Finally, we now know that the release date for the new freemium based Gundam Battle Operation will be June 28th. The core game will naturally be free to download but internal content will be monetised. In addition, players will be able to pre-register on PSN pretty soon. Once we’ve put some time into this, be sure that a review will be forthcoming.

The rather fascinating arcade game Chousoku Henkei Gyrozetter has finally had it’s 3DS tie-in revealed at a recent event. Going down a more RPG route, it narratively shares the same setup as the anime, manga and arcade game but will have its own story nonetheless. It will also have a wireless combat option too. The game will be released next Spring.

Our good friends at HobbyLink Japan (those nice people that send us toys and kits to review) are now in the process of celebrating their 15th Anniversary. The happy chap in the photo is Scott T. Hards, the guy that runs HLJ. He’s also a fan of Heavy Metal L-Gaim, so he has taste too. In addition HLJ was setup the same year the original Armored Core was released, so it definitely seems that 1997 was very much a “good year”. Keep your eyes peeled though, as they’ll be a panoply of sales occurring over the course of June.

Famitsu has a nice new update showing in-game screenshots for the upcoming Zone of the Enders HD Collection. The most impressive of these, we think at least, are for the original game. In many ways playing that will be more interesting than Anubis (which already had many silent revisions and a special editions). Fingers cross crossed that they’ve helped to excise the suck out of the first game.

Finally, after much wait, the greatly anticipated 2nd Super Robot Wars OG has had its release details finally made public. Much of the fan speculation on places like 2ch was that the game would be released at the end of the year. Well, it seems that they were pretty much spot on as the game is slated for a Winter release. This can also mean it may slip to January next year though. This will be the first current generation 2D SRW game and if you’ve forgotten how gorgeous it will look, then take a gander at the lovely HD promo videos below. In short, we can’t wait for this!

Updated: Famitsu now has all the details online too.

Two new Zone of the Enders themed iPhone 4/4S cases have been previewed over at 4Gamer. One with a lovely piece of Shinkawa art for Jehuty (the classic one, not the new bio-mechanical monstrosity) and a more sedate logo version. Both will cost 9,800 yen a piece and will be released in Japan tomorrow and will be on sale here, though if you went to the big ZOE event then they were on sale there too. It’s clear that the general Zone of the Enders marketing has gone into full pimpage mode.

The surprisingly decent Steel Chronicle will be receiving a new update today. Not only including new mecha, from high mobility and heavy firepower types, to all manner of balancing changes. We did get a chance to play this last year and whilst it’s no Border Break, it’s actually pretty good nonetheless. Definitely inspired by Border Break, it also has a strong Monster Hunter and Phantasy Star Online vibe about it too. No word of a console release but it’s at least making money for Konami. If you’re curious about seeing the game in action and don’t mind excitable Japanese narration then Konami have uploaded a bunch of HD videos of the game for your enjoyment.

At the recent Zone of the Enders event, commemorating the forthcoming release of the HD edition, a new game was announced. This is the same game that’s been in pre-production for years but was held back on the grounds that Konami didn’t think it would make its money back (the first two games barely did and those had far smaller teams than this will need). Now that a veritable cluster fuck of marketing and game releases awaits, it seems that Konami are more keen to take a risk with a new game in the series. Bizarrely, the mecha design has taken a turn for the organic. In many ways the new Jehuty (shown rather gloomily above) is stylistically reminiscent of Takayuki Takeya’s work. Especially when you think of his gruesomely beautiful Lord of Byston Well sculpts. Thankfully, Hideo Kojima posted some better shots of the maquette here, here and here. The really bizarre thing is that the in-game models are actually being scanned off these real world maquettes, which is a pretty big snub to the art team really. The big thing for us though is that the whole pseudo-organic route has been done to death before. What made the original mecha designs so compelling were because nobody had ever designed mecha like that before. This feels a bit dull and safe by comparison. In addition to all this sequel excitement, the HD edition is indeed looking very lovely and a box set edition will also include a BluRay of the Idolo prequel OVA that was released way back with the first game. No word on release date or systems as yet and the game is currently being called the “Enders Project”. However, the HD edition will be finally released this year on October 25th.

Update: 4Gamer now has a nice report of the event.

In a nice new update on May 29th, Gundam Extreme Versus Full Boost will have the suitably villainous CB-0000G/C Reborns Gundam added to the playable roster. Due to its Tau drive config, it can only activate its Trans-Am system once. Though we still love the fact that Ribbons Allmark’s voice actor was none other than Tohru Furuya. Basically this chap has been the iconic voice of Amuro Ray in the classic Gundam series, so to have him play the villain in a new Gundam series was really rather delicious. Separately, when Ribbons and Amuro face off in the recent Saisei-hen they have some pretty cool dialogue together too (as it’s the same actor). In any case, the Reborns Gundam was always a potent unit and it’s no surprise that it has the 3000 point cost tag in Full Boost.

In a recent Tweet, Yuji Korekado posted a new screenshot from the Zone of the Enders HD Collection. From the second game Anubis it shows the early boss fight with Ardjet. As you can see above, it looks pretty good. This is also from a forthcoming demo meant for the event on the 25th and they are almost trying to recreate the same setup as was seen in the TGS 2002 demo (this was later included in the very nice Anubis artbook). It’s also worth clarifying that this version of the game is not really the same as the one we reviewed. Whilst a few people think our appraisal of the second game is a tad harsh, the review was done back in 2003 on the initial Japanese release. This was a very badly balanced version of the game and suffered lots of problems. Multiple silent revisions followed, culminating in the Special Edition. The latter is a very different game functionally and one day we’ll hopefully get around to covering that version in a new review (as we like it a lot more).