Our good friends at HobbyLink Japan have sent us the Play Arts Kai Sam Gideon from the suitably brilliant game Vanquish. Whilst we have talked about the game on the site before we haven’t reviewed it, as it’s not really a full on mecha title. However, its mecha heritage in terms of the design is pretty interesting. In addition, we’ve also included some game footage at the end of the review.

Despite not covering the game all that much, Transformers Fall of Cybertron is released in the US today (and Europe at the end of the week). We actually quite enjoyed the first game and this looks at least as good. As a nice touch there will also be a G1 Retro Pack DLC too, which is a cool nod to the fact that this game effectively sets up the narrative arc for the G1 series anyway.

What with GamesCom underway, we now have a new Lost Planet 3 trailer to see (linked below). It hints more of the story and shows that this could be a prequel of sorts but the characterisation shown is horribly trite and typically parochial. The mecha combat looks like it might be interesting but overall we’re pretty skeptical about this new entry into the Lost Planet series.

Over the next few days, there will be a vote from fans on adding their favourite classic Armored Core character as a new Com voice in Armored Core V. The voting will start on the 21st and finish on the 27th. After that the character will be announced and a DLC pack will follow. As for the latter, there’s no news on how much it will cost players. Anyway, this is a nice touch and we’re all for having Stinger (as voiced by our favourite Sho Hayami). Though we also have a lot of love for Nobuyuki Hiyama’s portrayal of Hustler One (the pilot of Nineball) in Master of Arena. After that, most of the characters from Nexus and Last Raven do stand out quite a bit too.

Kotobukiya have announced that they will be releasing kits next year for Armored Core V. As part of their already extensive Variable Infinity kit range, expect fantastic sculpts and easy customisation (all for a very reasonable price too). Whilst Bandai have already released an excellent toy, it’s nice to know that there will be some kits on the way too. Especially as the designs are so very good.

At this summer’s Comiket in August, SEGA will be attending and selling all manner of nifty paraphernalia. From some cool Border Break merchandise to some equally lovely Virtual On gear. The latter even including some nice One Man Rescue book sets. This was a sidestory that tracked the shift in technology and political power bases between the original Virtual On and Oratorio Tangram. Apart from the One Man Rescue books, there is a t-shirt and some “cels”. All of which seem to be very reasonably priced.

Following on from our previous Revoltech Jehuty and Revoltech Jehuty (Anubis Version) reviews, our good friends at HobbyLink Japan have sent us the Revoltech Jehuty with Vector Cannon. This being the special super weapon of sorts that Jehuty acquires towards the end of Anubis. Due to the fact it already uses the base Jehuty figure, we’ve only covered the new Vector Cannon elements. In addition, we’ve also included some game footage at the end of the review.

Over at AmiAmi they have a lovely preview of the soon to be released Revoltech Jehuty with Vector Cannon. What’s especially interesting is that there is a nifty mechanism for dropping down the Vector Cannon into firing mode (as shown here). To be honest we were thinking of passing this one by, as we’ve already covered the last two Revoltech Jehuty toys but this looks too cool to pass by. The toy is released on the 15th July for 4,980 yen.

Courtesy of our good friends at HobbyLink Japan we’ve been sent both the Super Robot Chogokin UCR-10/A and Grind Blade from the rather excellent game, Armored Core V. In terms of the series, Armored Core has always had pretty sub-standard toys and only recently, thanks to Kotobukiya, have we had any decent kits. That said, this new toy changes all that for the better. As always, we’ve made sure to include footage of the design in action at the end of the review.

One of the few redeeming aspects of the original Xbox was that it held host to the first two Steel Battalion games. Truth be told, these were the games we bought the console for as well. From the fastidiously thorough functional approach to the wonderfully challenging learning curve, the original Steel Battalion games were something truly special.

Now we have a new game in the series. However, it now uses Microsoft’s latest control based interface; the Kinect. Utilising a mixture of gesture based commands and pad input, we now surely have a truly modern take on what made the original games so interesting? Sadly, this is not the case. In fact it is possibly one of the worst mecha games yet made.