Graham

I managed to get an 'S' in P1 by defeating the Glaug using battroid mode only. I also used the hide behind the building trick as well, combined with the good old 'strategic withdraw', otherwise known as "Run Away, Run Away"! Graham

Not likely, as the name implies, the selection will be limited to Zeonic designs. The bad guys from Sentinels are called New Decides. While that's true, I'm pretty sure that Bandai will lump the New Decides MS together with the Zion MS in the Zeongraphy line. i mean it's basically supposed to be a line for bad guy MS's Graham

Aliens, shmaliens, when is sombody going to make a decent set of Colonial Marines figures? Every attempt so far as been somewhat half-assed Graham

Well, my first computer was a Sinclair ZX Spectrum and I liked to play Manic Miner and Ant Attack. The Spectrum had some fantastic games. My computer now is very old and slow and is powered by a very fat hamster which runs on a treadwheel thus providing power. All calculations and memory functions are handled by a senile chimpanze who through an unfortunate accident only has three fingers remaining, so can't add up very quickly. But seriously my computer is nothing special, just a Pentium III 700MHz(?) CPU with 10G hard drive and 256RAM. I have no idea if I even have a graphics card or not! I have no interest in online gaming or computer games and just use my computer for email and websurfing, so it's fine for me. I do have a broadband connection. Graham

Ok that makes sense, but do they actually explain that in Revolutions, as I don't remember hearing that explanation during the movie? Or is it one of those things which is only explained in the game? Graham

OK, so in Revolutions the Oracle keeps mentioning that something happened to her which caused her change in apperance. Now in real life, we all know it's because the actress playing the original Oracle passed away. But in the story, what was it that caused here to change? AFAIK, this is never clearly explained. IIRC, she mentioned that she had to give up something (?), but what and why? Graham

I've managed to get 5 or 6 'S' grades so far, but there are times like last night when I was playing, when I really burn through the stages, waste all the enemy ultra fast, take very little damage and still get a bloody 'B' or 'C' grade only Am I just crap, or do you guys who have got 'S' grade on every stage have superhuman reflexes or something? Well, I'm putting it down to my old age (34) and that I'm only an extremely casual gamer. That's my story and I'm sticking to it! Graham

Fighter with FAST Packs first, normal fighter a close second. My current 1/48 display breakdown is like this: - Fighter w/FP = 2pcs. Fighter = 1pc. Battroid w/FP =4pcs. Battroid = 1pc. Gerwalk =1pc. The only reason I don't have more on display in fighter mode is because of lack of display space. Graham

I'm still trying to figure out what is the most important criteria for getting a high grade ('S' or 'A'). Is it completing the mission with a short a time as possible? Or is it having a high hit rate, or a low damage? Gah.....this is making me frustrated. IMO, it seems to vary from mission to mission. There have been missions were I've taken little or no damge, completed the mission quickly, got a hit rate above 30% but still only got a B or C. Thoughts, theories? Graham

Heh, heh, playing with toys and dating girls are not mutually exclusive hobbies. The two can easily and happily be combined. Don't tell me you have never heard of the favorite MW game 'hide the nosecone?' Graham

Yawn......absolutely nothing there that interests me at all. Good, that means I can save more money. Don't like Eva's and the only Gundam stuff that interests me these days are Katoki's Sentinel designs. As I've said before, hopefully once the Zeonography line finishes with the old school (boring IMO) MS like the Zakus, Doms and Gelgoogs, we'll see some Sentinel bad guys. Graham

I'd like to see a new series set sometime post-FB2012, with the main character starting off flying a VF-4 and then halfway or two thirds of the way through the series, transitioning to the newer VF-5000. Graham

If you want to barrel roll to the right, quickly push the left joystick to the left then to the right (the direction you want to roll). If you want to barrel roll to the left, quickly push the left joystick to the right then to the left (the direction you want to roll). And yes, there is a pinned topic at the top for discussing or asking questions about this game. Graham

Hmm...I forget the exact price of the helmet, but I think it was something like ¥158,000. Graham

I won't be writing any Banpresto reviews. I only bought 2pcs of the first wave and ended up destroying the fool things in disgust and throwing them out. Needless to say I didn't buy any more and have no interest/intention of ever buying any more. So, if anybody wants to write any Banpresto reviews please submit them to Shawn. The last review I wrote was for the Yamato VF-11B FAST pack, which is still on file somewhere waiting to be uploaded to the site. I will eventually get round to doing the backlog of reviews that need doing, which includes the 1/60 VE-1, VT-1 and 1/48 FP & VF-1S Hikaru as well as the Bandai 1/55 reissues. Although my interest in Macross is just as strong as ever, work and personal commitments leave me with little free time at the moment for writing reviews. Graham

I've watched both Evangelion and RahXephon and out of the two I infinitely prefered RahXephon. Eva was great at the start, but for me at least just got plain annoying and incomprehensible towards the end. Graham

I wonder if the Yamato vending machine actually chases you around like the Petite Cola machines in Macross? Now that would be cool Graham

Yep, IMO Hikaru VF-1S is a great toy. I now have 3 Highly recommended. Graham

It's coming, but the YF-19 is one of the most difficult VFs to design a really good, accurate toy of. Those of you who have really thought about this and studied the issue will know what I mean. The groin/front landing gear area and back of the legs/shoulder areas are real challenges. Pictures will be released as soon as Yamato is happy with the design. I trust you all want a good toy, so just be patient. Give them time to get it right rather than rush the design. Of course something like the Q-Rau which does not transform and is a much simpler design will be finished quicker. Graham

