JB0

Take a look! It's in a book! A reading rainbooooow!

I thought the Robotech movie was released under the name Stealth?

NeoGeo. The only thing that can make the Atari 5200 look small. On topic... "Unauthorized feeding of the metroids is strictly prohibited." -random scan in Metroid Prime.

No problem.And for clarification, I really DO think Basara is oblivious enough that he genuinely didn't realize the speakerpods were potentially hazardous projectiles. He's a very... focused... individual. He just thought it was so great that he could share his song with everyone and got caught up enough in it that he never stopped to think about the implications. Hell, he may not even realize they're designed to punch holes in armor. For all we know, he thinks they're tiny little radio buoys. I do admit the series has it's moments. Even Basara-centric moments. While in general I don't like how the series ended, I thought Basara's coma recovery was perfect. It's a very Basara scene. Especially the part where he starts trying to sing WHILE IN A COMA... only Basara... It also serves as a decent showcase for Gamlin and Mylene, and is really the final capstone on a long-running arc showing Gamlin accepting Basara(if not actually LIKING him), but that's actually not what primarily interests me in the scene. Amazingly, it's a scene I think Basara SHOULD steal. I just think a lot of moments that shouldn't have been ABOUT Basara wound up being about Basara. Also, I found the Encore episodes on my hard drive a few days ago. Encore 1 is largely a gossip show trying to dig up back-story on Fire Bomber and Basara. While it's framed in such a way as to make pretty much EVERYTHING in it questionable, almost to the point of being anticanon, it's got some good Basara moments in it. They even play off his passion for music to make a small gesture much larger in-context. (you know, assuming it'd ever actually HAPPENED) And Ray gets some character development!(or would if a single word they said was trustworthy) It's actually pretty fun, and though I see why it wouldn't work in the series proper, I wish something more had been made of the idea. Maybe break it out and do a series of short gossip show segments scattered through the regular episodes. It's a way to add some depth(?) to the main character without really breaking the feel of the show.

Seconded on the Youtube auto-embedding. Worst feature of the current board software. On-topic: "That was frightening. I was frightened." -Legend of Dragoon. Though any PS1-era SCEA translation will offer similar gems.

I thought they had a stock animation clip of the speaker pod protruding into the target's cockpit and gluing itself into place. But my memory could be wrong, and I don't have it on-hand to check right now. Whether or not confusion and disorientation was BASARA'S goal, it was his backers' goal and the design goal of the speakerpod. I stand by that part of my statement regardless. Speakerpod Gamma was a blatant sonic weapon. It was loud enough to actually throw people around the bridge. But I don't think anyone cared, because it was so absurdly over-the-top.

Reiteration of ignored main point: He's not engaging in nonviolent solutions even if the speakerpods ARE demonstrably 100% safe. Nonlethal weaponry is still weaponry. Nonfatal violence is still violence. Defense of ridiculously-deflected subpoint: Pity no one else in UN Spacey was allowed access to this miraculous failure-proof technology. How did Basara know, for a fact, that it was literally impossible for a speakerpod to fail, and likewise impossible for secondary damage to cause unintended consequences? EVEN IF there were no fatalities, that doesn't actually make the very concept any less dangerous. It is a projectile DESIGNED TO VIOLENTLY PENETRATE THE COCKPIT OF AN ARMORED SPACECRAFT. And one that carries an explicitly intended subfunction of rendering the pilot of said craft disoriented and confused in the middle of a live combat zone at that. Even if you ignore the possibility of armor spalling, suppress all the shrapnel generated, you cannot guarantee that your projectile will successfully bypass all important subsystems to ensure life-support and navigation are not compromised in an alien vehicle of unknown design and layout, it's basic mode of operation renders it fundamentally unsafe. I can personally think of several ways to accomplish the same task in a much less blatantly hazardous manner. In keeping with the spirit of the show, I would have the speakerpods adhere to the OUTSIDE of the vehicle and transmit the music into the cockpit through vibration. But I wouldn't call anything other than a non-contact, radio-based version anything remotely resembling safe. And as they exist in the show, the speakerpod is the single most dangerous way you could possibly implement the concept. Basara is completely oblivious to anything but his song if he trusted a high-velocity cockpit-cracking bullet implicitly just because it happened to carry a boombox. REGARDLESS of documented fatalities. Reinforcement of main point after sidetrack: All of which is secondary to the fact that nonlethal violence is still violence. There is nothing nonviolent about Basara.

He kinda... DOES solve his problems with violence.A speakerpod may be intended as a non-lethal projectile, but just because you're shooting people in the face with paintballs and beanbags doesn't mean you're being non-violent. And I have SERIOUS doubts as to speakerpods being 100% effective in regards to their non-lethality. If we fail to suspend reality far enough, it becomes fairly obvious that there will be some speakerpod-related fatalities. Especially as they're DESIGNED to penetrate the cockpit, thereby breaking atmospheric integrity and ensuring they're headed towards the pilot. And they're massive, in the literal sense, so they carry a LOT of momentum. Even if fully-functional and striking their targets at optimum angles, they could easily be damaged in a live combat zone, rendering their deceleration or cockpit-sealing components non-functional, such that a speakerpod rips the cockpit open and likely severely injures the targeted pilot. Or just rendering a speakerpod leaky, so that a successfully sealed cockpit leaks out THROUGH THE SPEAKERPOD ITSELF. Actually, even fully-functional, I find the lack of shrapnel in the punctured cockpit questionable at best. Basically, what I'm saying is a speakerpod is just about the most dangerous non-lethal projectile you can make, actually MORE dangerous than most intended-lethal projectiles, and Basara is patently oblivious to everything that isn't his song if he can't see the inherent dangers in his preferred weapon.

