Bloodcat

Ehh.. so it will suck. Ive got the Id Anthology with every official Doom scenario on it, and of course http://www.doomsdayhq.com/ and the various texture and model packs that not only allow me to play it in high res, but add mouselook, jumping, and 3d models with damage mapping so I have an idea when those blasted Hell Barons are about to die from double barrelled justice. Besides, when folks are making Doom look this good.. Who cares about some lame bastardized movie? Not to mention they are coming out with a Space Hulk like Doom boardgame for some fun multiplayer tabletop monster bashing... And if I need extra goodness the same sorts of upgrades have been done to Quake (Tenebrae: http://tenebrae.sourceforge.net/ ) and Duke Nukem 3D ( http://dukenews.fragland.net/portal/ , Links to model and texture packs at http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/post...ukesource&page= ) . Heck, I not only don't care if the Doom movie is true to the game, or if it even sucks or not, I don't even need Doom 3!

Well, ill consider it a "released in the USA best of" list and make some comments.. Let's see who I can piss off, eh? Ill also consider it series based otherwise the complete lack of Ghibli productions makes this list almost criminal. 1 Neon Genesis Evangelion Ok, its pretty important, but in the long run the series kinda sucked ass at the end, and the movies pretty much ruined whatever good vibes (well as good vibes as such a dark at the end show could have..) they had left. Mostly popular for deviants lusting after 14 year old Rei Ayanami these days. 2 Cowboy Bebop Still haven't seen it, but its widely popular. Sure, ill bite. 3 Inuyasha If the manga is any indication this is PURE UNADULTERATED SUCK. 4 Rurouni Kenshin I enjoyed the hell out of this series, but best? No. Its a less stupid Dragonball Z in a historical setting with attempts at making the super samurai crap less unrealistic. 5 Trigun Haven't seen it, don't really care. 6 Fruits Basket Haven't seen it, REALLY don't care. 7Robotech Important? Absofrickinlutely? A personal love of mine? Sure. Best ever? NO. 8 Ranma 1/2 BECAUSE THE SAME BARELY FUNNY JOKES ARE EVEN MORE FUNNY OVER 200 EPISODES HAR HAR!! Mediocrity can't be the best ever. Its the Friends of this list except Friends was actually laugh out loud funny for the first few seasons before diving into the same old mediocre crap. Ranma pretty much hit it before the end of the first "season". 9 Love Hina BECAUSE HAREM ANIME GIVES SAD LOSERS SOMETHING DIFFERENT TO JERK TO WHEN REI AYANAMI GETS BORING. 10 Sailor Moon Important, especially for really getting the female fanbase started? Yeah. Best ever? NO. Its a formulaic sentai show with miniskirts instead of ranger helmets, and sweetness instead of toyriffic giant robots. 11 Hellsing Haven't seen it. 12 FLCL Haven't seen it. 13 Fushigi Yugi Read some of the manga. It sucked. 14 Chobits More sad loser jerk material from the queens of pretty art but utterly ass storytelling, CLAMP. 15 Akira Ok.. now its the only movie on here? OVER MIYAZAKI AND GHIBLI WORK? WTF? 16 Tenchi Muyo! The only non annoying harem anime that exists to the best of my knowledge. Still, its not that great im just easily amused by incredibly hot female space cops. Its an overall fun happy series. Dunno about best ever though. 17 Azumanga Daioh FINALLY A SHOW I CAN AGREE BEING ON THE LIST. Its just so heartwarmingly cute, fun, and happy. 18 Initial D Haven't seen it. 19 Dragon Ball Z This show is for retarded children, a formulaic anime equivalent of goatce. IT IS CRAP. 20 Vision of Escaflowne A solid show, but I dunno.. its missing a certain something... 21 Full Metal Panic! The manga blew. 22 Gundam Seed Ok manga, but its just a retold 0079 Gundam mixed with the bishiness of Gundam Wing. Its not the most important or popular US released Gundam, and its not even close to the greatness of War in the Pocket or 08th MS Team. 23 Wolf's Rain Haven't seen it, but ive heard its got the highest recap episode percentage of like any anime ever, something like 4 eps in a 26 episode series or something. Supposed to be good otherwise. 24 Cardcaptor Sakura More CLAMP crap. Only seen 1 episode of the Nelvana dub, but given CLAMP's so far unstoppable record or sucking more than Michael Bay movies, I doubt this one is any different. 25 Excel Saga Ive only seen a handful of episodes, but the manga is pretty awesome. Im not sure its TEH BEST EVAR, but its probably the most intelligent show on this whole damn list. Let's see, no Ghibli, no movies outside of Akira, mostly shows released in the last year or two.. yep.. utter crap idiot fan pandering. Worthless.

