JB0

Ummm.... The current cartoons ARE cel-shaded, at least from the shots I've seen. Cel shading is a technique to make 3D polygonal models look hand-drawn. NOT the term for hand-drawn animation.

If I recall, Max himself said Basara was ALMOST as good as he was in his prime. Of course, in his prime Max tended to downplay his abilities. He didn't seem to recognize at the time that he was "special." So his memory of the old days is colored by that perception that he wasn't really all that special. Max and Millia are VERY close, though. Who comes out on top may wind up being conditional. In their first encounter, Millia was playing. She didn't really BELIEVE there was someone as good as her in the galaxy, just someone that might last for a little while before she killed him. Then Max actually HIT her, and that threw her off. She hadn't believed it was possible. And really, either one of them could have taken the shot in that final standoff. In the video arcade, Max beats her. Barely. Millia also lets her LAST fight with Max intrude on her game, and psyches herself out. But then, this is also the only one of their battles that Max isn't taking seriously. In the knife fight of eye-melting, Millia has completely lost all rationality and perspective. She's not even PRETENDING to keep a level head. She's just running around swinging her sharp pointy thing wildly. I think DYRL is the only time they've shown a fight on even footing. And both mechs were apparently disabled in the end.

Seconded in whole. .... Well, except for the iPod Touch part. Mylene also grows and evolves over the course of the series. Between the two of them, we had great leads on both sides of the story.... if Basara would've ever quit hogging the spotlight.

I'm thinking long-term. And hoping emu authors get in gear. We're due a playable PS2 emu any day now, by my count.

Sorry, but no. Doesn't matter if he's wearing a box, a tuxedo, or a mech. Snake just can't trump Mario and Sonic pounding each other into happy fuzzy bloodless pulp in an officially licensed video game. Very few things can. This is the game we've been waiting over a decade for. It's a shame Sega's not half as relevant anymore, though. I am ALSO saddened that his song wasn't Sonic Boom. Never mind that it was only on the US version of SonicCD.

I think the last long-term console was the Jaguar. N64 has serious controller wear issues, and everything else has entirely too many moving parts in the system. Even with just a disk drive it's ugly. Add fans, and things go downhill FAST. The heatsink compound isn't what I'm worried about. I'm more worried about dust accumulation strangling the heatsink, and THAT takes a backseat to simple mechanical failure. Gooooo emulators!

http://www.news.utoronto.ca/bin6/070927-3416.asp As it turns out, violent video games are GOOD for you! . From a friend who has the magazine it was published in... "In the first experiment, they just tested people on specific tasks without assigning them games (so they had game players and non-players). In the second, where all people were non-players before the experiment, the experimental group played Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault and the control group played Ballance. The experimental group improved significantly in the non-game tasks they were testing, while the control group didn't." In conclusion: Playing FPSes improves your spatial skills. And if you're female, it makes you the equal of your male counterparts. So go teach your kid sister to deathmatch. It gives Jack Thompson a coronary AND will give her an edge in math class when she gets older.

I'll be honest, I have my doubts about the effects on non-heatsinked systems. But once you start needing heatsinks, and especially once you start needing heatsinks AND fans, it becomes a very good idea to keep some breathing space around everything.

That would be my stance. If I wanted to see the movie again.

Sitting on carpet's been an official Bad Idea since the beginning, though. The original Atari VCS has stickers on the bottom warning you not to set it down on carpet because it blocks the vents. And if it can hurt THAT, then it can hurt ANYTHING. Given the thermal load of modern computing components... even if the 360 WASN'T fundamentally flawed, sitting on a carpet would probably be a death sentence.

Nonsense. They only blew up 3 VF-11s in the entire series. .... They just blew the first 2 up a LOT. Seriously, I think the VF-1 was blown up more. You just didn't see it quite as often. 'Sides, at least the eject button worked right on the 11.

... PLEASE tell me there's a board under that and he DIDN'T lay his 360 directly on a thick carpet.

And the magical mystical power of song!

Monstructor was the only gestalt I ever finished. :'(

Oh. I was thinking Armored Core. Stupid acronym re-use.

