The port of the sequel to G.rev’s arcade classic, Senko no Ronde, was released earlier in the week. Entitled Senko no Ronde DUO the port is rife with a panoply of exclusive features, from an interesting story mode as well as online multiplayer (though hopefully the latter will fair better with lag this time around). We’ll be reviewing the game in the near future but in the meantime you can order the Japanese version here.

Over at Game Watch it seems that the Japanese release date for Front Mission Evolved has been confirmed as the 16th September. Interestingly, the article also talks of a release on Steam. The US release, confirmed in the trailer below, is two days before the Japanese one; on the 14th September. Naturally, upon release, we’ll be reviewing the game – so keep an eye out for that.

Over the past five years or so there’s been a palpable trend within gaming in the West. Palpable in the sense in that it fundamentally affects the functional framework of the games themselves, to the extent that this change is almost taken for granted.

In the scramble for supposed mainstream appeal more and more games have opted to take a standardised approach to gaming functionality. On the one hand this allows for a much more accessible learning curve and an implicit understanding of how a game will operate. The down side to this is that ultimately many games end up playing the same.

Bucking this trend is also very difficult as much of the mainstream press get pretty worked up when a game requires them to learn something new. This, to be fair, isn’t their fault as they often have to cover multiple games in a ridiculously short amount of time. As such, due to the way that the gaming press operates, functional standardisation is something that is critically welcomed.

So when something as brilliantly wrought as Lost Planet 2 comes along, with its immense number of fascinating nuances and insightful design choices, it receives coverage that’s very much distorted and more than a little bit unfair on account of how the gaming press is structured. As such, we feel compelled to address this issue; as Lost Planet 2 is really quite bloody amazing.

Not long after the announcement that Virtual On Force will be hitting the 360 this Winter, 4Gamer have followed up with some very pretty HD shots of the game. This is also one of the main points that’s been made to the fans; the original game will be getting an HD facelift for the 360 port. Admittedly, like with Oratan 5.66, the textures and engine won’t be radically changed, so for those hoping for a full graphical update then this port will disappoint.

The other interesting element I forgot to mention is that this is not a digital download game but instead a full boxed title. Which is a curious choice on the part of SEGA after Marz bombed.

It seems that Famitsu finally broke the news that Virtual On Force is indeed on its way to the 360, like Oratan 5.66 before it. This won’t be the first home console port for Force either, as Virtual on Marz tried to make the leap to the PS2 back in 2003 (with pretty lacklustre results). One of the main reasons for its failure, despite a functionally surreal singelplayer campaign, was down to how it neutered the four player versus the original arcade game offered. Something the arcade scene has embraced to this day, despite the fact that the game hasn’t had any meaningful updates since 2002. In any case, the fact that Force is getting a release on XBLA means the HORI TwinSticks will at least have some further usage. What will be interesting to see with this port is how SEGA plan on dealing with Force’s player card/VR balancing setup. As the original arcade game effectively punished newer players with crap starting VRs. Force is also quite notorious amongst the fanbase for other reasons too, read our feature on the series to find out more.

Update: The official site is now live for the 360 port and includes a pretty cool advert to promote the game.

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.

The much anticipated Lost Planet 2 has been released today in Europe and the US (the Japanese release will follow next week). This is the sequel to Lost Planet: Extreme Condition released way back in 2006, a game which bore many thematic similarities to Robert A Heinlein’s Starship Troopers. Due to the player having to battle large insect aliens, called Akrid, in a variety of mecha. We will be reviewing the game shortly as well as covering the new Kotobukiya toys on their release, so keep an eye out for that.

The latest iteration in the successful Gears of War franchise, Gears of War 3, will now be featuring small bipedal mecha. Shown in recently in a Russian games magazine, the C.O.G. Silverback (pictured above) will be featured in the game. For VOTOMS fans this may look a bit familiar as it uses a fair few aesthetic and functional cues from the ATH-06-WP Diving Beetle, which was prominently featured in the Kummen story arc in the TV series. Even the scale of the Silverback is pretty close to the Diving Beetle too, though the former is closer to power armor as the pilot effectively wears the mecha really (rather than sit inside a defined cockpit). Gears of War 3 is set for an early April release next year.

This is a pretty cool video of Japanese players doing a bunch of high speed formation flybys and awesome fireworks displays with the weapons in Armored Core For Answer. If anything it shows how versatile and functionally thorough the game is, not to mention being quite shiny to boot. Though I’m sure the majority of the main stream games press, with their sausage fingers, won’t “get” any of this. Shame that.

The music accompanying the video is Starry Sky – MK feat. R.Cena in case you’re wondering. Thanks to Raven Republic and Armored Core Online for the heads up.

From Software have recently released their new mascot online; Aaliyah Kawate is an interesting masked character that has the head of the AALIYAH frame made by Ray Leonard in Armored Core 4 and For Answer. He generally gets rolled out for the various meets and seems to make a big deal of his skill at the games (despite being a bit crap actually). In any case, he was recently unleashed on Twitter and has been uploading versus videos of him playing Last Raven Portable too. So if you like your mecha gaming mascots a bit wacky then this might be right up your street!