Hamley's Toy Shop

So a new Toy shop has opened at Plaza Sing! Its been a while since SG had a shop dedicated to selling toys only; i remember the good ol' days of Kids World and Inkids... Ahhhh....

Anyway, Hamley's is a UK based shop which used to be call Noah's Ark or something. Honestly the selection is pretty... Poor. The floor space is too small and the selection weak. There's no differentiator from other dept store toy sections seriously... Although it's interesting that they so sell some board game stuff. :p

Remains to be seen how they do, but at the moment they seem kinda out of touch with what kids want today and the selection of toys they have.

Toys after we kick the bucket.

Interesting article, of course, it not only applies to Transformers, but anything we collect in general. I think as time goes on i'll drop a lot of things i used to collect and focus.. but in general, i'll give my toys to my kids haha, and like some people in the article, the kids can do what they want with them hehe...

http://tfsource.com/blog/all-our-toys/

(picture from tfsource.com)

Inside Hasbro - Part 2

Part 2 of Gizmodo's article on Hasbro. :) Still find the background music annoying though. :p

http://gizmodo.com/5995083/where-the-toys-come-from-inside-hasbros-model-workshop

Spring Cleaning!

Dusted off some of my toys on display, almost forgot about some i had!

Above is the Bandai Soul of Chogokin God Mars, this was released some 2-3 years ago? It's awesome they remade it as i remember watching this on Ch 8 last time in Chinese haha! :p "Liu4 Shen2 He2 Ti3 Lei2 Ting2 Wang2!" It's a pretty hefty piece of diecast, and it's actually 6 bots combined into one!

This should be familiar, Armored VF-1J. This is the 1/60 version which was much better than the initial 1/60 version (where the armor kept falling off) and the 1/48 version (where the armor didn't look correct - too bulky)

Finally, VF-1S Strike Valkyrie from the DYRL movie series. :) This guy was already starting to yellow aleady though, that's one thing bad about toys in white. Well, it affects even LEGO too!

1/48 Scale Airwolf

This came in last week from the usual joint, gotta say, box was prreeeetty light! This is the re-release of the 1/48 Airwolf helicopter by Aoshima, who also have it in plastic kit form.

Artwork for the box is the same as the previous releases; there is also a weathered version released alongside the regular edition, both are at the same price point though! The special version of the last release was a matte black version. :) Upon opening you see the fuselage, stand and blades all neatly tucked away. The tail rotor on mine dropped off though, but easy thing to just fit it back. The guns and missile launchers are hidden under the base. Thankfully instructions are in English too!

Detail on this is great; the doors open (please use a toothpick they say in the instructions!), the sunburst ports open, the hidden guns and missile launchers are swappable parts, so they can be displayed extended or hidden, the landing gear has this cool feature where a lever extends all three wheels out at the same time... AND... the main rotor and tail blades move! 2 AAA batteries needed, too bad no blinking lights! But that would have probably added more to the cost.

The included stand allows you to display the Airwolf at certain angles, the emossing of the logo is sweet. :) Worth the price of admission? Most definately! Pick this up while you can.

Too many Toys!

As we inch ever closer to the end of the year, the releases for toys and games are slowly starting to ramp up! Not been having much time to play on the console ( prob get worse when no. 2 comes!), so haven't been picking up any releases for the PS3 recently.

 

The 360 is almost stagnant to me; aside from a few exclusive titles, i hardly touch it these days. I wonder when consoles can truely match the processing power of a PC one day? I bought the Crysis bundle off Steam for cheap, and it's pretty much amazing how the graphics have improved over time. Crysis still looks pretty good for it's age, but when you see Crysis 2 on DX11 with Ultra settings.... boy oh boy... day and night man. :p Another one to see is the BF3 SP level "Going Hunting"... amazing.

 

Toys are getting too expensive these days... most of the 'nicer' stuff have become exclusives or limited and are AT LEAST $200 minimum these days.. Sigh, how i miss the days when i could go to Toy's R US and pick up an Aerialbot off the peg for $5...

