Southpaw Samurai

Y'know, if he smiled more, unmasked Masterpiece Prime would almost look like Jet Jaguar.... So sue me, but I loved that horrible Godzilla movie as a kid...

Well, from certain angles, you can see pretty far down his face when he's 'talking' (okay, so I noticed only because I was curious if there was anything behind the plate), so I suppose they didn't want just a blank space...although you could've gotten away with such and no one would've known better. What can you say? I've seen Japanese designed toys with detailing where only someone who wanted to break the toy would ever see, so it's not too surprising.

I have decided that despite the size, the articulation, and the generally great appearance in robot mode, my favorite aspect about the 20th Ann. Convoy/Prime is: his moving mouthplate. When I took him out of the box the other day, I posed him a few times and considered transforming him (but didn't feel like it at the time, especially since I was enjoying the robot mode poses). Then I found the button to make him 'talk' and proceeded for at least ten minutes to act like a little kid and imitated the old TV show's Prime while the plate moved. I now feel the need to go and buy a second one...not for a MIB version but because I might just wind up breaking him in too much with all the playing.

Mine should be arriving at work today, as much like Blaine I missed mine at home yesterday. Since I moved over to one of our tech centers, all the packages get opened by receiving in case it's filled with frozen or time/temperature sensitive items. So I'm slowly building up a rep as the 'toy guy'...which makes things worse since I support the shipping department's computers. I have to agree with Blaine and the goofy delivery times. Granted, I wouldn't want UPS drivers to work late into the night, but I always find it funny that the only delivery time they can do in my area is at 2:30 or so and yet everyday at 5:30 a UPS truck drives by my house (most likely for a close by part of the neighborhood)...if they could just start putting things on that truck....

I borrowed my friend's copy because of my own uncertainties about it. As long as you can stand the camera angles and the sheer repetitive action nature of it, Return of the King is clearly the superior game, but I would certainly take the Hobbit over the really horrible War of the Ring RTS game. The Hobbit is a cutesy little 3-D adventure romp through some of the places from the book. Cutesy works because of the nature of the Hobbit book to begin with, so that's hardly a problem in my opinion. You basically run around as Bilbo working your way to the final goal of each level, looking for all the little hidden items and powerups a long the way. Yes, it's very Mario or Zelda-ish. Again, that sort of work for me because the book was at it's heart an innocent little adventure. The game follows the general plotline of the book, but as one would expect from a game needing some meat, it does go off on tangents and makes levels out of events that happened quickly in the original work. Bilbo does do a lot of fighting (Bullroarer Took has nothing on Bilbo the Hundred-Thrice-Over-Goblin-Cleaver Baggings) and the combat is very simplistic. The voice acting is generally good and I do like how the dwarves are all portrayed. The camera's not bad and I would probably have thought the jumping-climbing-platform elements were really good for the genre had I not been recently spoiled by Prince of Persia. The game isn't excessively long or difficult unless you are obsessed with finding all the pickups (I'm not sure if I should applaud or be scared of people who managed to find every little coin and gem). To be honest, my only major gripe is that they utilize these little screenshots of handdrawn art for most of the cutscenese. The art is nice and I have nothing against it except that they tend to use them for the scenes that cry for either action control or at least a animated CGI cutscene (for example, the scene with Gandalf and the Three Trolls....it begs to be done up in motion but instead you cut to a picture of a brown piece of paper with a pencil sketch and a narrator just reading the outcome....Rivendell is another example in what could have been either a fun little exploration level or at least a funny little two minute animation is reduced to one sketch and 30 seconds of narration). Overall, though, it is fun and probably worth $19 (I might have to go grab it), but there are better 3-D platform adventures out there so you'd mainly go for this if you miss all your favorite dwarves with rhyming names. That's it in a nutshell. I could go on in detail if you want specifics.

Perhaps obviously (okay, my avatar has been photoshopped a bit), but Mitsurugi was probably my favorite character when I first played Soul Blade. I would also alternate with Taki and Voldo because they were so different and their styles often through my friends off. Over the newer versions, I've grown less enamored with good old Mitsurugi. Not sure why...perhaps it's the 'makeover' as has been mentioned, but I think it's just because there's so many fun characters to play I've become less focused. Still enjoy and do well using him, Taki, and Voldo (I think Voldo's creepiness distracts others more than Ivy's voluptuousness). I very much dig Xianghua and Rafael (what can I say, I like the swordsmen (er...swordspeople, I guess), whether it be kenjutsu, tai chi, or fencing (well, video game representations of the arts, at least)...I even liked Sigfreid back before he back Knightmare...still hope one day for at least a partial redemption, although the Sigmeister wasn't really ever a 'good' guy). In my usual circle of friends, I'm virtually unbeatable as Rafael or Mitsurugi (maybe that's my declining love for the M-man...because I've been practically banned from playing him) with the one exception of one friend and Kilik (he used to be as deadly with Li Long, so it's no surprise he adopted a new character, even if it's not the Li Long wannbe Maxi). I'll have to agree those that had said it's difficult to pick out a definite favorite. the Soul Edge series has some very fun characters, both in design and the way they play.

