Places like Game Watch have been covering the recent multiplayer demo for Lost Planet 2 that was sent out to a select few. However, a friend over at Select Button by the name of ArOne, who was also on their recent mecha gaming podcast along with Tollmaster and I not that long ago in case you were wondering, has been playing the demo. He was very kind enough to write down his impressions of the Xbox 360 version. The full lowdown is after the jump.

Updated: Just to clarify, I received these impressions late last week but due to being a bit busy I wasn’t able to make the post. Sorry about that!

Over at Gpara there’s some new coverage for Front Mission Evolved and what’s interesting about this little nugget of PR, is that it focuses a lot more on the characters of the game. What’s most striking to me is that the characters themselves look a lot more anime inspired than I was expecting (especially from a Western studio). Considering that the original Front Mission’s characters were penned by Yoshitaka Amano, you’d expect a nod to this kind of artistic heritage but seeing it nonetheless warms the cockles of our merciless robot heart. Naturally, the update over at Gpara also goes into lots of nice nerdy detail on the garage as well as displaying more pictures of the wanzers in action. Still no word on an actual release date though.

Update: Here’s also a fascinating insight into the mecha design behind Front Mission Evolved, as its primary designer Skan Srisuwan at Imaginary Friends is penning the new wanzers. What’s reassuring, despite the man’s obvious talent, is that he’s quite open about his influences. Such as Hajime Katoki for one and not to mention the Yutaka Izubuchi designed Hygogg kit on his disk, all of which clearly shows in terms of the game’s overall aesthetic for the mecha. Thanks to LegaiaRules for the heads up.

The upcoming Double Helix developed Front Mission Evolved, has received some new screenshots over at the official Japanese site. These show some interesting functional developments for the series, notably that of the wanzers sporting hover legs. It may appear that with each passing burst of PR from Square Enix that Front Mission is changing more into something like Armored Core. However, for those unaware of Front Mission’s roots; customisation (both visual and functional) played an integral part of the original games. The addition of hover legs is admittedly a nod to the realtime – not turnbased – functionality that debuted in Armored Core 2 but that’s not to say it has been wholly copied either (after all Armored Core owes much of its functional inspiration to the Assault Suits games). The point we are somewhat clumsily making is this though; hover legs were notoriously awkward to use in the older PlayStation 2 era Armored Core games and it will be interesting to see whether the team at Double Helix have learnt from this. As the more recent Armored Core games solved the issue by merging the functionality of ground based legs and hovers, to allow all AC’s to traverse water (something that was normally the exclusive remit of the hover leg types in the PlayStation 2 games). This merging of leg functionality is clearly not present in Front Mission Evolved though – as the screenshots show – so how they’ve solved their handling issues will be interesting to see. In any case, more screenshots from this recent update are linked below.

A very entrepreneurial Japanese modeller, by the name of ostraking, has managed to inject a selection of lights into the various Kotobukiya and Hasegawa Virtual On model kits. From the Type 94 Temjin from Fragmentary Passage, based off the MBV-04-G Temjin kit from Kotobukiya, to the HBV-502H8 Raiden from Oratan (also from the Kotobukiya line). What’s impressive about these is that much of the surface light sources in the games aren’t easily backlit in a real world kit, this is especially true of the Fei-Yen from Force that has very flat skirt sections – something ostraking has handled with great skill.

As per the recent column on the official Japanese Oratan 5.66 site, it turns out that the game will be receiving a pretty decent price drop. From 1200 MS points to 800, however this is only from March 30th until April 6th (as it’s part of Microsoft’s Deal of the Week scheme apparently). At present this price drop is for the Japanese release only, the column also apologises for the lack of updates recently – which is rather sweet really.

Update: It’s been confirmed that the price drop for Oratan 5.66 will coming to the West as well.

What do you get when you combine Halo’s number one star and a Zaku II? You get the custom job you see above, built upon a Master Grade Gundam Zaku II Ver. 1.0 kit. Via Figure.fm.

Despite the lovely Armored Core 5 artwork displayed in AC Chronicle Art Works there are also two interviews within the small book. One with series producer Toshifumi Nabeshima and another with two designers; Miki Masahiro and Satake Daisuke.

Nabeshima talks more about AC5’s change in functional approach, emphasising that the game will be more about tactics and using the geography of level rather than high-speed finger work. This harks back more to the original PSone games, especially the first, as many levels were set within city type environments and were more tactical as a consequence (the reduced size of the AC’s is also to do with this too apparently, as it would make it far easier to take cover). The other interesting element is that apparently you won’t just view your AC from behind and that you will have some form of camera control. Apart from that, the approach they’re taking is one of coarse realism and that you’ll have to “think” more in combat. The narrative will mirror this too apparently, as the characterisation won’t be simply friend or foe but instead more grounded and realistic. Again, like the older games, they’ve opted to keep the characters “faceless” so much of this will be inferred through dialogue and in-game text. This doesn’t really bode well for a Western release, as this kind of narrative has never been localised properly in terms of the series’ history.

As for the two designers, Masahiro worked on Chrome Hounds and is helming the main mechanical design of AC5 (as we suspected, as he is an internal designer). Whereas Satake is assisting him and comes from working on both Nexus and Ninebreaker (interestingly he designed the Mayfly head that adorns the new Nineball on the cover of Ninebreaker), they both also recently worked on Demon’s Souls. Over the years they’ve penned multiple designs for the Armored Core games as well, which helps to explain why Shoji Kawamori’s involvement was scaled back after Silent Line and why parts began to look more angular. They also talk a fair bit about how the realism in AC5 is dictating the design of the respective parts, citing a new revolver hand gun and vertical missile launcher. In any case, having a mecha desginer from Chrome Hounds and his assistant who contributed to Metal Wolf Chaos can only bode well for AC5, as those designs were truly exemplary and fit the new realistically grounded approach that seems to be the new direction for Armored Core as a whole.

A bunch of new screenshots for Front Mission Evolved have been going the rounds, coupled with the semi-updated dev diaries we clearly have a PR campaign in its latter stages on our hands. Admittedly, there are still no actual release dates as yet but with box shots getting previewed it’s obvious we have a release fairly imminent. Naturally, we’ll be the reviewing the game once its out – so keep an eye out for that. In any case, we’ve linked the other screenshots below and whilst they show the game has come along a fair bit, they still don’t look that amazing really. Anyway, see what you think.

We meant to cover this earlier but over at the Raven Republic they have a very nice selection of shots from the AC Chronicle Art Works booklet that was packaged with Last Raven Portable in Japan. Within it are some early design sketches for the mecha we saw in the trailer. It’s interesting seeing this on a few counts, mostly because it looks as though the design-work has been handled internally (rather than by a named designer, such as Shoji Kawamori as per the original games) and it definitely shows the gritty aesthetic shift back to the series’ roots. Whoever is penning the base artwork for the game is clearly very talented but with a series like Armored Core that’s to be expected really.

Last Raven Portable also received its English trailer recently, via From Software’s YouTube channel. So it shows that a Western PSN release should be relatively soon.

Update: Raven Republic have found a full gallery of scans from AC Chronicle Art Works over at Armored Core Universe.

A new trailer for the upcoming Lost Planet 2 was release a few days ago, so if you missed it we’ve linked it below. The wonderful vital suits are shown but in a somewhat limited capacity unfortunately, normally on account of the showboating giant Akrid. That aside, like the demo confirms, this could be just bloody amazing. The game is released on May 18th and don’t forget to pre-order either the 360 and PS3 versions!