The upcoming release of the 1/100 scale TRV-06k-H Viper II kit has been previewed over at the Kotobukiya blog, prior to its release this month. This is the 1P colour variant from the first Virtual On (we have a nice feature about the Virtual On series if you’re curious). Originally, Viper II was intended to transform but due to the technical limitations of the Model 2 board this wasn’t possible, much to the disappointment of the game’s mecha designer, Hajime Katoki. Naturally, in the sequel the upgrade to Viper II, in the form of Cypher, retained the transformation ability. The kit itself costs 4,800 yen and you can get it here.

On the recent SEGA AGES port of the first Virtual On, the game featured expert matches via its playback feature. Below is a video of two expert Viper II players squaring off, in case you want to see the design in action.

Back in July of 2000, the Fuji-Q Highland amusement park opened Gundam The Ride. You were escorted onto a Federation transport and carried through the final battle of the One Year War, A Baoa Qu, by two chirpy GM pilots. The ride was full of wondrous little references which all zoomed past at lightning speed.

A few years later, in 2003, Bandai released Meguriai Sora on the PlayStation 2 (this was later released abroad as Encounters in Space). Within one of the latter campaign levels there was a nice little reference to the ride, as you encounter the transport and the GM’s in the middle of a Dolos class ship. Naturally, very few in the Western gaming press picked up on this rather cool reference.

Unfortunately, the ride closed down in July 2007 and was replaced by Gundam Crisis. Thankfully, someone managed to capture the ride for posterity before it shut down. So I’ve linked that below as well as a capture from the game that featured the cameo from the ride.

Enjoy!

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.

As part of our service, we regularly post videos from our YouTube channel showing off the latest mecha games. To tie in with our recent review, we’ve captured three gameplay videos of the new PlayStation 3 exclusive Gundam Senki 0081. Naturally, these are quite spoiler ridden in terms of the game’s narrative so you’ve been forewarned. The videos were captured at 720p too, so make sure to select the HD option.

What with this years’ Tokyo Game Show around the corner, the Japanese games industry marketing machine is going into overdrive. The upcoming Front Mission Evolved, being developed by Double Helix, has been given another trailer. Unlike the first, this teaser is predominantly CG footage and not in-game (which is a bit of a shame really). That said, the wanzers have been recreated faithfully enough it seems so there’s at least that aspect to be thankful for.

In a recent update to the official Silent Line Portable site, a new data install option was disclosed. This is especially good news for anyone who bought the previous Armored Core 3 Portable, as it spent half the time reading game data straight from the UMD (rather than caching it like it did on the PlayStation 2 version) and consequently sapping your PSP battery dry. Now, you’ll be able to install all the necessary data onto the PSP’s memory stick negating this issue entirely. Considering the lengthy bouts of furious multiplayer we had on the original Silent Line, the fact that we won’t need to spend quite so much time re-charging our PSP is nice to know. For those interested, there’s also a promo video for Silent Line Portable going the rounds. The port istelf looks to be pretty solid, more so than the last effort at least.

Here is the latest promo video for the upcoming PSP game Macross Ultimate Frontier. This is the sequel to the previous Macross Ace Frontier, also developed by Artdink (who in turn have helmed the Gundam Battle series as of late, though the older of us will most probably remember them for making Carnage Heart). Ultimate Frontier boasts even more variable fighters to choose from now and the addition of several extra Macross series (notably that of Macross Dynamite 7, Macross Zero and the somewhat ill-fated Macross II). The game is out at the beginning of October in Japan and like the previous game it most likely won’t make the jump abroad, as the rights surrounding Macross are quite awkward (courtesy of Robotech and Harmony Gold). The music in the video is also a new Fire Bomber track made specifically for the game as well, as anything involving Yoshiki Fukuyama makes everything so much better.