The upcoming Heavy Guard Type II kit from Border Break has been previewed over at GA Graphic. As with all Kotobukiya kits, the sculpt appears to be very accurate and the Heavy Guard Type II will make a nice addition to the other, almost released, Border Break kit; the Cougar Type I. We’ll also be reviewing Border Break in the next few days, so keep an eye out for that. This kit will be released in March 2010 for a very reasonable 3675 yen, you can also pre-order this kit here.

It seems that Last Raven Portable will retain the data install option previously seen in Silent Line Portable. This feature, whilst appearing to be somewhat trivial, is actually quite a big deal when you consider the issues Armored Core 3 Portable suffered from in terms of its input framerate. In that, apart from some visual framerate stutter, the input lag was actually pretty atrocious (making some missions unnecessarily arduous). Considering the ramping up of difficulty in Silent Line and especially in Last Raven, the data install feature appears to have negated this serious input lag issue (from our play testing on Silent Line Portable at least). In short, having this feature in Last Raven Portable is very much a good thing as the multiple Zinaida fights in the PlayStation 2 original weren’t exactly a walk in the park to begin with.

The Crysis mod almost three years in the making, MechWarrior Living Legends is now finally out in Beta form. For those eager to get cracking with the mod, a list of download mirrors is available here, though you’ll need an account on their forum to access the thread in question. Admittedly, the mod has been delayed over a year now but considering that this is being done for free by a collection of dedicated fans means that the rest of us should learn to be more patient. In any case, they’ve done a truly splendid job and it shows that fan based work is by no means to be sniffed at. It’s also worth noting that this mod is not to be confused with the upcoming multi-platform MechWarrior reboot, though it does seem to give Piranha Games’ effort a graphical run for its money.

For those that have followed the Armored Core games over the years, many of you will know that Shoji Kawamori penned much of the mecha design. However, in the newer games such as Armored Core 4 and For Answer his role was almost non-existent. Instead From Software opted to use the very talented in-house illustrator, Yuzo Kojima. That said, in the case of For Answer, Kawamori was called back to create one specific design; that of Line Ark’s White Glint.

Due to the fact that it was such a strikingly elegant design, White Glint consequently adorned all the packaging and was exclusively featured in the opening CG movie (which we’ve included at the end of the review). So, when Kotobukiya were announcing they were releasing a model kit of the design earlier in the year many fans were suitably happy with the news. What follows is a photo review of the kit in a partially painted form, followed by fully painted photos.

Over at GA Graphic, they’ve previewed the upcoming 1/100 scale Hi-Metal Fire Valkyrie toy from Macross 7. The toy is interesting on several counts, firstly is that it’s rebooting the Hi-Metal line from the early 80’s and second is that the finish is especially accurate for a toy of this size. The Fire Valkyrie did already receive toys and kits around the time of Macross 7’s release but the toy was woefully proportioned and the kits required almost total disassembly for transformation. This toy, on the other hand, is remarkably accurate to the original design and isn’t overly large either (normally detailing requires larger moulds). Naturally, the Fire Valkyrie was featured in both Macross Ace Frontier and Ultimate Frontier on the PSP but the unit obviously had to play very differently as Nekki Basara doesn’t actually shoot any enemies in the series, instead choosing to sing at them whilst piloting his custom Valkyrie with a guitar. In any case, the toy is released in January 2010 and costs 7350 yen, you can buy it here.

The 18 metre tall statue of the RX-78-2 Gundam, that was previously and very briefly displayed in Odaiba to commemorate Gundam’s 30th Anniversary, will be resurrected in Shizuoka outside the JR Higashi-Shizuoka Station. This means that if you’re riding on the Tokaido Shinkansen (between Tokyo and Nagoya), you’ll be able to see it from the comfort of your own seat on the train. There were plans to display the statue in Nagoya, as Nagoya TV helped fund the original TV series and movies, but it seems that deal fell through. The 1/1 scale Gundam will arrive in Shizuoka in July 2010 and be displayed until May 2011, then it will literally move down the road to the Bandai Hobby Centre. Anyway, it’s nice to know that this wonderful piece of Gundam memorabilia won’t end up on the scrap heap anytime soon.

We mentioned not that long ago about a new line of commemorative gaming releases for Gundam’s 30th Anniversary. Well, they’re now out with places like Play Asia stocking a fair few. Our personal recommendations would be Gundam MS Sensen 0079 an FPS on the Wii, pictured above, and Gundam Battle Universe a third person shooter on the PSP. Neither of these games will probably see a Western release so you’d best acquire them now whilst they’re available at their new reduced price point. We will be reviewing both games in the new future though, so also keep an eye out for that.

The new 2D side scrolling shooter Gunhound, in the same vein as Valken and Leynos, has finally been released. For those that still want their games to come in boxes, the game is also on Amazon Japan, although at an increased price point. We’ll be reviewing Gunhound in the New Year but, on the strength of the recent trial version, we’d strongly recommend that any discerning mecha gamer pick this up (so long as you have a decent game pad for your PC, as the keyboard controls are a tad awkward). It’s also worth clarifying that Gunhound is in no way a doujin game but meant as a full fledged commercial release.

The final of the three Armored Core PSP ports, in the form of Last Raven, has received its first promo video and a smattering of coverage. For those unaware, Last Raven was one of the most challenging Armored Core games and ultimately aimed at its loyal fanbase, which wound up a a fair few Western journalists on its PlayStation 2 release (as they found it impossibly difficult for the most part). As a consequence, the original game was very much misunderstood and many of its features overlooked. Notably of which was its very involved branching narrative (though the English localisation was pretty woeful to be fair). The narrative received a large amount of interest, in Japan, and multiple directors were involved in creating various promotional videos for the game (with this being my personal favourite). The current PSP port has subsequently re-used a similar edit to this promo, so you should be able to compare and contrast on how accurate the port is from a graphical standpoint over the original game. This port will be released in Japan on March 4th next year at 3990 yen, along with a nice 60 page artbook containing lots of artwork and interviews.

We previously mentioned the upcoming PC scrolling shooter Gunhound a while back, but the game’s developer’s Dracue have released a trial version of the game online (you can download the installer here). Considering that this has been been made by a small team of people, the final results are impressive and refreshingly well crafted. The game is entirely in Japanese obviously, so pad configuration maybe a bit of fiddle. That aside, it plays an awful lot like Leynos and Valken but that is very much a good thing (though with lots of lovely aesthetic nods to VOTOMS, as the other Hound in the demo sports a commander type radar from Roots of Ambition). The full game is released on the 18th December.