Winkle

The strenght of the PSX was that it's games were so easily pirated, and the system so easily modded for so cheap. I wouldn't be surprised if like more then a 1/3 of the PSX sold were brought for that very reason. And I got my PSX in 1996... it was a Japanese model that my uncle brought for me... we modded it and I had it going until 2000 just fine. Of course it eventually broke about 2 months before the PS2 launch because my buddy and I wore the motor down by playing it non-stop for about 48 hours... and then I got mad and chucked it at the wall, furthering the damage.

Just watched it. No choppy-ness whatever... and the translation was pretty good this time around... no awkward grammar or wording this time around. I wasn't disappointed by the "lack of action"... since the first ten minutes was almost all action... and then the rest of the episode was dedicated to character development which I thought Mac0 could've used more of until now. I love the cliff-hanger too... simple but yet effective... hate to wait another 6 months for the last episode! [spoilers] I also love how at the start, Roy is pestering the fuel-tanker pilot to give him his gunpod in the middle of refueling, and then Roy stating you will die sooner if you lived by rules... only to have the fuel tanker promptly get blown up by Ivanov Oh and Roy sudden appearing to blow the two Octos up and save Shinn and Sara was classic, and sweet. [End-Spoilers] The art is absolutely astounding, they have really got the mixing-CG-with-hand-drawn-cells down... very seamless and all, watching the first episode again, you can tell how far they've come in the last year and a half. [Mini-Spoiler] I have a question, when Roy throws his Zero into a dive to retrieve his gunpod, why does the Zero's wing sweep out right as he's going into the dive? Wouldn't it close up so it can dive faster?

I'm getting it at about 13K/sec... it's decent speed... could be better... I still remember downloading episode 1 at a whooping 300K/sec back in the early days of bittorrent a year and a half ago. But then again I've got like 5 other downloads going so I guess that's expected. And I'm using ABC... and have it preset to how long it will keep uploading once the download is complete.

I don't think it'll collapse and die off though. I find anime is a very established part of Japanese culture, and not just as a source of entertainment like it is in North America.

David probably knows the details more. All I know is that it's a program that was supposed to update the F-14 Tomcat to higher standards. Essentially redesign the airframe so it's more aerodynamic and stronger, allowing for faster flight speeds, new engines, new computers and avionic systems, weapon systems, support for AMRAAM (um... do the old Tomcats still use the Sparrows?) etc. Would've made the Tomcat even sweeter then it already is, and supposingly for a relatively cheap price (compared to the F/A-18E Super Hornet or err... the "Subpar Hornet" as a few people in here like to call it). Unfortunately Cheney and Congress killed it in favour of the Super Hornet because Grunman doesn't make enough "contributions" to the politicians finanically. As for the STOVL... probably. I don't even remember anymore... I know I read about STOL and some form of SVTOL or STOVL dealy a while ago... either that or my brain is so tired its just making stuff up. But if I'm wrong then my bad.

Iirc they got into some deep **** trouble for doing something illegal (something to with bribes and such) and since been on the blacklist for the past 30-40 years. Isn't bribing US government officials the norm? The Euro Fighters was definitely not VTOL. VTOL is going straight up and down... totally horizontal like the Harrier or Yak 36 (I think it's that one...). I think you're talking about STOL or S/VTOL which is Short Take-Off and Landing or Short/Vertical Take-Off and Landing... it still requires a runway for the plane to take off but a much shorter one at that. BTW David, that photo of the F-20 is quite sweet... it looks so sleek and 21st century... doesn't seem at all like something from the 1980's. That picture would make a great desktop wallpaper!

Thanks for the pictures, when I saw those pictures of the F-15 I thought I was looking at a Flanker for a second. And David, you're some kind of super insane walking military aircraft encyclopedia! From now on, everytime I have a question I'm coming straight to you. I just learned like 20 new things in that one post of yours... thanks! I honestly had never heard of the F-20 until today, that's pretty cool though about its 30 second scramble time... it's like the minute-man of airplanes. And what's with Northrop-Grunman (I'm assuming they're still one company?) and the US government? Do they not "donate" enough money to the politicians or something?

Forgive me if this may seem like a stupid question (and it probably is). But with all this talk about Supercruise, I'm curious as to what it exactly is. My guess is that its an ability for the plane to cruise at supersonic speeds, but since I'm no expert on military aircraft I just wanted to be sure. Oh and one more, what's the F-15 ACTIVE? Is it just an upgraded version of the F-15 Eagle like the F-18 Super Hornet? If you have a link to a page with some info that would do too. Thanks a ton and sorry for interrupting your discussion with newb questions. Edit: Sorry but forgot to ask, what's the F-20? I'm assuming it was or is some experimental fighter that's not in mass production because I've never heard of it although I've heard of the YF-23 that was supposed to compete with the YF-22.

This is priced as a full game? I'll probably end up waiting until the full GT4 comes out and buy that instead. This almost sounds like a lengthened demo.

There's talk about this at the Trek Forums where supposedly that's a Reman at the end of Zero Hour. Eventually this will lead towards the Romulan War (which should take place IF there's a 5th or 6th season), and with all this talk about bringing back Shatner (as Kirk OR his greatgrandfather) makes me all the more interested (yeah....I know shameless plus, ratings booster, who cares) in Season 4. Personally, I think the cliffhanger has Brannon Braga's handiwork written all over it. With him apparently stepping down from his Executive Producer duties next year. It sure looks like he left the NEW writers one HELL of a jam to write themselves out of. Hopefully it'll be Sussman, Coto, or Black that'll handle the writing load next Season (along with BUUUUUUUUUUURMAN). Ah yes, so Braga essentially decided to give everyone the finger before leaving eh? Way to go out in a blaze of glory.

Whoa that thing actually flies? That's incredible.

Good call on those points. I agree with all of them, and those were what was going through my mind as I was watching the episode. And they supposingly DID shoot 2 endings. One is the one we saw, and the other was minus the alien Nazis... either with Archer dying or have him successfully beam back and the Enterprise return to normal Earth safely. That would've wrapped everything up and been the series finale.

I think doing WWII and the Nazis is stupid. That time period and the Nazis have been done by everyone and everything. The Trek universe has such a diverse history that is untouched, lots of cool time periods and events in the timeline that has never been shown before. This was the perfect opportunity to do so... but nope, can't show any originality here. I think it would've been cool had they gone back to World War III or even the Eugenics War.

Hrm... I've been a fan of the Tomcat for awhile now. What has impressed me most after that fighter craft is its versatility. As mentioned, it's capable of fulfilling air superority, interceptor, recon, and bombing roles... and it doesn't do them adaquetly, it does them all really well. I'm curious as to why the Super Hornet is so sucky though. I know they modified the air-frame somewhat and upgraded its avionics and systems and such but why is it so much drastically worst then the regular Hornets? I mean when they decided to "upgrade" the Hornets, weren't they trying to make them BETTER?

Ugh. What the hell was that? I was watching the episode and I thought "alright this isn't bad". But some of it was predictable. When they said Archer was dead I instantly went "He's alive... in comes time travel to save the day!" And was I dead on. The whole ending was lame... if it is aliens travelling back in time to the 1940's and joinning the Nazis... that's been done MANY times. That exact premise has been done in Battlestar Galactica and the Nazis have also made an appearance in TOS. Oh so very lame. They ruined a fair decent episode with one of the worst cliff-hangers EVAR! BTW, there was a thing going on where they had 2 endings for the finale... one to end the season and one to end the series if Enterprise wasn't renewed. If you took the episode, cut off the stupid ending and had Archer return to Enterprise, that would've wrapped it up nicely and ended the series there.