JB0

Actually, while that was the original intent, it didn't even survive the original TV series without getting the "subspace field" explanation dumped on it. Next Generation even had an entire plot around the boundary between regular space and subspace wearing down from high-warp travel, resulting in a warp "speed limit" put in place across the federation to reduce damage to the boundary.

As I understand it... Shockwave is a Gamestop-exclusive pre-order-exclusive multiplayer-exclusive character. And Jazz is a Best Buy-exclusive pre-order-exclusive multiplayer-exclusive character. HOORAY RETAILER EXCLUSIVES!

You mis-spelled Phantasy Star. Not that Ninja Gaiden isn't a great game, but Phantasy Star did cutscenes first. AWW YEAH!

Maybe. It's also possible fold space has no time dilation effect, and time flows at a constant speed in a fold. Or that the dilation effect is meaningless because there's a constant rate of travel in fold space(ignoring Frontier's fold faults, which I still don't like *grrr*). Lacking any knowledge of how dilation plays into it, I'll just call it a different rate of time passage. Yeah. Subspace is Star Trek's hyperspace, just like fold space is Macross' hyperspace. Different names, slightly different implementations, but the same basic concept: using another universe with a different set of rules to cheat at relativity. That's pretty much a given for any FTL tech that uses an alternate universe. Very rarely you get one where the other universe isn't "put together" the same way as our own(if you go in, travel in a straight line, and come back out, you won't come back out in a straight line from where you went in) , but most of the time the goal is to avoid our universe's 1c "speed limit."

I was sticking to the original TV series(serieses? anthology? mashup?) for that part. Mainly because I recall them a lot better than the novelizations. I thought the novelizations said it was 1 minute per light-year? One minute fold time per year real time would be pretty ridiculous, especially in light of the factory satellite and Vermillion Team capture episodes. ... Not that it would be the most ridiculous thing to come out of the novelizations, or the most ridiculous statement in light of those two episodes. I was merely looking at the Macross and Robotech universes. And being silly at the same time. End of the Circle makes me cry every time I remember it.

That's actually a semi-logical interpolation out from Macross' fold data. Remember, this is before Frontier and fold faults and all that. Time for people IN the fold goes slower than time for people OUTSIDE the fold, and the lag is fairly constant, such that L/Misa could accurately predict how much time had passed back home just by knowing how long they'd been in fold space. And they lost over a week of time without being gone long enough to start getting really hungry. That implies a pretty strong lag. If a week passes for every day in fold space, then after a week in fold space, 49 days have passed in real space. A 30-day month in fold space is 210 days real time. Since we don't know how FAST anyone actually goes in fold space(especially in Robotech, with it's much smaller sample of uselessly incomplete data)... it's hard to guess what sort of fold times are reasonable, though. Robotech just picked numbers that worked for their extended setting. ON THE OTHER HAND... if the Robotech Masters live in our galaxy, then wherever the factory satellite and zentradi main fleet were stationed had to be quite close to Earth or travel times would be ridiculous. Assuming a constant multiplier and single long fold, the roughly 14-real-year trip the Robotech Masters took would've taken 2 years in fold space. It is probably best to assume they made several short hops, with large waits between them. It's also worth noting that the Robotech novels introduced the idea that fold space had it's own "geography" and what parts of it you went through would greatly affect how long it took to get there many years before Frontier did it. ADMITTEDLY this was only done to justify the SDF-3 not showing up with the first assault in New Generation. They got lost in fold space and it took several months for them to catch up to the rest of the fleet. But the point remains... Macross Frontier ripped off Robotech.

Oh, heck yeah! That one's awesome. That was really where the Genesis shone. It's got more and generally better shooters than the SNES. Don't forget MUSHA/Musha Aleste. Another fine Compile product.

Fun times, fun times....

I remember the part of the interview you're talking about. It's a hell of an out-of-context quote if that's where he got the idea from. The way I recall it, he was talking about how badly the originals were showing their age(and by extension, how badly the remastering job Animeigo had done was needed). Basically, the film had deteriorated so much that he didn't recognize his own show on the television. The best american comparison is probably the pre-remaster Star Wars reruns, where the skies of Tatooine are a perfect match for it's desert sands instead of blue like a sky is supposed to be. BIG NEWS! BIG NEWS! SUPER ULTRA BIG NEWS DESU! WB HAS THE RIGHTS TO ROBOTECH LAM MOVIE POSTERS! Sorry, I had to.

SP2. Original GBA SP had a (very bad) side light. Ever play Zanac on the NES? Adaptive difficulty, so the better you play, the angrier the game gets. I tell ya, a shooter is never more fun than when the computer is throwing a hissy fit because it can't kill you. It's so incredibly satisfying to be on the other side of that fence for a change.

You're thinking of Mechwarrior 2040, which was a different and inferior game. Also an isometric run&gun instead of a first-person simulation like Mechwarrior. Mechwarrior series is Battletech: The Videogame. So yeah, related. The new Mechwarrior isn't over. They removed the specific mechs HG had an issue with, just like FASA did back in the day. MS bought FASA and didn't realize some of the classic mechs people were clamoring for had legal baggage attached when they started the new game. That answer your questions? Personally, I don't really LIKE Axelay. Not from what I've played. I'd rather play R-Type 3. Or Super Aleste/Space Megaforce. ... Yeah, definitely Super Aleste. Compile, now THAT was a company that knew how to do shooters right.

