mikeszekely

Like others have said, if there is less of a need for an interceptor, and more of a need for multi-role attackers, then the move does make sense. I NEVER said that we don't need attackers. We definately need aircraft that can make precision strikes at ground targets. The need for attackers doesn't negate the need for interceptors or air superiority fighters. It is the job of the air superiority fighters to secure the skies and allow attackers to hit ground targets without worrying about being shot down by enemy interceptors. I do not believe such thinking is "Cold War mentality" either. The companies like Dassault and Mikoyan have a track record of being less than discerning about their customers. (A considerable portion of Iraq's air force was Mirages). It's not a stretch to imagine Rafales or Flankers in unfriendly forces. "Multi-role" is exactly what we don't need. Multi-role is in the 90's and 00's what "Commonality" was in the 60's. It's a method of cutting costs by using one plane for more than one role/branch that works okay rather than use multiple planes more suited to specific situations. A "jack of all trades, master of none." Personally, I'd rather my friends in the service had the best equipment possible. If government spending needs to be cut back, instead of taking it from defense, why not force polititcians to pay for limos themselves? They can certainly afford it with their ridiculous salaries.

The mecha in both shows look pretty similar. The designs work fine for me, but not really liking their paint jobs...

Then maybe we can get Master Replica bongsabers. Am I the only one who doesn't like Jedi? They're a bunch of panty-waisted do-gooders. They're like the Mormons of outer space. Oh, I'm with you. Dark Side all the way. Well, it wouldn't be Star Wars without somebody with a lightsaber, but I'd really rather see a show about more of a "one the fringe" kind of character, and definately NOT a NJO story, and NOT an X-Wing or Rogue Squadron show.

I think you should have had three choices in the poll. I'm all for progress, and as sad as it is, the F-14 is past its prime. But IMHO, so is the F/A-18, and the Bug is not a suitable replacement for the Tomcat.

The word fighter is what's confusing you. For the rest, http://www.macrossworld.com/mwf/index.php?showtopic=8543 http://www.macrossworld.com/mwf/index.php?showtopic=12053 Oh, I'm not confused in the slightest. The Navy is. You don't replace air superiority fighters with mutli-role attackers.

Because the Macross HAD crashed into earth by the time of Macross Zero. The Macross crashed in 1999, and Macross Zero is supposed to take place around 2007. SDF Macross takes place in 2009. The VF-0 transforms because it's developed alongside the VF-1 as an interim fighter with conventional jet engines until the kinks are worked out of the VF-1's thermonuclear engines.

No one is arguing that the Tomcat's time isn't up and that it shouldn't be replaced. We are arguing, however, that the Tomcat should be replaced by a newer, more superior fighter, of which the Super Hornet is neither. Hornets went into production only a few years after the Tomcat as a supporting fighter. It's debatable if the Super Hornet is any real improvement of the older Hornets, let alone fit to take over as the Navy's superiority fighter. And nevermind the fact that the proposed Super Tomcat would have smoked the Super Hornet in every way. And as for the whole Navy Raptor thing, it's true that the F/A-22 in its current configuration isn't suited for carrier use... but Lockheed had plans for a Raptor variant that was, and it would have replaced the Tomcat. Budget concerns/pressure from Congress caused the Navy to abandon that project, though, and all we're left with is the Bug.

If they'd wanted to make an ultra-violent football game to begin with, why not take the unlicensed route in the first place? Or maybe have made a game with the XFL license during its one brief season? I mean, with the Sega Sports games, they were going for realism, hence the need for the license. But I fail to see why Midway censored themselves to have it. Anyway, a spokesperson for Take Two said that Take Two and Sega are evaluating their options for considering the 2K franchise without licenses.

Nor did he. He took three existing non-related stories, then edited them in ways that connect (and dumb down) all three, then struts around as if he did actually create something original.

I can, thanks.

For the prices listed on the first page I rather get a laptop. I love those ones that are for "Informational documents on how to get a PSP quicker and cheaper." Here's a tip on getting one cheaper... don't spend $30 on a document!

