1/1 LowViz Lurker

I'm all for a future war movie: but arnold models were assasin robots and I want a dark movie where we see him wielding a beam-gatling gun and killing humans from the shadows. Comapring T1 with t2 is like the difference between Batman Begins and The dark Knight. People complained the dark knight was too bright and sunny. Too many daylight scenes. That's what happened to the terminator franchise when it became a generic action movie. But T1 had the cyberpunk look to it. That is people are paranoid about machines killing them, (Reese wakes up from a nightmare staring at a construction worker in a construction vehicles as if to say this is what robot are going to do with humans when they have to pile up the dead bodies) and they know they are dooomed.... Arnold is like michael meyers from "Halloween", virtually unstoppable killing machine, and the only hope is in using other machines to kill the machine. (the matrix movies cover this irony too) The paranoia is not just in how you can't trust the phone anymore, but you can't trust computers, the police (who don't believe the story) and yourself. The movie is all about the doom. A prequel showing what happened just before Reese enters the time machines gives us the story of how the original skynet (not the skynet of later times which used arnold models as frontline soldiers in skeleton form with no skin on them, but the skynet that used flesh on top of endoskeleton to use arnold as an assassin of important figures) began to form. Slowly taking over everything, making humans fight each other, and hacking into everything like some program off "ghost in the shell". I don't want morphing robots that can reshape themselves into anything they wish just because it's a cool visual effect. (we got enough of this poo from "The Abyss") I want survival horror movie where technology is still futuristic (you got energy weapons and stuff) but the machine isn't so inteligent that people actullly believe it to be a big threat. Like the colonial marines in aliens who think the xenomorph is a dumb animal and then their transport ship crashes when a alien sneaks onboard and kills the pilot and they have to survive alone with limited ammo and no support for a long time and are outnumbered. That's the paranoid movie I want. Movies like John Carpenter's "The Thing" (everone is scared the other guy is an alien), "Escape from New york"(the sneaky "only one man can do this missiion" action hero bits, "Aliens"(the underestimating of the threat from marines who get slaughtered one by one even though they are supposed to be combat veterens) , "Predator" (the whole outsmarting of humans by the creature with recorded voices to bait them, and playing mind games with them to isolate them from the group and take them on one by one like a game; as if to test their fighting skill through a "one vs one" duel. ie there is a certain "nobility" to the alien in predator, not just murdering people) ....these are the ones that I liked. Terminator started sucking by T3 because people just want generic action movies. I'm not saying I don't want action, but the original was a survival horror thing where you were genuinely scared and the scenes were all very dark. It had a dark theme. The machines are satanic. John Conner is "Jesus". (savior of the human race through his teachings which lead to victory) Skynet is "Herod". (kill the messiah before he can be born so the prophecy can't be fullfilled) and Sarah Conner is Mary. (she is innocent and not violent feminist icon in the first movie, just a normal young girl ....who happens to give birth to the messiah) And the war in Terminator 1 is very "underground". A secret war between assassins and protectors who are on the run and time is running out. "Kill the girl and the world's doom is sealed". There is a lot of suspense right up to the last moment. Even when Arnold almost in the fire crippled, you still don't get the feeling it's all over. You are paranoid about him not really being dead. That's what a prequel should have imo. -John Conner is NOT ready. (this is pre-warning period of the future not the one where reese got a chance to warn the mother who in turn warned the child) -Machines are not that big a threat right now for the vast majority of people. -People underestimate the intelligence of skynet (brave men get slaughtered on the battlefield) in the same way people don't believe that michael meyers in Halloween is all that dangerous. -Conner is not insane or crazy but is perceived to be ONLY because everyone around him is not warned about this and there is no evidence to prove the machines are alive. This is like the xenomorph being underestimated by people for just being a "dumb animal". -And resistence fighters don't succeed in their missions because they were caught unprepared (with high casualties - think of those who lost in WWII just for being chosen first and having little time to prepare). They only succeed after using the machines against each other. (technology always advancing and getting faster, humans always being outpaced by its advancement and not able to adapt to the change in time) Humans can't beat them unless they accept the monster they created is REAL, and are prepared to tame the beast in some way and that's when humans learn how to adapt: hacked robots start to become their main force using resources the enemy provides against them and reverse engineering everything skynet throws. (and then we get a hint that morphing robots start to be produced but we never see them. We all saw terminator 2 so it's unecessary.) The only time we should ever see humans succeeding is when humans realise they are doomed, not due to incompence or lack of skill to win. The idea behind a "prophecy" is to warn people of a possible future IF people don't act wisely and consider morals behind the creating of some things. (the future is not set) Cyberpunk sci fi is all about the paranoia of technology taking control of us and where society is going. (see movies like Equilibrium where the whole world is forced to take mind control Prozac pills to prevent themselves from having emotions. This is like the terminators - they are machines which have no souls! (no remorse no emotion no sense of right or wrong etc) In that movie, humans without emotions or feelings are like robots. In Terminator, when assassins are given orders to kill they are not really "soldiers" when they finally become used like souless zombies/puppets by skynet. They are much more like walking dead which can't wake from the spell until humans use them for good - ie to protect things not just murder. Technology when used for good can save. When it is used for evil it blows up in your face. It's not about technology, it's about man not realising where the future is headed due to ignorance of the threat given in warnings - ...Flood of Noah.. and all that kinda stuff)

