mikeszekely

If you say so. Aside from the fact that they both have dark hair, I'm not really seeing it, though.

As I pointed out, the Fire Valkyrie took plenty of hits, and the reliability of the VF-19 gets some credit for Basara (unfortunately) not getting killed. Max is to Macross what Chuck Norris is to the internet. Max could have flown into a hot zone, got shot at, sang some songs, had some coffee and read the morning paper, not fire a single shot back at the enemy, and not only survive but somehow come back with a dozen kills and more bullets in his gunpod then when he started. In a VF-1.

One of my favorite scenes was when Sound Force was supposed to be watching the Jamming Birds practice with Emerald Force, and Veffidas was drumming on Exsedol's collar.

It was still better than Voyager.

Well, I respect your opinion too. One of the reasons I've stuck around MW when I usually can't stand message boards is that, for all the complaining we do here, I think most of us are willing to listen to each other with respect. And for the record, I have both of the Pirates Blu-rays, and yeah, they look so good they almost make me want to buy a 1080p set. And yeah, I heard that they were discontinuing the dual-format discs too. And what can I say except of course they're not selling; as you said, the asking price was way to high. The dual disc format's only an advantage if the studios putting them out are willing to sell them for a fair price (IMHO, $5 over the price of the standard def DVD, not $5 over all the other Blu-ray and HD-DVDs on the shelf, which are already $10-$20 over the price of a DVD). If the studios backing HD-DVD want it to take off, they have to make it the alternative to DVD, not Blu-ray. But I don't really have a problem with two disc sets. They don't take up more room, they just cram another disc into the case, ala the Pirates movies. I like extras, too, but all the good extras seem to be on the standard def DVDs. Pirates has been one of the notable few that they really seemed to put a lot of effort into the Blu-ray.

Well there you go. It all worked out anyway.

You're putting Gavil ahead of Gamlin, even though Gamlin repeatedly shot Gavil down? The answer is obviously Max. Roy was good, and may have been the better squadron commander, but the facts speak for themselves. Milia killed Roy in combat, and Max repeatedly beat Milia. And late in M7, he shows up with his VF-22 and blows everyone away with his skills. I'm actually going to put Gamlin up there. Not as good as Max, Milia, or Roy, but up there. Sure, he begins the series as merely above average, but he grows a lot during the series, and truly deserves the title of "Ace." Hikaru was an exceptional pilot, probably also deserving to be called an ace, but he was shot down enough that we know he probably wasn't as good as Gamlin or Roy, and definitely not on the level with Max and Milia. Similarly, Isamu was probably a good pilot, but the VF-11 could have outstripped the Zentraedi power armors he was fighting. There's nothing to indicate that he was really an ace. And Guld took down the Ghost, big deal. Aegis shot down three at once in VF-X2. As for Basara, Gamlin's even talked about him being a good battroid pilot. But he's proven clumsy in gerwalk, and he rarely stays in fighter mode long enough to demonstrate if he's good or not. Plus, we've seen Basara take plenty of hits. I think the fact that he comes back alive all the time is more a testament to the VF-19 than Basara... if he was flying a cannon-fodder VF-11, he'd have been space dust before Fire Bomber landed their recording contract and the Macross 7 fleet would still be a Spiritia Farm for the Protodeviln.

I know! Up to now, as long as the game said "Bioware" on the box, it was a must-buy for me. The news that Bioware's fallen into EA's hands disturbs me far more than the Microsoft/Bungie split.

It's NOT my internet connection. My 360 and my PC are plenty fast enough.

I could see John Cho as Sulu and Simon Pegg as Scotty. I don't know about that Spock, though. As for the April Fool's Enterprise, aside from the phaser turrets, it's honestly not too bad. For a reboot, it does sorta look like it could fill the gap between Enterprise and the TNG era.

You know, HDTV sales are good. And a lot of people own an Xbox 360 or a PS3. But people are still buying DVDs, as JsARCLIGHT pointed out. I honestly don't blame a lot of them. That same Xbox 360 and PS3 do a nice job of upconverting DVDs, and there are plenty of HDMI-out DVD upconverting DVD players out there for under $50. (I bought a second one for my bedroom because it came with an HDMI cable, and was only $5 more than buying the cable separately). And while an upconverted DVD doesn't look as nice on my system (alas, my Toshiba 52" DLP set only goes up to 1080i) as a Blu-ray, most of my family can't tell the difference, even if I can (and even though I can tell the difference in video quality, I think the difference in the audio quality of an uncompressed audio track vs. Dolby Digital that's a bigger deal). So, even when you've got a great TV and audio rig, sometimes it comes down to $15 for the two-disc DVD set loaded with bonus features, or $30-$35 for the Blu-ray or HD-DVD with just the film and, if you're lucky, a commentary track. And sometimes the transfer's not even that good to begin with. That's one of the reasons why, after I buy the HD-DVD player for the 360, I'm still a lot more interested in the newer DVD release of Serenity than I am in the HD-DVD. Now, if the HD-DVD-exclusive studios were smart, they'd stop selling HD-DVDs for $30-$35 and start selling them for $20... one of the big advantages with HD-DVD was how they weren't supposed to cost much more than DVDs to produce, right? They'd make all of their HD-DVDs the dual-disc type that has the HD version on one side and the regular DVD version on the other. And then they should stop selling stand-alone DVDs all together. Then people without an HD-DVD player, or even an HDTV, would be buying the HD-DVD versions of Transformers or Heroes for the DVD side of the discs. When they realize how many HD-DVDs they own later when they do decide to get that HDTV, the format choice would already be made for them. Honestly, you'd think that since I own a PS3 but no HD-DVD player that I'd be pulling for Blu-ray, but I don't really agree with Dangard Ace. Blu-ray and HD-DVD use different software for the same results, so in terms of specs, the only advantage to Blu-ray is storage. Looking over my entire collection, most movies don't say how many layers they're using, but X3 proudly proclaims that it's a single-layer Blu-ray. So, as far as movies go, at least, it looks like storage is moot, and more extras could just be put on more discs. I think the biggest advantage is that some HD-DVDs (I wish it was all of them) have the HD version on one side and the regular DVD version on the other. Even for people like me that have an awesome set up in the living room might still want the regular version to watch on the regular DVD player and SDTV in the bedroom, or to rip to my iPod or something.

