Graham

Got to play ACE 2 for a few minutes yesterday. The Macross bits of the opening movie were great. It's a pity that the silly Turkey Gundam is featured in the movie though. That's one mecha I can't stand. The set up of the game is confusing as hell if you don't read Japanese. There was several pages of text and options you had to click through before you could start and I had no idea what I was doing. I thought I'd selected Macross mecha to play, but ended up piloting some sort of non-anime, original ACE2 mecha and fighting a bunch of Zakus and what looked like AH-1 Cobra helicopter gunships in a desert environment! Gameplay was OK, although there seemed to be no quick way to turn the mecha, but given that AFAIK, the game uses an engine from From Software (Armored Core), this is hardly surprizing, as the AC games are notorious for their slow turning mecha. Got bored after a couple of minutes of flying around wasting Zakus, which seemed to have very stupid AI and basically stood still, ocassionally taking very inaccurate pot shots at me. Don't think I'll be buying this, behaps if there was an international version with English text, I'd give it more of a chance, but these days I just can't be bothered with Japanese text-heavy games anymore, no matter how big a fan of a franchise I am. Graham

Finally gave the disk 1 dub a listen over the weekend. Gotta say with the exception of Mari, it's 'painful on the ears' type bad. Every time I have to listen to them saying "Muh-cross" I cringe. Graham

Gonna have to agree with you there on all counts, especially the CG spaceship, looks terrible. Graham

Don't worry, that's the one I've known about for years.... I try all the time to convince my parents to get me a digital SLR, but no dice. My stupid dad doesn't undersand why our Sony Mavica (uses floppy disks, doesn't even have a measurable megapixel because that wasn't the unit of measurement at its time) isn't goog enough, and my mom doesn't want to spend that kind of money. 388669[/snapback] Wow, Sony Mavica! I remember those. First handled one back in 1997 IIRC. Graham

May be a little later now, around end of April. Graham

Buy a better camera! (Will add this to the MW Custom Toy Gallery) Graham

Can somebody scan the painting and decal guide for the following two Hasegawa kits for me please: - 1) VF-0A. 2) VF-0A/S with Ghost Booster. Need large scans of about 1000 pixels wide. If anybody can help, please PM me and I'll give you an email address to send the scans to. Graham

been around since the begining of Macrossworld obviously. Before that was an AFM regular. Graham

LOL. Graham

Nice comic, can't wait to seee more. I'm guessing they are not a frontline unit though, if they are still flying the VF-4 in 2038. Graham

Both the VF-0S and VF-0D are great designs and I plan to get multiples of both, that is if Yamato release a VF-0D. I have to say I prefer the normal type grey VF-0D, rather than Shin's blue version though. That's how I have my Hasegawa VF-0D painted. Graham

I'd prefer it be completely Gundam free. Graham

Hopefully, Big West have something up their sleeve for the 25th anniversery next year. Graham

The only thing I'm not too keen on the Hasegawa VF-0A/S battroid is that the elbow joint is too exposed, compared to the lineart. Graham

Also, the the VF-0 may not have as big a fan base as the VF-1, so they may end up selling far few units. Graham

I used to love the Micronaught toys (and Marvel comic), back in the '70s, but I guess that's a different kettle of fish. Graham

The name 'Hunter' is not canon either. Graham

I do keep buggng them about a VF-0D. There's a heck of a lot of new tooling involved in making one though, complete new forward fuselage (nose and canopy section), all new lower legs and folding tail fins, new wings, new intakes with canards and fins, modified backpack (tail fin slots have to be blocked), new longer heatshield. It's doable, but not cheap. Guess we have to see how well the VF-0S sells first. Graham

Detachable. Or can also rotate 180 degrees. Graham

Perhaps it's one of the M7 items like the Bandai VF-11C Micro-Macross or 1/65 VF-17S Millia or 1/65 VF-19F, that got advertised, but never actually made it past prototype form. Graham

Heh, I was wondering when we would see the first custom 1/48 GBP. I will add this to the MW Custom Toy Gallery on Monday. Awesome work as usual Kurt. Graham

Reaching a lot IMO. Still not seeing it at all, not even a little. I've always found Gundam styling, whether it's Mobile Suit designs by Okawara, Katoki, Izabuchi or any other MS designer to be completely different from any Macross Variable Fighter. Even the variable Mobile Suits like Zeta, Wing, Savior don't share any common design cues with Valks IMO. There's always been some hand-to-hand fighting in Macross, even in the original SDF-Macross TV series. However, there is comparatively little compared to Gundam, where most fights end up at close range. In Macross, most kills are still with gunpod or missile. Yes, M+, M7 & M0 all have some hand-to-hand, but it's not much really. I'd hardly say it's fair to say that the later model valks have developed a love for hand to hand fighting. As for disproportionately large guns, the only one I can think of off the top of my head is the XS-06 carried by the Full Armored VF-11. Thats only one mecha out of all of kawamori's Valk designs. Every other Variable Fighter carries a normal size gunpod. Same with head fins. One does not make a trend. The VF-19K Fire Valk has a head fin, but what other VFs do? You have to take it in the context of the Macross universe. Max, who was in overall command of the Macross 7 fleet (and a Space War 1 veteran) had realised that they may come a time when the military forces of the fleet may encounter an enemy they could not defeat with conventional weaponary and so put together a plan so that the fleet would have a cultur war defence in the form of Basara and the VF-19. Graham

Wow, never seen that before and I thought I knew all the M7 merchandise. Need more info! Graham

The cutaway image from the DYRL Gold Book poster shows how each arm FAST pack holds 3 micro-missiles. Graham

This is not the reply I originally planned to type in response to A1's comments, but I'm trying my best to stay calm and mellow. I'd just like to point out that since February 1 2006 when I started updating the site again, I have done site updates on 31 days throughout the months of February and March (check the updates section). That is no small amount of work and a significant use of my time, which I could have used for doing other more enjoyable things. If somebody wants to pay me equal or more than my present salary, then I'll quit my day job and make Macrossworld my career and work on the site from 9-5 Mon-Fri. Otherwise, I'm doing the best I can with my limited time, resources and skills to get the site updated step by step. If Shawn were to assign more admins to update the site, it would certainly help, but he hasn't and I don't want to go over his head and give other people access to the server without his permission. I've done what I can to let Shawn know that we need more admins and there are people willing to take the post. As to why he hasn't contacted them yet, I don't know. Graham