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mikeszekely

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  1. mikeszekely
    Well, I built Victory Gundam today. While F91 wound up being an all-day project due to the all the yellow-outlined black areas I had to paint, Victory was a walk in the park. Don't get me wrong, there are a few tiny details that could be spiffed up with some paint (I actually tried to work a little black around the cheeks), and if I had a Gundam marker I'd probably work in some panel lines (but I don't). But a straight build with just the few included decals results in a perfectly adequate Victory Gundam. Like F91, the engineering on Victory is quite good, including a some sliding of the armor over the knee joints that's almost RG-esque. The shoulder armor and cuff of the leg can restrict movement a little, but for the most part its got good range of motion. Some of the ball joints can pop out, but it's simple to pop them back in and overall the kit is so solid that it's almost like an action figure; a stark contrast from the more fiddly and delicate RGs. I think the worst thing I can say about Victory is that the simplicity is bordering on boring. I think that's less are reflection on the model and more on the mobile suit it represents. Victory isn't the one-off, super mobile suit that the hero pilots at the end. It's the basic model he starts off in. It doesn't have awesome built-in weapons or a crazy winged backpack. As far as accessories go, it's got a beam rifle, beam shield, two beam sabers, and an extra wide beam saber blade. No extra fists, heads, bazooka, or anything like that. As if to make up for Victory's lack of goodies, they throw in the parts to make a non-transforming version of Victory's core fighter. That's also where they skimped a little, as no stickers were included for the sensor on the top of the head on the core fighter (although there is one for Victory's actual head) or the canopy on the core fighter's cockpit. Oddly enough, the sort of makes Victory the opposite of F91. F91 had me thinking about much better it'd be with more parts to make a more detailed and color-correct version, and made me really want an RG F91. Victory, on the other hand, totally satisfies my need for a 1/144 version of the mobile suit. It's solid enough and correct enough that most of the visual improvement would probably just be more decals, and other gimmicks like a transforming core fighter that actually becomes part of the suit would likely just make it more fiddly. I'm going to go on record as saying that I don't care if Bandai ever makes an RG Victory Gundam; the HGUC version is good enough. Really, the only thing I think would improve Victory is a hinge on the butt-flap. One other, minor thought... it'd have been nice if Bandai had included the parts to make the Victory Hexa head. Next year, Bandai is going to release an HGUC V-Dash, and it'd be nice have something else to make Victory and V-Dash a little more distinct than a different backpack.
  2. mikeszekely
    Well, I finished the F91. No pics (for now, anyway), due to shame at my terrible painting. And laziness. Mostly laziness. All of my complaints still stand (save one... I'm used to the symmetrical limbs of the SEED kits, and I forgot that F91's right arm actually doesn't have a beam shield emitter). In total fairness to the kit, it might be fair to say that my complaints about molded details and lack of correct colors instead of more parts are a negative against ALL HG kits compared to the incredible detail Bandai manages to work into the RG line. So, IMO, an RG version of a given mobile suit is always going to be vastly superior (and therefore, a better overall value) than the HG version of the same suit. At the end of the day, though, we're expecting the 17th RG next month, but we've got nearly 200 HG kits (and that's just since they switched the current format). A lot of awesome mobile suits that don't have RGs, and probably won't for a long time, are available as HGs (other lines, too, but since my primary focus is RG I'd rather keep things on the 1/144 scale than go MG). Grabbing a favorite MS in the HG line means accepting the limitations of the line. So, rather than compare the HGUC F91 to non-existant RG version, I think it's better to compare it to HG kits. Now, my previous experience with HG kits are the RX-78-3, Nu Gundam, and Zaku I Black Tri-Stars that I picked up back when there was a hobby shop in my area, that I think are probably from the HGUC line, but were built many years ago and I can't be sure; reissues of 15-year old Wing Zero EW and Deathscythe Hell EW kits; the HG Sengoku Astray from Build Fighters; and the definitely HGUC Gouf Custom and now F91. And based on that, well, I still think the Gouf Custom was the best of the bunch. Sure, it lacks the detail of an RG kit, but it was solidly engineered and looked fine without any paint. But the F91 would be second. There's actually a lot to like about the kit. F91's proportions are spot on, its joints have excellent range of motion, and the VSBRs on its back don't add too much weight (especially refreshing after building all those SEED RGs). It poses well, and it comes with plenty of accessories, including a beam rifle, beam launcher, a second, two fists for each hand (one regular that can be used to hold any weapon, and one molded with a trigger finger extended), two beam sabers, two beam shield emitters (one closed, the other "deployed), a beam shield, two sets of shoulder heat sinks (retracted and deployed) and two faces (regular and with an open vent). It's a good value, well-designed kit that just happens to rely on stickers instead of more parts in different colors, yet simultaneously not including enough stickers. One other minor complaint would be the ankle armor. On almost every other Gundam kit I've built the ankle armor is connected by basically squeezing to contact points on the foot. In F91's case, though, it's connected via a ball joint on the back of the ankle. This joint is extremely loose, and the ankle armor likes to come off as a result.
