March Hauls

[andersonh1]

I'll start out the March thread with a great haul. Bought myself a new computer this week, an HP Pavilion. Quad core processor, 1 terabyte hard drive and 8 gigs of ram. It's a huge improvement on my previous computer, which my daughter has inherited. She's quite happy for her 'new' computer too.

Forgot to mention: picked up Justice League: Doom as well, another DC direct to video animated feature. Same art style as Crisis on Two Earths, with just about all the voice actors from the JL tv series reprising their roles.

[Dominic]

Stocked up on customer fodder before the big cut-off this week.

-TFG Wheeljack (for customizing)

-TFG Scourge (customizing)

-from a trade wit h dvandom: PCC Heavytread and Groundspike
Groundspike is damaged, which is why I got it for so cheap. These are going right in to my custom pile. (Review coming soon.)


Dom
-hunkering down to wait for my BattleChargers

[138 Scourge]

I got...a poster. Anyone remember in...I wanna say "The Pandorica Opens" when they show that painting Vincent Van Gogh made of an exploding Tardis? Yeah, I got that poster. Amazon had it for like forty cents, so honestly, why the hell not?

[andersonh1]

I got...a poster. Anyone remember in...I wanna say "The Pandorica Opens" when they show that painting Vincent Van Gogh made of an exploding Tardis? Yeah, I got that poster. Amazon had it for like forty cents, so honestly, why the hell not?

Nice!

[Dominic]

And, my last meaningful haul for a long time was last night

-PCC Huffer and Caliburst: Custom fodder, but if anybody needs a set, let me know. I have both colour variants, and no real preference.

And, Lewis (as ever) came through for me:
-Time LInes Over Run (aka Runabout)
-United Stepper w/ Nebulon
-an extra copy of "Time LInes" #6 ("Stunticon Job")

Dom
-reviews coming soonishly.

[BWprowl]

Grabbed a couple more miniponis at TRU, and once again wound up with a show character (Pinkie Pie, woot woot!) and an Original Generation repaint pony: Firecracker Burst, an appropriately loud teal-with-orange recolor of Twilight. Dude, her cutie mark is FIRE. Do not attempt to provoke the wrath of this otherwise slow-burning unicorn, lest ye desire the magical flames of the hellfire itself to envelop you! She also enjoys watching fireworks with her friends, she loves the fun surprises they have!

Got a pretty cool haul on the way from Amazon, actually. Kind of excited about that.

[Onslaught Six]

Oh yeah, durr. Mass Effect 3! If you like Mass Effect at all you should uhh maybe probably get this. Seriously the best of the series, there's 'so much' to do and I've barely finished the first few story planets. Tuchanka alone (Krogan homeworld) has something like four huge missions on it. The combat and inventory is improved (inventory takes the best parts of the inventory from ME1 and streamlines them, without throwing the whole thing out like ME2 did), combat flows so much better now, talking to people is still fun, etc. Basically, so far, best game in the series.

[138 Scourge]

I've never played a Mass Effect game. Is this something I should try out? It's not a first-person shooter type of thing, is it? Because I'm worthless at those.

Anyhoo. Hauls. Saturday, I got a box in the mail featuring an Alternators Prime, which is pretty dope. Odd look they went with for the robot mode, though. Those shoulders. Anyhow, it's one of two Alternators molds I didn't have yet, and I got it for pretty cheap, so I thought I'd check it out. Now I just need to pick up a Prowl one of these days and I'll be set. Maybe a Tracks, too.

Also, fine, god damn it stupid friggin' Hasbro, I'll buy your stupid Prime Wheeljack. Wel, I dunno, I've gone back and forth on the thing, and decided to hell with it, I'll check it out. Really don't know why I want it, I've already got a perfectly good Wheeljack with the Generations variety. Two, really, if you're feeling charitable and inclined to count Cybertron Downshift as sort of a Wheeljack (he has the head, at least. That's something). But for whatever reason, I bought a Prime toy. I'm weak-willed.

[Onslaught Six]

I've never played a Mass Effect game. Is this something I should try out? It's not a first-person shooter type of thing, is it? Because I'm worthless at those.

It's not an FPS!

Well, you only have a PS3, don't you? So you miss out on the first game in the series, which was 360-exclusive. ME2, though, was released for PS3 last year (I think) after it'd been on the 360 for a year. ME2 is more actionny with less RPG elements than ME1 had; ME3 perfectly blends the two.

