Chronocidal

Two is far too few, I agree... though the problem is, the way those stories work, they could theoretically go on forever. There's no set conclusion, and all signs point to those stories actually being in a of sorts, with no effect on the actual storyline. The only possible reason for them existing that I can see so far is that Anywho, I really just want to see the crazyness of dropping the characters into random fantasy settings. If this were the U.S., that plot line alone would be it's own series (now that I think of it, it sounds like Sliders ) Same here, I love time loops, or time travel in general, which is why I REALLY want to see them make "The Intrigues of Haruhi Suzumiya"... the time shenanigans in that book were great. But that would have to be the core story for another season due to its length, plus it's a big lead-in to the unfinished plotline in vol 9. I do think Endless Eight would suffer a bit from being crammed into one episode. I need to re-read that one, I don't remember if they actually told about more than one loop. I do need to read it again, but I loved the more in depth explanation of the game in the novel. The animation was great for showing the battle happening, but the details of the strategy got lost, and a lot of Asahina's cuteness was lost in the process when they didn't go more into how lost she actually was in the game. This episode is also why I want to see Haruhi Theater done so much. Having them act out parts in a game again would be awesome to see. It's actually pretty funny, everytime I see that episode, it makes me want to go play Homeworld. While the mechanics are a bit different, it's similar enough that a Homeworld "Day of Sagittarius" mod could be awesome. That's actually one thing I think they glossed over in the episode btw.. it WAS a lot closer to Homeworld.. I think Asahina got stuck with all the mining duties too. Or maybe it was just managing weapons supply ships.. again, I'll have to re-read it all.

My guess for the second season is that it'll be roughly like the first.. one main storyline, intersected by a few random stories from throughout the books. Rhapsody really only makes sense as an opener for Disappearance, and the entire computer fiasco on the Haruhi website was taken directly from that story, so there's no reason to expect they won't be using that for the main storyline. Not to mention, the whole thing is a freaking epic time pretzel, and I can't wait to read the discussions on it. Btw, I agree, they need to show the filming of the movie somehow, but I almost think it would lose something in anime form. Explaining all the things that happened in one episode might cramp things too much... although, they could split it up like they did the Lone Island story. To be honest though, I'd much rather see the Snow Mountain story done.. and that would probably take 3 episodes in its entirety, due to the beginning of the story. To be completely honest.. as long as they get the disappearance story in there, I almost don't care what else they do. If tradition holds, they may work up one more original episode... if they do 14 more, you could probably do Disappearance in 6-7... 2 for the movie filming.. I dunno. I'd have to go thru the novels again to see what stand alone stories might work. The ghost hunt is a nice stand alone, as is the one where Asahina takes Kyon to the tea shop... so many ideas. Finally, as unlikely as it would be.. I want the Haruhi Theater stories. Those are hilarious, comletely nonsensical, and they actually do tie into the main stories (in a completely bass-ackwards way). If anyone wants to read them, I can post links, they're not very long, and don't intersect with the main plot at all. They're just random side stories that most likely will not have any effect on the rest of the series. I'm trying very hard not to go into full Haruhism mode, and I think I'll be able to hang on. I obsessed over the novels a while back, and blew through them very quickly, so already knowing the stories will probably help ground me a bit now. Edit: Gah, just looking over the stories, there's so many I want to see The snow mountain syndrome would be a fun one, or the one where some football player falls in love with Nagato. I don't think they'll get into the heavy duty plot in "Intrigues of Haruhi Suzumiya".. that's more of a lead into the last volume, and there's no finish for that as of yet. I just wonder if they have enough to make a 3rd season.. if they aren't careful about what's in the 2nd season, they might need a 3rd to finish the story and tie up loose ends.

Most likely a new guy, probably meant to be a descendant. From what I remember, McCoy was the oldest recorded living human being in the TNG universe.