On mission 15 (I think), Chopper will say something about some song being great and or appropriate for the mission. Say no, and you'll go on to the B side path for the next mission or two. After the branching path ends, the YF-23 should be available for purchase.

This is fairly old news. Before GI, OXM said something about it. And before them, talk was already going around. All signs point to the Xbox Next launching with Perfect Dark Zero, and Halo 3 will release on whatever day Sony decides to launch the PS3.

I always thought Papyrus' NASCAR games were horrible (not that EA are the greatest). I didn't even bother with EA's NASCAR 2005 for the PS2 this year. Most of EAs games don't appeal to me anyway including Madden even though I'm an NFL fan. SNK forever!!! lol On one hand this deal with EA/NFL is a good business and on the other it sucks for consumers and kills healthy competition. Some might say Sega/ESPN are to blame for this. When they released their game for 19.99 that caused EA eventually to drop Madden down to 29.99(from 49.99). The NFL doesn't want to see a product with their name/logos/players/sponsors etc getting discounted and sold for cheap. Like all professional sports(except the NHL lol) they are image conscious. Yes, they're so image conscious that they don't like the thought of NFL games being sold for less than $50, but not so image conscious that they aren't afraid to screw their fans and effectively kill the ESPN NFL series and give EA free reign to make the Madden games as crappy as they want to.

Whooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaa no. The Japanese market is severely in the decline, and by large percentages. For mobile phone games, the Japanse market still dominates, but in terms of the individual markets, the Japanese market is smaller than both the US market and the European market today. The US market is the single largest market for videogames today, although I'm not sure about Graham's question. I think the European market might be big enough though that, combined with the Japanese market, it might be larger, but I don't know. And as for Asia, I don't know if they're even a factor. While they do get some low-quality reprints of the Japanese software, the Asian market seems to be comprised mostly of bootlegs.

The problem is that we all remember the unlicensed games and with the exception of Cyberball, they were nothing compared to Tecmo Bowl and the earlier Maddens (with real players). It is a lot more fun playing as Favre or Owens, seeing their faces and hearing the commentators discuss them than playing as 'generic' #4 or 'generic' #81. The thing that really sucks is that Visual Concepts was just getting the ball rolling with the casual gamers. Oh well, here's for another 5 years of mediocrity. Didn't Tecmo Bowl only have team names, not player names? Yes, they did... but as I understand, according to the licensing deal that EA made with the NFL, only EA gets players, stadiums, and TEAMS. So not even the Tecmo Bowl formula would fly now. Well, if Sega and Take Two's deal is still good, maybe they can make a football game with all the teams named after their other franchises. And instead of an NFC and an AFC, you can have a Take Two conference and a Sega conference.

I could never watch anything marathon. It's too much inactivity for me. At least if I'm playing a game, I feel I have some kind of interaction with it. When I watch anime, if it's during the day (like if I'm home by myself at lunch time), I watch 1 or two episodes. If I'm watching anime before I go to bed for the night, maybe 2 or 3 at a time. Never more than three in one day, though.

I have. But there are simply too many NFL fans who care nothing for videogames. One can bitch and whine at whomever they like for this mess, but I'd hope to get something done, and realistically a boycott of the NFL seems unlikely. A boycott of EA, or more specifically, a boycott of the Madden franchise, is more plausible and more likely to get the message across to both sides.

You can make the best, most fun football game ever, and you can have every major gaming magazine and internet site agree that it is so, and it will only sell a tiny fraction compared to the one with the license. This is because gamers might enjoy the flexability and creativity in a non-licensed game, but the majority of the football games seem to be bought buy people who's idea of channel surfing is going back and forth between ESPN and ESPN2 and who only buy sports games or even just football games. Even though I desperately hope Sega comes up with SOMETHING in place of their NFL games, lower sales will likely discourage them from doing that, and instead they'll most likely focus on what sports they do have licenses for (for now). Besides, what's the best non-licensed sports series you can think of? Am I wrong to suggest Mutant League? I might as well point out now that Mutant League is one of EA's properties.

