... so far FoC Grimlock with upgrades, PX Caelus (Swoop), FP Columpio (Sludge) and TW Roar (Snarl)... but not sure about voyager-sized Slag options from another producer. Maybe the Shura King one.
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Post by Clay »

Warcry wrote: Each of the major third-party designers has a style of their own and none of them mesh well with the official Deluxes and Voyagers. Designing stuff that's aiming to replicate the cartoon models seems more up their alley, and stuff like Scoria or Quakewave or the MMC Predacons fit in better with an MP collection than Defender or City Commander or Giant/Hercules ever did with Classics. The prices line up a lot closer with the official stuff, too.
Is "fitting" a fair argument, though? Classics/Universe Sideswipe has a certain style to him, but would you equate him as fitting in with a hypothetical Classics Skalor? The official stuff is a very heterogeneous lot to begin with. So much so that I'd argue that stuff like Giant and Hercules both simultaneously fit within the idea of "Classics", even with being so different from each other while trying to be basically the same thing.
Warcry wrote: In general I'd agree with you, but I don't find that many third-parties do a very good job of that. Most everyone seems to concentrate on making a fantastic, huge combined mode and then doing whatever with the limbs, sometimes ending up with stuff that only vaguely resembles what they're trying to homage when it's not combined. I don't expect that to change any time soon either, since this fandom has always had an inexplicable-to-me obsession with gestalts and general indifference for the smaller robots that make them up.
Hmm. Yes and no. TFC did a good job with Hercules' components being dead-ringers for their original counterparts, whereas Maketoys' Green Giant's individuals vary wildly. But each company isn't consistent in that regard. TFC are also making a Predaking, Ares, and its component robots are very different from their inspirations. MMC's Predaking, Feral Rex, is in contrast a dead ringer for the original Predacons in every mode.

And that doesn't even consider that sometimes changing the design is a good thing. I don't really want a fancy, detailed Swindle with shoulders in the middle of his torso. I think the center of the debate is whether it's appropriate to make such sweeping changes when the source material - the original combiner figures and the cartoon and comic models - are so idiosyncratic and different from each other. If, at the design stage, they start to adhere to one iteration more than another, they'll inevitably alienate some potential customers.

At any rate, I've completed Hercules, Uranos, Intimidator and, supposedly on Monday, Feral Rex, and have been exceedingly pleased with all of them in all their modes. Granted, I can only display them in the combined modes since they take up the least space that way, but that's another matter.
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Post by Warcry »

Denyer wrote:Not sold on any of the Dinos? FansToys got me on-board when they kicked off with a Slag homage.
Scoria is very pretty (that chrome!), but in spite of owning Slag as a kid I can't gather up any interest in a modern version of him at all. Their Swoop is basically perfect too, but Swoop likewise does nothing for me. And then their Snarl looked kinda bad at first glance, because of course it does, I like Snarl. :( None of the others do anything for me either.

You'd think with ten sets of third-party Dinobots somebody would get the guy right, but so far no dice.
Clay wrote:Is "fitting" a fair argument, though? Classics/Universe Sideswipe has a certain style to him, but would you equate him as fitting in with a hypothetical Classics Skalor? The official stuff is a very heterogeneous lot to begin with. So much so that I'd argue that stuff like Giant and Hercules both simultaneously fit within the idea of "Classics", even with being so different from each other while trying to be basically the same thing.
I'd argue that there's a much bigger gulf between most third-party stuff and Classics than there is between any of the many, varied official items released under the various Classics/Universe/Generations banners. Mixing City Commander or the like with Generations toys, they stand out just as much as Animated toys would. That doesn't necessarily make them bad, but it does make them something that I have absolutely zero interest in.

But then again, there's such an insanely large glut of third-party stuff these days that it's a very good thing that different companies take different approaches. Imagine how boring it'd be if all ten sets of 3P Dinobots looked the same!
Clay wrote:Hmm. Yes and no. TFC did a good job with Hercules' components being dead-ringers for their original counterparts, whereas Maketoys' Green Giant's individuals vary wildly.
Yeah, we're going to have to agree to disagree on that. I can see only the vaguest of resemblance to the originals in either set. I know it's only been a couple years, but both sets look really blah compared to what comes out now. I'm actually very impressed with the leaps in quality that third-party stuff has made. The first couple generations of stuff universally looked like garbage (IMO) and seemed to have really questionable quality. Some of it is still poorly-made crap, but the best 3P stuff nowadays seems to equal the best official stuff in engineering, sculpt and quality.
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Post by Knightdramon »

Compared to stuff hasbro is bringing out now [seriously guys, watch the windblage review by peaugh for a reference] even the simplest 3p product looks and handles like a pro.

On the Devastators front, I've seen people SWEAR by Giant. Was never a huge constructicons fan [only got 2/6th of Hercules before selling them] so I can't really see the appeal.

And I ain't a massive Predaking fan either---it's just that Talon [and by extension, Denyer's Leo Dux and Bovis] that I handled are very good figures.
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Post by Knightdramon »

Clay, as a person who's opinion I greatly trust on toys...how stable is Predaking-Feral Rex?

It appears everybody and their mother at tfw2005 go on about how he's very wobbly below the waist and his leg joints are very unstable.

I'm 1/5th of the way in. Should I back out now and sell Talon or keep on? To be honest, badass or not, I don't want an unstable and wobbly figure... :swirly:
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Post by Clay »

Moved your post to this thread as it makes more sense.

It's not anything like what they make it out to be. The feet have little tabs in the back that can lock them into whatever position you want and keep the ball joints from slipping. So you have to set the feet the way you want them and then finagle the tabs to hold them in place, and then it's all good. It's certainly not like a little deluxe where weight isn't factor and you can just pose it and leave it.

As for the telescoping legs, yeah, they could have made little external tabs to lock them into a position instead of using just the internal ratchets, but whatever is in there now is plenty strong. Also, the wider the stance, the more stable those will be. If Feral Rex is standing straight up, the legs are parallel and the weight is pushing on both legs at the same angle. If you just widen the stance, the downward force is counteracted by the angle. However, mine is standing more or less straight up and I haven't had any problems...

I'll take some pictures if you would like. :)
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