No Scourging unless Jackson suddenly decides to go back and film it. From nearly the beginning it was one of the parts that Jackson decided to not even bother with. He never liked that part of the book and it was too much of an extra side story at the end. He's already taken heat for how many 'endings' the movie has. The Extended Edition fan base is much more forgiving, but it porbably would still seem like too much thrown on. While I like certain aspects of it, I can understand why it isn't included. As long as Saruman gets a decent and fitting end, I can live without the Scourging. As to my post-ROTK experience, I am currently uncertain as to how I feel. I loved FotR at first viewing (although I had quibbles). Two Towers won me over a bit on the second viewing and both movies were better on the Extended Editions. With ROTK, I walked out of the second viewing feeling almost exactly as I did out of the first...perhaps even worse. I just felt certain parts were missing or handled poorly and our consolation prize was more oliphaunts (now, I like oliphaunts, but they were just played up too much). I missed the Witchking/Gandalf confrontation...ESPECIALLY since they hinted at it in a couple of scenes (which now actually frightens me for the ROTK:EE because I've heard that this scene plays out much differently...and, more importantly, wrongly in my most humble opinion...than it does in the book). Poor Denethor was reduced to the level of a crazed buffoon with little logical explanation. I dislike the dialogue changes in the Eowyn/Witchking scene (I don't need verbatim, but I thought the scene was well written by Tolkien and mangled in the retelling). The Frodo/Sam sequences (which usually are a thing I've enjoyed) seemed to be reptitious in dialogue and dragged on almost as if it was a documentary...until after Frodo is rescued and suddenly it takes two minutes to cross over to Mount Doom (at least the ROTK:EE will have the 'enlisted in the orc army' scenes). The final Ring/Frodo/Gollum also disappointed me on a number of levels (and I shan't bore you with them all). I had accepted the non-metaphor big red eye, but it's searchlight feature just irked me moreso than it really should have, I suppose. And for all the battle emphasis, the tactics were poorly executed. I almost think Theoden was as insane as Denethor. You have a massed medium calvary moving up on an enemy's flank. Do you A) keep up the surprise and hit them quickly at their flank with a charge or B) pause on top of a crest and let them consider their alternatives and wheel about to face you. The Rohirrim were lucky the orcs didn't have a highly disciplined pike group or there would have been some serious casualties. But wait! Now that you've broken their ranks, they move up their very heavy calvary (if you can consider oliphaunts that instead of pure armor or armored mobile artillery). So what do you do as a veteran leader of horsemen? Charge them straight on! It's like Theoden and not Eowyn had the death wish and wanted to take his entire army out with him. It's no wonder Theoden likes hiding behind a big wall, his offensive tactics are suicidal. Sorry for the rambling. My concerns (by which I mean I liked the movie, but far from the same joy I got out of the FotR or the TT:EE) are not solely based on changes (heck, I for one felt getting rid of Tom B. and Old Man Willow made sense and it was a brilliant notion to have Arwen be one of the riders out looking for Aragorn, Frodo & Co. (although I could go on about the ford scene)), but mainly where the changes or omissions really took away parts of the overall story and in some of these cases were removed so we could have redundant (Smeagol/Deagol scene) or filler action sequences (Wargs and Oliphaunts).

The book isn't too far different in this aspect. The only real difference is that you get a better sense of time between the events (and partially because some are just narrated to you as the time passes). Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy has always had this high speed pace, where it seems like Bilbo's birthday happened only a month before the Fellowship broke up (whereas in the book, it was years). That might be what makes the ending so odd feeling. I like the way ROTK (book-wise, anyway) ends because each character still has something of a life afterwards before coming upon his or her 'happily (or otherwise) ever after ending'. It's always disappointing in a story when every character reaches the finale of their arch at the same time. Basically, that reviewer just said it was sort of an emotional ride because you getting all prepped for the finale and suddenly you have to reset yourself because there's a little more story (he probably also needed a bathroom break ).

