Metroplex on Metroplex!

Ah, thank goodness it's a holiday tomorrow! Been a while since the last one!

Metroplex is looking good!

Hot Toys - The Mandarin

Ummm, what? After seeing the movie... one wonders why anyone would want a figure of Tre... Uh, the Mandarin! :p For completists perhaps?

Yamato VF-19A

Picked up this classic VF-19A online for cheap! It's something i wanted to buy back then but procastinated till it was too late... luckily it popped up online again as fate would have it!

This is an alternate color version from the game VFX-2 on the PS1! Yes it was that long ago. :p This version is the initial release, not the newer ones, so the proportions and all are not like what you get nowadays. Still, it's the only release of it's type so far that's transformable, not counting the kit, die cast jet and the GN-DOU version.

Iron Man 3 - Mini Review

Caught this at Bugis+ last night, it wasn't too bad, off the bat i can tell you it's better than part 2; at least the "final battle" was more satisfying than the wasted opportunity in part 2. This movie takes place after the events in The Avengers, so there are a lot references to the events there.

Truthfully there are more scenes with Tony without the armor on than with the armor, the movie seems to be trying to make a point that it's the man beneath the armor, rather than the armors themselves that are important. I mean, the show starts off with Tony testing the Mk 42 suit.... boy, he's sure had a lot of time since New York! His new armor is cool, there are references to the extremis 'virus', but it's totally different again from the comic version, although extremis itself does play a pretty big part in the show.

The bad guy this round is The Mandarin... no spoilers but after seeing the movie, you'll know how "important" he is to the show, no doubt that Ben Kingsley steals most scenes he's in, at least they removed the weird slur he had in the trailers.

So, it's entertaining throughout, but to me it felt kind of messy, the scenes were all over the place and not in very defined acts, guess i'll need to watch it again to make sense of some of the parts. Will definately get the BD once it's out, but not the HT figures; most of the new armors appear onscreen for a couple of secs at most.

I'll give this a 7.5/10, fun to watch but needed to be more focused! Oh, stay till the end as usual for the secret ending after the credits, and spot Stan Lee!

Monster Energy

Hmmm.. Of the three types available in singapore ( original, khaos, absolutely zero), i still think khaos is the best, original tastes too artificial... Like coolant or something, while AZero tastes pretty normal, almost like another brand, Rockstar. No sugar though.

Khaos is still my favorite cos it tastes more like fruit punch than an energy drink, plus the sweetness is juuuust right; not cloyingly sweet like red bull, yet sweeter than your average soft drink! :) Bzzzz, i'm writing this now cos i'm having a caffeine buzz from finishing a can of monster... Lesson learnt, don't drink before bedtime!

Iron Man 3

Going to watch soon, hope it's ok! :p

Superhero Speed Dating

Even funnier! Like the Aquaman part and the cocktail! :p

Supervillians Speed date!

Haha, good one! :)

MGS Legacy Collection

Coming out in June? That's pretty soon after the HD collection was released though! Man, they're milking it for all its worth! :p still, will wait and see what's different from other versions!

NextBox

Looks like the next gen Xbox will be announced on the 21st of May :

http://kotaku.com/the-next-xbox-will-be-revealed-on-may-21-479691780

Hmm.. will i be interested in getting it? Truthfully, i hardly touch the 360 anymore, and most games are cross platform anyway, so i see myself probably having a higher chance of getting the PS4 rather than the nextBox! :P

THOR : The Dark World

I kinda enjoyed the first movie, guess cos i wasn't expecting too much from it! But that turned out to be pretty fun to watch. Part two looks interesting, Tom Hiddleston always looks so dashing as Loki... probably gonna betray Thor though duh! :p

Inside Hasbro - Part 2

Part 2 of Gizmodo's article on Hasbro. :) Still find the background music annoying though. :p

http://gizmodo.com/5995083/where-the-toys-come-from-inside-hasbros-model-workshop

Homeworld has a home!

Woohoo! :) Gearbox got the rights to the Homeworld franchise :

http://kotaku.com/turns-out-gearbox-is-the-highest-bidder-on-homeworld-477262432

Someone please make a new X-wing game? Pretty please?

VE-11

Nice scheme! :)

GDIM!

