mikeszekely

Another superthread? We already got the newbie questions, the aircraft thread, and anything Transformers related MUST go in the Alternators thread, even if we don't give a rat's ass about the toys. Now cars? Hey, why don't we make one official movie thread, one official TV show thread, one official videogame thread, and then one official non-Macross anime thread. Eventually we can have it so this entire forum consists of 20 threads with 30 or so pages each. Seriously, all this superthread stuff has got to stop. I does nothing to make the boards neater or easier to read. The old threads die out, as they're supposed to, and fade away to make room for new threads. Superthreads just force you to sift through multiple pages of posts before you can contribute, and after awhile, the posts aren't even really related anymore.

Actually, according to your results, the winner's the Zentraedi.

Nintendo DS - 9,170,000 vs Sony PSP - 3,270,000 The handheld wars are over before they even started.

Apparently, some kind of contract with the Devil. Boll takes game franchises, makes them into horrible movies that don't even have much to do with the actual games, and cause many people unbearable agony. In exchange, Satan gives him a donut. Boll wouldn't have anything to do with the new Doom movie, would he? You know, the one that has nothing to do with Space Marines, Mars, Hell, or Demons, but instead has montsers mutated by a virus and, of course, SWAT.

While I LOVE Feel the Magic, I can't help but be a little dissapointed with Sprung. Instead of having multiple endings depending on who and how you hook up, you either say the right things and go on to the next stage, or you don't and you lose. Far too linear. It lacks a lot of charm and humor of the Japanese dating games, and replaces it with your typical jock meets babe kind of story. Lame. You want a fun DS game? Get Mr. Driller. I can't put it down.

"Mega Man" - 1,750,000 vs "Legend of Zelda" - 1,580,000 Kick ass, my all time favorite videogame franchise trumps one of the Big N's most popular. I wonder if porn ads have anything to do with it?

Okay, I was just researching this stuff today! Here's basically what I got... first, mod chips. Mod chips are available for the newer PS2, but only a few specific ones. If you order a mod chip, make sure it's compatible with V12 PS2s (that's the slim ones). As previously mentioned, though, it's a bit easier with the slim to just go for the old disc swap. The new Swap Magic 3.3 is compatible to load both CD and DVD-based PS2 games, but NOT PSX games. However, it's still not quite as easy as it used to be, though, to trick the PStwo into thinking that the lid is closed. You can try to rig it yourself, or for about $4, you can order a kit that comes with three pieces of plastic that are designed to fit into very specific spots on the PStwo to allow for you to open and close the lid and still trick the system into thinking the lid is shut. If you go that route, apparently you can argue that you didn't void the warranty, which is nice since the PStwo actually has a one year warranty. Another option is to replace the PStwo's lid. They sell lids that are kind of like toilet seats... the whole thing closes, but there's a part in the middle that still opens so you can get at the disc. If you're going to get a PStwo, disc-swapping might be the way to go. If you're set on a mod-chip (I've been perfectly happy with my DMS3), you're better off with the older PS2's. Believe it or not, but the laser on the PStwo is actually supposed to be LESS reliable than the older ones, even with all their "Disc Read Error"s. Mod-chips are supposed to aggravate the problem. One seller actually sells pre-modded PStwo's, but instead of just soldering the mod-chip, they apparently modify the laser as well to try to make it more reliable.

That car looks spiffy enough, but I've never been big on Jags, or European cars in general. I'd rather have a Japanese car with a more reliable and fuel efficient engine that, sure, doesn't have the ridiculous number of horses, but doesn't need them either because they're not so ridiculously large.

Good deal, I'll probably pick it up then.

China's problem isn't just that they need to learn how to build better fighters. Industry in general needs to modernize, or they're always going to end up with subpar fighters. Right now, Taiwan is more likely to build a better fighter than China.