The big thing is that you can make your Shepard (the main character) in ME1 and carry on the same playthrough and character all the way to the end of ME3, and any choices you make throughout 'stay' that way. In ME1, you have to choose between letting one of two squadmates die. Once that character dies, they're dead all the way through ME3. They never come back. The last mission in ME2, if you don't do it right you can get some more squadmates killed. If that happens, they don't show up in ME3. They even have a memorial wall.

But as for gameplay--the large majority of the game is, honestly, going around and talking to people. You talk to this guy. He tells you he needs a thing, or needs you to go to this planet and shoot some dudes, or find some Unobtanium. Whatever. You can agree to it, or you can agree to it but be a dick about it. (I like that second option.) There's bits where someone is doing something and then you get the option to do what they call Interrupts--Paragon, or Renegade. Paragon are "good guy" things and Renegade are "bad guy" things. For example, there's this one reporter who keeps being all seedy and asking Shep accusatory questions. You can do an interrupt to punch her in the face. It's awesome.

Then...well, there's action bits. It's a third person shooter, not an FPS. There's a lot of classes with a lot of cool abilities--you can play a dude who can throw bad guys in the air 'with your mind!'--plus a good selection of weapons. The thing is, ME3 at least starts you off with the ability to switch to a mode where your shields basically never deplete and the enemies become fucking retarded, so it's super easy and you can just play through the game and enjoy the story. (This is what my girlfriend is doing.) Of course, I play on Normal mode and I'm not exactly awesome at video games, but I'm pretty decent, and I manage to shoot at dudes pretty easily. The problem with me comes when I get reckless and charge into dudes stupidly; don't do that and you won't die often.

I'd say download the Mass Effect 3 demo and play it. From playing the real game, I'd say it's a really good representation of ME3 as a whole. If you like the demo, you'll love the game.


Anyway. HAULS!

I bought some old ROTF and Yellowbox Basics from a dude. Skystalker was supposed to be in the lot. SKYSTALKER! You guys know how bad I've wanted Skystalker. He wasn't in the lot, due to some miscommunication (and apparently he'd been sold in the interim). But here's who was:
-Hubcap, Brimstone, Scalpel, Sonar, Reverb, Dune Runner

Then, comics! Some short reviews shall be posted in the comics thread.
-Whatever the recent issue of Venom was. It's part of Circle Of Four, whatever the hell that is. I gotta tell you, this does not encourage me to pick this up.
-TF RID and MTMTE #2. These are awesome so I won't bother reviewing them or anything.
-TMNT #7 and Donatello Microseries. Cool!
-GI Joe Classics vol 2. This is where Destro and Major Bludd and some other 83 characters start to turn up. Sadly, it's with the next volume that guys like Storm Shadow and Zartan and Duke and Roadblock show up.
-Animal Man #7.

[BWprowl]

Box from Amazon arrived today, with my Last Stand of the Wreckers hardcover, and possibly the most appropriate toy to order from Amazon: SH Figuarts Kamen Rider…Amazon. Having both Fourze and Amazon now means that there will be far too much friendship to be had. Amazon’s delightful, he’s my first Showa Rider Figuarts. He comes with everything you could possibly want for such a figure, including a Gigi’s Armlet that can be replaced with a version that has the other Armlet attached, separate belt pieces to recreate him detaching and using his *hilarious* grappling line/jump rope, at-rest and dynamic scarf pieces (attaches to a nicely posable ball joint), lots of hands, and a *huge* effects part for his right hand to recreate the murderous slashing of the DAISETSUZAAAAAAN!!!! And his mouth opens! He looks positively adorable doing so! His hips were insanely stiff out of the package, but a generous helping of shock oil helped free them up.

I need to buy some stands for my Figuarts, it sucks that only Fourze and the Cures have them currently.

I dig the LSotW hardcover, particularly that it matches up aesthetically with my treasured AHM HC (neither of them says ‘Transformers’ on the cover, by the way). These things are practically ‘Absolute’ versions of IDW stories. I wonder what other IDW comics could benefit from this treatment? A pity ‘Chaos Theory’ is only two issues long, I don’t know if they could stuff that with enough extra content to justify the format bump. Unfortunate, since you know I dig that story.