It was a different, better TV market back then. Less channels, but most local stations were not a network affiliate. Almost every WB, UPN, and Fox station today was an independent station back in the 80s. They all chose their own programming which tended to be kids shows in the mornings/afternoons, syndicated former prime time tv shows in between, and movies during prime time, with the larger indie stations like WPIX and Channel 9 in New York showing pro sports and having their own newscasts, something that was usually just on the ABC/CBS/NBC affiliates. Channel 9 also had the Howard Stern Show saturday nights. I have no idea how I got away with watching that show... In most places Robotech only played on every third or fourth indie station. WPIX never really got into the show outside of a couple halfhearted attempts, and most of the other larger indies didn't show it in the CT/NY/RI/MA area either. The 2 stations that DID show it were also early converts over to Fox when they started up. (One of which we still get, and I am not sure what happened to the other one. I think they either went out of business or aren't carried locally as to not compete against the other.) It was usually shown at 630-7 AM, which meant I never saw it until the summer. It took me TWO YEARS to see all of Robotech. (We didnt get a VCR till 87 which was towards the end of Robotech's run on mass market TV.) For its time it was quite popular. Remember there were less stations showing less stuff. Some stations showed the same shows for 5+ YEARS at the time. During the summers I would get up at 630 or so, catch Robotech, then switch over to Nickelodeon to watch Little Prince, then maybe a Lassie episode before morning chores. The afternoon shows tended to be Casper&Popeye early on (with maybe The Monkees or Brady Bunch beforehand. Depended on if I was playing with friends or allowed time on the Atari 2600 or not..) Then there would be the classic Mid 80s fare. Silverhawks, Voltron, Tranzor Z, GI Joe, Heman, Thundercats, Transformers, Jayce & The Wheeled Warriors, and Mask. I hated repeats even then so I tended to switch shows. Once I finished one show up I would swap to another one. Which is probably why I put up with He Man, Lion Team Voltron, and Tranzor Z at all. A beggar could not be a chooser. Did I mention most of this TV until around late 87 was on a 9 inch black & white? (The morning shows were before my mom got up so I could watch Robotech and Little Prince in Color. I also got Saturday/Sunday morning huge living room console TV control too. But during the day my mom controlled the color TV. She went to bed early so I tended to get most prime time shows in color as well.) Pre primetime TV tended to include Double Dare, You Cant Do That On Television, and Danger Mouse. (Nickelodeon ROCKED back then.) Just a personal cartoon history for those who werent born yet or still poopin their diapers in the mid 80s to give yall a better idea how this New Englander was catching shows.

I donated last year, but money is REAL tight this year. Im still gonna try though. Its one of the few charities I genuinely like. The one toy a kid gets now could mean a lifetime of difference in the long term.

Please tell me this series will hit DVD..

I picked one up. Its worth it just to play GBA games in frontlit high visual quality with loud stereo sound. Im quite happy with it. It will be the end of an era with my GBA though. Ive had that thing since Christmas 2001 and have used it at least 2 hours a week for close to 3 years. But all things change and its time for a new system to rise up to the challenge, sending the GBA back into its box to sleep and dream next to its Game Boy and Game Boy Color Siblings.

Those screenshots prove its not worth the time. Its basically a few name changes to existing Warcraft 3 units. A catapult is still a catapult even though its named a Hovertank.. Embarrasing.

