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JB0

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Everything posted by JB0

  1. JB0
    Most of the original visual effects for Next Gen were done directly in video, so they had to redo them to make a BluRay release. There simply wasn't a way to get a high-res copy with effects. Unlike the original Trek reworking, the Next Gen effects look very similar to the originals, just higher-resolution. Fun trivia: For a long time, they were saying they wouldn't do Next Gen BluRays because of that. They thought the cost of redoing all the effects was going to be too steep.
  2. JB0
    How wide-ranging are you going? Is anything at all fair game? Because really, Robot Alchemic Drive on the PS2 is where it's at. Full-on Tetsujin RC power. Or Steel Battalion on XBox, if you want REALISM. The Armored Core series deserves some attention as well. And swinging back to the other end of the spectrum... the NES has a game called Metal Storm. In fairness, I think you may control powered armor instead of a giant robot. But that's a moot point. The most important thing is the game is awesome and lets you control gravity. You can walk on the ceiling, and you can do so AT WILL. Also, Capcom's Armored Warriors brawler and Cyberbots vs fighter. Both arcade games, both pretty cool. The Saturn version of Cyberbots even has a giant robot version of Street Fighter's Akuma. Tell me that isn't awesome.
  3. JB0
    Most importantly, the movie has Guld dogfighting the Ghost. Which is as big a loss to the OVA as Isamu's introduction is to the movie.
  4. JB0
    It SHOULDN'T have lost it's passive stealth nature. I won't swear that it didn't, but it shouldn't have. Most passive stealth technologies are tied closely to the shape of the vehicle and materials used, at least in the real world.
  5. JB0
    Legend. One would assume the chip was destroyed. I won't guarantee this, though I'll be surprised if canon says otherwise.
  6. JB0
    Pity, really. I vastly prefer the movie(it flows better and has fewer random leaps of logic), but the opening scenes of the OVA are just AWESOME.
  7. JB0
    One less character sheet for the animators. And Kaifun had no real role in the pachinko game, why draw him for one scene?
  8. JB0
    And that would be a great narrative conceit if you wanted to turn Macross into Gundam. I suspect the franchise would more likely swing the other way and claim PPBs are better at blocking high-mass, low-velocity attacks, thereby making them excel against melee combat and further marginalizing it. ... Of course, the real problem is that Macross very rarely has VF VS VF combat. Aliens don't care what we built our fighters to take.
  9. JB0
    Why... why did no one tell me about this?!?!
  10. JB0
    You could tech it up a bit. Instead of a metal spear, have a plasma spear. The weapon is lightweight, because it's basically just a giant blowtorch.
  11. JB0
    I just hope the new Macross retcons Basquash! into the Macross continuity.
  12. JB0
    Poor Arcadia... it's not the WORST system(that honor goes to the RCA Studio II), but it's still more than a bit of a lame dog. By the time it came out, it was hopelessly dated, and it would've had an uphill fight even if Atari DIDN'T have name recognition, a superior distribution network, and possibly shady anti-competitive practices(there are anecdotes of them saying they'd stop doing business with anyone that carried the Vectrex, which led to many distributors being unwilling to carry the Vectrex). That Atari ALSO had superior hardware was just one more nail in the coffin. And truly damning given that Emerson launched the Arcadia in 1982 and the VCS was VERY dated at that time. The chipset the Atari 5200 used when it launched in that same year was ALSO somewhat dated. The Arcadia could've... SHOULD'VE been very similar to the ColecoVision it launched alongside*. Emerson tried to get away with making cheaper hardware, and they got what they paid for. The Arcadia and ColecoVision both launched at two hundred bucks, so it wasn't even a case of offering a cheaper alternative. It was sheer greed, and it came back to bite them HARD. Anyways, I've emulated the Arcadia Macross game. It is... uninspiring. *The TI sound and graphics chips that Coleco used were at a price/performance sweet spot that made them VERY popular, and they wound up in a LOT of machines. The most notable of these are the MSX1 computer standard and the Sega SG-1000, AKA Sega's first game console. The latter wound up leaving TI's fingerprints on every ROM-based system Sega every made, with the Sega Master System being SG1k-compatible and the Genesis and Game Gear both being SMS-compatible. There's also evidence that the graphics chip in the NES was "heavily inspired by" the TMS9918. It operates in a very TI manner.
