Uxi

Heh, knew that was too good to be true. I was actually going to order a couple. At least one to match one of my green and one of my shadow Alphas and possibly more for the rest later. Now... I'll definitely wait until the markdown and then probably only buy one for my Shadow.

What is all this limited to Japan? This means no Asia/HK? What's the normal distribution? We never get them in NA anyways... maybe I'll go by Frank & Sons to see if they have any. I kinda wish ALL releases were weathered rather than "showroom" clean, myself.

I would prefer a Phalanx. What I've ALWAYS wanted was a Macross II Phalanx-II, though. I prefer the rectangular missile banks to the cylinders.

I still prefer the TOS/Movie Klingons-as-Space-Mongols instead of the "You have no honor" Samurai-Kzin style schtick from TNG.

I thought it was going to be a cheap gimmick, but it is actually pretty useful. The best way any laptop has yet simulated the three button / wheel mouse yet. As they had in the previous MBP, you can scroll with two fingers at once (in either X or Y axis) and do a tap on the pad itself to click / hold / drag. New motions are the three finger left or right (which does page forward/back - definitely useful in browsers). I prefer Opera to Safari, but it's only Safari that takes use of this yet, as does mail.app and the other iLife '08 apps. I don't find much use myself for the rotating outside of images, where it's pretty handy. The pinching ipod zooming works good in Safari for increasing text size, etc.

Definitely. Kirk was the man. Pimping the alien hoes, kicking ass, taking names, with that awesome arrogant swagger. Love TOS. Absolutely hated TNG, especially at first, but grudgingly grew to like it towards the end. Voyager sucked the whole way through (as far as I could stomach, probably somewhere around season 2, after which i stopped watching), and was bored stiff by DS9 (always liked B5 better), until they each hit their wars, which made me flop. LOVED the way DS9 handled the Dominion War and hated the way the Shadow Skirmish was handled after all that set up. Never watched enough of Enterprise to care, though always rolled my eyes at the continuity flubs I read about. From a few episodes I've seen on HDNET, I liked the way they treated the Andorians.

I was ready to upgrade 6 months ago. Was holding off, first for MacWorld and then for the latest MBP update, hoping there would be a Blu-ray SuperDrive update. I got tired of waiting, had the money and an itchy trigger finger. I had budgeted the money for a 17" but was playing with my boss' for awhile and concluded it was just too big to be as portable as I wanted. Definitely loving my choice. The beast screams. Still gotta get a copy of XP Pro for Boot Camp, then I'll be content for a looong while on the laptop side. Just built my latest rig not 6 months ago. New E6750, 1333 fsb, 4GB of 1066, new 65nm 8800GT, etc etc. Thinking of giving that to my old lady and going for a 45nm 6850, though.

Just got my new Penryn 15" MacBook Pro today (ordered about noon on the day of release). Only upgrade I bothered with was the 7200 rpm HDD. I'll probably upgrade the RAM to 4GB a year or so down the road. Just finished flexing the battery the first time (complete discharge and recharge). Probably do it again tomorrow, if not the next day as well. So far, it's working great. Already imported most of the stuff from my iBook that it's replacing, and doing stuff from my XP machine right now as I type. Very very fast. Did some photoshop work, as well as some movie editing. Part of me was still wanting the 17" and the hi-res upgrade, but that thing was just too big. Definitely recommended.

I want a Metal Siren, VF-2SS SAP, Phalanx II. I also would like Gilgamesh Power Armor...

Just redo the special effects (and I mean COMPLETELY) with modern CGI and I'd be happy...

You've been pissing on this thread for at least two pages. We get it, Abe Lincoln, you like the 360. Let's move on. </good natured teasing>

Heh, I only paid $60 for my Ceramic White a couple months ago. Doesn't a regular sixaxis go for near $50?

I've always wanted to frankenstein a 1st Gen Tosh XA1 with a 360 add-on. Now if I can get that XA1 for less than $50, I'll be willing to try it.

Heh, the 360 at my local target had the RROD. If I ever turn mine on again, I'll probably have a slight fear.

You are going to be totally blown away. Particularly if you get 50" + but even something in the 42"+ range will give you an isatiable HD thirst... That's how my 60" SXRD sucked me in. I went from 34" HDTV with a 6.1 HTiB to a $1500 AVR and at least that in speakers in 7.1 goodness. Not counting my sub. Just got some new Polk RTi towers for the fronts... I gotta get back into guns or cars cause this HT shiznit is gonna make me broke. I'm contemplating a 1080p front projector, 120" screen and a dedicated theater... My old lady is gonna kill me when I wall up the garage and build a floor 6-10" up from it and start soundproofing.

You can rearrange the demo titles by category, etc and then hope one of them is one that doesn't play music by default. They all (AFAIK) go to some sort of screen but not all of them have music.

