Captain of the SDF-1 Macross

That why I hate the pathway video-games are taking now a days.... I want a system that plays games, not a system that doubles as a microwave oven, swiss army knife, telephone, airplane and car.

This reminds me of the time when the Sega Game Gear and the NEC TurboXpress handhelds that doubles as miniature TVs by plugging in a TV tuner add-on.

Or the time Nintendo added the Game Boy Camera/Printer add-on for the Game Boy, making it also a portable digital camera/printer.

Wow. No love for the Saturn? It did have the Macross DYRL game before Bandai ported it to the PS One.

Oh, yes. I really liked the intro. I remember seeing the game at a comic con and my response is "a remake of Macross"?

The only Saturn games I liked were the Sakura Wars RPG games, even though I never got to play them. The remakes and sequels for the Dreamcast were also just as good.

Had Sega released the Sakura Wars games in English, it would have extended the lifespan of the Saturn or the Dreamcast. <_<

I also found pictures of the real Subaru Imprezza WRC team too, courtesy of Remy's TF World (tfkenkon.com):

http://www.tfkenkon.com/g/?mode=album&albu...=Subaru%2FPart1

http://www.tfkenkon.com/g/?mode=album&albu...=Subaru%2FPart2

Lastly, a cute close-up.

Also, I found a few more pictures of Smokescreen with the 1/1 scale Subaru and a racing girl. I can't link the pictures, so I have to post them.

I found them from here:

http://adctalk.com/index.php?showtopic=194...&hl=smokescreen

And here's the other.

I found some ads for the Smokescreen toy. I can't link them, so I have to post them.

And I vote for the TurboGrafx-16 as worst system. Why? Any console that has THIS guy as it's mascot needs to rot in hell.

The comic hero Johnny Turbo is *NOT* the console mascot. He's basically part of a comic ad campeign as a last ditch effort from NEC to get people to buy the all-in-one Turbo Duo, which is a TG-16 and a CD-ROM drive in one package.

I had the whole comic shorts found on EGM magazine. It's basically Johnny promoting the Turbo Duo while fighting against Agent Smith-lookalikes as video game dealers who use hypnosis to get customers buy their game systems. Funny stuff.

You're forgetting that flop that Apple put out for a little while. The Pippin or something like that (it's been a while).

Yeah, it's a collaberation between Bandai and Apple (when it was runned by Amelio), as an effort to promote the PowerPC CPU for home systems. It died not only for lack of support but also Amelio couldn't think of anything to do with it. By the time Steve Jobs returned, the Pippin was canned.

One of the good things about the PowerPC CPU was that it is a joint effort of Apple, IBM and Motorola to make an excellent CPU loaded with great features.

Yet, one of the PowerPC CPUs, a souped-up G3, was made for the Nintendo GameCube.

What's with the hentai dress? Isn't she showing a little more then she should?

Half of Lux's outfits are like that, while the other half are conservative stuff. Like all of the fanservice in Gundam SEED, I don't see a problem.

While a peace activist, Lux is 1000x better than Relena and more good looking too.

Well, actually, the Lynx had a more powerful processor than the Game Gear and the Game Boy combined. Like the NEC TurboXPress, It had potential to be a great portable console, but it died due to a lack of software support.

Let's not forget that all of the non-Nintendo color handhelds before the Neo-Geo Pocket Color are battery guzzlers.

Is she the princess/singer with the pink Haros

The princess/singer with the pink Haros is Lux Klein. And she's 1000x better than Relena.

Just a question.... who is Flay? Is she the princess/singer with the pink Haros or is she the crazy psychotic Katejina wanna be that went nuts when her father was killed?

Frey is the crazy psychotic Katejina-wannabe.

Virtual Boy, worst system ever!

I wish I can forget the eyesore effects after playing it, plus giving me a headache as well that I have to take an aspirin.

Nintendo created this in response to the cancelled virtual headset add-ons made by the competition, so they went ahead to be the first to do it.

Frankly, virtual headseat gaming isn't that great anyway, IMO. Like 3-D glasses, the technology today still hasn't fixed its shortcomings.

Oh yeah!! The CD-i was by far the worst and most useless console ever concieved by man.

What I can't forget about it was that it was once a Nintendo/Philips collaberation as a stopgap until Nintendo tries to finish its (then cancelled) CD add-on. This was a result of the decision when Nintendo breaks its collaberation with Sony for a CD-based system, which became the Sony Playstation.

Did anyone remember (or forget) the Legend of Zelda games that was made for the CD-i?

And I find the infomercials for this electronic monstrosity the most annoying way to promote it.

I some how doubt that.

Yeah, but that was pre-Windows/M$ Office.

M$ didn't overtake the competition until they released Windows and MS Office programs. Coupled with PC cloners, it left the competition in the dust.

The 32x was a bad idea too. They were just trying to get thier system on par with the SNES, in an attempt to tide gamers over til the Saturn came out. And like the rest, the software spport killed it.

Not only that, it was totally unneccessary to make the 32x in the first place, since the Saturn can do the same and then some.

The Tremmel family, who owned Atari during the 80's and 90's, were pretty much the Harmony Gold of video gaming.

Ditto. Back then, both Atari and Commodore were thinking alike and both of them made a lot of bad decisions that lead to their demise. At their peak, they used to have more money than Microsoft.