The original Lightning was the P-38 Lightning, an American WWII Fighter. Lightning II was a working name for the F-22, before they settled on Raptor. So, at the time, the VF-4 would have been the third plane to use the name. As for the differences, the VF-4G has upgraded engines. I think I saw some lineart a few years back of a different head unit, but I'm not sure where it came from or if its canon. The one Hikaru was flying wasn't necessarily a test plane; the VF-4's mass production began in February of 2012, and the Megaroad didn't launch until September or October, if I remember right. Rather, the VF-4's production ended in 2022 and it was officially replaced by the VF-11 in 2030. A variant with newer engines is the only reason why anyone would use one in 2047, when the first VF-X game took place.

Because pink is light purple? Honestly, Mylene's not a bad character. She can be annoying at times, but she's a teenage girl, so that's pretty much par for the course. At least she wasn't as flighty as Minmay.

I didn't bother reading the EULA, I just agreed to it. I have a tendency to agree then disregard them anyway if they don't suit me. But, I did play the Conan demo on the 360... the first thing I noticed was that it really looks like crap. I'm talking "is this supposed to be a PS2 game?" graphics. Once you get past that, though, it's a pretty fun game. Combat reminds me a little of Heavenly Sword. As for R&C, I've been downloading it for the past two hours or so... and I'm at 15%. Why is it that the PS3 seems to take forever to download anything? I downloaded some demo on the 360 last night that was bigger (can't recall which one, since I downloaded four or five total) in a about a half hour.

HD-DVD beating Blu-ray in hardware sales. Don't think those numbers include PS3s, though. And I don't know about sales of discs, but with Heroes on HD-DVD and Transformers next week, I guess they're getting a boost. I'm sorely tempted to buy the 360 HD-DVD player now.

Just when I thought my day couldn't get any crappier... EA to buy Bioware and Pandemic.

Let me be clear on this: I like Macross 7. A lot. I'm actually rewatching it on the iPod Touch I bough recently. That said, I do not like Basara. Good characters are dynamic; over the course of a story, they grow and change, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. Basara begins the series forcing his extreme pacificst ideals one the rest of the cast, and by the end of the series, when his song finally ends the conflict with the Protodeviln, he's the same as when he started. Gamlin, on the other hand, began as kind of a proud, by-the-book military pilot, but as the series went on, he learned to appreciate other views, to try new things, and to take more pride in doing a job well than in being a member of an elite group.

The Classics figures were solidly build, easy-yet-fun to transform, and with only a few exceptions, looked great in both modes, and had pretty good range of movement that made for some great poses. The movie toys, even some of the Voyagers, often look like crap in either or both modes (Megatron, Starscream, 70's BB). Many of them (Jazz, Blackout) are crap for posing. Several of them are difficult to transform due to Automorph issues (several 70's BBs front ends don't fold back into cars right, my concept BB's chest is a pain to fold or unfold, and I have a hard time getting all of Barricade's parts to line up right changing him back into a car). And a lot of them end up with kibble because a deluxe or voyager toy just wasn't meant to have the complicated tranformations that movie models did (Starscream, voyager Prime). The only movie toy I've bought that I've been 100% satisfied with was Ratchet. So, yeah, I do have to admit, they pulled the movie off, and the Transformers looked great in it. But when it comes to toys, I'd be happier if they'd just make more Classics (I guess I only have to wait another year for Octane, Sideswipe, and Sunstreaker).

I love my Balls... C and K alike. I love the absurd desperation that leads to slapping a gun to a construction vehicle and sending them out as fodder. And Ball pilot had to have been the worst possible job available in the EFSF.

Perhaps OT makes fuel and upkeep of VFs manageable. Enough civilians seem to have VF-1/VT-1s laying around (I believe the VT-1C was produced specifically for civilians), there may even been privately-owned businesses dedicated to servicing them.

The Guardian, The Italian Job, Resident Evil, Phantom of the Opera, & the Transporter 2.

What a coincidence! I sent in for mine around the same time you did, and mine came today too!

Call me crazy, but I'd like to see Wheeljack. Or at least a Classics/Universe Wheeljack.

If Max and Milia are any indication, pilots seem to get to keep their old fighters if they (the pilots or the fighters) survive to the end of the war. Also, do we actually have numbers for the cost of variable fighters post Space War 1? Perhaps the Factory Satellite or the technology from it used in the Three Star ships has dramatically lowered the cost of producing a variable fighter. And besides, if there's only the UN government, it's not like they have other countries to sell off their old equipment to. Selling them for a pittance to civilians is still probably better than not selling them and having them take up space at some military facility.

Does anyone know if the clear dome under the shell is semi-permeable? In a lot of episodes, the Varauta, Valgo's pink things, Sivil, etc seem to fly into the City as if the dome wasn't there. In the first episode, exploding fighters in space seemed to disturb the atmosphere in the city. But the dome never seemed damaged. When the Varauta attacked other ships, they had that recycled scene where the Elgerzornes were shooting the windows.