Chronocidal

Ok, if you want to get really picky, I think the lines went like this... ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Obi-wan: What brings you out this far? Luke: This little droid. Seems to be searching for his former master, but I've never seen such devotion in a droid before. He claims to be the property of an Obi-wan Kenobi. Is he a relative of yours, do you know what he's talking about? Obi-wan: Obi-wan Kenobi.. now that's a name I have not heard in a long time.. a long time. Luke: I think my uncle knows him. He said he was dead. Obi-wan: Oh he's not dead... not yet. Luke: Then you know him? Obi-wan: Well of course I know him, he's me. (Artoo seems surprised for some reason, that is a problem.) Obi-wan: I haven't gone by the name of Obi-wan since, oh, before you were born. Luke: Well, then the droid does belong to you. Obi-wan: I don't seem to remember ever owning a droid.. very interesting. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yeah, I scare myself with how much of the movies I can recite. I don't see an issue with Obi-wan's lines, because technically, he never did own a droid, not these two at least. Threepio was built and owned by Anakin, then by the Lars family when his mother was freed, then back to Anakin in EpII, then Captain Antilles in EpIII, then back to the Lars family again in EpIV. Artoo was property of the Naboo government, and became attached to Padme and Anakin in EpI. I don't recall whether he was with Padme or Anakin at the beginning of EpII, but he was with them the entire movie. By EpIII, he was attached to Anakin as his copilot, and stayed with Padme when Anakin went all evil. At that point, he wasn't really owned by anyone, but Obi-wan turned him over to Captain Antilles when Padme died. After that, he went along with Threepio to the Lars family. It's probably splitting hairs, but if you consider them owned by Anakin and Padme at the end of EpIII, they'd be passed down to Luke and Leia, and in the interim, Bail Organa was the one who turned them over to Captain Antilles. There's just huge glaring problem with all of this though. Artoo didn't have his memory erased.. not right away at least. He must have at some point though for anything to work, or he would have known everything. Leia obviously didn't know much about who Obi-Wan was, but there's no excuse for Artoo not to. Maybe they just relied on the fact that he couldn't actually talk? See.. I get the feeling that GL wanted to paint this picture of a huge grand epic plan to save the galaxy, all hinging on Anakin and Padme's kids. But the evidence of that just isn't there in the OT, because it obviously hadn't been planned that way originally. For instance.. Obi-wan and Bail Organa specifically split up Luke and Leia to protect them. Were they going to be reunited to fix things? Or did they plan on just hiding forever? Also, there is no way in hell Obi-wan was unaware of who Leia was in EpIV, and he saw her reunited with Luke right before he died... yet when talking with Yoda, he's all "That boy was our last hope," and Yoda has to remind him about Leia... whom he helped rescue. WTF? The comment Leia made about her mother always made perfect sense to me, but I admit I had really had expected Padme to survive EpIII due to that line. It still works when you consider she would only remember her adopted mother anyway though. Leia was raised as though she were their own child, while Luke was just raised all along as if his parents had both died. What I found funny about that situation was that for a while I think the EU considered Owen and Beru Lars to be friends of Obi-wan that he turned Luke over to. For better or for worse, GL connected the dots to make them his actual aunt and uncle. The only thing I think actually did work out well with the whole grand scheme bit though.. Anakin was the one who brought balance to the force. He just took the longest possible route to get there. ....and after re-reading what I just wrote, I realized something. Good grief do I ever need to get a life.

Original, the reissues used a plastic with an entirely different texture to the originals. It's why I think they simply got the mixture wrong for that particular material. Actually I bought it from someone here, and already knew about the shoulders, but the knees were a total surprise. I never really heard about knees shattering for anyone, but they're much more sturdy due to the amount of material used in them. The shoulders were much more finely molded, and used a lot thinner plastic, so they were very quick to fall apart.

Mmmm... I seriously doubt that any amount of chemical reaction to rubber would cause the damage I saw on my VF-0A. When I disassembled the knees, they were shattered. They were criss-crossed with a spider web pattern of stress marks that no amount of contact with rubber could have possibly caused. If chemical reactions were involved, they most likely occurred when they were mixing that batch of plastic. Maybe it was the molding process, maybe it was the way they were cooled or filled, or what have you, but that plastic had more in common with obsidian in the way it sheared apart than any plastic I've ever seen.

