JB0

You say that like it's a BAD thing. Not that there's anything wrong with a more intellectual game, but there's still a lot to be said for raw reflex games.

Absolutely true. But, Sony also seems to have to deal with higher demand for the PSP than Nintendo does with their DS. After the holiday, between new and used, there's alwasy a DS in stock. As for Sony... there aren't even display units in stores. Every working unit they could build, they're pretty much boxed and sent out for retail. And every PSP with one or two dead pixels is one or two more in consumers' hands. For every one person who says "Damn, a dead pixel! This bitch is going back!" there will be two more that will shrug, remark that the dead pixel is only noticeable under certain conditions (like when the screen is extremely dark), and forget about it. As I recall, there were serious DS shortages at launch too. IMO, not enough is not enough, and you may as well attempt to supply the best product possible to the people that buy them from you. Of course, I also think you shouldn't launch a product if you can't meet demand for it, but no one seems to be listening. Cynical me says the demo unit thing is more along the lines of Sony going "Hey, we're the PLAYSTATION! We don't need to prove we're any good, people buy our product then sit there insisting it's better than everything else regardless of reality." I heard people going on about how the PS1 was more powerful than the Dreamcast at least once. *rolls eyes* The DS is "wierd" and Nintendo doesn't have the ability to sell products on name alone. So the demo units were needed to get people to go "Wow, this is neat." Perhaps, but if that were the case, where are those games now that the PSP has launched? Over the course of Thursday and Friday, we sold 60 odd PSPs, plus a truckload of games and accessories (we actually sold out of a few games already, like Spider-Man, Twisted Metal, and Lumines). We sold two DS games, no accessories, and no systems. Well, I saw "Catch! Touch! Yoshi!" got released about 2 weeks ago. That's one. Beyond that... Hell if I know. 'S a real pity how they've handled this thing so far.

Who plays fighters with a pad anyways? Suck it up and drop a couple bucks on a joystick. Heck, SC2 generated an XCube 2 stick with SC2 artwork on it.

Nintendo's been holding DS games from America while releasing them in Japan. Only theory I've heard is they were gonna start blitzing the market once the PSP hit to suck consumer dollars from Sony. That wouldn't pan out, considering that most of their more advertised or more highly anticipated games (including Need for Speed Underground 2, Super Mario Bros, and Metroid Prime Hunters) have been pushed back to late June. That's too late to even compete for the late adopters of the PSP who were holding out for GTA. Yah well... There's a lot of games that Japan's gotten that would take minimal effort to localize that they just haven't bothered with yet. It's the only even mildly logical explanation I've seen why the DS has been virtually unsupported untill now in America.

It's not actually something that can be dealt with, if I understand correctly. It's not a Sony issue... dead pixels can affect literally any LCD screen. Not sure what causes them, but my computer monitor had one. A dead pixel can be a a white or colored dot, or simply one pixel on the screen that doesn't light. In my case, on my PSP, it's a light, very small dot. You can only really notice it against a dark screen. Yes, but Sony seems to care about them less than Nintendo does. As I understand things, SCE has a no returns policy for dead pixels in Japan. Far cry from Nintendo's policy of "That wasn't ever supposed to get out of the factory, sorry about that. Here's a minty-fresh one."

I thought it was because nuke is a bad word. Even in space where there's no environment to contaminate. Regardless of how "clean" the weapon is, the conception is still that nukes make the area a radioactive hotzone for millenia to come and spew masses of fallout into the atmosphere. So yeah... political reasons. And pretty much the same ones that keep us from using them today(not that we actually have a really good reason to use even the smallest ones currently, aside from some proposed "bunker buster" weapons that WOULD spew fallout like there's no tomorrow). ... Of course, if it were purely modern-day politics, they'd also have masses of activists up in arms about the fusion powerplants they're using...

Indeed. I wonder if it say's thank you after picking up trash. I keep thinking of the vending machines. Imagine a street sweeper that stalks you and attempts to cut you off, all the while chanting "Turashu? Turashu?"

Fact: Cube has a higher ration of M games than PS2. Fact: Cube and XBox are tied for a VERY distant second-place. Cube's a little behind in some places, XBox is a little behind in others. Opinion: The only thing the Cube is good for is REAL games without all the bullshit marketing hype that Sony and Microsoft rely on to push mediocre, or even raw sewage titles onto sales lists.

