We’ve now got some more bits and bobs on the upcoming Gundam Breaker 2. Notably that you can square off against battleships now, which is pretty great, as well as the ability to use the FXA-08R Mega Rider from ZZ Gundam. Bar new units and characters, the big new stuff we thought we should mention is that the game engine has had a decent amount of work done on it. It’s clear that Bandai have put a bit more budget behind this one. The game is set for a December 18th release and you can pre-order it here.

Well we’ve just had this year’s All Japan Model & Hobby Show and a lot of very cool stuff was revealed. Notably that of the Perfect Grade Unicorn Gundam (shown above), which will have an internally lit psycho-frame. Considering it’s been a while since we had a PG kit, this is a rather a big deal. Following that we had all manner of toy reveals, with Megahouse’s Orguss tempting us with regular brilliance (come on, just release it already!). Then Bandai’s explosion of various new Robot Damashii figures, including the upcoming Metal Robot Damashii Hi-Nu Gundam. In any case, AmiAmi has a lot of great photos and our friends from HobbyLink.tv also went (we’ve linked their video below too). So if you want to see more, then have a look here, here, here, here and here.

Whilst this year’s Tokyo Game Show lacked any new From Software mecha games, it seems that we might be getting a new announcement in November. Whilst we don’t know for sure that this will be a new Armored Core game, considering the history of the studio it seems likely (or at least a new mecha game anyway). In addition, we may now also start to hear more announcements from other Japanese studios on new games in development. As a lot of stuff is currently being worked on it seems.

First off, apologies for the lack of updates. Things have been pretty bizarre as of late and have only just started to somewhat calm down. In addition, there aren’t that many mecha games to talk about at the moment – though more as to why a bit later. However, we did manage to make it to this year’s Tokyo Game Show and briefly hang out with the nice people at HobbyLink.tv.

Anyway, the console side of things is in a bit of a transition. Most publishers thought, incorrectly, that consoles were dead and as such didn’t bother to develop many games for the newer consoles. Cue the release of them last year and their crazy high sales, publishers freaked and started developing new games for them. The problem is that most big games take at least 2 years to get off the ground. We are halfway through that, so this year’s show was a little barren. It’s also why there aren’t many mecha games on the horizon, yet! This means stuff like Armored Core is very likely being worked on but isn’t quite in a state to be shown to the public at large.

We took lots of pictures though and we also helped out the HobbyLink.tv people, with the video of that shown below (I am the chunky British guy, obviously). The pictures and some gameplay impressions are after the link.

We recently reviewed the amazing Robot Damashii Full Armor ZZ Gundam over at Hobbylink.tv, this being the final version of the titular mobile suit as seen in ZZ Gundam. It’s an amazing figure though and whilst a webshop exclusive is worth getting. The detailing alone for a figure of this size is pretty fantastic really.

For those that are interested, we’ve recently reviewed the DX Chogokin YF-30 Chronos from the PS3 game Macross 30 over at HobbyLink.tv (in addition to a small unboxing piece too). Despite being an obviously great toy, we still can’t get over the basic fact it exists at all. Considering that this is a one off design without any variants and it’s from a game to boot, the fact we have such an brilliant toy of the design is pretty amazing really. If you haven’t played the game yet, then it was recently re-released under the discount “The Best” label.

Over the weekend, Makuhari Messe in Tokyo (well, technically Chiba) hosted yet another event, that of Chara Hobby 2014. Prior to that Bandai announced a new line of toys called Metal Robot Damashii. We held off on mentioning the latter because we guessed (correctly) that the new toy line would be shown at Chara Hobby. Well, it turns out the first figure in the new toy line will be the mighty RX-93-v2 Hi-Nu Gundam (pictured above). You may be thinking, didn’t they already release a Hi-Nu Gundam recently? The answer would be “yes” (we reviewed it too) but this has all manner of diecast in the joints and other detailing. Subsequently, it looks utterly glorious. No word on price point or release date as yet but we’ll let you know as soon as we do. In the meantime check out the video of the new metal infused Hi-Nu Gundam below.

As for the rest of Chara Hobby, there was a lot of cool stuff on show. From the eye wateringly expensive Soul of Chogokin Gaogaigar which is out in December, to the gorgeous Megahouse Orguss. Anyway, check out the coverage here, here, here, here and here.

Following the announcement of an X2 toy, soon to be released in September, we now also have news of a new toy release. That of the plucky XM-X3 (F97) Crossbone Gundam X3. Unlike the X2, the X3 will be a webshop exclusive sadly. Priced at 5,616 yen and released in February next year, the pre-orders start today. There’s a definite push for more Crossbone Gundam toys though. As we had the Full Cloth, the X1 option parts set and even Harrison’s F-91 released or announced. What’s weird about all this, is that we have already had several Robot Damashii toys released of the various Crossbone Gundam mobile suits (bar the Full Cloth) and those had the ABC mantles too. Anyway, updated releases or not we’re just happy to see more of those classic mobile suits get the Robot Damashii treatment. If only they’d do the decent thing and make an anime already.

One of the main factors in Artdink’s renaissance as a studio is how it managed to land the Gundam and Macross licenses. Turning them into very capable PSP games and a few decent PS3 games to boot. The former of these licenses started out as the Gundam Battle series and this is where we come to The 3D Battle.

Much like the previous Gundam Battle games The 3D Battle re-uses content but unlike the execrable Assault Survive, it remembers that this is foremost a handheld game. As such it’s much more in line with the older games in the series and subsequently pretty damn good.

At the upcoming Anime Fest in Tokorozawa they will be allowing punters to experience the opening launch sequence of the Tsugumori from the recent Knights of Sidonia anime via the Oculus Rift DK2. As an aside, there are also rumours that a Sidonia game will surface (likely at this year’s Tokyo Game Show) and it’s well known that Tsutomu Nihei, the manga’s creator, is an ardent gamer. In any case, this is a pretty cool and we hope it’s made available to the public at large at some point in the future.