1/1 LowViz Lurker

See, I want to get a Bandai blazer valk. The bootleg blazer is just a clone of the fire right? (wrong wings and all) Does anyone know if they still sell the blazer anywhere or am I stuck with getting the crap bootlegs? I think Bandai should reissue the blazer because to me it looks better than the fire. (who wants a face on thier mech?) I don't want to support the bootleggers but if I have no choice..

Mullet on forehead = fringe. May not be practical but didn't you see how many women he attracted in the tv series when claudia was telling misa about how she first met him? Roy may have been distraught but he wasn't going to let her death keep him down forever. To me it looked like he was ready to move on. Not a single mention of aries or picture of her is seen in the tv series. Maybe they wiped his memory of the event to keep the government secret of the AFOS safe from leaking? I sometimes think that roy was murdered/assasinated rather than dying from loss of blood from the dogfight against the qraus. The real roy from macross zero went missing, they then got a person who looked a bit like roy, programmed him with memories and false identity of the real roy, and then faked the death of this fake roy to make it look like he was injured in a fight when in fact he was shot in the back several times so they wouldn't have to keep covering up the story about how the real one disapeared suddenly when people who would have been close to him may have noticed his change in personality and hair. You'll note in the movie that Roy's actor looks just like the real one. They may have a very good experts in disguises to make the masks very similar. The one we were seeing in the tv series was the fake that was killed once it was known that he was going to tell claudia about the cruel UNG experiments on the islanders after the mysterious disapearance of the AFOS. UNG wanted to study the theories about the aliens once visiting earth in ancient time and then harness thier powers for themselves in case the anti-un got ahold of them. (pay attention to the episode in SDF:Macross where it is revealed that aliens are almost the same as us and note how NOT shocked global is. He may have been in on it all along and just pretending to have heard the news for the first time.) The fringe on fake roy's face was put there to help further hide his features from those who were really close to the real roy and would have possibly been able to tell the difference. You'll note another strange clue in macross Zero: When it shows Aries bleeding, we are left to guess WHY she is bleeding and dying in the first place and have no footage of her being injured before this! Don't you find that strange? Could she have been poisoned by UNG agents in case she would defect like her teacher to the Anti-UN? There is a lot we are not seeing - how did she suddely fall ill and start bleeding? It is possible both Roy and Aries were against the UNG decision to keep all this a secret from public knowledge and they may have had to have arranged Aries' death at a specific time because of the danger of her helping the anti-un. Roy (the real one with short hair) was probably allowed to stay alive (they have him in hiding) to help test the secret fighters the UN has in secret underground bases because they couldn't find anyone better than him and there was a shortage of good pilots during and after the anti-un war. ..... ..... ..... ..... no I'm not being serious

er nope. Danny choo custom. I just thought that it looks like maybe someone farted on it. Note the tiny particles of poo sprayed along the body?

Yeah I remember that scene of megatron: "Such heroic nonsense." BLAM! And then star scream actually killing people, enough that they would never be seen ever again. And don't forget the insecticons having thier heads squashed by being run over. To me that was kinda violent even though they are just robots. The thing that stood out about G1 was the idea that the autobots were the underdog and were mainly cars (automobiles) forced to attack mainly on the ground, while the decepticons were able to fly around and retreat from battle whenever they wanted to. In the movie it looks as if the only thing to turn the tide of battle is optimus prime and even he was hamstrung by "doing the right thing" and fighting with honor while the bad guys would cheat. I think it was only a matter of time that the autobots would start to lose but that only makes the victory better since it makes the main characters stand out more. Even when ironhide died it was a heroic death where he was brave enough to keep fighting right till the end, barely able to stand up probably wounded from gunshots. But that death just highlights that he was a brave and tough person. Or that the enemy was a real threat, and at any moment in the theatre you felt "holy poo, if these guys could die, maybe the others are next! There are actually consequences to phucking up" Because little kids were so used to nothing like that happening in the tv series, it was like a traumatic experience throughout the whole thing. Watching the movie was probably a fan's rite of passage to adulthood. Maybe once they witnessed thier king being killed it would be like they were now a man. I think this message is similar to the "maturation", or "transformation" of Hotrod from a daring teenager robot who wants to show off, to a "responsible" leader. (he even "grows up" at the end and becomes bigger) Even the movie had its flaws: Although prime died properly and his body changed color (like phase shift armor from gundam seed? ) how come Ultra Magnus could be put back together again? To me being able to put them back together again cheapens thier life. If they could die properly like the ones that didn't make it to the end in the theatre, then it would make the cartoon more interesting imo. I think the general rule is if you are popular toy, you live, (except on rare occasions like with prime where the death is supposed to shock) but if you are unpopular you have a good chance of dying. The thing is they made it so that the robots had a soul (spark) and could even come back from the dead. (starscream as a ghost?) Personally I think it would have been more interesting if none of the guys could come back so that when they DID die, it was much more meaningful and the battles they got into each episode were not so repetitive. (bringing us back to the reason why cartoons were ruined through censoring or not making people allowed to die or be fatally injured)

