There’s an interesting little game that allows you to play with with a VF-11 Thunderbolt via Oculus Rift. Admittedly you just shoot down drones but it looks pretty nifty. The first person view from the head of the battroid does look a bit strange though. In any case, there’s also a similar little browser game available here too (via Unity). The video below shows the Oculus Rift version in action and starts around the 11 minute mark

If you didn’t get a chance to see it live, watch some great North American Gundam Extreme Versus action at the EVO 2013 Championship Tournament held in Las Vegas. Courtesy of TheBrett and the NorCal Dogfight crew, this video displays the Top 8 of the tournament with some of the best North America has to offer. Using an impressive streaming setup, you can watch all four combatants during each of the matches. Congratulations to the winners of the 2013 tournament and hopefully we will see some Full Boost action at next year’s EVO. So stop waiting and check out the action below!

There’s an online Virtual On tournament happening this weekend. Featuring the 360 ports of the original Virtual On, Oratan and Force. The entry deadline has already passed but you can watch the tournament via Godsgarden Twitch.tv channel. The tournament for Virtual On and Force happen tomorrow (27th) and Oratan will be the day after that (28th). The standard of the players online for these games is very high, so expect some truly spectacular matches. Thanks to Zaarock for the heads up.

On July 23, the XM-X3 Crossbone Gundam X-3 will join the Gundam Versus Extreme Full Boost roster after winning the mobile event against the Gerbera Tetra just recently. The final Crossbone Gundam unit in the original Crossbone trio, the Crossbone Gundam X-3 is a 2500 cost suit and is very melee oriented as expected. Equipped with its Muramasa Blaster, as seen with the Crossbone Full Cloth, the X-3 has very quick striking melee that can be powered up with its safety release. Other attacks include a nice little whirlwind throw with the EMS-VSX1 Quarvarze, burning tree logs, and the lovely nuke found with the Crossbone Gundam X-1 Kai. To make up for not being equipped with the iconic ABC mantle, the X-3 also has a very quick approach move with the I-Field, blocking all beam like projectiles for a certain period of time. My only gripe with the suit so far is the fact that while it can throw burning logs, it does not have the infamous monkey controlled mobile suit as an assist. Regardless, it’s still very exciting to see it added to the roster! Cecily Fairchild will also be added as an operator as well. Check out the little gameplay teaser for the X-3 below!

Apologies for the delay in posting this, as we’ve been somewhat busy as of late. In any case the fourth livestream for Armored Core Verdict Day is now archived and linked below. In addition, there are all manner of new promos and adverts that have been unleashed online. The promo is especially interesting as it covers more the narrative side of things, which seems to be a bigger deal in this game compared to the previous one. Following on from that news of a Raven’s Meeting has surfaced. This will be held on August 8th in Shinjuku. Not only will the in-house From Software band FreQuency be playing live but the next livestream will be hosted there too.

The first ever download only game in the series, Super Robot Wars Operation Extend, is released today. We’ve bought the combined pack, as the game will be released episodically, but currently only the first episode is available. What’s also slightly interesting is that there are a bunch of freemium like parts you can buy too. We’re not sure about this, as Gundam Breaker has something similar (of which a review of that will be forthcoming). Whilst this isn’t so much pay to win it does seem to be pay to make things easier. In any case, buying all the episodes at once gives you a Gundam unit piloted by Sergeant Frog as a nice little bonus. The next episode will be released on August 1st.

In a rather cool move, Bandai have announced that they will be releasing Isamu Dyson’s YF-29 from Macross 30. Not only will this have an all new paint job but a new head too. No word on whether the super packs will be made available for this though. As you’d expect this will be a webshop exclusive released this December for a pretty steep 17,850 yen. Isamu was a lot of fun in Macross 30 and having him upgrade from the YF-19 to the bleeding edge YF-29 was a nice touch, especially as the designs share the same forward swept wings. Whilst we’re not overly fond of all the YF-29 toy variants Bandai have been churning, we’re tempted with this one. Still no word on the YF-30 DX Chogokin as yet however.

With Pacific Rim ramping up to release on July 12th in the west, Hideo Kojima recently tweeted a collaboration with Guillermo Del Toro and famed artist Yoji Shinkawa on the Japanese Pacific Rim movie poster. The titular mecha Gipsy Danger is given the Shinkawa makeover, with slick lines and a slim profile with its blades protracted over what looks like a defeated Knifehead kaiju. Hopefully this will be a collaboration that will spark more mecha-themed games from Kojima such as the long awaited Zone of the Enders 3 as he has been giving Pacific Rim nothing but high praises. Until then, check out the latest Pacific Rim trailer below!

Over at 4Gamer there’s a new piece about the world in Armored Core Verdict Day. Despite doing the obvious staple corporate round-up, we now also have Reapers (picture above and that sound a lot like the Zodiac ACs you faced in the previous game) and on top of all that, it seems that the AI controlled UNACs are also part of the story too. That in itself is actually a nice little touch, especially with all the Nineball stuff we’ve had in the past (an army of Nineballs you say?). However, the biggest thing (literally) that’s been highlighted is that of the giant and equally mysterious tower we’ve seen in all the media for the game. For those that are familiar with VOTOMS, this tower should look narratively familiar and considering Armored Core’s narrative history with AI overlords we expect something similar again (something the UNACs are likely part of too). Obviously I could talk more here about all this but some people go apeshit over spoilers, so alas I shall abstain. Anyway, it seems that Verdict Day’s narrative is more grounded than the previous game and September can’t come soon enough.

The third livestream for Armored Core Verdict Day will be happening on the 12th July (you’ll be able to watch it here). The previous livestream is also online here if you want to watch it. This livestream appears to be more focused on the singleplayer story side of things, which is meant to be far more substantial over the previous game. It will also be nice to hear those lovely people at From Software talking about a mecha game without having an identity crisis.