SDCC Bruticus and all that Hype

Big Damn Box

I think Hasbro must have some weird rules about when it makes combiner figures. The first rule would have to be "No extra parts in any mode". Okay, I can understand that one. They want to cut down on costs and so there is no need to have extra parts in either the individual or the combined modes. In fact, I'm in favor of this idea when it can be put to good use. The second rule must be "All limbs must be interchangeable, no matter what." And this is the one that really irks me. I don't understand why they just can't commit one limb to one place; some of the best combiners have been made this way: Devestator, Predaking, Liokaiser, and so on. But when they need to make engineering sacrifices to ensure each limb can be both an arm and a leg then the overall figure suffers. And that is the problem with SDCC Bruticus (and all his subsequent repaints). But it does look like they have learned from at least some of their past mistakes and made Bruticus one of the best official modern combiners to date.

Distractions, distractions...

Occasionally when something really good comes along it impedes my collecting abilities. For the past two weeks that thing has been Batman: Arkham City on the PS3. I haven't really played any games since BTTF so this has been a long time coming. Whenever I get a good game I usually will focus all of my energy on it and let everything else fall to the wayside for a while.

For the most part I am not a comic person. I don't collect comics (other than TF series), I don't follow comic based characters and I don't see movies based on comic books. You would think that I would given my history with Transformers but I just don't usually find comic characters that compelling or interesting. Except for Batman. I wouldn't go as far to say that I am a hardcore Batman fan, but I can certainly appreciate the franchise much more than any of the others such as Superman, Iron Man or the X-Men. Maybe it is because I feel like the Bats is more grounded in reality than the other superheroes (no doubt helped by the latest release of movies). I still haven't read any of his comics, but I did watch the Animated Series in the '90 (amazing!) and have kept up with all the movies.

I never played Arkham Asylum (the predecessor to Arkham City) however I heard nothing but good things about it. I actually had planned to play it first but upon seeing the new game I just decided to go ahead and give it a try. At first I didn't really think I would like it, but it has turned out to be a spectacular game! Not only does it feature the voices of Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill as Batman and the Joker respectively, it opens up the world of Gotham into a playable environment that is full missions and enemies. I never thought I could have so much fun not killing bad guys!

So Transformers have taken a back seat for a while to the likes of Two-Face and Penguin. And unfortunately another big distraction is being released today: Uncharted 3. Let's hope I don't burn my Playstation out.