Eeeeeww that one looks like it was dropped in the toilet!

I will wait patiently for mahou, but I hope mahou don't take too long with each ep. (like say a month for 1 episode - by then I will have forgotten what happened in previous eps )

I remember that cartoon. The talking bird was deliberately anoying but I don't think conan liked him because it was always asking for polmagranites (sp?) In the end Set and the Snake people were defeated and I think they got put into another dimension or something at stonehenge. I think the reason cartoons sucked so much was censorship. Despite the use of guns did anyone in GI Joe actually die or get injured? In transformers, did any of the autobots actually show noticable damage or come close to being killed? That all changed with the TF movie and if I recall people were really pissed off that optimus died in that. (ironically) But given that cartoons are for little kids and for toy companies to market merchandise, can you blame them for sucking? Not much has improved: look at yugioh, and all those pokemon-esque cartoons. Where are the "Star Blazers", "Astro Boy" or "Robotech" (don't be offended - although it pales to the real thing, it still beats most toons of the 80s) for this generation's kids? All kiddy toons suck because people are looking back at stuff from the point of an adult and can see the cheese. But I bet half of you had toys of the stuff when you wuz kids. (I'll admit though that even as a little kid I thought half of them were crap - even stuff that was popular like the ninja turtles)

So he actually has 3 forms in total? -micro form in SDF:Macross -macro form in SDF:Macross (looks like micro) -macro form in DYRL and Mac7 (tentacles) never knew that..

Yeah but some of the designs from the movie spilled over into the macross 7 tv series. Like Exedol in M7 has tentacles instead of hands. His DYRL form must then have been his 'real' body and the tv series was his 'placeholder' form. (a short guy with a big head with a wig?) Some of DYRL may be real thanks to macross 7. Hopefully they will just say in the future that like macross II, Macross 7 was an alternate universe.. Basara never fought strange monsters with music or sound energy and it was just a saturday morning cartoon for bored children. The real protodevlin are probably much scarier. And in macross zero roy looks nothing like the roy in SDF:macross. (I think they are even 2 different sizes? Who is the real Roy?)

Britai could rip a robot mode valk with swag with his bare hands. And in the movie kamjin could punch the chest plate and dent it. Were the zentradi mainly strong from thier sheer size or was it mainly because even for thier size they had immense strength? (that is to say: if you were to take a normal human in macronised form vs an alien in macronised form, the giant macronised alien would still be much stronger than the giant macronised human.)

So how fast can the MKII monster run? (if at all?) I saw in SDF: macross that Kamjin (in macronised form) was riding on the thing like a cowboy would a horse. But in another part of the series, when it takes a single step, it seems to take a lot effort just to move that leg. Even wrecking the ground from 1 step. And it wasn't pushing the ground hard or anything. This indicates that the weight of the machine limits it's movement - or maybe the people inside were just being really careful about where they were stepping. I'm thinking that the machine can make a slight leap or hop with each push of its legs to make it sort of jog. But each step is more like a long leap forward (with its other foot ready to absorb the shock of the descent and spring up immediately for another jump) rather than many small steps of medium distance. In the scene with kamjin leading the regults and glaug with the monster it would make more sense if he was behind everyone since his monster would move slower wouldn't it? But it seemed as if they all ran at the same speed.

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/Macross-Robotech-Ya...1QQcmdZViewItem ^ hrm...wonder why this is so cheap? If no one bids that would be a bargain.