Sometimes it felt like Adama fathered half the crew of the Galactica (would have put a odd spin on him being the figurehead/father figure commander of a ship full of his kids and grandkids). How many family members did he have on the old show. There was Apollo and his kid brother who died in the pilot, and then there was his daughter on the bridge (Athena?). Definitely likes to keep the family close. I haven't seen the new show...will catch it someday perhaps, but I just don't want to even really examine or discuss it and just let it die a quiet death. I would've much preferred had they decided to play it up in a different time period. Either make it the next generation (or, to avoid Mr.Hatch jumping at playing an old Commander Apollo, two generations) later or do what they did with the entertaining video game and make it back when Adama was an active pilot. While the latter ruins a lot of the 'rag tag fleet running basically on just hope' motif, it almost seems like the new series wants to remove most of that anyway, so why not go with a time when you can see multiple Battlestars in their prime (I remember the old episodes with the Pegasus as being very entertaining). Given how people can change, you could've made Adama nearly personality you liked and throw in whatever 'young' versions you wanted (like a young Tigh and maybe a really young Baltar who's not really traitorous yet, but shows signs that he could falter if given the opportunity) and just created new ones. This remake just seems to be aimed at people who either won't remember the characters or wouldn't care, so why bother remaking the characters only to murder their traits.

The Last Starfighter is a wonderful sci-fi faery tale. If one goes into it looking for some kind of 'mature', taking-itself-too-seriously sci-fi movie, disappointment is bound to happen. It's whimsical, basic, and tells a very warm hearted story (despite the war backdrop). I picked up the DVD awhile back out of nostalgia and love of it as a kid and found myself enjoying it all over again...perhaps on a different level, or perhaps on the same level with just more realization as to why. Yes, the special effects are horribly, horribly dated (at least in Tron, one can pretend it's just the way things look in the computer world), but one still has to appreciate that someone decided to use CGI to represent real world objects in a movie. It did do a little trailblazing down the path that has led to Lucas' prequel effects and Gollum. Although I generally hate the concept of going back and redoing parts of movies, it would have been nice if one could go back and redo TLS's CGI scenes. The designs of the models (the Gunstar in particular....on paper the thing is full of details) cry out for at least some good texture mapping. It would be a great movie for kids today if they weren't so spoiled by Saturday morning CGI which doesn 't even have a tenth of the effort put in that the guys who did this movie ages ago did. Personally, I also like how they stuck a little closer to real space physics than most action sci-fi (the Gunstar having vectoring thrusters in various places) and still managed to make the battles enjoyable to watch. Hey! No dissing the Grig-meister, btw! Any Pachycephalosaurus-like alien that can pilot a starfighter is good by me. And I thought Dan O'Herlihy (Robocop's 'Old Man') did a wonderful job throwing some personality behind the mask.

Best I can do is muster up about enough combat-ready Yammie VF-1's to form maybe a little better than half a squadron by modern U.S. Air Force numbers (or a very depleted squadron by some standards). Most of that comes from the 6 CF's I wound up eventually buying because I fell in love with their military like 'blandness' and the ability to customize the numbering scheme. Even with the Banpresto's you'd have to believe in Reaganomics to cough up the cost of having enough for a squadron, much less a group...and I'm quite happy with my little 1/48 flight, thank you. Of course, we're all making fun of the exact definitions of the words. I would , however, be impressed if someone had enough individual representations of units to have an army under any 'real' definition (if I remember right, I did have close to a full battalion of micromachines M1's and support vehicles...but that's about the largest assembly of anything I've done). Like in Hollywood, six stormtroopers often fill in well enough for an 'army'. So that's about as far as you'll get in any terms of an army from me...although my obsessive Jedi collection (including customs I'm working on) might start becoming ridiculous....

Of course I had to vote 'yes'. Probably not a midnight showing...perhaps not even opening day...but most likely within the first opening weekend. The Return of the King was actually my first Tolkien book...I was too young at the time to realize it was the end of a trilogy and perhaps even a little young to climb around his particular writing style. Still, I worked through it and thoroughly enjoyed it (surprisingly, it would take another five years or so for me to get around to reading the rest of it...probably because I rememder the difficulty with the style). Heck, I'd probably pay full price just to see a short featuring the Dernhelm/Witchking scene.