Arnold is closer to He-man than conan I reckon. I think a new he-man movie with more fantasy villains is better for now. (think of the prawns from district 9 for example - I love this movie) The first Conan to me didn't have enough monsters that look scary and stuff. LOTR gave us all kinds of stuff like the balrog, the troll, the battle scenes with the giant elephants, ring wraiths that flew on flying snakebird things etc We need a new LOTR fantasy movie like that. And it has to be a violent one like 300. He-man Remake with Arnie is the only path for him now.

when you transform something for the first time you can't see where all the pieces lock together so you don't know which parts to pull or push. I had this problem with the vf-22. I had to watch someone on youtube transforming it just to be sure I wasn't going to pull it apart and waste all the money I spent on it during a transformation. Face it these things can break easily. But yeah 11 is a piece of piss now. VF-22 and yf-21 are pretty hard. I remember the 1/72 yf-21 being a real b1tch to transform the first time. The legs were really hard to fit inside plane mode. I couldn't figure it out until about 1 hour of fiddling around.

Bandai should do a vf-17 and vf-171 himetal together. That'd be awesome. The yf-29 was already done by takara tomy:

Because the image that was posted reminded me of an armored worm eating the head off of a valkyrie to get to the pilot inside it that's how. What else is there to talk about when there is no milia paintshceme out yet?

A monster is too massive but what about valkyries? Now that I think about it a valkyrie lying down low with gunpod and a tripod to reduce the shaking hiding low in some forest sounds like a cool idea. -Macross plus gave us the bayonet for close combat kills when the gunpod jams. Can't believe they took out that scene from the movie edition. -MacF gave us the sniper beam gunpod, to shoot from long range. coming soon: -Macross "8th mobile suit team" (when the Inbit from Mospeada attack one of the planets the macross ships have landed down on to colonise) will allow robots to lie on the ground and shoot with a heavy machine gunpod from the safety of a machine gun nest. (and we finally see a return of the destroids! Mini-versions of these that are a cross between a destroid and EX Gear.) The armor pack now exchanges missiles inside the boxes, for ammo boxes of gunpod bullets to shoot while hidden for long period of time. Inbit scout troops are too hard to hit with micromissiles since they fly too close to the ground and behind lots of cover. Finally all those non-canon scheme can be of use. Maybe they can bring back that valkyrie with the harpoon weapon? The next threat is not an alien but a godzilla like creature which mutated from all the radiation and grew to large size. It is the leader of a mutant form of aliens living on the planet which have mutant powers and hunt valkyrie pilots to feed the leader as a sacrifice to please it.

I don't mind 2 heatshields. Similar to how they gave us the oversized hands when the 1/48 vf-1 had GBP armour. Having said that, this is because I barely ever transform my toys. (I still see them as display pieces more than toy) I still can't believe people can't see that the heatshield looks like a blue worm that just ate the head of the vf-11 off. Come on. Cant' you see it? So obvious.

Oh, I'm not against glossy finish for vf-19. I'm pretty happy for it to be shiny. Just saying some robots I like with dull finish more.

Not for some robots. I would not like a glossy destroid monster for instance. Dull finish and absorbing light rather than reflecting it is going to be better. Imagine if you are trying to hide in bushes and the shiny glint of your armor attracts enemies attention? Imagine if the urban camo GBP armor was glossy? Not saying it doesn't look good for some planes. But I can't imagine them being as cool in those instances. I also hate the "white valk" look of the vf-1. I prefer them being metallic or grey like the low visibility. When they color megatron white in the transformers cartoon, I think it is bad. He should be more like a light grey imo with maybe shiny highlights to show the surface reflects some light instead of being grey all over. Valkyries in my imagining are grey! Macross Zero has the right idea. Screw DYRL! lol

Will the vf-17 be glossy too? The Bandai chunky munky has glossy look. So I'm assuming the same for the yamato too and that is how it is for this.

