Kits: Myzr Fair Bianca Announced
Hasegawa have announced the first of possibly three new Myzr kits from Virtual On Marz. Specifically that of the YZR-8004 Myzr Delta IV Type R "Fair Bianca" as piloted...
Videos: Gundam Battle Operation Ground Combat Trailer
Gundam Battle Operation has received a new ground combat trailer. Showing off the human sized combat, the trailer doesn't exactly help to assuage our fears. Whilst it's...
Kits: LED Mirage V3 Release Details
One of our most anticipated kits is that of Volks' upcoming IMS LED Mirage V3 from the wondrous Five Star Stories. Now we know that not only will it be released early...
Videos: Gundam Extreme Versus Full Boost Second Promo
A nice new promo for Gundam Extreme Versus Full Boost has been uploaded by those nice people at Namco Bandai. At over 6 minutes it features a variety of new mobile suits...
News: Mobile Suit Gundam Online Second Alpha Test Report
The recent alpha test for Mobile Suit Gundam Online has been given a full on report, coupled with a pretty interesting in-game video. In short, the game plays like a standard...
From the incomparable gevurah22, creator of manyother LittleBigPlanet mecha creations, has outdone himself yet again with a LittleBigPlanet 2 stage entitled The Gundam Wing Project: Survival Training. The video below shows the Wing Gundam unbelievably well-animated for something put together in a game’s somewhat simplistic editor, and the author is continuing to add content to the stage, including a boss fight against the Wing Gundam’s nemesis, the Tallgeese. The Tallgeese might have a silly name and a silly red hat, but those backpack verniers will make any Gundam come down with a case of thruster envy.
Over at Amazon.co.jp the boxart (and prices!) of both console versions, PS3 and 360, for Armored Core V have finally been displayed. Like the Japanese 360 boxart for Armored Core 4, the latest game isn’t afraid to show how brown our dystopian future will be. That said, we still like it a lot and it’s nicely stylised (despite the colour palette). The subdued approach to showing the mecha in silhouette is also a nice touch and refreshingly subtle. Hopefully, the Western release won’t end up like this eyesore did though.
Separately, the second extended live stream happened and like the first has some pretty excitable presenters. Oh well. Craziness aside, the game is looking even more bloody amazing and the tank legs look awesomely beefy.
Battle Armor Division, a mecha action sidescroller, has been released by developer Crian Soft. As we’ve noted before, Battle Armor Division’s gameplay runs in a similar vein to the classic Assault Suits series, which inspired other recent efforts at recreating the Assaults Suit magic such as Gunhound and Gigantic Army. It’s always a pleasure to see a Western-developed mecha game (European, no less) that’s not afraid to combine elements of both Japanese mecha anime and Western military science fiction, especially when it leads to gritty Real Robot conflicts filling the screen with explosions.
On the official site you can find a demo, and the full game is available via digital distribution for 8.90 Euros (around $12.50). Along with the game, a new trailer has been released, asking: “can you survive at the war in 26° century?” Ah, it just wouldn’t feel like a mecha game without a slightly awkward localization.
Good news: it seems that English speakers are getting an actual Gundam game localized overseas, even if it’s decidedly the least ‘mecha’ of the Gundam games, Dynasty Warriors Gundam 3. The US site gives the release date as June 28th 2011, and Europe gets it a few days later, on July 1st 2011.
Needless to say, fans of pressing the X and Y buttons for hours on end will be chomping at the bit to play this, but despite the repetitive gameplay of the first two games I also have to admit that I have 200 hours of play time split between them. The third installment doesn’t seem to change the formula so it’s hard to recommend it, but the Dynasty Warriors series is as long-lived as it is for a reason; sometimes you don’t need the depth of Armored Core, but just want to hammer away at 1,000 Zakus for fifteen minutes, or play something split-screen with a friend without them needing a half-hour tutorial. And, unfortunately, mecha fans don’t exactly have much to pick from in terms of Gundam games in English, and being able to take part in the epic finale to Zeta Gundam is often worth suffering through occasionally mindless gameplay.
The English trailer shows off the new cel-shaded graphics, and seeing the Turn A Gundam again–now accompanied by the absolutely godlike Kapools–does my metallic robot heart some good.
The latest live stream footage for Armored Core V, from the first of two extended sessions, is now archived (we’ve linked it below). For those that found the first session a bit hysterical, then you’ll be happy to hear that this session is much more grounded. Mostly because it is handled by the people at From Software themselves excluding the somewhat unnecessary “tarento” that were present in the first session, with Toshifumi Nabeshima (effectively the father of Armored Core) in the driving seat for most of the time. With each passing day, the more we learn and see of Armored Core V in action the more we feel compelled to build a time machine and zip forward to the game’s October release.
Similar to a post we made back in 2009, GameSetWatch have found another industrious individual has taken the epic Steel Battalion controller and used it for DJ-ing purposes. Called the “Zero System”, no doubt a nod to Gundam Wing, The Asterite as he’s known also has two additional joysticks to help him mix. Again, we always find this re-purposing of gaming hardware pretty nifty and we’re always happy to see more use made out of the brilliant Steel Battalion controller.
The much anticipated live demo for Armored Core V has been and gone. Thankfully From Software archived the 2 hours plus of footage (shown below). The highlights, for us anyway, were the all new scan and combat modes for the HUD (with scan mode shown above) as well as the fact that the combat looked utterly bloody amazing. For those concerned that ACV would be slower than the last two games, don’t worry. Whilst it looks more manageable now, you’ll be boosting all over the place in what can only be described as ecstatic abandon. In short, October cannot come soon enough for us.
Out of the ashes from the team that brought you the Warhawk reboot, comes an all new game in the same vein. Entitled Starhawk, the game is fundamentally similar to Warhawk but with two major changes; an RTS element and a bipedal mecha mode for the jets. Considering that the hover mode in Warhawk was a semi-mecha themed mode anyway, this sounds like a good fit. Unfortunately, the mecha are entirely groundbased and look a tad clunky (no boosting basically). We’re obviously hoping it won’t turn out like the dreadful Bayformer cash ins but we wish the team luck.
It finally seems that Solatorobo will be given a Western release. Though weirdly it appears to be only in Europe at present, specifically for July 1st. In addition, Nintendo are handling the European release rather than Namco Bandai, who published the game in Japan. From what we played at last year’s TGS, the game was really interesting. We’re just glad it’s finally getting localised. The official English trailer is shown below.
The rather brilliant and much anticipated Bangai-O HD: Missile Fury has hit XBLA today. For only 800 MSP you can spew missiles at teeny enemies to your hearts content. This new game also sports online co-op, which is a pretty cool addition really. In any case, we’re just glad the game is finally out as we loved it at last year’s TGS. Again, if you’re at all curious about the Bangai-O games then make sure to check out our feature on the very subject.