I admit, I probably would still like and buy it if that wasn't required, but it's not like Namdai is going to change it now (it sounds better than Banco ). If it turns out that you don't need it, I'll eagerly grab a copy, but given the way it's treated in the demo, I sincerely doubt you'll be able to play the game without having to rely on the splatter cam. Main reason is this: if they went to the trouble to make all those close-up explosion cutscenes, and all those scripted mission events having you fly through high-rise buildings, you don't honestly think they're going to let you beat the mission the way you want to beat it, do you? You can't finish the demo mission without using the camera, because otherwise you never trigger the ending event cutscene. I must have blown away an hour of my life trying to destroy the last plane manually, only to find out it wasn't going to die unless I engaged him in cutscene mode. Also, I can't really put into words what I felt when I saw the ad in Gamestop yesterday for the pre-order bonus (letting you fly an F-4)... Actually, yes I can put it into words. But they are not fit for hearing by any human being, and I know a good number of sailors who would blush, cringe, and shield their groins in fear if I were to utter them aloud. DLC can go #$(*& the @#$% and #$*$#) itself in the #$)#$&* to #$)#($*# fire hydrant #$#)$ with a @#$)(*$ winnebago #$#&@ $#$$#) and #$)#$* in the #$)@#* with $#$#)#$* scientologist %#$$*#) #$#$)#*( through #$)#$#)* in the head.

"Yo hey man, I heard you're selling a new VF-19... would you take 2 goats and a Rhode Island red for her?"

Youch. That's pretty much exactly what my YF-19 shoulders did, but Graham's break is a bit more severe. The main thing I see though is that the screw shaft just completely sheared off the half of the shoulder it was attached to, just like mine did. Really just a terrible design. I had to repair mine the same way, but my shoulders never got enough tension back to support any weight. Essentially, in order to fix this, you have to fuse the entire upper shoulder together with glue around the pivot. Given the time the YF-19 came out, it really doesn't surprise me that the materials seem very similar to the VF-0 brand explodium. In fact, not just the shoulders and knees, but a large portion of the body of the YF-19 has the same texture as that plastic that tends to disintegrate. Notably on mine, the hip areas have several stress marks around where the ball joint inserts are mounted. I also remember hearing of people having odd fractures in the upper chest plate, supposedly caused by too much squeezing the hips and wing mounts together in fighter mode. Then there's those infamous little brackets in the forward fuselage that a lot of people had break.. In general though, the VF-0 and YF-19 are the only Yamato valks I can recall that ever used this type of plastic (it's close to the plastic used on the 1/48ths, but not quite the same). By the time the SV-51 and YF-21 came out, the plastic quality had improved a lot, and everything since the v.2 VF-1 has felt to me like it used a much higher quality plastic in general. Specifically in the case of the new VF-19, the shoulders feel much better, despite using a very similar construction. The plastic has a nice shine to it, and it feels very different compared with the YF-19's shoulders. I'm still concerned about the construction itself, seeing as how shoulders built that way can fail so badly on the YF-19, but only time will tell in this case, since the plastic doesn't seem prone to spontaneously disintegrating.

I'm talking real life in this particular case. Ace Combat in the past has taken what I think are acceptible shortcuts with this, due to the fact that no one wants to be flying around staring at a radar screen for all your info, and launching missiles 10-50 miles away. That's generally how -actual- air combat tactics work. AC has usually taken the approach Top Gun and other aircraft movies do, condensing the battlefield fo fit on a screeen. It's essentially applying classic WWI-WWII combat tactics to modern aircraft, and in general, gun ranges have always seemed relatively accurate, even if the missiles would never have time to track at the ranges they're fired at. In most cases, the only reason you'd ever be close enough to even recognize paint schemes on an aircraft is due to various conflict's rules of engagement. With this game, they seem to be going with the "Don't shoot until you see the whites of the pilot's eyes" method. Forget fitting the battle on a screen, you're so close you can't even see around your own aircraft to ID the target.

