Alpha OTS

Downloaded the 360 demo and just finshed playing it a couple times. First thing I tried to do was take notice of the ground detail, and it's better than AC6. It also seems to remember weapons impact to buildings. Otherwise it's graphically about the same. The assistance mode is a nice gimmick, but nothing I'll ever use. I don't think it's intended for us. It's intended for the general public who want to see the replay camera *while* playing. I felt like it gave me less control over my plane. I won't buy this new, but it's definitely on my buy list for $30 to $40.

So PS3 or Xbox? Or are both versions identical?

I've been actively hunting for them too, but I don't think they've hit widespread release yet. I would have much preferred a legends scale Powerglide. I don't like that larger figure even in red. The proportions are just weird.

I'm a little curious about the coincidence of Liam's passing and Sam's re-emerging brain activity. Maybe Sam will wake up and be able to do nothing but "ga ga, goo goo!" noises. The episode didn't do much to advance the plot though. Too much re-iteration of the "Ellen is a bitch" theme which we're already very familiary with. Maybe it was a bit necessary story wise because she seemed "pure" upon resurrection. One line that did stick with me was from Adama: "They're putting that stuff inside her. It might save her. She'll look like the Galactica from the outside, but on the inside, who knows what she is...." Integration continues to be a serious problem that no one's trying to fix. And VF-19, I have two of the new style cylons, but no shoulder troubles. The QC on them is very nice. Unfortunately I can't say the same for my Razor Warrior Centurion.

Thanks! The detail is really simple and doesn't interfere with transformation either. Like I said, he was a blob of red before, but now I think I have something a bit more approaching the G1 toon model without having to fork out Henkei bucks. I actually passed on quite a few IH's on the pegs before settling on this one. I'm a little dissappointed with the paint apps on most of the new classics figures. Sloppy paint apps, missing paint apps, and even gashes in paint apps like the windows on Sideswipe(most of the ones on the pegs had windshield gashes). Even this IH wasn't immune. He had blue spattered on the top of his helmet from where they painted his face. I had to scrape it off.

I'm really enjoying Universe Ironhide now since making a couple simple acrylic paint touch-ups. There's two things that bugged me most, the face and the arm screws. The default blue face is not awful, and being that the head is tilted down anyway fortunately seems to diminish its effect. Plus I'm taking it that the rumor that later runs of Universe Ironhide would have a silver face have proven untrue, so its not like you have an option to avoid it anyway. The arm screws are much harder to ignore. I just can't stand it when the screws are that blatantly obvious. I can't think of any other transformer I've owned where they were so prominent. <looking at my shelf> Wait, I was wrong, G1 Pretender Starscream is pretty bad too, but he at least has some more color to break it up so the screws weren't so distracting, plus he's a G1 figure, and not a very good one so there's other things to focus on him before even considering the visible screws. After applying gray to the face and black to just the face of the upper and mid arms, the figure's much closer to what I wanted. I think I prefer this over the Henkei. It's amazing what a tiny bit of paint can do for some figures. G1 Ironhide is definitely in the mold. It's a shame the default Universe paint scheme doesn't bring it out as much as the Henkei or a couple simple paint apps like this one has does. The default is just too much of an amorphorous blob of red, and I think the visible screws have an added effect of making the red brighter too. I really like the proportions, but he still seems kind of short when standing next to the other classics though. Since becoming familiar with his transformation, I kind of like it. There is a little bit of a learning curve to get through so each step doesn't interfere with another. I'm still a little dissappointed with the end product, particularly because of the jigsawed side panels, but getting to alt mode is at least interesting. I like it.

I found a Guide to Cylon variant action figures. In case you want to see the differences between all the released metal toasters.

My Warrior arrived, and I'm a little bothered by the QC. Lots of loose joints and the left forearm is very loosely connected to the upper arm, I think it'll tear off if I try moving it too much. Has anyone put up a picture anywhere showing the difference between the guardian and the warrior?

They reminded me of that G1 season 3 episode where Rodimus, Arcee and Magnus have their consciousness transfered to synthoids.

