JB0

I considered that, actually. Notice the photos of the truck cab from the back? Even there, with no posing whatsoever and where the transformation encourages they be folded to the minimum size, there are still significant gaps. The nature of the joints used raises the arms out from the panels. Likely this was done intentionally, for the most part, to get a wider range of motion out of them, but I don't care for the resulting gaps(which may be worse than they have to be, as there appears to be VERY tight clearance between the upper arms and the screws used to secure the smoke stacks). The end result, in my opinion, is a robot that doesn't look particularly well-assembled in ANY mode or pose. Too many gaps for "traditional" poses to look right, and not enough range of motion for more dynamic ones to come across right either. It's an impressive engineering effort, but I greatly dislike it from an aesthetic standpoint. Less mechanically impressive is what appears to be intereference between the smoke stacks and the lego grills on the side of the truck. That keeps him from folding the arm mounts fully parallel with the sides of the truck cab. And again, this is in stark contrast to his work on the larger robot, which I find quite impressive, and on Hi-Q, which I find simply amazing. How did he even find the SPACE to put useful joints on Hi-Q's legs? At last, something we can all agree on. More Generations molds! We haven't even got a Generations Shockwave yet! More Generations molds!

I should've said what's wrong with JRPGs nowadays. One of my best games ever is a JRPG as well(I find it hard to pick a single #1 and keep it there as my mood shifts). Specifically, Lunar: Eternal Blue. Only on SegaCD. WELCOMETOTHENEXTLEVEL I believe I once called it the only good Genesis game. Yes, I was a particularly bad Nintendo fanboy back in the days. Xenogears was a contender to dethrone it, but... seriously, disk 2 is that bad.

Have to say I'm with you. His arms can't sit flush with his body anymore, so they look like dissociated parts. Also, he raised the cab. Which makes the full robot look a little gimpy(made worse by the raised head on top of the raised cab). But holy cow, he managed to articulate Baby Prime's head! That's ALMOST as impressive as giving H-Q useful joints(which he also did, check the very end of the thread) He put a lot of work into the project. And the detailing on the truck cab is beautiful. (I'm also curious where the Roller came from) And the joints on the combined mode are MUCH better-implemented. I'll even forgive him the bait+switch comparison photos of a mistransformed stock toy because he improved the "super mode" so much. ... Speaking of which, why do I see so many mistransformed Powermaster Prime Photos anyways? I mean, it's not a complex transformation. Stand trailer up, fold trailer sides down, fold arms down, stick cab in hole, stick head on cab. Is this just some misplaced nostalgia for G1 Ultra Magnus' trailer, or do people really not realize the trailer actually CAN be made to look like a robot body?

Yeah. When I think about Powermaster Prime, I'm definitely not considering the base robot, just the combined form. And while the articulation is still lacking in that form, it just LOOKS badass. Too bad we didn't get the Apex/God Bomber armor in the original release, because that would've been incredible. Though the base robot doesn't have MUCH less articulation than the original Prime toy. If I still didn't know about the shoulders, I'd say it had the same amount of articulation. It's certainly undetailed, though. Some stickers would greatly enhance it's reputation, I expect.

Hell to the yes! I loved those books!

Quantum knowledge. Wikipedia is both right and wrong simultaneously, and only coalesces to a single state upon observation.

I am SHOCKED!

To be perfectly honest, I think most of the appeal of the FF series in the west stems from FF7 being a LOT of people's first RPG, and most of the REST of the RPG folks starting with FF6(3US) or FF's close relative, Chrono Trigger. As for why Japan loves it... I don't know. These are the same people that kept buying Dragon Quest games that made you open a menu to climb stairs well into the 90s, so I can't even begin to fathom what they want out of a game(as fully-manual staircases is high on my list of things I don't want). I think that's more a case of "what's wrong with JRPGs" than "what's wrong with Final Fantasy" Especially the battle engine part. Somewhere along the line, (late-SNES, early PS1), the developers started missing the point and viewing new battle engine as a bullet point they needed to have. I'm actually surprised that ATB survived the PS1 largely unscathed(though I think that was a mistake and it should've been spruced up into something more compelling, at least it was consistent). So now instead of polishing a servicable battle engine, or updating them as technology allows them to do cooler things, they throw it out entirely every time. And tone the rest of the gameplay down because they want the game to be easily beatable to avoid turning anyone away with difficulty. And the cliches are viewed as GOOD because they let people know where they stand with the party members right off("Oh, it's the gruff ne'er-do-well with the heart of gold, I always like that kind of character, so this dude is someone I shall enjoy playing. I shall keep him and large-breasted wizard in my party all the time!").

