Lynx7725

What I find annoying about the Allied Support is that it's often telling the friendly AI to do their job. I mean, I have to get Allied Defense because Shamrock apparently really, really sucks at protecting your six, and I have to get Allied Attack because the friendly AI can't seem to hit the broadside of the barn with anything short of a rocket salvo.

The enemy AI seems to be a lot more accurate (ground AI at least), and in the air they tend to work a lot harder to stay together...

Yeah well, I just finished off my first campaign. Still need to go back through to mop up a few operations, but some thoughts:

Story's particularly weak, not because of the plot element -- those are fairly standard -- but because it doesn't really involve the player. Shamrock's got a part, Melissa got a part, but Talisman (the player) doesn't really have anything to do with the approach the backstory took. Disappointing, really.

Mission 13 was quite a walkover until part 2, when

Mission 14, I managed to get 99 out of 100 targets.. irritating, and got an A for that. Didn't really had time to fight all those fighters. I was in a F-14. Good for taking things out from far away, but not very good for close-in fight. Might try again with a Typhoon with XLAAs.

Mission 15, oh man, it's such a clique mission.

It's a bit ridiculous. Did it in an A-10 with FAE, and it was fairly easy, but I suspect RCLs or even XAGWs would make it simpler..

Anyway, anyone tried to fly along King's Bridge yet? I'm not saying under it, I'm saying along it, just above the road. Very tricky, particularly because of the reconstruction work, but can be done -- tried it with a Typhoon but not enough yaw to make it reliable, did it with an A-10 but still tricky to get over the damaged portion.

Not exactly the most brilliant of game strategy, but if that's what the designers want...

I find a A-10 with FAEs about the most efficient way to do ground missions. Find a good cluster, lob one in, and pick up what's left. Cruisers burn well that way too, oddly. XAGWs are nice too, but I hadn't quite mustered the RCL yet.

I supposed the best way is to work east to west or vice-versa and just nail everything in, leaving just enough to keep the mission running.

Online -- I don't understand why people like to fly F-22s or Su-47s so much. I did try them but didn't like them; prefer a faster or more long-ranged platform, and don't really see the need to dogfight when you can nail them at 30K range.

It's really an odd feeling, when you are 20K feet up, in the clear blue, looking down on a bunch of advanced fighters squirming around at 2K feet, and then hitting the release for 4 XLAAs. KA-blooie.

Resurrecting an older thread. Didn't feel like clogging the XBox thread with posts on this game.

Anyway, I'm playing this now. I've gotten up to mission 8 since Christmas, and was just wondering -- how the heck are you supposed to get S on mission 1? I've tried it with the Big Bird (F-14D with XLAA -- sweet!) and even with the flying tricycle (Mirage 2000 with XMA4), both times I could get rid of the targets quite fast (Mirage beats out the Tomcat here, that bird is fast!) but apparently not quite fast enough for an S-grade.

Same for mission 2; I would head out and splash the BUFFs, but never could get better than an A grade. Anyone?

I've also been dropping into online games. I think I'll avoid any game with CFA-44 for now -- had a very brutal and unfriendly game where the host took it exclusively -- but it was otherwise quite fun. Most people take the most advanced fighters possible, mainly F-22s and Su-33s. There were at least a couple of matches where I took the F-14 with XLAA and just stood off to engage, and that got me over 10K points per match. When the conditions are right, the extended range of the XLAA can have a massive impact on a game.

But, today I just had a match where I took a Mirage 2000 with XMA4 (with 2 Tornados IIRC) against 2 quite good F-22s, and walked away with 13K points. It was really amusing, really, because I kept getting splashed by QAAMs, but managed to get used to fighting against the tech edge and knocked at least 5 F-22s down. It's interesting to note that the F-22s would disappear off the Mirage's radar every now and then, reflecting on the stealth of the plane. I supposed that's how sometimes we can get sniped without ever seeing the aircraft.