The western market/audience needs to shove it. I'm really fairly sick of everything they seem to find fun, which is why I've been looking so hard at foreign games. For instance.. just because zombie massacre games are popular does not mean you remake every game to cater to that audience. Just wait. We already have zombies thrown in absolutely unrelated material like Pride and Prejudice.. The next AC game will probably take place during World War Z. Yeesh. It's like the game industry is joined at the hip to Hollywood (which, really, they pretty much are), and caught the same disease causing an absolute lack of creativity. Honestly.. the bottom line here is that trying to give a more "up close and personal" feel to air combat is the like trying to mow your lawn with a bowling pin: it doesn't make any freaking sense whatsoever. Air combat is the most detached and long distance type of warfare on earth, short of using ICBMs. In the modern battlefield, if you ever even get within visual range of an enemy aircraft, it's because something has gone terribly, horribly wrong. Steel carnage" needs to burn like the debris it generates, and choke on it like the engines of any aircraft would from that kind of crap in the airstream.

The YF-19 I got had this in both arms. The shoulders appear to be made of the same material as the old VF-0 shoulders, with approximately the same effect. Specifically, the little shafts on one half that the screw goes into just sheared off at the base, allowing the shoulders to completely collapse. I was able to get them to stick together by essentially dunking the shoulders in superglue, but neither shoulder will support any weight. The one thing about the VF-19 that bothers me the most is that it uses the same sort of shoulder design. The material looks much more sturdy, and doesn't have the texture of the VF-0 shoulders, but relying on a single screw to both hold the shoulder together and provide tension still has me worried.

I'd be a lot more pleased with Yavin if they had bothered to actually give the ships varying R2 units... Also... never do a frame-by-frame of Yavin's intro. You can count the polygons on the "round" pieces of the X-Wings. Those graphics are the main reason I never watch the SE of ANH. Even if they move like molasses, physical models are always so much better.

No, you ARE forced to use it, and that's what pissed me off so much. I spent over 200 missiles on those planes, and put arguably thousands of cannon rounds into them. They never went down until I used the close up view. We're talking, the plane is on fire, I see pieces flying off it, it's a flaming hulk, and should not be flying. But it wouldn't let me kill it without the camera view. I used every missile of every type I had, and ran my cannon on it until the mission ended from being out of time, and nothing worked. Now, whether this is something that only applies to the demo and/or tutorial remains to be seen, but the way they presented the camera mode in the tutorial was that it will be required, as it was for the demo. Perhaps if the fans raise a big enough ruckus, they'll make it purely optional, but as of right now, it looks like they intend to force it on us for triggering plot events. After all.. it's really easy to script cutscenes if the path you fly is on rails. As for catering to the gore fans.. yes, it's oil, but with aircraft it's about as close as you can get. Doesn't mean it's trying to appeal to anything other than fans of that type of "detail." It just comes off as a cheap grab for attention from players who don't give half a rat's ass about aircraft games.

No no, you misunderstand. This has nothing to do with joints. I mean I'm cutting pieces of the nose off. I might do a write up on it later, but for now, it's still in a mid-rebuilt condition, and the nose still attaches the old way.