Okay, to everyone who keeps saying that Zeta is the most overrated Gundam, I would challenge that the 08th MS Team takes that award. Zeta is full of human characters dealing with the war, and their own short-comings, in their own ways. Zeta also has some of the best mecha (Gundam Mk II, Marasai, Gaplant...), and blends the the human side of the story with some solid mecha action. The 08th MS, on the other hand, has jack diddly squat. It was by far the worst of the Gundam stories, save G-Saviour. Aside from the Gouf Custom, the mecha were ugly as sin, and that initial bit about they make the MS combat seem like tank warfare was not only not fully developed, but not that great to begin with. I'd be willing to forgive all this if the characters and story were any good, but the characters were horrid, and the story went nowhere. When I say that, aside from G-Saviour, 08th MS is my least favorite Gundam, I don't mean least favorite as the one I like the least of a group of things that all really kick ass, I mean it's my least favorite like Macross 7 is AgentOne's least favorite Macross. 0083 is similarly overrated, but not as bad. Everyone seems to love 0083 because it looks gorgeous, has some great mecha, and has some over the top combat scenes. If you like all that, but don't care much about story, then 0083 is perfect for you! I'm just not super fond of it it because I do happen to care about story, and 0083's not just lacking in story, it has more holes in the plot than Michael Moore's got in his boxers. And Keith, yeah, 0080 is small and incosequential... but that's the charm of it. It's so human. You're not seeing the war from the whole picture the way you do in the original TV series... you're seeing it as it affects a small group of people in an out-of -the-way colony. Bernie, Al, and Chris aren't the heroes of the One Year War like the crew of the White Base... they're just three people who are doing what they think is right in their situations. They're not Newtypes... they're just human.

I think we're still talking about the J-10. The Chinese had some deal to get the Lavi's avionics suite for use in the J-10, but they still had to do their own FCS, which they were having trouble with, and they were still trying to build one with a single F-16 engine, although they planned to use the same engines as the Su-27. I guess they just found it easier and more economical to just go with the Su-27 outright. Still, the mainland Chinese government is prideful, if nothing else. I could see them going through with the J-10 project, winding up with a subpar fighter that's a bitch to fly, and still field it because it was homegrown.

Where do you get stuff like that? My one friend was a huge Sega nut, and he'd LOVE that Dreamcast one.

You'll solve that mystery when you decide how to spell "Miria." As far as I know, the "Ko" in "Komiria" is the same "ko" whose kanji is "Child." In this case, "Komiria" would be something along the lines of "Miria Jr."

I don't mind contradicting him. I studied Japanese for four years with a native speaker, and have had plenty of native Japanese friends including one from Kanagawa, two from Nagoya, and one from Nagano. Fact: there is no "R" sound as we have in in English, although Neova is correct that Westerners who learn Japanese usually pronounce them as "R"s. However, that does NOT mean that they're pronounced as "L"s either. From the mouth of a native, it's really almost perfectly in the middle between "R" and "L." Try this, if you want. An English "RA" sound is made with the tongue back in the mouth. An English "LA" sound is made with the tip of the tongue slightly past the teeth, against the bottom of the top teeth. A Japanese "RA" is made with the tongue near the top front of the mouth, behind your front teeth. And for the romanization thing, words that should be written in hiragana or kanji would be written as normal, with the first letter of the sentence or of proper names being written with a capital, the rest lowercase. Words that would be written in katakana may be italicized or written in all capitals, or they may just be written like the rest of the sentence. For example, girlfriend would be written "gaaru furendo." In proper romanization of Japanese, there are no "L"s at all, and certainly not to differentiate between hiragana or katakana. Now, the thing is, the rules were made up by Westerners, for the convenience of westerners. "L" can turn up when the romanization is done by the Japanese themselves. This could be a personal preference, or just plain Engrish. In Millia's case, part of the issue at hand is that it's not a Engrish spelling of an English name, or one way of romanizing a Japanese word. It's a totally made up name. In katakana, it's spelled "Mi ri a" because, however Mikimoto envisioned her name to be, "Mi ri a" is the closest you can get with phonetic Japanese. Mikimoto and Big West may have had a different spelling/pronounciation in mind for the official spelling, but I personally know nothing about that. I kind of liked Miria myself, but Millia or Milia seems to be more popular around here.

