The somewhat under-appreciated Wave have finally previewed their upcoming 1/72 scale MBR-04-MkVI Tomahawk destroid kit from the original Macross. Despite Yamato already releasing a toy of this design, kit connoisseurs rightfully revere the workmanship of Wave. After all, they’ve been making Five Star Stories kits for years and those mecha designs are some of the most intricate and complex ever conceived.

However, the Tomahawk’s past is a chequered one in the annals of mecha gaming. Specifically, it was re-purposed in BattleTech to form the obviously derivative Warhammer (even the official BattleTech artwork inadvertently retained the UN Spacy logo). It wasn’t long until FASA were sued, as the Tomahawk was but one of a plethora of designs lifted from various notable anime series of the time. That said, the recent MechWarrior reboot also fell foul of this plagiarism as it re-used the Warhammer in its teaser trailer, kicking off a whole new legal mess in the proceedings.

The sad aspect about all this is that the legal steps being taken aren’t meant to recompense the original Japanese team who penned the designs, but instead the Western company that distributed them. In any case, this kit is released in June for 6,800 yen and you can pre-order it here.

The insatiably iconic White Glint from Armored Core For Answer is getting yet another kit from Kotobukiya. In the form of a new “D-style” super deformed version to be exact. This also marks the first time any Armored Core designs have been rendered in kit form like this. The kit will be available in June for 2100 yen and it stands at a proud 10.5 cm in height. What this kit does potentially suggest, due to its new proportions, is that having AC’s featured in Super Robot Wars isn’t beyond the realms of possibility.

Over at GA Graphic there is a lovely preview of the upcoming 1/72 scale TYPE-LAHIRE Stasis kit. Despite the somewhat erroneous header that states that this is a Ray Leonard frame, it’s actually made by Omer in the games (though it was meant to combat the high speed nature of Ray Leonard’s Aaliyah frame). The Stasis was exclusively featured in the recent Armored Core For Answer and was quite a nimble opponent. The design was also one of the few that wasn’t penned by a guest illustrator, but instead created in-house. This kit ships in April for 5,200 yen and you can pre-order it here.

Despite already being premièred in Hong Kong, Gundam Unicorn is still yet to receive its public release. Whilst the Blu-Ray and DVD versions are scheduled for release on March 12th, PS3 and PSP owners will be able to download the first episode on February 20th. To show their intent, a lovely HD trailer has been released via the PSN (shown below). Every single trailer trailer thus far just keeps on reaffirming our expectation that Gundam Unicorn will be a wonderfully special entry into the Universal Century timeline.

The titular mobile suit from the novels and the forthcoming anime, designed by the brilliantly bespectacled Hajime Katoki, was also featured in the recent PSP port of Gundam vs Gundam Next (a game we loved when we reviewed it and which you can buy here).

Update: The first 7 minutes of the opening episode have also been released online, we’ve linked that below as well.

I honestly cannot think of another big robot franchise that has been as maligned, from top to bottom, as the Transformers. Despite how enormously popular and influential the toys and the cartoons were, primarily in the America, it’s legacy is practically non-existent for a number for reason, though the constant reboots, which has gotten progressively worse as the years have gone by, is near the top of that list. To the point that many old school Transformers fans resemble old school Star Wars fans; most have been forced to walk away, due to the disappointments and frustrations. BTW, if anyone feels different, please speak up! Anyhow, it’s at least comforting to know that some folks out there still crave the original designs, with the latest example stemming from last weekend’s Wonfes. What you see above is a quite excellent looking Metroplex garage kit that made a very low-key appearance over at Tomopop.

The upcoming Front Mission Evolved is powering up for a PR overdrive, as its release is imminent. To the extent that Double Helix’s studio head, Patrick Gilmore, has been interviewed over at Gamasutra. Gilmore is the head of the studio and not at the coal face so to speak but the corollary that he asserts regarding the supposed organic development of cinematic approaches in games is a tad spurious. As one of the main elements of his view is that the development tools themselves facilitate a natural cinematic evolution in terms of a game’s creation.

Spurious in the sense that it makes a lot of assumptions as to how games are made and that this progression is somehow insidiously natural, when really it’s an enormous amount of hard work on account of the people that have to make the game. After all, an improved toolset and pipeline often only help make the already existing set of tasks easier. They don’t necessarily make them miraculously cinematic.

Thankfully, the development team have produced a foil to this rather detached viewpoint in the form of a very interesting set of development diaries. Especially fascinating in their citing of the studio, Imaginary Friends, in relation to the game’s mecha design. Admittedly, we’re still somewhat cautious about Front Mission Evolved (as the gameplay videos were pretty underwhelming not to mention our hands on report being rather scathing) but there may be hope yet. As for a release date, Square Enix are still being cagey about that one but it’s supposedly scheduled for “Q2” this year, so we’ll know more soon with any luck.

The official Armored Core 5 site has been updated with a trailer for the game. The more observant of you will notice that this trailer was already shown when the game was announced a few weeks ago. However, this version lacks the shaky hand cam issues and as such you can see the new Over Weapon transformation a lot more clearly. In any case, no word on a release date as yet but it will be gracing both the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 upon its inevitable release. You may also want to keep an eye on From Software’s YouTube Channel too, if you’re already Armored Core inclined.

A landscape gardener in Taiwan has built a large statue of Optimus Prime in his backyard. Apart from holding up the washing, the design used is the one from the recent Michael Bay films. Now this version of Optimus does make our eyes bleed but the statue has been somewhat restrained in its use of scrap metal. It’s not the horrifically busy nonsense you see in the films but actually something decently mechanical.

There are games for these films obviously but you’d best stay clear really, as none of them are very good (though oddly for entirely different reasons). We’re still holding out for the High Moon developed War for Cybertron to be at least moderately decent, but the Transformers franchise generally has a pretty bad track record when it comes to games.

Our personal favourite home built mecha is still this rendition of Kazumi Fujita’s Hyper Zeta Gundam though, mostly because it has an actual cockpit and can walk.

We mentioned the PS3 version of Thexder Neo not that long ago but today it’s been finally released across the world via the PlayStation Network store. Now, we really quite enjoyed the PSP version but the remake was somewhat misunderstood by much of the Western gaming press – as they most probably had no recollection of the original games. The PS3 version is basically the same as the PSP game though (bar being much prettier), so I doubt they’re going to be won over but at least Square Enix have bundled the original NEC PC-8801 version along with the shinier remake to at least clarify matters. In any case, if you have a PS3 then go buy Thexder Neo (unless you are one of those people that’s dead inside and/or has flippers for hands).

We mentioned a while back about Lost Planet 2 model kits being scheduled for release along with the game, it turns out that these have become action figures instead. Now, it’s worth clarifying that Kotobukiya are excellent model kit makers but when it comes to toys they’re not overly brilliant. This is because toy development and manufacture is a lot more expensive than kits. So when you look at the pictures of the new PTX-140R Hardballer you can see that its feet don’t sit flat to the ground, this is down to reduced articulation as joints are expensive to engineer for bigger toys (especially at the collector end of the spectrum). Thankfully the GTF-11 Drio won’t suffer from this issue so much as the design is more straightforward. These new toys will be available in May for 4,200 yen each and are apparently set at 1/35 scale.

There will also be limited edition colour variants of these two toys at release in Japan, though whether these will also be available abroad remains to be seen. You can pre-order both toys here and here (at a reduced price of 3,800 yen no less).