If you break stuff don't forget to take pics. I like seeing them injured so I know what to expect if I get one and handle it the wrong way. (or what to look for if I buy one used!)

I hope these 1/100 don't become hard to find in future. I'm not a collector but I feel in time people will come to appreciate the smaller size of them for things like displays near a vb-6. People can't accuse bandai of "only reissuing chunky munky, and being lazy" anymore. They made a good small and affordable valk, and when this line stops or it gets hard to find I think fans of it will be proud to have obtained them when they were released. VF-1 is done to death by so many companies though so if people are ignoring these it might be because of how much other stuff macross is getting. We are not living during a "dry period" of macross toys anymore where people are whining about how little new releases there are. We are pretty spoilt.

The best things to do with the terminator franchise is realy just make one last prequel movie showing us what happened before kyle reese was sent back into time to 1984 to save sarah from assasination by the t-800. Show us how humans survived and how the resistence was formed. Show us a movie that gives us human resistence fighting: how the humans could hack machines and use the machines to fight amongst themselves. How they got information on where the bases were by tracking location of their own hacked robots when they return to base before detonating the charges that their own robot spies planted inside the base. How Kyle was chosen and because nobody else could be trusted as the skynet was getting smarter and impersonating people's voices and learning how to get past sniffer-dogs security. Give us a story involving kyle narrowly escaping death before being sent back in time but tell the story from the point of view of John Conner (not kysle reese) so we learn what happens in this universe after Kyle succeeds in being sent back in time using the time machine. (since the first terminator movie already covers this - just watch terminator 1 to get the story of kyle reese) Give us some information about how john conner could actually just be a human-created legend and that this human is merely clone and inside him he is partially a cyborg to create confusion for the terminators by baiting them to come to the wrong places for ambushs against the more intelligent assassin robots. (they need to learn and reverse engineer this technology in labs - that incluides arnold models which is what we know humans did in terminator 2 when "good arnie" was sent to protect 90s John Conner) Since humans trust their own machines (drones remote controlled by human soldiers) and succeed in killing the skynet-controlled machines, by using the resources of skynet, the terminators must use mind-programmed humans and trust in "fleshy informants". This is where the movie flips 180 degrees and robots who are developing their own self awareness end up killing skynet robots because they think it has betrayed them when it uses mind-controlled human clones to assist it in spying. These are the splinter group of the "machine purist" robots. Meanwhile as humans become reliant on this technology to fight against the machines, these operations to keep baiting more arnold models becomes necessary for survival. The final war in this universe will be fought by humans in mechanical suits who do not communicate with each other (terminators can impersonate their buddies voices easily) and have to roam around fighting both mind programmed human clone soldiers working for the skynet, and the "machine purist" robots that have decided skynet is not doing a good job having to use humans as puppets since they are programmed to believe the world is better without any humans period. The resistance fails to win, (but skynet fails to dominate) and the warring is a constant drain on resources meaning the technology eventually kils itself leaving rogue human junk collectors and robots with self aware minds fighting over the scraps that the resistence and skynet left over from the war. There is a stalemate and the john conner character lives on as a legend, like a "jesus christ" figure who is resurected from the dead to return once in a while when he emerges form out of nowhere possibly just cloned. (think of it like Aragorn in Lord Of the Rings when he was the ranger known as Strider) There are low tech weapons mixed with hi tech ones but ultimately the resources of the planet can't sustain a high tech combat in this universe on a massive scale. Only fighting happen in small short chunks amongst small groups of people as resources dry up and food and materials becomes harder to get due to all the destruction. (think of the anime movie Fist Of The North Star for example) The message in this prequel is that the future is not set, it is not set because so long as machines and humans stil have will to change it, the two will be in constant battle till the end of time. Judgement day is not set. It is not set because so long as people know when the date will come they can work towards prevention of this day. Like the nuclear bomb, so long as people keep using it, the threat of death always looms near but humans will limit their usage if it means self preservation to continue to fight another day. In the same way light created a shadow in a totally dark room, the world; past present and future is just combination of good and evil and you will not see the bright shining sunlight which covers everything with light (the desturction of evil) until that time when humans no longer have need of dangerous technology, and machines no longer exists for it to have any purpose to serve impure motives of humans who created nukes and bombs and intelligent robot planners to suit a lazy lifestyle. This would close the franchise and then they could do remakes after this movie. But there would be no other future Arnie terminator movies because the whole movie would be like stallone's last rocky movie and wrap up the whole message into a single thing that summarises what has happen from previous sequels, and in a way it's just going back to where it all began. ie like a circle which has no beginning, no middle, and no end; unlike a line with two points. It would be the alpha and omega; the beginning and the end because the first instance of intelligent robots came from the one movie but this one movie births the other events so it can be considered the father of those others. Since the robots kill humans and have no further purpose but to be used as weapons to kill things they are killing themselves because now they have to self destruct after having no reason to exist. During a time a peace soldiers, weapons, bombs have no reason or purpose. Since machines are logical they would have to decide to either a) self preserve themselves by not letting themselves lose their sense of purpose by fighting amongst themselves or against skynet. (there is evidence that skynet turned off the neurel net processor in arnold models to prevent them from thinking independently in the T2 ultimate edition) b) commit suicide by self destructing once the program realised it's ambition of wiping out all humans. Neither of the sides is allowed to win. Only fight long enough to survive, preserve their existence and then cull humans when the imbalance gets too great creating an equilibrium until both of them stop using weapons that give justification to have the wars in the first place. (which can never happen due to competition for control over the remaining resources that either side can't give up because they want to be free of slavery from the other, just like what you have in the real world where humans never stopped having wars even before the cyborgs came along) What I'd like is for this to have a dark feeling to it like metal gear solid or the first terminator where characters have to sneak in the dark a lot, and there would be only older style machines (totally mechanical without any morphing) with very little intelligence or self awareness to match that of a mind controlled army due to skynet's own fear the mechanical grunts or drones might turn against itself or their own strict prgramming code.

