Transformers Power of the Primes Voyager Class Terrorcon Hun-Gurrr: Behold the evil that is Hunger!

And now for another episode of "Transformers Generation 1 should not be taken as seriously as some people make it out to be". Staring a white and hot pink double headed dragon!

The problem with combiner releases is that you're effectively put into a no-win situation as there are three main ways of release. You can either release the individual bots in a whole wave of toys, having shelves be dominated by basically one character and one faction. You could release the combiners as a gift set that would be hard to sell because many shoppers are easily fooled into thinking 4 $50 toys is cheaper than 1 $200 toy, or you can do what Power of the Primes is doing, and drip feed combiner teams split up between two (or potentially more) waves. It's why you haven't seen a full Volcanicus review yet (the Wave 2 deluxe aren't out on brick and mortar shelves yet). In this case, we have a combiner who gets a torso and an arm in wave 2, and the rest of him in wave 3. Meet the Terrorcons, heralding from that mythical year of 1987, where gimmicks were starting to become more apparent, and ideas started to get crazier. This is the year where we got the Headmasters, Targetmasters, Monsterbots, Horrorcons (triple changing Headmasters that people are still bitter about not coming into the Titans Return line), Duocons (Battletrap will be coming soon), and Six shot. It got weirder from there. While the Technobots were released during Combiner Wars as a gift set (along with a standalone release of Scattershot to form Betatron?), the Terrorcons, their considered counterpart, was nowhere to be seen until this year. As a fan of this team ever since seeing reviews of the third party version of Abominus released by Unique Toys called Ordin (hopefully a review candidate one day, 3P combiners are expensive, especially older ones), I was excited to learn that we were getting a new official one in Power of the Primes. How well does it hold up? Well, a team is only as good as its leader, so let's see how Hun-Gar holds up.

Starting in the dragon mode, Hun-Grr does look like a nice retool of Combiner Wars Silverbolt, in the same vein as how Titans Return Broadside is a retool of the previous wave's Alpha Trion. However, the big problem with Hun-Garr is that he's kind of boring to transform. He puts his mass to good use, but it's obvious what's going to become the robot mode legs and robot mode arms. You basically move a few things away, reveal the robot head, then stand him up by dislocating his dragon mode heads to use as feet... that sounds morbid now that I think about it, though still not as bad as Brainmasters requiring humans to impale themselves on their own legs. For Kids! Getting back to Hun-Gurrr's dragon, the paint details are fine, not much intricacy to them, but the pink does help break apart the sea of white and dark grey. The stickers are also more tasteful here in comparison to someone like Starscream's, with the main ones being protected by sculpting, being recessed a little in the dragon necks/ robo shins. Hunger also has two small stickers on the dragon heads, two Decepticon logos on what will be the robot mode shoulders, including one meant to look like an old rub sign which I find interesting because this is the first character in the line to do that, and finally two on the backs of the front dragon legs meant for torso mode. Unfortunately, these ones are starting to peel off for me. So close! Articulation is lacking in major areas of the dragon mode, mainly in the necks. Due to these being the robot mode legs, they have the articulation needed for the legs and not much else, except for some movement for the heads. It feels limiting at times, mainly for if you want the dragon heads to be further apart without looking at an angle, I wish there was either an inward hinge in the robot thighs or the heads to be on ball joints, rather then the hinges they're currently on. The front legs are also pathetic compared to the back legs/ robot arms, being just one static piece on two hinges for transformation. The tail also doesn't move, which I can live with, I just wish the tail itself was a bit longer because it looks tiny in dragon mode.

Before going into robot mode, a fan mode I have a bit of fun with on this guy is what I call the "Demon crab mode". Flip out the Abominus head, and move the dragon necks to your desire.

To robot mode, and unfortunately, Hun-Gur comes off as an almost basic bot, except for the combiner kibble that makes up his backpack and most of his dragon gut (the front legs fold up into the backpack for robot mode). There isn't much of a flare in his design except for the hot pink accents, and the fact that he has a dragon tail for a chest piece. Articulation is pretty standard for a combiner boss, with the exception being all the foot articulation he gained from the dragon heads leading to ankle tilt in all four directions. Unfortunately, on mine, the shoulder ratchets on his left shoulder feel weaker than the right, and feel like they could pop off at some point due to a small gap that isn't in the right. I'm curious to see how long the shoulder will last because I don't want it to end up like Perceptor's lens arm slider being so tight its a nightmare to move. There are two plugs on the robot arms/ Dragon mode hind legs that are used to plug the combiner feet in as gauntlets (ala Grimlock), and like Grimlock, look stupid in both forms so leave them off.

