Welcome to... Monday

Welcome back for another week of robots, monsters, and misadventure here on Zone Base! I hope everyone had a great weekend, I sure did! This week is the first full week of October and officially the rest of the world is also celebrating Halloween. Of course we've been going strong since August here on Zone Base and there's one more month of Pumpkin Spiced Mayhem to run wild with. If you use Instagram, please check out me out! This year, the Mrs and I acquired a Simpsons Treehouse of Horror advent calendar and I'm posting each days spooky surprise. Give me a follow too if you want. That's my main social media account where I have all sorts of fun.

This weekend was a fun one, albeit a little laid back. The Mrs and I took my Mom with us Saturday to Walmart to pick up a few things. Saturday evening was a relaxing one at home with Sunday being a nice rainy fall day. After a quick run to the grocery store for a few things, I spent the day playing the Silent Hill 2 remake that came out not long ago. I had bought it for the Mrs on release, but it's largely been unplayed. Since she's been working her way through the new Silent Hill F, she asked if I could play 2 so she could watch. No problem, 2 is easily my favorite Silent Hill game and it's been a long time since I've played the original version. 

I planned to organize the cords on our Halloween lights a little better this weekend, but a rainy day wasn't ideal for that task. Next weekend for sure. Wonderfest Shanghai this weekend and some really cool stuff was shown off. Of course various companies had assorted Transformers merchandise on display. Both Yolopark and Blokees made a great showing. Speaking of Blokees, they introduced Defender Version series 5. It looks great, damn I really need to get some series 4! 52toys had a great display as well. Of course there's some good BeastBox and BeastDrive bots coming, but what really has my attention is Roboforce. Roboforce is a new transforming robot toy series from 52toys that looks amazing! Hopefully they'll be easy to get here in the states. I usually don't have a problem, but every once and awhile there's a turd.

As for toys, I picked up Onyx Prime from Transformers Age of the Primes. Walmart had something new! They also had the new Voyager wave, but seeing as it wouldn't scan... I decided to wait for another time. Sometimes they just don't enter them in the system correctly and it won't ring up at the cashier. There's nothing more infuriating than being denied purchases due to someone else's incompetence. Hopefully I'll be able to buy them soon as well as the newest Target 4 pack that should be showing up this week. I've got to get in my new toy purchases in soon. After October, my annual tradition of not buying myself toys during November and December will be in effect. I'll be swimming in new stuff on Christmas, but will be spending money on others during the season. I've got quite a lot of toys still for us to look at, so content won't be lacking here on the site. I've never considered Zone Base to be a new toy review site anyway. This is a place to enjoy our fandom together and I'm flattered that you chose to spend some time here with me. It's time to get this week started Zone Base readers. Mutual High Fives everyone and please remember to share with your friends!

New Week 2000

Hello Zone Base readers! Welcome back for another week of robots, monsters, and misadventure! I hope everyone had a great weekend, I sure did! I enjoyed a low key weekend with the Mrs, enjoyed her great cooking, watched Stranger Things with her and Mom, worked on more Halloween backdrops for toy pics here on the site, and played Donkey Kong Bananza! Once again my Walmart didn't have any new toys, but I ordered Cyberworld Bumblebee and Snarl! Bumblebee will be here later this week, but Snarl won't arrive until a little later. I have no clue why he's the harder of the initial batch of Cyberworld toys to get, but I happily got one for standard retail.

My most recent Blokees order came in Sunday and the Mrs and I had fun opening the boxes and checking the trading card to see who as inside! I've got 2 cases of Galaxy Version Defender kits to start work on soon. I'll probably order another soon as well, I really love the Defender type kits and feel like they're perfect for site content. In a conversation on Blokees Facebook page, another poster suggested they do Battle Beasts in the Defender range. What a great idea! Part of me majorly prefers things like Blokees and Yolopark kits these days to traditional Transformers toys. I spent years of my youth painting miniatures and building models and Zoids. I guess these just vibe with that part of my brain. 

Speaking of vibing with my brain, both SCCC and Wonderfest Summer was this weekend. I definitely enjoyed the new toy reveals at SDCC. Transformers, Masters of The Universe, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Godzilla, and others made a great showing with tons of exciting new releases in store. While I appreciate that, I won't lie, it feels like another official reveal like these companies do all year. It's exciting, for sure, but what really gets my heart going is the pictures from Wonderfest. I spent hours this weekend looking them over and wishing I were there. 

Well, I've got a fun week in store for you all. This is the prelude before Pumpkin Spiced Mayhem starts next week! I'm so excited that I swapped the site over to fall colors last week! It's good to freshen things up occasionally and with the 100+ degree heat I'm having...  the cooler temperatures of fall feels forever away. It's about to get extra spooky around Planet Zone for the next 3 months and I'm excited! Well, thank you all for reading Zone Base. Your support means so very much to me. This isn't one of those corporate sites that just want your money and you all are real ones for just wanting to enjoy our hobbies. Please be sure to share the site with your friends and Mutual High Fives everyone!