I've had some gripes about EA, but this just takes the cake. I'm not really into football, but even I enjoyed ESPN NFL 2K5. Now it's like you will play Madden or you won't play football. And the thing that sucks the most is that the deal is for FIVE YEARS... just enough time that Madden will be the only NFL games on the next-gen consoles. Well, here's boycotting Madden until EA, the NFL, and the NFLPA learn that you don't make money by screwing over your customers. And in the meantime, here's looking forward to ESPN Arena Football 2K6 or ESPN EFL 2K6.

Yeah, I'd say my one real gripe about Halo 2 was that it was less the amazing sequel we were all waiting for, and more of a teaser to get us all to buy Halo 3 (which better damn well be the amazing sequel we're all waiting for!).

All I have to say to that is: House of the Dead. OMG....was this supposed to be the video game conversion? The trailer looked like a teeny slasher film.... Oh, the blame for that one falls squarely at the feet of Uwe Boll... and no offense to the guy, but EVERYTHING he does sucks. It's like he's from Bizzaro world or something, and everything we think so cool, he thinks is lame, and everything he thinks is cool, we think is lame. Uh, they didn't tap Uwe for Doom, did they?

The reason is probably because they didn't, and for the most part, still don't care. Like I've said, Japanese companies do not distribute their material directly, but rather license it to other companies for distribution in territories outside of Japan. Fansubs have been a way for some companies to judge what's popular, and to decide which series to license. As long as American companies keep licensing anime, the Japanese studios are happy. And as long as the fansubbers stop distributing once a series has been licensed, the American studios have been "no harm, no foul." We've been speculating about what this incident means for fansubbing, but realistically, I don't think means much at all. This isn't a case of American companies cracking down on bootlegs, or Japanese studios worrying that fansubs will cut into a potential American market. This is ONE company upset because they felt that fansubs for ONE particular series might have cut into their own region 2 market. I think this is an isolated incident, and that it's bascially going to blow over, reguardless of whether or not WF finishes School Rumble or not.

I've never cared much for j-rock. Mostly when I hear j-rock, it just sounds like a cheesy immitation of 80's hair bands, or worse, 90's grunge. In my opinion, the best two CD's to come out of Japan this year was M-Flo's "Astromantic" and Ryohei Yamamoto's "Take Over." I think you can sample both of those albums at Asian Music Network.

It doesn't really matter in this case.. Yes, the license still need to be purchased/ issued, but in this case Bandai US and Bandai JP will just have a nominal transaction to satisfy the legal requirements. For all practical purposes, it's Bandai all the way, so they have a vested interest from the start to go for the fan subbers -- every fan sub copy out there will cut into their profit margin. The point is, American (any independent really) companies wishing to sub and distribute anime are not likely to take any serious actions against fan subbers, because the fan subbers are providing a FOC service. So long the Japanese animation houses have no interest in distributing their works in the US markets, there is no vested interest for them to take action against the fan subbers, and the current status will remain. But when the Japanese animation houses have intention to distribute in the US, they will start protecting their IP rights from day 1. That is expected and is really the worrisome thing for the "free" anime community. If the trend is for Japanese firms to start producing direct-to-America content, then fan subbing is likely to be hit. How badly depends on how aggressive the Japanese firms push. But that's EXACTLY my point. A Japanese animation house doesn't intend to market their product directly in America... they intend for another company to license it from them. And in this case, it's not actually a group of studios who are involved in this... it's one specific studio, Media Factory, that's sending out the cease and desist letters, and it's apparently because Akane Maniax was realeased on fansubs before the R2's. Even if fansubs are intended for Westerners, Japanese fans would still have access to them. And if Japanese are downloading fansubs instead of buying the R2 DVDs, then one could argue that the fansubs are cutting into the Japanese market.