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GU-11

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  1. GU-11
    Cash grab is right. You know they're just trying to milk some money from the recent robot movie craze when they get some no-name director to make the reboot. Probably think the brand name itself will get people to watch it. I've got to give Padilha some points for trying, at least. It looked promising in some areas, but soon fell flat on its face, unfortunately.
  2. GU-11
    Malaysia. I'm not even sure if we have a local Amazon site.
  3. GU-11
    (SPOILERS AHEAD....) I watched the Robocop reboot a while ago, and plot-wise, it doesn't hold a candle to the original. It could have been better in a lot of areas, and I actually grew to like the new ED-209 designs. Decent performances by Keaton and Oldman, but the rest of the cast were pretty bland. Like most everyone lse here, Murphy's car bomb thing lacked the dramatic punch of the original version. The way Boddicker and gang shot him up and laughed about it was really riveting. That Valen guy is a poor replacement for Clarence Boddicker. Sure, Boddicker was a bit of a cliche, but it was a it was done well, thanks to Kurtwood Smith's portrayal. Valen was basically a non-element and there was no dramatic payoff in his death at all. Overall, the story quickly lost its direction midway, and resorted to action flick autopilot. The thing with his organic right hand could have been used as a Chekov's Gun during the climax at the helipad, making it more dramatic. They could have made it so that even if he can't shoot "red assets" due to his programming, he switches to his organic hand in the last second and shoots Keaton with it. That would have at least made it more interesting. It wouldn't have topped the original with the CEO yelling, "Dick, you're fired!" but it would have been more interesting than Murphy simply forcing his hand up and shooting. On the positive side, the idea of deploying automated drones in the Middle East was interesting, and seems pretty plausible in the near-future. The premise was believable as well, a military drone company trying to manipulate public opinion on local drone usage using a cyborg cop. Murphy's fight with the ED's at the Omnicorp lobby was also really cool. Seeing the suit in the film, it's better than when I was just looking at the concept art. It still looks like a suit, though; the original looked like an actual cyborg body. They could have made him look more cyborg-like by giving the actor some rubber skin to give his face an artificial look. Just change the script up a little and have his face burned so badly that they had to give him a latex face. I'm probably the only one who likes Samuel Jackson's parody of The O'Reilly Factor. Just my two cents' worth, of course.
  4. GU-11
    Sounds like the same old DW8 game. Truth be told, DW games were known more for their literal army of playable characters rather than the quality of the graphics. Personally, I'm pretty fussy when it comes to the storyline of a game; if I don't know what's going on, it tends to affect my enjoyment of a game. Glad to hear that the Far Cry franchise is made up of more or less standalone games. I keep seeing the same main character on the covers, and though they'd all have to be inter-related. 30 USD(?) isn't that bad for 3 games, but I've got my eyes set on Watch Dogs for the PS3. I plan on picking it up when I go collect my new super slim. BTW, does amazon ship outside the US? Most times when I try to buy something, they tell me they don't.
  5. GU-11
    Really, I'm not judging you. In fact, I was tempted to the the PS4 version of DW8 myself for my future PS4, for the same reasons you said. It's definitely less of a hassle to have both the main game and XL in the same disc. I wanted to try out Lu Lingqi; dude, come on, that's fricking Lu Bu's daughter! BTW, is PS4 DW 8 any better in the graphics department, or is it the same as the PS3 version but with XL added? I was thinking maybe they might have improved on the minor details a bit. What you said about the PS4 versions makes sense. The PS4's game roster is still woefully small, although it's understandable for a 4-5 month old console. Most gamers would be perfectly willing to try out a favorite game of theirs that now comes with better graphics, or one that they previously missed out on for the PS3. I wouldn't mind if the re-released Far Cry or Borderlands as a complete version on the PS4. I didn't own a PS3 when the first games came out, and didn't see a point in buying the sequels if I didn't know what was going on.
