Courtesy of our good friends at HobbyLink Japan, we’ve been sent a toy from Victory Gundam to review. Specifically, the Robot Damashii V2 Assault Buster Gundam. In addition, to give the toy some context, we’ve also linked some anime and gameplay footage of it in action in Gundam vs Gundam Next Plus at the end of the review.

Made by a nice chap called gevurah22, it features Char Aznable’s iconic red MS-06S Zaku II along with the English version of Char’s theme tune Char ga Kuru (or “Here comes Char”), which does hurt the ears somewhat. All within the cute confines of Little Big Planet no less. It even features some of the Blue Destiny mobile suits. Anyway, the video of it in action is linked below.

Despite the lovely Armored Core 5 artwork displayed in AC Chronicle Art Works there are also two interviews within the small book. One with series producer Toshifumi Nabeshima and another with two designers; Miki Masahiro and Satake Daisuke.

Nabeshima talks more about AC5’s change in functional approach, emphasising that the game will be more about tactics and using the geography of level rather than high-speed finger work. This harks back more to the original PSone games, especially the first, as many levels were set within city type environments and were more tactical as a consequence (the reduced size of the AC’s is also to do with this too apparently, as it would make it far easier to take cover). The other interesting element is that apparently you won’t just view your AC from behind and that you will have some form of camera control. Apart from that, the approach they’re taking is one of coarse realism and that you’ll have to “think” more in combat. The narrative will mirror this too apparently, as the characterisation won’t be simply friend or foe but instead more grounded and realistic. Again, like the older games, they’ve opted to keep the characters “faceless” so much of this will be inferred through dialogue and in-game text. This doesn’t really bode well for a Western release, as this kind of narrative has never been localised properly in terms of the series’ history.

As for the two designers, Masahiro worked on Chrome Hounds and is helming the main mechanical design of AC5 (as we suspected, as he is an internal designer). Whereas Satake is assisting him and comes from working on both Nexus and Ninebreaker (interestingly he designed the Mayfly head that adorns the new Nineball on the cover of Ninebreaker), they both also recently worked on Demon’s Souls. Over the years they’ve penned multiple designs for the Armored Core games as well, which helps to explain why Shoji Kawamori’s involvement was scaled back after Silent Line and why parts began to look more angular. They also talk a fair bit about how the realism in AC5 is dictating the design of the respective parts, citing a new revolver hand gun and vertical missile launcher. In any case, having a mecha desginer from Chrome Hounds and his assistant who contributed to Metal Wolf Chaos can only bode well for AC5, as those designs were truly exemplary and fit the new realistically grounded approach that seems to be the new direction for Armored Core as a whole.

A bunch of new screenshots for Front Mission Evolved have been going the rounds, coupled with the semi-updated dev diaries we clearly have a PR campaign in its latter stages on our hands. Admittedly, there are still no actual release dates as yet but with box shots getting previewed it’s obvious we have a release fairly imminent. Naturally, we’ll be the reviewing the game once its out – so keep an eye out for that. In any case, we’ve linked the other screenshots below and whilst they show the game has come along a fair bit, they still don’t look that amazing really. Anyway, see what you think.

We meant to cover this earlier but over at the Raven Republic they have a very nice selection of shots from the AC Chronicle Art Works booklet that was packaged with Last Raven Portable in Japan. Within it are some early design sketches for the mecha we saw in the trailer. It’s interesting seeing this on a few counts, mostly because it looks as though the design-work has been handled internally (rather than by a named designer, such as Shoji Kawamori as per the original games) and it definitely shows the gritty aesthetic shift back to the series’ roots. Whoever is penning the base artwork for the game is clearly very talented but with a series like Armored Core that’s to be expected really.

Last Raven Portable also received its English trailer recently, via From Software’s YouTube channel. So it shows that a Western PSN release should be relatively soon.

Update: Raven Republic have found a full gallery of scans from AC Chronicle Art Works over at Armored Core Universe.

A new trailer for the upcoming Lost Planet 2 was release a few days ago, so if you missed it we’ve linked it below. The wonderful vital suits are shown but in a somewhat limited capacity unfortunately, normally on account of the showboating giant Akrid. That aside, like the demo confirms, this could be just bloody amazing. The game is released on May 18th and don’t forget to pre-order either the 360 and PS3 versions!

Irem, the company mostly known for the long-lived horizontal shooter series R-Type, showed off a trailer for Bumpy Trot 2, a sequel to the game known in the US as Steambot Chronicles, all the way back at Tokyo Games Show 2006. Since TGS 2007, when they showed off a new trailer to coincide with the announcement to move the game to the PlayStation 3, there has been next to no information about the game’s release, and no new data has been added to the official website, which remains as just a basic splash page.

The original Steambot Chronicles was perhaps the most ambitious mecha game ever produced, being a kind of mecha-oriented Shenmue, an open-world mecha game where the player’s options included not just fighting in arena battles and against bosses, but also allowed the player to trade resources, play the stock market, explore ancient dungeons to find artefacts for a museum, play in a band, and talk to the many townspeople and learn their stories. While a true sequel to such a game would take a while because of such depth, especially for a company as small as Irem, we’d expect to hear at least something about the game’s development, especially from Irem, whose website tends to be updated in a timely manner (and whose April’s Fool joke always seems to impress). So was the game quietly cancelled?

Perhaps not. A fan of the game got tired of waiting and just straight up and asked Irem directly, with a vague answer given back that the game was still in development. Perhaps Steambot Chronicles 2 might be the mecha games version of Duke Nukem Forever, but at least there’s still hope of the game coming out.

While we have never received a true sequel, a PSP Bumpy Trot game was localized by Atlus as Steambot Chronicles: Battle Tournament, but that game was a mere shade of the PlayStation 2 original, and I, like a number of other fans, prefer to forget the game existed entirely.

Over at Moeyo (link somewhat NSFW) there’s a suitably cute preview of Kotobukiya’s upcoming D-Style White Glint from Armored Core For Answer. It turns out that, like it’s bigger Variable Infinity cousins, the D-Style variant will also be customisable (once other designs make the transition obviously). The eye detailing will also be accurate as per the original seen in the game as well. This little chap is currently being displayed in the Kotobukiya Direct store in Akihabara.

A new trailer for the upcoming Transformers: War for Cybertron has been released today, apparently it’s a “gameplay” trailer too. Whilst it’s clear that the footage is in-game it’s obvious that much of it is of the cutscenes rather than actual gameplay. Admittedly, the team have dispelled the rumour that the game is similar to Gears of War, the new trailer still doesn’t actually show much of what the final game will play like – which is a little worrying considering the game is out in May. Graphically it looks suitably lush but visuals aren’t normally the stumbling block for the various Transformers games (as Melbourne House’s effort was very pretty, if you stood still at least). Whether War for Cybertron will play decently very much remains to be seen, as the Transformers saga as whole has a very poor record in the gaming department.

Capcom have announced that the upcoming May release for Lost Planet 2 will also have DLC for both platforms. Entitled “Battle Stage Pack 1” the multiplayer DLC will feature two levels called “Return Island” and “Spiral Corridor”. The latter is especially interesting as it appears to be set underwater. The PlayStation 3 will also be receiving a demo on the 1st March, that allows up to to four human players to get involved. Whether this is the same as the 360 demo from a while back remains to be seen, but it is likely.