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mikeszekely

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  1. mikeszekely
    I can't speak about Macross, as I may be the only member of a Macross board that doesn't buy Macross toys, but Gundam model kits are made in Japan, where the workers are likely paid a lot more and therefore have less incentive to leak product.
  2. mikeszekely
    This, basically. I mean, they have entire knock-off Apple Stores. I doubt that Hasbro USA has the control over a factory that's likely in rural China that you might think, where employees get paid less in a month than fast food worker in Beijing makes in a day. It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if "Wukong" pays them under the table to make a few (hundred) extra that he can turn around and sell online for a tidy profit, and that makes a hell of a lot more sense than Hasbro selling their own product as a KO.
  3. mikeszekely
    I could wait for a few reviews, but I'll probably pick up the PH next week sometime. Oh, and I'm definitely waiting for the DMG and MM. My group has more fun when the DM makes it up. It's not like we need to start a 5e campaign right now, anyway... my buddy decided we're going to do a Warhammer 40K Deathwatch campaign. If it's as fun as Dark Heresy was, we're in for a treat. How is the Marvel Heroic RPG? I saw that last time I was at the bookstore, but I passed on it.
  4. mikeszekely
    You try the game, and see how well it works for you. Seriously, almost the entire game takes place in a single L-shaped hallway, and the only controls are for movement, plus the ability to zoom a little to focus on certain things (save for one puzzle that does require you to hit X). But it uses repetition, subtle changes, ambient sounds, lighting, and atmosphere to create a sense of unease that slowly works it way into Kojima-style Psycho Mantis mind games and generally freaked up crap. And since it's free and can be finished in under three hours if you know what you're doing, I'm basically going to recommend it to everyone with a PS4.
  5. mikeszekely
    If the price isn't outrageous (which it probably will be), I could be tempted just for the Winnebago trailer.
  6. mikeszekely
    So, I'm sure most of you are aware of Hideo Kojima and Guillermo del Toro's Silent Hills trailer. But, did anyone here play P.T., the game that contained the trailer? I can't remember the last time I played a game that unnerving.
  7. mikeszekely
    I don't remember the show too well. Despite being the second-most recent serious Gundam series (I love Build Fighters, but I think of it more like a side series), it seems it was awhile ago that it was on. But yeah, from what I gather from the model, the art Mike linked, and what I remember, that's basically it. The sabers hang off the shoulder armor, and are are supposed to swing down under the armpit. On the model, though, the part can only rotate so far, and the saber can't even get quite perpendicular to the ground, let alone continue to swing under the armpit. I can double-check that I built it properly later, but I'm 99% sure I did. I think it's just the limitation of the 1/144 scale. The part the saber plugs into is already very small; to get the real range of motion it'd actually have to be two parts with a hinge. The beam daggers on its butt, though, work almost exactly like the drawing. Rather than being two parts inside the skirt armor, that section of the skirt armor is on a swivel so it can rotate up and down. The part that holds the saber is on a hinge, so it can fold outward. As for your Unicorn, you're flying on that compared to the RG Mk-II! They didn't have that tech when Exia was built, then? The Gundam Wiki's entry on Exia says that the Beam Daggers became obsolete, and the entry on 00 reads, "Unlike the beam sabers used by the 3rd Generation Gundams, their blade length can be altered as needed to function as either a beam saber or beam dagger." I really need to rewatch the series (which I'll probably do after I finish Destiny), but it still sounds like shoulder-sabers and butt-daggers for Exia.
  8. mikeszekely
    Fixed, because Destiny was just cribbing Justice's style. Anyway, I'm pretty sure the sabers are on Exia's shoulders, and the daggers are on its butt. On the model, the storage on the butt is on hinges and can swing into a position that'd be pretty easy to grab with either a regular or reverse grip. The shoulder mounts are c-joints on rods, and can go from almost flat against the shoulder armor to about perpendicular behind it. I assume the range of motion is to keep the sabers out of the way most of the time, because if I had something sticking off the back of my shoulder like that, I'm not even sure I could touch it. If it's meant to curl under the armpit, that's not as bad, I suppose.
