You’d think that a dedicated gaming intellectual property that affords immense creative freedom on the part of the player would be championed outside of Japan as well as within. While the latter is certainly true, the former is sadly not the case.

Admittedly, From Software’s Armored Core games have often received rather disappointing localisations and non-existent marketing but some balk at the series’ ongoing complexity, both in terms of the controls and intricate customisation.

The truth is that these games have a very traditional learning curve in effect and not just as a series but for each and every game. In the current climate of zero effort rewards maximum enjoyment, Armored Core is decidedly antagonistic in its approach on making the player learn the game. In many ways, the Armored Core series is the spiritual successor to games like Assault Suits Valken.

Anyway, here’s more history on the older Armored Core games than you shake a reinforced ceramic composite stick at (oh, and each of the gameplay screenshots double as links to in-game footage in case you’re wondering).

More after the jump:

What with the latest TV series, Macross Frontier, finishing a fairly recently ago and the new PSP game Macross Ace Frontier being released with another on the way, it seems that now is a good time to talk about a series that has often been given a somewhat unfortunate gaming treatment.

Of all the mecha franchises out there Macross is one of the most badly represented. This isn’t because developers want to sabotage the series but more down to the fact that each Macross game is actually comprised of three disparate gaming genres all vying for dominance via one control method.

To clarify, Macross is a series based around love triangles, giant aliens, music and, of course, planes that can transform into large robots. Naturally, each game focuses on these variable fighters, which results in a game that has to offer control for each of it’s three modes; fighter, GERWALK and battroid.

To say that that this is a pretty tough undertaking isn’t in any way an understatement. It’s actually, almost utterly impossible.

One of the PlayStation 3’s launch games, that of Gundam: Target in Sight, has drawn a fair amount of flak for being, well, rubbish. This criticism is wholly justified however but the consequent reasoning that all Gundam action games are rubbish is fallacious at best.

Like all licensed games, Gundam has had a chequered history in regards to gaming quality. There are some truly appalling entries into the gaming canon but there are also some equally fantastic entries too, it’s just unfortunate that the former receive more attention than the latter. As such, I think it’s only fair that the good Gundam games get their chance in the sun.