Close up pics would be nice. They should box them all together in one collection and sell it that way.

The thing I liked about the Tcats (apart from the cool theme song) was the characters looked scary. Especially the mummy and the mutant henchmen. And panthro had cool weapon: nunchuks. If they could maintain the quality of the opening animation I would have watched all of this. Each member of the group if I recall were sort of RPG-ish in that they had a unique quality. The little kids was supposed to be mischievous and cunning, the blind guy was suposed to be able to sense things the others couldn't, (he could pilot a ship similar to luke using the force to guide him in star wars) that girl (a female cheetah) who runs fast has great speed, and nobody can catch her etc..and snarf was like a useless jar jar binks-like character put in for humor. Sort of like Battlecat when he is not wearing armor, or Orko who keeps causing trouble from the He-Man cartoon. I think I remember there was an episode where Lion-O had to beat all of his friends to prove his worth as leader. If you were to compare He-man to Thunder Cats I think Thundercats was the better toon. I thought there were some action scenes that were quite cool including one that is very similar to the scene in ghost in the shell where Kusanagi somersaults and flips back into the background for cover when fighting the tank in the Gits movie. Lion-O does something similar (they are agile cat-people) move in the cartoon in order to avoid an attack. I think it may have been one where he fights a clone of himself or something - I use to tape this. I think if skeletor from he-man had to fight mummra in a fight to see whose magic is stronger, that mumra guy would win. I also remember like when gotham city needs help from batman, whenever lion-o was in trouble he could project the Tcats symbol in the sky and everyone would know where he was. Ahh. nostalgia.. I think Star Blazers (US censored version of space battleship yamato) has more lasting impact on me though. The Protoculture must have stolen the wave motion Gun idea from the Argo/yamato - seems similar to the SDF1 main gun. I often wonder what if it was the Yamato that was grafted onto the SDF-1 as one of its arms in attack mode? You could fire the main gun, followed by the wave motion gun for a 2 hit combo! As for bravestar: The horse was cool!

I agree with what this kid in the comments section says: Children mature at different rates. It's when the parent neglects raising them up properly that it leads to problems but that has nothing to do with game encouraging them to be violent. As a kid I was allowed to see a lot of R-Rated material and I'm not a violent psychopath. (doubles checks just in case - well maybe in the game I am ) The violence that exists in the real world is probably more damaging than what you see in a fictional setting in a game. Maybe some parents just don't want to shelter thier kids too much? As I mentioned before ratings should only be used as a guide. Not wholly relied upon to garuantee some group won't see something they think is offensive. (look at ratings from the past that today would get a milder rating - people opinions vary on what is offensive or inapropriate to them) Don't exchange good parenting for a sticker on a box. People are reacting to something because its new to them and come up with solutions that won't solve the deeper problems. They just need a scapegoat and to finger point, all the while ignoring the real problem. As games become too mainstream and attract a lot of media attention you will see them blamed like movies, music, comics, etc as bad influences to child behaviour because there is lots of money involved. It's only when there is lots of money involved (and to be gained) that people start worrying about problems. But the solutions to problems should be handled on an individual basis. If there is no evidence that your child is showing violent behaviour in the real world, and they have spent years playing violent games, who is more knowledgeable about thier child: the people coming up with the ratings, or you? Self responsibility and common sense on an individual level, will go a long way to protecting people from doing stupid things, and in doing those stupid things, prevent harming others. But the problem is this myth that because somebody sees something onscreen (ie a man with a gun shooting targets) he will go out in the real world encouraged to go out and kill real people. In rare cases where this might happen it had nothing to do with the game to begin with, but the person who chose to commit a criminal act on thier own power. (ever heard of copycat killers? they were messed in the head from the beginning and deserved to be locked up, not rewarded or sympathised with because a greedy nutbar lawyer interested in profiting from tradgedies wanted to point the finger at the profitable game giants for his own gain rather than genuinely giving a poo) There is no evidence to show games has anything to do with influence behaviour in the real world. A kid can play GTA all day and not ever wish to do the things he does in the fictional game environment, in the real world. A lot of people have already started to believe the myth that games can influence your behaviour in the real world, through sheer repetition by the media. Ie the rule of thumb is to get people to agree with you, you just have to keep repeating something over and over again until they eventually accept this as true. And this usually works. Because people will eventually cave in and start to react and say the game companies are kinda responsible rather than people on an individual basis. As the media focuses its attention and more and more of its coverage and hype on the issue of violent games, it suddenly becomes a problem for the whole nation to be solved, with sweeping changes introduced that no one likes and won't solve problems, but that a small minority secretly wishes to push forward with. Nope dont let your guard down: the existing system should stay as it is and the individuals (the messed up people) should be judged on a case by case basis. But the key to remember is that there are always people who profit from ignorance (take the nutbar lawyers with an agenda for instance) and hope that people will not think for themselves so that they can push for more stupid changes. This is why the sheer repetition and hype. As people start to believe the hype they can gradually convert you over time. Although I agree 18-only games should be restricted to adults, (retailers should check for id) eventually an adult gamer who has kids of his own will want to play the game, and like what happens with movies or video rentals, that content will somehow make its way into the home for the kid to be exposed to. (parents will just buy the game for the kid or feel thier own kid can handle it) So I don't believe that game companies should take the wrap for anything that the people involved in stupidity (using companies as a scapegoat cuz thier lawyer told them to) choose to do. What you read about are only a very small number of cases which are highlighted and selected by the media to blow out of proprtion, (because they have an agenda of thier own) not representative of the majority who are fine with things as they are. The stupid people should just learn to control themselves or be jailed as a way to teach them a lesson to take responsbility. Trial by fire.

