Radd

Going to have to chalk up the opinions on Valk designs to being just that, opinions. Different tastes in design. The VF-4 battroid is one of my all-time favourites, second only to the VF-1. I'm also rather fond of the VF-14, especially the refined version from M3. I think the point about stylish and stylized looking designs is key. The VF-14, and the Cutlass are not graceful and pretty looking machines in battroid. As to whether slender, graceful looking mecha are a strength of anime, I'm not so certain, I've seen plenty great designs that do not fit that idea. None of the aforementioned Valk designs exactly fit in with western Mechwarrior-esque designs, they're still stylized, if not exactly stylish (though I suspect even that's debatable, I personally think the VF-4 battroid is pretty, as well as tough looking). If anything, my least favourite Kawamori designs have been his Armoured Core and Eureka 7 works, and even those have their fans. I suspect Kawamori will continue on these separate branches of design, appealing to many different people separately while not always pleasing everyone, and I've no issue with that.

The VF-9 is the Cutlass, right? Pope hat, wings fold over chest? I like that one. It's not pretty, but I don't think every design should be. I'm a fan of the poacher Valkyrie from Dynamite (The VA-6 I think?), and other less-than-sleek looking Valks.

Just poking on from the wife's laptop to catch up on all the news. Well, at the very least, when we get that first glimpse of video it will probably be better quality than shakey fancam. Good news, though. Black Heaven was fantastic, aside from the incredibly low animation budget. Who's the writer? I saw someone mentioning that the writer's past projects were terrible (but if they were including Black Heaven then I'm not entirely convinced), but going back didn't see the writer's name mentioned.

I think those are the colony ships. Possibly a much larger fleet than say the Macross 7 fleet. Then again, they might be dropping tackier designs like the Einstein, and instead have a group of smaller colony city/agriculture ships specializing in specific things. One of those ships might have a city specializing in research and design, while the next one is full of farms and fields growing food. Then a military fleet along with them for escort.

I'm really digging the city screenshot, and the fleet screenshot. The character design I've got mixed feelings on, but it's one partial picture nothing to come to any judgements on other than an initial ho-hum feeling towards the style. Of course, I've not much cared for a character design style in Macross except for when Mikimoto was doing them. And even then, I'm not always a fan of the actual costume design. We'll see. I'm not digging the CG Valkyrie. Again, just one less than stellar screenshot to begin with, so nothing to rush to any judgements over, but it seems to fall somewhere between a low point such as Aquarion, and a high point such as the better CG in M0. Still in the "I'd rather see them hand drawn" category. However, if the character animation is decent, and the backgrounds all nice and detailed and good looking, and the designs themselves are solid, I'll be happy. Overall I'm liking what I'm seeing. Here's hoping there's an actual video for us all to see sooner rather than later. Of course, I'm heading to bed now, and might not have any time at all to check for updates between when I wake and when I run out the door to hop on an 11-hour train ride to visit family, so I might not even be able to check the forum until tomorrow night sometime. We'll see. Man, the anticipation. Can't wait.

Being one of those who actually enjoyed M7, I'm not bothered by the comparison. On the other hand, the visuals I saw from the episode or two of Aquarion I watched were pretty bad on the CG side of things. Visuals looking like both Aquarion and Macross Zero? That's just odd, because the difference in quality I saw between M0 and what I saw of Aquarion were night and day. And the styles were not at all similar, either. I'm guessing either the visual quality of Aquarion jumped way up past the episodes I saw, or chalk it up to people seeing CG and their ability to discern quality stopping right about there. The context seems positive, though, so I'm, still eagerly awaiting this trailer. You'd think that in this day and age, there would be a fancam of the trailer up on YouTube by now.

I don't know of anything letting you use the classic pad for Cube games. Given that the classic pad isn't wireless, it is probably worth picking up a Wavebird controller, especially if you plan on also getting Smash Bros.

Alright, piecing together what I've learned from these translations. In 1995 some sort of time shock causes a disagreement, so the Macross Galaxy and Macross Frontier vessels embark on a journey in search of live rap in the year Twenty X-ty X!

I'd completely forgotten it was coming up. Man, now I can hardly wait. With any luck before I go to work tomorrow night the trailer will be online.

Meanwhile, plenty of great, or at least very enjoyable, movies bomb horribly in theatres, many great writers and directors are out of work, and even more fantastic projects never even get off the ground.

True. I'm pretty certain it's a character we don't know yet. The facial markings are very distinctive, would have noticed them on any character had they appeared by now.

I'm not certain why you think I confused those two? Or are you replying to Duke but quoted me? I've been the one saying he doesn't sound that much older than he has in the current episodes, just he's speaking in his "bad ass mode" rather than his softer, conversational voice. As for the "assistant"? He's a beastman, I think. Those marks on his face and the dark nose? The nose thing might just be a shadow. His voice sounds a lot like a character we know, though. He was Simon's next-door neighbor at the end of episode 20. Is this the case? I don't know. Rather, I suspect it's a character we don't know yet, as Viral doesn't have the facial marks, but if it's someone we already know then that's where my money is at the moment.

Precisely, like how many commented that his voice seemed to change when he broke out of his post-Kamina funk.

