mikeszekely

Yeah, there's a campaign called "Extra" between 0123 and SEED. (And for the record 00 is another AU that takes place in the 24th century CE.) I'm not sure what's all confirmed, but I know there's some from Victory. In any case, I find it hard to imagine that they'd take away MS from previous Battle games when they make stuff like the Type 61 tank and the Magella tank available. Oh, and I think I figured out a little more about the "Development" option in the store. One of the options said something about Gundam (MC). So I bought that one. In the parts store, I noticed one said "magnetic coating" (if you know nothing else of the Japanese language, at least learning to read katakana will be a huge help). I bought that, then equipped it on the Gundam. A few missions later, a message popped up saying that new MS were available in the shop, and one of them turned out to be Gundam (MC). That was a lucky break, though, since I can't read enough Japanese to figure out what the requirements are for any given suit. Hopefully something will turn up on GameFAQs later.

Asus, and sometimes.

I mentioned it briefly in the "All Things Video Games Thread" back in January, but no one seemed interested at the time. I like that you only have to create one pilot now, and I like they're not just rehashing levels like they did in GBU. But this new approach needs work. Missions take a lot longer to complete, and while GBU had checkpoints on multi-stage missions, GAS has none. The Solomon mission on the Feddie side is supremely frustrating. They start you in Area A. You have to quickly take out the enemies there and move to B, or the enemies there (including a Zakrello) will take out the White Base, instantly ending the mission. If you manage that, you can go to Area C to take out some Musais, then come back to Area B on your way to Area D. By now, you've probably been doing this mission for 10 minutes or so. Upon entering Area D, a Bigro that's outside of your own targeting range will immediately begin firing on you, and two or three hits is enough to destroy an RX-78-2. Assuming you survive long enough to take it, the other Zeon MS, and the Musais in Area D out, you'll be able to travel to Area E to fight the Big Zam. And if it kills you there, you've flushed maybe 15-20 minutes down the drain. Depending on the suit your using, I've also noticed that enemies seem to be able to take more hits than they did in previous Battle games. I remember taking out most enemies with a single shot from a GM Sniper, but Gundam Dynames needs three to kill a Tieren. On the plus side, the mobile suits of the Celestial Being missions of the 00 campaign are nice and beefy without much in the way of upgrades. You can do most of those missions, then use the cash you get from them to go back and upgrade your 0079 suits.

Gundam Assault Survive is out now in Japan (and for those of you who go this route, it works on 5.50 GEN-D3). I gave it a quick try. It's definitely a Gundam Battle game, but changes have been made. From the start, you have a little more options when deciding how your pilot will look and sound, but his/her abilities are determined by answering a series of questions. It seems like the results will also get your a bonus mobile suit (in my case, a GM White Dingo version). The next thing you'll notice is that every campagin (save extra) is available right from the start, and you no longer pick which faction. Instead, the names of the missions are different colors. This means that if you enter the 0079 campaign, you'll have a blue Federation mission and a red Zeon mission available. Beating Feddie missions will unlock more of the, and you can only use your Feddie suits. If you pick to do a Zeon mission, you'll have access to your Zeon suits, but you'll use the same pilot, which I guess should make it easier to unlock all the units on one save file. Speaking of unlocks, GAS is taking a page from MUF and including a shop. I'm not sure if there are other ways to unlock new units, but so far every unit I've added to my my ranks has been purchased in the shop. Shopping takes some planning, though, because you can also buy new pilots, mobile suit parts, skills, titles, and secrets. There's also a spot in the shop called "Development." I'm not 100% certain at this point, but it seems like you can spend money to develop new mobile suits that will either be unlocked or available in the shop later (my list says something about the GM WD being Finished, GM Cannon being Developed, and Haman Karn's Gaza-C requiring me to invest 100,000G). Money isn't just tied into unlocking new units and what not. You don't get tune points anymore, just money. If you want to tune a mobile suit, you have to buy the tune points to do it. This adds another layer of strategy. Instead of constantly tuning a mobile suit while waiting for a better one to unlock, you can be more selective about which ones to unlock and weigh the cost of a new MS vs. the cost of upgrading one you already have. I'm not really sure what the huge advantage for this is yet, but you don't have one partner anymore. You get two now. You can order one partner by hitting select and then pressing a direction on the d-pad. If you want to order the other, you hit select and then either triangle, X, square, or circle. You may also notice that I mentioned parts. You can collect different parts in the game. I'm not sure if different units can equip different numbers of parts, but the GM WD I've been using has one slot for a part. Parts come in different sizes. The Type 61 tank is a small unit, so it's limited to small parts. A GM is a medium unit, so it can equip small or medium parts. I equipped a small part called "Control Vernier" onto my GM WD, adding +10 to its turning ability. Lastly, while the controls are the same as they ever were, the rules seem to have changed a bit. Instead of having a variety of missions, missions seem to be more about taking and maintaining control of battlefields. On almost every mission I've played (Federation, so far), there's been a Medea and a Gallop on the field. The field is represented in the upper left corner of your HUD, and you can see a number of red dots representing enemies. Sometimes to control a field you have to take out all of the enemy units. Sometimes, you have to take out their Gallop (and I assume you can lose if your Medea gets destroyed). A mission might end after taking a field, or it might require you to move on to another field. The longest mission I've completed had me move from field A to B to C. There was a D field showing on my HUD, which indicates the existence of alternate routes through a mission, although I'm not sure how I would have got to D. It also seems like you can move back and forth between the fields, which is kind of handy since it seems possible to repair your units at your Medea. Oh, and Artdink seems to have increased the number of available units even beyond adding some for the new campaigns. Just as an example, I have a Federation Type 61 tank as an available unit to pilot.

