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Saw this on GoNintendo last week. I’m actually semi-excited for LEGO Batman (I mean, it’s LEGOs and Batman!!!), so I’m excited for these toys as well. I’m not excited for eating McDonald’s at least once week for the next 8 weeks (well, I guess I technically don’t have to, but since I’m there anyway), and I think it’s lame that these LEGO toys are even stinking LEGOs. Their limbs are contorted, and I doubt they can be taken apart. Despite this, I’m still sold on them. As the weeks go on, I’ll make sure to update this post with pics as soon as I get some toys.

Edited 9/17 to add: WTF, the McDs by work sells toys individually for a $2.39!!! What a stinkin’ ripoff! I think the most expensive Burger King toys I’ve gotten in the past were $1.50 (but most places were $.99), and BK has way better quality toys. I mean, for 10 cents more at McDs, you get a burger, small fries, and sippy cup drink. I, of course, am now getting Happy Meals in conjunction with my Filet o’ Fishes, tho I’m splurging an extra $1 to get chicken nuggets and not have to eat their disgusting burgers. Bleh. At least they’ve switched back to cardboard boxes for the Happy Meals.

I read about this alarm clock on Kotaku, and considering its cuteness, utility, and relevance to the Metal Gear Solid universe, I of course had to get one. I missed out on pre-orders at NCSX and Play-Asia, but luckily NCSX got more in (and now they’re still available for order at both NCSX and Play-Asia, at least as of 8/26). Freaking $45+ after shipping… at least it came in two days. Thanks to USPS Priority shipping, I was able to get this on a Saturday and have a go with my new toy.

For reference, here’s a Youtube video of, I’m guessing, the promo video for the clock from Konami:

The GA-KO (or is it Ga-Ko? Or Gako?) alarm clock comes packed in an unsealed cardboard box, with technical diagrams of the duckie decorating the outside. It’s got minimal packing, just a clear plasic baggy for protection and a piece of white cardboard to support the top of its rotund head. Because it isn’t sealed, NCSX stuck a business card in the box as reminder as to where you purchase your clock from. Along with the clock, there is a folded instruction sheet.

The clock is made of typical plastic, nothing that feels particularly extra durable. Above the feet the ducky’s surface has a matte finish, while the feet are smooth and shiny. The paint job on the eyes is okay; they look pretty even and spherical, but if you look close enough, you can see the paint job isn’t perfectly in the indented lines. On mine, the lower part of the eye white bleeds out significantly, but it still looks circular. The head is loose to allow for the head shaking, and its free movements makes the clock seem flimsier than it is. The copyright stuff is imprinted on the back of its head.

Are you looking at my butt?

The bottom of the feet hold the batteries. NCSX says three AAA batteries are required. (Edited 8/26: Looks NCSX finally fixed their listing.) Play-Asia says two AAAs are required. Both of them are wrong. The GA-KO alarm clock has a bizarre battery requirement of two AAAs and one AA battery. Kelvin guessed correctly that the different battery types were for different functions: the AA is needed for the clock, while the AAAs are needed for the alarm. Sliding the battery cover off, there is another battery cover for the AA slot, which is sandwiched between the two AAAs.

How to set the clock isn’t obvious, as the only things visible initially are the alarm on/off switch on its arse and the snooze button on one of the feet. A good push on its behind makes the tail area come off, revealing two knobs for clock time and alarm time setting. The speaker is also more visible, but the tail panel has sound slots anyway, giving away the location of the speaker.

Junk in the trunk

Setting the clock is identical to any cheap-o plastic analog alarm clock you’ve ever owned before. You turn one knob, which moves the minute and hour hands, to the right time. The second knob is turns the small yellow hand, which you place to the approximate hour hand location of your desired alarm time. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have the cute timer function that Sunny seems to use in MGS4, where you twist the head and 3 minutes later you’ve got perfect eggs.

When the alarm rings, the clock sounds just like the Metal Gear Solid 4 timer. The duck shakes his head at you and says repeatedly all cute-like “Gah-gah! Gah-gah!”. The head-shaking isn’t quite as vigorous as the timer in the game.

Hitting the snooze button causes it to snooze for 5 minutes, and after 20 minutes, the alarm clock completely stops with no more snoozing. So you snooze 4 times and that’s it. This is kind of weak sauce to me, as I prefer the more traditional 9 minute snooze time, and I don’t like an alarm giving up so quickly. I can definitely snooze for more than 20 minutes. Also, even though the alarm switch is still set to ON, it won’t ring again until you turn it off and on again because of its ghetto state machine. (btw, I’m pretty sure all this info is correct because, along with actually trying out the alarm, I translated the #5 instruction on the instruction sheet with my elementary Japanese skills and a DS Japanese dictionary. Rakubiki Jiten FTW!)

I originally got this to use as an alarm clock, but I think the lacking snooze features will relegate this clock as a desk or shelf decoration. I’m not a fan of the snooze button location either; I’m pretty sure my natural instinct in the morning is to smack its shaking head. Still, the GA-KO alarm clock is a cute, somewhat useful, collector’s item that any Metal Gear Solid fan wouldn’t mind having. Would they mind paying $45+ for one? I guess that depends on the fan :P

New thing I learned today: While in the US we say ducks go “quack quack”, in Japan ducks go “ga ga”.

For more international animal sounds, check out this page, which I found through someone else’s blog post about the GA-KO alarm clock.

Saw this on Kotaku. Leave it to the Japanese to come up with crazy shit like this. This set of figures is going to be sold on the Japanese Konami store website in December for a little under 3000yen (~$27). As sick and twisted as this is, I so want this. I really really really hope import sites will have this available, cuz my money is ready. My favorite one is probably Raiden, tho Otacon is pretty cute too.

