The upcoming War for Cybertron has been given a multiplayer demo via the 360 online Marketplace, so go and download it basically. From the few games we’ve played it’s obvious, that despite being very pretty, the game reassuringly doesn’t suck total sweaty robot balls. Though, that said, it is worryingly generic (from a multiplayer standpoint at least). The really good news, for us at least, is that High Moon didn’t bork the mecha handling as they feel suitably weighty. We’ll be reviewing the game once it’s released later this month, so keep an eye out for that. Naturally, Megatron must be stopped…no matter the cost…

With the latest trailer for Vanquish, we finally see what the game looks like in action and I have to say that my initial skepticism about it has all but vanished. The game’s pedigree is excellent, being created by Platinum Games (Bayonetta, Mad World) and headed by Shinji Mikami (Devil May Cry, Resident Evil) but the early screenshots and teaser trailer released to the gaming public made the game seem, at best, an interesting take on the overused “space marine” trope all too common in current-gen titles.

The new trailer puts any doubts to rest because not only is the action as frenetic as we would expect from Platinum Games, but rather than simply using space-age armor to explain away the amount of damage these characters are capable of soaking up, we can see in the trailer that the main character’s powered armor provides him with additional movement options as well–one scene shows him boosting from one set of cover to another almost instantaneously, while another has him using his thrusters to gain enough vertical range to smash a foe.

It’s nice to see designers thinking about what ways these wonderful “space marine” armors could change combat, and while the scale of powered armor doesn’t exactly match that of mecha, and thus is really a whole different kettle of fish, a lot of the solutions are the same–just as giant robots shouldn’t be treated as human analogues, humans in powered armor should have different skillsets following from their upgrade. While Vanquish isn’t the only game in recent memory to play with the trope (Section 8 being a good example) it’s good to see some of the most talented people in the action game business working on the problem.

On more firmly mecha-related territory, I’d also like to point out some interesting similarities between Vanquish and Mobile Suit Gundam. Both deal with humanity expanding into space not onto different planets, but rather in O’Neill cylinders floating freely in space that use rotation to generate an approximate feeling of gravity, and both have these colonies eventually being used as weapons, by taking advantage of the plentiful solar energy resources of outer space.

While it’s hard to tell where the homage ends and genuine cultural absorption begins with the Japanese and their (perfectly reasonable) obsession with Mobile Suit Gundam, I do find the use of Gundam as a reference point interesting, because much as the mobile suit’s use in Gundam is to provide a vehicle that can operate equally well in space, under Earth’s gravity, and in the artificial “gravity” of O’Neill cylinders, Vanquish is taking the commonly used Western term “space marine” quite literally, as Vanquish’s power armor seems to be designed both as a spacesuit and as body armor, used to infiltrate a structure floating in space. Most of what are called “space marines” in the press tend to be neither, operating on planets rather than in space and not being any more mobile than regular troops being shipped to a far-off planet.

Hopefully Vanquish will be the great game that it looks like it will be, and that it will create a renaissance in the West regarding the Men In Space Suits, Holding Guns, Shooting Aliens genre, maybe even something a bit closer to the original Western concept; when the West made Starship Troopers into a movie we kept only the fascism, while Japan kept only the robots. Needless to say, Mecha Damashii supports robots over fascism.

The official Virtual On Force port website had another update today, this time with a trailer of the game in action on the 360 (with a rather cool reveal at the end, in the form of two Tangrams). Unsurprisingly, the original arcade assets have been handled without much fanfare; as the 360 is considerably more potent that the original Hikaru boards that ran the game. Though we’re still unsure whether a home port of Force is actually a good idea. Admittedly, Oratan’s XBLA sales have been mighty impressive but Force was considerably more flawed and in part helped to limit the success of the series from that point on. In any case, we’ll see how well this new port fares once it’s released at the end of the year.

Possibly our favourite Transformer, Shockwave (aka Laserwave, Astro Magnum etc.), is getting offered as a pre-order bonus for GameStop customers who buy the upcoming Transformers: War for Cybertron. Now, we know this news isn’t that current but this trailer showing off the pre-order bonus in game (and suitably voiced) is rather wonderful – though much of that is also down to the music being used.