Shoot, it's Monday

I could do for another few days off, but the weekend is over and Monday is here. I had a pretty great weekend even though not much was done. Unfortunately, the Mrs caught my cold as I was getting better and spent the weekend not feeling so great. I recover extremely fast from being sick, but unfortunately it took a toll on her. I spent most of the weekend taking care of her and playing my Evercade EXP-R. I did get out to the store for some needed items, unfortunately Walmart still hasn't restocked from Christmas. The first quarter is always a bit barren for toy stock, but piles of unsold toys makes it hard to not feel a little down. Transformers One was a great movie and those are good toys! I'm glad it's found success on streaming, but wish the unsold stock from it (and Earthspark) would move sooner than later. Cyberworld doesn't look like it will show up until later in the year, so thankfully what's going on now won't hold it up.

I did order Transformers Legacy United Armada Universe Wheeljack from Amazon. So, I didn't come out of the weekend empty handed. It and the Optimus I ordered last week will come in soon. I've enjoyed Legacy, but the coming Age of the Primes toys look like a fun Generations line and a suitable replacement for Legacy. If anything, I'll be be happy for the easier name. When I wasn't playing video games this weekend, I kept up with convention news. Hasbro had a booth at Megacon and showed off some exciting new Transformers coming this year.

I was more excited for the news that came from Wonderfest this weekend. The winter 2025 show did not disappoint with cool reveals. My beloved 52toys shown off so much cool stuff... it was jaw dropping. BeastBox is going to be great this year. Not to mention Mad Cars looks like a lot of fun. There's always room for Inchmen on Zone Base! Of course all the cool garage kits were fun to look at. As always there was fun Godzilla, SplatterHouse, and Microman stuff available that really grabbed my attention. That's not selling the other things short either, just man,  I was blown away! Well, it's time to get the day started. I've got some household chores to be done and pictures for upcoming posts to take. I'm really excited for the things 2025 looks to be bringing. Thank you all for reading Zone Base. I know it's just a small podunk site, but this is a labor of love and fun to share my hobbies with all of you. There's no ads, no affiliate links, or any sort money talk around here. All I ask is that you share the site with your friends! That and I hope everyone has a great week! Mutal High Fives!

Hey Rob, how about the exact type of thing you like?

 

Toy Fair is right around the corner waiting to jump out and stab you with a knife. It's THAT close. So, as per the norm, almost all the news from the show is being released early to various sites either officially or by leaks. I'm not complaining, because the news is just wonderful (and I just can't click every link on Twitter). Wonderfest was this past weekend holding tons of news that I'm interested and really want (hello Star Convoy and Armada Prime). Today the news was new Cyberverse toys. I've enjoyed the line as is, but haven't jumped in whole hog as it's not 100% for me (and that's ok). Well, now they made it 200% for me (and that's ok)!

The new Spark Armor Battle Class figures are exactly the type of thing I go for. Legion/Speed style figures (they might be a little bigger) with partner drone vehicle type things that can turn into armor for said figure. Pardon me while I find somebody to shake violently and yell in their face about how awesome that is. I'm really digging the looks of these toys too, completely traditional looking Transformers characters with the additional armor friends. Often they'll reinvent the look of the bot for such a gimmick, which I'm not opposed too at all. Just when they look so drastically different, I'd prefer they'd be a new character. That and maybe it's a holdover from Action Masters mentally that's got me really excited for traditional looking characters with such a gimmick.

With Siege being as awesome as it is right now, the general greatness that is the Walmart reissue line, it's extra fries and ketchup with my combo meal that Cyberverse is doing such an awesome awesome. I hope the gimmick see's life the the cartoon, that'd be great. It's hard not to be excited for such a thing, I kinda hope Takara gets hold of this as I'd love to see it in their manga stories. Seems perfectly compatible with the general storytelling that takes place there.

Big Blue Wonder

At Wonderfest this past weekend, Takara showed off the upcoming Encore Big Convoy figure. I'm pretty tempted to get him as he's in show accurate colors, but what I really want is that blue version in the picture. There was several versions of that mold already back then and even a few in the US. So far I've got the Korean version of the original. The Nemesis Prime version from Target, and the Ultra Mammoth from the TFCC a few years back (it was something I had wanted since beast era was going on). I hope the Encore blue version is easily obtainable because, seriously, when it's too hard to get something that's currently available. I don't want to bother. There's no reason for that anymore. Convention exclusive, well that's fair. But if it's just online in a second and sold out the next... well, I ain't playing. I'm 40 years old and have a fairly busy personal and professional life. I can't sit in front of a web store all day and refresh it every few seconds hoping to get a purchase in when it's available and before it sells out. I don't feel like being punished for being a functional adult and won't be. So, hopefully that blue version is not too hard to get, because I'd really like to get one.

This is one of my favorite molds, so obviously I'm tempted to get it again.