1/1 LowViz Lurker

Ahhh got a nostalgiac surge clicking that article and seeing the models. Now I know what those models kits were from that I had all those years ago.

The classic "Autobots! Transform and roll out!" should definately be in there somewhere. Followed by the old transforming sound and detailed view of how each robot transforms in front of our eyes as we look on in amazement. Then the revving of engines as they head out to take down the decepticons in battle with prime in front leading the charge like a rhino in truck mode, boostjumping in midair to transform into a robot and gunning down the enemies one by one as his gun demolishes thier robot bodies into many pieces from the impact. The gun would also sound about 5 times more powerful than everyone elses gun to set him apart from the others. Prime would of course recieve many shots from enemy weapons and the damage would be negligable unlike what happens to all the weaker autobots and the deception minions would be fleeing in terror too scared to take him on face to face until he gets to megatron for a final fight. That's what the fans want to see. It's more the actions of prime that tell us who he is than what he says. If they don't build prime up to be "the leader" any death would have no impact. (BTW I personally want prime to die in the live action movie just like in the animated movie. They are robots with souls with unique personalities. No death in a movie just wouldn't feel right imo)

I liked the fact that minmay's world was destroyed by the war, and that reality set in for both of them. It wasn't just about them at all, but what would have been best for future generations. Without one (the dream. which is what minmay set out to do and achieve onboard the macross)you can't have the other. (the reality. hikaru being grounded in the everyday conflict to protect what exists to ensure a future) Both dream and reality are co-dependant. Sure the love triangle was important, but beyond just those three main characters, were the hopes of other people riding on thier success as soldiers and in minmay's case, the use of spreading culture to aliens and not just getting rich and famous and living an easy life as a star. Too bad they all died on the megaroad though. I still think of the tv series as the best telling of SW I vs the simplified movie version. You never got the chance to see the characters change and build in a short space of time. Hikaru merely sleeps with misa out of desperation of being the only survivors left rather than genuine appreciation for who she is and then hikaru decides he takes misa over minmay so suddenly and quickly with no realistic timeframe to explain that decision and bring justification to it. TV series > movie. (accept in the area of quality of animation of course)

These pics are convincing me to get this now instead of wait for a toon colored 'scream. So is the stress mark problem just a few people or has everyone noticed this problem when transforming it? How sturdy is this say compared to the altetnators? Starscream is my favourite decepticon along with Soundwave and Devastator. But if they do another Masterpiece and get around to doing megatron, I hope they do G2 tank megs. (not the g1 gun) My reason I think is that Tanks, Planes, and Cars are popular vehicles and they look good as toys. With the G1 Classics megatron....I would so not want something similar like that as a masterpiece aimed at adult collectors. Fluro colors are a massive turn off. I never really liked the idea of him being a gun that much anyway. (in the end, I care more about the coolness of the toy above other things)

Come on hobby mags, show us some CAD lineart for the 21 then if that is what it is. *Wets pants in anticpation*

I'm betting on them doing it. If we can assume the vf-0 was done due to its similarity to the existing vf-1 toys, then I will assume the similarity between GBP and reactive armor means at some point we could get it. They decided to do the ghost booster which is essentially just a fast pack so far at least.. I love the concept of a mecha that can wear and eject armor and shoot missiles all over the place like it is a last desperate attempt to survive against all odds. ( a bit like the idea of the SDF-1 main gun which is the ship equivalent of an over-the-top super move that kill everything in one clean sweep) Missile swarms are the cool thing about macross. The bad guys never seem to have as good ideas as un spacy though. I wonder if the zentradi would ever come up with thier own version of GBP for the transforming gluag in future or something? In gundam each side copies all the ideas of the other and made thier own versions of things.

Thanks for the review. Maybe you should try to sell your old VF0S for cheap for when the next VF0S come out with the VF0A improvments? VF0S with stiff joints and tampo printing with reactive armor is going to kick ass but I'm too scared to get a loose one so I'm going to wait till yamato perfect and refine this close to 1/48 level. Fighter mode of the zero line is my fave mode. I'm going to leave my VF0S in reactive armor, while the 0A is going to be equiped with ghost booster. Next up: VF0D?

Well I think if they were going to go with it, I would prefer that Yamato aim it at collectors rather than the mainstream. Like with the VF-0 originally going to be 1/100 and then getting upscaled, I think in the long term it would pay off. (given how little this thing appears and all) Sure it might be more expensive, but those who want it as fans of that design will pay for the boost in quality and any advantage that comes at a bigger scale. The kind of things that I would want at smaller scales are non-transformable alien mecha with not that much detail on them in the first place with little moving parts and stuff. (ie regult, glaug etc) These are big enough that imo you wouldn't necessarily want them in large scale. 1/48 is good enough size for vf-1 because of the added detail. 1/60 is good for Qrau as that is pretty huge already. Same with VF-0. If they could cram heaps of detail on smaller stuff then go for it. But I feel that smaller details like the markings and stuff would be easier to see and look better with a boost in size for some mecha. Things like articulated hands and stuff would be better too if they were in large scale. I want as close as they can get to a PG level of detail for as many valks that are made.