  6. GU-11
    My thoughts exactly. IMO, the evolution of movie TF designs were a downhill process. I actually grew to like the "junkyard after a tornado" designs, but then they started getting even weirder with unicycle bots in ROTF. The designs got lazier in DOTM, with Megatron and the Dreads barely having any car parts on them, and the transformation cheating got even worse--Megs' truck parts basically folded into his body, but at least it looked cool. With AOE, they didn't even bother trying, and went with designs that are premeditatedly impossible to transform, in the case of OP's Western Star, Drift's Bugatti and Bee's Camaro du jour. The Stingers were just Bee color-swaps that turned into high-tech Lego.
  7. GU-11
    True. Of the 2 dozen games I own, only TR and RE 5 & 6 were copy-protected. There's an option for backing up online, but I haven't bothered with a PSN or PS Plus account since I'm not a fan of multiplayer games. Being a non-multiplayer gamer, I never knew you could do that with a game save. While TR and the RE 5 & 6 games had multiplayer sections, the bulk of the gameplay is single player or co-op oriented. It's one of those few times where I miss memory cards. All my saves were immediately accessible when I said farewell to my fat (and dead) PS2 and replaced it with a slim version.
  8. GU-11
    Quite true. While I haven't read the comics, I do have the Generations fig and read his tfwiki bio. IDW Drift was pretty much either a lover letter to Japan (as his creator states) or a stereotypical depiction of bushido, depending on how you look at it. Personally, the IDW version at least felt less offensive without the obnoxious samurai getup and yellowish bronze tint on his faceplate. I won't even start with the "Asian" facial features. The only good thing about AOE Drift was Ken Watanabe voicing him, although the unnaturally thick accent was distracting. I have a feeling Bay had a hand in this. Watanabe spoke much more fluent English in Inception. The off-screen cheats, you can partially blame on Spielberg. He taught Bay how to use visual trickery to save on CGI money, using Jurassic Park as an example, Bay proudly admits to it in the TF1 commentary. In fact, he was particularly proud of how he saved on CGI money in the Air Force One scene with Frenzy, by panning the camera away to the stewardess and only letting the viewer hear the transformation. As for characterization, I think Bay is unable to relate to non-macho characters. Spielberg pretty much forced him to set TF1 in an urban setting using the "boy and his car" thing as the premise, and look what happened to Sam as a character--he was borderline neurotic in TF1, and became a complete ass-clown in ROTF and DOTM. In the first "trilogy", the only people who acted sane were Voight as the Sec Def, Epps and Lennox, all of them characters with military backgrounds. Turturro doesn't count because...well, Turturro just doesn't do sane. First time viewings are always misleading, particularly with Michael Bay movies. His movies are made to dazzle you with flashy cars, big explosions and up-skirt shots of hot chicks. Once the eye candy gets old, the plot can't hold itself up. Which amazes me how everyone at the TF fansites can create 30-page threads discussing "plot-points" from all 4 movies, as if the inconsistencies and logic snafus were anything but. The "fanon" can be quite entertaining, though. Truth is, there is no concrete mythology in TF movies. Bay and the writers just pick out whatever ideas they fancy from completely unrelated continuities, and mash them up with concepts they developed by themselves. TF1: Allspark created TF's. Sparks are supposed to be their "souls." ROTF: Hatchlings. Don't ask me who laid the eggs or "gave birth" to them. No mention of sparks. DOTM: Hatchlings; at least this one remained consistent for 2 movies. Again the question of sparks and how little TF's are made is dodged. AOE: Organic beings called Creators manufactured the TF's, and the material is harvested by bombing planets using "seeds." Now sparks are supposed to be just like human souls, which creates a lot of debating among fans, and is probably something Kruger came up with but couldn't follow up on.