  9. mikeszekely
    Exia is done. Well... I think I'm still digesting this one. Exia, perhaps even more so than the Zakus, is a very different experience than building the other Gundams, perhaps because Ebikawa's design is fairly different from the usual Okawara and Katoki designs. On the plus side, that makes for a fresh experience building Exia, and the finished product has an impressive range of motion that surpasses all of the other RG kits I've built. On the downside, though, that often involved working with tiny parts that connect in ways that increased the overall difficulty of the kit. I found the hologram pieces to be especially frustrating. Some involve hooking one end onto a peg, which it will resist doing, then folding the other end down (which may or may not cause the hooked end to unhook), and then clamping the whole thing down with another part. Another frustration is that the instructions will have you clip a peg onto a white piece when building the hip, fold it to the inside of the white piece, then stick the white piece into the hip joint. What the instructions don't mention is that the pegs are for attaching the GN Long Blade and GN Short Blade to Exia's hips, and if you want to do that, you're going to have to pry the white part back out so you can flip the pegs out. (Also, it's not the model's fault, but I question some of Exia's design. Like, what exactly do the strips running from the shoulders to the arms do? And what's with the placement of the beam sabers on the back of the shoulder armor? Seriously, I can't think of a worse place to store them.) Complaints aside, I think I would actually recommend Exia, especially if you've built a lot of the other RG kits, just because it's so different. It's a unique build with a unique inner frame that results in a Gundam that's very visually distinct, even unarmed, despite being the usual white/blue/red/yellow.
  10. mikeszekely
    *waves hands in arcane pattern* Arise, dead thread! Arise! Ok, seriously, the new D&D (aka D&D Next, aka 5th Edition) Player's Handbook is out today. Any takers? My group and I were big on 3e/3.5e, and we dabbled in Pathfinder. We really didn't like 4e, though. From what I've seen (my group and I did the beta playtests), 5e doesn't really remind me of 4e (which is good), and it seems a bit simpler than 3e (which is good and bad). There's a lot of flexibility and a greater emphasis on roleplaying in the new rules, but I think a lot of that comes down to players and DMs making best-judgement calls in roleplaying scenarios whereas 3e had weirdly specific rules with complicated (yet often balanced) math for practically every situation you could think of. Well, I figure I'll buy the core books this time, at least. Anyone else?
  11. mikeszekely
    I finally got to see it today. I don't think I can say anything about it that hasn't already been said, but I do agree it's a fantastic movie.
  12. mikeszekely
    Well, the RG line has been coming out at a fairly slow rate. I wouldn't mind 2 a month, but it's more like 3 or 4 months between releases. Since Char's Z'Gok just came out, I don't think we'll hear anything for awhile. Also, I expect the regular blue Z'Gok to turn up soon, if not the next one than the one after that. Given how slowly the line is coming out, and the number of popular hero suits left to do (sprinkled with Zeon MS for variety), who knows? I mean, Exia, the star of one of the more recent Gundam series, didn't turn up until the 15th kit (out of just 16 so far).
  13. mikeszekely
    Well, finished another. Not a lot to say here. I mean, Strike Freedom was only the second RG kit I've built, and by my count Freedom would be... the 11th. There are a lot of similarities between Freedom and Strike Freedom, obviously, and there are similarities between Freedom and Justice as well. I appreciate the extra experience I've gained building the RG kits since Strike Freedom, but more or less anything I could say about Freedom I've already said about Strike Freedom and Justice. Like all the SEED kits, he suffers from heavy backpack syndrome, and his wings are a touch fiddly. For one, most of the blue bits are very thin, and if the joints spread at all the one in the middle will drop due to a lack of friction. For two, there's a feature that even the instruction manual labels "Real Grade Gimmick". This gimmick allows the black to separate from the blue on the largest wings. It's an irritating gimmick, because the resulting pose is NOT animation accurate, but the tabs that overlap to keep the pieces together are so loose that they'll come apart while posing. Overall, though, I think I like RG Freedom better than RG Strike Freedom. I can't say this is due to it being a better kit; I think it's more an aesthetic preference. I prefer the two over-the-shoulder guns to the 8 DRAGOONs, and I prefer the dark inner frame to the gold. Strike Freedom's abdomen gun is cool, but breaks up Freedom's colors. And while the bulk of Freedom's wings don't do anything except, I assume, assist in flight while Strike Freedom's DRAGOONs are like funnels, I think Freedom's wings look better. Finally, I prefer Freedom's larger hip-mounted rail guns. They make for bigger guns, and while bulkier in their folded-up state they sort of remind me of the kamas worn by ARC troopers in Star Wars.