I myself tend to think TESB is a bit overrated amongst the 6, but I won't sidetrack to that one either. RotJ was my favorite as a kid and remains so to this day. Then it's probably a close run between RotS or TESB. But anyways... Lucas had a well known falling out with the Directors Guild... which may be one of the reasons he can't just choose any director, even if he wants to. It would have to be another outside of the DGA, which definitely limits his choices. Mostly, he probably just wants to do it all himself. His strengths in the visual realm are still quite impressive... his interpersonal acting, not so much. Let me guess.... Mace Windu and his Posse confronting Darth Sidious... and... Anakin/Vader's dialogue with Obi-wan before the duel? The Jedi fight with Sidious really just needs some more editing. Take out that shot of Palpatine pulling back his saber to thrust (IOW go straight from the "twirl jump" to his impaling Agen Kolar and its' far more impressive (the guy is dead before he knows what hits him). Sasees decapitation from the novel and Agen Kolar's hole in his head were far better done. The need to "hide" his lightsaber in some statue or whatever it was, I thought was completely unnecessary. What Stover did best was put in the political stuff. The reason the tensions between the Jedi and Chancellor were growing so tense was becuase of the further amendment to the Security Act, which put the Jedi from the the control of the Senate at large to the specific control of the Chancellor.

I never bought the balance issue. Some playing for 3+ years since launch, etc SHOULD be more powerful than the newb just entering a game. Me, as a Sergeant of Marines, am far more proficient with my weapons, skills, and experience than the Boot Private newly in to the Fleet. Sure that gives the goons with no lives an advantage, but that's where the "realism" of the system needs to come in and tactics/strategy should have a play. Interlocking fields of fire, bounding overwatch, entrenched defense, traps, and plain ol raw cunning should be more than able to overcome such measures. I would definitely think "Jedi Master" or "Sith Lord" style levels should be available... it should just carry the risk of bringing someone like Darth Vader on your head, at which you're almost guaranteed to fail. In the SWG days, I always imagined that Vader shouldn't be unbeatable... but that it just wouldn't be realistically attainable to reach his power level without years and years of game play (say 10 or so), by even the most determined desk jockie with no real life. Luke can do it... but he's Luke and you and I aren't.

I always hoped to see that Darth Vader bit, but yeah never happened. Add in hordes of stormtroopers and then the Inquisitors in between the bounty-hunters and Darth Vader and it should still be a great idea for even a Dark Times-based game to keep Jedi at least on the down-low, if not actually rare.

Yeah even KOTOR had Canderous, the Mandalorians, and guys like Carth. TotJ had the Republic Rocket Jumpers, which would be awesome to have in a game. There was also the Sith underlings in KOTOR who had no Force ability (and their TotJ analogue, the Massassi). The worst about Galaxies is that I kind of like the NGE. I always wanted the game to be just like Jedi Outcast/Academy... with the original class/skill structure and player-based economy. I hope that if/when SWG dies, they let the homebrew community at its code so we can bring some of that stuff back.

I think most of the problem with the prequels lies with Lucas' direction rather than Hayden's acting. More than a little may have been due to the edits for time. Hopefully there's a chance to get extended editions later on. Specifically, I'm thinking the "love story" of AOTC. The Birth of the Rebellion scenes from ROTS should most definitely be reinserted at some point, hopefully for a Blu-ray release.

That Baroness makes me wonder where Jynx is. I always thought the trouble bubble was kinda corny. Probably won't be getting that... I don't remember an irradiated Snake Eyes... what was up with that? The Lady Jaye looks great... much better than the current release.

You don't know many people in the know, then? jk. At least wrt PQ, it's only in very difficult material/scenes that the average mortal is going to notice an increase from 20mbps to 30mbps. 20 to 40 it starts to be come more evident, especially on a larger 1080p set. Remember, HDDVD's total MUX maxed out at 30Mbps or thereabouts, whereas Blu-ray can do up to 40Mbps for video alone. 48Mbps for combined audio/video and 54Mbps total mux. The practical application of this saw Blu-ray with lossless audio on 67%, or 310 of it's 486 titles currently in release while HDDVD managed 23% or 93 of it's 406 currently released titles. Lossless audio doesn't mean much to some people, but to me it's just as integral a part of the high definition experience. Most Blu-rays use AVC more than anything. Right now it's 37.9% AVC, 33.8% Mpeg2, and 28.3% VC1. Unlike many people, I think MPEG2 is sufficient at Blu-ray bitrates and titles like Kingdom of Heaven, Crank, and Blackhawk Down show what that old codec is capable of. Which is GREAT Picture and sound! Great source for stats on both formats: http://www.blu-raystats.com/index.php http://www.hddvdstats.com/index.php

The main title will always play on older format players. Course, I have a hard time understanding why anyone wouldn't just want a PS3. People too set in their ways, I suppose. I have the Serenity HDDVD. I'll buy another if it's an extended cut and hopefully has a PCM track. Going to be a long time before we see remasters optimized to Blu-ray's superior bitrates.

It wasnt just, or even primarily, the Jedi thing that borked galaxies. The loss of the player based economy (and the reasons many people had multiple accounts to begin with). The NGE following so soon after the CU (and completely borking the just recently released expansion). The annihilation of entire classes that some players worked for. They were all well intentioned changes, for the most part, but an utter disregard for the existing subscriber base is what caused Galaxies to sputter. Even in that restricted setting that's hardly at all conducive to the centerpiece of the Star Wars experience: Jedi versus Sith.