Kreon Micro-Changers

So, the Kre-O Transformers Kreon Micro-Changers (that's a mouthful) have been out for a while now, but I've only gotten around to completing them this week. I had a bit of trouble getting my hands on a Galvatron, since the first few boxes I went through were sold out of him. Finally got him the other day at Toy Kingdom Express at SM Megamall.

I'm not sure if he's short-packed or what. No way to really tell with these $@#%ing blind packs.

The Shellraiser

The original cartoon Turtles, when they needed to get anywhere their skateboards couldn’t take them, drove themselves around in a beat up van that kind of looked like my old family Volkswagen Westfalia Camper. It’s funny since that old van was a bright, mango yellow that was weirdly similar to the yellow that the old Turtle Van was covered in. It even had a shell top, though it was white and not green. The Turtles never did take the stealth part of their ninja training to heart, did they?

For the new cartoon, it looks like Nickelodeon and the creators went for a more “realistic” look. Instead of the old VW (see a photo of the classic Party Van HERE), they've based the design of the new Shellraiser (is that an awesome name, or what?!) from a subway car. The Turtles have modified the unit, attaching various implements to it, slapping wheels on the ends so that it could go straight from rails to road.

GDO Generations Swerve

It kind of sucks that there were a few Transformers that never got screen time on the original show. In 1986, Hasbro made a few re-colors of their Mini-Vehicle sub-group of their Transformers available. Pipes, Outback, and Tailgate all came out in the third batch of the little robot figures, but the characters never got the same face time as their "original" counterparts, Huffer, Brawn, and Windcharger, got on the show.

The same thing happened to Swerve, the 4x4 truck patterned after Gears, who was one of the toys released in the first round of Mini-Vehicles. Poor bastard.

Generations Deluxe Wheelie

As far as I can find out, the new term being used to describe the line this figure belongs to on the toy forums is “GDO”, which seems to be short for “Generations Distributed Overseas”.

That seems appropriate, since Wheelie here is part of a set of 4 Deluxe Class figures in the Transformers: Generations sub-line that is only being distributed in Asia. The other three are Springer (a recolored Hunt forthe Decepticons Tomahawk), Swerve (a recolored Reveal the Shield Sergeant Kup), and Cliffjumper (re-released Transformers: Prime First Edition Cliffjumper). All 4 come with brand new heads, which makes the re-use of the bodies far more tolerable than it might have been.

What also improves my reception of the figures is the fact that they’ve chosen four very good bodies to re-use.

Sea Ops Duke

One of my favorite toy lines of all time was G.I. Joe Sigma 6. Based on the cartoon of the same name, it ran from 2005 to 2007 and featured Joes in not just one new scale, but two: the 2.5" Mission figures, and the 8" Commandos.

Being a "joint junkie," I gravitated towards the bigger of the two, as they had more joints and more accessories. That combination beat out the presence of vehicles in the Mission playsets. The Commandos were big and chunky at 1:9 scale and featured weapons and equipment that you could mix and match between figures, giving you a ridiculous amount of play value.

The line managed to last about two years and around 80 figures, give or take, before finally throwing in the towel. If you'd like to look at the list of figures they released, there's a great site called Joebattlelines.com that has detailed reviews of most of them (I think they're missing one or two exclusive re-colors like the Red Ninja), or check that old mainstay of Joe fans, YoJoe.com (though their list seems less complete). CoolToyReview.com also has an image gallery, though again, it's not as complete as the one at Joebattlelines.com.

Of those 80 figures, I've got about 50, including this one called Sea Ops Duke.

6th Annual Toy Kingdom Warehouse Sale!

IT'S THAT TIME OF YEAR AGAIN BOYS AND GIRLS!

Yup, it's 4th quarter and Toy Kingdom is sweeping up it's warehouse, cleaning out all the old junk that's been lying around in corners, gathering dust. According to the SM Megatrade Hall's website, the annual Toy Kingdom Warehouse Sale is scheduled to take place on November 2-4 of this year in Halls 1 & 2!

Whoo hoo!

Negative Man

It's a slow year for me, which means that buying toys has taken a back seat to things like eating and paying for electricity. Since I've blown my wad for the next few months on the Modern Nickelodeon and Classic Collection Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles figures, we're gonna go over some of the older figures that I never got around to reviewing.

In light of that announcement, here we have DC Universe Classics (DCUC) Negative Man.

Toys 'R' Us Exclusive 3.75" UFC Action Figures

A few months back, I stumbled onto another great find one of my favorite neighborhood toy shops, Lanz Collectibles in St. Francis Square Mall. It's one of those stores where you always seem to find something you want, even if you're not really looking for anything in particular. I've gotten Madelman figures from there, Star Wars figures like the Vintage Series MagnaGuard, and a whole lot of DC Universe Classics toys. Many of the toys are second hand or overruns from various sources, but if you know what you're looking for, and don't mind the occasional quality control issue, you can find some gems there.

These loose Toys 'R' Us Exclusive 3.75" UFC action figures were a case in point.

Cyberverse Ironhide

When I picked up Cyberverse Dreadwing several months back, I also picked up Cyberverse Ironhide, another figure in the same wave of this sub set of the Transformers: Prime toy line.

I’ll admit that I picked both of these guys up mainly for the fact that they were relatively rare, packed something like one per case. While the shelves were filled with Starscreams, Optimus Primes, and Megatrons (even Bulkhead was pretty easy to spot), there was usually only a single pair of these two toys for every branch of Toys ‘R’ Us and Toy Kingdom. I’d passed on them the first few times I’d seen them, but I eventually caved in to the that nagging voice in my head that told me that if I didn’t get them now, I’d be missing out.

Sometimes that voice is right, sometimes it’s wrong.

Cyberverse Dreadwing

I think I picked this up almost three months ago now. I’ve been focused so much on my new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles figures  that I never got around to actually setting down my thoughts on this figure. It was one of the toys that came out during one of the distribution events, but it was overshadowed by the release of the Fall of Cybertron figures: Shockwave, Jazz, and Optimus Prime.

Due to the popularity of those figures, the Cyberverse Commander figures made it to the shelves of many other toy stores around Metro Manila. If I’m not mistaken, I picked these up at Toys ‘R’ Us in Eastwood. Still pretty lucky since both Ironhide and Dreadwing were shortpacked in the cases distributed here. Most branches only got one of each. I’d actually passed on them a couple of times since they are expensive (nearly the price of a Deluxe Class figure) and small.

Meet the Robinsons

I absolutely adore this movie, which is funny since I don’t remember it ever really being on my radar when it was out in theaters back in 2007. I only really came across it after I saw it later on and was really blown away. It’s a great little story that is right up there with the Pixar movies as one of my favorites.

Classic Collection Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Oh, man, are these toys awesome or what?

In fact, you can just stop reading right now and go out and find these things online (they’re not available at retail locally). Seriously. Close this window, jump on over to one of those online shops and add this set to your cart immediately.