On a side note, why the hell is Snake blonde?

New thing I learned today: Figumate is a cutesy brand of collectible figures, similar to Kubrick. The popular chibi-style toy brand is owned and made by Konami.

A couple weekends ago, I celebrated another year of my existence. Throughout the weekend, I received many birthday wishes from several friends who somehow remembered or found out about it, even though I can only think of maybe three people I’ve actually celebrated my birthday with since high school. I really appreciate everybody who spent time with me or contacted me, so thanks guys :)

(Click through for a rambling about that weekend.)
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I found out a few months ago on Gizmodo that more Metal Gear Solid Kubricks were coming out end of 2007. For those that don’t know, Kubrick is a line of toys from Japanese toy company Medicom Toy Inc. that are figures that look like Lego dudes, but their toys are limited edition, collectible, and aimed towards adults. They have random figures for all sorts of stuff, like Halo, Daft Punk, Neon Genesis Evangelion, and Aliens, just to name a few. They previously released figures for Metal Gear Solid 2 and Metal Gear Solid 3, and I never got these since I got into MGS after MGS3. These figures are very pricey on eBay, so I made sure to get my order in for the 20th Anniversary figures as soon as they popped up on Play-Asia.

The box shows that there are five different figures you can get: Solid Snake from MGS1, “Ninja” or basically Gray Fox from MGS1, Naked Snake from MGS3, (Old) Solid Snake from MGS4, and Raiden from MGS4. The boxes are random; you can’t tell which figure you get until you open box. I consider Snake to be at his peak hotness in MGS1, so I really wanted the MGS1 Snake. I decided to order 5 figures, hoping at least one would be MGS1 Snake and hoping I wouldn’t get too many duplicates. The assortment rate for the MGS1 Snake is 16.6%, so the chances that all five weren’t MGS1 is like ~40%, right? I first saw the figures on NCSX for $8.50 each, but Play-Asia had them on their website for 60 cents cheaper. I added a Toad stuffed doll (cuz he’s just too freaking adorable) for filler and basically got free shipping with an $8 off $50 holiday coupon.

Very lucky for me, I got my order the Friday I was leaving for Taiwan. I could check out which toys I got before I left, and I didn’t have to worry about them being stuck on my porch for two and a half weeks (unlike what happened to a tripod I ordered from Amazon… ARGH, stupid UPS and Fedex). I opened up the first box, and I was really confused with what I got. It sorta looked like the Solid Snake I wanted, but it was clear. Did I get a defective toy? No, there’s little lines drawn on it, so it must be purposely clear. There was no description on the box of such a figure, so I went to teh intarwebz and found out I apparently got a chase figure. Clear Solid Snake has an assortment rate of 1 in 48, while there’s an even rare Clear Ninja that’s 1 in 96. So I got some rare figure in my first box. (Yay!) But it’s still not the Solid Snake I wanted. (Boo!)

Of course, time to open the next four boxes. I ended up getting a Naked Snake, a Raiden, a Ninja, and… another Naked Snake. Drat, I was so close to not getting duplicates! I’m glad I got Raiden, as I like Raiden. I’m not a fan of the Ninja, though it’s the rarest of the common figures (12.5% as opposed to the 25% of Raiden and Old Snake, the two most common. Naked Snake is 20.8%). So I didn’t get an old Snake or the Solid Snake I wanted.

But that’s okay, because I was able to find them in Taiwan! There’s this awesome toy boutique called Monster Taipei that’s in the same mall I got my qipao. They sell all sorts of collectible figures from all around, and they have quite an extensive collection in their store. They had unopened MGS Kubricks, but they also sold opened ones. I bought an Old Snake for 280NT (cost of a unopened box) and a Solid Snake for 350NT (~$11) + 10% off from some sale they were having. Aside from Clear Ninja, I’ve got all the figures now, plus an extra Naked Snake.

I love these figures! They’re so cute (awww, look at the widdle mullet!) and detailed. Most of the figures have tiny holsters to stick their tiny weapons in. Like Lego people, these figures can be taken apart fairly easily, and parts are interchangeable. The arms and legs have more degrees of motion than your average Lego guy, though I think this decreases the toy’s ability to stay together. I’m constantly twisting Raiden’s arm off. Nothing has broke yet, despite their tiny weapons and me tearing their bodies apart. The faces are nicely detailed, down to Old Snake’s wrinkles and math-teacher mustache.

They’re not perfect though. Raiden’s sheaths are removable from its belt, but on my figure, one of the sheaths constantly falls off, which is annoying. The little knob for the sheath that sticks it to belt is weak or something. My Raiden’s mask also has some speck on it that I think is just stray ink from manufacturing. The front part of his mask also falls off pretty easily. *sigh* Poor gimpy Raiden. Also, it’d be nice if all the figures’ weapons could be easily held; most of the weapons don’t have cylindrically-shaped handles to fit the figures’ cylindrically-shaped grips. Of course, these are just nitpicks.

Snake? SNAAAAAAaaaaaake!!!

These figures were more readily available in December, but it seems like places are starting to run out of stock. Play-Asia no longer has them, but NCSX still seems to have stock. If you have a local import video-game or toy store, that’s probably a good place to check. And of course, you can also get raped on eBay.

If you find these in a brick & mortar store and you either want to get or avoid Raiden, here’s a tidbit to help you out. Most of the figures come in little baggies, and that’s their only packaging in the box. Raiden has more fragile facegear and weapons, so to prevent breakage, he’s completely encased in plastic inside of the box. If you shake the box and hear something bouncing around, it’s not Raiden, as Raiden hardly moves because of the plastic.

New thing I learned today: A “tool” is a toy industry term for a part of a figure. For example, a Kubrick figure has nine tools (a head, a torso, two arms, two hands, hips, and two legs).