Chronocidal

Oh, sure, it's all fun and games until someone's soul gets sucked into one of the symbiotic mechs.

Better than mine, I'm pretty sure Michael's gunpod was so heavy it made my hips collapse. (ok, not really... I never put it in battroid to begin with. ) But yeah, ball jointed hands.. not so great, especially when you have to be able to remove them. It's basically building a point of failure into your design.

Oh, as far as shared parts go.. I can easily see them reusing a good portion of the lower leg for the v.2 VF-25. I think the feet are identical, and the inner, upper, and lower portions of the lower leg look just about the same. Since those missile pods on the legs move, they could probably just replace those with a VF-25 accurate panel, and call it a VF-25 leg. Now, whether the leg would transform at the correct angles and attach high enough in fighter mode to look right on a VF-25 is another story.

If they pull this off well, I might very well buy them all this time. I bought the movie release Alto because it was so cheap, and a Michael because his colors are just awesome, but all the web exclusive crap just turned me off to most of the others. Honestly? The movie Alto and Michael are the only two valks I saw as coming with a reasonably complete set of accessories. Armor packs deserve the reaction missiles, and Luca is weak without his ghosts. I don't count the speaker set as necessary, because I have a personal vendetta against clip on weapons (after so many Yamato valks came with actual hardpoints, I wanted to slap Bandai for thinking over-wing clips were a viable option). Luca I may not bother with, but I want a good looking Armored Ozma at the very least, and probably a new Super Alto and Super Michael. Plus, I wish Bandai would figure out how popular custom schemes can be, and make a few this time... though... unless they get past their obsession with pasting idiotic stickers of characters on aircraft, forget it. I wish they could understand that Macross has a decently large portion of the fanbase who are only really interested in the aircraft, and give them some realistic military styled schemes instead of these stupid character art billboard ones. Given they've got a VF-25 Master File coming out, I hope they have the sense to collaborate with the publishers and come up with some decent custom schemes like they did in the VF-19 book.

Think the insides of the intake are yellow too, so if you feel like painting more, have at it. I think it looks good that way, but I always leave the intake covers on anyway. Looks less goofy than compressor blades that close to the front.

I don't see them reusing ANY of the armor or super parts.. or, at least I really hope they don't, because the designs for those were bad to begin with. If they took the time to look over the models, and see all the things that could be improved, they'll know they have to start from the ground up. I really do want to see a redone armor pack, one that fits properly, and doesn't put stress on the entire backplate just by attaching it. That's what's kept me from buying one all along. The lack of engineering thought Bandai showed in how they implemented the super and armor packs to begin with is one of the primary things I want to see fixed.

Wow, ok, color me very impressed with the changes they made. The new arms can actually raise at the shoulders! I'm also loving the way the leg mechanism looks like it works, using the actual hip bar to hook into the waist and hold the crotch parts together. I'll have to order one of these soon.

Sweeet, my day has just been made. Assuming they can manufacture some decent super and armor packs, and the quality starts staying on the non-facepalm side of the scale, I WILL be collecting these. I've been aching for an armored Ozma a long time, but could never stand paying for something with that many inherent structural problems. I'll probably still get a YF-29 too eventually, once I get back to my own apartment and have room for it, and hopefully once it goes on sale. As much as I wish they'd just made the VF-25s well from the start, I don't feel too bad about getting two of the originals. Having those will mean that somewhere down the road, when my kids see all the cool toys I have, I'll have a pair I don't feel bad letting them play with. Hopefully they take a hint from Yamato this time around though, and milk those molds for all they're worth (without making every freaking bonus feature web a exclusive). I want to see some of the tribute schemes people have come up with, especially that Klan VF-25S.

No, no, wait.. The dialogue screens will be written by randomly selecting a tweet from the audience! Every time a scene plays it will ask for suggestions to be tweeted to a specific number, and (not so) randomly pick one to display. At the end of the movie, everyone will get to vote on their favorite lines, and the most popular tweeter gets to direct the film for next week.

I do remember many discussions of the decals for the 1/72 kits having problems, either by way of not being the right shape, or just refusing to conform to the surfaces of the model. Some types of decal setting solutions also refused to work at all, while others had better success. Searching through the old 1/72 kit topics should bring up those discussions, and help you know what works ahead of time. As for the printing quality.. I'd put the decals on the lower end of Bandai's ability really. Granted, I haven't built a lot of other Bandai kits, but I've never seen decals printed that way in any model I have ever bought. I think I remember people with experience in building Gundam kits chiming in that the printing for decals in those kits was much better, without any of that speckled look.

Indeed, good to hear. While the missile bays would have been fancy, I can't see them doing justice to them without taking away from the other things the leg has to do, so I'm glad they're focusing on landing gear instead. Looks like I'll have to save up extra this year around Christmas time.

Ouch. That area shouldn't even be under stress, unless someone tried to pry the intake assembly apart. Really makes me question the plastic the YF-19 is made from though, it's not the first time people have had random parts just crack. Frankly, what scares me is how much the texture of the YF-19's plastic reminds me of the shattertastic explodium they used in many of the VF-0's components.

I'm actually not familiar with what the screen printing process is exactly. I just remembered them being labeled as such, and realized it's very appropriate, since it looks like they were printed through a screen door.

If the stickers are anything like the 1/72 kits, they'll be screen-printed.

