Following on from the Blue Destiny promo, we now have one for the Rise from the Ashes remake. Again this is using the new game engine and is not a functional remake of the original game. In addition the RGM-79SP GM Sniper II (shown above) is equipped with the wrong beam rifle (as the one in the original game was the P.B.R-0079/A12 S-000011 beam rifle, rather than the long range rifle shown above, though this has been a staple load-out in other games). The game is still on course for its May 29th release and you can pre-order the standard edition here.

Occasionally you get to see something wonderful in terms of gaming history. In this instance it’s an interview from the early 90’s with the team behind Assault Suits Valken that has been recently translated (made all the more brilliant by lovely scans of Satoshi Urushihara’s artwork for the game). Originally in a guidebook for the game, it covers all sorts of fascinating aspects about this classic game. If you have never played Valken, then avoid the dire PS2 port and instead avail yourself of the Virtual Console release. Thanks to GSK for the heads up.

Following on from Bandai’s toy, Kotobukiya have announced a Hanged Man kit from Armored Core V. Like the previous kits in the range, this is similarly gimmick ridden. There’s also an additional campaign where you can get the Moonlight and Another Moon laserblades. The kit is release this July for around 9,000 yen, though you can pre-order it here for less.

Gundam.info has released new information on the upcoming DLC units to hit Gundam Extreme Versus Full Boost on March 19th. The following units will be added to the roster: Zaku Zeta (1000 cost), Poe Aijee’s Sumo (2000 cost), and Andrew Waltfield’s Gaia Gundam (2000 cost). Like previous DLCs, these units are modified from existing versions already in game with slightly different attacks and EX Burst Attacks. At first glance, it looks like Poe’s Sumo appears to be a straight clone of Gold Sumo aside from less ammo, whereas Waltfield’s Gaia seems to have interesting changes versus Stella’s unit. Most of his attacks transform him into the dog mobile armor mode and has no manual transform and is more melee focused, whereas you’d have to manually switch into the MA form with Stella’s Gaia. How this will change gameplay is yet to be determined, but we’ll find out next week. I am glad to see Zaku Zeta show up in playable form as it has always cracked me up at its existence. Each unit will cost 400 yen each.

So in less than two years, the freemium Gundam Battle Operation has now reached 1 million downloads. Most of these gamers being middle aged guys apparently, which is actually different for other games and aspects of the Gundam franchise (as in Japan it’s about a 50/50 split between men and women). That aside, we’ve played this again since we got back to Japan and it does play better, as the crazy amazing net connections here mean you don’t suffer from lag or the horrible framerate issues I saw when I played it in the UK. It’s still pretty awful though. Anyway, a million downloads. Wooo!

If you remember those nice people at Dracue, of Gunhound fame, well they are taking the next step by releasing a port of the classic Assault Suit Leynos on PS4. Announced at this year’s BitSummit, this new port will pool on the talents of Toru Yoshida (of VOTOMS fame) and Hyakutaro Tsukumo, who also co-composed the score for Gunhound. This doesn’t look like a simple update to Leynos either, but a full blown functional reboot in the style of Gunhound. Whilst we’re not too happy about that, Gunhound was good and Dracue gets the material they’re riffing off. We can only hope they’ll move onto Valken at some point too. The trailer for the new port is shown below.

For those that have been a reader on this site for a while, you’ll remember we talked about Gigantic Army a good while back. Well, due to Nyu Media we now have the game on Steam. Thankfully the developer Astro Port are still involved and it seems to be more of a new means of distributing the game rather than anything else untoward. In any case the game only costs $5.99, so what the hell are you waiting for? Buy this now it’s just fucking great!

Over at 4Gamer we have a new update on the forthcoming Gundam Side Stories collection of games. First though, let’s talk about the above screenshot. As it basically shows the Blue Destiny GM kicking the Efreet Kai, now this is not something that really happened in the original games and is another instance where it seems the “remake” is deviating from the host material. We only hope that the other games in the collection are more faithful functionally speaking. That aside, in addition to the main games there will also be a VR mission mode that allows you to build a custom team of mobile suits. This gives credence to our theory that the games would crossover in terms of units somehow. It also harks back to the Tactics Battle mode we saw in Journey to Jaburo (which was pretty much the best part of the game and in turn created the setup seen in Lost War Chronicles, which is also getting remade in this collection). Bar that we also now have some nice shots of the RX-80 Pale Rider, the unique mobile suit that has been introduced for the game. The game is still on course for its May 29th release and you can pre-order the standard edition here.

Gundam Extreme Versus Maxi Boost has been released in Japanese arcades today. 4gamer has provided a summary of the 14 newly added suits to the third iteration of the Extreme Versus franchise. The units added are Gundam AGE-1, Char’s Zaku II, Gundam (G Mecha), Puru’s Quebeley Mk-II, Perfect Strike Gundam, Gundam Avalanche Exia, Brave Commander Test Type, Gundam Extreme type-II Leos Valiant, ZZ Gundam, Legend Gundam, Hyperion Gundam, Astray Red Frame Kai, Penelope, and Gundam AGE-2. This of course will probably not be the last of the additions as 00 Gundam Seven Sword was teased in the intro as well, on top of promo pics of Shining Gundam and Full Armor Unicorn Gundam. We will update you on new suits as they are confirmed.

Namco Bandai have released a new promotional video for the upcoming Gundam Extreme Versus Maxi Boost arcade game, due out on March 6, 2014 in Japan. The video showcases several new additions to the Maxi Boost roster such as Penelope Gundam, Hyperion Gundam, Gundam AGE-1, AGE-2, Gundam Astray Red Frame Kai, and Brave Commander Type. Other neat changes include God Gundam properly riding Fuunsaiki akin to the Mobile Armor modes of other units in the game. They also show off the EX Overdrive gameplay system which activates after certain conditions are met. The F-Drive boosts your melee prowess allowing you to guard break opponents and the S-Drive allows you to practically continuously fire off all your ranged attacks without having to worry about boost dash canceling. Make sure you check out the video below and see all the aforementioned changes to the latest sequel in the Extreme Versus series!