The problem is, this is a change in formula that no one asked for. It's a marketing gimmick to attract attention from the fans of blood/gore/splatter, who often would likely have absolutely nothing in common with flight sim fans. In short, they're trying to get more people to play it that wouldn't otherwise give it a second glance. In my own opinion.. the problem is just that in the past, AC has had a very specific approach to the way air combat works. They tend to exaggerate/alter certain aspects of the way real aircraft work in order to make the game more fun. In the past, this has generally been restricted to things like missile ranges/mechanics, G-limits (as in they don't really exist), and the amounts of ammo you can carry. They've essentially applied WWII-ish dogfight mechanics to the jet age, in that you typically stay within visual range of targets, even though you're using missiles. One thing AC has not messed with much though has been the way you actually fly the aircraft. While individual aircraft capabilities are obviously not realistic, the way you fly the aircraft generally is. AC6 pushed this a little with the "high-g" maneuever thing, but there actually is a semi-realbasis for that type of maneuver, and it actually does involve simultaneously increasing drag and thrust. Historically in AC, you fly manually, you control the aircraft by the same basic control mechanics as a real one, and if you want to avoid a missile, you're going to have to do it yourself. That is.. until now. I'm sorry. Pilots do not have a "dodge missile" button in the cockpit. Nor do they have a button on their throttle that says "do backflip." I don't care how cool anyone thinks it looks, it just doesn't happen. There's a reason you only ever see planes doing those maneuvers in airshows: they're done by stunt pilots in specially configured aircraft. They're not something the average pilot uses on a daily basis. I cannot put into words really how much I HATE automated maneuvers in a game that otherwise treats aircraft as lovingly as AC historically has. If this were a car game, the difference would be akin to putting a "DRIFT" button in Gran Turismo, and would elicit the same sort of hate from car afficionados. In a game with physics that are refined enough to actually let you do such an advanced technique manually, putting in an "easy" button is a slap in the face to people who actually learn to do it. Or, you could compare it to putting in a single button command that'll automatically execute any difficult combo in a fighting game. People who know how to do it the "right" way are going to be pissed off, because now it takes no skill to do. In a game that will obviously have a large amount of online competition, this system is going to tick off a lot of people (if it works in multiplayer at all.. frankly, I don't see how it can). When you dumb down the game mechanics to make it easier to do hard things, you ruin some of the inherent challenge of a game. People tend to hate that. A lot. Seeing an AC title for the 3DS is a nice thing though, and might be the thing that convinces me to get one. But the fact that I saw the F-22 basically executing Starfox style barrel rolls concerns me greatly that it's going to be the same sort of thing: adding a "dodge missile" button. I know some people like this sort of thing, and that's fine. But the Aces team is taking a huge risk here by betting they're going to attract more people than they piss off. The flight game niche is small enough already, and adding these features is going to split the fanbase something awful. Unless they somehow manage to drag a bunch of new fans into the game with all the new blood and guts crap, the little group of people who like Ace Combat style games is about to get a whole lot smaller.

I actually do wonder how many people will cancel their preorders after that demo. While AC fans are a small group, I wonder if the dev team would postpone the game to revise their thinking if enough people cancelled?

Personally.. I'm already counting on a new YF-19. The old one bugs me so much, I finally took a file and razor blade to it to try and get the nose to drop lower. I'm partially successful too, I just need to modify the gullet flap to fit, and then patch the gap on top. It currently still holds together the way it was made, but it's a bit loose.

Honestly? Ass-off mode in hawx annoys me much less than the closeup view in this game because it is optional. Hawx just sucked in every other way on top of that. At least AC has kept a decent grasp of aircraft physics.. hawx was pure stupid science fiction the way the aircraft flew. The problem with this demo is that it gives me the impression that they want to use the closeup mode as a way to run scripted mission events. The tutorial mode in the demo specifically mentioned that you'd have to rely on that mode to kill boss aircraft as well, and if they keep doing that, then yes, you will be forced to use it to trigger mission events, in which case, screw them. I do not buy AC games to fly on rails, and having it steer me toward the target while pulling impossible maneuvers was by far the stupidest thing I've ever seen the dev team do on these games. Plus.. the entire "high accuracy missile" bit.. just... NO. Also.. did anyone else think that the camera was MUCH too close to your aircraft in the external view? When I used the padlock button to get a fix on a target I couldn't even see around my own aircraft, because it was zoomed in so freaking close.

You know what... for almost half off, I'll do it. Amazon has it for $80, which if I think of it as a Blu-ray pack of the prequels and bonus materials, that's not a bad deal. I wouldn't mind seeing the prequels spruced up a bit. Individual movies would be $20+, and I don't mind paying another $20 for the bonus features. I'll just re-pack my original DVD cuts of the OT in the nice shiny new box, sell off the OT BR discs, and be done with it.