Well I hope we do get a vf-4 even if it takes years. Let it be the "VB-6 monster" (ie take us by surprise) of the next wave of macross goodies.

Finally now I can see the ending.

All the secrecy about the features of the yf19 was a bit unecessary though imo. I mean not telling us that the shoulders can angle up on the 19 and graham laughing at us for 50 pages is a sick and twisted, you know what I mean? Like someone said: it's not like there are other companies competing with them, so it makes no sense to me that they'd hold back on info like that instead of just revealing all in one chunk.

The 1/48 are the best. Durable, but watch out for certain things like the backpack hinge and you should be ok. When you buy fast packs, the added weight is enough to make it feel heavy if that's what you like in toys. I personally like that these have a light feel to them and don't suffer from floppy limbs. (like the old yamato 1/72 macross plus line) Hopefully the 1/60 macross plus and macross zero lines all have tight joints and durability enough to be transformable with no worries. Another factor about the larger scale is the lack of fear if you scrape pieces against each other which ordinarily would scrape paint off a diecast toy over time. My 1/72 scale yf-21 thighs in robot mode have paint peeling off like crazy. I've left it in fighter mode ever since I started to notice flakes of paint on my fingers from handling this too much. You won't get that problem with the 1/48 because they are mostly plastic.

I didn't really like Hybrid style prime's forearms much because they were too chunky. It's the same reason I kinda hate gundam mecha with really large feet. (ie the bottom is "flared" out alot)

I think they should make a see-through starscream when he appeared as a ghost at one point. Call it low visibility starscream. Make this limited edition like yamato credit card valk.

I have a feeling that SS will appear as toon accurate colors anyway. If you are a bot mode fan I think toon accuracy might be the more favourable one since SS is so much more recognisable in non-realistic colors as a character. (vs a mecha) As for realism: SS has lasers and stuff that real world ones still haven't got. Unlike the alternator line, (where thier weapons are not even shown in alt mode) the G1 toys could also be of things that were not necessarily 100% realistic vehicles. Jetfire anyone? Bring on the 1/72 alternator jets already so we can get some cheap transformer valkyries.

Rogue squadron kicks ass. I was surprised how much speech they crammed into that game. I remember getting the little memory expansion thing so I could play this and turok 2 in high res.

Good to see nanashi is still doing the rest. I thought maybe he gave up or lost interest in it. That would have sucked.

A future 1/60 VF-11 would look good next to those two.

I could live with rubber guns (like the material used for bubble hands on the yamato 1/48) but not rounded nose for MP SS. That'd suck. Kids shouldn't be buying these. They are always finding new ways to kill each other.

Try downloading the CCCP. Will eliminate conflicts between codec packs, (a problem I used to have when I had heaps of different things all installed simultaneously) and requires little technical knowledge. homepage: http://www.cccp-project.net/ One of the things about vlc is the subs look damn ugly. I used to use it alot in the past though. Now I am happy with media player classic. I have K-lite codec pack installed currently for anime. (claims it will play 99% of all movies downloaded from the internet so it might be worth a try for all those who are still having codec related problems. When you install this it will actually scan for all the stuff you already have installed on your system and ask if you want to uninstall them first. Very convenient for those who are too lazy to do this manually.)

Yeah but Optimus was missing his trailer. Ultra magnus was missing his armor. And then the different gun colors, the smokestacks etc If I were a kid who could choose to own only 1, I would go with SS. Looks good in both modes. If displaying, I would only leave prime in bot mode..

I agree here. I hate the yamato stickers, they will peel off eventually and if there is a lot of them, it takes ages to put them on and line them up. (that doesn't even take into account the skill and patience of having to shave off the excess part of the sticker where the printed part is all you need and the blank space gets in the way or is too big to fit on the surface that it is supposed to stick onto.) I think the 50% tampo markings one of one type, and 50% tampo markings for the other type is a good idea. As long as we get printed detail I'm happy. I've been looking at all the pics of vf0a, the head looks really cool. I actually don't mind that this is the only 0A because I am a fan of grey CF. (the vf11 in mac+ for example) But if in future they decide to release ova accurate color I wouldn't be surprised. I wonder how this would look with the reactive armor on? After they finish with ghost booster I would hope they worked on that next.

Yep it has happened. Some people don't read the ads properly and the seller can get away with it if worded a certain way.

lol Reminds me of people who sell empty carboard boxess on ebay and people ended up paying hundreds of dollars for one because they assumed they bought the item displayed on the box and not an empty cardbard box.

Considering how much more common the low vis 1 is and how much that goes for on ebay that isn't too bad. Remember only 3 in the world. Of course the actual thing itself isn't worth the money, just the RARE RARE RARE factor that boosts its demand and makes the collector feel incomplete without it and having the bragging right of having something no one else can have. Good thing I'm not the collector type. All mine are for display not locked in a box forever. It's like diamonds. They are "valuable" on the basis of being rare, (which surprisingly they aren't) not necessarily because the shiny rock is actually worth the money.