Fort Max

I dropped £20 in Camden Town Game last night and am now one Wii receipt better off. Won't get one on launch day unfortunately, I left it too late umming and ahhing over whether to get one before or after Christmas. I'm assured however that the Wii-stock (they just keep coming) will be fore Chrimbo time.

FMP is kicking again, there may not be a new show yet but there is stuff to talk about. First dvd is out in the US and it is sucha sweet package that I boke down and imported, fantastic presentation by Funimation and it has all the original dub cast returning and turning in even better perfomances then before. Also of interest to fans, Atlieri Sai, the guys behind the recent poseable pvc trading figures (which were nicely detailed but had poor value) are doing some 1/60 scale AS figures in the lovely ABS that real toys are made of. Thanks to Asterphage on TBDX for the news.

Funny you should mention that, Studio Halfeye is working on a Dangaioh now and Kaiyaido has one planned for the Revoltech line as well (non transforming of course).

I'm probably going to miss the first UK shipment as I was still umming and ahhing over it untill the big Zelda preview went up at IGN. Going to put a deposit down tonight and will hopefully get one soon after launch.

The only real pose ability issues it has are the shoulder towers which can only more so far forward or back but they can move far enough to do a convincing full on collider assault pose. Also, the ovals on the hips don't move like similar bits would on a Gundam and the head is very limited due to it's huge neck cover that sticks out the base of the head at the back. The arms and legs have a satisfying range of movement and it even has a quasi waist joint, it can only twist a couple of clicks either way but even that came as quite a surprise. Lots of people have gotten theirs over at ToyboxDX.com now and most absolutely love it, can't say I blame em.

This is just a super lazy re-post from TBDX cos I'm tired. Well now, it's been 10 hours since I got home and ripped into the box bearing my Gunbuster and I'm only now posting my thoughts, why, because I've been having too much damn fun of course! This thing is superb, fiddily yes and can be a little scary at times but it is also solid. Mine fell forward off the coffee table and parts went flying! Obviously I shat myself but just a cursury inspection revealed that all detached parts (5 leg collider panels and it's head) went straight back on again with no damage done. Oh and it fell when it was posed in the full on collider attack so it should have been a lot worse by anyones estimations. Some random bullet point style thoughts: * God this thing is heavy, it is loaded with metal parts! A top down view into the guts of the toy fairly sets my heart racing. You can see at least half a dozen gleaming solid metal bars linking all the major parts together. Bliss! * The straps/belts/whatever that go over the torso are all solid metal as well, no idea why as they don't support any kind of weight but they look fantastic. * Whoever it was who tried to assure me that I would like the ribcage on the finihsed version was damn right, it is beautifull. But that pales in comparison to the fantastic detailing on the degeneracy recator cabling, pictures just do not do this justice. There are several cables all entwining with smaller parts coming off here and there and the whole thing has that feel of detail and quality to it that was evident in the anmation itself. * The middle haft of the twin double bladed axe is metal! Certainly wasn't expecting that but it makes sense, on taking it apart to stash in the base (glee) I was worried breifly that the pegs might snap then remembered it was metal. * The detail up parts, your opinion of these may vary depending on how much you intend to use them but I think they fit just fine if you spend a few moments carefully tweaking the limbs to line up preoperly. Certainly they lasted more then long enough for me to put them in BM mode, sit them on the stand, admire it for a few moments and then pull them apart again for the main event. * Transforming it is nowhere near as hard and involved as I'd at one time thought, I'd almost go as far as to call it intuitive but that may have something to do with all the pictures I've been staring at these last few weeks... I don't have SOC Danny yet so I can't compare them but going by what I've heard about him GB is easier. Gunbuster has lots of ratchet joints, even in places you don't expect and there is a satisfying number of spring loaded release catches. 1 in the torso where BM 2's engines plug into GB's lower body 2 in each leg near the bottom, yes two. You need to open all the collider panels and press in both switches at once before the legs will budge an inch. 1 on each foot provided, never seen a toy with saftey catch released feet? Well now ya have * Speaking of springs, the tracks in the solid metal anime feet are sprung. This works pretty well with GB's substatial weight pushing them in when it's standing. * The collider panels, these are nicely designed, the panels somehow stay both shut and open without trouble. The prongs inside are on a seperate plastic hinge which stays stuck to the inside of the panels by a tab unless you provoke them otherwise. You needn't worry about the colliders flapping all over the place when ever you try to pose it. * The launch tower/display base/weapons cache is an amazing piece of design in and of itself but we all knew that already. * Tha paintjob deserves to be mentioned, everything here is just gorgeous. No idea how SHE got theirs so wrong but Bandai's toy is spot on! There is till some stuff I haven't tried out yet, mostly the multibarrel arm cannon and the mount on the top of the tower, I've also only had a brief look at the Buster shield and the wealth of option hands provided not to mention the iconic arm crossing! Mine has a couple of issues, the head pops out with barely any force applied which is weird more then annoying. Also the wings for BM 2 are mounted on a little hinge pin that enables you to move them in and out towards GB's back slightly, however the hinge on one is very weak on mine. This is only a problem in BM mode where it then can't support the weight of the craft on the landing gear pod attached to said wing. It's not really a problem though as I paid for an SOC Gunbuster not SOP Buster Machines. But there is nothing that has spoilt this for me, I haven't been this satsified or for that matter this excited about a new high end toy since (yes, you guessed it) Masterpiece Convoy some three years ago now. But in answer to my own question earlier on, Convoy will likely still remain No.1 in my collection. Gunbuster is for all it's beauty and accomplished engineering just too fiddily to ever contest the solid block of awesomeness that is Convoy. But that is the fault not of Bandai but of the original design so with that in mind I say: "You still have a shot at that No.1 spot so Bring on Ideon Bandai!" That's enough fevered ranting for now, it's half twelve and I should probably sleep now but please post any burning questions on issues that my rather random approach to reviewing may have overlooked.

