chen

Thanks a lot it seems that it really opens up in Chapter 11. I'm also trying to fight every thing I can find and did find a nice design quark in Hopes house where foes keep regenerating but that's the thing with these type of games I don't like. I miss the old days where you would just head out run back and forth or even circles lol till a battle would start and you would get experience AND money for winning the battle.

I just started Chapter 9 and I must say I love this game, so far it's not as expansive as Star Ocean 3 but IMHO is way better looking. I have a question though, I read that no matter what weapon you choose for a certain character they all transform into the same ultimate weapon? Also how many levels are there to upgrade your weapons? I'm at level 16 for Lightnings Gladius, 12 for Fang and so on and trying to upgrade 6 weapons is starting to get tough.

True but Petty is starting a line of souped up Challengers so it is a start. Plus let's be honest Ol' Shel has about zero to do with any of the Mustangs besides putting his name on it and suggesting colors. Shelby, Roush, Saleen, etc. are companies that have engineers, mechanics, designers, that do most of the work. Jack Roush may be the final word on his Mustangs but he ain't on the computer designing parts or sculpting out the clay model. I think Petty's biggest Challenge is the stability of Chrysler itself and the fact that Petty Motorsports races Fords in Nascar now. Also all these tuners sell on their name no matter how much or little the actual person the company is named after is involved, if it performs on a consistent basis it will build a reputation on it's own.

New Petty Challenger, looks pretty sweet. Could Richard Petty be the next Carrol Shelby? Probably not but the next Roush, maybe. http://www.autoblog.com/2009/11/11/first-p...arrett-jackson/

Here's a short preview of the Zent figures. Also check out the custom Gakken Legios it's just sick. http://toyboxdx.com/brog/?p=4247

He can't be that bad, rumor has it he's dating Lisa Bonet (Lenny Kravits ex) must be the dreads lol.

That's the point, Howard never described Conan as a 280-300lb body builder. He always described Conan as powerful man from years of hard work but never as the biggest guy on the planet. His Conan was also agile and lithe and described him more like a panther or tiger than a hulking bull. But I agree that one pic makes him look a little fruity. Here's a better one.

I think Arnie was perfect as Conan for the 80's where everything was over the top and you had a Conan that was unrealistically, far superior physically to everybody else look to give him that "Super Hero" ideal. But if anyone's that actually read the Conan novels or read the comics, Conan has been depicted as a slim fighter by Windsor-Smith to a musclebound tank by Jusko and Busceama. The actor chosen is actually a half decent actor in that badass acting way and given enough time he could easily pack on 10-20 pounds of weight to bulk up although he wouldn't need much since he is a decent sized guy now. But I think the days of over muscled guys who can't even reach around to wipe their own butts is gone, I think the biggest actor physically that has any star power now is the Rock and even he's starting lean up.

I think you could use the word awesome to describe the performance of the turbo Panamera, that thing is wicked fast I believe Car and Driver tested one and got acceleration times faster than the last 911 turbo they tested. That's fast period, four doors or not as for looks it's different. But honestly it looks way better in person, much lower and wider than you would expect plus in a dark color with nice wheels and a subtle body kit it does look pretty nice.

Well it seems no ones posted it here but here's the painted Daitarn.

Well for Primes I can't recommend MP Prime enough, but it's size does limit the choices of Transformers that looks good next to him besides MP Megatron without Prime towering over them. There is the smaller "bootleg" version of MP Prime which does look good next to MP Grimlock, the MP Seekers and some Classics figures but I guess it depends on your view of paying almost MP Prime prices for a "knock off". For cartoon accurate Primes the Metalforce Prime is as close as you can get but then again it has limited articulation, doesn't transform, and is the same size as MP Prime. Some of the Alternators/Binaltech Transformers like Jazz and Bluestreak are some of the best versions of the characters since the originals. But I agree the choices can be daunting but the good thing with Transformers is that you have a wide variety to choose from.

I'm not sure if this was asked before but what are the chances of seeing more variants of the VF-11 like these? Could skip the pink version but the armored version looks pretty cool. Whoops wrong thread I should have asked in the VF-11C thread. Delete this post if needed.

It's okay looking but I'm not to fond of the purple/pink color used. Maybe if it was a dark grey or black it would look better, also it's too "rounded" which gives that "soft" look, maybe if the two main guns were more angular and wider it would look better.

I'm sure Bandai will sell thousands of these no matter what fans say, I read the same thing when Yamato went from 1/60 to 1/48 back to 1/60. I've learned to never underestimate just how much punishment fans will take for their love of a series.