Monday again! Oh gawd just as i thought, the weather's burning up again.

Mmmmm. gin....

TF Encore 23 - Fortress Maximus

Lugged this guy home from TFH the other day, had to go through a round of 'inspection' as certain batches had reports of QC issues; incorrect or missing parts etc. :p Luckily all in order!

Box is big, but not as big as MG Rex though, still, this is currently the biggest TF around... till Generations Metroplex is released!

Hopefully one day will be able to take it out for display! Oh, they gave the usual freebie coin and some headphone jack in the shape of his head! :P

Storms a comin!

Weather's going crazy outside! :p prob gonna rain tonite... I hope!

Peeeee!!!!

Haha, this is a good one!

http://gizmodo.com/5995028/watch-lg-use-ips-displays-to-make-men-stop-peeing-in-a-urinal

Star Wars Uncut!

Pretty awesome! Watch it here! :)

TGIF!

Yeessss... reached the end of another work week! Last night was sinfully hot, temperatures hit 34 in the room... super humid too. Luckily it rained early in the morn, took away some of the heat. Weather seems to be moving in that pattern, no wonder so many people are falling sick!

 

Check out this video on how TF toys are brought to 'life'! Pretty cool. :)

Man of Steel

Other than Iron Man 3 that's coming out next week, another movie to look forward to is the Superman reboot Man of Steel. Latest trailer looks pretty darn cool! Supes in handcuffs? Haha! Foolish humans! :p

Midweek!

And it starts with a tropical downpour at 6am! You know what happens when that happens in sillypore! Anyway, here i am at macs cos there's simply no bus coming, waited over 30 mins and zilch, so what the hell, might as well have breakfast! :p thanks tark yew!

Oh, strangely there's this smell of burning leaves throughout the island, smelt it at home, and its still here at bukit timah. Is the air that polluted?

Man Cat...

... Stares at youuuuu...

Boston Marathon

Woke up this morning to find out that two explosions had occured at the finishing line at the Boston Marathon; they're calling it an act of Terrorism now. Wonder if it's some gun nut who's unhappy at the govt for planned changes to the gun laws?

Anyway, thoughts and prayers go out to all affected! It's always the innocents who get the worst of it.

Thai Food

Had this yesterday with a couple of colleagues at Golden mile, good stuff, especially the crispy pork salad! :g

YF-29 30th Anniversary Valk Part Deux!

Gloomy weekend! Weather was crazy humid till Saturday night till it suddenly poured in the night! Drizzled throughout Sunday too.. such good weather to sleep in.... Zzzzz..

Got some time to snap some shots of the YF-29 before i put it on display. Sweet piece, quality is good (for Bandai) and the paint job is immaculate.

Transformation is much like the VF-25 series, since it's mainly derived from there; only the backpack/wings differ slightly in transformation.

Parts are die-cast where they should be thankfully, Yamato's tend to have plastic parts in the most unfortunate key areas! Generally all 3 modes look great, and rather poseable too! :)

Spring Cleaning!

Dusted off some of my toys on display, almost forgot about some i had!

Above is the Bandai Soul of Chogokin God Mars, this was released some 2-3 years ago? It's awesome they remade it as i remember watching this on Ch 8 last time in Chinese haha! :p "Liu4 Shen2 He2 Ti3 Lei2 Ting2 Wang2!" It's a pretty hefty piece of diecast, and it's actually 6 bots combined into one!

This should be familiar, Armored VF-1J. This is the 1/60 version which was much better than the initial 1/60 version (where the armor kept falling off) and the 1/48 version (where the armor didn't look correct - too bulky)

Finally, VF-1S Strike Valkyrie from the DYRL movie series. :) This guy was already starting to yellow aleady though, that's one thing bad about toys in white. Well, it affects even LEGO too!

F-toys - X-wing

Always reminds me of THIS scene haha!

Picked up two x-wings from Ftoys, i think its series 3 and 5? Slight cosmetic differences only! Got to find time to paint these. :)

3rd Party TF NOT-Shockwave... Quakewave!

Ok ok, the 'NOT' thing is kinda annoying, we already know who the figure is supposed to represent! :p Picked this up yest at TFH, too hard to resist! It's about Masterpiece scale, pretty hefty with die-cast parts, and has a light up eye and gun, though i have not put in the batteries yet!