  9. GU-11
    Watched AOE last week, and it's about as near perfect of a TF movie as I dare to expect from Bay. No Shia, no military worship, no patented Michael Bay slapstick humor, better bot characterizations, and a somewhat more coherent plot than any of the previous sequels. Wahlberg delivered a decent performance, as did Grammer. Peltz wasn't annoying or obnoxious, although the boyfriend was. And that's the positive points. Negative points: Rubik's cube "transmorphing" sucks. Just looks lazy. The more traditional transformations looked cool (to me at least) and were the only reasons I still make myself watch the crapfest that was ROTF (while fast-forwarding over the Shia and Leo scenes). The knights thing should have been elaborated on further, and explained in more detail. What exactly are knights in the context of the movie? OP used to be a Prime, and now he's a knight but somehow doesn't remember being one?! Drift was a caricature of a samurai, for no other reason than because Bay probably felt it was funny. And what with the whole helicopter/car triple changer thing, he should have been Springer, much like Hound should have been Bulkhead. The whole thing with the Dinobots felt pointless. It would have been better if they'd explained more about the knights, since the Dinobots' origins and characterizations are tied closely to the whole knights thing. Well, at least Grimlock didn't take an energon dump in some guy's convertible like I expected him to. All in all, it was refreshing and awesome the first time around, and less and less so the more you think about it.
  10. GU-11
    I'm not very knowledgeable when it comes to the gaming industry, but what possible point is there in copy-protecting a game save? What's there to plagiarize? Either way, I do not look forward to starting again from scratch, working my way through Mercenaries to unlock Wesker. Trophies? Not even worth the effort.
  11. GU-11
    Yeah, the PS4 just doesn't have a lot of games worth buying yet, IMO, and many of the new games have PS3 versions. Besides, I don't trust a console to be glitch free until it's at least 10 months old. It's hilarious how game developers are making next-gen versions of relatively new PS3 games, like Tomb Raider (reportedly just as glitchy as the PS3 version, if not more so), TLOU, and even Dynasty Warriors 8. Would it be paranoid to think that Sony might be encouraging them to do so? BTW, TR and the RE 5 & 6 game saves refuse to be copied to my flash drive. Must be something to do with the copyright thing.
  12. GU-11
    Sounds like it should work. Thanks, I'll give it a try tomorrow! Well, I guess getting the super slim wasn't such a bad idea after all. I knew it wasn't free, but I expected it to be a flat rate monthly subscription kind of thing.
  13. GU-11
    Thanks for the info, David! Right after I got it to boot up, I took the opportunity to copy as many of my game saves as to possible to a flash drive, except Tomb Raider and RE 5 and 6. TR doesn't really reward you with new game + stuff, so no big loss there, but it took me a lot of effort to unlock all characters in RE 5's Mercenaries. And the infinity weapons I unlocked in RE6... Fortunately, I didn't download any movies or DLC's.
  14. GU-11
    Okay, I just removed my PS3's HDD and turned it on. Well, it still shut down in typical YLOD fashion, but the biggest difference is that it took much longer this time, about a full minute--probably did so because it couldn't detect a HDD. With the HDD installed, it shutdown almost immediately, 10 seconds at most. So, to all PS3 hardware experts out there,does this mean the HDD is the culprit? I also got it to boot up after several repeated tries; should I try doing a system restore?
  15. GU-11
    YF-19, but with battroid mode controls that actually work. I can't for the life of me imagine how you can make a giant robot do kicks, punches and grappling moves with a simple HOTAS system.
  16. GU-11
    I suddenly feel like kicking myself. I actually placed an order for a super slim last night, that's part of an incoming shipment at my usual game shop, Can't back out now that I've placed a deposit. That PS NOW thing would have been perfect to tide me over until a price drop on the PS3 happens. The good news is that after a bit of number crunching, I can still afford a PS4 this Christmas, but I'll have to stay away from any more pre-orders above 200 USD for the rest of 2014. Going on a ramen diet won't hurt, either. The other good news is that I just found out (only after pre-ordering the super slim ) you can tell if it's the HDD that's causing the YLOD by removing it and turning on the PS3. If it turns on okay, that means its the HDD. I'll try it out after work tonight, and if it turns out to be the HDD after all, I'll maybe sell my old console to a friend or something.
