The upcoming port of the classic MegaDrive shoot-em-up Assault Suit Leynos has had its release delayed until December this year, with a demo apparently available sometime in June. We’ve also been given some new game footage and this time in HD. To be honest, the game doesn’t look all that great but this is Dracue and they did the decent Gunhound games. We’re cautiously hopeful that this game will be good and hopefully the extended development time will help facilitate that.

So out of nowhere you can now buy the original PSone Armored Core on the US PSN store. Costing a very reasonable $5.99, it’s compatible with the PS3, PSP and Vita. Due to the way the Vita is setup you can also force the game to use dual analogue controls but we don’t recommend it. Simply because the camera isn’t at all set up to work with those controls and makes the game pretty much unplayable. That aside, this is a fantastic addition to PSN and we’re hoping that both Project Phantasma and Master of Arena will join the first game sometime soon. It would be nice to see the whole trilogy released on the European PSN too but that’s unlikely as the last two games never received a European version. As these games are already on the Japanese PSN we can vouch for them quite happily. Considering you can play this classic game on a modern HD display, as well as via a variety of portable devices, is pretty damn great. So definitely pick this up, as the game is still fun to play even today.

In welcome news, it seems we are to get AirMech Arena released on both PlayStation 4 and Xbox One sometime this spring courtesy of Ubisoft. This is an update to the already released game on Xbox 360, with the PC original still going strong. A fair few months back, the developers hooked us up with a VIP account on the PC version and we’ve been playing it solidly since. It’s a modern day take on Herzog Zwei and that’s nothing but a good thing. Even the freemium setup doesn’t really get in the way that much and that’s a rarity. The 360’s controls also worked great on a pad too, which was a surprise, so these new versions should be equally competent in that department too. In any case, it’s nice to see solid indie mecha game that harks back to classic gaming and does it with real flair and skill.

If you’re wondering what happened to Hawken, well Adhesive Games and their publisher Meteor sold the game in a bankruptcy sale to Reloaded Games. This is the same Reloaded Games that picked up APB after it tanked. So while there is a light at the end of the tunnel for Hawken, it definitely looks like a train in this case.

The real shame is that back in 2011, Hawken could have been something amazing. The final game was decent too but the freemium model utterly ruined it. If they had released the game as a singleplayer only XBLA or PSN game, like they planned to originally, then things would have likely turned out for the better. Shifting to a freemium setup with a customisable mecha game, where you paid for parts, was never going to end well.

So here’s to good mecha games ruined by capricious and short sighted publishers. Hopefully Hawken won’t die off quite yet but it could have been so much more.

Filling out the Gundam AGE roster slots this month in Gundam Extreme Versus Maxi Boost comes Gundam AGE-3. Piloted by Kio Asemu, the 2500 cost AGE-3 has the usual mode-shift gimmicks found in the show and can switch from Normal to either its Fortress or Orbital armor for tactical variety. As of now, it seems the Orbital version needs a little nerfing as its beam rifle has hilariously ridiculous tracking. But like anything, Bandai Namco have been very astute in attempting to balance the game on a consistent basis. With this addition, perhaps we will see either the AGE-2 Dark Hound or AGE-FX come in the near future! Until then, check out the release trailer for AGE-3 below.

A few years back, we heard that something might happen this year to commemorate Virtual On’s 20th Anniversary. Many thought it to mean a new game would be announced and that it would be revealed at this year’s JAEPO. Sadly, nothing surfaced. What with SEGA’s widely documented troubles as well as the ominous shutting down of the various official Virtual On websites, it looks like this might be the end for the hugely influential mecha gaming series. We may yet hear something Virtual On related this year but don’t hold your breath. While the arcade industry is buoyant in Japan, SEGA have seen better days.

Wonder Festival 2015 Winter has now come to end and it was a good one. Apart from the legion of amazing garage kit figures on show and on sale, the future commercial announcements were decent this time around. The mother of which being Fewture’s transformable EX Gohkin Garland (shown above) from the first Megazone 23. Now we’ve already been graced with toys of this from Yamato back in the day but they all had serious quality issues (the joints often shattered). This will be different though as most EX Gohkins use a lot of diecast and go through rigorous quality assurance. No word on a price or release date but we want this, really quite badly. Apart from the Garland, we had a lot of cool stuff on show from Sentinel and Megahouse. The former had the amazing Metamorforce Dancouga and also showed the prototype Black Wing too, so a Final Dancouga is an option again. The latter showed off the upcoming Orguss toy and it is utterly pristine and will be a definite purchase come its release in March. Arcadia also had a good Macross showing too this year.

If you want to check out some photos then feel free to go here, here, , here, here, here and here. We will also be doing an event report for Forbes in the next few days too, so keep an eye out for that.

In today’s Nintendo Direct, a new video was released for Xenoblade Chronicles X. Aside from confirming it will be released in 2015, the video showcased the scale and variety of the explorable world of Mira where you can traverse it either by foot or by mecha. It also provided a bit more background as to why they’ve crash landed on the foreign planet. Here’s to hoping we get much more new info regarding the types of mecha we can use in the game in future updates. Definitely check it out in video below to see it all in action.

Over at Joystiq they have an interview with Vince McMullin, a producer at Stompy Bot. If you remember, this was the studio that was making the new Heavy Gear Assault game for PC. Despite what they term as a crowdfunding “disaster”, though we think that’s a tad melodramatic in terms of analysis, it seems the game is still being made. So much so that we have some alpha build footage available (shown below).

Now this is using Unreal Engine 4 and I don’t want to be overly unkind, as this is an alpha build, but the game looks like total arse. Art fidelity aside, games like Project HON are clearly doing more functionally than this is. Even the already available Armored Core V and Verdict Day are more engaging than what this looks to be like.

We may be jumping the gun a bit but from what we’re seeing, it doesn’t look that great to play. Though we’ll reserve judgement until the game is finally released and hopefully by then they will have pushed the engine a bit more too.

Following on from the excellent Jigoku-hen released earlier this year, Bandai Namco announced Super Robot Wars Z 3 Tengoku-hen to be released on both PS3 and Vita next April. To accompany this announcement we’ve also been graced with a nice long promo video (shown below). In it we see new series like Gargantia and Gunbuster 2 are now included in the game’s roster but we are still blown away by how crazy nice the Zeta Gundam animations still are. Orguss is also back (as seen above) and that’s just great in and of itself really. The lack of Final Dancouga is somewhat saddening though.

In addition to the main game, for those that buy Tengoku-hen at launch they will also get a separate downloadable sidestory game called Rengoku-hen. This features characters from previous Super Robot Wars Z instalments over 15 unique missions. Most importantly of all, this won’t be available as a separate download at any point.