  3. mikeszekely
    Syd over at Gaijin Gunpla actually reviewed the kit quite highly.
  4. mikeszekely
    So, I started the F91. On the one hand, it's kind of neat to see some of the innovations they're using in newer HG kits (my previous experience with HG kits are a handful of kits that are at least 10 years old, a Build Fighters kit that has some new parts, sure, but is basically an older kit, and a newer Gouf Custom). On the other hand, the lack of detail is very frustrating. I didn't feel like this was as big a problem with the Gouf, but on the F91, I've spent more time painting than snapping pieces together. Basically, there are a ton of white parts where the F91's verniers are molded into the part (skirt armor, shoulder armor, ankle armor, backpack thrusters) but are left it whatever color the part was molded in. So I've been painting a lot thin black lines and ringing them in yellow. And let me tell you, my painting skills suck, and the fact that the only yellow I can find (because there isn't an actual hobby store for 100 freaking miles) is sort of a canary instead of the orangy-yellow seen in the manual doesn't help. As a sort of slap in the face, the kit comes with a number of black and yellow triangle decals. These go on the knee, back of the calf, beam shield emitters, and hip armor... which, is cool, except that none are included for the black and yellow triangles that are supposed to be on the front skirt armor. And, there are two triangles, I guess one for each arm, for the beam shield emitters, but there's actually three beam shield emitters. Two are "closed", and one is the extended part you use if you want to put the beam shield on. It kind of makes you wonder why they included the decals at all. Mostly, it's just making me long for an RG F91. I think it really reinforces the value of RG for me when I realize how every vernier on this thing would be, at minimum, two more pieces and every part would be molded in the correct color. My totally unpainted RGs look much better than any HG, even ones I've attempted to paint. Thanks, BV. Now I feel even worse about my terrible lack of painting skill and the sloppy lines I put on F91. In all seriousness, though, that's an amazing work.
  5. mikeszekely
    The Gunpla withdrawl after finishing Char's Z'Gok was too strong. I couldn't wait for Wing Zero, so I ordered a couple of HGUCs. F91, Victory, and Victory 2 showed up today. I really wanted Crossbone, but while it's being sold by Amazon sellers, it's not being sold by Amazon yet, so I'll hold off. Maybe get it when Wing Zero is available. Then again, I'll probably buy a couple more HGUCs for stuff that isn't likely to get an RG any time soon.