From an article, I found four basic points from that summed up the demise of both companies:

1. Negativity doesn't sell. Always extol the virtues of your product first.

2. Never abandon your customers. Atari always followed the apparent money -- to the detriment of its customers. It abandoned products suddenly, after promising to support them, and dropped core customers when it became clear that effort would have to be expended to maintain a product's success. It was always looking for the "easy sell" -- a machine that could be assembled cheaply, out of generic parts, with little or no value added, and sold to a group of users always willing to shell out money to help "save the company!" As you can tell, most enthusiasts tired of the game after the second or third round.

3. Cheap doesn't sell. This was the title of a Forbes article on Atari in 1993, which blasted the firm's management for refusing to spend even a few million dollars on marketing.

4. Failure to communicate your plans with key resellers, developers, and users.

I can remember the Atari ST series computers and the Commodore Amiga were ahead of its time, since the computers use the Motorola 68k series CPUs, the ones found on the Mac. However, they did a lot of wrong before either can tap its full potential and disappeared from the market once both filed for bankruptcy.

Voice acting was pretty crappy. Most of the original voice actors are still alive, I mean that wasn't Shipwreck man.

The reason why the original voice actors didn't return is the same reason why other 1980s voice actors didn't reprise their roles in today's remakes. All of them just gone greedy.

All of the current TV series that are sequels to 1980s animated shows (Transformers, MOTU, TMNT, etc.) today have none of the original VAs reprising their roles, according to the credits. As much as all of them wanted to play their characters again, they stated that they can only come back if the studios give them a huge salary. In addition, some of them are no longer struggling voice actors but now movie-quality level that only big studios can hire them.

When Beast Wars was in production, the producers wanted Frank Welker to reprise his role as Megatron but unable to get him in due to the high cost of hiring him.

Producers of Robots in Disguise and Armada also failed to get the original voice actors back but failed when they demand high salaries. This is proven in TF conventions when fans asked why they can't come back.

Mike Young Productions, who produced the 2002 version of Masters of the Universe, failed to get Allen Oppenhiemer to reprise his role as Skelator.

As an example, Frank Welker, who had done lots of VA work on 1970s and 1980s TV shows, have 385 roles in his resume and that only movie studios can hire him:

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0919798/

Roy, I agree 100%. Duke reminded me of the commander from that toy movie, you know the one where figure come to life and attack those figures that look like creatures. Commandos something.... Well he looked just like the leader.

The CGI movie you are talking about is "Small Soldiers", done by Dreamworks Studios.

http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1479333/2...?headlines=true

Awww... he's one of my fave 1980s singers.

Robert Palmer, who was best known for "Addicted to Love" and "Simply Irrestable" (the music video later became a Pepsi commercial), was now gone.

We'll miss you, Robert.

It should be noted that our fave Macross seiyuu Akira Kamiya (Roy Focker) won't be reprising his role as Kenshiro in this Fist of the North Star OAV. Instead, our fellow Macross seiyuu Takehito Koyasu (Gamlin Kazaki) will be taking over the role of Kenshiro.

well, me being a mac lover, i'd buy the new 17" titanium. I love that thing. It beautiful. If I had to get a pc laptop, I would probably get the toshiba one, I don't know too much about it, but it looks nice!! and powerful too! what's your budget anyway?

Me too. I'm at a toss-up between an iBook or a 12" PowerBook.

Here's my opinions on laptop computers (I too look to get one but it means stopping to buy Valks for a while):

Best: IBM, Toshiba, Apple.

Avoid: Dell, Compaq, Sony.

Also, do you wish to use a laptop for basic stuff (e-mail, DVD playback, word processing, etc.) or for heavy number-crunching (CGI animation, video editing, DVD-R burning, etc.)?

Forgive my n00bishness when it comes to new TF crap, but since when did Go-Bots have anything to do with Transformers!?

Hasbro bought up Tonka back in the 1990s and today, Tonka is one of Hasbro's subdivisions. Look behind the box of any Tonka toy and it would say "© Tonka, a division of Hasbro, Inc."

Because of this, Hasbro now owns the Gobots name, the franchise and most of the trademarked names (such as Leader-1's name ended up as the name of Megatron's Minicon partner). However, Hasbro cannot reissue the 1980s Tonka Gobot toys because they are owned by Bandai, Takara's toy rival.

With Hasbro owning the Gobots, they get to gloat about it.

An Autobot in the Generation 2 line has the name "Gobots":

http://www.tfu.info/1993/Autobot/Gobots/gobots.htm

The name "Gobots" in Generation 2 were also a subline of minicars, which later became the Spychangers in RID:

http://www.geocities.com/futuristgroup/vsp...pychangers.html

http://www.tfu.info/1995/Autobot/Blowout/blowout.htm

http://www.digiserve.com/eescape/tf/toylis....html#A-Go-Bots

Lastly, Hasbro created the preschool "Transformers: Gobots" toyline, replacing the preschool 1-2-3-Transfomers and Playskool Transformers lines:

http://www.digiserve.com/eescape/tf/toylis...03.html#Go-Bots

http://www.tfu.info/2003/Gobots/Aerobot/aerobot.htm

The fact that Hasbro owns Tonka (and the Gobots) are common knowledge in Transformers fandom/message boards.