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News: Gundam Extreme Versus 2 Initial Roster And Location Tests AnnouncedNews: Gundam Extreme Versus 2 Initial Roster And Location... As the rest of the world has Gundam Versus on the PS4, Japanese arcades are gearing up for the upcoming Gundam Versus Extreme 2. On May 12 and 13, stores in Tokyo and Osaka...

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News: God Gundam and Master Gundam DLC Coming To Gundam Versus In JanuaryNews: God Gundam and Master Gundam DLC Coming To Gundam... It's been a long time coming, but God Gundam and Master Gundam are finally joining the Gundam Versus roster as the next DLC units in January. While we've had several melee...

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News: Aegis Gundam, GM Sniper II White Dingo Ver. and More Coming To Gundam Versus This DecemberNews: Aegis Gundam, GM Sniper II White Dingo Ver. and... This December, even more suits are being added to the ever growing Gundam Versus lineup. The first is Aegis Gundam, last seen in Gundam SEED Destiny: Rengou VS ZAFT II Plus...

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News: Atlas Gundam DLC Coming To Gundam VersusNews: Atlas Gundam DLC Coming To Gundam Versus If you were hoping for more Gundam Thunderbolt units, there's good news! Atlas Gundam will be joining the Gundam Versus roster as DLC in late November. This will more than...

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News: Gundam Versus To Add Phantom Gundam As DLC UnitNews: Gundam Versus To Add Phantom Gundam As DLC Unit As we await the upcoming Western release of Gundam Versus on September 29 on top of unreleased units such as Pale Rider and Gundam Guison Rebake, Phantom Gundam has been...

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News: Metal Slug Inspired ‘Explosionade’ Coming to XBLIG

Posted on : 06-10-2010 | By : | In : News, Videos

Hardware:

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Xbox Live Indie Games developer Mommy’s Best Games is releasing a game with the improbable (and amazing) name Explosionade this month. Inspired a bit by Metal Slug, it features the age-old story of some guy coming across a death-dealing prototype robot and then running havoc with it with absolutely no moral qualms whatsoever. Mommy’s Best Games formerly released the well-received Shoot 1-Up and Explosionade’s trailer seems like it won’t disappoint.

The developers credit their graphical inspiration to something that SNK (developers of Metal Slug) would have made, and this influence is also clearly felt in the gameplay: the player’s mecha, GRenaDOS, has at least as much of the firepower that Metal Slug’s vehicles had, while also putting a lot of emphasis on the “feel” of controlling that large vehicle. This combination of heavy firepower with heavy weight means that Mommy’s Best gratefully avoids the common pitfall that most Western developers make with games featuring robots, by thinking of them as human analogues rather than as vehicles when the game should properly allow the player to feel in control of a machine rather than a man.

The way the mech aims and boost-jumps also reminds us of Assault Suits Valken (released in the West as Cybernator), which was certainly one of the best mecha games released on the Super Nintendo and which inspired the Western developed Metal Warriors and the doujin game GunHound as well as the better known Front Mission: Gun Hazard (itself developed by the Assault Suits developers). The interesting thing to note here is that if the game uses a dual analog setup, as we think it does, then Explosionade would be using a control scheme that wasn’t available to those earlier games, who likely would have used it if it had been available. While Assault Suits Valken is an excellent game, it is also known for its fairly punishing difficulty and at least part of this was the directional pad controlling both movement and aiming, and Explosionade could therefore be a much easier game for the casual fan to get their mechanical carnage fix with while also offering almost the same experience.

The reason I’m so excited for this game, though, isn’t just because it’s a game about a quadrupedal robot stomping around and firing grenades at disgusting aliens, but because it’s a game about a quadrupedal robot stomping around and firing grenades at disgusting aliens for 80 Microsoft Points. That is, one whole US dollar. For what you’d spend on gas to drive yourself to the local game store, you can get an amazing game with an amazing name, and support an indie developer raising money to continue working on their longer-term project Grapple Buggy. It’s like charity, really, except you get a free mecha game and also I don’t believe the cause of “making a game about tanks with grappling hooks” is tax deductible.