  13. JB0
    I thought Tron Legacy looked really cool, the music was great, I enjoyed Kevin Flynn's superpowered moments(it's good to be the sysadmin), and OBVIOUSLY Olivia Wilde, BUT... the writing was flat and full of missed opportunities. I was wondering going in how they would handle the fact that the original was steeped in 80s gamer culture and a dated model of computing, and how they could make it relevant to the modern era while still tying it in to the original film. They decided to pretend the original Tron existed in a vacuum and nothing was based on the real world in any way. And, well, given how much computing has changed in the intervening decades, I would've loved to see an updated look "into" the computer that embraced modern technology. Instead of processes running on a mainframe, show me a virtual world on a distributed network. Just as an example: Think how awesome a fight would be if they were "inside" a cellphone on a train, rapidly switching cell towers. The windows and door to the room changing their vista every few seconds as the phone reconnects to a different part of the network. Kick someone through the door right before changing towers and the fight is over because it will take FOREVER for them to catch up traversing the 'net on foot. Tell me that wouldn't look cool. Heck, that'd be cool just as background detail in a narrative scene. But nope, we're in a mainframe that was lifted out of a corporate office twenty years ago and hid in the basement so Kevin could play with it arbitrarily. And the implication is that the world of Tron is unique to that one specific machine, when the original movie implied this was just what it was LIKE inside a computer. In that regard, Tron: Legacy completely failed to live up to it's name. But it's an audiovisual treat, and I throw it in from time to time just for the eye candy(and I don't mean Olivia Wilde... well, not exclusively). It's just plain fun to watch, and if Tron 3 can get THAT right then it will be worth seeing.
  14. JB0
    I can't imagine them letting him wear them in flight if they were for the LCF. And, well, the helmets have a built-in sunshade that reduces light AND has a higher LCF. Hikaru uses it in the opening, and the episode where Kakizaki dies(spoilers). Not that I recall. For all I can tell, he sleeps in them, which is a terrible idea for wire frames. Though I grant that they may be made with an overtech shape-memory alloy that is more flexible while still returning to form when not stressed... and now I want overtech glasses of my very own.
  15. JB0
    That was the most relieving part about Macross being completely fictional: Disco never came back.
  16. JB0
    And well... the Macross was in pretty dire straits anyways. From the start they had a LOT of hardware sitting idle with no pilots due to the decompression of the Prometheus and Daedalus, and were under regular attack while effectively behind enemy lines with pilots still adapting to space. I doubt they much CARED if someone was underage, as long as they could fly a jet or drive a mech. Heck, they put Max in a fighter and he apparently had to wear corrective lenses to fly. In that regard, Hikaru was at the head of the line. He ALREADY knew how to fly well enough to make a living as a stunt pilot. He'd even already figured out space flight to a degree, since he wasn't dead and vacuum-frozen with Minmei. As long as they could teach him to shoot, who cared if he was a bit young and mouthed off to his superiors with distressing regularity? (Of course, when your immediate superior is Roy Focker, mouthing off might be considered part of the assignment.) They even call out in the series, I believe when Hikaru is first assigned Max and Kakizaki, that they're putting people in cockpits and putting them in command of others at an unusually rapid pace. It stands to reason that the same justifications would apply to throwing underage folks into the fray(they're short of hands and it's implied they're suffering heavy attrition among the hands they DO have). It's somewhat amazing they didn't have a draft in place, actually. But I suppose they were in a strong position for recruitment, which would mitigate the need for a draft and engender good will among the civilians. After all, the folks in town weren't exactly isolated from the battle. They suffered every time a missile made it through the hull or the ship had to be transformed. Everyone knew someone on the front lines, everyone had lost someone to the zentradi attacks, likely before they even left Earth. That would make the civilian populace far more prone to volunteer service(case in point: Hikaru, the pacifist war hero).
