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mikeszekely

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Everything posted by mikeszekely

  1. mikeszekely
    Have you watched it yet? Do you have an opinion on whether or not it's worth if you already have the 2007 Blu-ray release?
  2. mikeszekely
    I didn't preorder it, no. With the buttloads of snow we've had, I can't be bothered to leave the house, nor trust that UPS won't say "screw it". If I can dig my way out of the 7" they're calling for tonight by Friday, though, I planned to go to the store and pick up a regular copy.
  3. mikeszekely
    Glad to hear it was an easy fix!
  4. mikeszekely
    I'm sure it's been mentioned before, but Shout! Factory is finally releasing Transformers Animated Season 3 (as well as a Transformers Animated Complete Series) in the US in June.
  5. mikeszekely
    Super Mario 3D World. And... well, that's it, actually. You already own more games than I do for it.
  6. mikeszekely
    A lot's been made about the "alien" turtles, but going back and reading through everything, it's actually kind of accurate. The turtles aren't aliens, but their origin is. IIRC, the ooze in the original Mirage comics (as well as the 2003 cartoon) was a product of a company that was a front for the Ultroms. If that's what Bay's going for, and Az's linked pics are accurate, this might not be as bad as I feared.
  7. mikeszekely
    On the one hand, I figured this would happen. I think the only reason it didn't with Sideswipe is because of licensing issues with the Volkswagen Group. And I'm kind of glad I waited, because I never thought that Prowl (or any of the MP cars) was worth the cost of the Takara version + import-related costs. On the other hand, I'm not really convinced he's worth $59.99 at US retail, either. And another TRU exclusive means he'll be in short supply, making it a huge pain to actually find one on, and probably jack cause TRU to jack the price up even more.
  8. mikeszekely
    If I'm not mistaken, they get final approval. Right. Because Michael Bay or someone wanted the tank to be Devastator, and Hasbro nixed it.
  9. mikeszekely
    It's very iffy. Kotaku wrote an article about this... basically, the rumor comes from "a very reliable source" to one website, where the owner or editor already said it should be taken with a grain of salt and that they don't know who the source is.
  10. mikeszekely
    I don't know. In a way, this sort of makes sense. New movie means tons of kiddies going to the theater and wanting toys of what they just saw. And I know parents who have complained that Transformers are too complicated for their kids (hell, my 7 year old nephew was asking for help with the Legends class figures I got him for Christmas). So they take the line that kids are most likely to want, and they dumb it down for them. I don't think there's been any indication that this simplification is going to be across the boards, though. Generations figures will probably still be what we've been getting. If simpler movie toys means better sales and more money for Hasbro, so Hasbro can keep making good Generations toys and keep bringing over Masterpieces, then by all means simplify the movie toys. I guarantee I bought more Generations toys in three months than movie toys over the course of all three movies anyway.
  11. mikeszekely
    Bah. The awesome thing about ED-209 was that it was so over-powered, with a ridiculous design flaw. Robocop shouldn't be able to stand up to one, let alone several, unless he's on the stairs. Meh, I'll still probably watch it. Looks like a cheesy popcorn action flick, but there was never any chance that it was going to be the classic that the original was. On that note, how come no one's making a video game for this (short of the iPhone game)? The material seems prime for a passably-entertaining shooter.
  12. mikeszekely
    What? CHUG is the best one. It benefits from being an actual word, and is short to type and say than Classics/Henkei/Universe/Generations. I'll grant you, I probably wouldn't use it if Hasbro had stuck with Classics, but they're the ones that are renamed the line twice now.
  13. mikeszekely
    I'm not sure how Alienware PCs are, but Dell's recent trend has been to put cheap hard drives into laptops without panels to access said drives. So when (not if) the drive needs to be replaced, the entire computer has to be disassembled and the motherboard removed so that the drive can be disconnected from the bottom of the board.
