In the mad rush towards the end of last year, we neglected to mention that the excellent Carnage Heart EXA had been picked up by Natsume for a digital release in the West via PSN. No details on when this will happen (except “early 2013″) or how much it will cost but this is still resoundingly good news. Especially as EXA was received very well in Japan when it was released back in 2010 and it’s just nice to see Artdink’s classic mecha series still trundling on.

Famitsu has a piece on the forthcoming Gundam Breaker game. Explaining how you can kitbash mobile suits together, as killing enemies drops their model parts which you can then use later. Despite showing all manner of in-game shots, we also get to see some of the arenas now too. The interesting omission in all of this is the fact that the Vita version is no longer mentioned, leaving only the PS3 game. However, the official site still lists both platforms. In any case, we still have no word one when this will be released (bar sometime this year) nor how much it will cost. That aside, the game has an interesting premise and we’re definitely curious about it still.

Looks like the recent 1.02 patch for the PS3 version of Gundam Extreme Versus has a bit more to offer. GN-007+GNR-101A Archer Arios from Gundam 00 and GAT-X105E+AQM/E-X09S Strike Noir Gundam from Gundam Seed Stargazer have been announced as the fifth DLC pack to be released on January 10th for 500 yen each. Archer Arios will be a 1000 cost unit while Strike Noir will be a 2500 cost unit, just like its Gundam Extreme Versus Full Boost iteration. Archer Arios was recently revealed as a new suit to come to Full Boost a few weeks ago, so it is nice to see it coming to the home version. It was a little disappointing to see Arios not be as agile as its anime iteration, but it still looks well rounded with Archer never far behind. As for Strike Noir, players have been clamoring for it to be DLC since it Full Boost was first announced. It will definitely be a welcome addition to the already diverse cast of mobile suits with its acrobatic manoeuvres.

Also, if you purchase these suits before February 10th, you’ll get a pack of energy capsules for Mobile Suit Gundam: Battle Operation. Make sure to check out the DLC video announcement below!

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Over at Famitsu we have a bunch of new things revealed for the upcoming Macross 30. From in-game shots of the YF-30 in all three modes (shown above) that make it look more like a fighter-bomber with a dedicated missile pod array, to all manner of detail on the Sub-Quests. These are the open world missions you can undertake, which range from item collection to killing lots of things dead. If we’re honest, these don’t sound overly interesting. What does sound interesting though are the controls, which will have two modes; the classic PSP setup and a new one that allows for more precise aiming. To the extent it almost sounds like they have a dual analogue control setup for battroid mode. This might explain the slower gameplay, as manual look based combat definitely has an upper threshold of game speed before it just becomes impossible. Games like Armored Core get around this by having a weapon lock-on that helps with doing the finer enemy tracking for you. Following on from that there will also be an option to have your difficulty automatically adjusted to how you play, though you can still pick the fixed difficulties too thankfully. There’s also some stuff about the limited edition variable fighter skins, though these look utterly dire so the less said about them the better.

For those that saw the reveal of the Hatsune Mike Fei-Yen in the upcoming Super Robot Wars UX announcement and thought this was done without the consent of the team behind Virtual On, then you were very wrong. So wrong in fact that Juro Watari, the father of Virtual On, openly welcomed Miku and even wrote her lines to be used in UX (apparently she’ll sing too). Personally, we think this is a resoundingly good thing and half hope that the next proper Virtual On game gets the Miku treatment too. In addition, there’s a new advert for the game (shown below). Don’t forget the game will be released on March 14th and you can pre-order it here, though you’ll need a Japanese 3DS to play the game as all 3DS games are region locked (thanks a fucking bunch Nintendo for that one!).

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The XXXG-00W0 Wing Gundam Zero will be officially released on December 18 in Gundam Extreme Versus Full Boost arcade machines all over Japan.  Last seen in Gundam VS Gundam Next Plus, Heero Yuy gets his second mobile suit with a unit cost of 3000. In order to differentiate it from its XXXG-00W0 Wing Zero Custom variant, Wing Zero appears to be more versatile in both close and long range combat. It also utilizes the Zero System which cuts enemy tracking during while activated.  From first glance, this unit looks to be a great addition to the already diverse cast of Full Boost. Here’s to hoping we might see its inclusion as DLC for the PS3 version of Gundam Extreme Versus in the near future. Check out the Wing Zero in action below!

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We’ve somewhat held off talking about Chikyuu Boueigun 4 (aka EDF4) for a while now but this news seemed worthy. Considering that this game series was birthed from Sandlot’s nerdy love of classic mecha anime and the tech it produced during the PS2 era, the mecha lineage is a notable one. So when they added mecha to the third game we were pretty excited. However, it wasn’t very useful in-game if we’re honest. This new mecha looks more the part though, almost out of VOTOMS with a nice Shinji Aramaki twist from MADOX-01. Anyway, we’ll be buying this when it’s finally released next year and it should be better than the dire Insect Armageddon as Sandlot are working on this again (yay!).

A new patch and DLC for Gundam Extreme Versus has gone live today. As we previously mentioned, this DLC includes the RX-105 Xi Gundam and RX-78GP03S Gundam Dendrobium priced at 500 yen a piece. The patch is also a pretty sizeable one, at 244 MB, and it lacks new Trial Missions too. That aside, the new units are pretty awesome (especially the Xi). In addition, the game itself is now available at a drastically reduced price as part of a Best re-release. You can buy that version here.

The brand new Super Robot Wars UX has been announced for release next year on the 3DS. This will be the first Super Robot Wars game to grace the system and it has a pretty interesting roster of series in it. From the return of Dunbine, which we’re very happy about, we’ll also be getting Wings of Rean too. The last time this series was featured was during the last two Another Century’s Episode games on the PS2. We love the anime dearly, as well as the novels that semi-birthed it. So to have these wonderful and unique aura battlers in a new game is just great. Following on from that we also have Mazinkaiser SKL and Heroman included, along with the Hatsune Miku Fei-Yen. The latter being interesting as she’s not really part of the Virtual On canon (yet). There is also an official PV (shown below) that’s been released. On the latter, it’s clear that the game is still using the engine, sprites and many of the animations from the GBA and DS era. This is a big shame, as the recent PSP games looked amazing and the 3DS is a more powerful system (so would be able to handle the same thing with relative ease). That aside, the game will also feature DLC, full voice over audio and receive its own special limited edition 3DS LL. The game will be released March 14th next year and cost 7,140 yen.

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The much anticipated open beta for Hawken starts today. We’ve been playing the game since the closed test phases and it’s truly an impressive and fun mecha game. So there’s no excuse whatsoever to not check this game out, especially if you regard yourself as a discerning mecha gaming connoisseur. Make sure you have an account set-up for when the game goes live to the public later today. The new trailer below is a fair representation of what the game looks like when running, minus the dubstep and slow motion stuff obviously.

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