Apollo Leader

So you guys probably havent seen this on the main sites or possibly even heard of it.

In the late 90's there were some great vertical shooters called Raiden Fighters.

I use to play it at the Student Union every weekend.

Well now you can play it on your 360 with online leaderboards!

You get all 3 games in the series with loads of video options and perfect emulation for the low cost of $20!!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raiden_Fighters_(series)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raiden_Fighters_Aces

http://www.amazon.com/Raiden-Fighter.....;/dp/B001PA0FBS

http://www.gamestop.com/Catalog/Prod...oduct_id=74040

Overall if you are a fan of balls to walls shooters with loads of enemies and 90's techno then this is for you!

Shooter fan rating 9/10 Casual fans probably wont like it nearly as much.

Haven't opened it up yet, but I did pick it up from a local Gamestop back on Memorial Day last week. When I originally saw this game show up in Milk's achievements I thought he had either gotten an import game (either on disc or XBLA). As someone who has loved Schmups since I was a kid, it's great getting a compilation like this on the 360. I just got done reading the links above and I had no idea that it took over 10 years to get these games on a home release. Not to mention that it got a US release which is also pretty sweet.

Hmmmm... My Elite just RROD this morning. Gotta bring it to the service center to get it exchanged. Will let you guys know how it works out.

Ouch. Definitely know that pain.

So I broke down and threw my money into Sony's billion dollar hole.

I don't have it yet, wifey bought it for me while visiting her parents (Oregon, no sales tax, YAY!) and she's not back yet. Not a bad deal, got the 80gb version with Motorstorm and Resistance included and a free second wireless controller for $399 and then an HDMI cable. I probably got raped and they'll probably drop the price by $200 within a couple months as is per usual whenever I buy a Playstation product, so this thing better be worth it!

Now, is GT5 coming out sometime this century or...?

Vostok 7

Hopefully this doesn't ruin your day.

Slim PS3 revealed?

The box for the alleged PS3 model indicates a 120 GB hard drive. So far there's been a 20, 40, 60, two 80's (one with backwards compatibility, one without), and a 160. I wonder how many more hard drive variants Sony is going to come out with?

I got a question. Did Microsoft change their policy regarding DLC being useable when a system is not connected to XBL? I just spent nearly an hour having a go around with two different support people from Microsoft claiming that there's a newer policy in which one's DLC only works if their system is hooked up to XBL? That sucks because a lot of times I play my system at parties and other gatherings in which I don't have an online connection, but it was sure nice being able to play my DLC (like my Rock Band DLC songs) while not being hooked online. Either way, this stinks.

Believe it or not, I already got my confirmation e-mail saying my system's been fixed and is being returned! Since it was an RROD, I suspect they're sending me another refurbished system (please have HDMI...), but I shall see in a few days.

As for the job situation, there was one promising prospect I sent my resume to last week. Otherwise I've been mainly focused on getting my resume tweaked, redoing my portfolio, getting all my references lined up, and spending my time trying to relax and go for long bike rides since the weather's been nice. This is a huge change for me because both of the jobs I've been at since 1995 have involved a lot of the same people. This is going to be a huge change for me even if I stay in generally the same field.

Got my system back today and it's actually the system I sent in so I guess technically I'm still on my second system, so no HDMI for me! The main thing that sucks now is I have to reload all my download content because if I try to play the system with out a Live connection, it won't let me use my XBLA games etc.

Hopefully soon Apollo.

Hope the job situation remedy's soon as well.

Believe it or not, I already got my confirmation e-mail saying my system's been fixed and is being returned! Since it was an RROD, I suspect they're sending me another refurbished system (please have HDMI...), but I shall see in a few days.

As for the job situation, there was one promising prospect I sent my resume to last week. Otherwise I've been mainly focused on getting my resume tweaked, redoing my portfolio, getting all my references lined up, and spending my time trying to relax and go for long bike rides since the weather's been nice. This is a huge change for me because both of the jobs I've been at since 1995 have involved a lot of the same people. This is going to be a huge change for me even if I stay in generally the same field.

Last Thursday I got my shipping label for my 360 and I immediately sent it on its merry way. Apparently it arrived at Microsoft's repair facility last night or this morning so I should be back in the swing of things in not too many more days or weeks.

Been a bit weird not having my system around, but at least it's allowed me to focus on other things right now.

For those who feel nostalgic, Red Octane and Activision will release Guitar Hero: Smash Hits, which includes 48 songs from the first four Guitar Hero releases (I-III plus Encore: Rocks the 80s). Unlike the old releases, all songs will be original master recordings and will feature bass, drum and vocal tracks so four players will try their guts out on "Through the Fire and Flames." Unfortunately, "Iron Man" did not make the set list.

Guitar Hero: Smash Hits

I wish Iron Man and Ziggy Stardust would have made it too, granted the GHI Ziggy Stardust cover is fairly longer then the David Bowie original song, but otherwise I'm now starting to have more excuses to get rid of GHI and Rocks the 80's for my PS2.

Oh yeah, Rock Band is doing a Lego game later this year. One of the songs will be Europe's The Final Countdown so I'm looking forward to that.