My thought about using Hawx as a starting point is mainly because it's the only current gen flight combat game period that looks to be capable of being modded to anything close to Macross. Seems like lately, the flight game market has pretty much disappeared. It's a dying genre, especially with Microsoft canning it's flight sim team in the past year. Unless someone comes up with some new, very moddable flight sim (not likely), Hawx is about all we have to work with. In all honesty, it would probably be easier to start a game from scratch, since you could integrate a lot more features from the start. That's what YS Flight has been doing, and it appears to be going well, although I haven't tried it yet myself. If I knew more about programming (already got a bit of background in 6 degree of freedom flight modeling) I'd love to start work on a dedicated Macross sim. Unfortunately, my computer skills are mostly on the graphics side, and without a good game engine to work with, I'm not much help. I can do the flight math, but don't have a clue where to start programming. When you start talking about things like Valks, and how they fly, the math will get very complicated, very fast. Hawx's game engine is just flat out missing a lot of what a good flight combat game needs, and no amount of modding could fix that, so it'd still be hard to get a decent Macross total conversion working. But oddly enough, one of my biggest gripes about Hawx could become a strength if it was turned into a Macross game.. the game already uses anime physics.

This statement is the one and only reason to bother with HAWX. While the PC version of the game is buggy as all hell (even after 2 so called "patches"), it's still a PC version, which means you can hack it to shreds and unlock a ton of content that the company is trying to sell as "DLC" to the console owners. That said, I think the PC community may give this game some decent life, even if only by modding it. The game's system appears pretty simple to alter (even the flight physics appear tweakable last I checked), so it's only a matter of time before people who care about accuracy and realism fix the game. Depending on how much it can be changed, the game engine might make a solid starting point for building a current gen Macross game, via a total conversion. *sighs* Every time I think I'm done modding games, a new one comes out that I want to tweak.

Good grief, first the YF-19, and now this... my wallet's crying already. To be honest, as nice as a PG version would be.. I'd rather have it without some of those gimmicks, just for simplicity. I can definitely live without lighting, there just aren't that many lit parts on these to make it worthwhile (compared to something like a star trek kit, where half the durn ship glows ) The inner framework PG kits tend to have would be VERY nice to have for something that transforms, but I could live without it if the price is right. My only real worry is affordability, since I know I'm going to want several of these. I do hope they make multiple versions, or at least include the separate heads/weapons in one kit. Boosters would be nice, but in 1/48, things might get a bit difficult to support.

The background to this is more completely explained in the comic, and I've heard there were several scenes left out about what happened to Nero during those 25 years.

Actually a bit more star wars than I realized at first...

I think the F-4 became vaporware somehow, seems it was just too impractical to sell or something... but the quality looked good before all news of it disappeared. *sigh* Why is it that everything I want comes out right after I blow a bunch of money on something else? This thing will be huge, but I know I'll have to get at least one... At least the Lego Millenium Falcon I just ordered gets smaller when you take it apart.

Actually yeah, I didn't at all expect the Kobayashi Maru scene to be so... well, blatantly obvious. I was waiting for Spocklar (sorry, that just fits too well for me not to use it, and it's better than Sylock) to have a little thought bubble appear over his head going "WTF HAX!" I was hoping his hack job of the simulation would be more about finding an exploit in the program, rather than an outright rewrite (although, history did say he rewrote it). I was expecting something more like a case where some random action would produce ridiculous results that let him win.. like, mashing the shield activation button so fast that you could beam the crew through the shields, while still deflecting enemy weapons, or some other crazyness.. maybe just confusing the enemy AI by broadcasting in Klingon. *shrugs* The scene was hilarious, but I expected the cheat to be a little more subtle. That also might have played better with Spock's reactions as well.. as it was, he was just offended that he blatantly broke the rules. If Kirk had found some flaw to exploit, it could've opened a much deeper wound in Spock's ego, having thought that he programmed a completely unwinnable scenario.

While I can definitely say that I fully enjoyed the movie (especially in IMAX ), I have to admit... very few movies I've ever seen have left my brain in such an unsettled state. Why? Because I'm someone who loves the complexities of cause and effect chains... and ever since seeing this, my brain has been nearly completely occupied with the thought of what this reboot has done. Anyway, great movie.. the opening sequence was particularly epic I think (though the rest kind of struggled to live up to that early bit I think) and the character's key lines were well worked out to fit without seeming obtrusive. Many good laughs to be had, and I have to agree, McCoy was probably the best cast one of them all. Now the question is where do they go from here? I actually kind of hope they don't do a series, and reserve it to movies. While a fresh series might be fun, I think rehashing old plots to show how the timeline has changed will do no good to the franchise.

