Toy Fair 2014: Hex Bug Battles, Climbs the Walls & Gets Zombified

It's often hard to tell which direction the toy industry will go. Last year saw the "dumbing down" of several action figure lines in favor of a marginally lower price point and a company most known for robotics trying their hand at princess dolls. Amid all these shifts, our universal constant will always be Hex Bug! This crew seems to sit around all day thinking of new ways you can play with micro-robotics on a level that won't decimate a parent's budget. Here's this year's UK Toy Fair showing...

Toy Fair 2014: NECA's Pacific Rim Series 3

Annnd we're back! After sifting through our mound of UK Toy Fair images and heaps of info matching distributors with U.S. companies and playing rousing games of "What the hell is that on the far right and is there a clearer picture of it??!!" ...we now have a respectable amount of news to share! First up, we'll take a look at NECA's Pacific Rim series 3.

These days you have to be quick when it comes to NECA. If you find something up for pre-order on a retailer website, chances are the company has already shown it off in great detail on Necaonline.com. If you find some new figure out in the wilds of a toy industry show..well...you'd best post it right quick. Case in point..in the time it took us to dig out these images, NECA posted complete turn-arounds of the Cherno Alpha paint master on Twitter!!!

So..before they steal back all their news, here's the lot...

Toy Fair 2014: Sixth Annual Best New Toys Revealed

The sixth annual Toy Fair Best New Toy Awards winners were announced this morning predicting some of the top new toys for 2014. Winners range from household names such as LEGO Friends Stephanie’s Beach House (LEGO) and Nerf N-Strike Zombie Crossbow (Hasbro) to innovative new IPs such as My Friend Cayla (Vivid) and Cupets (Flair). The thirteen categories - which produced 39 winning toys from 26 different toy companies - were unveiled by Toy Fair organizers the British Toy & Hobby Association on the first day of the show this morning. Toy Fair is the UK’s only dedicated toy, game and hobby trade exhibition, playing host to more than 280 exhibitors launching thousands of new products.

Toy Fair 2014: Transformers 4 Optimus Prime Arrives

Our team has two mandates on the floor of any convention, but especially at trade shows. 1 is to look for excellent, new toys from our favorite lines. The second is to pour over every booth for imagery from new movies we are anticipating. With this marching order in mind, our crew sent over scattered images of the new Transformers logo and packaging, and occasionally got us a glimpse of character designs from Transformers: Age of Extinction!

Toy Fair 2014: Doctor Who, Star Wars, Super Mario & B.A.S.T.A.R.D. at Together+

Sometimes you walk the isles at Toy Fair for 10 minutes and see a lot of excellent people pitching excellent new products, but as a full fledged geek, there isn't much to make your eyes light up. Then you hit that one stand filled with characters from all time periods of your life, presented in new and exciting ways that make you want to just empty your wallet over their heads. Sadly, Toy Fair is not a show for taking home new plastic buddies (for the most part), but we CAN take heaps of pictures so you can share our longing. It's a special torture..among friends.

At the booth named Together Plus, we found a treasure trove of items you'll want to claim as your own, starting with some peculiar little monsters that seemed more suited for the art toy isles in a line called B.A.S.T.A.R.D. (which stands for Bootleg Army Stuck Together and Randomly Designed). From our photos, it is hard to tell if all these pieces belong under that masthead, but we thought they kicked mighty ass, and so we show them to you.

Toy Fair 2014: The Tiniest Transformers, Doodle Jump & Pac-Man at Paladone

We are now neck deep in UK Toy Fair coverage with reports coming from all points, and since the UK booths are often by distributor and NOT by company of production, it becomes difficult to state ownership to anything we can't pinpoint! Last night, one such cluster of photos came across my desk, showing chibi-like Transformer characters in styles ranging from classic G1 cartoon, to movie designs and finally the modern animated series. Not a HUGE deal at a show as massive as Toy Fair but for Transformers fans, still very drool worthy! Hit the jump to check them out...