  17. GU-11
    Thanks for the link, Dizman! I tried several game shops, and all the repairmen there same the same old thing, probably because the solder problem is by far the most common. Even after I told them about what happened, they insisted it was the solder melting and disconnecting from the motherboard, and refused to check anything. After reading the article you linked, my only hope now is that it's a dead HDD. If it has anything to do with the power supply or the solder problem, I'm sunk because don't know the first thing about "reballing" a PS3. I do have an unused HDD from an old laptop that I could replace it with, though. I dunno; maybe I should just pony up the cash for a super slim. I wouldn't feel so sore about it if I didn't also plan on buying a PS4 this Christmas. That old PS3 was supposed to last me another 3-4 years. EDIT: One thing I forgot to mention; in the later stages when the YLOD became really frequent, even if I got it to boot and load the game, the PS3 would sometimes shutdown when the game was loading. My entire Hitman - Absolution game save file was corrupted because of it.
  18. GU-11
    Weirdest fricking thing just happened a couple weeks ago. Because the FMV audio in a few of my PS3 games had "crackling" noises when words contained the letters "s" and "t" were spoken, I tried switching to a digital optical cable after hearing that the PS3's HDMI audio had some issues with certain games, and that switching to digital optical or analog would fix it. That fixed indeed the crackling thing, at the cost of having no separate left and right audio. Anyways, I switched back to HDMI audio to play a game without the crackling problem, but left the digital optical cable there so I can switch between the two more easily. That's where the problem started. The PS3 booted for 5 seconds, beeped 3 times, and shut down with a flashing red light. I initially thought is was just an error caused by the digital optical cable still attached while the HDMI audio was selected. I removed the cable, but the problem persisted, and slowly got more and more frequent. A bit of googling revealed that it was the dreaded YLOD. Strangely, my S3 showed none of the usual symptoms before hand, and I don't usually play for more than 2-3 hours at a time. Given that my 12-year old PS2 slim is still alive and kicking, 6 years is a pretty short lifespan for the PS3. I brought the console to a repair shop, and after explaining the symptoms to the guy there, he simply told me it was due to overheating--jerk didn't even bother to open the machine and take a look. Just told me straight up that a repair would cost about 200 USD, and not even a day's warranty would be given. At this rate, I might as well get a brand new super slim PS3. But before that, I just want to ask if there's a possibility that it could be due to a corrupt/dying HDD or something. I know the only way to tell is to replace the HDD with a new one, but I don't want to end up with an HDD I have no use for if the swap didn't fix anything. TL;DR, my PS3 got the dreaded YLOD, but if seems more like an error in the HDD than the usual melted solder thing.
  19. GU-11
    Gorgeous. The rust weathering looks very realistic. About the maintenance thing, didn't Klan Klan say something about Zentran weaponry being impervious to wear and tear, after Alto killed that Vajra with a Zentran cannon?
  20. GU-11
    I bought one too! It'll remain in the box until I eventually get a custom glass case made for it. The thing won't even fit into the Detolf without crouching.
  21. GU-11
    Most visitors don't even get to see my collection as they're all displayed in my collection room/study/workshop/man cave, and is always under lock and key in case one of their little rugrats get curious. Friends don't judge because I've always been a hobbyist and collector from the start. Besides, model kits and collectibles is very common in Malaysia, and isn't usually frowned upon, except some elderly relatives, maybe.
  22. GU-11
    Finally got my Full Metal Ghost. As my first ever ThreeZero fig, I have to say I am utterly awed by the amount of detail and weathering on this thing. It looks like fricking metal, but it's actually plastic. Pretty light for its size, but that's actually a good thing here--doesn't burden the joints. I'm glad to see that they tweaked the pilot's face; couldn't stand the monkey-esque look. Batteries are no included, but I don't usually bother with light-up gimmicks anyway. This thing is an absolute giant, and dwarfs just about anything displayed next to it. I'll have to keep it in the box for now, as I haven't really found a permanent (airtight) spot for it yet.
  23. GU-11
    Damn, man, that's harsh. I'd rather someone told me about those loose joints than pay and bring home a fricking unstrung puppet you can't even keep on its feet.
  24. GU-11
    I guess I can strike TRU Grimlock off of my list. I was initially tempted to pull the trigger on this one after passing on the last few reissues. I wonder if there might be a MP Grimlock 2.0 in the future.
  25. GU-11
    Seems like the SV-51 is by far the largest Valk in the Macross continuity. I guess a 1/48 scale SV-51 is just not feasible.
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