  14. mikeszekely
    Don't know if this is still the case, but when I was shopping for a laptop, I noticed Toshiba always seemed to have really good prices. However, these too-good-too-be-true prices were usually on laptops with 1600x900 screens instead of 1920x1080.
  15. mikeszekely
    Buy a new one. Preferably a year or two ago. Seriously, 4-5 years is a pretty good run for a laptop, especially since (as has been mentioned) they're not as easily repaired or upgraded as a desktop. Without knowing your needs, it's really hard to recommend a particular computer. What do you expect to use it for? If you mostly just surf the net and you expect to travel with it, I'd suggest something far lighter. On the other hand, if you're gaming, that's not a bad computer, for the price. I do indeed! I wanted a relatively affordable, relatively thin/light laptop. I wound up getting an MSI (exact model escapes me at the moment). MSI has or had a line of gaming laptops that, rather than being the huge tanks that higher-end models are, were about the same size as your average laptop at the time (which is to say, not as thin and light as most current laptops). To be honest, I kind of regret it. I had some extra money at the time, and when spring/summer rolls around I get in this mood where I want to do my PC gaming in the living room or at the dining room table, where I've got massive windows, instead of in my basement man-cave where I have almost zero natural lighting. I spent a little more than I'd budgeted, and because I was set on something more portable than the Asus I was replacing, I could have bought something with a better GPU if I'd waited just a few more months and didn't mind the think and chunky laptops. Extra kick in the pants because I wound up picking up a very portable HP Envy X2 on clearance that I wound up using when I actually went out to Starbucks or whatever, so the MSI really only got used when I packed it for a weekend trip. But I digress. The think with MSI is that they tend to load their laptops with more bloatware than Asus. I wouldn't mind that too much, especially since they're usually cheaper than Asus, but (at least one mine) some software called S-bar is necessary to use the row of dedicated buttons, including the wi-fi toggle switch. That wouldn't be so bad if it didn't leave a persistent S-icon at the top of the screen. As I said, too, gaming performance seemed a little lacking. Mine came with a GTX 660M, and while it plays pretty much everything, I was surprised at how many games like BioShock Infinite that I had to reduce the settings on. Not really MSI's fault, though. Oh, one thing I do really like is that, while the computer came with a traditional hard drive, I was able to install a 128GB mSATA SSD in it, and after setting the UEFI to "Legacy", I eventually got Windows 7 installed on it (I was having serious issues with the factory-installed Windows . Between the i7 CPU and the SSD, the computer is blazing fast. EDIT: Spec-wise, basically the same as the Asus, but thinner, lighter, and with a backlit keyboard to boot, for about $75 less: MSI GE70.
  16. mikeszekely
    I couldn't even find a download manager. Just a list of what's being downloaded in Notifications. I think that's what's frustrating me about the next-gen consoles. Right out of the box on launch day, both the PS3 and the Xbox 360 had great UIs with plenty of options in the settings. The PS4 and the Xbox One both seemed to have sacrificed both functionality and practicality in the name of simplicity.