By the Matrix! Prime's belly gives new meaning to the words 'Autobots, Roll out!' He won't even need to transform to do so! I haven't really been following the newer Transformer lines much (have a soft spot for the old guys and most of the new I've seen don't appeal to me), but shouldn't Transformers by default look good in at least ONE of their modes? I could possibly live with an ugly robot if the car mode looked awesome or vice versa, but poor Optimus here can't buy a mode that he doesn't look like Junkions assembled him from scrapyard reject parts. Excuse me while I go look at the pictures of the MP Optimus Prime again to regain some sanity.

Did he originally come with Laserbeak (red bird) in Japan? I'm pretty sure the original U.S. Soundwave came with Buzzsaw (the gold bird). Then again, Laserbeak is inifinitely more popular (perhaps even moreso than Rumble over Frenzy), so I don't think it's a bad decision. It would be nice if they'd release the original tape quintet (I'd go as far as making it even and throwing in Ratbat). I still have my old crew and it's just nice to see Soundwave surrounded by his 'boys'. I might have to pick up the new Soundwave. It would be nice to have one not hunched over from age (although I wound up putting pennies into his 'battery compartment', so now my old guy stands up nice and straight.

Yes, it's very fun. You got to love the clouds flying by as if you were on the 'x6 simulation rate' setting or higher. Took me a bit to manage landing. I collapsed the gears more than once before deciding I had to spend a bit more time slowing down before my final approach. I'd have to look at the readme for it again to verify, but I think the MSFS2004 Firefox model was textured by the guy who actually designed the plane for the movie. Anyway, it's definitely worth the download if you're either a.) a fan of the movie (frankly, I don't remember much about the movie, but I remember thinking it was cool as a kid), b.) feel the need for speed, c.) like your fictional military jets big and black. It's a blast taking it over the north pole. BTW, the model is very well done (at, least from my memory and comparing it to my recent experience with the FS2004 version). It'll be very interesting to see the final version.

huh? Lizard mans unlocking destabilzes the system on the GC? *makes note not to unlock this character* A mistake in my wording. There should be no problem with Lizardman in the U.S. GC release of SC2. The Japanese version, however, could only have Lizardman, Assassin, etc unlocked via cheat codes. You could use them, but sometimes you'd just lock the game up. So what I should've said was that I might pick up the X-Box version to have Lizardman unlocked in a stable way as opposed to the work-around in the Japanese GC version. Hope that clears it up.

Much like a good chunk of the people here, I've purchased almost solely online from the usual suspects: BBTS, VE, E-Bay. I've been meanig to give TMP a chance, but the first two on my list usually fulfill my needs, so I haven't needed to look around. Big Bad Toy Store is my place of choice if I'm buying stuff in addition to something Macross related. Great service, great packing, great shipping (especially since their warehouse is in WI, so their cheap-rate shipping is usually overnight for me ) and just all around great experiences everytime I've dealt with them. If I'm going Macross-only, however, I feel obliged to go with Kevin at the Valkyrie Exchange. Not only is he a fan himself but he's got the worst customer service ethic (only if you're talking from a profitability standpoint, of course ). He'll literally bend over backwards to make sure your happy. It's amazing he turns any profit after all the effort he goes through (including cannibalizing his stock so people can get pieces the manufacturer failed to include). Definitely a class act. I used E-Bay couple of times when deals were sweet, but you have to watch yourself. As people have stated, it's difficult to return damaged stuff.

In that Jetfire vs. Megatron picture, Jetfire almost looks like some kind of Fast Pack version of ROM:Spaceknight... I'm curious where the original design for Megatron came from (which is sort of what that 'Shockwave' image is based on). The rounded, dark helmet really doesn't fit any part of the gun like the head on the actual toy and eventual cartoon depiction does. The dark helmet Megatron appeared in a number of the early cartoon parts of the tv ads and also in the comic before coming around to the more common (and accurate) depiction we know and love.

Already had the GameCube import. Link was well designed and of the three characters, he's the only one that possible fits (since he's a.) not from Earth and b.) is constantly reborn in various times). It's a shame they couldn't have used medieval Spawn, but he's both not as popular as Spawn and his license isn't in McFarlane's hands. I also think it would've been nice had Heihachi been his ancestor...so there could've been some historical feud between his family and Yoshimitsu's. I may wind up picking up the X-Box version just to have a slightly prettier version (and have Lizardmen, etc unlocked in a stable way). Plus I hear some of the English dubbing is horrible, which is always fun. I personally want a Soul Calibur game where everyone speaks their native language and except for those from the same country and maybe a select few, everyone's response is basically "I didn't understand anything you just said! Die!"