Nah. That's all "minovsky physics." No practical way to make them. Or, lacking any major obstacles to long-range weaponry(Gundam claims unstructured minovsky particles interfere with EM radiation, including visible light and adar, making melee combat necessary), they choose to leave melee as an archaic relic of a bygone era. No evidence they know how to make anything but a disk. Not clear exactly. Seem to be abandoned designs from a diffrent show concept.

That's what I do best. Wrong on so many levels. Energy weapons CAN fire plasma. Humans in macross prefer lasers, which ARE a valid form of beam weapon.. Other beam weaponry in the Macross universe is undefined. Could be electron beams, proton cannons, anti-neutron rays, etc. And plasma is NOT pure energy, nor is it charged particles. Heck, your description of it is electrically neutral. Plasma is fire, basically. Highly-energized matter, but otherwise normal. A flame thrower can be argued to be a low-grade plasma weapon. Part of teh damage from explosives could be argued as plasma weaponry. How damaging it is depends on how hot it is and how long it touches. In point of fact, a "pure energy" weapon is undescribable under current physics. The closest you can get is antimatter particle streams. Assuming the barrel is, aside from ammo, a vacuum, and your plasma isn't radiating infrared, and the energy expended to heat your ammo TO the plasma stage doesn't heat the barrel, and your containment field is 100% effective. Provided it's strong enough, which is harder than it sounds. Actually, they use the fictional minovsky particle. Beam saber "blades" are constructed of a lattice of minovsky particles that is then filled with plasma. No magnets involved. If they were purely magnetic, they could be forced through each other, BTW. Also note that dual sabers would become very popular. One of each polarity. PPB isn't magnetic. We don't think so, anyways. It's undefined tech, based on energy leaking from a spatial rift created by a faulty fold drive. It also blocks all objects equally. Paintballs, gunpod projectiles(Macross use depleted uranium?), conventional explosives, lasers, zentradi "beams", it makes no diffrence. Of a specific wavelength. Macross uses fusion power, so no biggie. Though... lasers can be chemically fired. As can plasma weaponry. ALL PLASMA WEAPONRY USES AMMO. IT IS REQUIRED TO MAKE THE PLASMA. And lasers MAY run out of ammo of they are chemically fired. Fortunately for Macross, they have miniature fusion drives as a universal electricity/heat source for all mecha components. Kevlar doesn't absorb the impact. It just disperses it over a wider area. Much like "hard armor" does when it's not being punctured(kevlar can be punctured too, and a thin-enough weapon can actually slip BETWEEN fibers, avoiding the necessity of tearing the vest to generate a puncture wound, and bypassing almost all the protective attributes of the fabric). Plates actually work BETTER than fabrics. High-grade bulletproof vests have plates imbedded in them to spread the shock, because it is still possible to be killed by a bullet that the kevlar mesh prevents from penetrating. The force is carried through to the body anyways. A normal handgun bullet can bruise someone through kevlar. A high-powered rifle can kill, even without penetrating. Kevlar doesn't disperse the force enough to prevent damage the way a good plate will, because it gives. A solid plate, the force of impact is distributed across the entire plate, instead of the localized region of a kevlar vest. On the other hand, a proper suit of medieval-style plate armor is implausible at best. Once it gets thick enough to stop a bullet, it's too heavy to be man-portable. The kevlar, for all it's flexibiltiy, is lightweight. And spreads the impact enough that the plates don't shatter(because the impact on the plate is less focused) And what sort of energy field? Obviously the undefined energy of a Macross barrier can, but what else? Why not? Not really. "Hard armor" is just more effective. Armor-piercing rounds will chew through any conventional defenses you have. Also note that "armor-piercing" is a very vague term. It can mean a simple discarding sabot round, or an exotic multi-stage shaped-charge device.

Nintendo's been holding DS games from America while releasing them in Japan. Only theory I've heard is they were gonna start blitzing the market once the PSP hit to suck consumer dollars from Sony.

Dude, Pacman... but dude...that's the early 70's no? Early 80s, I think. http://www.klov.com/game_detail.php?letter=&game_id=10816 1980 exactly. Anyways... Too bad SC3 isn't arcade. But... MISTA DRILLA!

I share that opinion. The few times I've played online, I experienced the raw unfettered idiocy of the large portions of the internet that I attempt to avoid. If you can catch someone you know, it can be decent. But otherwise... Even then, I vastly prefer in-person multiplayer.

Unfortunately in real life trying to shoot two guns at once just means you end up not hitting anything. It may look cool in John Woo movies, but it's a really shitty gun fighting technique in real life. Graham But computers aren't restricted like that. Heck, you could designate 2 targets to the comp and blast 'em both at once, as long as they were both in your arms' movement arcs. Assuming it auto-aims instead of requiring you to manually place the shot(I'd expect auto-aim). Or, more practically, blow missiles away with one while wailing away at the launcher with the other.