  17. mikeszekely
    My entertainment center consists of a Sharp TV, a Sony receiver, a PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Wii U, and a Mac mini. The game consoles all run directly into the receiver, and the Mac runs into the Xbox One's HDMI in. And no, I don't hide anything. You can actually see a picture of the bulk of my setup in the PS4 thread. The only things not pictured are the receiver, the Mac, and the Wii U, which are on a shelving unit to the right of the TV. My current usage is basically one of three scenarios. 1.) I want to play a videogame. I push the "X" (where X is the console) activity. It turns the TV on, sets it to HDMI 1, and sets the receiver to the correct input. I turn the console on with the controller, and it becomes my primary method of interaction. The Harmony is just for changing the volume on the receiver or muting it if I need to. 2.) I want to watch a hockey game stream, or play a video file that the PS3 can't handle: I use a Logitech keyboard with a built-in trackpad to wake the Mac mini, use the Harmony activity "Xbox One" to turn on the TV and set the receiver, and use the Kinect to wake the Xbox and start the TV app. From there, I use the Logitech keyboard to operate the Mac. Again, the Harmony at that point is really just for volume control. 3.) I want to watch Netflix/a DVD/a Blu-ray/a DIVX file/an mp4 file/listen to a CD/listen to mp3s: I use "PlayStation 3" activity to turn on the TV and the receiver. I use the PS3 Bluetooth remote to turn on the PS3. The Harmony handles volume control, but the rest of the navigation is done with the Bluetooth remote. Switching Harmonies wouldn't really have any bearing on the first two activities, but I do spend the bulk of my living room time on the third one. I know that upgrading to the Harmony Ultimate would allow me to ditch the PlayStation Bluetooth remote, which is a plus... but it's an expensive plus. If 95% of my viewing habits are Blu-ray and Netflix, I could buy six years of Xbox Live Gold and use the Xbox One for Netflix and Blu-rays, since the Kinect has a built-in IR blaster (not to mention that I'd also get the other benefits of Xbox Live) and keep using the Harmony One. So it is kind of hard to justify the upgrade just for Bluetooth. I guess I'm pretty familiar with the specs and what I'd be practically getting by upgrading. I was hoping maybe someone who upgraded from a previous Harmony to the Ultimate might have some insights, like how the new browser-based Harmony software stacks up to the older Harmony software, if they liked the feel of the Ultimate any better, how good they thought the screen was. I mean, if I can display user-defined icons instead of the generic ones, or display more than three activities per page, those are selling points I'd care about.
  18. mikeszekely
    They're standing in the right order; they obviously just switched nametags.
  19. mikeszekely
    Yeah, for the record, that wasn't my issue. My issue was that on Linear PCM, my receiver was only showing the front pair, the center, and the subwoofer. And, like I said, that issue seems to have been fixed by switching to a different HDMI cable. Anyway... I like how the PS4's UI is very quick, and I like how tapping up on the d-pad takes you to a menu bar... but after spending some time with it, I actually think the UI has some issues. For one thing, there are a lot fewer settings that you have access to, which leads to issues like you've described. But a bigger issue is the main nav bar. It's cluttered with apps for Sony's music and Sony's video services and a Playroom app for a camera I don't have and don't want. Recently played games show up in it as well, but not other recently used apps like Netflix. If I want Netflix, I either have to go to the tile for video apps, then pick Netflix from a the list of video apps (none of which I even have installed besides Netflix), or go to my library, where all my installed games and apps are. Which sounds great, except for some ridiculous reason, the library is the very last tile on the nav bar, when it really should be first (or maybe second... I'll allow that Sony might want to highlight the What's New? tab). It makes me appreciate the Xbox One's customizable Home screen a little more, although the Xbone's got it's own set of issues.
  20. mikeszekely
    Do you guys think that the Harmony Ultimate is a worth the money if I already have the Harmony One? I mean, I got my One working so that it turns on everything except the game consoles, which I then turn on with a controller (or the PS3's separate Blu-ray remote). But it seems like I'd have had an easier time setting up an Ultimate without having to plug it into the computer (or if I did, with one of the millions of micro USB cables I have laying around instead of borrowing the mini USB cable I charge my Dualshock 3s with), plus I could use the Bluetooth settings one the Ultimate to actually control the PS3, which I use as a media device more than a game console. Seems a little hard to justify the price, though, when the One still works.