  6. mikeszekely
    South and east, just outside of Banapur, is a lake. If you're zoomed in enough on the map, you'll see that rhinos go there. Indeed, you'll probably see maybe two or three per trip. Take some frag grenades (you can use them to hurt the rhino as long as you deal the final blow with something else) and whatever weapon you prefer. Once you're at the lake, find a boat and drive it so that you can shoot the rhino, but the rhino can't charge at you. If you throw bait, a predator animal (wolf, dhole, tiger, either leopard, or bear) will appear at the lake. You can use the same technique of attacking from the safety of your boat, but this time shoot them with the bow and arrow for double skins. Plus, when you skin the predator, you'll get a bait to replace the one you threw. I had a pretty easy time finding everything else except yaks. I determined this is because I started working my way south and east from the starting village, but the only place I found yaks reliably was almost as far north as you can go in the first half of the game. And yeah, I've put stupid hours into the game already. My wife went to visit her family in Beijing, so I've basically been playing video games from the time I get up until the time I go to bed. EDIT: If you have a Uplay account you can get "u points" for doing things in game, then redeem them for stuff like in-game items and what have you in various Ubisoft games. There' a sidearm weapon you can buy with U points called the A.J.M. 9... it's basically Robocop's gun. It's fairly accurate and does good damage, so I kind of recommend it.
  7. mikeszekely
    I think Hikuro answered better, as he's had experience with PGs and I haven't. What I can say is that I'm in the exact same boat... I'm so bad I couldn't paint a fence, let alone a model. That's one of the reasons I like the RG kits so much... You don't need any paint. With everything in the colors it was molded in, with the included stickers, the RG kits are excellently detailed and absolutely display worthy. If Bandai can pull that off that well on $25-$35 1/144 kits, I see no reason why they can't do it on 1/60 kits with 10x the price tag.
  8. mikeszekely
    I built the Char Z'Gok already, and I posted my thoughts (probably) a few pages back. To summarize, if you're a fan of the RG line, go for it because the experience is much different than building the various Gundams in the line. Compared to most of the other RG's, though, I found it to be a little simple for most of the parts, and a little tedious building the upper arm and thigh segments.
  9. mikeszekely
    I'm cool with other stuff interspersed amongst the Wing kits. I think I'm just frustrated with the inclusion of 00 Raiser... it's my absolute least favorite mobile suit in the season 2 arc. The too-thin grunt suits like the Enact and Flag are the only 00 designs I dislike more. And where's my blue Z'Gok?
  10. mikeszekely
    So the next RG after Wing Zero will be 00 Raiser? That... kind of sucks. I mean, the reveal of Wing Zero sort of hinted that it's new inner frame would be used for five kits, which any rational human would take to mean Wing Zero and the other four hero Gundams from Wing. I was looking forward to an RG Deathscythe Hell... Now, of course, I don't really mind if Bandai wants to deliver RGs that aren't from Wing. As I mentioned when Wing Zero was revealed, there are plenty of mobile suits that I want to see an RG treatment of more than Wing Zero. Stuff like the GP-02, Alex, Hyaku Shiki, ZZ, Gelgoog, etc, for sure. Heck, they could have made more kits from SEED MS and I'd be happier (sure, the anime was awful, but there are still some slick MS in it). 00 Raiser, though, has to be one of my least favorite Gundams in recent memory. 00 by itself isn't too bad (and if the kit allows for me to build 00 and the 0-Raiser as separate units, I'll probably leave them that way... maybe even hope that Bandai will make a Seven Sword upgrade kit). But 00 Raiser takes the slim lines from the base 00 (and Exia) and ruins it with huge shoulder weapons and gives it a big backpack (already a problem for a lot of the SEED kits) that is basically 00 with an airplane for a cape. It's a design that takes top heavy to a ridiculous extreme.
  11. mikeszekely
    Nah, you guys are missing a third option. That the Takara MP-25 could be a gun, and could suck.
  12. mikeszekely
    Take this with a grain of salt, but RobotKingdom is claiming MP-25 will be Megatron.
  13. mikeszekely
    You could say that, and hey, Far Cry 3 was really good, but I do feel like that's underselling FC4's refinement. I mean, if you didn't like FC3, I don't think FC4 is going to change your mind. But if you liked FC3, FC4 feels like a game that's still a great game on its own and not just more of the same like the other games in the Ezio Trilogy were after Assassin's Creed II.