Well, AC had a nice run. Ace Combat: 1992-2011 RIP Seriously... bloody freaking hell, I want to slap those developers for ever thinking this was a good idea. If the game is anything like the demo... yeah, I have no intention of paying anything for this game. Ace Combat: Gimmick Assault embodies pretty much everything I have come to hate about current gen games. It's really sad too... the game is really pretty, and I would have loved it if they hadn't decided to rely on the features they did. If they don't make that stupid close up view mandatory at at all, I can maybe see it working. But that view is the worst thing since the ass-off mode in hawx. The intro to the demo was terrible, I was trying to figure out why I couldn't steer.. and then I realized it was steering for me. I probably used 150 missiles on one enemy in the demo mission, and no amount of gunfire would ever bring it down unless I used that feature. I mean, I've heard of plot armor before... but gimmick armor? And oh yeah.. I let out a very loud WTF when I decided to see what the "counter maneuver" was, and the plane pulled an automated culbit. Automatic maneuvers in AC? HELL FREAKING NO. If I wanted that, I'd be playing Starfox 64. If this demo mission isn't at all like the regular game, and they never force you to use that crap to take down anything, yeah, I can probably deal with it. But my hopes are not very high now. Edit: On another playthrough, I realized that they pretty much require you to use that freaking camera gimmick on ANY higher level target.. yeah. Hope dwindling by the minute. Oh yeah..and camera splatter.. seriously, WTF??????

Ok whoa. I might just have to get a PS3 now.

To be very honest... I'm not sure I even care if the joints ARE floppy. I'll probably be buying all of these purely because I love the fighter mode of the VF-25 (along with the super/armor packs), and it finally looks good enough that I want to spend money on it. Most of the time when I transform my valks, I only do for a little while, pose them a bit, then put them back in fighter, and zoom them around. So the only joints I really need to be sturdy are the landing gear hinges. Plus, if I can get an armored Ozma from this mold, I will have no qualms about building my armored 1/72 kit as a permanent battroid. Until I see proof that I can get a decent 1/60 armored VF-25 toy that transforms and holds together, I'm going on the assumption that the 1/72 kit will have to suffice, and will try my best to build it so it transforms with a minimum of damaged paint and decals.

You know, I may have just had the best idea ever for how to improve this movie. So, most times I ever watch Top Gun, I skip over any scene not directly involving aircraft. I want a Viewer's Cut version. Only aircraft scenes. Plus dubbing over all lines with recorded lines from actual pilots, using actual terminology. Or better yet.. The Top Gun: Ultimate Jet Noise Edition. Every line spoken by every character is dubbed over by a variety of sounds of aircraft engines. Every time someone opens their mouth, the sounds of engines play. I'm really tempted to do this with the trailer now, and put it on youtube. At the very least... I want a short documentary on the origin of the phrase "Zone Five" and instructions on proper usage of the term. I've heard that particular one misued in the stupidest ways, more times than I care to count.

Eh, I should probably rephrase what I meant. It's not that I expect to be able to move the joints however I want, it's more I've come to expect more from Yamato's ankle joint designs, and it doesn't surprise me at all that people tend to overstress the ankles, thinking they'll be able to move like previous valks' could. You're right, that issue really isn't comparable to Bandai joints just going limp. My thoughts kind of ran together, because I started picking apart a few issues I have with the VF-19, then deleted it all when I realized this is the DX YF-29 thread. Whether the VF-19 ankles can move however I want or not, there's no excuse for Bandai's joints to go so floppy just from sitting still. Fortunately it's relatively easy to apply fixes to both issues, but fixing the VF-19 ankle joint to make it tighten up again doesn't change the fact that the range of motion still sucks when you're done. In that regard, it's actually worse than the loose Bandai joints, since while the fix for them is more work, you at least had a good range of motion to begin with.

Well, on the subject of the VF-19... I'd argue that it's not unreasonable to expect the ankles to move a decent amount. I have a hard time faulting anyone for pushing the ankles farther than they were meant to go, just because people expect new products to meet or exceed the standards set by previous products. People expected those ankles to move more, and they don't. It's like if someone designed a four door car where the front doors barely open a foot or so, and the passenger doors open straight out. Even if it's designed that way, it doesn't mean it's at all useful, or even a good design. My greatest fear with regards to any Macross product right now is this current obsession with ball joints, or other non-detented pivots. They're useful in some ways, but when they fail, they can fail miserably. Yamato has a pretty good track record with hip and shoulder ball joints (usually all plastic I might add), but Bandai seems obsessed with die-cast, and just can't seem to figure out how to design a ball joint that doesn't become completely limp over time.

He approved it because money. Glad they've gone back to correct that, and here's hoping they make more money this time, and it reinforces the thought that attention to quality is worth the effort.

The legs almost look a little too high, I see what you mean, but it's probably just from being on the gear. Besides, I'll take the legs being too high over being too low any day.