Maybe if you buy an LE CF in future it might get in even more demand than LV and then after a time you can trade that for a LV? I wonder how many LE CF they are going to make? (is it true that it will be the last VF1A release ever, and because of that it will create a new boost in demand for 1A?) Are people going to start buying multiples of this now, hoping to cash in at some later date in the hopes it will repeat what the LV has done? I want to know what the pilot of the LE CF will look like. And has anyone on macrossworld got the LE black valk? I wonder how much that is worth and if anyone would put it up on ebay? What did the pilot of that look like - guy in normal flight suit or a DYRL spacesuit, or tv series flight suit?

I would just jump into the 1/48 line. Showing more support for the bigger scale might see yamato make more decisions that lean twards bigger, more detailed, toys of other valks. I really like the fast packs, since they are detailed and add weight to the toy (but still has plastic so as not to chip anything) The valk I would get next in 1/48 would be RoyVF1s since to me it is probably the most noticable. You can upgrade the valk to have the strike part and this looks good in battroid mode when folded as an over-the-shoulder backpack weapon. (I tend to display mine in battroid mode mostly) But if they could just release more tv series stuff - (limited angel birds release? an official greyish VF1S super valk? tv Max VF1A?) then it can mean only more good things in the long run for fans. Since Roy is a popular character, two versions - tv series and DYRL, can't hurt.

Voted for lucy. She has a nice well developed pair of titties and she isn't afraid to show them in the movie edition of macross plus. Shame about the nose though. (everyone in macross plus has a stupid pointy nose for some reason ) I would go for ishstar next. The aliens finally learn the joys of the naked female form this time by making them wear barely anything. I bet they were all genetically modified for looking this way. No fat ones in sight.

I wonder if little kids will even know the difference in the future between a hand drawn and hand animated image and cg model? (either hand animated or mocapped) Eg: the celshaded monster in macross zero when it makes its appearance and moves around, looks just as good as a hand drawn one. Maybe having to draw the monster would take more money to do, than just designing a 3d model and letting the person play around with the camera a bit offered a little more freedom? Using a camera to photograph something has kind of eliminated the need to have somebody draw or paint what something looks like when you have the technology to just take a quick snapshot. Or take the use of 3d image in games as an example: you can digitally enhance a flat image or paste textures onto a 3d object and with special 3d fx, and lighting tricks, you can manipulate the enivironment to get the right mood. If you only ever specialised in making 2d games and animating sprites, you might lack the skills necessary to compete with other companies who have experience in both. It's one of the reasons why we don't see many 2d sidescrolling action games with gorgeously detailed hand-drawn backgrounds and hand-animated sprites any more sadly. (on high level platforms at least. It is because there is this stigma with mainstream gamers that if something is flat, it has crap graphics and must be a bad game) So I can see where they are coming from. Personally I still like my 2d hand drawn animation over 3d though.

