Indie developer 17bit is very much hitting the nostalgia buttons with their upcoming game 2D sidescrolling shoot-em-up, Galak-Z: The Dimensional. Coming to the PS4 and PC in 2014, the Macross/Gundam/Space Battleship Yamato-inspired game has the player controlling a lone spaceship (which reminds me a bit of Hikaru Ichijo’s FanJet) against a horde of enemies, including some large mecha and aliens, through asteroid riddled areas. While it doesn’t seem as if you can transform into a mecha and vice versa, your missile attacks are very reminiscent of the well loved “Itano Circus,” on top of performing rather appealing dodging maneuvers hearkening stylistic anime action. Check out the recently released PAX 2013 trailer and Kotaku developer interview below!

In a somewhat worrying move, Banpresto have announced Super Robot Wars OG Infinite Battle. This will be an arena based action game in a similar vein to that of Gundam Extreme Versus, except that this won’t be made by Byking. Instead, this is an in-house affair and the last time Banpresto tried to do an arena based action game themselves it didn’t go too well. Following on from this, there will also be a tie-in DLC called Dark Prison for OG2 if you buy Infinite Battle (though this will be released separately at a later date as well). This bundle of gaming joy will be released on November 28th for 7,480 yen and is a PS3 exclusive. If you’re curious to see more, then Famitsu has a nice piece on the game.

Amongst many other games, the very interesting Strike Vector was also present at this year’s Gamescom. Below is a video of the team playing deathmatch together and it looks rather bloody good. In addition, the game was recently added to Steam Greenlight. No words on when the game will be released, except “early 2104”, nor how much it will cost or even the platforms (though we’re guessing it will be PC for the time being). In any case, the game is coming along very nicely and we wish the team behind this all the best of luck.

There’s a new mecha themed action RTS needing support, called Decimal it has just started its own Kickstarter to get development funds (specifically that of half a million dollars, which is ambitious to say the least!). The art style and concept art are very fresh, we also seriously approve of their approach to the game’s mecha design. The studio, Orb Interactive, is a recently formed entity and its staff have a pretty textured background. We’ve linked the promotional video below and this looks like something we could happily support.

After losing the mobile contest against the Crossbone X-3, the next suit to be added to the Gundam Extreme Versus Full Boost roster on August 27 will be the Gerbera Tetra, piloted by Cima Garahau. Completing the Stardust Memory mobile suit crew, the Gerbera Tetra is a 2000 cost mobile suit that looks to be rather nimble.

What with Gamescom undwerway, lots of games are being shown and available for punters to play. One of which is Respawn’s Titanfall. Considering the fucking idiotic stance by their lead artist, that the titular Titans “aren’t mecha“, we’re very skeptical about how the (very obviously) mecha section of the game will play out. The new footage (shown below) again emphasises this “seamless transition” between Titan and human control – in short, the mecha basically play like people. Weirdly, the on foot mechanics look far more interesting and we’re very keen to try out all the wall jumping and the displayed Titan follow mode looks suitably neat too. In any case, we’ll be picking this up on release and giving it a good once over.

The third episode for Super Robot Wars Operation Extend is now out. If you’ve already bought the combined pack then you can download it for free, otherwise you’ll pay 1000 yen. In addition, you can also buy Cybuster from the Masou Kishin games for a very reasonable 200 yen. This update is also very Gundam heavy too, featuring Gundam 0080 to Wing and 00.

The legendary animator Ichiro Itano was involved in a bike accident recently. Quickly hospitalized he appears to be okay but obviously we’re concerned for his well being. The above picture was an impromptu “get well soon” card of sorts from other anime luminaries. For those unaware of Itano’s work, he’s one of the foremost mecha choreographers out there and his signature missile flourish, the Itano Circus, has graced pretty much every Macross series to date. We’ve linked a video below of his greatest hits in case you’re at all curious about Itano’s creative output. Despite his prodigious animation work, his influence has had a palpable effect on gaming too. That aside, our thoughts are with him as well as his friends and family. Naturally, we hope he makes a speedy recovery.

What with the release of Masou Kishin III a few weeks away, we now finally have a nice long and juicy extended promo for the game (shown below). As you’d expected the battle animations are looking consistently fantastic but we’re still hoping winkysoft are involved in this, as they basically made all the Masou Kishin games to date. That aside, you can still pre-order both (region free) versions of the games here (PS3) and here (Vita).

Firebase Industries have announced a new game project, called Moonlight, that features a transforming mecha (as shown above) and very much ties into classic arcade shooters. The Beethoven infused promo video (shown below) looks very promising indeed too. No word on price or platforms as yet but we’re definitely curious to see how this turns out.