David Hingtgen

AC6 scores C-B-A-S based purely on POINTS/KILLS. Kill everything. Doesn't matter how long it takes. Kill 'em all is what it comes down to. At the higher levels, you actually are fighting the clock in a way, because when you beat an operation (sub-mission) and the stage goes to the "second half" of the mission, the other operations "close". So for max points, fly around and do like 90% of each operation, then finish one---that's worth far more points than simply concentrating on one operation and only getting points from that one. But that level of strategy isn't needed until the higher difficulties. Simply killing everything on a standard set of operations is enough for most. As for online--yup, it's all scaled about how advanced the planes are to each other. F-16 taking down an F-22 is worth big points, and vice-versa.

Cotton has been used to represent clouds (and steam) since the dawn of time, and is still used all the time in dioramas. Just stretch it out a lot.

Well, combined with the screen-saver and the controller's auto-shutdown, it can at least be "very dark and unresponsive" if you let it sit 20 mins. The controller takes longer to "boot up" than the system does IMHO. meh_cd----ME's texture loading issues are pretty darn random, and there is no patch yet. You can have it happen 5 scenes in a row, or go an hour glitch-free. Little thing that is based purely on my experience: I swear Kaiden has "highest priority". His textures always load first. If he's in the party, others will suffer.

oooooh, Onslaught, one of my all-time faves. There's just something about Bruticus that his "main" piece is always a good toy on its own, both G1 and Energon. Now, the question is--does he combine? Onslaught on his own is somewhat pointless.

Because the MOAB just isn't a big enough bomb: http://www.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123080622 (technically though, I think the MOAB makes a far bigger boom---more explosive, less casing)

Even if MS won't "give" you a disc, paying for a replacment disc from them is like 20 bucks IIRC---a lot cheaper than re-buying the game. If you need some more reference when calling to back up your claim to MS that ME is in fact MS's problem when it comes to discs, it says right here: http://masseffect.bioware.com/support/

Part of the reason the D'stance looks the way it does, it that it doesn't have retractable gear. If you want "gear up" you completely remove them and close the doors. There are no gear bays. And that's a big "no-no" for a Yamato valk--people expect working landing gear. There's a lot more room to work with inside a valk if you don't have landing gear to deal with.

Contact MS directly to try to get a replacement ME disc. They may argue that it's 3rd party and not their responsibility, but they ARE the publisher, not Bioware, says so right on the box. (This has happened before on the ME forums). PS--that's one more reason I prefer consoles that hold the disc directly when you put them in like a PStwo or DC or GC, not a tray nor slot loader. You could turn the things upside down and they'd be fine. Especially the PStwo--thing has a death-grip on discs.

Green+blue=pink (or purple).

PS--want to REALLY spy-proof your system? Stop using default MSIE Java and download Sun's. Best thing I ever did, spy-ware wise. Also fiddle with java/active permissions and restrict most everything. It'll be annoying for a few weeks, until you've manually approved every website you frequent, but after that, you'll be pretty safe (and it'll stop a lot of pop-ups, too)

That's weird. Would have figured Rei would be smaller, if anything. Well, guess we'll have to wait for Asuka to be released to get a "comparable size" figure to test on. (I'm buying Rei regardless, undecided about Asuka--I do hope we see more than just EVA figs--I'd love some videogame characters, not just anime) PS--where'd you get your Rei figure? Every place I've been checking still has them listed as pre-order/arriving soon.

Anti-virus: Avast! Anti-spy: AVG Seriously, you can't beat Avast IMHO. Totally free even for continuous automatic updates (several times a day sometimes) and about the least resource-hogging there is, and catches things 5 other "top name" ones don't.

Yup.

Cameo--I did. As for Blitzwing---while I only have 10 secs to go by, I didn't see 3 personalities--I saw 3 variations of a "crazy German". Just IMHO.

My brother and I both just use long ethernet cables snaking across the living room when we need to connect to LIVE. It's cheap, and easy enough. And very easy to configure. PS--man, A. Creed for 40 bucks? BestBuy in the US is selling the PS3 version for that, but not the 360 version. But Canadian Best Buy's sell the 360 version for that price?

Must apologize for the quality of some, not many turned out (I took dozens)---indoors in the afternoon around the winter solstice is probably about the worst time possible to take pics. Anyways----here is the "hinge to fuselage" joint at the "battroid mode" angle, but with the "hinge to backpack" joint in fighter mode---basically I folded the backpack up, then unfolded just along one hinge. The opposite configuration was just impossible to photograph due to the fins getting in the way, I could do no better than what you already see from the backpack fully folded up pics of Graham's. All I can say is the hinge-to-backpack angle is definitely acute. Here are two different angles of the hinge area of the backpack joint fully folded up. There is a small protrusion inside the backpack on the hinge itself, that rubs against a grey part (backside of the 3 small backpack thrusters). That does seem to determine the angle the backpack folds to. Looking at mine, it is completely unaltered. Maybe yours has something blocking it. or something. But I have no play in the hinges fore/aft or any sliding motion--it is purely rotation.

While I'm still not fond of the animation style, I did enjoy the characters/story a lot. Especially Starscream. There were a few points (especially near the end) where Tom Kenny came pretty close to Chris Latta IMHO, and he should only get better with time.

Ok, I'll go take pics right now.

Way too much to repair. The well-known 707 nose repair was from just behind the cockpit forward, not the first 50 feet of the plane. Also, it had no wing/engine/gear damage. And nothing's more expensive than the engines and gear! Write off, salvage the remaining bits to build a new one with its parts. I think I did post about this, not sure. Somewhat ironically, while the A340-600 has yet to crash, 2 were lost that week---hitting the wall, and sliding off the runway. The one that slid off was one of Iberia's in Quito, Chile. The aircraft is pretty intact, but frankly---the airport is small enough that they just don't have the equipment to bring it back up out of the embankment and fix it up enough to fly it out of there. It could easily be repaired to ferry-flight status to fly it to somewhere for full repairs with the right equipment and better position, but it's just "stuck" and that airport doesn't have enough to repair the left gear and pylon and replace one engine to get it flightworthy---so they're going to have to scrap it where it lays. Hopefully they can save some other engines, gear, and tail parts to build a replacement. (aircraft parts are salvaged whenever possible--there are airliners built with the parts from ones that crashed)

And you can do more than merely "have her in your party".

If you'd like, I'll take some pics of my hinges in different configurations so you can see exactly what angles each piece needs to be in. I might even be able to get my backpack open again and see how it looks inside, so you can compare to see if anything about yours is "wrong".

Just for your consideration: Here's Zhang Ziyi just standing there. And she gives off a huge Chun-Li vibe IMHO. Imagine her in the costume.

There was a blurb before K.K. was cast that the movie would focus on Chun-Li taking down Bison's empire.

----and toy gun laws...

That review also says the PS3 won't upscale standard DVD's at all, which goes against everything I've read. It also says it won't downscale 1080p to 720p.