Someday, you will be mine...

The torso mode for Abominus has some more flare to it compared to the Robot mode, thanks to the hot pink and silver chest piece which even has a place to hide the Terrorcon Enigma in it... and like the Dinobot and Seeker Enigmas in Grimlock and Starscream respectively, its just a bit of molded plastic with some paint on it. The head sculpt is really well done (something I would love to say about Hun-Garr's head, but that one's just pink with some silver for the visor and a hard to see mouth). Most of the dragon mode parts are put to better use here, with the exception being the back claws (you can thank Silverbolt for that), and the tail which, granted, is trying hard to hide the gap made by using the Abominus head, but it it doesn't do a lot to help. To go back to that part about the tail is short, while it works for robot mode, I wish there was a way they could have engineered it so that the tail becomes some sort of spine for Abominus, just to give it some extra flare. The only other noticeable gap in the hole between the robo thighs and the Abominus chest piece, but it's a gap that's very easy to ignore. I can't wait to get the limb-bots on him to see what he looks like in all his glory.

Like with a lot of combiner comparisons, the argument for these Combiner Wars/ Power of the Primes Combiners can be summed up with one question. Do you want to pay potentially $600 or more for a very nice looking, but delicate and complicated to transform combiner? Or would you rather pay around $170 for one that you can play with? These are a lot cheaper and come with the sacrifices of being cheaper. I would love to get Ordin, I would love to get Feral Rex (don't expect a review of that Predaking set anytime soon, if at all), I would love to have thousands to pump into Transformers. I don't, so I settle with these releases. Hun-Gurrr himself is fine for a Voyager, just kind of boring compared to other combiner bosses I personally own. He hasn't got the presence of someone like Motormaster or Grimlock, nor the insanity of someone like Sky-Linx, nor the gravitas of someone like last week's Starscream. He's just kind of there if that makes any sense. I want to love this figure, and he might get better when with the other Terrorcons, but for now he's just boring. See you on the main site for The Greatest Showman, and up next here? How about a monkey with a hoverboard? It's time to let out your inner beast.

Oh, and before people bring it up as spelling errors, the constant name changing of Hun-Gurrr in the review was intentional, a stab at all the times he's been given different names in Transformer history (though no, he hasn't had the name Hunger).

I should also say that there is going to be a bit more variety coming soon, next week's is the start of it, and some later plans include some mini aliens, some opinion pieces, and to start off a new line of reviews, some ink-tastic figures.

Lego Avengers Infinity War 76012; Thor's Weapon Quest: No Peter Dinklage minifig? I am dissapointed!

EDIT: 20/5/18, 10:57: While originally, the review said that Thor was reused from Thor Ragnarok, only his face was reused, the body print is new.

One day good sir, you will have it one day...

It's hard to talk about this one without spoilers to the context it comes from so I will go into spoilers for this review. Nothing major, but this set does revolve around one of the big plot points of the movie, Thor getting Stormbreaker, and traveling to (I hope I get this right) Nadivalier with Rocket and Groot, to forge the new weapon. How well does it hold up? Allow me to show you.

Transformers Power of the Primes Voyager Class Grimlock: At least its better then Dinoking?

For the next two weeks, and the previous week, I've got a course on which I'll admit is eating into my time, so for now, let's keep things simple, one bot at a time. I promised a Grimlock, so I'm giving a Grimlock! (Besides, it gets my mind off the amount of troubleshooting I've been doing on a new iPod this week cause someone hacked my account last year. "Thanks for the headaches you've been causing me with your spending habits on Clash of Clans under my name you b!*@#)$". $350 in two months? Seriously?).

Starting off with the dino mode, and good news to generation 1 fans, it's designed to look like the G1 Grimlock, in that it looks awful if you try and put it in a more "realistic" T-rex pose. Don't get me wrong, he can do it, but its designed to look better in the old T-rex pose. Standing somewhat straight up, tail dragging along the ground, kids if you don't know this one, look up kids shows from the 80's and 90's, Rugrats for example with Reptar. A few exceptions excluded, its hard to tell that he does more than the Robo-dino transformation, but those few exceptions are large exceptions. The back is a bit of a mess and while the tail tip tries to hide the combiner ports in what will be the robot legs, there's nothing hidden about the ones on the dino legs. It's been a problem people have had with the toy since he was shown off because people really hate the fact that he has Combiner Boss obligations now, and I have seen a few people online not seem to grasp that they can't have a cheap combiner torso with a hundred step transformation process with no parts forming, perfect paint and have three flawless modes. Sacrifices have to be made, and while some are here, they were focusing on getting two modes as perfect as possible, cause most of the cuts were made to the torso mode.