The scoring criteria for games is amusing too. When I traded my F-14 with an F-22 -- and I can do that very often when things go wrong -- my team would lose 750 points while gaining 3K+ points. I hate to think of the exchange rate for a Mirage 2000 vs. an F-22. That's a very big incentive to take low-tech fighters, as long as you have sufficient SP weapons to level the playing field.

I missed reading this, so what exactly happened? Was the Aoshima reissue of the Masterpiece Alpha good? and much better than the Toynami release? Can someone summarize for me please?

Thanks in advance.

The Aoshima reissue of the MPC good? BWAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

.... That should be enough of a summary for you. Current scuttlebutt is that thanks to the QC problems Aoshima now has to field, the likelihood of a Beta is spiraling downwards to zero.

So, it's either CM, or Gakken. Take your pick, gentle-beings...

EDIT: Eriku beat me to it..

Hmm. Cockpit of the Legioss is uncoloured. Prototype pics again, I think.

I'm using a 614, and my Xbox 360 is hooked up to it -- it works fine for my setup, and we didn't really configure it (i.e., it's pretty out-of-box). I'm hooked up with a hardline though, not wireless.

Is it a home-network issue (i.e., related to how your PCs and the router is setup), or a connection problem (i.e., something to do with the external line heading out)?

Looks decent. I'm not too happy about the Legioss' chest and arm thrusters, but I think they are things I can live with. The hands though, might be a bit fragile.

The weird way to attach the gunpod in fighter is a bit off though.

29,400 yen, Due in Feb. Save up, people. And Mog can change his avatar -- finally.

Ouch. The first photo, I thought it was a bump against a wall. But the subsequent photos, that was an impact at quite some speed. I think the fuselage is a writeoff, and the left inner engine looks to be well off. But they might be able to recondition the left outer engine (that left a mark on the wall, so some impact damage too, I imagine), and the tail/ right engines should be salvagable.

Oh, the inanity.

Hello from HLJ!

First, we would like to take this opportunity as always to thank you for shopping with us here at HobbyLink Japan and express our hope that you're enjoying the holiday season. Second, unfortunately, we need to apologize profusely for an stupid clerical error on our part that occurred over the weekend which resulted in our mistakenly canceling most of the orders on file for the "Comic Gunnm Side Story w/Figure" (http://www.hlj.com/product/SYU08061). The message you received about our being unable to fill your order for this item was completely mistaken, and sent in error.

The good news is that we actually do have the stock necessary to fill your order. However, because we don't know if our customers have already located copies elsewhere, we've decided not to automatically restore these orders to our database. Instead, although we realize this is an inconvenience, we'd like to ask you to place your order again as soon as possible if you still want the item, and we will handle these orders with priority.

Some customers have already done this, and if you have, you don't need to take any further action.

Again, please accept our sincere apologies for the trouble and inconvenience. This is the first time an error like this has ever happened and we hope it's the last. Fortunately, it was not caused by a systemic or computer problem, but by a string of multiple human errors that we believe will be hard to repeat.

We wish you a happy 2008, and look forward to many more years of filling your hobby needs!

Happy Holidays!

---

Scott T. Hards

President

HobbyLink Japan (www.hlj.com)

The best part about this is that I didn't receive this in my email, but I received an email bounce from the route chosen which included this as a nested attachment. I nearly nuked this message as things went...

Got beaten to it by electric indigo. Darn it!

Anyways, I got my Xbox360. Anyone still playing Ace Combat 6? Just flew online in an F-14D, loads of fun blowing people away with XLAAs, but totally outclassed by F-22s/ Su-33s in-close.

Trying also to figure out Armoured Core 4... that looks like fun, but all in Japanese so a bit tougher for me to crack. Don't quite like the cash-for-mission aspect though.

The Elite version was the first to have an HDMI port. Once they saw how much slobbering there was for that, they added it to all their other SKUs.

Heh, so MS shot their own Elite sales in the foot? Well done..