  14. mikeszekely
    I probably shouldn't say this, having never built a MG or PG, but I'm convinced that the RG series is the best bang-for-your-buck Gunpla on the market. They look at least as good as the MGs (sometimes better, I think) at around half the cost. The only trade off is that some of the MG gimmicks don't work as well shrunk to a 1/144 size, but that's a small price to pay, I think. So, like I said, I don't think it's fair to compare HG to RG. Since getting back into Gunpla, though, I've built four HG kits: Deathscythe Hell (EW version), Wing Zero (EW version), Gouf Custom, and Sengoku Astray. My criticism of the Sengoku Astray is that, in terms of engineering and lack of paint, the experience was much closer to the Wing kits (both of which have copyright dates from 1998) than the Gouf. I mean, yeah, the Gouf doesn't enjoy the same level of detail or color separation as an RG kit, but it didn't need any paint at all and even had cool engineering like a tab in the shoulder joint to help keep his arm up when your posing him firing that massive gatling shield. So really, I'm not saying don't buy Sengoku Astray because HG isn't as fun as RG (which, while true, severely limits your choices for 1/144 mobile suits). I'm saying don't buy Sengoku Astray because I think it fails to live up to even the lowered expectations I have for an HG kit.
  15. mikeszekely
    I don't have Future. I have a spray can of Tamiya Clear. Well, I went ahead and tried it. Like you said, Sharpie is easy to reapply. Plus, the kit came with stickers for seriously every part of the katanas except the hand guard, so I figured worst-case I'd just apply the stickers. The results were actually ok. The clear coat thinned the Sharpie... ink? It washed a little off the pommel and made one of the blades a little splotchy, but for the most part the Sharpie stayed put. After the clear coat dried, the color stayed even after handling (although I don't plan on handling it more than I have to). As an aficionado of the RG line, it's hard for me to pass a fair judgement on a HG kit. That being said, I'd probably recommend passing on the Sengoku Astray. The kit needs a lot of paint to look animation-accurate (or even good, for that matter). Even if you use all the stickers, all of the vents are left unpainted red (should be black), the backpack/shield is left unpainted red (missing black behind the eyes in and the mouth, plus gold on the eyes), there's a red part showing through above the knee that should be white, and the bottom of the cockpit door is red when it should be white, and the hand guards on the katanas are left white when they should be gold. Combine that with the fact that the sprues on over half the parts are connected under the parts instead of on the sides, leaving bits of sprue that need to be cut off (and are usually close to a post or peg on the piece, making cutting them as difficult as possible), and the engineering feels sloppy even by HG standards. The finished product doesn't look too bad if you paint it, but his shoulder armor and large V-fin hinder posing above the waist. Things are better below... I must confess that the ankles are really good, allowing the feet to stay flat even when the ankle is bent 45 degrees. However, the hip seems a little weak, causing the model to sink a bit lower than intended.
  16. mikeszekely
    Well, it is popular. I guess I could see stores offering preorders of their initial allotment, and selling out of those, yeah. But, it's not like a Transformer or something that they'll make a run or two of, then you're stuck eBaying used ones. Bandai will keep making more as long as it keeps selling. Anywho... for a modern HG kit, Sengoku Astray needs a lot of paint. Seriously, his Oni no Tate mask backpack/shield is a single red piece. I mean, if this was one of the Gundam Wing kits from the 90s, that'd be one thing, but you just don't expect this kind of laziness from Bandai on modern kits. And, as I keep telling you guys, I suck at painting. *sigh* So, I was kind of wondering about those metallic Sharpies. I get that they'll rub off with handling, but would a clear coat over top of it prevent that? Because Bandai only includes stickers for the pommels, handles, and blades of the katanas, but for some reason not the hand guards.
  17. mikeszekely
    So, I really want to build RG Freedom while I'm re-watching SEED/Destiny (currently done with SEED, on about episode 12 of Destiny). Freedom and GP01fb were supposed to come Tuesday, but Fed-Ex. New date is today sometime, so I don't want to start Exia or the Titans Mk-II, but I don't want to do nothing either. So, while I was out running errands this morning I swung by the bookstore and picked up a HG Sengoku Astray from Build Fighters.
  18. mikeszekely
    Well, I finished Char's Zaku. There's not a ton to say about this kit, as it's basically the same as the other Zaku. I like the kit enough to recommend a Zaku, but if you have a choice and you're only going to build one, build the green one. For one, I think the green looks better (Red Comet? More like Salmon and Magenta Comet...), but the green one also gives you more options for personalization with the decals and with three choices for heads tops (no fin, Char-style fin, aerodynamic fin).