While limited articulation and slightly bulky proportions at times are problems with the dino, most of the hits come in the torso mode for Volcanicus. In terms of engineering, he's not a bad torso (though he has Menasor Legs which I'm not a fan of), but the mass just isn't there to make it look good. The stomach and waist are just too small cause most of the mass is in his shoulders, He needed to parts from, or even be a six bot combiner team to pull off the mass needed for this to work. Granted, it would be more work then a Combiner Wars combiner normally is, but this guy needed it. A Third Party company is putting out an upgrade kit for Volcanicus, which I plan to get and review when I do a dedicated review for Volcanicus. Unlike a lot of people, I do actually like the head sculpt for Volcanicus, there's more originality here then the last few times Dinobots have combined officially, in that it's not just a bigger version of Grimlock's head, while still being inspired by it. It looks intimidating, which for this combiner, works really well. It's also the only combiner torso I have that has a waist swivel, in fact, the only Voyager that comes to mind off the top of my head that has a waist swivel is Titans Return Galvatron (in terms of what's in my collection). I get what they were going for, but it wasn't quite there yet. While in combined mode though, Grimlock (and all the voyagers for the line) come with the combined mode feat, which serves as the way to plug Prime Masters into them. While its great that they have ratcheted ankle tilts and don't need to be hands, they look awful in the other modes for the Voyagers I own (Grimlock and Starscream), so they're probably going to be stored away when not being used as combined mode feet. Grimlock also comes with the "Dinobot Enigma" which has all the cross-play of a Titan and Prime Master, with a lot more paint and nothing else to do other than exist. It doesn't transform, it's just a spare bit of plastic. Looks cool, but it does nothing on its own. You can stick it into Grimlock's dino mouth though.

In robot mode, slightly to blocky chest excluded, this is a really good looking Grimlock. The combiner ports are still an issue, but they don't look as bad in robot mode and even with the blocky chest, he still looks like a tank. The product shots do make it look worse, but in hand, I don't find it that bad. Granted I'd have liked the love handles to tuck in a little bit, but its something I can look past. One problem I do have with him is the same problem for all the Voyagers and Leaders of the line and the Voyagers and Leaders of Titans Return wave 3 and onwards (overall), the stickers. While on my Grimlock, they're not as bad as they could be, they are still of the same quality. See, the stickers Hasbro's been using are a low grade foil sticker, factory applied, and I've had far, far too many of these peel off in play due to being misapplied in the factory, my Blitzwing had a scrunched up sticker on his wing, the weather here can make them peel off faster, just nothing but pain comes from them. Grimlock gets away with them as they're nowhere near Transformation joints and they're quite small, when I get to Starscream though, he didn't survive the sticker process, and will one day feel my wrath as a result. The reason for this though is because the paint is expensive, but that argument can be counted by the unnecessary paint use on the toys in the line, especially the Dinobots. Every bit of gold you see on the Dinobots so far, that's all clear plastic painted gold on the inside. Don't get me wrong, it looks cool, but did we need it for things like tampographed Autobot and Decepticon insignias on the bigger figures? The articulation on Grimlock (to get back on topic though) is quite good for a combiner boss. Double joint elbows, ratchets in the hips, shoulders and knees, a waist swivel, the only thing he's missing is feet articulation, cause he doesn't have actual feet, he just has tail pieces acting as feet.

I swear when I get time again I'll be going back to taken pictures. Alongside the course, a video is currently in production

Is he the Generations Grimlock Transformer fans have been wanting for a long time? Probably not, this fanbase can be fickle at times, to say the least. Granted, I've seen far, far, far worse fanbases. Does he scratch the itch for someone like me who's never had a G1 inspired Grimlock and to poor to invest in the high-end third-party masterpiece figures and have to make do on what the elitists call "lazy, pathetic, worthless pieces of plastic that only show how lazy Hasblow's been getting"? Yeah, yeah it kinda does. Is it flawless? No. Is it as bad as some people have been making it out to be? No, at least to me. He does need that upgrade kit though for Volcanicus, and I'd appreciate someone giving these guys some better weapons. Cause he was meant to go against AoE Grimlock this week, that Grimlock will be next week, and to check out the review of Super Smash Brothers Melee on the main site, check here: https://mediaholicreviews.blogspot.com.au/2018/02/super-smash-brothers-melee-sorry-to.html and coming up next for the main site, Mega Man 1.

