Joystiq has some hands-on impressions of Thexder Neo from the Tokyo Game Show. As someone who missed out on playing the original Thexder, reading how the new one plays has gotten me a lot more excited about it. Sounds like the transformation ability is being used as more than just a gimmick but instead as an integral part of gameplay.

Over at Game Watch there’s an interesting piece about the upcoming anime series Halo Legends, apart from having a nice trailer there’s also a breakdown on each of the episodes and their directors. A few people have already noticed the presence of Shinji Aramaki (seen above) but few probably appreciate the fact that Aramaki is more renowned for his mecha design prowess, as he made a name for himself during the 80’s creating things like the Garland from Megazone 23 and the Madox-01. His work is very much on the real end of the mecha design spectrum.

In any case, Aramaki is a big bike nut (he also designed the transforming ride armors in Mospeada in case you’re wondering and supervised the designs in the recent Viper’s Creed) and in his Halo Legends episode “The Package” it looks like the Master Chief is effectively sitting on a “space bike” (seen here). That said, the design for this does look awfully reminiscent of the shoulder section of White Glint from Armored Core For Answer. Anyway, considering the powered armor focus of the Spartans it’s nice to see that someone who effectively helmed that part of Japanese mecha design is now finally making his mark on something originally birthed in the West (though if you ask me the the Master Chief does look an awful lot like Yutaka Izubuchi’s work, namely the ARL-99 Helldiver as well as the GM Sniper II and GM Command).

It’s a giant RX-78-2 head, what more could you ask for? Anyway, despite the regal majesty that is the Kunio Okawara’s timeless Gundam design 4gamer has some nice coverage of Bandai Namco’s games at this year’s Tokyo Game Show.

In addition, someone was nice enough to upload a video of the head in action. Specifically due to the fact it moves, which indicates that this is probably the disembodied head from the Odaiba 1/1 scale Gundam that was recently taken down.

Famitsu recently posted an interesting piece of coverage for Front Mission Evolved, most probably to tie-in with its presence at the Tokyo Game Show. Despite the fact that the in-game screenshots look better than expected, the refreshing thing to see is that you can also get out of your wanzer and take on enemies as a mere human. This is something that was recently utilised in the fantastic Yuke’s developed VOTOMS game (which we’ve reviewed in case you’re curious) and naturally there are a large number of thematic links between the narratives, especially as to the scale and technical depiction of the mecha themselves.

That said, the video below doesn’t exactly bode well on how it might actually play…

The newly released arcade game Border Break is receiving some t-shirts at this year’s Tokyo Game Show, all tucked away within Cospa’s stall in case you’re wondering. There are a total of two t-shirts priced at 3,045 yen each (pages are here and here). In addition to these there are some wonderful Sega Saturn t-shirts available as well.

The upcoming PSP port of Gundam vs Gundam Next has been finally given its own site. Noteworthy is the information emblazoned across it that it will be present in video form at this year’s Tokyo Game Show. The Japanese release date has also been specified now as being the 3rd December this year.

A nice long promo video for Super Robot Wars Neo was released recently, as the game is gearing up for release at the end of October in Japan. These videos are normally the ones given to high street shops to advertise the game in store (hence the length and the fact it goes through every series featured). Unlike the main bulk of Super Robot Wars games, Neo uses 3D models in the attack animations and it’s also the first game in the series to be released on the Wii (hence the slightly kiddy line-up of mecha). Despite being a port of the GC and XO games, Neo does have a bit more going for it as Banpresto have utilised a full 3D map and streamlined the whole body parts system. In that, you can no longer target the head or legs of an enemy mecha. Hopefully, unlike XO, Neo won’t feature a horrifically evil final boss fight.

The upcoming PSN/PSP re-make of the classic NEC PC-8801 shooter Thexder has had its site launched. Apart from a selection of interesting screenshots there’s also a gameplay trailer. Thexder is an interesting game as it was one of the first dedicated mecha gaming IP’s and it successfully featured in-game transformation. Unsurprisingly, it was hugely popular at the time of its release. The game will be available on October 1st for a 1000 yen via the Japanese PSN store.

The DLC for Gundam Senki 0081 that was announced not that long ago has been released today on the Japanese PSN store. Both the FA-78-3 Full Armor Gundam and RX-81AS Assault Armor cost 300 yen each. However, these mobile suits can only be used in the Free Mission mode (either offline or online) and whilst the DLC makes these units available you still have to buy them in game. The RX-81AS costs 450,000 points and the FA-78-3 costs a cool 1,200,000. Bear in mind that each mission you play nets you about 10,000 points on average means that those costings are a little brutal. Thankfully, Bandai have recently released an HG model kit of the FA-78-3 if you can’t face the grind to unlock it in game and it only costs 1,500 yen. Bargain!

In the latest column over at the Oratan 5.66 blog, it’s been announced that the Hori TwinStick EX peripheral will be playable at the SEGA booth at this year’s Tokyo Game Show. This alone makes the hardware sound pretty sturdy as letting it loose on the floor of a public event would normally be a bad idea (I dread to think what would have happened to the poor Dreamcast twinsticks back in the day).