Bleh, playing catch-up since I haven't been able to indulge my nerf hobby due to limited space. The recon should've had a priming handle to begin with. Having a sliding acessory rail on that upper slide always made me scratch my head in confusion. I've seen a few good mods make use of the barrel extension to mount a pump action handle, though unless you do extensive internal mods, those barrel extensions don't help anything. As far as the new guns go.. yeah, I can't see the discs catching on. Yes, the disc ammo will travel farther, but I seriously doubt it will ever be in a straight line. You're talking about a gun shooting tiny frisbees, and those tend to drift a lot due to the spin necessary to keep them stable. Maybe they'll figure out how to account for that, but I get the distinct impression the only way you'll ever be able to aim them is by pointing the gun a good amount to the side of your target, and hoping the disc drifts sideways enough to hit.

Judging by the tracking number, my pair should be delivered some time today. I kind of wish I'd ordered a couple of the 1/100 VF-25/YF-29 kits with them now, though I don't know if the pre-orders would have overlapped enough to get them at the same time.

Glad to hear I might be worried about nothing then. Having a more detailed cockpit sounds like a very nice thing, though cockpits in AC games have only ever been superficial, with the HUD being a screen overlay. If they actually tried to paste the displays into the real cockpit, I'll be very impressed, though I don't know if that'll be a good thing or not gameplay-wise. Would be a nice option to be able to turn on and off though. I really hope they manage to fill out the hangar a bit more this time around though. Though they were mostly crappy, horribly inaccurate models, the wide variety of aircraft was the one thing hawx managed to do right. How they could be so dedicated as to include the YF-17 Cobra and then neglect to understand how aircraft even fly continues to make me scratch my head. Right now, I'd really love to see a retro AC, set in either Vietnam, or an alternate world version of a similar conflict. I really just want an excuse to make a game where you can fly everything from the 1950's up through about 1970 or so. I was originally hopeful AC0 would use more older aircraft like the A-4, F-8, F-4, etc. So many beautiful planes came from that period in history, and have really gotten the short end of the stick in games. Plus, it gives you the possibility of having the F-14 be the end game superfighter, and wallop everything.

The problem isn't in the execution.. It might be interesting to try, but I'm honestly sick of the focus on blood and gore in so many games, even if it is realistic. Just because we have the graphics to render it well now doesn't mean we have to go into slow motion to see all the different parts of enemies flying everywhere. The novelty wears off really fast, and if they've rebuilt much of the game to revolve around it, I don't know what'll be left when people get tired of it. Really, the Ace Combat series is already an incredibly niche franchise. Unless someone is already a fan of this type of game, the odds are heavily against attracting any new players in significant numbers. Changing things that drastically to try attracting a larger playerbase is a huge risk, because you stand to lose a lot more than you could potentially gain. In my experience, the type of people who like aircraft games are incredibly picky about what they like, and changing anything that was previously enjoyed brings with it the risk of turning a lot of fans of the genre away from the game entirely.

They tried something like this with hawx, it was much less than useful at best. All I remember is a flood of pissed of people who noticed that the voice command system tended to cause them to fire off a missile every other second. I don't know how it was supposed to work really, but the idea that you should rely on voice commands to fire your weapons is fairly well indicative of the level of understanding that went into making the game. In other news.. after seeing this clip, I really don't know what to expect. I have to be very honest.. after seeing this, I wanted to reach through the screen and slap the guy upside the head. Seriously, after all the success you've had with a working formula, you go and change it just because it felt old? Changing something just for the sake of changing it is very rarely, if ever, a good thing. I just don't know. It sounds like they're falling into the same trap that hawx did, trying to appeal to a wider player base. When are people going to realize that trying to attract a larger audience to a niche genre doesn't work?? It has two main effects: 1. Pissing off your original fanbase due to the compromises you have to pull to bring more people in, and 2. Not bringing in enough new interest to make up for the original customers you lost. It's like they're trying to bring the current generation's fascination with blood and/or gore to the flight game genre, where frankly, I don't care how cool it might look, it really has no place. They're rebuilding the entire game around this concept of being up close and personal with things blowing up, and getting further and further from anything aircraft actually do. I mean, the guy specifically mentions how you "used to launch missiles at stuff far away, so we want to bring you in closer." There are not enough faces or palms on earth. I'll have to try the demo I'm sure, but the more I think about this, the more I worry. They keep talking about everything being changed, and different, and I can't help thinking they're going to throw out a good amount of what people used to enjoy about these games just for the sake of seeing close-ups of shrapnel. Redesigning it from the ground up, just to make it different? Does anyone even remember "New Coke?"

I have to do at least one in classic VF-84 (still love that custom 1/60 from long ago) but I'm undecided about the second. Eh, I'll come up with something.... heh.. I wonder how a set of Warthog markings would look.

Next: Hollywood decides to reboot itself.

Woot! ditto, my pre-order payment just went through. Should be here early next week.

No, first you need to dub them over in Japanese, and sub them. THEN you go and make a dub off of the subtitles, changing random words and meanings in the first movie, and completely ignoring the original plot in the other two. Actually, if you consider the idea that the Tiger's Claw was built from the wreckage of the ships in ID4.. hmm. Reminds me of something I wanted to do for a long time: find a Japanese dub of the hollywood Godzilla movie, and watch it with English subs.

Is it bad that I kinda cheered when that happened? I mean, besides the "less than worthless" status your wingmen in those games usually get, he was flat out asking to get blasted. You DO NOT EVER talk about going home to get married during a battle. I had to give AC5 credit though. They actually gave players their wish, and killed off the most annoying character, but did it in such a way that you could actually wind up feeling bad for wanting it to happen.

True, it's only really three and a half years. Due to lateness of the premier, and relative earlyness of the month. But still.. I was still in college when it came out. Those were good times.