These are just extreme cases within even the most hardcore. I doubt it is representative of all online gamers for those who are worried. I bet the media only focuses its attention on it because its new. (why not gambling, drugs or alcohol addiction? Why have we not banned this to wipe away the uselessness of these activities and the damage it does to society? A: 1.money 2. because of lot of people secretly want it but won't admit to it. A bit like porn or recreational drug use really, since online gaming has a nerd stigma.) Of course, graham it's possible to have both sex(30 minutes) and games 23.5/7. After having sex with the wife, she can join in on the online game too and you can share the fun of being addicted. Who cares so long as it is making money? The one thing that gaming has over other mediums is the level of interaction involved. Unlike a movie or sitting on your ass on the couch to watch a tv, which are passive, gaming stimulates the brain and requires skill and your attention. I guess this is the thrill of playing an online game because unlike other forms of entertainment (including offline games which are predictable because computers do not adapt to human intelligence) there is a certain amount of freedom that you can't get (or would be illegal) in the real world. Eg: carjacking in GTA which might get you killed or arrested in real life. Or not having the opportunity to street race sombody because its against the law, or you don't have anywhere to do it safely in real life. I think in future gaming is going to compete for $ against other things like movies, and TV, and people are worried about lost profits to these game giants so they kick up a stink under the cover of "being concerned". After a time when the older generations who did not grow up in an atmoshpere of gaming die off, it won't be so taboo and you will see less reaction to these types of stories anymore. (just like "granny dies of heart attack after gambling addiction" stories) Any addiction is bad, but if we were so concerned we could prohibit it completely to solve the problem and be done with it. But so long as it is profitible, I doubt anything will be done. The government probably thrives on it despite the destruction it might have on the person's family and social life and victims. When criminals start breaking into homes to look for items to pawn off to pay for thier evercrack addiction that's when I'll be scared.

Word of advice: stay away from world of warcraft if you wish to maintain a life (outside of the one in the game) Once you start it is hard to stop. In the future gaming will probably be done by having your brain connected to one massive global server, like in the matrix or something. Food will be suppied by robots that feed your body through a tube every once in a while to keep you alive. When a person dies in real life from old age, they die in the videogame. This way the old won't even need working limbs to press buttons since they can just think with thier mind. Money will be exchanged within the game instead of through the real world. The economy will be run in the MMORPG itself. If they need to sleep? A robot will just inject a drug into thier body to make them go to sleep and the game will simulate them feeling drowsy and affect thier ability to play affectively. Now korean gamers don't have to worry about dying.

When you think about it macross is kinda sexist. On the dvds there is a commentary about how the macross originally was going to have all the bridge bunny seats at eye level so global could perve at the chics' asses It's no wonder they make him a judge in the beauty contest. Unlike gundam the bridge crew must always be female. No equal opportunity. All the protesters would proabably have been rounded up along with anti-un sympathisers and trouble-makers like Kaifun and jailed.

I wasn't one of the ones who was against it. I think people are afraid 3d will take over the 2d and we won't see 2d anymore. I suggest a balance would be best where so long as the effects don't stick out like a sore thumb, then it can only enhance the experience. I think the last cg tv show I watched was captain scarlet. The car scenes and dogfighting in that was actually very nicely done. The sense of speed and movement and realism with vehicles and stuff (like you are up there with the characters) was done well. Same with the CG in macross plus and zero. I think anything Sci-fi can only benefit as long as fx are done properly.

There's an idea: George lucas can make Star Wars Hentai series. With C3P0 being raped by R2. All done in 3d with alternate angles to choose from using the latest CG techniques. Or they could have a 3d princess leia with chains in a dungeoun and the Huts have a big alien orgy inviting the biggest alien crime bosses around the galaxy to come to his place for some fun with the princess. eww

