Some new pictures of the upcoming City Commander trailer for Classics Ultra Magnus can be seen here

I can’t afford it sadly, but its certainly drool-worthy, and hard to resist for a big Ultra Magnus fan like me.

On a related note, I’m really loving the Universe Classics. Prowl and Sunstreaker have both been released over here, and they’re ace toys. I really love the way that Prowl’s shoulder-mounted missles have been integrated in, instead of left as separate pieces. They’re great updates of the originals.

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I’m a sucker for buying new games for my mobile phone, and so I was pleasantly surprised this week when I checked the New Games section, and found a G1 Transformers game available.

Its a cracking wee game. Its a turn-based strategy game, whereby you have to use your Autobot units to complete a set objective which could be capturing power stations, or freeing your comrades from a Decepticon prison cell. You’ll have different units based on G1 Autobots (Bumblebee, Ratchet, Metroplex, Optimus Prime and more), all of which have different stats for moving, combat etc.

I’ve been having great fun playing it. And the good news is that there’s a demo available online here.  If you’re interested, then check it out.

Came across this in today’s post of the Shortpacked! blog.

Its just mad.

Hasbro have updated their site with new pictures of the Animated Ultra Magnus toy (there’s a lot of new info due to Botcon being this weekend).

I’m definitely picking this guy up.   He looks really cool

Well, we’re just over the halfway mark now in Transformers: Animated.

This is easily the best show since Robots in Disguise. While I enjoyed Cybertron, Armada was quite painful for most of its run (surprisingly since the plot was actually good - just badly executed with really annoying kid sidekicks) and Energon I just got bored of and stopped watching by the halfway mark.

However Transformers Animated has a good balance between humour and action. They’ve changed things around in a way that’s probably not been done since Beast Wars, with Optimus Prime being much younger and an academy washout, now running a simple repair team who happen to find the Allspark while on a routine maintenance mission. Its not long before the Decepticons (who haven’t been seem in generations) turn up and attack them, forcing them to crashland on Earth.

This show did two key things which make it a great draw I think. The first was to muck things about. We have a Prime who’s young and not the best commander in the world. The Autobots on Cybertron being run by Ultra Magnus in this continuity (yes!).

The second was to make the Decepticons much more of a threat than they’ve been in years. In this show, we’ve got an unexperienced maintenance team of Autobots. So if even one Decepticon turns up, then they’ll be fought to a standstill. There’s a real sense of them being out of their depth when 2 turn up together, and when Megatron is finally reactivated you know they’re in big trouble. Its a big difference to the classic days when Megatron’s favourite battlecry was “Retreat!”

On a personal note as well, as a UK G1 comics fan, I’ve always loved Ultra Magnus. He was the first “big” Transformer I got as a kid, and as such I’ve always had a soft spot for him. So it was a bit dissappointing to see the character be so ridiculed in the US fandom (which I guess is understandable, as they didn’t get the ongoing Magnus/Galvatron grudge match we did). I loved it when the character was resurrected for Robots in Disguise and thought it was a great updating. However since then, he’s been relegated to being a white Prime repaint in just about every line, and he’s certainly not been a character in the show.

So having him not only back, but now the wise, leader of the Autobots is brilliant. Its another very different interpretation of the character but I love it none-the-less. And he’s got a whacking great hammer. Which he controls thunder and lightning with.

He’s the Autobot Thor! Brilliant!

Annoyingly the toys still aren’t out. There’s a good few must-buys for me from this line. Sadly part-and-parcel of getting sucked into the cartoon is that now I want loads of the toys. I’m going to be skint

Man, its been ages since I posted anything Transformers-y.

TFW2005’s forums have some pictures up of the new animated Grimlock toy.

That’s a “must buy” for me. It looks brilliant

I’ve been enjoying the new cartoon a lot. I was originally dubious as it was such a large departure from the “Unicron Trilogy” style that I’d gotten used to, but its worked really well. I love the re-invention of the younger Optimus Prime, who’s been drummed out of the Autobot academy and found himself leading this ragtag space bridge repair crew. Its really different to what’s been done before and its put a nice fresh spin on things.

Plus, as a UK comics fan, I love the fact that Ultra Magnus is in charge of the Autobots in this version. Can’t wait to see what his new toy is like

Well yesterday I nipped into Toys R Us and saw that they now had a giftset of Blackout and Scorponok. These two Decepticons should be familiar to anyone who’s seen the movie, as Blackout laid waste to the US Army base in the opening scene of the movie, and Scorponok tracked the soldiers who escaped afterwards.

As a result of this fairly cool scene, I’ve been keen to pick up the two of them, so the giftset seemed like a great idea, especially since the box was roughly the size of a Voyager-class, I figured it’d be nice and affordable. Well, shame on me for not checking the price tags more carefully, as the cost was actually £39.99! I was in a hurry though, so wasn’t really watching what I was doing.

Now, since most people reading this won’t really follow Transformers toys, the problem here is that Blackout is a Voyager class toy. Which means he retails for £19.99 (give or take). Scorponok meanwhile is a deluxe, meaning a cost of £9.99.

Yup, Toys R Us suckered me good.

Sadly, I’m one of these strange people who won’t take it back and complain, as I view it as my fault for not checking the price before buying it. That and the set is now the source of a perverse amusement for me, just for the audacity Toys R Us have for stocking it at that price.

As for the toys themselves? Well, fortunately I quite like them. Blackout’s helicoper mode isn’t necessarily as robust as I’d like, but he matches his on-screen appearance well, looks suitably evil, and his some nice gimmicks in his mini-Scorponok he carries with him, and his geared rotor system.

Scorponok should be awful. Only his beast mode appeared on screen, so the designers have had to cobble together a robot mode for him based on what they had. It kind’ve works though. He looks quite monstrous which appeals to me. Again, he’s got a nice gimmick in his gears claws (push him along the ground and they turn, along with a flywheel in his chest), and his tail is nicely articulated. Plus I quite like how the fixed spring-loaded missle in his tail works as a stinger. Simple idea, but it works well.

As an added bonus, Scorponok can be pegged underneath Blackout to be carried into battle, and apparently (though I’ve not tried it yet), in this mode, triggering Blackout’s rotors will also activate Scorponok’s claws. Neat.

Well, hot on the heels of the film’s success, Hasbro h already started previewing its new animated series and toy designs for 2008.

The new aesthetic will take a bit of getting used to, but the toy designs look pretty fun. Plus the opening theme is one of the best in recent years.

Here’s a video that was taken of a recent promo shown at a convention in the States.

And Tformers has a gallery of the new toys:

http://tformers.com/ig.php?mode=album&album=8198&start=0

Looking forward to seeing how it turns out anyway.

Well I made it out to see the new Transformers movie last night. Top film.

Being a Michael Bay film, I did expect the action to be top-notch, and I wasn’t disappointed. The CGI effects for the Transformers themselves were excellent done and Shia LaBeouf did a great job as Sam Witwickey making the character likable and displaying some great comic timing.

The one thing that really surprised me was the amount of humour in the film. One scene in particular was completely goofy, and there were plenty of laughs to be had from Frenzy running around the place manically. But the humour worked really well. I was in stitches as the Autobots were trying to hide to avoid Sam’s parents.

Definitely one to go and see. Easily one of the best films of the summer so far. After a slightly disappointing start to the summer, this, Die Hard 4.0 and Harry Potter 5 have really improved things.

This gave me a good laugh today:

The movie just can’t come soon enough