The Kshatriya from Gundam Unicorn will be a playable unit in the upcoming Gundam vs Gundam Next Plus, released on the PSP in Japan at the beginning of December. The Kshatriya is a follow on design from the Quin Mantha, that was featured in ZZ Gundam, though admittedly a fair bit smaller.

As a developer GameArts are known most for their work on the wondrous Grandia games as well as their input to the Silpheed series, but they’ve also produced a rather well wrought selection of mecha games too.

Specifically, the four Gungriffon games that have graced multiple consoles over the years. These games pre-date From Software’s perennial Armored Core series but due to a number of factors, both cultural and financial, the games have never quite garnered the appreciation they so sorely deserved.

This is not to say that the Gungriffon games haven’t been critically lauded over the years but they haven’t reached the broader appeal that something like Heavy Gear did for instance, despite both series sharing similar base rulesets for the mecha. Amusingly, the design of mecha themselves has often been mistakenly attributed to be Western in origin, despite the obvious linkages to Ryosuke Takahashi’s VOTOMS series, something that again Heavy Gear shares. As such, we’ll delve into the series as a whole and examine what has made these games remain such a cult hit.

This happened a few months back but a shrewd VJ by the name of Bonsajo re-purposed an old Steel Battalion controller for his VJing. It’s impressively done and makes a lot of sense considering how many buttons the device had, so you could pre-bake multiple inputs off that for quick access. Plus, it also looks pretty cool when all the buttons light up. In any case, Bonsajo uploaded some videos of the kit in action.

The forthcoming PSP port of Gundam vs Gundam Next released at the beginning of December, has had more units confirmed exclusively for it. These are all mobile suits not present in the arcade iteration and are also all “bad guy” mobile suits. Specifically, the new units in question are; The O from Zeta Gundam, the Zeong from the original Gundam, the Rafflesia from Gundam F-91, the WaDom from Turn A Gundam and finally the Reborns Gundam from Gundam 00.

The upcoming DS bound Super Robot Wars Original Generation spin-off Endless Frontier Exceed has been given a new promo video. This is more your traditional RPG fare, rather than the turn based strategy that the series is normally based around. The big difference with the Endless Frontier games is also how they depict the human characters in game, as they’re not disembodied pilots. Considering that this doesn’t use licensed mecha, like its precursor, Exceed will most probably get a Western release at some point. The game is released on February 25th next year but there is also a limited edition version that offers a soundtrack CD, artbook and additional software features (of which the latter are currently secret).

A lesser known Hong Kong toy manufacturer by the name of threeA are releasing a Metal Gear Rex toy as penned by the suitably under appreciated Yoji Shinkawa. Rex was the climactic Metal Gear in Metal Gear Solid, though it also made a functional cameo in the recent Metal Gear Solid 4. threeA don’t normally handle licensed mecha designs, instead creating their own, so this choice on the part of Konami and Hideo Kojima is an interesting one. Early photos have leaked online and the detailing does look mightily impressive but this looks more like a collector’s statuette than toy. In any case, no word on price or release date has been announced as yet.

Upon news of the PlayStation Portable’s release, a slew of launch titles were announced. Among these was another entry into the successful Armored Core canon, this time going by the name of Armored Core Formula Front. However, due to the control limitations of the PSP, a direct port of an Armored Core game was not feasible. Despite this setback the team at From Software managed to find a solution to this problem.

The solution lay in the series’ former installments, most notably that of Armored Core Master of Arena and Armored Core 3 Silent Line; both games had a customisable AI function. To solve the control issues in Formula Front the controls were, very simply, removed. The player’s role now is purely to customise their AC and its AI. Matches are setup against other AI AC’s, run without player intervention and rely purely on the player’s prior competence at AC and AI customisation.

Before the inevitable functional paradigm shift that would occur to take into account an increase in hardware potency, From Software released the last of the traditional Armored Core games on the PlayStation 2. It was a swan song for the series as players knew it, as the newer versions would be functionally very different from this point onwards. Entitled Last Raven, it featured a complex branching narrative occurring over a 24 hour period where the entire world was going to hell in a hand basket. The point of the game was for the player to survive the 24 hours to literally become the last Raven left alive.

Now, I’ve played these games since 1997. Some have been good, others bad and a few completely brilliant. However, it’s safe to say that I know how to play these games as you’d think I’d have had enough practice by now? Wrong. Like every Armored Core game before it the skill set required to just survive changes both subtly and profoundly between each game. Last Raven is no exception as even after thrashing the entirety of Ninebreaker, with all of its 150 Gold medals acquired for each of its training programs, the final entry to the PlayStation 2 Armored Core pantheon promptly blew me into oblivion on the first mission. That’s right, the first mission in the game. Even with all my parts and, what I’d thought to be, a suitably uber AC configuration I still got obliterated. This is why Last Raven is no ordinary Armored Core game.

On November 12th Gundam Senki 0081 will receive more DLC in the form of new mobile suits. Specifically, the RX-78GP01-Fb from Gundam 0083 and the RX-178 Gundam Mk.II from Zeta Gundam. In addition, the RX-81 Light Armor will receive an assault cannon variant. These downloads will cost between 500 to 300 yen each. The game still has no word of a Western release and these DLC packs are currently only available via the Japanese PlayStation Store.

There are two pieces of coverage over at 4gamer regarding a new PC online multiplayer third person mecha game called “Tekki“. Now, this is not to be confused with Steel Battalion, as both titles share a similar name (in Japanese at least), as this is by no means an attempt at simulation. Despite the somewhat dated game engine and functional approach, what is interesting is that the game uses designs by Mika Akitaka – a renowned mecha designer. The beta test will be happening in Japan at the end of this month, so after that it will be interesting to see if a Western release will follow suit.