The heatshield looks like a armored worm thing. Ah nevermind. pic of a mongolian death worm: The battroid looks like it is has an armored worm crawling on it. (the sci-fi version for the macross universe) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongolian_death_worm The battroid is the victim of a space version of the death worm. The armored version was created in a lab by the protoculture race as biological weapons. This is what hikaru minmay and misa hayase encountered and this is why there are no future stories dealing with these characters.

Arnold I still watch all your violent action movies. What pissed me off was when you started saying videogames were violent and a danger to people even though your career was built upon those low brow forms of entertainment in movie form which helped you get to where you are. Yes you might have a point and it's good to have minors banned from buying that stuff, but I can't see that coming from you. http://www.kaplaneduneering.com/kappnotes/index.php/2010/09/arnold-says-violence-in-movies-good/ I like sci fi and cyberpunk type movies and to me terminator 2 is one of my top action sci fi thrillers. You need to team up with stallone, get back down to the ground and make those horror, sci fi, gritty future movies that appeals to the comic book crowds and makes loads of money and helps people escape from the reality of their boring lives. Politicians are all about creating a fantasy world for us to believe in so I can understand why being in a fantasy sci fi movies and "acting" in public (by bullshitting people) can be seen as great way to increase your acting skills for movies. But we all prefer you as an action hero/villain. In terminator for instance not many people can accept a non-arnie expressionless robot programmed to assasinate people. Whether you like it or not you are violent action movie icon and because of you, future conan movies from now on are not going to be the same. Stop being ashamed of those movies you fool. And stop attacking the violent action videogame industry which probably helps to provide all the jobs for people who are film school dropouts that see videogames as the new "film"; mistunderstood by those in previous generations but providing a new type of artform from which to tell stories in an interactive way that engages you in a different way than what movies provide. (ie just having the camera pointed at the interesting things but not letting us see the surrounding background and the people living in those imagined worlds) Please refrain from the bullshitting and get back to work like stallone on some great violent and gritty action movies so fans can stop whining about the damn conan films. (it reminds me of robotech fans constantly pestering harmony gold to hurry up with their movies - sorry A1, but you sound like those robotech fans only for the Conan franchise. He is ok as a skinnier warrior if done right, just that Arnold has great presence as this sword wielding killing machine with very little remorse for the suffering of his victims, so that's why we like him. haha) Anyway if they ever make a Duke Nukem movie, (maybe the makers of district 9 can handle this now that they can't touch halo movie?) I want Arnold to be Duke. Arnold will always be a videogame character or action movie icon to me. I couldn't care less about the political career to be honest. I think politicians are all part of a controlled opposition (good cop bad cop) anyway and the public is focusing all the energy in scrutinising the wrong things which is possible through the subtle misdirection of their attention by the cult-like puppet masters who really control it all behind the curtain. It's not about which side of politics you support. It's about which side is right and if none of them are right they are both screwing everyone. (liberals and conservative family groups are just plants to shove their crap down your throats for their own reasons to keep you busy, not to make you happy) This is why they can be criticised so easily because they don't stick to their principles consistently. Politicians are just actors for the public sector.