I hope so, cos it's about Bandai started making diecast Gundams again.

Who exactly is looking forward to it? No one had even mentioned that game until you brought it up, like I said earlier it's just a cheap quick effort that Ubisfoft threw onto the pile of launch games to give parents with too much money (and an appetite for spoiling their kids) more choice. There are games with great graphics coming (Zelda anyone?) and like any system the graphics will improve over time with developer familiarity and new compression technology etc

It's a bonus launch title, I was just gonna ignore it. The steering bracket isn't exactly costly.

It seems to be missing the engines, perhaps it's moved under the Gundams own power.

I hear that, my dvd remote broke about two years back. Most things are fine but the Ghost in the Shell discs drive me up the wall with their lack of a simple "play all" option.

They (TBDX) usually use the 1st Dec as a cut off date anyway figuring that any toy released after that date wouldn't reach enough people in time for the vote. Gunbuster FTW!

I don't see how that makes it obsolete, just adding dvd playback is nothing special.

Mine was delivered today But i can't get to it until Friday afternoon.

I finally made my mind up over the last weekend to screw waiting and get one at launch! Tried to pre-order this evening after work but they (Game-UK) had stopped taking deposits for now, registered my interest for when they resume and I was 8th or 9th on the list. Just gonna have to wait and see now, 24 days to go over here.

That didn't look too promising to me.

Damn, I almost got one of those myself, congratulations man! Take good care of her.

Where are your further impressions man? Are you too busy fondling it to type? Edited for news: HLJ has pics up of SOC Spec Layzner, http://www.hlj.com/product/BAN941840 The figure looks nice, better even then an HCM Pro Gundam but I'm still not happy with the price of 8000yen accounting for an sfx loaded display stand. For now I am cautiously optimistic that Bandai has something else they haven't yet shown that is going to make me forget the price because that is a damn nice figure.

Balls to that, I agree with Rad. Being a young adult owns the pants off being a teen.

I always thought it was Gunbuster as in it destroys guns, or in this case the space aliens which are considered living weapons.

*Big cry of joy* There's going to be a demo road show thing in the shopping centre I used to work in near my folks home on the weekend I'm going for my old man's birthday. Finally, I gets to play me some Wii and maybe even (dare I hope!) Zelda!

We now return you to the aforementioned Gunbuster mania. Amenbo have just "introduced to me" that my Gunbuster has left their hands and is on it's way! *joy This time next weekend I'll be caressing it...

So there's no major problems, that's such a relief to hear. Thanks WolfX, looking forward to hearing more while I wait for mine to ship.

Wow, Bandai sculpted kanji inside the shoulder pods! http://www2.moeyo.com/img/06/11/09/4/411.html Oh yeah, still more pictures, have you ever seen any company put so many details into a single toy... http://www.moeyo.com/2006/11/post_1485.html

From that last pic, it looks as though the missile hands do have a retracting gimmick, same as SHE's version. The weapons rack is awesome. Just another week and a half ... or so...