I tell ya, these 3rd party manufacturer's are really giving takatomy a run for their money! :) Yes, it does transform into that giant space gun, although i have not tried it. :p

The JSF Mess..

Too many cooks spoil the broth? Never rung truer!

http://theaviationist.com/2013/04/08/skunk-works-jsf-mess/

"In the mid-1960s, there was a proposal by the Secretary of Defense to combine the F-14 and F-15 programs, so we did some analysis”, […] “the Air Force wanted 200 F-15s and the Navy wanted 200 F-14s.

 

If you designed an airplane for each individual service to do what they wanted, each airplane would weight about 40,000lb, but if you combined them so one airplane could do the job that was needed for each service, the weight suddenly went up to about 70,000lb-and back then it was generally accepted that airplanes cost about a thousand dollars per pound of weight.

 

The cost savings on producing 400 of one airplane rather than 200 of two was about 10 percent, so it was clearly much more cost-effective to have two separate airplanes doing their own job best.

So how we manage, on the F-35, to suddenly reverse that idea is not clear to me."

YF-29 30th Anniversary valk

Picked this up this week, this is the 2nd release, nothing changed from the first one! It's actually a recolor of the YF-29 Durandal valk for the 30th Anniversary of the Macross series (has it been that long?) This version is repainted to be in the skull squadron colors, specifically the VF-1S.

Better pics later! :p

Danny Choo!

Wow, interesting article on DC; he didn't really have it easy, but he perservered through it all and saw his dreams fulfilled. :)

http://www.dannychoo.com/post/en/26094/How+Discovering+Japan+Changed+My+Life.html

Angry Review - Aliens Colonial Marines

Haha, i haven't tried it yet, but from what i hear and read, it supposedly sucks? :p

Boeing 6th Gen Fighter

And we're coming closer to the futuristic aircraft in the Ace Combat series! I wonder how soon before CN 'borrows' the design? :p

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/the-dewline/2013/04/boeing-reveals-updated-fa-xx-c.html#comments

 

"Boeing is unveiling an updated version of its F/A-XX sixth-generation fighter concept at the Navy League's Sea-Air-Space Exposition in Washington DC this week. The tail-less twin-engine stealth fighter design comes in "manned and unmanned options as possibilities per the US Navy," Boeing says. The design features diverterless supersonic inlets reminiscent of those found on the Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. "

Always on...

Totally agree! ;)

Bioshock infinite OST - Will the Circle be unbroken

Very nice song! She has a nice voice. :)

Passing of the Iron Lady

No, not THAT Thai film! I actually had a colig who thought so... diaoxxxx.... Anyway, it's a passing of a generation... hmmm.... slowly we'll see all from that era go eh? :p

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-22074250

Monday monday!

So another week swings around again, yes, i will still say it; weekends come and go too fast!

 

Just completed Bioshock:Infinite yesterday, game's around 8-10 hours worth of gameplay, but that's cos i explored and did most of the sidequests. Probably shorter if you just blaze through it. However, the way the story goes, you'll need to pick up all of the audio logs and clues to get most out of the story, otherwise there'll be a LOT of question marks hanging around your noggin!

 

I think this game is like the "Inception" of the game world; not too many spoilers here, but i feel that any movie/game/book that uses time/parallel dimensions as a plot device are treading a very thin line. It's always hard to get the reader/player to accept your interpretation of the event, and with so many paradoxes introduced, it's easy to contradict a lot of events that happened. I mean, take a look at Star Trek, time travel and such has been overused to a point that it's a joke.

 

B:Infinite does sort of cover us most loose ends at the end, but also does bring into question why some things were done in certain ways. Well, the game was entertaining no doubt! I'd give it a 80/100, hopefully the DLC will shed more light on the game! Also, wish the game had a New Game+ mode where all the powerups carry over!

 

Back to TR! :p

Packing day!

*sobs* Got to put stuff in storage today to make space in the room! I shudder to think of the day when i have to take all these back! :p

Bioshock Infinite

Started playing Bioshock Infinite on PC; went ahead to get the premium edition since it was generally sold out most everywhere now, and it only costs a bit more than the regular edition. Can't bother about the ultimate "Songbird" edition cos it's just another statue to collect dust! :p

 

Anyway, the presentation for Infinite is beautiful, and the environs pretty awesome. Good that they actually took time to make it unique. Gameplay wise is pretty much standard FPS fare. If you've play bioshock before, then they've replaced plasmids with 'vigor', and the 'mana' to use the vigors are called 'salts'. So you'd pretty much feel right at home!

