Axelay

I can't help but wonder if it has something to do with the scene in the trailer where the jets destroy the bridge? I was trying to rationalize why they'd be ordered to do that, and the only thing I could come up with was that it'd make it harder for... something... to get off of the island? Kind of a strange plot point if the last survivor can't find a way to get a boat and get off, though.

Hmmm. Gamespot is reporting only 20 planes in this game. I'm not sure how I feel about that yet - I was expecting a lot more than 20. I wonder if they are counting the different versions of some of the planes as one plane? (i.e. all of the F-16 variations in AC5 come to mind) Anyone seen a list of fighters yet? What is the not-quite-YF-21 looking dark-colored plane which is seen flying with the Super Flankers? It's marked 009, and appears in quite a few places. I saw a Mirage 2000 S listed on the mission briefing screen. Don't think I saw one anywhere else in the trailer. I hope the Rafale is in this game.

What about the two giant Zentraedi actors who are at the cast party of the DYRL tribute movie?

So then... hypothetically speaking, if one were to choose a uniform theme for Macross dogfighting kill marks for fighters, what form would they take? Battlepods? Or perhaps Zentraedi flag logos?

I'm not sure if current bootlegs still have this, but the bootleg Blazer Valkyries I recall having seen over the years have the incorrect wings and canards. They used the same wings and canards as the Fire Valkyrie. The Bandai Blazer doesn't have canards at all (nor should it), and its forward-swept wings are much stubbier.

While on a recent visit to the USS Yorktown, I noticed that a significant part of the carrier's island is adorned with kill marks from WWII battles. Several of the planes on display also feature these. I don't recall having ever seen a Valkyrie with them, though. Anyone have pictures of them, if they exist? And if not, what would you think they'd look like?

I can't believe this. I installed X-COM and did some tweaking with it... and I actually became bored with it. I know, I know, it's heresy. It's still got elements of fun, but what drives me crazy is that the combat is so predictable even on harder difficulty levels. I was still feeling an X-COM jones, so I decided to install TFTD. Holy crap. It is about 900 times harder than I remembered, and that's even with my customized rifles! I have to say that the missions in it are infuriatingly fun, although the whole Geoscape makes little sense to me. I had forgotten how annoyed it made me that you can't shoot down anything over dry land. How stupid. Ah well, I'm 3 months into a new game, and the aliens have already attacked my main base once, started sending Battleships to engage me, and have attacked 2 shipping routes. I think I have pissed them off a bit.

Everything you could ever want can be found here. Lovely collection of X-COM editing tools Do not mess with the ClarkWehyr Enterprises X-COM Editor Suite unless you have the very original X-COM for DOS. I have an old Microprose compilation set which has X-COM, TFTD, MOO, and MOM, and even though it's a DOS version this press has different install paths than the original DOS version did. I couldn't tweak the editor program enough to realize that it should be looking for new paths, so I just have to let it fall by the wayside. Damn shame, too, as that used to be everything I used. I recommend this editor for tweaking weapons. UFO.EXE editor What's nice about it is that it can be run in Windows. Bear in mind that it makes changes to the default values of the game, so better be really sure you want to change something before you do it. I currently have my troops carrying standard assault rifles which use pistol magazines (AP) with 30 rounds and slightly increased power, rifle magazines (HE) with 12 rounds and increased power, and proximity grenades (stun) which can either be rifled or thrown. I just like the notion of having a good weapon which the aliens can't use against us. It's not overpowered, but it is versatile. I still have to buy all of the ammo all the time, and I don't mess with the time values or accuracy for the weapons. Plus, I've used XCOMUTIL to give the aliens a boost to all of their stats so that we can really have some knockdown fights.

Damn you all, you got the bug to bite me. I spent a significant chunk of my day setting up X-COM instead of working like I should have been. LOL. So while I was playing with editing weapons once again, something occurred to me. Why not make proximity grenades be stun weapons? They'd be a lot more useful that way, and there's less likelihood of doing something truly stupid in case I should forget where I tossed one.

WOW! X-COM for Windows Mobile! OK, I think I'm going to have to check this out. After all, it's free! Well crap. After reading the forums on the website, it would appear that 1.25 is the last version of the game. It would seem that it had some pretty nasty bugs - non-arming grenades, disappearing Elerium, etc. I really had my hopes up that this would be a perfect port.

I really wish that back in the day, the engine had been capable of handling complete building destruction. Like when you spot an alien on the roof of a building, and you are sure there are others inside it, you wanna just blow out everything on the bottom floor and collapse the whole building. I cannot count the number of times I've wanted to be able to do that. Some buildings are small enough that you can throw a HE pack in the middle of the floor and it'll blow out at least 80% of the ground floor walls. Say, I'm reminded of something. I seem to recall figuring out that if any of your own team gets mind controlled, you can taze/stun them and pick up their bodies so that they will return to base with you at the end of the mission instead of going MIA. I really miss weapons editing. I used to take the model for the standard assault rifle but would make it so that it could use either pistol or rifle magazines as well as stun bombs. Pistol magazines were beefed up AP rounds, and rifle magazines were HE rounds with a nasty explosion like a rifled grenade. Stun rounds were obviously for those "bring 'em back alive" opportunities. I just enjoyed this because it made so much more sense to consolidate weapons to have multiple functions. And hey, I didn't wanna use no stinkin' alien weapons.