The game’s release date is indeterminate due to a problem with the Xbox Live Indie Game section not updating correctly (an interesting read if you’re curious about the thoughts of an XBLIG developer), but should be out sooner rather than later. Meanwhile, you can froth over this tasty trailer:

Spoiler

[flash http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwFJrJfBsY8]

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News: Sandlot not developing next Earth Defense Force game

Posted on : 05-10-2010 | By : | In : News, Videos

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The next Earth Defense Force, or Chikyuu Boueigun, game “Insect Armageddon” is no longer being helmed by Japanese developer Sandlot. Instead, D3 have given the franchise to Vicious Cycle. Whilst this may not initially appear as being very much to do with mecha, then please allow us to elaborate.

Sandlot were formed from the ashes of a team at Human Entertainment who had made the rather brilliant Remote Control Dandy. This was a unique mecha game as it had the player control a giant mecha limb by limb from ground level. The subsequent effect of this was one of epic scale. Sandlot pretty much made this their functional calling card from that point on.

Their first “game” was on the PS2 and it was pretty much a glorified tech demo for their engine, tying in with the recently released Tekkouki Mikazuki the “trial edition” game was packaged with the series’ soundtrack. Again this had the player control a mecha from ground level, emphasizing its scale.

This then allowed Sandlot to get investment to make Gigantic Drive with the original Enix (before the merger with Squaresoft). Whilst it was received well in Japan the Western version, entitled Robotic Alchemic Drive, garnered a vocal cult following.

So where do the Chikyuu Boueigun games come into all of this then? Well, the tech that had been built up over two games was now sitting around and it was ripe for a B-movie interpretation (with giant alien ants obviously). Packaged as part of D3’s “SIMPLE 2000” budget line, the first and second games sold very well allowing Sandlot to invest in other games along the way (such as this little beauty).

In short, the mecha functional core based around the emphasis of scale in a destructible environment that birthed these games is integral to what made them work in the first place. Even the first 360 game was developed by Sandlot, so to see them absent on the new game is very sad indeed. In any case, the trailer for the new game is shown below and don’t forget to read our feature on Sandlot too.

Spoiler

[flash http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtPJJg86to4]

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Toys: GM Sniper II

Posted on : 03-10-2010 | By : | In : Toys/Kits

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Courtesy of our good friends at HobbyLink Japan, we’ve been sent a toy from Mobile Suit Gundam 0080 to review. Specifically, the new GM Sniper II from the Robot Damashii range. The gaming significance of this design is also quite interesting and this review is meant as a companion piece to the forthcoming “White Dingo” version.

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Videos: Super Robot Wars L TV adverts

Posted on : 02-10-2010 | By : | In : Videos

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The upcoming Super Robot Wars L has received its first set of TV adverts in Japan. The adverts show the insert animations for most of the new mecha featured. The somewhat cunning and more than a little bit misleading aspect of how these have been depicted is that Banpresto have linked them all together as an edited whole. In reality, the inserts are very short-lived in the game and the vast bulk of the actual animation is sprite based and reliant on the heavy re-use of assets from the previous DS and even GBA titles. That said from what we played of the game at TGS it was at least fun, so we’ll see on the game’s release at the end November whether the budget animation will wind us up. The videos are linked below.

Spoiler

[flash http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ws442-dlocA]

[flash http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzfPApCUcUI]

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Videos: SRW OG “The Inspector” opening and ending

Posted on : 02-10-2010 | By : | In : Videos

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Now that the new SRW OG anime “The Inspector” has kicked off in Japan, we now have both the opening and ending animations online. The opening’s song is, unsurprisingly, performed by the indomitable JAM Project and is called “MAXON”. It practically oozes tamashii. The ending is, on the other hand, a bit more sassy and is “Bokura no Jiyuu” by Aki Misato. Despite the obvious mecha portion of the animation, the other element that needs mentioning is the prolific amount of jiggling bewbage, with the ending animation attaining somewhat of a critical mass in this department. This is by no means a new development when it comes to the OG mythos but it may catch some people a bit off guard – as in people that aren’t sexually repressed teenage boys. We’ve linked both segments below.