I wasn't hating. I fully respect super robot pilots and their endless amounts of courage and guts, as well as their abiltiy to turn impossible odds into absolute certainties with said courage and guts. It just seemed to be the most accurate description of Basara's personality. Yeah. I think Mylene really should have been the focus of the show. Basically switch the Basara/Mylene ratio and it'd be much more entertaining. It DID fluctuate from event to event. And if I recall, Mylene grew consistently more "powerful" as the series went on, while Basara stayed more or less static. She was also good at stepping it up when more was needed. I was thinking along the lines of the biggest gaps, early on. Which admittedly aren't representative of the whole. I still find it hilarious that there's an episode entitled "Basara Dies!" And we gripe when spoilers pop up OUTSIDE the show(though I guess it wasn't really a spoiler since he, you know, didn't).

I believe PS* cards are region-neutral. But I haven't had occasion to test except in emulators, which obviously aren't the same. Any region variances will only be in the data format, though. Fat lot of good it does you when Sony won't give you something as basic as a format command, though. ... Wait.... AC3 and a bum PS1 card? Are you trying to save a PS2 game on a PS1 memory card? That won't work. Nor will saving PS1 games on a PS2 card.

I DON'T have most of the Fire Bomber songs, but agree that more songs would have helped a LOT. By the time they added the second in, I was sick to death of Planet Dance. HEY EVERYBO-*mute* I think the entire fleet counts as backups. The impression I got was that EVERYONE can do it, if they're passionate enough. Even poor tone-deaf Gamlin(who should be legally banned from singing in the presence of others). Basara is just by far the best at it, with Mylene a distant second. He's in a perpetual state of worked-up and doesn't NEED the impending death of himself, his family, his friends, his species, his galaxy, and his universe to push him on. He just really really really REALLY wants people to LISTEN TO HIS SONG! and it'll touch their hearts if he puts everything he has into it. Even the heathens that don't like rock will be moved, if he can only convince them to LISTEN!. In short, he's a super-robot pilot with a guitar.

New cables will probably run about $30(God, but I hate how they're overpricing everything to death on the 360...). That's what the going rate seems to be. And of course, you'll want the ability to look at the connector design in the package or an easy way to return them if they don't fit. You could also harass Microsoft and see if they're willing to exchange it, since they screwed up.

To be fair, EVERYTHING fails eventually. The 5200 sticks just fail unusually fast. Near as I can tell, the flex circuit technology they used just wasn't mature enough for the environment it was subjected to. Hence why many 5200 sticks only have dead start and fire buttons. I DID mod one stick, but only because I got sick of opening it to clean the contacts(weekly to monthly, depending on usage patterns). Ghetto aluminum foil mod for the win!

I thought chrono's point was the relicensing. Say ADV snatches Black Lagoon up. And sits on it, to keep shelves clear for Yet Another Eva Reissue.

I MAY be giving him too much credit, but I think he's referring to how some companies snap licenses up, then sit on them without actually releasing anything. I know ADV used to be infamous for it, dunno how much it's changed since then.

Yes. .... Sort of. Saw this on another forum. The HDMI units are SUPPOSED to come with a redesigned AV cable that has the TOSLINK connector in a bulge on the cable. Those cables work just fine. But some of the decks have the original-style TOSLINK-on-plug cable packed in instead. The original connector is too wide, and interferes with the HDMI port when it's connected. It's an ugly solution either way though, what with the big wad of component/composite/analog audio cable hanging off. Sad that they won't spare the space on the deck for a dedicated TOSLINK connection.

But that's only half-there too. Remember, the Saturn/PS1 game has an animation sequence of Skull squadron launching and the Prometheus getting vaped, then a side-scrolling game level, then another FMV of the Macross folding out. There's no transition between the two since they're bookendings for a gameplay stage. You'd need to create ANOTHER new animation sequence to bridge the first and second existing sequence. In the same vein, I'd LOVE to see the ARMD attack animation and stage added. GPB 1Js kicking ass en masse!

Just from watching the first episode, I think this one might be further from the original than the OVA was. To the best of my admittedly limited knowledge, they managed to veer as far as humanly possible in the space of thirty minutes. It's my understanding that the 60s live-action show was a semi-faithful adaptation, and the only attempt that's been made at one.