Okay, call me a rebel if you must, but I actually didn't much care for 08th MS Team. It added nothing but crappy mecha to the One Year War. The early battles that showed planetside MS combat as something like tank warfare was cool, but the director and the show never really follows through on that. Not to mention that the characters all sucked to high heaven, save that one Gouf pilot... While we're at it, 0083 had some great mecha and mecha action, but as a story, is really almost better skipped. It's suppose to bridge some of the gap between Gundam and Z Gundam, like how Anaheim was playing both sides and the formation of the Titans, but actually create a lot more plot holes than it filled. Of the OVAs, the only one I can really reccomend is 0080. As short as it is, you really get to know the characters, and it's a very human story. Fans of flash over substance need not apply. For the best UC Gundam experience, watch Gundam (I prefer TV, but the subtitles are horrid and the movies are more readily available), then Z Gundam (which is, in my opinion, the best of the Gundam series), then Gundam ZZ (it starts off like a kick in the nuts, especially after Z Gundam, but stick with it, as it eventually gets back on track and gets almost as good as Z Gundam near the end), then watch Char's Counterattack for the conclusion. F-91 was mediocre and would have worked better if they actually did make the planned series to follow, and V Gundam, despite being set in the UC universe, plays out more like an AU Gundam (and in my opinion, SEED and Gundam X are both better than V, so...). A G-Saviour is just crap.

Either someone at that forum outright lied to you, or they gave you some other dialect besides the "official" Mandarin Chinese. "Happy new year" should be "Xin nian quai le!" so they had the chinese one wrong ? as for the original statement written "Chu Shen Tan" can any of you read what it actually says? does it say something vastly different? if so what does it say? Well, when people say "Chinese" and they're not talking Mandarin, they usually mean Cantonese, the dialect from the Guandong Province, and also the dialect they use in Hong Kong (which might be why the West picked it up as Chinese instead of the more official Mandarin... importation of kung fu movies). I don't know anything else about Cantonese, though, so I'm just guessing. I suspect Graham would know better. Oh, and as for the whole "Xin nian quai le," that's "Xin nian," which is "New Year," and "kuai le," which I guess doesn't translate directly, but implies that the speaker is wishing you something happy. If you replace "Xin nian" with "Sheng ri" (birthday), you'd get the Chinese for "Happy Birthday." My wife (she's from Beijing) reminds me that "Xin nian quai le" is a relatively modern and trendy phrase in China... they started using it because the West says "Happy New Year." More traditional New Year phrases in Chinese would be "Guo nian hao," which means something like "Good passing of the year," and "Gong xi fa cai" which is something like "Congratulations and good fortune." *EDITED AFTERTHOUGHT* "Chu shen tan" might still be Mandarin, but I don't recognize it because of the romanization. Chinese doesn't romanize nicely the way Japanese does... there have been many attempts by many people to come up with systems. I forget which ones are which of the older ones, like the one they usually use in Taiwan (where "gong xi fa cai" would be "gong hsi fa tsai"), but the Chinese government eventually came up with their own, called Pinyin, which sort of became the most accepted way to romanize Mandarin Chinese. All mainland born Chinese and most modern Chinese students (myself included) recognize Pinyin, but as previously mentioned, Taiwanese and older students of Chinese may use one of the older systems. Problem is, my Chinese isn't good enough that I'd recognize Mandarin that isn't written in Pinyin.

Not much to debate there... from what I read, China was trying to develop the Jian-10 by starting with a single F-16 provided by Pakistan, with the goal of being comparable in performance to the Mirage 2000's in Taiwan's air force, so for starters, we're already talking about a plane being built to be on par with the previous generation of fighters instead of more modern ones. Also, China apparently lacks the technology to build the appropriate engines, avionics, and FCS for the J-10, and would have had to get the FCS and avionics from Israel and the engines from Russia... so China went ahead and bought some Su-27's instead. The Su-27 looks to be more capable than the J-10 even with the same engine, so in all likelihood, China will abandon the J-10 entirely.

Either someone at that forum outright lied to you, or they gave you some other dialect besides the "official" Mandarin Chinese. "Happy new year" should be "Xin nian quai le!"

Hey, WJ, we (or at least I) hope you're not really discouraged by the reaction you're getting. I know you work REALLY hard and put a lot of time into creating the NMMA and Nanashi's, and providing your fellow fans with access to rare pics and info. It definately sucks to have lamers and leechers jack your work and claim it as their own. There are a lot of us, mostly regulars here, who are NOT making websites or redistrubuiting your scans, though. I know I like keeping detailed mechanical info for both Gundam and Macross handy, and it's not always convenient to get online to check your site, here, the Macross Compendium, MAHQ.net, etc. And, as was previously mentioned, your methods for protecting your scans were an inconvenience to some of us who just wanted to keep their own copy around for their own private use, not to redistribute, while the redistributers could still jack then if they really wanted to anyway. Anyway, again, I really hope you're not taking this as discouragement. I think the changes you're making will be for the better, and I know I really appreciate the info and pics you've shared with us over the last few years here at MW, and I really hope you'll continue and get your site up and running 100%. Just my two cents.