 

Music is nice; there's always ambient music or an old radio or phonograph playing music somewhere. I'm not too far into the game though, just met elizabeth, who's like an AI partner.... who luckily doesn't get in your way and need rescuing ( here's looking at YOU RE5! ).

 

Pretty much fun so far, though i find the aim of the enemy AI a weeeeee bit too accurate! Not sure what all the hoo-hah is about the violence in the game.. it gaves a stark contrast only because the surrounding is so pristine... if this was COD no one would even complain about the blood truthfully.

 

And yeah, the subtitle for the game should be :

 

BIOSHOCK Infinite - The white flying racists! ;)

Penny Arcade - Luigi's Mansion!

Good one from PA! ;)

TGIF!

Ahhhh! Survived this humid week! Weather's gone crazy again, with blistering hot sun in the afternoon followed by a torrential downpour in the evening... can you imagine what that feels like?

Anywayz, the closure of Lucasarts may actually be a good thing now that i think of it; it releases a lot of IP's that LArts has been sitting on all these years, especially since Disney is just going to license off the titles.

Who knows? We may yet get to see a next-gen X-wing game! :)

Disney Shuts Down Lucasarts!!!!

Oh crap, end of good times. :( You will be missed lucasarts.

http://kotaku.com/disney-shuts-down-lucasarts-468473749

“After evaluating our position in the games market, we’ve decided to shift LucasArts from an internal development to a licensing model, minimizing the company’s risk while achieving a broader portfolio of quality Star Wars games," LucasArts parent company LucasFilm said in a statement. "As a result of this change, we’ve had layoffs across the organization. We are incredibly appreciative and proud of the talented teams who have been developing our new titles.”

Fansproject TBone

Hmmm.. can't help but think of steak when i hear that name! This is a 3rd party release of a NOT-stunticon T-Bone (Wildrider), the quality's pretty good and the poseability is excellent! Honestly speaking, i wish they would do a MP class combiner of this quality or better, as i mentioned before, i think the 3rd party guys are really beating TakaTomy at their own game.

There's another 3 more bots to collect before NOT-Menasor can be formed... thank goodness, gives me time to save up for it too!

DX Chogokin - Macross Frontier VF-25S Renewal ver.

Picked this up a coupla days ago, a big improvement over the first release! (Hence the renewal part of the name). At least they got the proportions pretty close to the lineart this time! At least Bandai's not only good for Gundam stuff!

Transformations not too complicated, parts are pretty sturdy with the key joints in die cast. The model has a hefty feel, although you can see not that many parts are metal anyway.

Gerwalk mode is a big improvement over the previous version, and at least now Battroid mode has a neck! :p

TBone & Car Crash!

Finally in! And godaarnnit, they're small! Wahaha!

Soldier Story 1/6 USAF TACP/JTAC

Schweeet, another SS 1/6 figure, guess they're really been busy recently yeah?

I like the gear for this, although i'd probably swap out Don Cheadle's HS! :p

More about JTAC's here!

Unreal Engine 4

Hmmm, i think we're past a time when fantastic graphics really begin to impress us; look at something considered high-end like the Frostbite 2 engine, at the end of the day, there's this 'flatness' to current gen graphics. Of course it looks great compared to like, 1-2 years ago. But i guess even the current state of CG is the norm, and isn't so much a selling point anymore.

 

http://kotaku.com/impressive-unreal-engine-4-graphics-demo-infiltrator-462820497

 

The UE4 powered demo looks cool, but i expect us to be playing games with cutscene class CG in maybe 1-2  years time... without the whole system slowing down of course. BF4's Frostbite 3 powered engine looks.... like more of the same actually... they reused a lot of BF3's bad guys models lazy buggers! And there's also the CryEngine3, (what i saw in Sniper 2 GW which supposedly uses the CE3 didn't impress).

 

If this type of graphical fidelity can come to the next gen consoles... woohoo! The PC is in for a fight!