I don't remember it that well anymore. I do remember liking X, but I remember hating the entire cast (except for maybe Auron), I remember thinking the plot was stupid, I remember one really hard boss fight, and I remember that the game had almost no side quests. I feel like I'd need a demo to figure out if I'm cool with XIII's battle system. Did they improve on any of my other complaints about X?

Can't really say how similar they are on consoles, since I played both on PC. But I can say that I like BFBC2 a lot better than MW2.

Yeah, they're on the edges, and yeah, it's annoying. But it seems like they give you plenty of time. I haven't failed a quick time yet. I guess it does kind of make sense that a lot of you would still be playing FFXIII. Personally, I'm holding off on FFXIII until I can get a demo. I hated XII, and XIII's reviews have been all over the place. Some people like it, others hate it, and most fall somewhere in between.

How is that no one is talking about the awesome that is God of War III? Here, I'll start: God of War III is really freaking awesome. I'm only about two hours into it. If you've played the first two, you can figure out what kind of gameplay you're getting into. It's very similar to the first two (or three, if you count the one on the PSP), just a lot prettier. Story-wise, I'm looking forward to seeing how everything ties together.

The it isn't getting bought. Simple as that. I really like Unicorn, and I want to support it... that is, I want it to become available domestically at a price that I find acceptable. And in a perfect world, we'd all be millionaires and I'd buy every show, movie, or anime that I've ever remotely wanted to watch, but the reality is that I don't have a lot of disposable income. I've got to prioritize what spending cash I've got, and between anime and video games the lion's share is going to video games... and even then I don't pay full price for many of those anymore.

Sounds like fun. I think I'll watch the Divx copy of it that's on my PlayStation 3 until Bandai comes out with a reasonably priced blu-ray that has all six episodes.

See, I knew as soon as I said it that someone was going to say that it's anime, not average Hollywood, and so it's not fair to compare them. You're damn right. Because something like Star Trek (or even some animated film like Toy Story) only cost crap tons more to make and market, runs twice as long, and costs half as much, it isn't a fair comparison. An hour-long anime, however well-animated, should cost even less. You guys need to stop saying "It's anime, it's Japan, it's just how it is." Your willingness to bend over and take it is part of the reason why it's still expensive even though Best Buy's got a freaking anime section now. Be firm, wait for Bandai USA to license it, and get the whole OVA for your money.

I would get the blu-ray, except that there's no way in hell I can justify paying $36 for one episode. I think most of use wouldn't pay that much anymore for a Hollywood film that's twice as long; you gotta stop letting yourselves get gouged on anime. I'll wait and see if they come out with a more reasonably priced blu-ray set with all six episodes once it's all over.

There are always going to be a couple of people who seem to be unhappy with new TFs no matter what (I'm looking at you, Pete ), but most of the complaints in the last few pages are aimed specifically at Leader Jetfire (a toy you readily admit isn't that hot) and Deluxe Arcee (who seems to be a pretty poor figure by anyone's standard). Personally, I love Transformers. They're the only toys I really collect (although I have a few 1/144 Gundam models and a plus Goomba, too). I haven't really cared for the Animated line (some nice toys that do a great job of capturing their appearance in the cartoon, but the aesthetic throws me off) or the movie lines (the overly-complex movie designs have translated into some piss-poor toys, with a couple of exceptions... not to mention that I also don't care for that aesthetic). But I bought all the figures from the first Classics line, and almost all of the Universe figures (I skipped a few repaints, especially the Ultras, as well as Dinobot and Hotshot since I'm more interested in the G1 characters). I'm actually a lot more excited to be Transformers fan this year than last year, since I'm actually really excited for a lot of the Generations figures that are coming out, like G1 Thrust, G1 Darkmount (aka Straxus), Drift (aka Peg), and probably more than a few of the War for Cybertron figures. To recap, I like Transformers just fine, but I think that Leader-class RotF Jetfire (specifically) is a kibble-tastic monstrosity and I can't believe that David likes it other than the fact that it turns into an SR-71.