This is weird but when I look at that picture for a few seconds I imagine there is a blue robot bug (it's legs were chopped off) crawling on top of the vf11. One antenna was ripped off and it's getting its revenge by having eaten the head off using acid to melt it down and then chew on its face. The top part is actually the bugs head, not the robots head. It's just the way its all coloured up. Pretty creepy once you figure out the picture.. Space maggots from hell have invaded the ship and are now eating away at the mechs.

Oh yeah that reminds me: Graham: If yamato ever decide to include stands with future toy releases later on, (like they did for the sv-51) could you ask them to make those stands clear similar to what masterpiece starscream got where the fighter kinda of looks like it is actually flying? (leave the base of the stand normal though) When I think back to DYRL I don't see the purpose of having a robot arm to launch a valkyrie in space. Just float it around and go. What if the arm gets shot off and the claw doesn't properly release its grip? You are doomed.

Fair or not, it's reality and people do compare toys from different lines with each other simply because they might have limited resources to devote their addictions to. It's like saying the "megahouse ride armor is not fair to compare with the beagle ride armor simply because one was not intended to compete with the other other by the people who made it". That's just crazy. Everyhting competes with everything else. What do they compete for? They compete for rape time of the wallet. The people who want to "collect them all" may reason in their minds that they could never get all the characters in the beagle mospeada toyline since it would cost them too much right now while they have several other things they still want to buy at the time. So they reason "meh screw it. I'm going to skip this and be a tightass and buy the cheaper alternative", ...and due to bad timing the beagle comes out right when people already spent all their money on the smaller scale versions. Same thing happened with Qrau when it came out during the 1/48 vf-1 period of toy collecting history. Most people like the idea of seeing something different released. (lets be honest all the VF-1 variety contains is a differt head turret lol. We don't get the variety that the transformers collectors get ) But buying a non transforming robot over a complex robot with lots of moving parts? They might have to wait until the overpriced robot (and back then people said it was "a mchappy meal toy without enough diecast") goes to bargain bin before they sacrifice any of their precious $ which they saved for a 1/48 VF-1. The lesson? Everyone has priorities set in their "to buy" list. The money = limited resource. There is an upper limit on what people are willing to sacrifice on "new different thing" which they want but just not want that badly enough over something else which they planned to get. Don't worry about it so much. Just agree with me that if VF-0 in 1/100 came out you would buy it up and accept the reality that if you had a choice between a GNU version and a transforming version that had the same level of goodness of a vf-1 1/100 hitmetal from bandai, then you would pee your pants and go for the more expensive (but still small and affordable) alternative. You would then poo in your pants when it was decided that they could also make the boxes smaller so shipping prices were cheap and that all the variants were planned. You would also agree with me that the complexity of the transformation is no more complex than bandai himetal and that if you displayed it together with the monster it would look great. But if it fails it was just an experiment to test whether people would be interested. (just like Qrau which was the last and only 1/60 enemy mecha yamato did - thanks a lot for showing how much you don't love enemy mecha you jerks )