Definitely DYRL style. No need to remove your hands from the controls at all, plus the more efficient wide angle holographic HUD displayed on the canopy. With TV controls, not only do you have the throttle and transformation levers seperate from the main joiystick, but also when transforming to battroid or Gerwalk, you have to let go of the central fighter mode joystick and grab the seperate left and right arm controls. Graham

Saw Revolutions on Friday and came away feeling quite disappointed. Sure it had some nice set piece action scenes, such as the defensive battle at Zion's dock, but overall, the film felt very rushed. One of my biggest complaints is that there seemed to be a lot of things refered to in the movie that had no connection to the first movie or Reloaded. I don't remember specifics, but I remember thinking this several times during Revolutions. Based on some comments I've read I gather that Revolutions refers to events in the Matrix console game! If this is true, that is very bad as I guess probably less than 1% of people watching the movie have played the game. Also, what happened to all of Zion's ships? In Reloaded, a lot of emphasis was placed on how critical they were to Zion's defence. Yet. in Revolutions no mention is made of them at all! I don't know how many ships there were supposed to be, but I guess between 30 to 100. Were all the ships disabled by the EMP blast set off by Bain/Smith which is breifly mentioned in Reloaded? if yes, keeping all the ships grouped together so that one EMP blast would disable them or so they could be wiped out by one mass attack seems very bad tactics. If the ships were wiped out due to Bain/Smith, then this scene should have been shown in more detail. From watching Reloaded, I got the impression that perhaps only 3-4 ships had been destroyed. And why the heck didn't the Zion Military seed all the approach routes to Zion with hundreds EMPs so that any Sentinal attack could have been stopped before it got close to Zion. OK, this may not have worked as the Sentinals were drilling newe tunnels, but couldn't Zion have found a way to insert an EMP into the tunnels being drilled by the Sentinels. What do the initials APU stand for? Glad Trinity died. I cheered in the cinema. Perhaps now Neo if he lives can actually find a girl that doesn't look like a bloke Probably Reloaded & Revolutions will seem better if watched straight through in one sitting. Graham

Heh, got both of my VF-1S Hikaru set up with Strike packs and most beautiful they loook too. However, too lazy to take any photos this weekend Graham

It really depends on the mission. If it's a space based or atmospheric flying mission, I'll use fighter mode about 70% of the time and Gerwalk 30%. If it's a ground based mission or one based inside a spaceship, then I'll use Battroid about 70% of the time and Gerwalk 30%. Graham

Well, I originally told myself that I wasn't going to buy these K&M figures, but after seeing them on display at a branch of Animate today, I broke down and bought a set. Actually, I really just wanted the Regult only, but they weren't selling individual figures so I had to buy the whole set of 5, for which I paid HK$188 (about US$24.10). Anyway, with the exception of the Regult, I have to say that I'm actually pretty disappointed with these figures. Both the Regult and the non-transforming Hikaru VF-1J are constructed of hard PVC and come fully painted over their entire surface. The paint job is very good especially on the Regult, which comes covered with those weird squiggly Zentradi markings. While the paint job on the non-transforming Hikaru VF-1J is well applied, the choice of colors is odd as it's mostly different shades of grey rather than white. Only the head, shoulders, back and part of the upper leg (below the thigh) are white, pretty much the rest of the figure is grey, some of it quite dark grey! Both the Regult and the non transforming Hikaru are well articulated. I count 18 points of articulation on the VF-1J and and 13 on the Regult. One area where the Regult disappoints is that the main thrusters on the sides of the pod do not rotate, unlike on the fairly recent Bandai HG Mission # 2 Regult figure. Some of the joints on the non-transforming VF-1J where very tight and after only about 5 minutes of possing the figure I accidently snapped the right elbow joint (a peg in hole type affair) Sizewise, the Regult is about 11cm tall (measured to the tips of the main guns). The non-transforming Hikaru VF-1J stands 7cm tall. Moving onto to the three transforming valks, which are the VF-1A Cannon Fodder (Brownie), VF-1J Max and VF-1J Hikaru. These figures do not have perfect transformation, instead relying on the parts swapping method to get the job done. Basically to change from battroid to fighter mode, the feet, head, gunpod, backpack, nose/cockpit section and arms all need to be removed and swapped for different fighter mode parts. The transforming figures are pretty small. In fighter mode they are about 7.5cm long. In battroid mode just under 7cm tall. They seem to be made mostly of ABS plastic rather than PVC, so no gashapon disease There are no metal parts or screws at all. The figures are not fully painted over their entire surface unlike the non-transforming VF-1J, but they do come molded in the correct color plastic, i.e. blue for Max, white for Hikaru etc. The various colored stripes, canopy and a few other small details are painted on. The transforming figures do however have a few Tampo printed markings such as the kite emblem and 'UN Spacy'. IMO of the three modes, the Gerwalk mode looks the best, the fighter mode is not too bad either although the chest and backplates don't stay together too well sometimes creating a noticable gap. The battroid mode is just terrible. It is just so out of proportion it's not funny. So far nothing has broken on the transforming figures, but they look very fragile. Overall not recommended. If you have a chance to buy just the Regult figure, I'd say go for it, but the other figures are a big waste of money IMO. Graham

That will really suck if the extra mecha are only available as downloads, as for those of us outside of Japan, it will probably be really difficult (or impossible?) to download I would much prefer a second PS2 Macross game with the Mac Plus & Mac Zero Mecha. Hopefully, next time Sega-AM2 will add a 2 player vs. mode and also a speed gauge. Graham