Chronocidal

Ok, I might have to get this one too. That blue is awesome. Makes the yellow actually look good. Might have to put in a preorder today. Looking at the sticker sheet though, I'm having a thought. They didn't include the zig-zaggy leg markings it looks like, but they added stickers for the wing/fuselage stripes... if they include white ones of those stickers on the F, I might be tempted to try kitbashing a red/white VF-19 out of a second Fire Valk, and make myself M&M VF-19s.

Ok, wow, that last pic is beautiful. Is it a darker shade of blue, or is that just me? I may have to get the whole group now Also here's hoping for the rest of sound force.

I did buy two of the v.1s, and I dunno if I really would say I regret doing it, but they've been relegated to the "save for my kids to play with someday" pile. If they follow the same packaging lineup, I'll likely get one of each of them this time around. I'm getting the plain Alto to start, but I want an armored Ozma, and super Michael. Luca I'm undecided on really, but it will depend on how much of the stuff they make exclusive, because I want his packs and the ghosts if possible. I'm also hoping they include the reaction missiles with the armor this time. The extra clip on missiles really didn't look good at all, and on top of that, they were only used on the VF-171 as I recall, so I don't even know why they thought releasing them as a separate exclusive was a good idea. Adding just the reaction missiles to the armor packed VF-25 seems like an absolute no-brainer. What I do wish they would do for the super packs though is just make a universal set with stickers (or even multiple colors of snap-on plastic parts) to customize them for the different schemes. They did it for the models that way, and the colored content for each set isn't too great that it would be impractical I think. The only downside would be that they'd need to include more stickers for the markings, instead of tampo printing everything. On the other hand.. considering how much of those markings seem to just flake off, I'd probably be willing to pay a little extra for a full sheet of stickers.

I'm guessing this is one of those pre-painted kits? I picked up Anakin's ship and the ARC-170, and they aren't terrible (very good representations of the ships really), but Star Wars kits have always been notorious for bad/inaccurate/nonexistant scaling. I think part of the problem is that most stuff in the SW universe is just really small by real aircraft standards, similar in size to WWII aircraft (or in the A-wing's case, homebuilts ). In order to get a decent sized model in a common scale, it generally turns out to be either really small, or really big. Best example of this is the Episode I Ertl kits.. the N-1 is a tiny ship, and droid fighters are even smaller.. but by insisting they be made in 1/48, they doomed themselves to produce ships with absolutely no presence on a shelf. The Fine Molds X-Wing is a beautiful thing, but even 1/48 is a bit small for it. I'd really love to get a full line of ships in 1/32, but they'd probably be horribly expensive. The Ertl special edition X-Wing kit was close to that scale, but it needs half the parts thrown out for being absolute trash. I'm hoping to rebuild the one I got someday, but it might be easier to make one from scratch than fix what's wrong with that kit. Given how flat most of the X-Wing's fuselage is, it really wouldn't be that bad to make out of sheet styrene, then the rest of the pieces are all tubes and wings.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't all the Emerald and Diamond Force pilots all wear the same style flightsuit anyway? Easy enough to just pretend it's Gamlin, or Kinryu. Or, you know.. I'll probably get both the S and the F eventually, but I might repaint the S head with white stripes, and just stick the VF-22 Max figure in there. The yellow isn't all that bad, but I just like the white much better. Heck, I wonder how hard it would be to paint over tampo printing, even. Though, now that I think of it, I wonder what other colors might look good. Blue with black stripes might go well with the darker details on the VF-19S. Dangit Yamato, I want a paint-free gull-gray plastic version to put in VF-84 markings.

Correct VF-25S backplate/head joint? Check! Definitely will get one of these eventually, because I never got the v.1, but I'm waiting for the armor. It looks beautiful so far though, and I can't wait to see how they implement the armor this time around.

Good blue shade, check! Also, thrilled to see they added the correct secondary intakes on the LEX, Bandai forgot those on the hi-metal. Blue is also much better. Though, I might pass and wait for the F.. the yellow just looks too gaudy. It may be accurate, but I wish they'd gone with a more gold-ish color like the Blue Angels use. Or.. I could just paint over it..

I'm betting on them figuring out the way to make the back piece different this time. Remember, there's a separation joint in the back plate that shows where a separate piece goes to fit behind the head. I think the reason the gun slots are extra long is because they're not part of the piece that gets swapped out to fit the different heads. Also, ditto on waiting for the armor. Alto will likely be an exclusive again, but there's no way they'd make Ozma's armor a webshop only release.

Well, good idea for us, yes, but in general, not really. The level of complexity in the VF-19 would make it a nightmare to assemble, even more so to write assembly instructions for. Plus, with the tolerances so tight, I don't think there's really room for paint on one. If we do get a white-ish P though, I might do a bit of valk-bashing and make an F-model with black stripes out of it. Not going to cut anything up, just swap some parts around.. but I might need to scratchbuild a pair of the stubby wings so I don't have to paint over dark blue, and risk scratching the paint off. At least the wings are a fairly simple shape to make, but shaping them by hand could be... interesting.

I want a no paint kit version, and I can be happy, because I can buy twice as many if I put them together myself.