New York Toy Fair 2018: Better late then never

To take a quick break from reviewing toys to news on upcoming ones that want your money and won't be out here for months, I figured I'd take a look at the news from New York Toy Fair... or at least the two toy companies and toy lines I care about and what they showed off at Toy Fair, Lego and Hasbro's Transformers lines. Relax, the Grimlocks are coming. I do have to try and give off the illusion I'm timely with these reviews (even though in many cases that's sometimes out of my control...). But for now, let's indulge in some news that isn't going to make you depressed at how bad the world is getting, or that more and more people still refuse to acknowledge the source of their problems when it comes to mass murders (you know exactly what I'm referring too, don't lie and say you don't).

Transformers Power of the Primes Deluxe Class Slug vs Platinum Edition Dinobots Unleashed Slug

Before I begin, if you're curious as to my view on the Bayformers movies finally ending (Source: http://news.tfw2005.com/2018/02/16/transformers-cinematic-universe-current-movie-series-rebooted-358641 ), my first thought was https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUZEtVbJT5c&feature=youtu.be&t=20s. However, thinking of it more, unfortunately, Hasbro has a bad track record for live action movies, so until I see some quality from them (as in genuine quality, not "yeah everyone else hates this but I like it" quality), I'm cautious about what happens next. At least we don't get to see them ruin Unicron.

"Alpha Trion Slag: Uses his strength to stop conflict, not incite it"

Round 2 of the Power of the Primes vs Age of Extinction Dinosaurs. A battle of the Triceratops. Unfortunately, this week has been pretty busy for me, hence going back to the random images found online. Paid employment hunting comes first, sorry. I should also state that yes, I know its an inappropriate word in Europe, but from here on out, I'm calling them Slag. And to get something out of the way, Pteradon does not mean Flying Dinosaur, but rather Flying Reptile. You can thank rushed, unchecked research on that one. With that out of the way, let's get to the review.

Transformers Power of the Primes Deluxe Class; Dinobot Swoop and Transformers Platinum Edition, Dinobots Unleashed: Dinobot Strafe

"Me Swoop wanna know why you have two heads?"
"Me Strafe say two heads are better then one"
"Me Swoop say you try hard"
"Me Strafe say you no try hard enough!"
"Me Swoop no try hard enough?! Me Swoop arm for combiner now!"
"Me Strafe wanna know why you try that again. Weren't you pants for Grimlock last time you try combining?"
"Me Swoop rather not talk about that..."
"At least me Strafe got more than a sword and stupid hand shield"
"At least me Swoop have elbows and not give birth between movies"
"Me Strafe have no idea how it happened either..."

This originally was the title, that I just kept going and going... I like to have fun when writing these.

"Alchemist Swoop: Plants disorienting fear into enemy circuits"

Let us take to the skies with the Dinobots as we continue this mini Dino marathon. But instead of just looking at one Pterosaur, why not look at two? I do have a set of Age of Extinction Dinobots and while I didn't want to compare a Deluxe to a Legends class figure for Slash, I think comparing two deluxe is reasonable wouldn't you say? Let's find out who rules the sky with a head to head battle between Swoop and "Not Swoop" I mean Strafe!

Transformers Power of the Primes Legends Class; Dinobot Slash: Clever girl

"Alpha Trion Slash: Seeks the deepest hidden secrets of the Universe" (I will be posting the special bios on the cards with each of these reviews, not all of them, just the ones I personally get).

Oh be quiet, sometimes the low hanging fruit is too tempting.

It is safe to say that a lot of children like dinosaurs. I know I did growing up, Marissa did, anyone who grew up on Jurrasic Park did, and many more. A lot of people also enjoy robots, again, myself included (that should not come as a shock to anyone at this point). So, it makes complete sense for a toy company in Japan to make robot dinosaurs that small people can ride and that can turn into robots. These would eventually be merged into the Transformers, leading to what people now know as the Dinobots. Every now and then they change up the Dinobots, from Grimstone in Powercore Combiners, to the Age of Extinction Dinos, and most recently, letting the G1 dinos combine and giving them a new member, Slash, an AoE dino made G1 fembot. What better way to kick off this new site than with the new girl on the block?