Where do you live? Microsoft recently launched the Video Marketplace in the UK, Ireland, France, Germany, and Canada. And no, you don't need a Media Center PC to get it to work. You don't need a PC period, just an Xbox 360, a broadband internet connection, and Microsoft Points. You get the content directly from the 360 on the Marketplace blade in the Dashboard. You buy TV shows, but AFAIK, movies are rentals.

Asia -- Singapore to be exact. To be honest, I doubt MS here has the connections to make this happen anytime soon. I was hoping that we can record free-to-air shows (and finally replace that darn VCR! ) but it's not very likely.

The DVR stuff with the Elite has to be done through Microsoft's service. I think. I can't remember since I wasn't really looking into it, but MS was supposed to be parterning up with some cable companies or something.

Well, that wipes it straight off the table, because I'm not in the US. Seems like they need a MS Media Center PC to get it to work too, which means it's a non-issue to me.

Personally, I think 120gb is a bit overkill-ish, and colour coordination has never been my strong suit, so seems like the Elite isn't the variant for me. Maybe getting another variant and building it up to what I want would be cheaper.

The Elite has the 120 gb Hard drive and is black.

Yeah, that's the rub. Aside from the bigger hard disk and the "black is nice", I really can't seem to get what's so special about it.

The Elite, Halo Edition, and Premium all have HDMI. If you must have black and plan on doing the DVR stuff, get the Elite.

I don't have a DVR, so if I can actually use my Elite for that I don't mind shelling out for a bigger HDD.. I'm totally clueless whether that's possible, actually.

As for the quiet drive, I think I'll just have to roll the dice and bear the consequences. Not much I can do about that.

Need help. I'm seriously considering picking up an Xbox 360, but would like to know if the Elite version is worth the price differential. What's in an Elite that makes it worth the extra cold hard cash?

Hmm. Was somebody asking for the choppers?

http://www.hlj.com/product/KBYKP-46

And now for some old news... These have been outstanding for a long time, but I've only gotten around to taking these photos today. Enjoy!

Blade to Blade:

The base is of course not part of the Revoltech line, but adding it makes the two stands out more IMO.

And something for our usual Valk habit:

"Hey, that's my gunpod!"

Only Focker can pull this off and look good doing it.

And, because I like to pimp this whenever I have the chance:

Three for Three! Mine got cancelled too.

Really? I saw your link to the Danboard but I didn't see any posts linking to the 5-Danboard combiner.

My bad -- the Danboard I did link, but the combiner Danboard, yours. Cool idea though, I wonder if there are any others we can replicate it with.

Just to let you guys know, HLJ has shipped my Helldivers. I expect it before Christmas.

Heh, eriku, I beat you to posting links to that here, but nobody bothers to listen to me.....

Just for kicks, there's apparently this special version of a Revoltech..

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/robots/the-actu...obot-324507.php

Sweetners? Toynami? Toynami said "We can produce this toy for next to nothing." Aoshima being like any greed-based company (it's the best way for a company to be) said "Eh, what's the worst that can happen." Then Aoshima go the worst that could happen and realized they'd made a mistake.

I don't quite buy that (but it certainly could have happened). Aoshima has been around the block for ages, they shouldn't have been lured in by just the potential profits alone -- they should be aware that there can be pitfalls (a rather big one in this case).

Or perhaps they're just not used to dealing with foreign toy producers? Who knows..

You got to wonder though, if Aoshima did do their due diligence and inspected the product before signing the deal, what kind of sweeteners did Toynami sell to get Aoshima to ink the contract..

Considering how small these are, and the cost, I'm willing to put up with multiple cannons and the lack of the leg being able to close with the gun in it. Think of the bad-ass poses you can do with these things!!!

In one of the pics, it looked like they are giving us a left gun-gripping hand too. If that is true, with the multiple cannons, think of how a two-gun-slinging Alphonse would look -- especially if you had bought the earlier Alphonse.

Revoltech Ingram 1 Movie Version available for Pre-order at HLJ.

http://www.hlj.com/product/KYD01164

Edit: So is Revoltech Tetsujin 28:

http://www.hlj.com/product/KYD01165