*looks around suspiciously, and waves hand* You want to take off your shirt... On another note, apparently the giant Lego Milennium Falcon is 25% off for a bit.. the shop site currently has it for $375, instead of the usual $500. Now the debate begins... that's enough to get a couple valks... or a friggen HUGE lego thing... decisions, decision..

That does look quite the bargain. If the price is right, I might get a couple... or maybe a full squadron if I get a little nuts (but not until I get my Mac+ 1/60 trio). Honestly.. If I knew anything about recasting, I would love to make a new mold of this sculpt to play around with. The wing mechanism has always been the weakest point of the design for me (apart from the new nose), and I've wanted to seriously rework one of these for ages to have solid wings and accurate engines. Plus, I'd love to play with the paint schemes a bit.. I'd love to have a full Rogue Squadron in the custom markings discussed in the "Bacta War" novel. The only part that worries me about doing that is how I'll ever be able to explain the room full of x-wings to a potential fiancee. Right now, my collection fits in a box that I can hide...

The main reason for separating the nozzles is to get roll control via thrust vectoring, which might not even be possible with the way the feet are right now. The further apart they get, the more rotational moment they'll make when deflected, giving better roll control. However, the further apart they get, the worse yaw instabilities due to thrust variations get. The reason the F-14 was so prone to flat spins was because of how far apart the engines were, combined with the tendency of the engines to stall. You lose thrust on one side, and it'll do nasty things.. think drifting, but in an aircraft.. planes don't like to fly that way.

My personal favorite is the Red Leader one released shortly afterward, but only because I plan on customizing it. The Dagobah one, and all those following it are basically a reworked FX version. The Dagobah version still uses Luke's markings/stickers, but they gutted the electronics, and remolded the fuselage to remove the missile launcher and flight handle. As far as markings go, I think the Red Leader version is the one with the least weathering overall, but I could be wrong. It seemed to have the least number of stickers, which made them easy to remove so I can repaint it. If you're worried about movie accuracy, I'd also recommend looking up spare parts for the original FX version, specifically the nosecone piece.. they child-proofed the original chisel-shaped nosecone when they redesigned these ships, and it looks like it ran into a wall.

I don't wanna get my hopes up, something tells me it might've been a typo... But if we find out this is legit.. I'm gonna drop an epic brick. See.. what's great about 1/48.. it's huge. Which means, there's probably plenty of room to pull off an epic custom perfect transformation. Heck, you could strip down an old 1/48th yammie (provided you want to sacrifice one) and probably transplant the joints straight into it. Model+ratcheting joints= pure awesome.

Lol.. or you could just use english words with way too many syllables. It is pretty common to stretch words over more than one note, but the way songs are phrased can make it hard to sound good doing it, especially if the song was originally written so the notes would be pronounced, rather than slurred.

Umm... holy crap.. THAT GIRL HAS TWO KNEES ON EACH LEG!! I thought there was somethin weird there too... Unless the lower leg valk parts are supposed to be like boots, in which case, ignore me.

Hmm.. I don't know where it was now, but I do remember someone taking a more freeform approach to translating the song. The meanings were all translated well, but they added a lot more of an english style to it.. didn't sound bad at all though, I think it was on youtube somewhere. The link may still be in the fan works forum, if my memory serves me correctly. What they did was basically reword each sentence to have a similar meaning, but to fit the rhythm nearly perfectly. The only part I remember is a bit of the chorus.. think it was a bit like this, but can't swear to it. "Tell me, do you still remember that moment when your eyes first met mine? Tell me, do you still remember, the moment when our fingers intertwined? My journey was just beginning, feeling love for the very first time... Ai shiteru (yep, they swapped the english here for japanese. although I think the english might work a bit better here personally, it was rather creative ) Basically that's how it went, although I think I've altered it on the fly while remembering. It sounded very well thought out, but it did change a lot of the phrasing, and some of the meanings, just to fit into english better. Some parts added a lot of throw away words that don't fit in the original Japanese version, but can be implied in one way or another in English (ie, "Tell me do you still remember?" isn't quite the same as "Do you remember?", but the meaning is similar enough that the added "tell me" and "still" don't hurt it too much, and the number of syllables fits the music once those words are added). Grrr.. now the musical bit of me wants to translate my own version