  17. JB0
    Basara's kind of a jerk. Can't even stop by and say hi to his friends once in a while? Hell, that means his final concert appearance was a cardboard cutout and a tape recorder. I know the fans were forgiving of, even amused by, Basara's mercurial nature, but... that's a helluva way for Fire Bomber to go out. I mean, not that we didn't ALREADY know he was an inconsiderate jerk, but daaaaaaaang. ... Is he still stealing fighter jets and telling them to bill Ray for it?
  18. JB0
    Well, crap. I never met the man, but I loved the characters he created and I've spent many a day in his (suspiciously familiar) world. I will miss him. I guess I'll link the Discworld 2 video game opening, because it's relevant and may put a smile on someone's face. I think that's what Pratchett would've wanted. The rest of the internet has covered the serious and thoughtful side of things better than I can. But... No one is actually dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away. ― Terry Pratchett, Reaper Man
  19. JB0
    RE: The Lynns. In the post-war arc where Minmay really comes off looking bad, the love triangle has already been resolved. Hikaru and Misa are kind of an item. And then Minmay saunters in with her emotional crowbar and starts prying them apart. It's worth noting that she didn't just ask him to give up his career, she tried to upend his entire life(and was fairly successful at it, too). In fairness, at this point in the story HER life is kinda coming apart at the seams. Hikaru's been the one fixed point in her life since that fateful day at the launch ceremony, and she's clinging to it for all it's worth. I don't really think she even wants Hikaru SPECIFICALLY, just wants what he represents. In her eyes, he's a chance for a life with some semblance of structure and purpose. A pilot's career isn't going to provide that stability at that time, but it's a minor problem! It can be fixed! As far as Kaifun's hypocrisy goes... I view his postwar behavior as the result of someone in a very different place than his prewar self. Prewar, he's a consistent anti-military ultra-pacifist. He certainly wasn't in the right place for that attitude, but his beliefs were strong. His willing participation in the final attack seems an acknowledgement of the war's necessity, his acceptance that there times you just can't avoid a fight. Postwar... everything is gone. Like many, he's crushed by the devastation of his home and looking for someone to blame. Many would have blamed the zentradi. Kaifun takes a different tack. That old anti-military routine comes easy, but the idealist pacifism that fueled it originally has been supplanted by hatred and sorrow. And thus did Lynn Kaifun become Darth Douchebagius. That he apparently has a thing for his cousin and she's still pining over her old boyfriend in the military doesn't exactly help matters, either. They're both still being complete jerkfaces, of course. But it's at least understandable how they got there.
  20. JB0
    FedEx x Sheryl!
  21. JB0
    I... don't know why I expected a thread about the hazards of entering the interstellar freight-carrying business.
  22. JB0
    Low-tech is the best way sometimes. Glad to know it's comparing well. As a personal opinion, I'd keep the chiptunes as an option. (That's actually how I play Ys. Modern release, high-resolution, full-color... original PC88 soundtrack) Awesome!
  23. JB0
    I will accept that he knew his men well enough to trust them to take over while he berated Hikaru from a different jeep, but... no, standing up in the driver seat and facing backwards with no hand on the wheel is not "in complete control" ... Basically, Focker was awesome and the world is a darker place without him.
  24. JB0
    Sorry, I was going a different direction. The point was not that the VF-4 is comparable to the Starfighter, but that basing a VF off an ineffective real-world fighter doesn't stop it from being an effective Macross fighter. It seems based (at least partially) on the Blackbird to me, and as far as real-world combat effectiveness goes... Blackbirds didn't even have weapons except for the three YF-12s. They also had exceptionally broad turning radiuses and leaked fuel like mad until wind resistance warmed the plane up and everything expanded. I think it's fair to say the F-12 Blackbird would've sucked in a dogfight, if only because you can't make sharp turns at mach 3 (without overtechnology).
  25. JB0
    While the F-104 had problems as a fighter, many of them can be fixed in a variable fighter "because overtech". I mean, it worked for the VF-4. And I think you guys are underestimating the value of a VF with a high LCF*. *Look-Cool Factor.
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