Product inspiration: WFC Optimus Prime

I want to start a new segment where I talk about missed opportunity with product lines. Since I collect a lot of Transformers, lets talk about War For Cybertron's Optimus Prime. If you don't already have this figure, you missed out on one of the best action figure Prime figures since the classic mold. I would put this guy in my top 10 Primes for sure. This is when Hasbro was still using the more advanced engineering brought on by the early movie line, but with a much nicer classics inspired ascetics. This first wave of the video game line, was actually fairly hard to come by. This also began the age of the hunt for me, as with this release transformer toys I liked started getting harder to find, thanks to movie Bumble Bee figures clogging up the shelves and the distribution of the desired figures went to crap.

The missed opportunity I wanted to talk about was the weapons done for these. This line could had lent itself to many accessories as one of the main mechanics in the game was all the various weapons. Between the scale discrepancies, and lack of similar weapon mounting the line as a whole had some lacking, even though the individual figures stood great on their own. The Prime from this line actually lent itself to the idea more than others. I feel that the characters could each had come with one of the weapons with the game, and you could mix or match. Hasbro could had even done accessory packs that came with a few weapons from the game to outfit your robots. Since this was not something in the plans for the line I made a gallery of various Weapon combinations that just make this already battle ready looking prime, even more prepared for war for cybertron.

Bonus: FOC Optimus Prime with Bulk Head Micon Fists.

Here is a video where I talk a little on the subject, but spend more time trying out these and other accessories on  this WFC Optimus Prime.

http://youtu.be/Ul3llbnM8Hs

Jled Ice Bunny for sale (And Review)

Trying to gather funds for another project, so I am putting my Ice Bunny by Joe Ledbetter on eBay. Here are an assortment of unedited photos of the figure, as well as a review video. The first photo is the only one that was corrected and adjusted for lighting. Go here to check out the auction and get your chance at an Ice Bunny.

Check out the video here:

Thoughtful Toys: Mugenbine Candy Toy Series

This time we are going to follow a continuation of the Mugenbine line. If this is your first time here, I had done a bit on the earlier Mugenbine toys. Check out the old article if you haven't. Where you had a somewhat limited approach with the older toys, the candy line is more versitile for making bots that are large relative to their basic pieces. They also have a lot more parts designed for heads and limbs and geared towards possibility. The great thing about this line, is you can still find them online, and they may still be producing them. There are other bandai toys with similar sized pegs you can use to combine them with, so its a great line to experiment with and see what kind of bots you can make.
With this line it is not as essential to locate doubles as they are already including multiples of each component for the sake of symmetry. Having doubles would better suit providing smaller components for larger combinations for more complicated designs. There is a good variety in the line with the designs and lend themselves for some great combinations. The real draw backs in the line are there was a slight change in the peg size so some parts may be more loose or tighter than others when making combinations. Another issue is I found the ankles tend to be on the loose side when it comes to supporting the weight. Unless some modification is made, these really lend themselves to display after something is made and less for play.

Here are some of the Mugenbine sets I have and the combined modes they are meant to form.

Mugen Holy Beasts of the Sea (ムゲン海聖獣)

Mugen Five God Beasts (ムゲン五神獣)

Mugen Phantom Saint Beast (ムゲン幻聖獣)

Mugen Ryufire (リュウファイヤーバイン)

Below are a few custom creations. The first two are just to experiment with part swapping, and the last is to make a fully custom design with a variety of parts.

Below you can see a couple of vbuilds where I show some examples of building with these sets. They give you a better idea on how they go together and some of what you can do with them. Follow us on YouTube for future Vbuilds, and Deviant art for images of new construction toy designs.

I find them to be a good construction toy to use to make custom creation for blocking up robot designs that can inspire some concept designs. Its worth checking out their info on wikipedia to find out the names of other collections and toys that might be combined in this line. They are fun, but can be tricky to pose depending on how you design your joints. Its still a good toy and can be more easily found than some of the other toys I have mentioned for concept design. I'll share future creations here, youtube, and instagram so stay tuned for this and other toys I will review that can be used for inspiration and creation.

#MarchOfRobots 2015

Here are some sketches from this years March of Robots fun draw. I planned to participate daily, but I had a lot come up this month, so here are the few drawings I managed to do. I also filmed some of the drawings. You can see the ones below that are already online and follow our YouTube channel to see the others I will be uploading. You can also check out these sketches and more at my Deviant Art as well.