I've been thinking about that and what changed that we don't see the pookas so much any more. My current theory is that Baltar and Six have been in close proximity to each other for quite some time. I'm wondering if the download "code" corrected itself. This might explain why Baltar saw a pooka Baltar once instead of Six, because the auto-correction was in the midst of working. I've always thought they were in each others heads because Six's download was corrupted by the atomic blast near Baltar, which ended up in swapping "code" with Baltar's brain. The Cylons also seem to have visions pretty frequently. I'm wondering if this is just masked over "code" in their heads trying to come to the forefront. Heck, they kind of confirmed that with Deana seeing the faces of the Five.

But it IS honking huge. There's a post by one of the mods at the Allspark and he keeps emphasizing how the pics don't convey how large the figure actually is. I just don't care for large figures any more. I like them even less when they don't have any feature that necessitates the size. I bought the micro versions of the Power Ranger RPM zords because they're tiny and pretty representative of the larger sets even with their size and partforming. The more I'm thinking about this $100 Devastator, the more I think of those micro sets, and how it seems that a $9.99 set is doing more than a $100 one. This seems like a repeat of Supreme Cheetor, only at double the cost. I sense some major shelfwarming with this set. For what it does, I think a robot replica Devastator would be a better substitute.

Devastator is 2 feet tall? I'm put off that the limbs don't have individual robot modes, but that alone wasn't enough to pass on it. A two foot tall robot's a bit too large for me though.

Amen, brother.

I have to agree. I distinctly remember being dissappointed by the designs for the first movie when they hit the net, and nothing could really dissuade me from that opinion. That is, until I saw the first trailer, and then when I saw the movie I was even happier with them. I'm keeping that in mind when I see these new movie sequel designs because I'm currently not liking many of them either.

Am I the only one who got the impression that while Cylon Earth was being nuked that ressurection technology wasn't just for the 5 we know, but for the entire population? The flashbacks were random in such a way that I thought the final five were just ordinary people going about their business on Cylon Earth when the attack happened. Maybe what makes these five special is that their download signal managed to reach the colonies, so not really that special at all, more like lucky.

Well that too.

I was put off quite a bit by that too. I'm no gun expert, but I always thought shooting the gun like that decreases your accuracy quite a bit.

He was awake the entire time. That's why he said "I am Megatron!" upon awakening, because the humans kept calling him "NBE-01".

That's the only thing I didn't like about the jet mode. I'm wondering if it can be folded up further to hide it better. At least this time he looks good from the front and doesn't have such a huge non-aerodynamic undercarriage. Despite the hands, the alt mode is a huge improvement over the previous figure. Upon closer inspection, bot mode is looking better too.

There's been pics of the Heinkei Dinobot? Where?

New movie Starscream, eh? Hrmm. Much better F-22 mode. Something doesn't look right about the bot mode. He looks even more like a kite than the previous mold. Ironhide doesn't look changed enough to warrant replacing my Premium. I picked up classics Ironhide and Hound. I found an Ironhide that didn't have a bunch of paint defects, only to get him home, transform him, and find that they mispainted blue on his helmet. Grrr. Managed to scrape that off. The blue-face is a little offputting. I finally went ahead and repainted it gray. There's a single screw holding the two halves of the head together, and the face is easy to paint once you remove that half of the head. I'm beginning to think that rumor that Hasbro was going to correct the face color was just that. The base red really should have been darker on this figure. He's a nice figure, but he just doesn't have the elegance of transformation that the other classics have. Hound is a really nice figure, but I'm really annoyed that the shoulder cannon does not clip to the shoulder at all. At least it can be held like a handheld weapon, but on the back is where I wanted it. Ravage is just fantastic. Yeah, he doesn't have much useful articulation, but it's just so cool that they've taken a G1 sized cassette and managed to give it true bulk and width in bot mode. I saw Smokescreen on the pegs. I'm kind of hesitating on him. I'm trying to stick to the characters I like, and Smokescreen wasn't as memorable as Prowl and Bluestreak.

What would be cool is if they released this new set of Combaticons with G1 toon colored parts where you always got the impression that BlastOff formed the right arm *and* chest.

I'd love to see a reissue Devastator *with* gestalt pieces that allow for articulation. It could be done pretty easily, methinks.

And then some....

HA! That was classic! And the funniest part is that I recognized every one of those sound clips!