My quick comments on the mecha games I own, in no real order. Armored Core 2. Awful control system, too hard. Zone of the Enders. Kinda fun, but repetative. Buy the prequel DVD and ignore the game. Gungriffon Blaze. Stingy time limits on missions and magic power ups ruin this game. The Saturn Gungriffon game was better. Transformers. Rather hard, but gorgeous as all getout, and very fun. The boss fight against Tidal Wave is almost worth the price of admission alone. Get it unless you are a G1 only loser still stuck in 1984 and 1985. Robotech Battlecry. Stupidly hard, but with a little bit of sneakiness and gaming the system its a fun little game. Unless your hate of Harmony Gold knows no limit, its worth picking up. A lot better than most of the Macross games I have played. Ok.. its better than ALL of them that I have played. Combined. Front Mission 4. This game rocks on toast. It does some things much better than FM3, it does a couple things worse, but overall its a far better game than the long drawn out ass ugly FM3. Gundam: Encounters in Space. Picture a crappier, less controllable version of Zone of the Enders. With incoherent storylines since they figure you pretty much know Gundam by heart which makes it all the more annoying. Its the second worst game on this list. Only Armored Core 2 sucks more. Gundam: Zeonic Front. This game controls poorly and is way too hard for its own good. Yet it kicks so much ass its worth the hassle. Zakus and Doms all under your control as you beat Feddie ass. Or try to as you replay each mission a few times. The trick is to realize you really DON'T want to actually control your troopers all that much and play it more like a very tactical real time strategy game. If you do this, you will achieve Zeonic Front zen and thus can play it properly and enjoy it. RAD: Robot Alchemic Drive. The most brilliant idea for a robot game ever (you ARE the creepy Japanese kid in shorts who gets a giant robot to break stuff with!) the problem is the game sucks ass. Its a videogame version of rockem sockem robots except with a horrible framerate and a camera you have to move around so you can see what the hell is going on. That can die since you play the game from your viewpoint and not from the robot. Who is controlled with both analog sticks as fist controls, and who needs to have shoulder button presses for each step it makes. This game is raw sewage and is quite possibly one of the worst games I have ever played, especially since the concept is so fuggin awesome. Overall, Zeonic Front, Front Mission 4, and Transformers are must plays, with Gungriffon Blaze and Robotech Battlecry being decent if flawed. Gundam Encounters in Space, RAD, and Armored Core 2 suck ass and should not be played.

Id say the regular size Maximals are bigger than 6 feet. Maybe not as tall as my estimated 9.45, but certainly more than 2 meters! 7-8 is probably the best compromise height, which makes at least some of their beast modes more reasonable for the ones whose animal forms match size as well. Obviously Waspinator and Rattrap don't have scale sized beast forms. Original form Megatron possibly does, but he shrinks a bit when he gets Transmetalled. Probably the T rex he scanned was an adolescent. Daniel in TFTM comes up to about Hot Rod's knee. (About 4-5 feet tall. Daniel is probably 10-12 at that time.) In one of the TF convention comics the Maximals are shown in some cases to reach around Hot Rod's hips/abdomen. From this admittedly scale nonexistant mess we can guess the "average" Maximal to be about 7 1/2 feet all with few reaching standard G1 Autobot height. Optimal Optimus clearly did, though TM2 Megatron, Rampage, Big Convoy, and Longrack might have come close.

