As part of a summer campaign for Senjou no Kizuna, to tie in with the game’s recent Ver 2.17 update, players will be able to win new mobiles suits to play with. The four mobile suits in questions are the RX-78-6 Mudrock Gundam, the MSM-10 Zock, the RGM-79L GM Light Armor and the EMS-10 Zudah. In order to unlock each suit, the player needs to either win a match as either Federation or Zeon, for the Mudrock and Zock respectively, or lose with either side to get the weaker GM Light and Zudah. On a separate note, seeing the Mudrock in action since the excellent Zeonic Front is very welcome indeed. This “summer battle” campaign will only be in arcades for a short while though, starting on August 12th to the 25th. However, the camapign will also be extended in September as well. If you want to see the new suits in action, there are videos on the campaign page at the official Senjou no Kizuna site.

Along with the normal release of the game on December 22nd, for 6,090 yen, Virtual On Force will also be available in a Memorial Box version for an eye watering 10,290 yen. The bump in price is on account of three factors; a 6 disc set of ALL the music from every Virtual On game as well as an artbook covering the 15 year history of the franchise. The final icing on the cake is that it will have a custom created box-art penned by Hajime Katoki himself. Put simply, we’re getting the Memorial Box. The official site has also undergone a functional makeover, as it now covers the VR line-up in the game as well as the World background.

4gamer has covered some interesting new features that will be present in the upcoming Carnage Heart EXA. Specifically, a new screenshot tool as well as an emblem setup that allows you to edit the image on your PC as a bitmap. Considering that Carnage Heart is very much of a remote versus endeavour, as you share configs to “battle” other players, a screenshot tool will be invaluable in producing proof of victory as well as obviously taking snaps of your extended OKE family. The openness of the emblem editor is somewhat worrying though, as it’s pretty much inevitable that you’ll end up facing the pixel art equivalent of a throbbing man sausage at some point in your OKE battling career. That unfortunate aspect aside, EXA continues to look like a very promising continuation of the Carnage Heart series and seems to be helmed by a team that seem to really understand what its fanbase wants.

Gpara have a nice update on the recently announced OG mecha from Super Robot Wars appearing in Another Century’s Episode R. From the Cybuster, above, to the ART-1 and Alteisen Riese the new OG units look stunning in game and it’s amazing to think it’s taken four games for them to be even featured. In addition to the OG unit update, Gpara also has an interview with Acid Black Cherry about his single Re:Birth that will be used in the game.

It seems that Taito are planning to release a new Darius Burst game, dubbed Another Chronicle, and one that will potentially grace arcades rather than the PSP. Why talk about Darius here you may ask? Well, in the case of Burst the mecha design in the game was handled by Kanetake Ebikawa and Takayuki Yanase, both of which recently worked on Gundam 00. Yanase’s gaming credits are much longer though and as such fall under the auspices of this meagre site. If you click the image above you’ll get to see the scope of how Burst’s aesthetic direction fell under the remit of these two rather wonderful mecha designers.

Update: Game Watch has some coverage on the new arcade game and its immensely wide screen. There will also be location tests starting next week for the game in Akihabara.

Over at Game Set Watch they’ve uncovered a new doujin game by Astro Port called Gigantic Army. Specifically, this is a free two level demo of the game (download link here).

For the more observant of you this may seem awfully similar to Dracue’s Gunhound, which we do still intend to review. Like Gunhound though, Gigantic Army’s functional influences stem from the Assault Suits series, specifically Valken and Leynos II (not to mention VOTOMS, as many of the roller sound effects are lifted straight from the series!). With any luck this may even get an English translation but for the time being the game is more than playable in Japanese.

A new Macross Frontier game was recently announced in Famitsu, utilising a similar functional approach to Artdink’s recent PSP games (though with an obviously necessary graphical overhaul). Entitled Macross Trial Frontier the game will be out later this year but what makes it especially interesting is that the game will be bundled with the BluRay version of the Macross Frontier movie Itsuwari no Utahime and making the disc one of the first hybrid movie/game products on the market. In terms of line-up, the game will apparently have all the VF-25 variants as well as Brera Sterne’s VF-27. No word on the VF-171’s but at least you’ll get to play with Klan Klang’s Queadluun Rea.

Update: Over at Famitsu they’ve uploaded the shots of the game itself and it’s looking pretty decent.

4gamer has an all new update on many of the somewhat overlooked units that will be present in the upcoming Gundam Extreme Versus. From the RX-0 Unicorn Gundam (pictured above) to the LM314V21 Victory 2 Gundam as well as the YMT-05 Hildolfr, the latter being finally saved from its appearance in the appalling Target in Sight. Some may think that the Hidolfr actually appeared in the Dreamcast game, Rise from the Ashes, but in actual fact that was the Rhinoceros. In any case, these new shots really show that the game is looking truly stunning.

The wonderful 1/1 scale RX-78-2 Gundam has finally had its opening ceremony at its new home in Shizuoka outside the JR Higashi-Shizuoka Station. The lifesize Gundam now sports a full sized beam saber too. This installation of the Gundam will be held until January 2011, so if you missed it the first time around when it was Odaiba now’s your chance to see it again!

After ten years, it finally seems that Turn A Gundam is coming to the West. As Bandai Entertainment plan to bring the 50 episode anime series to Western shores in the coming future, whether this will encompass the two movies as well remains to be seen. Since its release in Japan Turn A has become a cult series, due in part to the somewhat bizarre and originally very controversial mecha design, penned by none other by Syd Mead. Over the years these designs have grown on the fanbase and many know appreciate the fact that series was very much ahead of its time. From the gorgeous score by Yoko Kanno to the deft characterisation and narrative from a calmer Yoshiyuki Tomino, Turn A is a series that is quite a mature and thoughtful work. The fact that it will finally receive a Western release is good news indeed, though arguably a tad overdue.

Unsurprisingly, Turn A has graced multiple games over the years. From Super Robot Wars Z to the Gundam Musou games as well as Another Century’s Episode 3 not to mention the Gundam Vs games, the SYSTEM ∀-99 (WD-M01) ∀ Gundam has made its mark on gaming in recent years. Due to the immense potency in the anime though, it’s a problematic unit in terms of games design; as an attack that can wipe out all technology via nano-machines is a bit tricky to implement in a functional sense. The gaming connections of this series also span to the character design too, as Yasuda Akira (or “Akiman”) was one of the original designers on Street Fighter II, amongst many other Capcom games. He went to work with Tomino again on the brilliant Overman King Gainer, which even featured a protagonist who was an ardent gamer.