Super Castlevania 4 was a sequel to/remake of the first game(we're still not clear, and the story seems to change every time someone asks Konami). Castlevania: Dracula X was the (Bad) remake of Rondo of Blood.

But it's a ripoff of a ripoff, which takes it to a whole new level! Seriously, my first thought was "he ripped off the VF-4?" Obviously, the battroid is different, but still! So... it's based on a MOSPEADA design that is itself (apparently) based on a Macross design... this is making my head hurt.

... At his... but... I... Wow. Just wow. Stay classy, HG.

At least Castlevania doesn't have those random Xs, exponents, and whatnots at the end of the title.

That was how I saw Wing too. I doubt the edits really helped or hurt much. The characters were all cardboard cutout stereotypes with no real personalities. As far as the number thing goes... I think it would be more fair to ask if anyone DIDN'T notice all the major characters were named after numbers. As far as the "bromance" goes... I've heard Duo was originally written to be a girl and romantic interest for Heero, then changed to a guy when Marketing decided there shouldn't be chicks driving Gundams. It would explain a lot.

What about Castlevania? You really prefer Demon Castle Dracula?

Only UC I've seen is some F91 fansub. ... PLEASE someone tell me the reference to the space colony's coal mines is a huge translation error in the fansub. Because my first thought was "Isn't burning fossil fuels in an enclosed space a bad idea?" followed immediately by "Wait, coal MINES? As in someone shipped several thousand tons of coal into space, then shipped tens of thousands of tons of dirt up JUST to be a dick and bury the coal that is apparently a vital resource to the colonists?"

Exactly. They actually tried to dock with the ARMDs immediately before the disastrous fold to Pluto. Last I heard, he said the truth was somewhere in the middle. SDF is canon by virtue of being a far more complete story, but parts of DYRL(like finding the protoculture ruins on Earth) are supposed to have happened. DYRL's Valks are "real" Valks, but they're period-incorrect and the result of neo-Hollywood using a newer revision of the VF-1s than the early models seen in the TV series. And so on.

I always do.

Which would arguably be more true to the franchise's origins than a big-budget original-production Hollywood blockbuster.

Best sequel ever. This isn't as out there as you think. Heihachi was HARDLY a lock on the Soul Calibur 2 PS2 exclusive char. While Pac-Man himself was not in the running(that I've heard), Dig-Dug WAS. And while he was PROBABLY beefed up like in Namco X Capcom, I still like the image of classic DigDug rampaging about and beating people silly with a bike pump.

Mmmm... Earth Defense Force 2017(XBox 360) Lunar: Eternal Blue(SegaCD, yo!) Parasite Eve 2(PS1) Asteroids(pretty much any entry in the franchise. Near as I've ever seen to a perfect game) Metal Storm(NES) Those seem to be the ones I keep circling back to. EDF especially. I tell ya, launching swarms of 30-foot ants into low Earth orbit with a shotgun is the best way I can think of to kill an afternoon.

Oh, that's very nice. I think the old Unicron's biggest problem is WAAAAY too much clear plastic. IMNSHO, It should be used as an accent, not a primary "color." And generally in places where there's some detailing under it so there's not just a big gaping void, or where there's a REASON for it to be transparent. Armada/Classics Unicron misses on both counts. There's LOTS of clear plastic, both in vanilla and "purple haze" variants, and most of it isn't well-used. As for usage... The good: The chest plate has significant detailing under it(in the form of a rocket launcher) as well as using paint on both sides to create a rather nice 3D effect. This part is actually a great use of clear plastic. The iffy: The fist is clearly for the illumination effect, though I think it was overdone, especially given it doesn't diffuse well. I'd really like to see a "glow spilling out of the joints" effect used somewhere, even if it IS harder to build(possibly prohibitively so, but I still wanna see it). The planet shell could be so it's easier to ignore in robot mode. Given the shell's only real purpose in robot mode is to prop the wings up, I can get behind this(too bad there's no snaps to lock the wing braces in place, though...). Unfortunately, it's a complete dud in planet mode. The bad: The skirt armor and the abdominal panel are VERY poor choices. The skirt armor is especially offensive, as it isn't even consistent. Parts of the skirt are gray and parts are clear. The missile launchers in the legs form the OTHER part of the planet hemisphere, so they kind of have to be purple haze if the wings are, but MUCH more could have been done with them. There's no sense of mass underneath them, just a big empty void. And unlike the wings, these fail to impress in BOTH modes. That's my take. Unicron's clear is overused and underutilized, except in the chest. Were I tweaking the design... I would've... not used clear plastic in the skirt or abdomen. At all. Maybe let the abdomen slide due to the minicon prison feature, but I remain highly unimpressed, and it's not like the minicon cells in the legs are transparent(thank Primus). The inside part of the leg guns would be designed to add detailing instead of just to hold missiles and springs. If I couldn't convince Hasbro to let me add the plastic for volumetric detail, I'd mold something into the flat parts. Even just cliche circuit traces. Those leg guns are the single worst part of the toy.

But they're obviously a cheap knockoff. For the REAL cheap hamburger experience, you want a Macrossnalds!