They actually showed a human child (well maybe not homo sapiens, but close.. maybe neanderthal..) playing on Optimal Optimus. Going by rough size guesses, I would say he was about as large as the normal sized Autobots in that form, maybe a little bigger. Of course the (IMHO bad) G1 cartoons didn't exactly have proper scale, but if we use 20th Anniversary Prime and the Alternators as a reference, Optimal Optimus would be about as big as the Alternators, and the normal Beast Wars, Fuzors, and Transmetals would be about as large in comparison as the G1 minicars, maybe twice as large since the camera angle with Beast Wars Megatron was a bit skewed. Some of the Transformers convention comics had the Beast Wars characters coming up to Hot Rod's abdomen area in size. If we say 20th Prime is 1/24 scale like the Alternators, it would mean he was 23-25 feet tall. (I did a quick measurement and he was about 11.5 inches tall. Not an accurate or scientific one though.) The Alternators are roughly 7 inches tall, for about 14 feet tall. This would fit Optimal Optimus pretty close as the pre human kids were about as big as his fists. This scale would also closely fit the average Beast Wars character being a little over half that height, roughly 6-8 feet tall in robot mode. Using a Beast Wars Tigatron toy for my measurements, I get it as about 4 inches from snout to hindquarters. In robot mode, Tigatron is about 5 1/4 inches tall, which in robot mode comes generally close to the TF convention comics' size of the Beast Warriors. Which would be 8 feet long in tiger form, and 10.5 feet tall in robot mode. That's a BIG kitty cat! I would say the Beast Wars toys are a little too big to be in proper scale to the Alternators, though it is really close. If I take 10% off the Beast War toy's size, I get a more reasonable 9.45 feet tall in robot mode, and 7.2 feet long in beast mode. I guess prehistoric tigers were a bit larger but not much larger than their modern counterparts, which would work fine since Tigatron was seen in beast mode next to a normal white tiger of that prehistoric time period. So what do we get for a rough size of the Transformers? Optimus Prime: 24 ft. Prowl, Jazz, other average sized Autobots: 14 ft. Optimal Optimus: 14 ft. Tigatron, Silverbolt, and other average sized Maximals: 9.4 ft.

Not me. I don't play the digital rights management game. Games I intend to play offline by myself should not require me to register it and download Steam before I can play a videogame I bought at a store in a nice pretty box. DRM is evil and buy purchasing Half Life 2 you are telling the world you like being forced to register a videogame in order to play it, and will have to do so again if you ever play it on another PC later on. Basically Valve is trying to ruin videogaming as we know it while informing you how you actually don't own the product you just dropped 50 dollars on.

Im not getting Half Life 2. Why should I have to have a net connection and be forced to register the game just to play the solo game? If Valve dies out the game then becomes useless, or has a chance to become useless. Its basically DRM crap which I hate. Im not interested in multiplayer and I don't pirate. Its none of Valve's business when I play the game. And the Steam deals seem to be a ripoff. Let's see. I still pay 50 bucks but don't get a box or manual or CDs? EAT ME. Besides, itll probably be as underwhelming as Doom 3 is and Halo 2 probably will be. (Unless you enjoy the same damned game only much prettier. Ive played enough FPSes over the years to know none of em have blown my mind since Duke Nukem 3d. That includes Halo and Half Life BTW. I didn't worship the originals either.) As to special editions? It depends on price and goodies contained. I really only own 2 special editions. Morrowind which was an utter waste (and not that great a game anyhow), and Ultima 9: Ascension. (Which wasn't that great either but had some great bonus content. Hell, I mostly bought it for the bonus content. Every other Ultima with CD Rom cluebooks for the entire series? Hell yeah!) By and large, most special editions aren't worth it, and in many cases its better off just waiting for the game to hit the budget rack. Soul Calibur 2 for 15 bucks yo!

I proudly buy Alternators over Binaltech. I enjoy saving 30 dollars a toy.

Try again. Don't own a single MPC.

Wow.. that Optimus? Its a friggin homage to Star Convoy, the last G1 line Optimus toy! Pretty sweet IMHO.

Im glad I waited. I wouldn't pay 80 bucks for a flawless toy, and this thing is FAR from flawless QC wise. Id like to get Rook's Alpha, but I doubt they will have ironed out the QC on it by its release date (next month IIRC?), so its gonna be a wash. Hopefully the Green Alpha will be properly working by the time its released and I can grab it on Ebay for a more reasonable 60. Besides, I STILL remember the on clearance for 14 dollars RT boxed Diecast big green Gakken that got away when I was a lad of 12. Ive been waiting 18 years for an Alpha. I can wait 6 more months if I have to.. Getting a green would be karma rebalancing itself.