You say I can't compare them but money is money. Any money people didn't spend on a non-transforming (but accurate-to-lineart) toy, is money people could have spent on bandai HiMetal. In the same way money you spend on a 1/60 yamato vf-1 might be money you didn't spend on 1/100 himetal with fast packs. That's how I like to see it. Use your head. What matters in the end is the $ and imo yamato should have followed the direction toynami took. The reason is because if they can make better valks than toynami or bandai, they can pwn in two lines/scales. (remember there is this perception that bandai is much more interested in milking their gundam lines and ignoring macross for ages, yamato can be there for the dry periods when bandai quit making 1/100 valks) Despite most of us not liking toynami all that much you have to admit that line is great cheap alternative for people who are not crazy about the details and accuracy but just want something to mess around with like a hasbro transformer or something like that. After all this is a place where people still bought the overpriced CMs Legioss And Tread just because they knew it was a sturdy build and had no QC issues (mostly design issues with the link up to tread) despite lacking detail. (toynami version looks better because "it isn't skinny" looks more detailed, but breaks easier.) People say all kinds of stuff on the boards and sometimes they whine about little things, but really the money they spend shows what they support and the real proof. If yamato makes a 1/100 PT VF-0 (they can just analyze what bandai did right with the 1/100 vf-1 hi-metal, in the same way bandai probably looked at the yamato konig monster for help to do theirs) and uses the mac zero license to do ALL the variants we saw in the OVA, then I bet you'd cave and buy it, despite there already being 1/60 versions. (which I might add are the size of a 1/48 VF-1. Japanese people live in shoeboxes dude, space is everything. Cost might not be as much an issue. And some of us just like the idea we can display a group of average-detailed small guys together) One thing that shocks me is how many people ended up buying the cheap mospeada ride armor toys despite knowing a superior Beagle Ride Armor in bigger size was going to be made. I'm still unhappy that there are no more future releases for this. Could it be because the smaller toys were "more collectible" and they knew they could get all of the characters variant bikes more easily? I think this is why a yamato line of VF-0 valks in 1/100 would be awesome because of two reasons: -it would go well with the bandai 1/100 VF-1 toys -more affordable and within the price range of more-casual buyers -a good experiment to see how good they can make small scale stuff that can transform. Toynami have done theirs, banpresto did theirs, bandai did theirs, now I just want to see if yamato can do it. If it fails then they can go back to super-posable non-transforming stuff. If they can successfully do good 1/100 they can release enemy mecha like the Qrau in this scale and make it super-posable and stuff. (I think 1/60 is too big for that. The joints in the hips on mine are floppy. I DO appreciate it being within scale to all my other 1/60 toys though) A 1/100 bandai hi-metal VF-1 fighting a 1/100 yamato qrau would be great for display. The Qrau I have takes up a bit too much space imo. For a non-transforming basic mecha it could be done well at a smaller size. I know toynami 1/100 are not the best but what if bandai decide to scrap this 1/100 HiMetal line altogether, yamato would then have this market to itself for those who prefer a smaller toy collection so they can get as many variants as they can? (the type of guys who are not concerned with all the cool gimmicks we get in the 1/60 toys? in similar fashion to all those guys who bought tiny ride armor toys over the big Beagle Ride Armor one that cost loads of money.)

VF-25 should have been thought about while they were making the vb-6. -it's the "star mecha" of the newest macross series. -vf-1 is done to death. They shouldn't saturate the market. -the cheaper price of smaller toys means they can appeal to non-serious macross fans and serious fans. (even if it is expensive for a small toy, generally people like the idea of playing around with hand-sized versions. The big sizes are for people who want detail. The small ones are perfect for for displays involving a group and for those with limited budget and space to display stuff. Revoltech battlpods are one example. I'm sure many would bring these to work and put them on the desk just because they are small and stress-free to handle.)

Nice sig graham. My bet is yamato kick their butt. I'm not a fanboy for either of them so I like it when they have to work hard to get attention. Bandai beat them in the VB-6 monster department though. So they shouldn't rest easy. And you could argue bandai kicked thier butt on the small scale toys. Bandai HiMetal line >>>> GNU line (yamato should have followed toynami's direction in making transforming banpresto sized robots imo) If yamato ever want to make small PT toys, I would like to see if they can compete against bandai here. All they have to compete with is toynami (lol) and revoltech valks and banpresto (most hated toy on these boards). We know people want an army of cannon fodder valks fighting in battroid mode. This is what collecting is all about. Tiny little guys of good enough quality fighting against the battlepods on the ground in a wargame simulation to train their valk pilots how to fight in battroid mode. It's not just about flying a plane and launching a missile from a long distance. You got to fight effectively at close range from the ground against the enemy ground mechs too.

lol Bandai has games based on their model and the gundam shows. I have to balance my money between buying macross, with saving for the next gundam dynasty warriors that is coming out. Tomino said that games are bad for you and the environment. http://www.smashboards.com/news/blogs/88827/2314/tomino-thinks-video-gamesare-evil I feel like I am creating more evil when I purchase gundam videogames. The creator wants to kill his creation. It is like that scientist in godzilla who was angry that he had just created the oxygen destroyer and now regrets that he created it and how it would be used for evil. (even though godzilla had just wiped out a whole city) Ok Everyone save society don't buy gundam videogames from now on! We should all be like basara in macross 7 and protect the space whales instead of fantasising about saving the world by nuking countries and beam-sabering robots to death. Er what was that topic about again?