  14. mikeszekely
    Ok... I'm kind of afraid to start Dragon Age, because I know it's going to be a huge time commitment. But I played through the prologue of Far Cry 4. I have no idea how it's looking on consoles, but with my new GTX 970 and the latest Nvidia drivers, I cranked the graphics settings up to "NVIDIA" (which seems to be the same as Ultra, but with a few Nvidia-exclusive enhancements). It's really, really pretty. From a gameplay point of view, it's early to judge, but it's basically the same as Far Cry 3. There's crouching and hiding, a skill system for leveling, murdering woodland critters to craft upgrades, etc. The experience, though, feels refined. It's like the difference between MP-01 Optimus Prime and MP-10. Same basic concept, similar ideas in the execution, but most of the little changes add up to something that's much better than the previous version. Again, it's way early yet, but I have a feeling that Far Cry 4 would be my choice for Game of the Year if Dragon Age Inquisition hadn't also been released this year (week, day).
  15. mikeszekely
    That's because it was. Psycho the Go-Bot was Psychoroid, a car from the anime Space Cobra. I'm not familiar with Space Cobra, but I think it was just a car in the anime, and Popy just liked the car for Machine Robo. Damn, now I wish I knew what the hell happened to my old Psycho toy.
  16. mikeszekely
    Played all the DA games on PC, so no issues linking accounts with Origin. Did the DA Keep stuff. Did the quest minigame... thanks for the tip on that! And... I'm just getting around to downloading it now. Stupid time zone difference. It was after noon here and I was wondering if my buddy forgot, but the he reminded me that it was just after 9:00 in Seattle. Naturally, it's a big download, so I guess I'll be waiting for awhile yet. And still, I really have no right to complain. My buddy did me a huge solid gifting me the digital deluxe version of what is likely going to be my game of the year.
  17. mikeszekely
    Psycho was my absolute favorite of the deluxe Go-Bots. As a kid in the '80s, I thought his car mode was so cool and futuristic. I think I have a lot of fond memories of Go-Bots because my family was kind of poor growing up. When I got a Transformer, it was either Christmas or my birthday, and I didn't get many. In fact, Sideswipe and the Insecticons are the only pre-movie ones I'm sure I had (although I guess we were doing better after that, because it seemed like I was getting a lot more then after the movie). Go-Bots, on the other hand, I might get just for being good at the store. And if it was my birthday or Christmas, I got crap tons of them.
  18. mikeszekely
    OK, my code is redeemed and Far Cry 4 is downloading now. I'm off to bed, and it should be ready to go tomorrow. A buddy of mine that works at EA said he was going to get me a key for Dragon Age. Would have been good to be able to preload that, too, but he did say I couldn't have the key until the day of release. Whatever, if he told me I had to wait a week I'd wait the week; free is still better than $60, especially after after buying a ton of games and a new video card last week.
  19. mikeszekely
    I bought a new video card (GTX 970) this past week. It came with a promo code to get a free game. I think my choices were The Crew, Assassin's Creed Unity, or Far Cry 4, and since I'd already picked up Unity for PS4, I was planning to use it on Far Cry 4. Well, kinda.The announcement of Bayonetta 2 was my primary reason for buying a Wii U. But after two years of barely touching it, I'm not super interested in playing with it now. I did pick up Bayonetta 2... in fact, last week Target was doing a buy 2 get 1 on video games (plus I have a Red Card, plus a pharmacy rewards savings pass). I wound up getting both new Assassin's Creeds and Bayonetta 2 for $115 even. I'm sure I'll get around to it eventually, but in addition to the aforementioned Far Cry and Assassin's Creeds, Dragon Age Inquisition hits Tuesday. Bayonetta's going to be on the back burner for awhile, I'm thinking.
  20. mikeszekely
    The Gundam does look a little out of place. The work is incredible, but if the artist wanted to make a diorama of a real place and stick a Gundam in it, maybe he/she should have made the diorama of Diver City?
  21. mikeszekely
    I'd be more upset about that if that wasn't kind of true to the G1 toys. I'm actually more upset that Hasbro wants me to buy another CHUG Silverbolt (but amused that the art on the packaging looks more like the previous Ultra-class).