Just how blueish is the Movie Alto version? It's kinda hard to tell, now I have to figure out if I want the Movie Alto, the original, or the Armored version.

I think they did all right, most fans were expecting Yamato like VF-25's made by Bandai but these are two different companies with totally different philosophies. Of course there are improvements that can be made but that's common with any new line and not just isolated too Bandai. Also it looks like Bandai is in it for the long run so you can only expect their Macross products to get better.

It's heavier than GX-49, also it's not that Big-O is light it's just not as heavy as one would expect given the huge arms and legs.

Well the DX Macross stuff really isn't part of the SOC line and neither is Aquarion. It can be a little confusing since SPEC is a sub-line while the GE line is totally separate and on and on. This is a good site which separates each line and then again into it's sub-lines. http://tamashii.jp/

It had a pretty good start but I think near the end it started to lose it's way, also I'm only guessing but I think getting licenses for different car designs were getting harder which could have been why characters that weren't cars in G1 became one in the Alternators line (there's just something wrong about Grimlock being a Mustang) and the same design for multiple characters (besides costs). Still they did have some very nice figures like Jazz, Hotrod/Mirage, Smokescreen/Silverstreak, but I think ultimately the cost to make these toys were just too high either due to tooling or licensing costs or whatever and the market wasn't there anymore.

Could just be the camera flash and lights since it does look a little darker on the box art. But I do prefer it a little darker but not as dark as Voltes since Voltes and the old Com-Battler have a very similar paint scheme and color tone and it would be nice to differentiate them a bit more.

Some more pics of GX-50, GX-51, and GX-52 .

I think Alternators (not Alternity that I was talking about) was less the sales success that Hasbro wanted was because they changed the figures from diecast to plastic. They lost the high-end market which was adults who instead just bought the Japanese version which was easily available from Ebay or any online stores. Also there were huge gaps between releases, which really wasn't Hasbro fault since Takara was the one designing these and it died a slow death when they became all plastic. But they are reborn in a way through the new Alternity line which seems to be doing well. As for the whole Japanese versus North America thing I personally think it's just a culture thing. Reading Manga or watching Anime is perfectly acceptable for either a 10 year old or a 50 year old since they cater to pretty much every age, every demographic, and any personal preference. In a way they just take that whole industry more seriously and thus demand higher quality tie-ins like toys, games, models etc. It seems in North America once you reach a certain age your suppose to stop reading comics, stop watching cartoons and become a "adult", raise a family and work 9 to 5. It's slowly changing but unlike Japan toys, comics, all that stuff is still a subculture and not yet 100% mainstream.

I think it's a matter of marketing and how Hasbro see's Transformers as a franchise which is basically a toy line for children. While Takara notices that there are fans of all ages, Hasbro will re-issue the odd old school G1 toy or have a version of a MP but it's mostly just following Takara's lead which in all honesty we all know Takara does most of the heavy lifting when it comes to Transformers. Hasbro would never in a hundred years have released MP Prime if Takara hadn't of done it first and done most of the engineering. The Alternity and MP lines do show that there is a market for high quality, well engineered Transformers that fans are willing to pay a premium for but for the most part these are Japanese market products. Personally I think other than the high end stuff, most Transformers are rushed through development (especially the movie stuff) so to cash in on the movie craze while it's still fresh in peoples mind, once the initial "hotness" is over is when they roll out the color variants, and the odd tweak to the mold, and finally it's the gift packs. I'm sure if Hasbro wanted to they could create a 12" tall, diecast, movie accurate Prime that would cost a $150+ but the fact that they consider Transformers a mostly kids toy line they would never invest the level of detail and engineering needed to pull it off.

Well I think Transformers has suffered from the Gundam syndrome in that it reboots every 2-3 years and starts all over with a new series and thus new toys and basically tosses out what happened before. There are constants like G1 that will always be represented but other than MP's they get turned into a sales gimmick like the Classics line just to appease old fans while trying to attract new ones. Basically nowadays the only Transformers I'll pick up are MP's and thoughtfully designed homages to G1 like THS-02. I can't stand the Movie versions and personally think the movies sucked (the only saving grace was Peter Cullen) but since the movies did generate over a billion dollars I don't see Takara/Hasbro letting go of that cash cow. I'm just hoping the next Transformers tv series takes a page from G1 in that it retells it while keeping the scope and having animation quality on par with Gundam or Macross but I have a feeling it will be a watered down version inspired by the movies, argh we're gonna get a animate Shia Ladouche.

Yeah I know, I've been waiting close to 20 years for a combining Dangaio but I just couldn't afford their $$$$ version. I guess my only hope now is that Bandai makes a SOC version.