The official Armored Core 5 site has been updated with a trailer for the game. The more observant of you will notice that this trailer was already shown when the game was announced a few weeks ago. However, this version lacks the shaky hand cam issues and as such you can see the new Over Weapon transformation a lot more clearly. In any case, no word on a release date as yet but it will be gracing both the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 upon its inevitable release. You may also want to keep an eye on From Software’s YouTube Channel too, if you’re already Armored Core inclined.

A landscape gardener in Taiwan has built a large statue of Optimus Prime in his backyard. Apart from holding up the washing, the design used is the one from the recent Michael Bay films. Now this version of Optimus does make our eyes bleed but the statue has been somewhat restrained in its use of scrap metal. It’s not the horrifically busy nonsense you see in the films but actually something decently mechanical.

There are games for these films obviously but you’d best stay clear really, as none of them are very good (though oddly for entirely different reasons). We’re still holding out for the High Moon developed War for Cybertron to be at least moderately decent, but the Transformers franchise generally has a pretty bad track record when it comes to games.

Our personal favourite home built mecha is still this rendition of Kazumi Fujita’s Hyper Zeta Gundam though, mostly because it has an actual cockpit and can walk.

We mentioned a while back about Lost Planet 2 model kits being scheduled for release along with the game, it turns out that these have become action figures instead. Now, it’s worth clarifying that Kotobukiya are excellent model kit makers but when it comes to toys they’re not overly brilliant. This is because toy development and manufacture is a lot more expensive than kits. So when you look at the pictures of the new PTX-140R Hardballer you can see that its feet don’t sit flat to the ground, this is down to reduced articulation as joints are expensive to engineer for bigger toys (especially at the collector end of the spectrum). Thankfully the GTF-11 Drio won’t suffer from this issue so much as the design is more straightforward. These new toys will be available in May for 4,200 yen each and are apparently set at 1/35 scale.

There will also be limited edition colour variants of these two toys at release in Japan, though whether these will also be available abroad remains to be seen. You can pre-order both toys here and here (at a reduced price of 3,800 yen no less).

The upcoming Activision published High Moon developed Transformers: War for Cybetron will be receiving its own line of toys made by Hasbro. Above is the unfinished prototype of the new Optimus Prime and it will be part of the “Deluxe” range apparently (which will also include Bumblebee, Drift, Megatron and the Soundwave toys from the game). Considering the Japanese origins of the series, it’s sad that more experienced toy manufacturers (such as Takara) are no longer able to really get involved in the franchise (though the Binaltech and Masterpiece lines are obvious and truly wondrous exceptions to this rule). Admittedly these new “Deluxe” toys are only going to cost around $10-20 each but considering the fans they’re targeting the game at are now in their thirties, it seems that Hasbro are aiming the quality bar a bit low. These toys will be released sometime this year, to obviously tie in with the game’s release no doubt. In any case, it’s nice that Western developed mecha games are getting their own toys again finally.

A few of you may remember that we reviewed the 1/72 scale Kotobukiya White Glint kit from Armored Core For Answer a while back. Well, that kit is now discontinued but fret not as Kotobukiya are releasing an updated version as per the colouring in the opening movie along with its Vanguard Overboost pack. Naturally, this pushes the price up a bit; to 9,800 yen to be precise. The updated kit will be available in May and you can pre-order it here.

For fans of augmented reality and Virtual On, this will be quite cool. The ARToolKit has been used to render a Virtual On type HUD with an ultrasound distance measurer. The video is quite innocuous to begin with, as it just shows how the device works but when a small “T” card appears that designates the 1/100 scale Kotobukiya model kit of HBV-502-H8 Raiden as just that – then it opens fire with its lasers (to which the cameraman wisely dodges). Admittedly this is just a tech demo of sorts but its nice to see this kind of technology used in a manner partially sympathetic to a game such as Oratan. What’s especially classy though and something not overly obvious to most people, is that the HUD used is actually the RNA variant (as in 2P). Why is this noteworthy? Well, the Raiden colour scheme of the kit is actually the DNA variant (or 1P) so the logical follow on from that would mean the cameraman would have to be an RNA player. The video is linked below and thanks to Saur for the heads up.

The sequel G.rev’s arcade versus shooter has finally had its 360 port dated for release. Senko no Ronde DUO will be released in Japan in both normal and limited edition versions on April 28th exclusively for the 360. No word on the differences between the two packs as yet but the game will feature online multiplayer again via Xbox LIVE. Though they’ll hopefully sort out the lag issues between players playing each other across the globe this time.

The official Armored Core 5 site was updated today, along with some new screenshots (with one of them above). In general, it’s now becoming clear how big the scale shift in the game has become and that ultimately it looks an awful lot better for it. It also seems that a form of overboost maybe still present as well. In any case, we’re liking the rain and the generally improved texture detail in the environments. Still no word on a release date or any gameplay footage though.

The Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas used to be where video game movers and shakers in North America made all their grand announcements, until a dedicated game show, the Electronic Entertainment Expo, came along. But now that E3’s stock has significantly decreased for a variety of reasons, a few publishers have come back, though mostly American based ones. Like Microsoft, with the only real news being their avatar arcade initiative, hence why this year’s CES was a bit of a snoozer. So it was easy to miss Capcom’s presence, who passed along a few new images from Lost Planet 2. Click on to read more…

The upcoming High Moon developed Transformers game; War for Cybertron has received a new trailer. It’s entirely cinematic footage, with nothing actually in-game, but again it’s nice to see the stylistic approach they’ve taken with the designs is more progressive than the live action nonsense we were subjected to. If anything, a full blown movie like the cinematic below would indeed be most welcome. Still no word on a release date as yet but it’s apparently scheduled for some time this year.