  22. mikeszekely
    Did that same somebody even bother to get a 120Hz monitor? I'm curious if this person is just snobbish or flat out stupid.
  23. mikeszekely
    And the price drop (and the release of Sunset Overdrive) have helped, as Microsoft claims the Xbox One outsold the PS4 for the last two weeks. In any case, they why of the price drop is irrelevant. It's not like Microsoft is canning it. The fact that the Xbox One is now cheaper than the PS4 is simply a fact worth considering. From a technical point of view, it's really not. The hardware is actually very similar. This is, to the best of my knowledge, only partially true. Microsoft did invest in the Xbox One's multimedia capabilities, but the GPU isn't actually compromised. Rather, the Xbox One's OS was designed to make transitions between gaming and various apps as seamless as possible, so the Xbox One's OS reserves resources that the PS4's doesn't. In theory, if Microsoft were to update the Xbox One and allow the OS to give up those resources, there would be parity. And again, I'm not saying that there aren't differences between the Xbox One and PS4 versions of some games. What I am saying is that short of the same game running on each console on identical TVs side-by-side, most people aren't going to notice those differences. Someone who only buys an Xbox One is more likely to notice that they're missing out on a game like Infamous than an extra weather feature in Kojima's $30 demo. In other words, minor graphical differences (like 900p vs 1080p) are probably less of a reason to pick one console over the other than price. And frankly, the price difference is probably less important than which system actually has the games you want to play. While most games come out for both, there's still the odd exclusive. And while Microsoft probably has more better exclusives (at least between consoles) so far, Sony has lots of great franchises that just haven't made the jump to next-gen yet.
  24. mikeszekely
    At this point, the vast majority of games come out for both systems, so which has the better exclusives? Not sure what Square Enix's plans are, if FF with be a PlayStation exclusive or multiplatform going forward. Either way, given how bad the last couple were, surely you can find exclusives on either that are better than Final Fantasy? I'm personally pretty big on Forza in the Microsoft camp, and Sunset Overdrive looks pretty cool. The only PS4 exclusive so far that I've really cared for was Infamous: Second Son, but I'm expecting more in the future. Technically, both consoles are practically similar. The PS4 version is usually technically superior, but mostly in ways that Sony fans can argue that their platform is superior on paper but most people would have a hard time seeing a difference even if they were running side-by-side on identical televisions. Lastly, there's the price to consider. The PS4 has held steady at $400 since it launched, but a Kinect-less Xbox One can now be had for $350 bundled with a game. That's a pretty sweet deal. I don't know if I'm really the best person to ask, though. I've had both consoles since (almost) launch. Aside from Infamous, every single PS4 games I bought I could have bought on Xbox One, or in some cases PS3, Xbox 360, or PC. Every game I've bought for the Xbox One was (at the time) exclusive to Xbox One (Ryse and Dead Rising 3 eventually found their way to PC), except for Forza Horizon 2 which is also available for Xbox 360. I prefer the Xbox One controller to the PS4's. And yet, the majority of the game I've bought this year, I bought for PS4. The most recent PS4 purchase I made was Assassin's Creed Unity. And again, despite a year of PS4 gaming, and despite the Xbox One in my living room, I still consider myself primarily a PC gamer. In fact, in anticipation of Dragon Age Inquisition (which I'll be getting for PC), I just bought a new graphics card that cost as much as an Xbox One.
  25. mikeszekely
    While the problems seem to the worst on the PS4, I've been hearing that the Xbox One and PC versions also suffer from technical issues. Seems to me like a case of a developer wanting to get their annual release out the door when it clearly needed a little more time in development. The smarter thing to do, I guess, would have been to port Rogue to the next-gen consoles and give Unity another year of development. I picked up both and decided to play Rogue first. In some ways, Rogue feels like a cash grab... they're clearly re-using assets from Assassin's Creed III and Black Flag, and the game is basically a by-the-numbers copy of Black Flag, just set in the North Atlantic instead of the Caribbean. The result is a game that's mostly as fun as Black Flag, but with a decidedly "been there, done that" feel.
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