There’s a really cool little interview with Hiroyuki Maruyama, CEO of the wonderful Japanese developer G.Rev. The interview also goes into a detail on what happened to the Senko no Ronde DUO DLC. Thanks to Matty Manzarek for the heads up.

After a bit of a wait, we’ve finally got our hands on the limited release Robot Damashii toy for the White Dingo GM Sniper II, as originally seen in the Dreamcast game Rise from the Ashes. Whilst we’ve already reviewed the standard GM Sniper II toy, this variant is very much a gaming specific mobile suit. As such, whilst the toy is pretty much functionally identical, the context of it is something we wanted to cover in more detail. Especially, as the White Dingo team themselves in effect birthed a specific development studio within Bandai Namco games. Naturally, we’ve also included a variety of gameplay videos at the end of the review to give the toy some context.

As we suspected the White Dingo variant of the GM Sniper II is now available for pre-order as a Tamashii Web special purchase. Fear ye not though, as places like Tokyo Hunter are stocking the toy on your behalf (as Tamashii Web specials are Japan only purchases unfortunately). Considering how much we loved the recent GM Sniper II toy, we literally cannot wait for the White Dingo version as the Dreamcast game that birthed it is very close to our heart.

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.

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.

GAGraphic has finally previewed an upcoming and somewhat unassuming Robot Damashii toy, that of the wonderful RGM-79SP GM Sniper II. This version is using the Gundam 0080 colour scheme but this design has a worthy gaming history. Whether we’ll see the previously shown White Dingo variant remains to be seen however. The sculpt does look brilliant on this toy though. In any case, this version of the GM Sniper II is released later this month for 2,940 yen and you can pre-order it here.

A rather interesting animated gif has appeared over on the Tamashii Web front page. Despite talking of a collaboration with Hobby Japan, the interesting aspect is that the font used for “Ready” as well as patented SEGA blue sky background (not to mention the green hatching) makes us think that a Virtual On Oratorio Tangram toyline could be on the way. Bear in mind that the Tamashii brand is squarely aimed at collectors so we could be in store for something rather wonderful. In any case, we’ll know more on the 25th June.

To commemorate the year since the XBLA port of Oratan 5.66 was released, Yamashita-san has posted a somewhat vague but interesting entry to the official blog. Now, we already know that the port did very well but it turns out that the sales figures also exceeded SEGA’s own internal expectations (though actual concrete sales figures weren’t specified unfortunately). Couple this with the various online questionnaires over future Virtual On ports as well as newer entries into the series and this starts to make more sense. The most obvious follow on from Oratan is a home port of Force, something that Marz tried rather dismally to cater for. Despite SEGA not supporting Force in terms of updates, the arcade community is still very active across Japan so a proper home version (with online multiplayer) would make a lot of sense. It would also help justify the crazy price tag of the limited edition HORI twinsticks that were released not that long ago. Considering that After Burner Climax is also doing quite well, a game that Yamashita-san’s team also worked on, there’s probably an understandable amount of chin stroking going on within SEGA when it comes to their pretty epic arcade gaming back catalogue. Apparently, there will be one more final Oratan 5.66 column quite soon and with any luck some more overt announcements might surface. We’re hoping for an all new game, as that’s what most fans actually wanted (scroll down to see the questionnaire results).

Updated: Turns out SEGA are already planning a Force port for the 360. Thanks to Excellen Browning for the heads up.

Over at AmiAmi they’ve shown the new Robot Damashii RGM-79SP GM Sniper II that’s set for a September release this year. Effectively a special forces GM, it comes very close to and exceeds many of the RX-78-2 Gundam’s abilities in the saga. This toy, like the others in the Robot Damashii range, boasts some impressive articulation yet it still retains a remarkably faithful sculpt. This is also one of Yutaka Izubuchi’s most loved mobile suit designs and one that played a vital role in the latter parts of Dreamcast game Rise From The Ashes (and the Premium Disc too). The above version is actually the colour scheme seen from the design’s original version in Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket though. The White Dingo livery, from the Dreamcast game, has yet to be given a release date (though it is planned). In any case the GM Sniper II has graced multiple Gundam games over the years and is, in part, responsible for the aesthetic direction for the Master Chief in Halo as well (something the Sniper II also shares with the RGM-79G GM Command). You can pre-order the toy here.

Play Asia currently have a fair few interesting mecha games going at a discount at the moment. First up is Treasure’s classic Bangai-O on the Dreamcast, this is also the Japanese version in case you’re wondering. Like many, we hold the Bangai-O games in very high regard and we’ve written a pretty lengthy feature on the series too (as many of the functional influences stem from from renowned anime shows). Interestingly, the Dreamcast version of the game (as there was also an N64 release before it) was one of the few games that didn’t support VGA output. The recent DS game, Bangai-O Spirits, is also still at a discount if you want to nab that too.

Next up is the classic Dreamcast port of Virtual On Oratorio Tangram. Now, what with the XBLA port of MSBS 5.66 already available why would you buy this? Despite the lovely Hajime Katoki artwork on the cover, it’s also going very cheaply and it features a very different balancing setup as the port also affords access to MSBS 5.45 and 5.2 (the latter being the first release of the game, when it was being run on Model 3 hardware). The XBLA port only has the option to play via the 5.66 setup. In addition, getting hold of Dreamcast TwinSticks is still relatively easy and inexpensive, compared to the HORI 360 effort, and more importantly the game works fine with them. The HORI sticks have a deadzone at the base of each stick, which considering the rather steep price tag is a bit unfortunate. Again, we have a rather thorough feature on the Virtual On games in case you’re at all curious about the series.

Then there’s Macross Plus Game Edition and
Real Robots Final Attack, both on the PlayStation. The Macross Plus game is an interesting attempt at dealing with the disparate modes of the various variable fighters, as it literally separates the game out via fighter and battroid focused levels. Whereas Real Robots Final Attack is a full on and quite competent Virtual On clone using a variety of classic real robot shows as a base (it’s basically the spiritual precursor to the Another Century’s Episode games in a way).

Finally, we have the Rise from the Ashes collection release on the Dreamcast; which packages both the premium disc and the original game together along with a new third person camera mode. We like this game a lot and the development team responsible for this now go by the Team White Dingo moniker that was coined by the player’s platoon in the game. In any case, there’s plenty to choose from at the moment and that’s no bad thing at all!