  19. mikeszekely
    I like the green Bape Convoy. I don't like Eva Convoy... but I like Eva Convoy's trailer. What I really want, though, is an MP-10 Pepsi Convoy.
  20. mikeszekely
    A Sharpie brand Sharpie, maybe?
  21. mikeszekely
    I think it's because I'm OCD about completing sets, but because all three of Kira's Gundams got the RG treatment, I really want RG Aegis, Saviour, and Infinite Justice. I want this despite SEED/Destiny being my least favorite Gundam series, despite generally not liking the MS designs in SEED, and despite the fact that the SEED suits have generally been my least favorite RG kits in terms of build experience and final product. I'll grant you, though, that Athrun (and Lunamaria) was about the best thing to come out of SEED. Serious, but not angsty, and certainly not the crybaby Kira was. Oh, and I tried the metallic Sharpie thing. It doesn't look as good as the copper paint Neko Basara uses, and the result doesn't have the same mirrored shiny look of the foil stickers that come with the RG kits, but the color is almost identical to the silver, gold, and copper used on the stickers. The gold foil stickers, especially, tend to look worn out because the gold rubs off of them, so despite a duller finish the Sharpies almost look better. In some cases, like the little dots on the sides of the legs behind the knees on some, are small enough that you can't even really tell the difference. I wound up pulling the copper stickers off my RX-78, and the silver squares off of Destiny's wings, but I opted to keep the stickers on the rest, since they weren't peeling and it'd be more of a hassle to pull them off. I noticed that some of the other stickers are peeling, specifically the red around the RX-78's rifle barrel. Any tips for keeping the decals down, or fixing ones that are peeling?
  22. mikeszekely
    I hope it comes out ok. I don't like the FA Unicorn, because all that hardware is just ridonkulous. But I would like a regular Unicorn, a Sinanju, and either a Banshee or Banshee Norn. The HGUC kits are more than I paid for most of my RG kits, though. Tempted to wait and see if at least Unicorn ends up in the RG line, but also kind of afraid that they'd muck it up the way they did Zeta by being too ambitious and attempting to make a 1/144 scale model that transforms between regular and Destroy mode. Speaking of RG... Here's the thing about Justice. I like that he's purple, because it does add a little color to a see of red white and blue Gundams. And building the Fatum-00 was cool... probably the most memorable thing about him, actually. Because, take away the purple and take away the Fatum-00, and there's really nothing remarkable about Justice, from a finished POV or the build process itself. I'd go so far as to say that, unless your an RG enthusiast or a Gundam SEED fan, don't bother with Justice. By the way, the Fatum-00, as you can see from the picture, makes Justice incredibly back-heavy. Much more so than Strike Freedom, Destiny, or even Aile Strike. The only way I could get him to stay even partly upright with the Fatum-00 in backpack mode is to use the wingtips for support. They actually include a piece to help support he Fatum if you want to flip it up and pose it like Justice is firing the cannons over his shoulders, making an Action Base pretty much a requirement, unless you want to pose Justice riding the Fatum.
  23. mikeszekely
    Ok, that makes more sense, although I honestly can't think of one I've had more fun building. I think you saw the simplicity as less engaging (even if only slightly less so), whereas I saw it as a smoother workflow. Might have helped that it was the 4th I did after Strike Freedom, RX-78, and Zeta.Anyhow, I started Justice. And by started, I mean I've been busy, I knew I was going to be busy, so I decided to skip over the actual Gundam and start working on his Fatum-00 SFS instead. It took a bit longer than I thought. Building it wasn't a huge deal, but it has a lot of decals... which I already started deviating from the instructions on.
  24. mikeszekely
    Spacebrick's colors look ridiculous. Which sort of fits my head fanon.
  25. mikeszekely
    I guess that's where I have to agree to disagree... I don't think it's a weakness at all. Granted, better color separation and better range of motion in the head and waist would have definitely improved the kit, but more complex construction just means more tiny pieces to lose or break, and gimmicks like Core Fighters, crazy backpacks, and transformations have brought a lot of the other RG kits down in my eyes. Zeta is the best example... if they'd have skipped the transformation gimmick instead of trying to recreate the MS Master File's design in a 1/144 scale, it could have been fantastic. Instead, I'm afraid to touch the thing because if I look at it the wrong way the chest will unpeg, the head will retract like a scared turtle, and a leg will fall off.
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