So I guess the Predacons, Dinobots, Casettes, and Insecticons all sucked then huh? Beast Mode Transformers have pretty much always been a part of the line. Besides, Beast Wars SAVED the Transformers as a property. All those rereleases, new toys, collectibles, comics, and so on? If it wasn't for Beast Wars, none of them would probably exist. Not to mention Beast Wars is the best Transformers show ever made and possibly the best thing to ever come out of Canada.

Yeah. What kind of ass owns an ultra rare item, but refuses to let a photo be taken of it? That seems extremely.. ah.. STUPID. And do we have to bash Toynami that badly? Their action figures are extremely well regarded. Hell, Toyfare gave them best cartoon toys for their Hanna Barbera line this month. Maybe their mecha toys suck, but it doesn't mean EVERYTHING from the company is meritless..

I like Southern Cross. Because it IS wierd and different. Its not perfect, but it tries to do more than the same old same old. Yeah the mecha are kinda ugly. So what? Its an interesting story in either the original or RT version. And ill take either version over Macross 7 anyday. Sheet, Mac 7 is Macross' Spider Man Clone Saga!

Well, there are the G1 "OMG NOSTALGIA RULEZ!" people, but they are usually ignored by most general Transformers fans and only paid attention to by casual TF fans. Outside of that, there really isnt the sort of fandom trainwrecks Macross World/Robotech.com, or any Gundam thread involving UC versus Alternate Continuity have seen.

The magazine sucked anyhow. All it had was pretty pictures. It was pure fluff, and thanks to the centerfold sections, embarassing fluff. If I really gave a damn about anime anymore I would probably still be reading Protoculture Addicts. Iffy business practices and english as a second language be damned. It was a good magazine. Not as good as Anime UK of course, but the UK has always had the best geek magazines. (Amiga mags, Arcane, Anime UK, Retro Gamer.. ) Good to know ADV wants to make sure I never pick up an issue again. At least when I spend 8 bucks on an issue of Fangoria, I know I am getting some in depth reporting. Hell, friggin TOYFARE is smarter than Newtype.

That Sega CD Jurassic Park game is actually pretty cool. Hell, in the Navy even the non gamers got addicted to it. Tough ass game though...

Cosplayers ARE dorky, and most are attention whores to boot. But if it makes em happy, I mean, rock on. I would almost kill to see Triumph the Insult Comic Dog at an anime con though. It would make his Star Wars episode 2 skit look like small potatoes, especially if he was taught some of the basic anime tropes before hand. (And there are anime fans on Conan's staff..) Blackwulf the Dragonmaster aint got SQUAT on many anime cosplayers.

The PS2 version of the first one got less than enthusiastic reviews, though considering Retrogaming Radio's host is an old school elitist asshat perfectionist who can apparently tell if any frames are skipped or if the audio isnt perfect in a videogame, this should be taken with a grain of salt. On the other hand, Im glad I get a bonus check from work this month. Ill be getting me this Robotech game AND Midway Treasures 2. Still need Atari's console collection and Intellivision Lives! though. Even though I have a working Inty with like 50 games. And its the SEARS version, which rocks out with beige and dark brown uglyness over the faux woodgrain, gold and black beauty of the original. It does have removable controllers though, something the original Intellivision didn't have. Gotta love retrogaming collections!

Pfft! Roy Schieder isn't fit to wash Borgnine's sock. Earnest Borgnine was in The Wild Bunch for pete's sake! Schieder's biggest claim to fame is narrowly avoiding being eaten by a shark. Please. Scheider is a friggin LEGEND man. Borgnine is cool, don't get me wrong, but he was teamed up with JAN MICHAEL VINCENT, whose claim to fame was how being on long ocean voyages didn't make him lonely, just horny. I would say Roy wins. Plus wasn't his archnemesis Malcom McDowall? You have to be badass to go up against him, with or without a tricked out helicopter! And he was in French Connection too. SUCK IT!