The wondrous Max Factory have added to their prestigious line of diecast “MAX Gohkin” toys with the Dragonar 1 from Kiko Senki Dragonar. The mecha were designed by veteran Kunio Okawara, however this toy is using the design interpretation by Masami Obari (who also worked on the series and directed the two opening animations). The Dragonar units were used in a fair few Super Robot Wars games but the series’ real resurgence came when they were featured in all three Another Century’s Episode games. In any case, this toy looks epically good and despite the massive price tag (22,000 yen) it does somewhat eclipse the prior Soul of Chogokin Spec toys by Bandai. If you have a deep wallet, you can buy it here.

As part of the build up to the release of Gundam Unicorn, a new PlayStation 3 exclusive service is being beta tested. Called the Gundam Viewchives it aims to educate people on all things to do with the massive mythos. Apparently there will be a AI controlled guiding hand that will help people negotiate their queries as well. Whether this new service will handle the distribution of Gundam Unicorn is not entirely clear but Unicorn will be featured on the service in some way for its release. In any case, this is all being done purely for the Japanese market at the moment with the beta test starting on the 28th January and running until the end of March.

The renowned Japanese voice actor, or seiyuu, Daisuke Gouri has passed away this Sunday at the age of 57. It was reported that Gouri was discovered in Nakano (a ward of Tokyo) by a passer by who observed blood dripping from his wrist. A knife was discovered under his body and his last will and testament were also discovered nearby, Japanese police are treating this case as a possible suicide.

Gouri had a long and distinguished voice acting career. Many of you would most probably recognise his voice as a consequence of him playing the roles of Dozle Zabi in the original Gundam as well as Basque Om in Zeta Gundam and Gundam 0083. Not to mention his multiple other anime and videogame roles.

His characteristically deep and rich vocal timbre will be sorely missed. Our thoughts and condolences are also with his friends and family.

The official Armored Core 5 site was updated today, along with some new screenshots (with one of them above). In general, it’s now becoming clear how big the scale shift in the game has become and that ultimately it looks an awful lot better for it. It also seems that a form of overboost maybe still present as well. In any case, we’re liking the rain and the generally improved texture detail in the environments. Still no word on a release date or any gameplay footage though.

The Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas used to be where video game movers and shakers in North America made all their grand announcements, until a dedicated game show, the Electronic Entertainment Expo, came along. But now that E3’s stock has significantly decreased for a variety of reasons, a few publishers have come back, though mostly American based ones. Like Microsoft, with the only real news being their avatar arcade initiative, hence why this year’s CES was a bit of a snoozer. So it was easy to miss Capcom’s presence, who passed along a few new images from Lost Planet 2. Click on to read more…

Considering the moderately recent release of Macross Ultimate Frontier (which we’ve reviewed), it seems only fitting to review the signature variable fighter from Macross Frontier in its fully armored regalia; the VF-25F Messiah. This toy is part of the 1/60 DX Chogokin range associated with the series but the armor parts are a limited edition purchase from Bandai’s online collector shop (though the base toy has to be bought separately). What follows is a photo review of the toy in its fighter, GERWALK and battroid modes.

I remember the release of the original Armored Core 3 on the PlayStation 2 quite vividly. Living in Japan at the time, most shops offered midnight sales on the day of release. However, From Software had cut a deal with a number of convenience store chains meaning that you could buy the game pretty much anywhere. Still, in the middle of nowhere I queued at midnight. That’s right, queued. There were at least thirty people in the line as well, it seemed that even in the remote Japanese countryside people really quite wanted some of that Armored Core 3.

In any case, the original game was sublimely good (check out our review if you don’t believe us) so the thought of a handy portable version would be suitably brilliant, right? Well, unfortunately no. Armored Core 3 Portable is rife with a number of severe issues that render the original game virtually unplayable in parts and mostly frustrating in others.

We’ve already talked about the Robot Damashii Turn A Gundam before but Bandai have recently released a special edition version via their collector focused online shop. This is of the Turn A emitting its Moonlight Butterfly, which in the anime is made up of a vast number of nanomachines. In addition, the base toy itself is available with translucent plastic. However, that’s not all as you can also buy a pack including the Turn X or even just the Moonlight Butterfly “wings” on their own (if you already have the older toys). Due to the nature of Bandai’s approach to shipping abroad, you may need to go via places like Tokyo Hunter though. Both the Turn A and Turn X were recently featured in Gundam vs Gundam Next Plus, along with their respective Moonlight Butterfly attacks in case you’re wondering.

The new Artdink developed Gundam Assault Survive recently received a nice gameplay promo. For those that played the last few Gundam Battle games, some of the environments will look awfully familiar. In terms of new game mechanics, not much is known but it seems that some elements have changed (the ring around the mobile suit’s waist for example). The game is still scheduled for March release in Japan. There are also some nice new screenshots here.

It seems that Yahoo are launching the original Virtual On today for two Softbank phones in Japan (the 930P and 931P, made by Panasonic). Priced at 315 yen it appears to contain the entire game, with 8 playable VR’s (so Jaguarandi and Z-Gradt aren’t available basically). Visually it looks similar to the Saturn version, which isn’t a bad thing by any stretch (as it worked great on a pad). In any case, we want it and with any luck we could even see an iPhone version.