Funny, I seem to remember actually stalking enemy Battleships until they landed so that I could take them intact and get all of their Elerium. I honestly don't recall losing many supporting countries so long as my troops were on the ground to take out the threat just as soon as it landed.

Did anybody watch the gameplay movie on the official website? There's an absolute spitting image of the ED-209 from Robocop in the game. After seeing the movie, I think I have kinda mixed feelings about this. It's just like X-COM which is not a bad thing. On the other hand, it's just like X-COM which is a bad thing. Even the button clicking sound appears to be the same. While I do like seeing new maps, I feel kinda underwhelmed by some of the explosion graphics... Maybe I'll still pick this up after all. It really depends largely upon what kind of editing tools are developed for it.

ZOMG. The Tie Avenger is pretty much my all-time favorite Tie Fighter. I really don't get into EU that much, but I religiously played all of the X-Wing and Tie Fighter flight sim games. I can also proudly say that I've beaten all of them, even though I got stuck on quite a few of the missions. Anyway, something I thought Tie Avenger fans would appreciate: Dibal's Lego Tie Avenger I have drooled over this thing for years now. I've never been able to contact the guy who created it, but I'd still pay a handsome sum of money for some blueprints of this exact model.

Rebelscum had a picture of a Battlefront-themed battlepack coming out before the end of the year. I seem to recall the Galactic Marine having the shoulder-carried cannon that the one in the game does. Ah, found a pic on someone else's website. Dunno why Toywiz took theirs down? It looks to be a 6-clone pack, which means it probably won't be the standard $20. Gonna have to wait and see how much it'll be before I get too interested.

I actually made one of those back in the day. I did a pack featuring artwork of Cobra agents from the GI Joe toys. I thought that the armor in Apocalypse had such a striking resemblance to Cobra Officers, Vipers, and Crimson Guards that it just had to be done. I played the original X-COM, TFTD, and Apocalypse. Haven't seen anything since then which grabs me the same way those did, but I may have to check out this new game. I actually really loved TFTD, but I know I'm in the minority. I've always kinda wished some clever team would find a way to get the first 2 games to run on a Windows Mobile Pocket PC. I would totally play X-COM on my PDA. Some fun things I remember about X-COM: - Always build your bases with a single choke point between the hangars and the living areas. The lift was the choke point, and a security station connected it to the rest of the base. When the aliens would land in your base, you could have a turkey shoot the likes of which were hysterical. Shoot a rocket into some of fuel drums or missile racks in the hangar and you can almost blow up the whole hangar. - I used to put heavy training into telepathy, and almost everyone carried a Psi-Amp. When the mood struck me, I'd mind control the aliens and march them out in front of their spaceship. Then I'd have them toss away their weapons and face the wall. I'd end the turn so they'd no longer be part of the team, and then my soldiers would have a nice firing squad. It was also really funny to mind control one guy, have him prime a grenade so it would go off once he was back to normal, run him into a room full of his buddies, and then run out all of his remaining time units. - There was a special spot on the corner of the top level of the alien Terror Ship. Put a Blaster shell into that corner, and you'd set off a chain reaction that would obliterate everything in the top level. I discovered this quite by accident, but the results were used many a time after that. - I used to get a laugh out of seeing how complex a pattern I could make the Blaster shells fly in before they ultimately hit their target.

Storm Shadow's footwear looks like traditional ninja tabi to me...?

That was actually supposed to be Dutch Schaefer from Predator.

Vehicles look surprisingly good. Robots look astonishingly bad. Definitely passing on all.

Question regarding Xbox Live for the 360: If I have a current Xbox Live membership, what does that transfer to in terms of Xbox Live for the 360? Is it silver, gold, or something completely irrelevant?

Picked up Classics Jetfire last night and I absolutely love it. It's certainly no Valkyrie, but it's a very nice tribute to the original. My only gripe is that I wish the hands folded/retracted into the wrists... I'd also love to see Jetfire as a Masterpiece, but I don't think it's likely. Devastator would be ridiculously cool, but it'd also probably cost a fortune. Oh well, I'd still find a way to get it!

OK, this is great stuff so far.

LOL. I've always wondered about that as well. I kinda figured it was the same Y-Wing pilot who, in ROTJ, managed to shoot down 2 Tie Interceptors in quick sequence. After having played every X-Wing/Tie Fighter Star Wars flight combat sim, I always think to myself "WTF, those guys must be retarded to get owned like that by a Y-Wing."

I know I'm in the minority, but I would absolutely HAVE to have a VF-19S if one was made. I don't think it's likely since Bandai still holds the Macross 7 license, if I'm not mistaken...

Wow, I totally remember seeing that in a Sears Christmas catalog many, many years ago. I was always curious about it, but since I already had a nice model train set, I didn't get the Transformers one.