Since we are going off topic I'll leave this as my last post. I just feel like I have to come to the defense of the gaming hobby since it is always getting attacked from so many angles due to how much money it generates these days. And it is true that some games are getting dumbed-down to appeal to more people and further increase profits, but it's not ALL bad. Just upgrade your search skills. And I'm saying it doesn't HAVE to be like that. It's just that it seems like the games that don't work your brain are the most popular these days. Only recently did sony jump onto this idea that PC games have had for years. Mod Nation Racers is not a violent title, nor is Little Big Planet, nor is Bangai-o (ok it's cartoony "shooter" but suitable for kids still - it's no more violent than pacman or space invaders) I bet your research didn't include any of these games. These have the construction editing abilities that allow you to generate your own maps. (for 3d games these ARE the worlds and people who make maps are "creators of levels". If your kid can make a map that looks like the set of a scifi epic, then the child is using his imagination) I'm not convinced of "toys work imaginations more than computer games can" I DO agree that computer games NOW are dumbed down. But if you had played games like Dues Ex where you can specialise in how you want to play the game by creating and developing the character's abilities a little bit at a time or had experimented with games like Armored Core (this is a pseudo realistic mech battle game where you build your robot using various parts to add to a core) you'd know there is potential to make gaming more a hobby that uses a person's imagination like lego if it WANTED TO. But it's just today's generation I think. People prefer lying back and relaxing more than creating. It doesn't mean games can't have all the elements you mention that makes "toys more good for kids". It's just that people seem to buy the mindless stuff and it generates the profits. Just like people go to see transformers at the movies because they like that mindless stuff. Doesn't mean all movies must be like this. Just that people paying money feeds it and that's why you as a parent are partially responsible since kids follow what their dad does. If their dad is playing halo, they will want to play it. If you buy your kid a PC and give them a Sim City (ok a kid version of something like this ) type thing, maybe kids will start to "create" more. But I just think parents just buy the game system to keep them busy and happy. They don't think about the development of their brain. So when a mindless game which doesn't work their brain entertains their kid, all they care about is peace and quiet. haha But it wasn't always like this: in the past computers were used as education for kids too. Games like "Brain Training" are not going to be represented by you in your research primarily because "CALL OF DUTY is what all the cool kids are playing online right now". You want to cherry-pick the examples that support your argument and ignore the good examples that support the other side of the argument to win a debate, instead of looking for the TRUTH. I'm just convinced the truth is somewhere in the middle and both sides of the debate have good points but are deliberately not looking at everything just so they can win an argument. If kids were encouraged to only play the good examples, then the child could develop all the skills you mentioned. You just got to know where to find those, and most parents don't want to do that. It takes effort. This then leads to the perception that "games can't be good for you" since so much mindless stuff is on the store shelves, but it's not true. It's just harder to find the good stuff because of how commercialised everything has become because the industry is bigger than before. The shelves are flooded with mindless action titles with very linear progress throughout the game and little control over the story or character development, because to make a game a bit too brainy would scare off the masses and might mean less profit for the companies that already make lots of money doing what they do now. (ie gears of war, "run through a a premade sci fi world ripped straight from the Pitch Black movies, and shoot stuff until you reach the next scripted CG movie which tells you where you must go next and repeat this until the end")