 

Still, darn Hasbro/Takara is tugging at our Nostalgia by releasing MORE classic figures to whittle away what's left of my emancipated wallet. Know what i'd really like? A re-release of the headmasters... they'd probably do that knowing them!

 

This weekend is the NYCC and also the Plamo show in Japan... AND my brother's getting married too!

 

Time flies. ;)

 

Unicorn Gundam - Glowing Stage Set

Picked this up from Falcon's this evening after work, been quite a while but i hope the orders are slowly trickling in.... TFH was packed with quite a few people... and newly arrived stock too! The whole gang was there today which was kinda unusual. :)

No photoshop work here! ;) The 'glowing' red areas are actually the way the paint is sprayed along those areas; the whole set comes with a display base with black lights, and the flourescent paint on the figure stands out from the body itself. Pretty good effect, and one of the better quality releases from Bandai recently.

 

All the have to do now is release a Die cast version with built in LED's! :p

100 Toys

Our National museum should do this! Will be more interesting than most of what's on display there nowsadays anyways. :p

This is from the Children's Musuem in Indianapolis, nice that they are doing this. :)

I think so far in the list, we've actually played with most of the items, although some of them are uniquely American stuff!

Not sure about the Cabbage Patch Kids though, that kinda creeps me out!

Busy Day!

Whew! Been a long day, my feet hurt from all the walking around! Was at MBS exhibition centre this morning to catch a look at STGCC, and other than the queue hiccup, it was a rather ok experience, slowly uploading the pics to FB now, more later on the show itself!

After that, went back to NEX for the Gundam World Tour expo, pretty cool stuff on display this time. :) More pics will follow!

STGCC 2012!

SG Toycon is just this weekend! It's gonna be held at MBS this time round, so i wonder how it'd hold up compared to Suntec. COMEX 2012 is going to be at Suntec though, starts tomorrow, but Suntec is a mess now with all the renovation work that's going on.

Hopefully can get some good pics! And maybe pick up a deal or two. :)

Blue Thunder!

I remember my dad bringing me to see this in the Cinema, that was in 1983, i was like, 7? :p Anyway, back the the only cool parts i remember were whenever the helicopter of that namesake came on-screen. I loved the look of the heli (it looks ancient now yeah, but back then, with the chaingun and all, it was sooooo coool. :) It probably was the precursor to the AH-64 Attack Chopper). Found a cool pic with the late Roy Scheider above.. very garang pose!

 

 

Picked up the blue thunder heli from ORGANIC/Dream Machine, a Japanese toy maker. It's a (mostly) die-cast in 1/32 scale. Kinda an odd scale but makes sense now, cos if it was in 1/72, it'd be kinda teeny! And the details won't be there.

 

 

Pic in packaging.... didn't take out as usual! No place to display...

 

Another pic in packaging... No lights/or special features like Aoshima's Airwolf! Another heli i'm waiting for.

A product pic.. looks cool! Some interesting facts :

The helicopter used for Blue Thunder was a French-made Aérospatiale SA-341G Gazelle modified with bolt-on parts and an Apache-style canopy. Two modified Gazelle helicopters, a Hughes 500 helicopter and two F-16 fighter aircraft were used in the filming of the movie. The helicopters were purchased by Columbia Pictures and flown to Cinema Air in Carlsbad, CA where they were heavily modified for the film. These alterations made the helicopters so heavy that various tricks had to be employed to make it look fast and agile in the film. For instance, the 360° loop maneuver Murphy performs at the end of the film was carried out by a radio controlled model.

 

Think Singapore uses Gazelles as our training choppers.

Finally, cockpit detail....... Nice... Kinda spacious!

 

Microman!

 

Just remembered i was supposed to post the pic of the Microman fig my grandad bought for me! Here's an archived pic of what it looked like, i remember having the green one though. This was from the 1982 Microman release.

 

I always wondered what the other 'robot' was for, it was kinda like a snap fit thing, not much articulation too. :)

LEGO Town Plan

Interestingly, Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen was featured on the box of the lego town plan set as a little boy... and 50 years later, returns to be featured on the cover again! Even the shirt almost matches the original haha. :p

Happy 80th Birthday LEGO!

