Wednesday, January 29, 2014

Almost there

So, the New York Toyfair is coming soon (two weeks or something) with the London Toyfair come and gone, so info regarding Hasbro's new releases is starting to leak!

So far, of note:

- Amazon (maybe other retailers?) is releasing a $60 First Edition Leader class Optimus from Age of Extinction, the fourth movie. This is notable because hasbro already revealed an AoE leader Optimus toy back in October at the NYCC that is going to be released in the Generations line (apparently Generations this year will include both Classics/Thrilling 30-type stuff AND the movie toys; we've seen no indication yet that there will be an independent movie toyline). So, the two leader toys are definitely different, but both kind of suck in that they are super-shellformers and do a terrible job of translating Optimus's new AoE robot design into toy form. Also curious is the pricing - while this FE Leader certainly has the type of packaging we've now become used to from the Generations Platinums Edition toys, the toy itself doesn't seem to have any features that make it look really different from the Generations Leader - both handle kibble similarly, have similar weapons, and both have chromed parts. Whatever. I do really hope that we see a better large-scale Optimus with this design before long, though.

- BBTS confirmed that we will be getting Generations deluxe toys of Arcee and Chromia! FINALLY. They are supposedly in the wave after Tankor, Rattrap, and Crosscut. I know we now have a precedent of sometimes getting two versions of the same mold in the same wave (FoC Soundwave and Soundblaster), but I really hope these two are different molds. Arcee in particular I'd like to be the WfC design that IDW has been using since RiD started. Really hoping these get shown at toyfair!

- Rescue Bots are getting a prehistoric makeover....most, if not all of the robot cast is getting redesigned with not only new vehicle modes, but also other (presumably larger) toys with dinosaur alt modes! So far, only one actual toy image has been revealed, that of Optimus Primal (yes, that's the toy's name!). Amusingly, he transforms quite a bit like BW Megatron's first toy, with the right arm being the T-Rex (yep, that's his alt mode) head and the left being the tail (complete with drill bit tip)! His new, smaller toy (normal RB size) is a monster truck, with Heatwave now being a firefighting speedboat and Bumblebee being a motorcycle. It seems that Blades might become a jet, and Heatwave's dino mode appears to be a sauropod, with Boulder being a triceratops. The others are sort of unclear so far. Still, I wish Hasbro was willing to make these kind of alt mode changes in a mainline, such as the movies or TF: Prime. Ah, well.



Ok, that's kind of it for now. I will add that I've done a couple of mini-reviews (haven't done any in a while!) - Generations deluxe Waspinator and Predacons Rising Sky Lynx, on the G1 and Prime pages, respectively. Both are great deluxes.

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