Spoiler

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKXBE4MIjDY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0N97r0ngrpw

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Toys: Lego Vitzh

Posted on : 01-10-2010 | By : | In : Toys/Kits

Hardware:

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A chap on flickr by the name of m_o_n_k_e_y has been rendering various cool mecha in Lego form. Specifically, he’s moved onto the vertical tanks from the original Steel Battalion games on the Xbox as designed by the wonderful Junji Okubo. The above model is based on the Vitzh, that’s basically the grunt of the VT forces. The guy has even had a crack at the internal cockpit as well, which is pretty cool really. Thanks to Persona for the heads-up on this.

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Toys: Tamashii Nation 2010 Coverage

Posted on : 30-09-2010 | By : | In : Toys/Kits

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The ongoing Tamashii Nation 2010 show has received various bits of coverage, with AkibaHobby’s being one of the most extensive. From the White Dingo GM Sniper Mk.II variant Robot Damashii shown above (still no release date though), to a veritable avalanche of Super Robot Wars OG toys, from the PTX-007-03C Weißritter, to the the R-Series (as in R-1, R-2 and R-3). The latter offers the potential for a chogokin SRX down the line (with some anime/engineering magic). In any case, this year’s show has had a lot of surprises.

Notable of which is the teaming up of Studio HalfEye and Bandai to make a new transformable Escaflowne chogokin, most probably based on the older and very expensive garage kit. Hopefully it will be better than the awful Yamato toy. Whilst it’s somewhat kept quiet, Escaflowne did receive a PSone game back in the day (but as you probably guessed it was a bit dire). Even the Ver.Ka Temjin made a showing too, as well as a brief presence from Dann of Thursday from Gun X Sword.

All said and done though and it is admittedly not in a mecha game at all, we’re also very excited about the announcement of the Gunship from Nausicaä in Bandai’s new Formania line. Put simply, it looks bloody amazing.

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Toys: L-Gaim Robot Damashii

Posted on : 30-09-2010 | By : | In : Toys/Kits, Videos

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Along with a slew of other toy announcements today, Bandai have finally come clean on the fact they are indeed going to release Robot Damashii toys of both the L-Gaim Mk.I and Mk.II respectively. If you remember the Heavy Metal L-Gaim mecha, designed by the glam-rock-tastic Mamoru Nagano, topped the wishlist of fans for new Robot Damashii figures not that long ago.

Unsurprisingly, with such a classic Yoshiyuki Tomino real robot series it’s been featured in numerous games over the years. From a variety of Super Robot Wars titles to the more recent first two Another Century’s Episode games (not to mention Real Robots Final Attack, but we prefer to ignore that little “gem” if we can).

L-Gaim has also had quite an impressive toy history too, from lovely HCM figures to a very recent and utterly amazing Soul of Chogokin Spec toy. These new Robot Damashii figures will hopefully be a bit more affordable though. Currently there’s no word on whether the L-Gaim Mk.II toy will retain the transformation but it’s quite a simple sequence so it’s quite likely it will. Both toys will be release early next year in Japan and can be pre-ordered here and here. What with us being massive L-Gaim nerds, we’ve also linked the lovely openings from the series as well as a few game clips of the respective mecha in action below.

Spoiler

[flash http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0AGt7mdQLxw]

[flash http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KB-rELB8Aaw]

[flash http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCZJN_TuXOQ]

[flash http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhIvtfGZMco]

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Update: GAGraphic has some nice shots from the current Tamashii Nation show.

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News: Gundam Musou 3 Release Date

Posted on : 29-09-2010 | By : | In : News

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4Gamer has finally nabbed the Japanese release date for the upcoming Gundam Musou 3 as being the 16th December. They’ve even done some more comparison shots with the last game on how the cel-shading works now. As we said in our impressions, the game was fun and looked decent, though obviously more of the same. We’ll be picking this one up in December.

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News: Super Robot Wars L OG Mecha Update

Posted on : 29-09-2010 | By : | In : News

Hardware:

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Game Watch has some coverage today about the upcoming Super Robot Wars L on the DS. From the partner battle system, that’s rather functionally familiar, to the new OG characters and mecha – the update covers quite a bit. The OG mecha specifically, Rushbird, was the starting unit used in the TGS demo we wrote our impressions on. It’s obviously a design at the super end of the spectrum but it has quite a classic aesthetic to boot, almost Braves-esque. The game is still set for its late November release in Japan.

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