My bet... Armor evolves alongside weapons. The Zentradi use beam weaponry very heavily. It stands to reason their armor is focused towards deflection of energy weaponry moreso than projectiles. Hence we built our mechs to use projectiles, because our experience said they worked better.

I wish Gubaba had his own small mech. He deserves better treatment than as a sidekick to mylene. He did rescue everyone from capture afterall. So I'm not the only one that thought that! BAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! What if we give Gamlin a Gubaba of his own?

I know. It makes me sad.

I displayed one of mine in GERWALK for a long time, before shelf space required me to re-orient him. I'm quite fond of GERWALK mode. It's by far the most distinctive mode, even if it doesn't get as much screen time as the others(which is likely why it seems to be less popular). A valk in GERWALK mode screams Macross in a way that no other mech is quite capable of. I also display mine in Gerwalk mode. Its a Yamato 1/48, and perhaps one reason you don't see Gerwalk mode more often is that the 1/48 line is the only one that gets it the most "right"... I was displaying a Transformers Jetfire in GERWALK... IMO, it doesn't look particularly good in any mode but fighter. The lack of articulation shows worst in battroid mode, though. It's impossible to get a really good pose out of it.

LMAO! Oh man, that sounds like one of the many times MGREXX would complain to Steve that I was burning him, and Steve would end up tempo banning banning him as well! The funny thing is that as soon as I would get reinstated, I kept going after him, just because he took it that extra step, to getting Steve on my back. Eventually, I was able to bait and trap him enough times, along with his own retarded comments in other threads there, that I am proud to say that I was the cause of the final ban at RT.com that is still in effect today. *thumbsup* Nothing quite like giving a nuisance enough rope to hang himself.

The battery very much SHOULD have been partially charged. There is NOTHING worse for a lithim-ion battery than being fully discharged. One full discharge can halve the life of the battery.

Wishlist game: You ever seen those Battletech simulator machines, where you sit down in a cockpit? One of those, with Valks. My take, as a longtime gamer and mild collector is...Good single-player games are usually worth another play. I very rarely get rid of my games because I always wind up coming back to them later for another run. It may be a few years before I get the urge to play Blaster Master or Tales of Destiny again, but when I do I'm always really glad I kept it around. The pre-plot, pre-ending games like Asteroids, Missile Command, etc. are diffrent beasts altogether. It's easy to just settle in and blow crap up for a little while. I really think this elegance of simplicity has been lost in the push for ever-more complex and realistic games. Not saying that the modern stuff is BAD, just that it'd be nice to see oldschool gameplay show up a little more often outside of retro-gaming compilations.

I totally agree Drifand One thing is once someone has a complete collection of Yamato, Bandai and Takatoku what else is left but these other toys? I for one am not going to buy 8 of each version, one is enough. My collection is well rounded and completely encompasses all Valk toys Nice collection by the way. I always wonder though, why doesn't anyone ever display Valks in GERWALK mode? I displayed one of mine in GERWALK for a long time, before shelf space required me to re-orient him. I'm quite fond of GERWALK mode. It's by far the most distinctive mode, even if it doesn't get as much screen time as the others(which is likely why it seems to be less popular). A valk in GERWALK mode screams Macross in a way that no other mech is quite capable of.

I'd be shocked if they couldn't. ... But this IS Sony. Anyways, this is my favorite artist's rendition of the PS3... Bingobingo. Though as I said, I think they started with one of the bootlegs that was the same design but black to start with.

I usually compromised and used GERWALK. Faster than a battroid, and has missiles. I HAVE been known to fly a fighter through the city streets on occasion, but I have too much trouble judging my turns to do it regularly(not sure some of them CAN be made in fighter mode). ... And I actually wouldn't have minded some time in a destroid. But like I said, while I understand the reason for the limited flight ceiling, I don't like it. At all. Sniper shots were fun sometimes. If you approach the areas right, you can hit them but they can't even see, much less shoot, you. Nice way to even the odds a little before charging into an ambush. ... But yah. Usually pointless. And for the most part, I found the fighter's flares somewhat useless too. With few exceptions, I found it easier and more effective to drop to battroid and shoot the missiles down with the secondary fire button.

Sure, in fighter mode. But the YF-21 battroid kicks it's butt with 12 diffrent vitamins and minerals.