Kids don't play all games though. Just look for the ones that are not the ones that are mindless and have online co-op modes.. I can think of quick examples (ones that are popular): Monster hunter. You can talk to people, type stuff out, and you can trade items to develop friendship with those who are active. More effort you put in: the better the rewards you'll get for the team. The better and more inteeligent the team work, the faster you can grind to gather more powerful weapon or armor. Available on nintendo wii. It also requires brains to defeat the monsters you hunt, because they all have very subtle differences in their pattern of attack. (real animals act in certain ways that go by a pattern too which they've learned from their environment and experiences) It has other aspects to it like fishing, trading, and even pet sim is chucked inside so that kids have to consider how they want to raise their own kid when they beceom a dad. heh (ok it's just so you won't die on the field too easily in single player mode without partners to play with, but you know what I mean ) World Of Warcraft. Grinding to high levels and calling on healer and buffers to keep you alive, while you concentrate on combat with a tough monster. Without the healers and buffers (and debuffers) you won't do nearly as well because games like these were designed so that you need to think about team play. (just like in sports like soccer or basketball where each position has certain roles and you specialise in something for the group to survive) Halo 3. Contains a level making tool for online mode. If you got bored of the stuff that existed you can get off your fat butt and make stuff yourself and share this. Far Cry 2. The map editing is even better than the one from halo 3. Of course most kids (you know) don't play that way but parents shouldn't act like their kids or the kids they see are 99% of all kids in the world should they? Seriously guys back up your arguments with some examples like I do. Don't cherry pick your examples to suit your position. Actually look at both sides before judging. The reason I defend the videogame hobby is that I play from experience. Not just read what the papers or mainstream media say, or what so-called "experts" (media hires them to say anything that can boost the view they have to suit the angle of the story which the writer wants to give - often these are crackpots with no hard evidence of what they are saying) want you to believe. As open world RPG games gain in popularity (fallout, oblivion) I predict they will start to like the less scripted stuff in time and learn to customise the experiences to how they like. But in the past (when the japanese companies that imagine "RPG" to be more like "a graphic novel..in animated form" than a interactive experience) kids had LESS choice. All they had was stuff like Final Fantasy which is all about using pre-generated characters which take on the usual character archetypes we see in most movies and force you to "role-play" as them. lol If you didnt like the main character you couldn't make one that is closer to how you view a hero because all the CG animated movies they paid money to create all feature that character model and fit the story they made for that pre-generated character. (limited the kid's choice in how they want the character to look and behave) BUT.....Things are changing all the time. Maybe one day those kids will grow up and start working in the game industry and start making games that are not the mindless "stuck on rails" experiences. I'm just saying as a parent you have the choice, but if you put no effort into how you raise the kid don't blame the games. Just look for those games that fit your idea of good for kids. It's like when people say "movies are mindless pieces of entertainment and offer nothing of value" and then point to the transformers michael bay movie as their prime example to strengthen their arguments. lol Just because something is getting a lot of exposure doesn't mean it represents all examples out there. Look harder. Do mindless actions movies represent all movies out there? No. But they are popular to kids. Doesn't mean we should only accept them as example to back up our position. Same with videogames. If little kids had only a PC and the parent encouraged them by buying only games that were good for developing their brain a bit, then you wouldn't see sales of all the mindless action titles dominate the charts. I think it's easy to attack those games because these are games that got the most media exposure due to the budget behind them which cost a lot of money. The more hype a movie/game gets usually its' because it uses the latest graphic technolgy and so that's why they push it onto us so hard. (avatar is movie-equivalent example - it had an average story and was not as interesting to me as district 9 in terms of originality. D9 was hatched after the failure to make the halo movies, and it turned out being a solid action thriller with a bit of politics inside it. But Avatar was hyped as the next big thing thanks to the 3d gimmick yet it didn't deliver a good story. ) The fact is if you don't educate yourself and buy the games that are out there which are not the million sellers but which do allow for you to use your imagination a little bit, you are part of the problem rather than being part of the solution. It doesn't have to be this way where only the dumb masses are catered to and the ones with brains are ignored. People just have to avoid the crap games so it won't send a message you want more of them. It's all about the money. Without the mases of people devoting so much of it to the onrail's experiences, the faster the giants will learn to put more interactive elements into the games so that you don't feel like you are just "being the person the makers of the game want you to be" and more like how you think a person should act in a given situation. I could cherry pick my arguments too and say "all lego is about, is following instructions." And then only point to lego starwars toys. But I don't do that because it would be stupid. It doesn't represent all cases. It's the same with games. Generalising about it just encourages people to think no good example exists. I'm sure those who were old enough to remember "text based adventures" (where everything is just story and you had to read) would disagree with the view that games don't require skill or work a person's imaginations. They are good examples to counter the argument that games don't work a person's reading ability. But what I'm saying is that just because these games are not popular today, doesn't mean we can assume "all games are like that, so kids don't get anything from games". The example I gave about RPGs is an example of what I mean: in the past kids only had linear RPG where you couldn't break from the original creator's vision of how that character would behave and act and you felt like you were herded from place to place like an on-rails theme park ride. Today we have games where your choices greatly affect how the NPC react to you and you can be the villain if you want or a good guy or a neutral or a combination of those. Things are changing. Oh and I agree with the point that "just because a game has physics doesn't mean it teaches kids about physics", but there were actually games on pc that have stuff where you play around with the phyics to get to the solution to a problem on PC. I can't remember the game anymore but it was an example of having to use your brains to solve problems and makes the kids use their creativity to succeed. Videogames are an easy scapegoat because the mindless action games get the most exposure. In the same way that Avatar got so much hype just because it cost them a lot to make that compared to a movie like Distrct 9.(which the creators had to put effort into after the fact that they couldn't do the halo movie, unlike Avatar which many critics claim borrowed the story from other things)

You should keep transforming it until something breaks so you can add the vf-19 to the sig. Make a game out of it and see if you can break a record in the number of seconds it takes to transform from mode to mode. Then upload the recording to youtube. When it breaks yamato have an idea of how many times their stuff can be transformed and improvements can be made. Face it. We are just experimental lab monkey for when they finally perfect the durability of these and can give us the yf-19 version 2 with a "problem free" sticker on the box and "gauranteed it can be transformed up to 500 times before cracks" warranty. (which only the japanese buyers will be allowed to take advantage of and send spare pieces due to manufacturing defect)