It’s a giant RX-78-2 head, what more could you ask for? Anyway, despite the regal majesty that is the Kunio Okawara’s timeless Gundam design 4gamer has some nice coverage of Bandai Namco’s games at this year’s Tokyo Game Show.

In addition, someone was nice enough to upload a video of the head in action. Specifically due to the fact it moves, which indicates that this is probably the disembodied head from the Odaiba 1/1 scale Gundam that was recently taken down.

Famitsu recently posted an interesting piece of coverage for Front Mission Evolved, most probably to tie-in with its presence at the Tokyo Game Show. Despite the fact that the in-game screenshots look better than expected, the refreshing thing to see is that you can also get out of your wanzer and take on enemies as a mere human. This is something that was recently utilised in the fantastic Yuke’s developed VOTOMS game (which we’ve reviewed in case you’re curious) and naturally there are a large number of thematic links between the narratives, especially as to the scale and technical depiction of the mecha themselves.

That said, the video below doesn’t exactly bode well on how it might actually play…

The newly released arcade game Border Break is receiving some t-shirts at this year’s Tokyo Game Show, all tucked away within Cospa’s stall in case you’re wondering. There are a total of two t-shirts priced at 3,045 yen each (pages are here and here). In addition to these there are some wonderful Sega Saturn t-shirts available as well.

The upcoming release of the 1/100 scale TRV-06k-H Viper II kit has been previewed over at the Kotobukiya blog, prior to its release this month. This is the 1P colour variant from the first Virtual On (we have a nice feature about the Virtual On series if you’re curious). Originally, Viper II was intended to transform but due to the technical limitations of the Model 2 board this wasn’t possible, much to the disappointment of the game’s mecha designer, Hajime Katoki. Naturally, in the sequel the upgrade to Viper II, in the form of Cypher, retained the transformation ability. The kit itself costs 4,800 yen and you can get it here.

On the recent SEGA AGES port of the first Virtual On, the game featured expert matches via its playback feature. Below is a video of two expert Viper II players squaring off, in case you want to see the design in action.

Back in July of 2000, the Fuji-Q Highland amusement park opened Gundam The Ride. You were escorted onto a Federation transport and carried through the final battle of the One Year War, A Baoa Qu, by two chirpy GM pilots. The ride was full of wondrous little references which all zoomed past at lightning speed.

A few years later, in 2003, Bandai released Meguriai Sora on the PlayStation 2 (this was later released abroad as Encounters in Space). Within one of the latter campaign levels there was a nice little reference to the ride, as you encounter the transport and the GM’s in the middle of a Dolos class ship. Naturally, very few in the Western gaming press picked up on this rather cool reference.

Unfortunately, the ride closed down in July 2007 and was replaced by Gundam Crisis. Thankfully, someone managed to capture the ride for posterity before it shut down. So I’ve linked that below as well as a capture from the game that featured the cameo from the ride.

Enjoy!

To the uninitiated the Super Robot Wars games appear to be a terrifying endeavour. Language barrier aside there is an immense cultural chasm present for anyone that didn’t grow up watching anime in Japan as a child. Half a century of mechanical nuance to be exact. All this has very interesting functional ramifications as Super Robot Wars Z is a turn based strategy game, much like chess in fact. Except it’s chess with close to a thousand possible pieces, almost all of which are unique, with gaming idiosyncrasies borne out of the parent anime series that birthed them. Daunting doesn’t quite cover it really.

Super Robot Wars Z is the final PlayStation 2 game in the series and unlike the Original Generation (or OG) games, Z is very much a continuation of the premise where disparate mecha from various anime series effectively high five for the win. However, despite being a follow on from the engorged excess that was Alpha 3, Z is very much a crafted game; from the pristine battle animations to the deeply layered strategy.

The upcoming PSP port of Gundam vs Gundam Next has been finally given its own site. Noteworthy is the information emblazoned across it that it will be present in video form at this year’s Tokyo Game Show. The Japanese release date has also been specified now as being the 3rd December this year.

A nice long promo video for Super Robot Wars Neo was released recently, as the game is gearing up for release at the end of October in Japan. These videos are normally the ones given to high street shops to advertise the game in store (hence the length and the fact it goes through every series featured). Unlike the main bulk of Super Robot Wars games, Neo uses 3D models in the attack animations and it’s also the first game in the series to be released on the Wii (hence the slightly kiddy line-up of mecha). Despite being a port of the GC and XO games, Neo does have a bit more going for it as Banpresto have utilised a full 3D map and streamlined the whole body parts system. In that, you can no longer target the head or legs of an enemy mecha. Hopefully, unlike XO, Neo won’t feature a horrifically evil final boss fight.

The upcoming PSN/PSP re-make of the classic NEC PC-8801 shooter Thexder has had its site launched. Apart from a selection of interesting screenshots there’s also a gameplay trailer. Thexder is an interesting game as it was one of the first dedicated mecha gaming IP’s and it successfully featured in-game transformation. Unsurprisingly, it was hugely popular at the time of its release. The game will be available on October 1st for a 1000 yen via the Japanese PSN store.

The DLC for Gundam Senki 0081 that was announced not that long ago has been released today on the Japanese PSN store. Both the FA-78-3 Full Armor Gundam and RX-81AS Assault Armor cost 300 yen each. However, these mobile suits can only be used in the Free Mission mode (either offline or online) and whilst the DLC makes these units available you still have to buy them in game. The RX-81AS costs 450,000 points and the FA-78-3 costs a cool 1,200,000. Bear in mind that each mission you play nets you about 10,000 points on average means that those costings are a little brutal. Thankfully, Bandai have recently released an HG model kit of the FA-78-3 if you can’t face the grind to unlock it in game and it only costs 1,500 yen. Bargain!