They've long since gotten out of the hardware business at this point. Besides, the NGPC is pretty dated now, so relaunchng it would just be a sign they have no idea what they're doing.

Odd.... maybe that's just a really tight joint on mine. I seriously didn't know he had a shoulder joint.

But WHICH manual? It came with SIX of them! Dude, the epic plot of the FIRST Biomotor moved me deeply! ... Well, okay, the part where you can ally with the final boss and get a different ending moved me to "hell yeah". And sad to say I HAVEN'T played Dive Alert. I actually got my NGPC stuff right before it all got shipped back to Japan, so I missed a bunch of it.

The internet is a wretched hive of scum and villainy. And most gaming sites are just plain dumb, sad to say. The clicking as you move it around is enough to tell you it's digital. It's definitely a great thumbstick, though. And one of my favorite non-joystick controllers ever. Makes me think I need one of those NeoGeo gamepads. But, but... the PLOT, man! Think of the plot! Naw, I'm just kinda miffed that they closed the US division mere days after they started hyping it.

No, the fact that it's an 80s robot toy does that all by itself. (Seriously, he can't even hold his gun parallel to the ground. Prime can only shoot Decepticons in the feet.)

Indeed, it USED to be the best. But it's not near it anymore, and it has problems with a lot of games(so does Dolphin, for that matter). From what I gather, SNES9x HAS improved a lot. Though it seems fair to note that for a long time, there was a good deal of back and forth. While some games that ran in ZSNES didn't in SNES9x, the reverse was also true(And most of the popular stuff ran equally well in both of them). I originally went with ZSNES because it was faster on my old K6-2, and stuck with it due to aesthetics and better sound emulation for my purposes(ironically, SNES9x now has almost-perfect sound hardware emulation). I do miss ZSNES' DOS-holdover GUI, though. Stock Windows menu bars are lame(moreso on Mac? I dunno the state of Mac emulation). bzsnes just doesn't cut it.

Digital stick. NGP has no analog inputs. And this is true, it's a very nice little unit all-around. But I don't have a flash cart, and SNK closed shop up before Card Fighters 2 and Biomotor Unitron 2 came out in America.

*rubs forehead* And how would grabbing Cyberverse Roadbuster alleviate the fact that you cannot get the ENTIRE TEAM battle-ready in a single scale?

Actually, most PS1 and later emulators WILL use your PC's graphics hardware to speed up graphics emulation. It's not a best practice, but with system speeds being what they are... it's kind of a necessity for the XCube 2cast. Sadly, Dolphin has serious sound glitches in PN03. As in the music dies and won't come back. And that's all I wanted it for, was huge-resolution PN03(the minimal nature of the game's graphics means it renders REALLY well at high resolutions). Gotta disagree here. ePSXe is many years dead and hopelessly obsolete. It should be left to rot in favor of newer and much more accurate emulators. I can get full speed with pSX on a Core 2 Duo. bsnes is the way to go. Unfortunately, byuu has made certain decisions that make it unviable for some purposes(though it is nowhere NEAR as slow as public opinion makes it out to be). It is by far the most accurate emulator, though. And does hold claim as the ONLY emulator to properly emulate Air Strike Patrol, not that anyone cares. ZSNES is actually the worst of the three "current" SNES emulators. I hate to say it, as it was my first emu, but... right now it's in Nesticle/ePSXe territory, and the next major revision has been "in development" for a few years now with nothing to show for it(but the developers have not yet disappeared off the face of the Earth). It's got some serious glitches, needs to die, and people keep recommending it anyways. If bsnes isn't workable for whatever reason, use SNES9x. PS2 is gonna be PCSX2. http://pcsx2.net/ XBox doesn't have any viable emulators, for some reason. You'd think, what with it BEING an IBM PC, that emulation would be easier than everything else. DS ... you can give DeSmuME a try. I make no promises. http://sourceforge.net/projects/desmume/ I can't speak to your Apple II or N64 recommendations, as I've never cared to mess with emulation on either one, but the rest all look like the ones I'd recommend. You might try Turbo Engine for PCEngine/TurboGrafX, and Regen for SegaCartridge. And all this talk has led me to looking around and making a shocking realization: Mednafen emulates the NeoGeo Pocket Color! Now to play the english hack of SNK/Capcom Card Fighters Clash 2! ... What? It can't be worse than Card Fighters Clash DS was. If nothing else, I won't hit a game-ending glitch at the 3/4s point mere days after the exchange program ended I hate you SNK now give me Biomotor Unitron 2.

