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PA comic: Friday Oct. 14, 2011 - Maybe Not Every Toy
Bogey
I'm back, baby!Santa Monica, CAModerator Mod Emeritus
I'm back, baby!Santa Monica, CAModerator Mod Emeritus
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Of course, a lot of modern toys are total balls too. And by that I mean in many cases they are literal balls. Or tops, or whatever the fuck. They're always garishly painted as a representation of some fanciful character they supposedly represent, and they're usually fired out of some form of launching device for the purpose of doing "battle," and there is apparently no end to new permutations of this fundamental idea.
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
Yes, in some ways you really can't beat the classics. Can't go wrong with Legos or Hot Wheels.
The Toys R Us I worked at sold more Legos than any store in our region of the US. We had our Lego rep in every week to bring us new stock. She was this 60-ish lady, and I always wondered how she got her job. I wanted her job.
Did you ever ask her?
I think I did at least once. I don't recall getting any meaningful answer. I'm not sure she realized I was serious.
http://store.penny-arcade.com/products/new-wang-fu-tee
That being said, I would have killed to have LEGO skeletons and the other cool stuff they have in modern sets. The height of LEGO technology when I was a kid was hinges and visors.
I want kids so I can play legos with them.
Have you seen what they've been up to since the 90s?
because god damn.
There used to be a nerf thread in Moe's. Ah, here it is. After reading it I was unable to resist picking up a Raider and a Maverick myself. Gonna get around to opening up the Maverick and hot-rodding it one of these days.
I'm probably going to end up working for the Giraffe again for this year's season, actually. When I was there for an interview earlier in the week I swung down the nerf aisle. There's yet another new Maverick color variation, all-orange basically. Wish they would bring back the original blue and yellow...I guess some people claim those were "better" anyway? Didn't have time to see what else is new.
Lego hasn't much changed, I agree, and I certainly cannot complain about it's evolution. Tie Fighter sets?! beats the crap of trying to make your own out of the old "space lego" sets.
Maybe today's toys are more innovative, but they are much much much cheaper. Cheap in the quality sense, obviously they cost much more than they used to. So not only have prices gone way up, quality and materials have gone way down.
Bring back metal toys!!!!
Well you know both Hot Wheels and Matchbox are owned by the same company now, right? But I will agree with you insofar as Hot Wheels were always my preference as a kid because they felt so much more solid and sturdy. However, I have (sadly) not had the opportunity/excuse to play with Hot Wheels lately to comment on their current construction.
My son's toys also seem more flimsy than their old school counterparts. There are more plastic pieces on Hot Wheels than when I was young, and the arms and legs of Transformers and action figures seem much more inclined to fall off than they used to.
Just before I left California my friends and I were getting into this. We even had Nerf gun fights in the apartment even. I'm sure nobody in the complex appreciated it.
I was 21 at the time.
... shut up.
You only really start appreciating NERF when you suddenly have the income to create an armory with it. Also NERF weapons integrating a universal rail system as well as ammo clips is the best thing, I'm sure they're the leading manufacturer of non-lethal firearms in the US.
I'm sure they are. The last one I remember was marketed as a super secret soaker where you threw up your hands to feign surrender, and when they're not relaxed, bam, super secret nozzle.
Though losses it's effectiveness when you air kids doing it in the commercial, and you know, because no one in the history of the industry has ever bothered to head the pleas of the kid who tried to surrender.
I had all three of those.
meeeeemmoooorrriiiieeesss...
I checked out the toy section a few years ago, just to see what they have these days, and actually felt sorry for kids these days.
Super Soakers are well past apogee now. They went through a real renaissance around the time I graduated from high school, and you saw some crazy shit, like the CPS series, or the Monster XL. But anymore, they're back down into gimmicks and piston-powered shit. It's kinda sad, if you went through a weird super soaker-obsessed phase like I did.
your = belonging to you
their = belonging to them
there = not here
they're = they are
I'm the keeper of the tech team's arsenal, mostly because everyone else has 1 or 2 guns, I own enough to outfit a platoon. My latest acquisition is the Nerf Vortex Nitron, which HURTS when it hits someone due to the long-range disc tech it is using.
($45 plus 6 C-cells)
Then again, until I recently brought it home to prepare for an office rearranging, my desk was covered in shit. Now? Only my home is.
(Yes, this is an excuse to post these pics again, as I don't think we have a toy collector thread! Sorry they are so blurry.)
Yes. I own both TIE Defender toys that have been released.
Edit: Here, a pic of them. The Defender is a legit Lego toy, sold in stores. Originally $50, but Lego is way too overpriced for the end product. I got it on clearance for half off. I had to find something else to prop it up with, though, as well as some points of reference, scale wise. Still same old crappy camera, and no chance of finding a g/f.
[img][/img]
Uploaded with ImageShack.us
your metal murder machine transformers also only had six points of articulation at best, five movements to transform, and in Prime's case couldn't even hold his gun properly. plus, of the old robots with diecast metal, the ones with the most were easily broken. plus, if you want them to look good at all, they have to be painted, and that shit chips easily.
Nah. We all know that this is truly the best of both worlds: Die Cast metal and insane articulation. Any true TF fan instantly knows what i'm talking about.
... I wish I had a shot of him in the foreground.
I just don't like toys that feel like wiffle balls. I find them (and always have found them, even as a child) inferior products.
The problem with metal toys is that if they break, they create VERY dangerous pieces. So you have to either engineer them so nothing dangerous comes of them, or don't use it.
With plastic, there's a few standards that basically amount to keeping a toy from turning into shards. The biggest ones are the "3 foot rule" and soft plastic. With the 3 foot rule, a toy is designed to not break into shards if broken from a height. Modern toys achieve this by breakaway joints, ball joints, and other pins - wherever possible they'll make sure metal pins are in places very, VERY unlikely to break. And for anything sharp and pointy they will either make it out of soft plastic or ensure that it won't lay in such a way that a child could step on it. that mini TIE defender up above? Its transparent stand is permanently glued/affixed so that it can't stand up and present a stepping hazard. The X-wings in that line are the same way - the lasers are plastic, the engines are molded so that it can never stand straight up. Even things like my full sized Clone Wars Y-wing has little pieces on the back to make sure it won't stand properly vertically.
Yeah, the pieces come across feeling less structurally sound. But in reality, they are MORE resilient to damage. If you want metal, go hunt down the Binaltech line from Japan. In fact, go Japanese for most products - they have much less strict safety laws. Some of my Zoids (pictured at the top of the main shelf shot) are imports, and actually have teeth and claws that can cut skin, as well as being studier plastic.
That should be resurrected.