A Zelda game is getting perfect scores from reviewers? WHAT MADNESS IS THIS?!?!?! Seriously, the only thing that SURPRISES me is that Joystiq braved the hate mail from the fans for dinging it a half-star.

As far as 70s and 80s anime goes, I gather a lot of the licenses were rather broad. Because who cares about the long-term legal ramifications of a distribution license for a stupid cartoon that won't be worth the film it's stored on in 5 years? Spoilers: In about twenty years, EVERYONE will.

Roy, Isamu, and Micheal had some degree of character development and backstory, too. And only Isamu was a lead character.

I call shenanigans on that last one. "Get thee hence, oblivion awaits thee!" -Valkyrie Profile

The answer to that question is yes."Was the game good?" "It better have been, it took ten years to make." -Duke Nukem Forever.

That's... actually a terrible analogy, since it's EXACTLY what happened with the Apple II, for a very good reason. MOST computers are built using components from more than one vendor. I guarantee that MOS Technology did not supply all, or even MOST, of the chips inside the Apple II, any more than they did to other 6502-based machines like the Commodore 64, Atari 8-bit computer family, and all 3 "classic" Atari consoles. MOS made a great processor, but many of the other necessary parts were not offered by MOS, or were in-house designs offering custom capabilities. In the Apple II's case, Steve Wozniak designed much of the support, most notably the incredibly cheap floppy controller, which used some crazy logic to drive the cost well below what it was believed you could DO a floppy system for. But Apple was, and still is, fabless, so they were MANUFACTURED elsewhere. Even a company like Texas Instruments, that DID own fabs and DID both design and manufacture ALL the necessary silicon for their own computer back in the day, STILL contracted out for the keyboard and monitor on the 99/4a. No one manufactured an entire computer or game console "in-house." And this is true to this day, because it still requires different design and manufacturing specialties for different components. As an example... Despite Apple desigining the iPhone 4's core system-on-a-chip(albeit using subsystems licensed from other companies, including a CPU architecture from ARM), most chips in an iPhone 4 are manufactured by Samsung(for the time being), and the devices are assembled by Foxconn, using LCDs from Toshiba and Sharp.

Not EVERYTHING. There's always the MAD CAT! But seriously, I played the crap out of the SNES Mechwarrior back in the day. Not Mechwarrior 3050, the OTHER one, the one that tried to be like the PC Mechwarrior games despite only having 12 buttons. There were some pretty slick-looking vehicles in it, though certainly not very anime-looking vehicles. ... And I am greatly saddened. Wikipedia says most of the SNES mechs were created for, and only used in, SNES Mechwarrior. And that's pretty much my only exposure to the franchise, aside from the above MAD CAT! picture.

And it would be a far more interesting show if the spotlight was on their ride of discovery instead of Basara's aural force of nature.I am still amused by the repeated torture of Gamlin at the hands/vocal cords of Basara, though.

I thought that was the new Cyclone upgrade for Shadow Rising. With chest-mounted protoculture beam cannons.

Basara is a NASCAR driver?

Truly the greatest minds of our time.

Hey, that's always the best way to solve a problem! If brute force isn't the solution, you aren't using enough of it.

Basically... Harmony Gold is saving anime, and we need to support them by BUYING ALL THE MERCH!

Yo, Tommy! Don't let these haters get you down, you keep rockin' those cartoons. You're the best there is at what you do, and all those guys up above this post are just jealous. Shadow Chronicles 2. We want it, we need it, and we want YOUR NAME on the front of the box!

I... completely forgot about the profanity filter. Yes, it was the sticker said phase shift minus f. I was sorely tempted to buy the model just for the sticker. The internet says it was the first run of master grade Freedom models. And apparently it was ONLY the first run. Bandai continues to disappoint me. That's the kind of mistake you embrace and run with, not the kind you pretend never happened. Actually, I'd like a full sheet of nothing BUT phase shift-f stickers. I could stick them on EVERYTHING!

Wave bluster... I love it! The best typos are the ones that change the word to another one entirely. Like that Gundam SEED model with the "phase crap" decal...

My first bet would be that the buttons don't stay in place without electronics under them to hold them in.Beyond that... the circuit board itself could easily be a major structural member. If you have a big stiff piece of fiberglass taking up the majority of your toy's internal volume, it actually makes sense to screw everything through it and use the PCB as a brace. Not that I don't think a plastic plate or two could be substituted for PCBs to minimal ill effect. I think the bigger issue is that there's no way in hell you can make MP3 Soundwave child-safe. He's made pretty much entirely of choking hazards from what I know.