Microsoft Promises Relief for E74 Victims

To be honest, I'm not sure which error my original 360 suffered. The system started freezing up and stuff over a two week period. It finally came up with an error message (maybe E74) and that's what finally got my system shipped off to Microsoft.

This afternoon, I received my shipping label and I dropped the system off at UPS. Hopefully I will be set once again in 2 or 3 weeks.

First I lost my job this week...

Then just a few hours ago my Xbox 360 RRODed. I had taken my system over to my brother's to play for a few hours. When I hooked it up, it was working fine. Then I shut it down and we left it for like half an hour. As soon as I turned it on again, the three red quadrants came up. No error message on the screen, no warning signs like when my launch system went bad three years ago, just NOTHING... I took it back home and it was doing the same thing.

Good news is my refurbished system is still under warranty so shipping and repair/replacement is for free even though I've had it for almost three years.

Guess the other good news is that I can focus on my job hunt and updating my resume instead of playing video games.

Another year, another WreslteMania.

Anybody watching it this evening? This will be the fourth year in a row me and one of my friends are going a local sports bar to watch it.

(Look at that, a post to the wrestling thread that wasn't about a wrestler prematurely dying or killing someone! )

That was due to them trying to make a toy from scratch though, with the valkyries the only new tooling would be the new heads for the Robotech Veritech releases.

Also is the Macross Frontier lineup by Tamashii in the mix?

I'll have to look into that. To my memory, the only thing in the official announcement almost a year ago was the 1/55th only.

Good games last night Apollo!

Always a pleasure!

I am loving the new Gears2 maps!

The maps are awesome! My only quip is they are all snow. I'm sick of snow... we're possibly getting snow up here in Nebraska this weekend.

oh wow, I didn't know about this transfer cable and cd. Is there a picture of it? where can I get one? when I took my xbox in to get it replaced, I just kept my old HD and put it on the new xbox I got. I didn't think there was a way to transfer the data anywhere. And how does this work? Do you need two xbox console's to make the transfer?

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/937279?sd=xbox

Migration kit order form (it's free).

As for the transfer, you just need the system, the original hard drive plugged in, the USB transfer cable (plugged in through the back USB), the new hard drive, and the transfer disk. The directions tell you what exactly to do.

Did you by any chance use the transfer cable to migrate the date from your old hard drive to the new one?

Yeah, there was a transfer cable and a CD that came with the dard drive for doing the proccedure. I think it took over an hour to do the transfer. I was looking at the the 60 GB drive, too, but apparently they don't come with the transfer cable and disk.

Delayed til when? Any word on the Strike, GPS-1, ELINT, or SUPER O?

That information I do not have (either dates or any developments on the VF-1 variants or remolded heads). All I know is that things are still on. Just remember it took quite a few years between the time Toynami showed their original Beta prototype until an actual production toy that would work with their Alpha actually came out. If I can find out anything more and if I'm given the okay, I'll post it here.

I did some asking around and it appears that the Toynami/Tamashi deal for the old 1/55th's is still in the works, just been delayed. It hasn't been derailed by Big West or anything like that, at least not apparently.

As of this weekend, the only thing left of my original Xbox 360 are my A/V cable, power cable and converter, and the controller. I finally upgraded my system to a 120 GB hard drive. Nice to have plenty of space again.

Yesterday the new map pack for Gears of War 2 came out. Me and MilkManX and some of his friends were playing it for a while. The new achievements have been available for a number of days as well. I was so happy last month to have beaten all the original achievements, but me thinks some of these rank based achievements might be unobtainable for me.

Is the 1/35th RX-78-2 Kai an extension of the FIX Figuration series? That looks pretty sweet!

I think this now makes two production F-22's loss. The reality is that with a high performance fighter you are going to lose a lot more of them then a bomber. In the case of the B-2, for example, it basically takes off, flies to some point across the globe, comes back, lands, and that's about it. With a fighter, the aircraft is going to be flying through a lot more flight regimes and exposing itself (and its pilot) to all kinds of G forces. This is why you got to build aircraft like these in greater numbers.

Regardless of the media source, I wish more of these "journalists" would sit down and look over the stats and performances of the F-22 vs. the F-35, not to mention what they are designed to do. The F-22 is probably stealthier (notice all the "bumps" and stuff that have appeared on the production F-35 while the F-22 is much cleaner), has a MUCH bigger air-to-air missile payload, greater thrust-to-weight ratio, longer range (I think! I'll have to double check), two-engined reliability. The only thing the F-35 can do better is carry larger bombs internally. The F-22 was tailored for pure air-to-air while the F-35 was created to be a cheaper aircraft to act as ground support.

For those interested, I was at a Toys R Us a few days ago and saw that the Xbox 360 Gibson Xplorers are being cleared out for just $9.99 each. Though I just recently got a few wireless guitars, the wired Xplorers don't use batteries and they are fairly rugged so I went ahead and picked up two. It looks like this special price might be going on at other Toys R Us's so this might be a good time to get some extra gear.

Going to a single source fighter producer can't be good for the US!

Been thinking of the same thing as of late. Lockheed as it is is in a bit of a pickle since both the F-22 and F-35 are competing for the same defence dollars and are trying to justify their existences.