In a move that’s quite inspired, Capcom have seemingly hired veteran anime and live action film director Mamoru Oshii (pictured above) to helm a trailer for the forthcoming Steel Battalion Heavy Armor. In a teaser trailer (shown below) it shows some snippets of behind the scenes action. Considering that Oshii is a huge gun nut and has directed some pretty brutal films on occasion, we’re expecting some pretty epic hardware to be displayed. How they’ll handle the VT’s remains to be seen though.

Following on from the first part, we’ve been waiting for Saisei Hen with baited breath for quite a while. Unlike previous Super Robot Wars releases, the sequel to the first Z was planned in two parts. This was moderately cunning on the part of Banpresto; as not only would it allow more modern mecha series (often with two story arcs) to be portrayed in more detail but it also meant we could be charged twice for effectively the same game.

However, this isn’t quite the case. Whilst Saisei Hen is very much the second of two gaming parts it still has a huge amount of new content on offer. It’s also noticeably easier throughout too, though your mileage may obviously vary on that point. Either way, we’ve been thoroughly enjoying ourselves with Saisei Hen and it was very much worth the wait.

On April 26th the RX-0 Unicorn Gundam “Banshee” will be added to the playable roster of mobile suits in Gundam Extreme Versus Full Boost. The version in the game is also that of the OVA rendition that was teased at the end of the last episode, rather than the one from the novel. The screenshots do show similar (green) psycho-frame resonance as per the Unicorn too, which is a nice touch. This version will also be piloted by Marida Cruz, who initially pilots the Banshee before Riddhe Marcenas gets his hands on it. Whilst the design does look boss, black Gundams generally do to be fair, we had hoped to see more of the Blue Destiny units teased in the new intro.

For the second week running Super Robot Wars Z 2 Saisei-hen has topped the Japanese charts again, with 39,403 sales (for a total of 299,842 sales). This popularity is thoroughly well deserved though and we’re still relishing the game in all its brilliance. With any luck, our review will go up sometime next week and we hope you don’t mind the wait. In the meantime, you can buy the game (if you haven’t already done so) here.

The second alpha test for Mobile Suit Gundam Online is now underway. With 5,000 or so testers the game now has a few more interesting features to boot. From the use of strategic weapons, such as nukes (that knowingly breach the Antarctic Treaty), to reinforcements in the form of battelships. They’ve also confirmed that if the number of players falls below the maximum amount that bots will make up the difference. What’s still the most compelling thing about all this though is that the game can have over a hundred players squaring off in one battlefield and sagely they’ve not opted for a photo realistic art-style either, so most people can run this on a semi-decent PC. It will be interesting to see how this does once it’s finally released to the public and it goes without saying that a Steam version would be totally sweet (as well as wholly unlikely).

What with the release of Steel Battalion Heavy Armor looming, some more trailers (shown below) have been released. Despite being adult rated, we’re beginning to get more of a Chrome Hounds vibe from this. There’s also another camouflage pack outlined too, that of the Carbon Assassin Pack. What’s more interesting though, in a nostalgic sense at least, is that the bundle pack for the game (which includes a Kinect set) will retail in Japan at 19,800 yen. That’s the exact same price tag that the original Xbox version had, though this time we won’t be having to bike over Japanese mountains in the pouring rain to pick our copy up.

The recently released Super Robot Wars Z 2 Saisei-hen has managed to top the Japanese charts quite nicely, to the tune of 265,439 sales. If you’re wondering why we didn’t report this sooner and why the site has been a bit quiet as of late, that’s purely down to the fact that we’ve been playing the game pretty solidly since we got it last week. Thus far it’s sublimely brilliant and we will be doing a review once we’ve completed at least one playthrough.

It seems another Lost Planet game is on the way next year, as a CGI trailer for it has been leaked (shown below). If you’re wondering why the styling is a bit Gears of War-tastic and the mecha looks like something from BattleTech, that’s because it’s being developed by a Western studio this time. Specifically that of Spark Unlimited, who also developed Legendary and Turning Point: Fall of Liberty. If we’re honest, we’re not sure about the styling (as it’s a bit also-ran and there are plenty of similar themed shooters out there). This is not to say that we don’t think a Western developer can do it justice, as Red Faction: Guerrilla was hugely enjoyable and nailed the mecha aspect beautifully. It’s just that Lost Planet has always been a really interesting and different type of game and this comes across as something we’ve all seen before. After all, we loved the last game and we’re just hoping that this holds true to that in some way.

Updated: In-game screens are here, though some of these look more than a little touched up. Sadly, the mecha seems to be controlled in the first person.

In typical Hideo Kojima fashion, yet another Revoltech Jehuty has been revealed but this time sporting an all new colour scheme and a very beefy Vector Cannon (pictured above). The latter is probably one of the most powerful weapons the player had access to in Anubis and was an actual necessity on some enemies (as shown in the video below). However, in contrast to the emphasis on mobility that the game was focused around the Vector Cannon required the player to be grounded and stationary in order to fire (it even had a rather long charge time too). Considering that this will be the third Jehuty Revoltech we are starting to feel that Kojima et al are milking it a bit now. Like with all Revoltechs though, this toy likely won’t break the bank thankfully. It will also be on sale mid-June with any luck too. Unfortunately, there’s still no word on when the HD collection will be out nor whatever happened to the mysterious 3DS game but in the meantime they seem fine to placate us with more toys.

There have been two updates about the forthcoming Gundam Seed Battle Destiny’s customisation system over at Famitsu as well as 4Gamer. What’s especially interesting is that the upgrading of mobile suits will be undertaken via GP and TP points. TP is awarded at the end of mission and is linked to the mecha you just used, like the classic Gundam Battle games. Whereas GP is similarly awarded at the end of each mission but can be used on any mobile suit of your choosing. However, it also sounds that GP can be reassigned at a later date (unlike TP which is permanently spent once used). Like in the Macross games, you can also purge parts and this in turn affects the performance of your mobile suit. In any case, the GP and TP setup is a shrewd one; as it affords a more fluid upgrade system and one that probably won’t descend into a motherless grind-fest. It genuinely seems that Artdink are actually trying to move the series on after the really quite shockingly poor Gundam Assault Survive. For that we applaud them. As always, you can pre-order the game here.