It seems that, due to a pretty serious bug found late on in development, Gunhound EX will have its release date moved to January 31st next year. Whilst delays can be somewhat irritating, this is only a month longer and the more bugs they fix the better. Personally, we don’t mind waiting as we loved the original PC game and we don’t want either Dracue or G.Rev rushing a release. Don’t forget you can still preorder both the standard version and limited edition, the latter comes with a soundtrack and small artbook.

Looks like Heero Yuy is the latest pilot in Gundam Extreme Versus Full Boost to have two units in the game. The TV version of Wing Gundam Zero is the next playable mobile suit to be unlocked in December as a 3000 cost unit.  The last time we saw a playable Wing Zero in the Gundam Versus series was in Gundam vs Gundam Next Plus.  It will be interesting to see what new tricks are added to Heero’s new suit considering Wing Zero Custom has taken some of its moves from the Next Plus iteration of Wing Zero.

New bosses such as Big Zam and a new form of Extreme Gundam and the Sanc Kingdom map will also be included in the game’s next update.

We’ve been meaning to post our impressions on Hawken since the NDA was lifted for the closed alpha and beta testers (of which we were one). As we’ve been quite busy, it took us a while to get around to this. Whilst we’ve had all manner of weird PR about the game trying to make out it isn’t a mecha game, the truth is that this is very much an old school hardcore mecha game (in the best possible sense). What follows are our impressions from playing the alpha and beta builds.

What with the release of 2nd Super Robot Wars OG next week, 4Gamer have a great piece featuring some of the more classic units in the game. From the mecha seen in the Masoukishin games to the mighty Raioh from Alpha 3 (shown above). Just seeing Raioh again in-game brings back so many fond memories. In addition, there’s a new 14 minute digest movie showing the game in action (linked below). More of a straight playthrough than a swanky trailer, you get to see the game as it is. Don’t forget you can still pre-order your copy here.

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Evangelion: 3.0 You Can (Not) Redo has broken Japanese 2012 box office records since being released last week on November 16. The third installment of the Rebuild of Evangelion has brought in $13.9 million in its opening two days, claiming the title of the biggest opening weekend in Japanese cinema this year. The title is expected to surpass the earnings of the other two titles with 1.0 earning $25 million in 2007, and 2.0 earning $50 million in 2009.

Evangelion 1.0 and 2.0 were previously featured in Super Robot Wars L. Perhaps we might get some of the newer units and storyline from 3.0 in a future Super Robot Wars sequel. Still no official word as to when 3.0 will be released in the West.

On the 26th November the increasingly awesome Gundam Extreme Versus Full Boost will have the RX-105 Xi Gundam added to its ranks (as a 3000 point weighted unit). This is a mobile suit piloted by Bright Noah’s son Hathaway in the series of novels called Hathaway’s Flash. The mecha designs were also penned by Moriki Yasuhiro, of Zeorymer fame, and were aesthetically quite distinctive. The Xi Gundam has been in a fair few games over the years but rarely in action orientated titles, the last time we got to play with the unit was in the rather good Gundam Battle Universe on PSP. So to have it directly playable again is something we’re pretty excited about. A short video of it action in Full Boost is shown below.

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It seems that we’ll be getting a PSN game archive release of Virtual On Marz next year. This was a pseudo-port of Force on the PS2 that had a rather broken singleplayer campaign. What’s interesting is that this will have support for HORI’s upcoming PS3 TwinStick peripheral. Now, we’ve played the game on a pair of modded Saturn sticks and it does indeed play a lot better, so to have something that offers the same thing in an official capacity is a good thing. Still no word of an Oratan or Force release on the PS3 but this is at least a step in the right direction.

In the December 2012 issue of Arcadia Magazine, listing its most recent top ten most popular arcade games, Gundam Extreme Versus Full Boost finds its way to the top of the list (with Under Night In-Birth and the new Guilty Gear arcade revision rounding out the top three). Amusement Journal also lists Full Boost as the highest earning small cabinet arcade game for the period of late August to early September 2012.

The Gundam Extreme Versus series is no stranger to steady popularity as the first iteration of Extreme Versus was arguably the most popular Japanese arcade game in 2011. Earlier in the year, the April edition of Arcadia Magazine listed Full Boost in second place behind Persona 4 U. With the RX-105 Xi Gundam from Hathaway’s Flash listed as the next unit unlock and still many more to follow (AMX-109 Kapool Corin Nander Custom from the intro for example), Full Boost looks to have a steady reign over the Japanese arcades until the end of the year. Here’s to hoping we hear of a console version soon.

We now know that Macross 30 will be getting a limited edition version. Priced at 11,800 yen, you will get all manner of pamphlets and other cruft. There is a mention of a DLC code for a special YF-29 (which may by the Roy Focker coloured variant we’ve seen toys of already). However, for the money this is pretty damn pricey especially considering that the Macross Do You Remember Love Hybrid BluRay boxset was similarly priced and gave a whole lot more. There’s still sadly no word on what the new variable fighter silhouette seen in the logo might be though.

4Gamer has an update on the forthcoming Macross 30. Whilst the screens are pretty much the same as what Famitsu revealed recently, albeit bigger and shinier, there are some other interesting aspects. Notable of which are that both Shoji Kawamori and Ukyo Kodachi are working on the game’s narrative. Whilst Kawamori is a pretty obvious person to have on board, it’s interesting that Kodachi is also present. For those unaware, he wrote not only the Macross Frontier novelisations but also Macross The Ride. The latter featured all manner of various variable fighters from across the Macross timeline, so it makes sense he’s doing something similar here. No news on an exact release date or price for the game but it is being touted as a “flight action RPG”, whatever that may mean.