Along with a slew of Metal Gear Solid Games, Konami have announced that they will also be bring both PlayStation 2 Zone of the Enders games into the bright light of day that is HD. Slated for a “2012” release, both games will be available on the PS3 and 360, either boxed or via digital download. In addition, the two player functionality from the games will also be available. Whether this will be online multiplayer remains to be seen but if so it would fix the fundamental nonsense the original games suffered from, as players wouldn’t need to fight over the camera. Whilst we aren’t fans of the games, in a functional sense at least, it will be interesting to see how they perform with this new HD lick of paint. No doubt Konami are testing the waters to see if the franchise is still financially viable.

Yet another live stream has been and gone for Armored Core V. This one was thankfully more restrained in terms of the presenters, basically because Toshifumi Nabeshima clearly hasn’t got the time for that kind of mindless crap. Unfortunately it featured less actual gameplay footage this time around, instead covering other elements such as the story and mission breakdown. However, a nice but short snippet of the game’s opening CG movie was shown. Primarily displaying the beefiness of tanks and that our mechanically inclined future has gone to hell in a hand basket, a very brown hand basket.

Another live stream event for Armored Core V will be happening on the 2nd June. Around an hour long it will also feature the opening CG cinematic for the game. Whilst we’ve already seen snippets of the CG movie from the (re)announcement trailer, it will be cool to see more of it finally. Especially as From Software have a pretty stellar track record when it comes to this kind of thing, with the opening cinematic for Armored Core Last Raven being one of our favourites.

Over at Amazon.co.jp the boxart (and prices!) of both console versions, PS3 and 360, for Armored Core V have finally been displayed. Like the Japanese 360 boxart for Armored Core 4, the latest game isn’t afraid to show how brown our dystopian future will be. That said, we still like it a lot and it’s nicely stylised (despite the colour palette). The subdued approach to showing the mecha in silhouette is also a nice touch and refreshingly subtle. Hopefully, the Western release won’t end up like this eyesore did though.

Separately, the second extended live stream happened and like the first has some pretty excitable presenters. Oh well. Craziness aside, the game is looking even more bloody amazing and the tank legs look awesomely beefy.

Good news: it seems that English speakers are getting an actual Gundam game localized overseas, even if it’s decidedly the least ‘mecha’ of the Gundam games, Dynasty Warriors Gundam 3. The US site gives the release date as June 28th 2011, and Europe gets it a few days later, on July 1st 2011.

Needless to say, fans of pressing the X and Y buttons for hours on end will be chomping at the bit to play this, but despite the repetitive gameplay of the first two games I also have to admit that I have 200 hours of play time split between them. The third installment doesn’t seem to change the formula so it’s hard to recommend it, but the Dynasty Warriors series is as long-lived as it is for a reason; sometimes you don’t need the depth of Armored Core, but just want to hammer away at 1,000 Zakus for fifteen minutes, or play something split-screen with a friend without them needing a half-hour tutorial. And, unfortunately, mecha fans don’t exactly have much to pick from in terms of Gundam games in English, and being able to take part in the epic finale to Zeta Gundam is often worth suffering through occasionally mindless gameplay.

The English trailer shows off the new cel-shaded graphics, and seeing the Turn A Gundam again–now accompanied by the absolutely godlike Kapools–does my metallic robot heart some good.

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.

The latest live stream footage for Armored Core V, from the first of two extended sessions, is now archived (we’ve linked it below). For those that found the first session a bit hysterical, then you’ll be happy to hear that this session is much more grounded. Mostly because it is handled by the people at From Software themselves excluding the somewhat unnecessary “tarento” that were present in the first session, with Toshifumi Nabeshima (effectively the father of Armored Core) in the driving seat for most of the time. With each passing day, the more we learn and see of Armored Core V in action the more we feel compelled to build a time machine and zip forward to the game’s October release.

Over at 4Gamer they have a bunch of new screenshots for Armored Core V, as well as a thorough breakdown of all the information featured in Famitsu last week. The interesting points are that back weapons are partially gone now and replaced by hangar units, which are stored across the shoulders but used by both arms. In addition the player now has to equip a recon unit to scan the area (no doubt feeding into the new scan mode we saw). In addition, ammo types are broken down down into kinetic, chemical and thermal now (rather than just solid and energy, as in the past). Finally, the update covers the new boost types. With the wall jumping Boost Drive being our favourite at the moment. Famitsu will also be having new live stream events on the 19th and 26th May. So keep your eyes peeled for that.

Update: 4Gamer also has a new piece on some additional parts, one of which being a rather uber looking sniper rifle.

The much anticipated live demo for Armored Core V has been and gone. Thankfully From Software archived the 2 hours plus of footage (shown below). The highlights, for us anyway, were the all new scan and combat modes for the HUD (with scan mode shown above) as well as the fact that the combat looked utterly bloody amazing. For those concerned that ACV would be slower than the last two games, don’t worry. Whilst it looks more manageable now, you’ll be boosting all over the place in what can only be described as ecstatic abandon. In short, October cannot come soon enough for us.

In the latest issue of Famitsu, it’s been announced that the upcoming Armored Core V will not only be released (in Japan) sometime in October, at a price point of 7,800 yen, but also that a closed beta will occur before that. In terms of player applications to the beta, From Software will be releasing details about that shortly. In any case, this is very good news either way. Mainly on account of the fact it will massively improve the online QA process, as well as allow From Software to deal with server load issues before the game is released. Whilst we don’t think this is by any means a silver bullet it will make a huge difference to the end game.

Separately, the Famitsu also references several new boosting mechanics; glide, charge, high, jump, drive, and drift. Whether these will sit atop the traditional boosting/movement setup or replace it entirely remains to be seen. Finally, don’t forget that the live stream of the game is still happening on the 13th.