Due to the ongoing maintenance on the Japanese PSN, the closed beta test for Armored Core V’s suitably epic online setup has been indefinitely delayed, at least until the Japanese PSN is back up and running again. Thankfully the 360 closed beta is still good to go and will commence on July 19th. Still, considering that in Japan at least the vast majority of gamers would be playing the game on PS3 (as they did for both AC4 and ACFA) the fact that they are out of the loop until PSN is fixed is a bit worrying. As the whole point of this exercise was to stress test the network setup for the game, so the more more people you have online the better. Fingers crossed the Japanese PSN problems are resolved soon.

One of our favourite arcade games, is getting another new and quite substantial update. The recently “released” Border Break Airburst will be updated with all manner of new mecha and maps on June 29th. As well as having a slightly modified but more focused twist to a core game type. Specifically, Border Break works by having opposing teams kill each other and capture spawn points. The more spawnpoints and enemies killed results in a win for that side. However, each team has a well defended base with a vulnerable core. Destroying an opposing side’s core nets a win instantly. This new mode effectively has the focus shifted to directly attacking or defending a side’s core, eschewing all the tactical land grabs from capturing spawn points. From our experience, some of the most heated battles were always around a team’s core so it’s cool that a game mode has sort of taken this into account. In addition, in a partial nod to Armored Core no doubt, players can now also customise emblems for their mecha.

Whilst there is still no news of a home console port of the Border Break games, the fact that the Wii U is on the horizon (with a nice touchscreen setup) could mean we may see this on a console sooner rather than previously, well, never.

Whilst this was sort of announced already at the end of May, Kotobukiya have finally revealed some pictures of their forthcoming Jehuty kit from Anubis (shown above). This is not to be confused with the recently released Revoltech or the forthcoming Riobot figure, as these are both toys. The new Jehuty kit will be 18cm tall with, what looks like at least, impressive articulation. As with all Kotobukiya kits, the sculpt is also clearly excellent. No word on a release date or price as yet but it’s clear that something is happening to the series to warrant all this new merchandising, especially as we’ll be getting HD remixes of the games soon as well.

Over at 4Gamer there’s a new piece on the forthcoming Ace Combat Assault Horizon. Curiously at the bottom of the page is a picture (shown above) of a DLC specific fighter tentatively dubbed the “F-X” that’s designed by none other than Shoji Kawamori. Whilst it very likely won’t transform, it’s cool to effectively see a VF-9 Cutlass grace a game like this. Admittedly the sound of the Optimum control setup makes us want to gouge our eyes out with a rusty spoon but it’s good to know that the proper “original” controls will also still be available to those that haven’t mated with their closest relatives. The game will be released this October but no word on when Kawamori’s plane will hit DLC.

The upcoming 2nd Super Robot Wars OG has received it’s first promo. Whilst showing some of the very nice CG opening movie, the promo also has a variety of sections from the game itself. The animation, as expected, is incredibly impressive and doubly so as much of it appears to emphasise 3D movement via 2D animation (as in swanky camera pans among other things). Naturally, the final segment is dedicated to The Inspector anime series, that you can buy bundled with the game for crazy money. You pre-order the standard game here though.

Following last week’s leak, the somewhat kiddy Gundam AGE has received its official announcement. From a nice animated promo (shown below) to the news that Level 5 are indeed also helming not only the series’ story but also the game tie-ins (specifically an as yet yet untitled RPG). It seems Bandai have set their money making machine to go up to eleven this time. One of the arcade game tie-ins in particular is rather interesting though. Entitled Gage-ing Battle Base it effectively has kids place their newly built model kits into a reader of some sort that then generates battle stats for them to play with. It’s like Barcode Battlers high fived with the people behind Gunpla Builders. There’s also a card battling game called Gundam Triage on the way too, which will feature all manner of series including the forthcoming Gundam AGE. If we’re brutally honest, whilst we do love Level 5’s output it does feel misplaced here. This is not to say that kid’s in giant real robot mecha can’t be interesting, as Vifam and V Gundam do kinda prove that it can work, but that it’s probably gone too far in this case. The series is expected to start this October.

Update: Seems that Kanetake Ebikawa has done the primary mecha design of the titular Gundam AGE-1. The “mega size” 1/48 scale kit looks pretty cool too.

After the veritable yearly clusterfuck that is E3, Armored Core V has exited out the other side safely. Whilst not displayed at the show, unlike Dark Souls From Software’s other forthcoming title, Armored Core V is still ticking along in terms of its PR. This week 4Gamer have a piece on the details behind area acquisition and how that culminates in effectively an AC face-off as well as some information on the game’s back story. Much like the 1997 original, humanity has suffered a global catastrophe, though this time brought about by environmental forces. With wars erupting across the globe as resources become precious and suitably rare. The interesting twist though is that the AC’s actually pre-date this devastation and are dug up from deep underground, in a manner not too dissimilar to the events in Panzer World Galient. Separately, there are now new character types known as “migrants” that travel between areas of the world to trade resources (including weapons). Whether these will act as mobile shops is not clear as yet though.

4Gamer has a pretty epic promo for Level 5’s imminent Danball Senki. Coming in at over 14 minutes, it’s pretty extensive. Whilst the game is released in Japan this Thursday, there’s still no word on whether this will make the jump abroad. From what we played at last year’s TGS, the game definitely had a lot of promise as well as the production value to back that up.

What with Gundam Memories’ release a few weeks away, some more screenshots have surfaced on 4Gamer showing the variety of mobile armors in the game. Not to mention outlining three multiplayer modes; Time Match, Death Match and MS Hunt. The piece also spooges over a variety of new Gundam SEED Destiny units in the game, so your mileage may vary on that. We’ll be picking this up on release too, so a review will be forthcoming.

4Gamer has a new updated for the forthcoming 2nd Super Robot Wars OG, specifically featuring characters and mecha from D and MX. Whilst the screenshots are curiously small, they do look very impressive. The game has now also been scheduled for a release on 29th September in Japan and the (standard edition) will retail for 8,379 yen. You can pre-order the game here.