Not cooler, XTREME. The PSOne revision of the PS1 makes me want to hurt someone. Or is that some1? For the 'Cube, I think Dolphin is the ONLY option. It is not perfect, but for most games it is good enough. And yes, they advertise it as a Wii emulator these days, but it does both. PS1-wise... pSX is pretty good. I'm told Xebra is significantly more accurate, but haven't tested it personally. Dreamcast... try nullDC. As with the GameCube, there's not a lot of options. http://dolphin-emulator.com/ http://psxemulator.gazaxian.com/ http://code.google.com/p/nulldc/ http://forums.ngemu.com/showthread.php?t=140824 Only place I know to get Xebra right now.

Honestly, I think the weird part is more that it's designed around this dual-battery design. There's a cut-in to make room for the adapter, and they use abnormal contacts to create the second path so they can mount those button cells sideways. Also, on closer inspection, my original stock button batteries were leaking. Sound box still worked with them, but battery goop is a Bad Thing, so out they go! Copyright 1992, so they had a good long run.

PS-X was ALSO a codename for Sony's version of the SNESCD, meant to be released under the name Play Station(mind the space). Personally, I just abbreviate PlayStation to PS or PS1. Saves some confusion, and I really hate the PSX pseudo-abbreviation anyways.

Amusing note: I have the Generation 2 reissue of Optimus Prime. His sound box has a pair of button-cell batteries in it. Button cells that were mounted in an adapter to make them functional in a battery pack designed primarily for AAs. It is... interesting. (No, I've never removed the store demo batteries from it. I really ought to go through and pull batteries out of all my light&sound TFs before they start leaking). So I am assuming that button cells are not inherently more expensive than AA cells, at least not at a volume-purchase level.

I'm gonna go ahead and say it. Fast Action Battler Jetfire was a better transformer than Leader Jetfire. Also, that derail about how Valkyries are nothing but kibble is really interesting given the only valk that has a lot of robot kibble is the YF-21/VF-22(the rest of them all have parts that actually "transform"). And the solution to all that kibble is one that would be highly workable on the Transformers jets: there's doors that close over the kibble, giving it a jet bottom instead of a hang-gliding robot. Yes, the jets would be too thick, and there'd have to be SOMEWHERE to stash the folded-up doors lest we have another hip kibble drama-bomb like we did with Masterpiece Starscream(I still think the tail kibble looked far better hanging off his hips than off his ankles, but what do I know?). But it's still a lot better than hang-glider robots.

What sort of jerk designs toys for KIDS? The damn whipersnappers are RUINING my toys! ... Well, okay, they ARE ruining my toys. I WANTED to want Leader Jetfire, but the whole robot hang-glider thing was unignorable for me.

As someone that never saw the original movie as a kid, I have to say it's a far better movie than any of the live-action films. Because my primary reason for watching Transformers is to see giant robots blowing the hell out of each other. And TF:TM is basically 90 minutes of giant robots blowing the hell out of each other. I also confess to being more partial to the general aesthetic of the 80s movie, if not the characters. I hold no great love in my heart for the "new generation" characters like I do for folks like Optimus Prime, Shockwave, Megatron, Soundwave, Bumblebee, and Shockwave. But the overall look of the robots resonates better with me, and I'm always up for an interplanetary romp... yes, even one where robot squid eat robot fish in a sea full of robot seaweed.

From what I understand, that barely scratches the surface of the wholesale coupon fraud that takes place on that program.