Titanfall, Megaman X inspired FPS we didn't know we wanted?

So this is an article I started writing the day I got Titan Fall for 360 on release. I guess I had been too busy playing Titanfall the past year to finish it. Due to wanting more time to be productive, I let Xbox Live expire, and sent TitanFall away to a new owner. One reason I got rid of the game is because sadly when I get around to playing it or want to enjoy it for nostalgic reasons I can not. Being an online only game ruins it for ever being cherished as a classic. Once the community is gone, there is no game left to play. With this we can only hope the game is popular enough to merit many more sequels and maybe some with offline features.
Anyhow, I wanted to share a few thoughts I had on how this game reminded me of Megaman X. I think it could even be reworked into a Mega Man X FPS, and that would be a great mod for the PC version.

Lets start with the Stim ability. Right there we have the dash feature you may know from MMX.

Next we have the double jump. Another upgrade you get in MMX, but at least Titan Fall has used the idea of the jet pack as a logical way for this to work in the real world.

Then we have the wall jump. I will never forget how the first stage in MMX introduces you to it, and Titanfall did amazing job making it work in a FPS.

So far we have a lot of mechanics from MMX incorporated in Titanfall. The most interesting parallel is the Titans themselves. They are the equivalent of Ride armor. You have their big punch, as well their dash capability. Even their dropping from the sky is reminiscent of Mega Man teleporting down to the stage.

Now while these things have their differences, you can see that some inspiration may have been drawn from Mega Man X. I think the modding community could do a pretty cool take on a MMX FPS.

Now that I have finally gotten around to pointing that out, I want to talk a little bit on Titanfall itself as a game. I really enjoyed the game, and it has become my favorite mecha game of all time. It even beat out Cybernator, which has been a favorite of mine for such a long time. Its cool factor even surpassed Steel Battalion on Xbox, though I can still geek out over the mecha boot sequence.
Now Titanfall was not perfect. The game play was excellent, the action was intense, and it was just fun. The story and logic to how some of the things worked was not all that great though. I think that actually could had played into the sequel though. I had an idea after playing their VR map, that the whole game is a simulation. Of course things don't make sense as to how your time with titans or goals works, its just a simulation. My idea revolved around the concept that you escape from the simulator ala Matrix style. You battle your way to freedom, finding titans along the way, to only learn there is an impeding invasion and the whole VR training was to make perfect soldiers for defending earth. That could had been a fun campaign as well as introduced some new machines and classes into multiplayer.

Lastly I wanted to give some Titanfall pointers. I was actually quite decent at the game. I shared a few of my stats below on my last time playing.

• If you want to take on a Titan as a pilot I found using the Spitfire (equipped with slammer) and Shock Grenades to be an effective way of getting up on them and quickly destroying them.
• Remote detonated ordinance is a great way to kill pilots who exit their titans to get you off of them. As soon as that hatch opens I throw down some to blow up the pilot, then finish off the titan.
• Remote ordinance is also a great way to take out hiding pilots that have set up a good defense and can not be shot.
• Learn the map, and figure out the fastest routes to the center. When the game starts its always a race to get the first kill, and many people take the same path. You can always get into position and wait for them to come into your trap.
• If your using a weapon that does not defeat a titan as quickly a the Spitfire, then you can throw all your ordinance at it and detonate it before rodeoing the titan to take away a large portion of its health.
• Setup classes for different situations for pilots and titans. If you are first to drop a titan a strider can be a good start since they are fast and able to wipe out and run over pilots and grunts quickly. If your in close quarters, then having a rapid fire weapon is a nice option.
• Want to smash titans with a titan? Hunt auto pilot titans, when your keep jumping on and off on them they will hold position and it makes an easy spot to drop a titan onto.
• Never stop moving. That tends to get your neck broken, or gives that daredevil snipers something they can actually hit.
• If you use cloak, don't walk across the battlefield. Stick to walls, and close to other objects. Cloak still stands out in the middle of an empty field.
• Want to rank up quick? Focus on challenges. Stick with weapons until you finish their challenges. Plus that earns you burn cards.

Happy hunting and stay tuned on more articles on gaming toys, and design.