  21. mikeszekely
    At last. PS4 and PS3 on the left, Xbox One and Xbox 360 on the right. The sets are complete, and properly organized. The OCD part of my brain can stop tormenting me. It'd be kind of nice if the next-gen systems, especially the PS4, had more games I want. I've got Forza and I'll plan to pick up Dead Rising this weekend, but all I've done with the PS4 is download Resogun and Netflix. It's tough, because the best games are multiplatform, and in some cases (Need for Speed Rivals, Lego Marvel Superheroes) I already bought them on PC. Maybe I'll get Injustice for the PS4. I did pass on it during the winter Steam sale... Weird issue setting the PS4 up, though. Nothing I did would make it output sound to the rear speakers on my receiver. Out of desperation, I swapped the HDMI cable with my PS3's, and wouldn't you know it all 5.1 channels started showing up. Checked back on the PS3, and on automatic settings it was only outputting stereo, but I was able to tell it to manually output 5.1, and all was well. Odd. I'd had a similar issue with the Xbox One only outputting stereo. That one, also oddly, was fixed by changing the video settings from auto to 1080p. Now for the inevitable comparisons... I feel like they're a lot closer this generation than the previous one. Both consoles have stuff I like about them. On the PS4, the interface is simple but functional, but I wish it was a little more tweakable. The Xbox One has a more customizable interface, but sometimes stuff doesn't work right or has issues. For example, setting up local splitscreen on Forza 5 was a nightmare on the Xbox One, mostly because of Kinect. Which reminds me, I like that I can create local, offline users on the PS4, while on the Xbox One you have to either have a Microsoft account, or sign is as a guest of a Microsoft account. After playing with both, while I'm happy to agree that the Dualshock 4 is a huge improvement over the Dualshock 3, I do think I prefer the Xbox One controller. It's not that there's anything wrong with the DS4, but for me at least the Xbox One controller just sits more naturally in my hands. I've read complains about the bumpers on the Xbox One controller, and I don't get it at all. The way it sits in my hand, my fingers are poised so that they're lightly touching the edge of the bumpers, making them very easy to hit (with enough resistance that I don't accidentally hit them), even when I'm squeezing the triggers. Using Kinect to figure out who has which controller, though, is awful. One thing that really gives the PS4 and edge, though, is that I don't have to have PS+ for anything besides multiplayer and the discounts, while Microsoft requires Xbox Live Gold for practically everything short of putting a disc in the system. Gold's required for Netflix, Gold's required for Amazon Instant Video, Gold's even required for Internet Explorer. Sorry, Microsoft, but basic functionality available on pretty much every non-Microsoft console isn't going to get me to buy a Gold subscription, and neither is multiplayer. Free games are what got me to buy PS+, and that's good games for PS3, Vita, and yes, even PS4. The older, crappier games Microsoft has offered (at least until Sleeping Dogs) aren't worth it, especially when there's nothing for Xbox One. As of right now, I'm still mostly inclined to play my games on PC. That said, between PS4 and Xbox One, I think games I'd want to play splitscreen (few and far between, I know) I'm more inclined to get for PS4, but otherwise, assuming they run equally well on both systems (not a given, since it seems a lot of games are running better on PS4 so far), I might go with the Xbox One version.
  22. mikeszekely
    Also acceptable. FIBRIL. That doesn't look too bad... for a fast action battler. For a Premium figure, that's just awful. I'd be more upset, but I'm not a fan of the Bayverse aesthetic in the first place, and have bought very few toys from the first three movies.
  23. mikeszekely
    Toys could have been a mislabel, especially because once they're out of the packaging they're not wearing name tags. Or some other reason. Kind of like how the packaging called the Universe triple-changer with a tanker truck and cargo plane alt mode Tankor, but we all know he's Octane. That said, I'm pretty sure Soundwave wasn't getting mixed up every time he called for Rumble and the blue guy came out. Especially when blue guy self identified as Rumble. Two seasons and a movie don't lie.
  24. mikeszekely
    I guess I can see why, if you pay that much for a toy, any faults seem that much worse. But a quick glance at my CHUGs shelves shows very few CHUGs with wrist swivels. As I've said before, I'm really not dissatisfied with the toy. For it's faults, I think it's an amazing Galvatron. But I think I agree that it's just too expensive. I'd have definitely ordered him at $80 or less, maybe even go as high as $100 (including shipping). More than that, though, and I've got other things I should be spending my money on.
  25. mikeszekely
    You FIBRIR-ers keep on thinking that...
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