As far as I know, it's not out in the US, and it's fairly new in Japan, although the story is practically begging for a US release. Well, my Xbox isn't modded, so I'm not going to import it, but I'd definately check it out if it has a local release. In the meantime, I do intend to import Another Century's Era (PS2), which is made by the same company.

Aero Elite is in the same series as the Aero Wings/Aero Dancing series that was on Dreamcast. From what I've heard, it's supposed to be slightly more realistic than Ace Combat, but a lot less fun. And to tell the truth, I thought VF-X2 was better than the PS2 Macross game. I don't think that Sega AM2 has figured out that they're layout for the thrust and yaw controls is backward from everyone else's yet, and the air/space levels boiled down to sweeping back and forth, and shooting as much as you could in each pass. If Aero Elite is that dull, I don't think it'd hold my interest for long. Okay, does anyone want to try to argue that Lethal Skies or Top Gun: Combat Zones is better than Ace Combat? The only other air combat game I've heard of that's gotten any kind of positive press is Energy Air Force, and that's import only.

Airforce Delta Storm for Xbox still smokes every Ace Combat. Graphics, gameplay, cool planes, the game's got it all. Graphics, yes. Gameplay, no. Cool planes... I'd say that's up in the air. I still had mostly foreign fighters I'd never heard of like the J-7, and hadn't even unlocked an F-14 before I quit playing.

What is the most lucrative fighter program for the US defence industry? Its certainly not the f-22, it was the F-16 because of its massive foreign sales. When you have foreign sales your return is far more than if you build a fighter for yourself because you don't pay O&M costs. The F-35 will become the next F-16... everybody is buying into it. Moreover over 20% of its development costs have been paid for by other countries, so its not that large a drain on the Military budget. If you kill the F-35 the development of the US military aircraft industry will be dead. You think that there are problems now with not enough f-22s, there will not be compeditive companies available 10 years down the line to design a new fighter when the real threat appears. The F-35 is also supposed to relatively cheap, with more off-the-shelf electronics componenets, easier access to areas that require frequent maintainance, and a lower R&D cost since it borrows some R&D for the Raptor program. Add that to the fact that there are supposedly a ton already on order for the USAF, the Marines, the Navy, and Britain's Royal Navy, with a lot of expressed interest from other countries as a potential replacement for their F-16s. At this point, it's more or less impossible to can the F-35... but I think it's just stupid to can the Raptor. The R&D costs can never be recovered, and the fewer bought, the higher the per-unit cost, not to mention that US military forces will be relying on the 30-year old F-15 or Navy Super Hornets for air superiority, which as David already mentioned, isn't going to work when other countries are buying Eurofighters, Rafales, Gripens, and Super Flankers. Personally, I think the DoD should try to negotiate a better deal with Lockheed (on account of how many JSF's will be sold, perhaps by easing the export restrictions on the F-35), and try to come up with more money by nixing pet projects or privatizing NASA, and get the number of F-22's back up near 500.

Not a lot you can do about where the cockpit's place on a plane, I suppose, but couldn't they have at least come up with a new FCS and a new layout for the HOTAS and insturments that would have improved the F-14D or Tomcat 21's flyability? The F-22 (as oppossed to the YF-22) seems to have a good cockpit placement far enough forward and up high enought that I think Raptor pilots ought to have a good view. Not sure about the HOTAS, cockpit layout, or FCS, though, having never been in or flown one myself. Without starting a debate over whether or not the YF-22 should have rightfully beaten out the YF-23 to be the Airforce's new fighter, the YF-23 strikes me as being too large to make a good naval plane. The F-22 seems to have a slightly narrower fuselage, and while a joint like the F/A-18's or F-35C's to fold up the wings would have helped with the YF-23's massive wings, the F-22N's VG wing seems like a better idea. I just can't image how a VG wing would have worked on a YF-23 without more drastic changes than the F-22 would have had to have gone through. Again, that's just my thought. IMHO, in a perfect world, the USAF could have found a use for both the F-22 and the YF-23, they'd buy a lot more of both than they seem to be planning to buy, and they'd be getting them into service a lot faster (by the time the 22 actually does enter service, they'll need a replacement for it!), and the Navy would have got the VG F-22 to replace the Tomcat.