I want to say no, but I haven't tested that myself. The toe and heel have two stable positions that they click into, but I don't think the hinges have any sort of tension to them that would support the weight of any poses that use intermediate positions.

I'll repost this here for an illustration. I was really careful not to spread the ankle joint when I did this, and this is about as far as the ankle will go. I moved the ankle only to the point where it looked like the ankle shaft was starting to press on the rim of the ball joint, and this is how far it moved. Compared with every other ankle Yamato has made, it has almost no range of motion at all. I'm hoping they can improve this somewhat on the VF-19, but I don't have my hopes up. And I really hope they don't make this same mistake on the VF-17. Good thing I like fighter mode more anyway.

It's not like there isn't a precedent set for this.. I don't remember Hikaru ever getting an instruction manual. As far as the VF-17T is concerned, the changes would be a little more drastic than the VF-19s. Unless they somehow can elongate the cockpit backwards (which I don't think is accurate, because I remember the nose being longer), the entire chest area will need to be reworked to cover the bigger canopy. The nose length itself

I'd rather the developers quit trying to figure out every single way they can to squeeze more money out of the people buying the games. Remember when games came complete when you bought them? The hilarious thing was when hawx tried to do DLC.. and then made a PC release. Modders figured out how to unlock the extra content within a few days, and the developers quickly banned anyone who mentioned this from the developer forums on Ubisoft's website. Officially, the PC version never even got the extra content released. Once the mod was spread, they gave up. Yeahh... that dev team had some serious issues with understanding the differences between consoles and PCs. It's why I generally prefer PC games.. the fans will ALWAYS find ways to improve on what the developers have done. Even hawx got a lot better after the players got past all the WTF from when they tried to play it. I just want DLC to freaking die already. Expansions, I can understand. Charging me $5 just so I can fly a plane that's been in all the previous games? Not a chance in hell.

Here's an idea. Let's redub the entire movie so the only thing anyone ever says is, "NOOOOOOOOO!" It'll be a hit!

Glad I actually got a preorder in.. but I have to point out one thing about those pictures... Is Bandai just completely inept at making plastic FLAT? Why the hell are the wings curled up AGAIN????? They're not as bad as the first run obviously, but it's very clear those wings are anything but level. Someone at Bandai needs to be slapped upside the head with a book on how plastic behaves when it cools, because it seems like they don't have a clue.

Oh of course not, but it's rather entertaining to try and explain away all the inconsistencies. We all know GL lost it somewhere along the way, but we can still delude ourselves into thinking it all makes sense somehow. It helps the workday go faster, in any case. Anyhow, regardless of it being worthwhile to do, I just have no trouble imagining that Palpy would have wiped the Lars family off the map for the lulz, just because they were connected.

Exactly.. in fact, that's what surprised me. Whether the Lars family posed a direct threat to Vader or not, I'm surprised Palpatine didn't see them as a loose end to be tied up. Plus, given their relation to Anakin, I'd think they'd be on the list of places to check for potential force sensitive children to corrupt. While they never said whether Anakin's relatives had potential or not, I'd think they'd at least be on the radar when the great jedi hunt began, and they probably would've taken Luke. Maybe part of the reason Obi-wan hung around was to act as a force jammer? I mean, it's certainly possible to mask force power/sensitivity, considering how long Palpatine did it right under the noses of the jedi council.

That option is still there in the Xbox demo, but they borked it up something awful. In exterior view, the camera does track your target, but it also zooms in so close to your own aircraft that it fills the screen, and you can't even see your target. It's slightly better in the cockpit view, but honestly, the padlock view is much better in aircraft with some sort of canopy frame to use as a reference point. The F-22's huge bubble dome canopy has no reference point to keep you aware of which way you're facing, and it's pretty disorienting. And since they tend to severely restrict how far you can move your head in cockpit view (can't have you looking down into the cockpit and see they were too lazy to actually model it), your view tends to get stuck at the limits of how far it can move.

Seconded. Hell, I've been waiting for things to come full circle, and give us a new X-Wing game series based on the books. Likely won't happen, but if we ever get a new X-Wing game, I'd settle for a well written fan campaign. In terms of the EU, it's definitely been hit or miss, and there have been some real oddballs (the Luke/Callista thing never should have happened, those books were an overdose of WTF), but in general, I think anything Zahn/Stackpole/Allston up to the NJO books is stuff I've thoroughly enjoyed. As for Vader not thinking to look for Luke and Leia, it is true, he shouldn't have really had any reason to look for them, since he wouldn't know they'd survived. But that still doesn't explain how they managed to raise Luke for 18 some odd years there, and never come under Vader's eye. Unless Anakin truly gave up looking for Obi-wan, or was content to just let him live out his life in exile, I don't see how the Lars homestead wasn't blown off the map years earlier. May not have been the first place Vader would have gone looking for Obi-wan, but how he never got around to checking there seems odd. Then again.. now that I think of it, Obi-wan never actually visited there before dropping off Luke, did he? While he was there in EpI, he never went near that spot on the planet, and while Anakin and Padme went there in EpII, Obi-wan was off chasing the Fetts. Still surprises me a little Vader never made a housecall there looking for potential jedi, but I guess he may not have considered anyone there to be any threat to him.

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?"