I dunno, it's entirely possible, but I think you're reading a bit much into it. He's pretty much obscured in shadow throughout the segment, but he seems to be about as old as we're seeing him now. You could be right, but at this point I'm expecting they break out of Earth and take the battle to the Anti-Spirals in a similar buildup that we saw in the first story arch, not another timejump.

Wow, just watched episode 20. Gainax is doing this right. I can hardly wait for the next episode.

I hear in episode 21 she kicks around a basket full of kittens. Throughout the entire episode.

You think that's silly? I've seen people act like that in real life on a pretty consistent basis. Many people want freedom until they know the cost, then they want safety instead. Something you expect to happen for some reason? He already seems to be about the age he was shown at in the first episode and in the end credits. I'm expecting just a costume change, rather than another time jump.

Ja, except for the paint job which looks really flat. Dunno, I still kinda want one, but with that paint job do I fifty-bucks want it?

Soundwave and Skywarp are big on my Masterpiece wishlist. All of the movie characters I'd like to see I'd rather have as Alternators, unfortunately. Kup was actually one of the Alts I would have most like to have seen next, along with Iron Hide (even if that was just Prime repainted and with a new head sculpt). Though if they'd found something to work Bumblebee and Cliffjumper into, that would have been great, too. Luckily, there's still plenty they could do with the Masterpiece line. I suppose it's too much to hope for a rerelease Ultra Magnus with trailer/armour?

Quite. Still, the method is nothing to be proud of. They're really cashing in the chips as far as brand loyalty goes.

I'm still convinced Sony could have released the PS3 for a hundred or two hundred cheaper had they not decided to use their loyal gaming fanbase to push BluRay, and since the PS3 comes with a hard drive it wouldn't have affected the games. I have to disagree with the statement that all consoles after the Dreamcast are taking up after the 3DO. The PS2 and Xbox could play DVDs, sure, but it didn't affect the price all that much, certainly not enough to put the price tag into the stratosphere, like with the 3DO and PS3. The 360 is pricey, sure, but one could argue that it's no more expensive than the Sega Saturn was, it launched at more than I'm willing to pay for a console, but the price drop is bringing it down to a much more reasonable rate. Sure, I could do without the extra video/photo/music gimmicks, but I do have to wonder just how much those gimmicks affected the price? As for Nintendo, I think as far as anyone last gen, they did the right thing with the Gamecube. They made it cheap, simple, and developer friendly. But there was no stopping the PS2 juggernaut and the graphics race was a dead-end anyways. Innovations like Xbox Live and the Wii controller were the way to go, and I'm glad the experiences of last generation pushed Nintendo and Microsoft to move in their respective directions (though I must admit I'd love a console with the best of both worlds, maybe next gen?). Nintendo is keeping with the simple game system formula, but moving in directions other than the graphics race. The remote was a gamble that paid off, but keeping the price low, especially in the face of Microsoft and Sony's price tags, was certainly a smart move.

"Same two transformations"?

Well damn, that puts me down a notch. I hadn't even heard of Swerve. Googling up images, I'm pretty surprised I hadn't, he looks great. Gah, now I need to scrounge the net and see if I can nab him. A quick Google and it looks like that's easier said than done. Well...all the Alternators but two.

Biggest hardware leap seems to be, to my eyes anyways, the arrival of PCI Express and SLi. I tossed in a second nVidia 7800 a few months back and nearly doubled my framerates. Definitely don't cheat yourself out of an easy, yet substantial, upgrade a year or two down the road by grabbing a non-PCIE motherboard for cheap. A decent SATA hard drive should be fine, as far as that goes. I tend to go with Seagate.

It's official, I now own every Alternator released in the States, except for Camshaft. I'd love to get Camshaft just to complete the collection, but I'm just not willing to pay the exhorborant prices everyone seems to be asking. I realize he's relatively rare, but he' still the dullest of the Alternators, and he's a bland repaint at that. Failing to find a Kiss Rodimus (I much prefer the pait scheme, and would have loved the fishing pole to go with him), I ordered an SDCC Rodimus from BBTS. Actually arrived a few days ago, but personal issues made me forget all about the box for the past several days. Finally opened it up just now. I have to say, even at $40-50 bucks, I'm glad I picked up Rodimus. Sure, the fishing pole would have been nice, but even so he's a fantastic figure, easily one of the best in the line. While his chest panel still doesn't lock into place (a problem Mirage had as well, really the worst flaw in the sculpt, but still my favourite Alt sculpt)the two side panels are much more solid. His hips are a bit loose, but every other joint seems incredibly tight, without being too tight. The head sculpt is fantastic, though I wish the visor had some sort of tint. When transforming Rodimus, I've left the doors sticking out, rather than having them fold down like on Mirage (I do the same with Sunstreaker and Sideswipe. Sideswipe's doors down, Sunstreaker's doors out), and for the moment I've left his gun as a single weapon. The effect is a surprising change from Mirage. He looks bigger, more imposing. Along with the "all I do is chew gum and kick ass, and I'm all out of gum" head sculpt, he seems less like Hot Rod and more like what Rodimus Prime should have been. So despite the cheesy chest flames (which could have been made to look better with a little more colour and possibly a hint of a gradient) Rodimus is now one of my favourite Alternators, and my favourite version of the character as well. It's just too bad he's the end of, for my anyways, the pinnacle of Transformers lines. I just hope the Masterpiece toys keep coming, especially Decepticons (who, at the moment, are rather out numbered on my Alt/MP shelf)