Ah, to think that they were making everything else OTHER than bricks back in 1932! :) Thank goodness for LEGO, otherwise my childhood would have definately been less interesting! LEGO turned 80 on 10th August, but never too late for a birthday wish! :)

LEGO comes from the Danish word 'Leg' and 'Godt' which means 'play well', a good as any name! It has always been expensive here (it still is) but it's one of those evergreen toys that never seem to go out of fashion!

Checkout the video above. :) Sweet. :)

Soundwave-a-blingbling!

Is this necessary? :p Well, Linkin Park seems to be big fans of Anime and robots, and they've collaborated before on some Gundam model kits.. too much if you ask me! :)

Linkin Park and Hasbro are collaborating on a super-limited LINKIN PARK EDITION SOUNDWAVE. It’s a new and exclusive model based on the original 1984 toy, the one I grew up playing with. It includes Lazerbeak, Buzzsaw, and Ravage. There will only be 2000 units, available at SURU and comic/hobby shops.

Hasbro is currently showing a sample of it, inside the Transformers booth at Comicon. Here are some pics from Les, the designer. Shout out to Mr. Hahn for overseeing its golden glory on our end (no, it’s not real gold).

The LINKIN PARK SOUNDWAVE will be available later this year.

Iron Man MK IV

Got around to opening the MK IV from the Gantry suit-up set, nothing really new about this suit as it's been released before (except the chest plate is supposed to be magnetic which the previous version wasn't, so that it could attach to the robotic arm).

Decided to put this on display, cos have been spending the afternoon packing stuff for storage, so made so more space available! :)

Well, the MK VII is on the way.... which looks like the previous versions, but i guess it'd be cool to have a 'hall of armor' type of display!

Armored Core V

Never really got into the Armored Core series of games; the customization and all is cool, but i guess the controls never really felt right to me.  I guess i prefer more 'direct' control without having to worry about a ton of options and weapons to switch between!

Still AC had some cool mech designs, but most of them seemed to be available as plastic model kits and not really as toys. Picked this up from Bandai's Super Robot Chogokin line. It's about 10com tall and weighs quite a bit. At least you can 'feel' the chogokin in this! :p

The detail is amazing for such a teeny figure, and the give 4 weapons of which 2 are attached to the shoulders.

However, the weight of the upper torso causes it to lean forward, and the hands... omg, where do i begin? I think this must the worst joint i've ever seen at the wrist, did Bandai even do QA or a design check? They give 4 hands, one for each weapon, but they pop off at the slightest touch! The should have extended the ball joint out from the wrist a bit so that it can fit tighter into the wrist... how they released this without catching on such a flaw is beyond me (money?).

Anyway, sweet figure but the joints can use some improvements. A 6/10 from me.

SDCC 2012!

The San Diego Comic Convention is one of, if not THE most important events for Toy companies to showcase upcoming products AND also sell limited merch that geeks like me calmour for! :P Can't believe it's already a year since the last one happened... time sure flies fast! :p

It'd starting today in the US... well it's late here in SG anyway so the fun's just beginning for them!

 

Exclusives this year are pretty cool as usual! It'd be killer to get the fox hound case for the iphone! :)

Also check out the Hot Toys POTC figure of Angelica... creepy real HS! :D

MP-13 Soundwave

Been a while since i've purchased any TF's from the Masterpiece line ( as most seem to be repaints in one way or another ), but the upcoming Soundwave was too cool to resist! Pictured in color finally from the Tokyo Toy.

They'll be releasing Rumble and Ravage too! ;) Awesome.

Snaaaaakkkke!

Picked up the Kai Arts MGS Snake from the usual place yesterday, figure is pretty cool apart from it being kinda big; guess i'll have to get used to the scale the Squenix uses for their figs! :p

Detail on the fig is pretty good, especially for the texture on the face, they're getting close to the quality level and detail for HOT TOYS stuff.

Should have given more armaments though! Only the FAMAS G2 and SOCOM included.... wheres the stinger, Nikita and PSG-1? :p

Next up is Meryl, prob followed by Raiden and Solidus!