News: ACE R OG Screenshots
Posted on : 25-06-2010 | By : Cacophanus | In : News
Hardware: PlayStation 3
4
Over at Gpara and Game Watch, they’ve covered the recent announcement regarding the new OG (or “original generation”) mecha to feature in the upcoming Another Century’s Episode R. In addition, there are a slew of new screenshots for a lot of the licensed mecha – with the Macross Zero and Frontier shots looking jaw-droppingly amazing. What’s interesting thus far is how conspicuously absent the Nu Gundam has been. Considering that this is the only unit from the epic Char’s Counterattack to be featured in ACE R it seems odd that no press materials have covered this iconic design. The eternal optimist in me hopes that this is due to the fact that the game won’t just feature a single Nu Gundam but also all its multitudinous variants. In short, we’d be ecstatic at the chance of having the Hi-Nu Gundam featured in the game.
It seems like the anti-U.N. forces from Macross Zero are playable, which I honestly didn’t expect. That’s a really neat addition.
As far as the Nu Gundam goes, I have to say that I prefer the Nu Gundam’s original design to the Hi-Nu’s. It’s really the way they each carry the Fin Funnels–I like the distinctive silhouette the Nu Gundam’s sequential funnel storage gives it over the angelic wing appearance of the Hi Nu. Amuro Ray in an angelic mecha doesn’t feel right to me–he’s an engineering nerd, not a visual arts nerd.
That’s not to say angel wings don’t look badass sometimes–Armored Core has a few good examples–but it seems a poor fit for the fairly practical Amuro Ray.
Well, the original Nu was unfinished so the funnel arrangement wasn’t intentional. At least with the Hi-Nu each funnel could be deployed in any order, as well as have the funnels return (something the original Nu couldn’t and which was nicely present, in a functional sense, in the the first ACE game). The Hi-Nu design was eminently practical in that sense. Personally, I prefer the beefier but somehow sleeker armor over the “wings” though.
Is the Hi-Nu Gundam definitely what the Nu Gundam would have been, had it been finished rather than rushed into production? I’ve always been bothered by the Fin Funnels supposedly having their own generators (making them more like bits rather than funnels) but the Fin Funnels still have a need to return to either “recharge” or at least refuel. Basically, I always wondered if the Nu Gundam’s configuration was originally intended to be able to refuel the funnels, or if the Fin Funnels and the Nu Gundam were entirely separate constructs at that point in development, with whatever system that would refuel the funnels not complete, and thus they were just kind of “bolted on” in time for the fight against Neo Zeon.
I remember seeing a thread on MAHQ’s boards about this topic, but nothing really came of it other than a few pages of arguing and people digging up contrary information from various published books and model kit pamphlets.
Yeah, the original Nu (in the film) is unfinished. The Hi-Nu is what the suit was meant to be if they hadn’t rushed its development. I’m not sure on the funnels being individually powered but the Hi-Nu did facilitate individual re-docking, something the original Nu’s configuration couldn’t allow.