I think all this is being blown way out of proportion but that they left that stuff in the game for controversy to boost sales and awareness for thier game. Like a famous celebrity, they as a company dont care who they offend unless the media works for them by publicising it, and through attention, they increase sales/generate buzz. (you see in order to stay on the spotlight and for your career you need to perform a stunt like stolen sex videotape, or a wardrobe malfunction. This would be the game equivalent of that ) But this time it backfires on them and greedy lawyers looking for new profits to make from the next big scapegoat of societies' problems (videogames; like comics, music, rock music etc before them) have finally gotten the upper hand and managed to make parents even more paranoid than they should be. Enough to actually damage profits, rather than work to up them. Now the whole: "it was the hacker's fault, not ours" excuse is bullshit damage control to limit how much they are liable for if someone sues them. It's got nothing to do with them being ACTUALLY innocent, since the shock value of sex is what sells and they know it. You'd have to be silly to not see this. (the adult gamer market will be lucrative in future, more than games aimed kids I think. But it will take time for the industry to mature such that people in power who have grown up playing games can change attitude in future) I like thier games (especially the earlier DMA Design stuff on the amiga) but it was only a matter of time before the media would blow this out of proportion and finally punish the most successful big companies (all giants are in danger) for games that are recogised the most by the mainstream. But that sense of "protecting children from danger" comes more from thier intent to cash in than any actual genuine concern for children. (the media needs to make money too - money makes the world go round and is the root of all evil ) Nothing new here. But it will be sad to see innocent scapegoats in future (lets just say all future videogame companies that are targeted because little timmy saw something in the game and was damaged and now his parents want compensation) who will have to defend themselves whenever a parent wants money because they are lousy parents and won't pay attention to what thier kids do, and just be more involved in thier lives. (ie school shootings blamed on doom, not drugs, or negligent parenting) I think what you see is a symptom of people not actually genuinely wanting to fix the real problems of society and instead it is just them merely profiting from them (lawyers who gain) or for political purpose. (great speeches with massive generalisation of industry and alarmist fear mongering, resulting in bans, re-ratings and knee jerk responses - giving the impression of caring - resulting in more votes and sympathy from the older crowd) As a person who is against censorship, I wish that here in australia we had an R rating so that games that are violent, gory, but mostly aimed for adults (this includes sex no more explicit than you see in movies) could make it here intact as they were originally intended. I don't care (or pretend to care with the "think of the children" crowd) who is offended since they can just refuse to buy it, or pay attention just like with anything, rather than tell the government to tell me what I can and can not see, which only makes everyone else suffer in the end. (the ratings are no less informative than any other ratings system imo.) But they won't do it until seeking compensation keeps rewarding the lazy and unthinking people, who just refuse to govern themselves (eg turning something off or just not buying something) with common sense, rather than making it profitable for the greedy who have thier own agendas and who are just using the fear mongering as a vehicle to profit. Overall I think the creators should be responsible and should never have lied (Hackers DID NOT ADD the content, merely enabled something that already existed) but at the same time, I hate how much something as small as this could have gotten so big. It is no big deal even for kids younger than the allowed age of the ratings. To me the ratings are only a guide, not a garuantee of protection of your child's innocence from exposure to happenings in the real world that are no less disturbing than what you might see broadcast on tv or in the news, or read from in a book. Good parenting and how you raise the kid to think maturely plays a far more important role than any other environmental factor like exposure to games with violence. Games do not act as the parenting tool, and it is when good parents who raised thier children properly know that they've done a good job, that they can relax and allow thier kids to be exposed to violence and sex in entertainment, knowing they can deal with exposure in a mature way and be prepared - seeing reality and fantasy and making distinctions that don't affect thier normal behaviour such that they would go so far to copy what they see. Which is the biggest misconception ever because the only people who do that, only say they were influenced by something else as a way to rally sympathy after they've been caught in a crime and to lay blame on others, rather than taking responsbility for thier own actions. The criminal then gets off easy knowing people are too stupid and gullible and will swallow anything, believing the cause of thier behaviour is rooted in the game world. (any excuse will do - why not blame the giants who have lotsa money?) This is why you will still see images of unrealistic pixelated doom footage in any anti-games news coverage - it is due mainly to ignorance and misunderstanding than anything, based on this concept that a game can MAKE someone to do something against thier will and the person has no control over thier own action. Or the false belief that a movie like the matrix can CAUSE an innocent person to become cold blooded killer in real life when in fact they were messed up to begin with. But they will not try to go any deeper than the surface, because people actualy profit from the ignorance.