Give it time, apparently the model format's already been figured out to a point. They can replace geometry, just can't convert the animations yet. Someone posted pics of a Gundam in there in one place. If I can convince myself to spend the money on it, I may see about sticking a few of my Macross models in there. But so far, Ubi's shown little to no interest in actually fixing a lot of the problems that are popping up. I get the distinct impression that Ubi did absolutely NO beta testing on this (especially when it comes to cross platform/hardware testing), and that fan mods are the only hope this game has at this point, at least on the PC. Frankly, for all the bugs people are finding, Ubi should be paying them for beta testing the game for them. The chatter on the Ubi tech support forums has been rather... well, to sum up, it seems about half the posts are about the game not working in one way or another, and the other half are about the multiplayer not working at all.

Good point.. to be honest, I think I would've been much more likely to enjoy this game if they hadn't used any real aircraft. I can't really think of any good comparisons at the moment, but I get the impression that the real aircraft are only there as mascots to sell the game. It's like games that get famous actors, sports figures, etc, to endorse the game, because without that endorsement, the game just wouldn't attract any attention. It might be a fun futuristic shoot-em-up, but using real life aircraft as a selling point kinda ruins it for me, when they don't behave anything like what they should. It's like getting endorsements from companies like Ferrari, Lamborghini, and Porsche, and making an off-road dirt track racing game with their cars. Sure it might be fun, but it easily kills off any suspension of disbelief. I may still give the PC version a go eventually, my brother and I were looking forward to playing this online together. I just hope someone manages to enable all the online features that are currently locked out.

Well, that and any concept of how aircraft are supposed to fly.

Actually, that's one of the serious issues this game has been having on the PC. A good deal of complaints about the demo are from people who can't run the game unless their X52 is unplugged. I got it to work myself, but most people can't. The game tends to do this for a lot of joysticks actually, TM Cougars, X52s (not sure of regular or pro distinctions tho, I have an X52 pro and it worked), and even some Saitek Aviators have been having problems. I agree though, this game isn't meant to be played with a hotas setup, and especially not with pedals. Combination of having no thumbstick to control the view, and no option to throttle up and down simultaneously means that gamepads just have a huge advantage.

Actually, I'm pretty sure they didn't think anything further than "ok, this plane has 2 engines, so it goes faster." Hell, the flight physics belong in X-Wing or Tie Fighter. Banking does nothing, you fly exactly the same whether you're right-side up, upside-down, or rolled sideways. Granted, it simplifies things not having to trim.. but having banking not put you into a gentle turn? You may as well use the rudder alone (which works just fine ). They claim that they did a bunch of research and such, but I have no idea how they actually got the major aircraft manufacturers to sign off on this. They really did no research about the aircraft at all. Just a few: F-16A is actually a C model Their "Mitsubishi F-2" is simply the same F-16C repainted The F-15 "Strike Eagle" is a C model with no FAST packs and a single seat cockpit Their F-15 Active model ditched thrust vectoring (unless they just didn't bother to animate that) You know how the rear stabs work on planes, where they work together for elevator, and opposite for roll? Yeah, they missed that too. (insert lex Luthor voice here)WRONG!! Btw, it's actually pretty obvious that they didn't even touch Ace Combat before making this, since if they had, they may have noticed a few of these things, since AC got them all right. For a while, people were worried that the F-14's wings weren't even going to move, since no one had seen a screenshot with them swept back. Apparently they didn't screw that one up, but I have yet to see any proof, and I'm actually very curious to see what kind of shenanigans they pull with the F-14 versions, or how many of those many control surfaces they actually will bother to animate. I know they skipped the leading edge flaps on the F-16. I know they've figured out how to unlock a lot of extra content and aircraft in the PC demo. I might have to see what else they goofed on, just out of morbid curiousity.

Well, apparently he hasn't played it.. you can't control the camera at all in that mode. It's not fixed, but you are stuck looking at your plane from a mile away, and the camera spins around to keep your target in the view. It's like a target padlock view that you can't turn off even if you WANTED to see what's in front of you.. which, when actually flying, is usually a useful thing. And yeah, them claiming to support joysticks is a crock. It's just made for a gamepad, pure and simple. Unless you happen to own one of the Ace Combat bundle sticks, you're not going to have the right controls to make the game work, and even then, you can't throttle forward and back at the same time, which seems to be required to pull off some maneuver types.