Thursday, May 17, 2012

Big Update Week...Mostly

This week sees the site back in great form.
It had faltered for a while due to the PSO2 beta , a book deadline and other stuff too. However, by updating twice (not marked on the index) almost all of the mail that came in during the period should be on the site. This upcoming week will see (hopefully) getting into more older mail/getting the mail count down.

Item of the week:
HAS to be the First 4 Figures Modern Sonic.
Lots of people had wondered for quite a while if/when F4F was going to get the modern license. (Yes, apparently there are 2 licenses for Sonic, 1 for if you want to do modern things w/modern chars and 1 for if you only want the classics...they had the classic only for a while? I guess?)

As (probably everyone) expected, F4F does a great job with their first modern statue (Sonic, naturally) Whoever they put together to sculpt each of their items does really really well. He's great reason to look forward to other char's modern forms (who will be next? My guess is Shadow--why? They have not done him yet and he is popular yet exclusive to the 'modern realm')

They paid attention (possibly, or it was just a result of doing a good job) to the fan sentiment that "Modern Sonic Can Be Unexpressive". A big problem that fans seem to have if they lean away from modern style Sonic is that his face either has BDG (Big Dumb Grin--coined for the SA1 exaggerated face that Sega actually backed away from/toned down & etc) or is too neutral in expression/they don't bother to give him one. Well, this statue avoids BDG and he's clearly attitude/smiling so that's another great thing to see.

More money, more statues.
He's their most expensive one to date (I think) but he's also the largest at 15 inches. He's also a larger run, so I guess they're anticipating more demand. (likely rightly so) It stinx when stuff's sold out and people really want it, so hopefully this helps fix the problem.

The base is a tad unremarkable...save for the impact of foot on sand. If it wasn't for that...it would be a blah base as compared to their others. But that part is really well done. The light-up factor: people 'hate to say it' but it's a taaaad gimmicky here. "They appear to be doing it because it's expected now". Is this really true? Well with this base it doesn't make sense at all, but like...some people like just any old thing which lights up so more power to it, I guess. (I personally only like it where it makes sense or enhances the item in some logical way) Still, those comments are so tiny and there's always a choice of bases so it doesn't matter; they are trying to make everyone happy.

Bottom line:
Amazing amazing amazing go buy this if you have a lot of money and somewhere to put it that it won't break. Their modern debut is 100% success from looking at the photos for this guy & can't wait to see what's next!

Gachapon Danglers-
They're pretty popular. With how many comments are about these things they look like the most popular yet of Tomy's offerings. (Justified, I would say because the gacha ball things (figures & cars) were already done better by Jazwares for only a buck or 2 more AND with JW you could see what you were getting) So basically if you see a box of these things go read on this blog the post about detecting what's inside then buy them or else you'll miss out.

Usually Gear won't mention things that are for sale (1 off's) and the site itself never has anything like that because it's too temporary and Gear is supposed to be an archive of everything ever, however this 20th statue has been wondered about a lot lately so:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/180881919956

it's for offers at UK's ebay. Mainly needs to go to a Sonic fan (and not some scalper or reseller--those plague enough of the shirts and toys already) also, that it sold out the original run, so a 2nd hand is about the only way to get this. (Since it's a 20th Anniv thing, another run is 99.9% not going to happen for it as it is branded)

New Page:
Magazine Gallery. It will be interesting to see if this goes anywhere/fans contribute their photobucket or other image sharing off-site links. The bottom line for it is that there's WAY WAY too much mag coverage for Sonic to ever fit onto Gear without it taking over. (And by taking over I don't mean 'just the pages' or 'the servers' or whatever, I mean the limited time I have to update the joint with/keep everything running as it should. So the page is a small step in a type of 'outsourcing' for the content. We will see what happens.

Next week:
More mail catch up and possibly nettling of the gear store. Archie has really turned up the heat with books and those all need to get Amazon linked on there because people are complaining about bookstores faltering on carrying everything.