Shockwave is an interesting design as it mirrors much of the similarities to the cyclops monster seen in Ulysses 31, a series that Studio Nue also worked on. Whilst Nue also worked on Diaclone, the Japanese toy line that birthed Transformers as we know it, Shockwave was an interesting anomaly to that as the original “Astro Magnum” toy wasn’t made by Takara. Whoever penned the original toy design, and we’re inclined to think it may have been Kazutaka Miyatake, we’re suitably chuffed that the new game will feature the mecha.

The port of the sequel to G.rev’s arcade classic, Senko no Ronde, was released earlier in the week. Entitled Senko no Ronde DUO the port is rife with a panoply of exclusive features, from an interesting story mode as well as online multiplayer (though hopefully the latter will fair better with lag this time around). We’ll be reviewing the game in the near future but in the meantime you can order the Japanese version here.

Over at Game Watch it seems that the Japanese release date for Front Mission Evolved has been confirmed as the 16th September. Interestingly, the article also talks of a release on Steam. The US release, confirmed in the trailer below, is two days before the Japanese one; on the 14th September. Naturally, upon release, we’ll be reviewing the game – so keep an eye out for that.

Over at 4Gamer they have a bunch of really nice HD screenshots for ACE R, which ties into the updated playable unit list we mentioned a few days ago. What’s especially good about these shots is that most of them are clearly ripped from the VRAM, rather than full on renders. This means you can actually see how sweet the game really looks and in the case of the Dijeh, just how pimp that blue beast really is.

That said, we feel compelled at this point to spend a quick moment on saluting the series we personally loved in the older ACE games that didn’t make it into ACE R. We shall miss you!

Update: The game will be released on 19th August in Japan for 8379 yen.

As we previously reported, a location test for Gundam Extreme Versus is currently underway in two Japanese arcades this weekend. Naturally, a bunch of videos have sprouted up online to cover this. Despite looking very shiny, it’s clear that the team behind the games hasn’t dropped the ball in a functional sense. In that, those that have enjoyed the recent delights of Gundam vs Gundam Next Plus will see that much of the core combat is remarkably familiar.

As for the hardware itself, as we’ve said before the System 357 board that’s being used for the game is basically a PS3 in a box. In many ways, this appraisal is actually quite literal as this video shows the PS3’s XMB in action prior to the game booting up. Put simply, a PS3 port is a clear given at some point in the semi-near future.

The line-up of suits in the videos is suitably varied too, from the lovely V2 Gundam and its Assault Buster variant (which recently received an excellent Robot Damashii toy), to the new Crossbone Gundam units and finally the 00 Gundam. The latter has sensibly separated out the 00 Raiser setup, as it was hugely uber on the recent PSP iteration. In any case, enjoy the videos below.

Game Watch has just covered the recent Senjou no Kizuna 2010 Tournament, as well as hosted a brief interview with the developers of the very successful arcade game. Though the real meat of the coverage is the in-game video coverage taken from the live feed that’s often displayed to punters in the arcades (of which we’ve linked a fair few below, in HD no less). In many ways Senjou no Kizuna laid the ground work for games like Border Break to follow, though it’s still nice to see a game succeed despite its pretty dated hardware. You might also want to keep tabs on Namco Bandai’s YouTube Channel, as they’ve been pretty diligent with uploading much of the tournament replays. There is a PSP port of the game and, all things considered, is actually moderately decent – though it does lack any form of online multiplayer capability (something that ultimately defined the arcade version, along with its amazing cockpit obviously).

This is a pretty cool video of Japanese players doing a bunch of high speed formation flybys and awesome fireworks displays with the weapons in Armored Core For Answer. If anything it shows how versatile and functionally thorough the game is, not to mention being quite shiny to boot. Though I’m sure the majority of the main stream games press, with their sausage fingers, won’t “get” any of this. Shame that.

The music accompanying the video is Starry Sky – MK feat. R.Cena in case you’re wondering. Thanks to Raven Republic and Armored Core Online for the heads up.