If you agree, then why are you calling us out for criticizing it? Innovation is cool... but what does that have to do with Jetfire being a mess of kibble? Having a robot with a jet on it's back turn into a jet with a brick of robot-part kibble underneath is hardly innovative. We had that; the YF-21/VF-22's engines are on its back, and the legs tuck inside. The engines on the VA-3 appear to be on its torso, and the legs form the tail. The main engines on the VB-6 seem to be on it's back in battroid mode, and the legs form the wings (although if you want to get technical, it does look like there's some kind of thrusters on its legs. But yeah, I get your point. Most VFs do have their engines in their legs. It's a logical design that prevents the legs/engines from being kibble. The flaps that cover the VF-22's legs in fighter mode wind up being kibble in bot mode.

But the VF-1 is not an F-14. Yeah, there's some similarities... enough that you can see that Kawamori was clearly inspired by the F-14 when he designed the VF-1. But the VF-1, and all the variable fighters Kawamori designed after, are supposed to be original vehicles that have both their fighter mode and their battroid modes, as well as the transformation from one to the other, taken into consideration. So yeah, you can see the battroid's legs when the Valkyrie is in fighter mode, because in fighter mode those legs make up the intakes, engines, and exhaust ports of the fighter. The head? It's a stretch to say the whole thing is showing, but what is showing also has a function in fighter mode as a defensive weapon. Gunpod? That's where it mounts in fighter mode, and the idea of mounting a gunpod onto a fighter is hardly novel to Macross. And the arms aren't even showing really in the pic you posted, and frankly the fold away pretty neatly on the VF-1. That's hardly kibble. Jetfire is not an original vehicle inspired by an SR-71, he is an SR-71. That's an important distinction, and the reason why Jetfire is considered to have kibble when the VF-1 is not. The VF-1 looks the way it's supposed to, but Jetfire looks like an SR-71 with a pile of spare parts stuck on the bottom in alt mode. And even in bot mode, he looks less like an SR-71 that turns into a robot and more like the pile of spare parts stuck on the bottom of an SR-71 transformed into a robot with an SR-71 stuck on its back.

The barrel of a gunpod and the left rear landing gear? And what does that have to do with me noting that David has to position jet-mode Jetfire just so if he wants to hide the kibble?

Fixed. Seriously, do you actually like the Leader-class Jetfire toy as a Transformer, or as an SR-71 that, if positioned properly, isn't showing the kibble underneath?

It didn't for me. I do remember talking with her about her post-endgame plans; maybe on some level I didn't feel her presence was necessary at the end-end.

Yeah, but considering that I only expected the quest where Shale joins your group to be the only extra quest with the Stone Prisoner, I thought Shale integrated pretty well. If you kept her in your party when you went to Orzammar, it opened a lot more background on the whole Anvil thing as well as another side quest later in the game.

That late? Then they really should just say that they update Friday.

At what time does the PlayStation Store update? I could have sworn Mega Man 10 is supposed to be available today...

If you've been out of the Linux loop for awhile, I'd definitely recommend taking a look at some of the newer distros out there. Coming from a Windows perspective, I recall that as recently as 2006 a lot of distros seemed interesting but had issues that would ultimately frustrate me. Modern distros are getting really good though. I remember it used to be a pain to try to get Linux to play mp3 files, but for the last two years I know the Ubuntu family has been able to install mp3 playback by grabbing a file from the package manager. With the most recent version, all the libraries have been bundled into a package you can grab from the "Add/Remove Software" applet.

Yeah. I installed KDE on my Ubuntu install, logged in with it, thought it looked nice, then logged out and logged back in with Gnome. It's a first, but I actually kinda like it. I think when 10.04 comes out, though, I might give Kubuntu another serious look. As for SuSE, I had a buddy that swore by it for years. He used to use it on his main computer, completely skipping Windows XP and almost skipping Vista. After version 10.0, though, it seemed liked they switched from being primarily KDE to primarily GNOME. Since I was primarily a Windows guy, I only dabbled with Linux a little and I didn't really find a distro I really liked until Kubuntu 8.04.

Not quite. I've got $35 on me that's "free spending" (that is, not allocated toward bills, gas, food, etc). And I need $33.98 to pay off my reserves on both God of War III and Dragon Age Origins Awakening. But it's no big deal. I expect that GoW and DAOA will keep me entertained for awhile. Although I won't be putting off GoW like eugimon and Penny Arcade suggest, the idea behind it (saving a game for the summer slump) is sound.

Yeah, I could... or I could play it when it comes out and play Final Fantasy XIII in the summer.