The Escapist is currently running a feature called I, Robot, that covers mecha and its affect on gaming. My personal favourite piece is the Pilgrimage to Mecha as it’s rare to see Gundam covered in a truly culturally sympathetic sense within the Western press. I’ve also contributed a piece as well, entitled Mecha Magnates it covers the most influential games that have shaped the genre over the years.

One of the lesser known Virtual On releases was the Seganet version that shipped at literally the end of 1996 for the Saturn. This utilised the then hugely cutting edge technology of dial up modems, to connect peer-to-peer with other similarly equipped Saturn gamers. This meant you could actually play online matches on the Saturn port of Virtual On. Pretty heady stuff. A few years later, in 1998, the Sega Netlink service was started up in the US and the Saturn port of Virtual On followed along with it.

Matt Schulz managed to capture his online matches from way back when and has uploaded them to his YouTube channel for all to see. For fans of the Saturn port and even Virtual On in general, these videos are definitely worth a gander.

As we predicted the Victoria AC from the Brave New World sidestory is appearing in the upcoming Silent Line Portable. In addition, From Software are holding an event on November 7th at their offices in Shibuya for gamers to have a go on the new port. Considering that Armored Core 3 Portable received a recent release abroad there’s a good chance Silent Line will follow suit.

Three new mobile suits for Gundam Senki 0081 are scheduled for release on the Japanese PlayStation Store on October 29th. These are the RX-81ST (with assault cannon), the AGX-04 Gerbera Tetra and the RMS-099 Rick Dias. The last two are noteworthy as they occur later in the Universal Century timeline, which could cause some interesting balancing issues as the there is quite a large disparity in terms of technology when it comes to units like the Rick Dias, which is from Zeta Gundam.

Not that long ago Yoshiyuki Tomino, the father of the Gundam saga, weighed in on games; declaring them to be “evil” relative to their creative worth. Unfortunately, many people seemed to ignore the context of his statements (and the fact he made Overman King Gainer, which features mecha games in a particularly positive manner). However, Mark Simmons recently interviewed Tomino and dutifully quizzed him again on this issue. It’s suitably thought provoking at the very least and part of me thinks he’s saying this so that the games industry can try to prove him wrong.

Armored Core 3 Portable is now available on the US PlayStation Store for $14.99. The download is around 324 MB. The upside of this release, bar the reduced price, is that it will use less battery power as the UMD version had the constant issue of it reading the disc (thus sapping the battery dry in super quick time). However, it’s worth clarifying that over the PS2 original, the new PSP port has input framerate issues. In that, despite the general visual consistency in terms of framerate the player input is quite erratic. You have been warned.

Over at Anime News Network a story has broken that the final chapter in Ryosuke Takahashi’s VOTOMS series, entitled Gen-ei Hen (or Phantom Arc) will begin airing next spring. It’s worth clarifying the simply massive impact this saga has had on gaming. Despite its own list of tie-in games (of which we reviewed the most recent), titles like Heavy Gear and Front Mission simply wouldn’t exist without the base ruleset that was used for the armored troopers in VOTOMS. The fact that this will be the final instalment in the narrative also qualifies as being a bit of a big deal, as the last part of the timeline we saw was in Heretic Saint back in 1994 (the recent Pailsen Files was actually set before the events in the original TV series). With any luck Yuke’s will be called back to do a new game to tie-in with this.

The Japanese release date for Tatsunoko vs Capcom Ultimate All-Stars has been announced to be the 28th January next year (two days after the US release and a day before the European launch). This is the updated version over Cross Generation of Heroes, which only saw a Japanese release at the end of last year. Ultimate All-Stars will also feature the much loved Tekkaman Blade, seen above, as a playable character. Naturally, in Japan, Bandai have been a tad shrewd about this and scheduled a release of the Armor Plus Tekkaman Blade toy to coincide with the launch of the game. This is not to be confused with the recently released set that also included Pegas, as the Armor Plus toy is a much larger rendition of just Blade himself.

A new promo video for Super Robot Wars Neo is now online. This video is particularly noteworthy as it shows the new non-grid based map setup and how that interlinks with the battle system. In short, it looks to be masterfully fluid in terms of how the strategy will work out. Naturally, this is ideal for Neo as it’s being clearly aimed at a younger audience due to its slightly kiddy mecha show line-up. That said, having a similar setup for the subsequent Super Robot Wars games would also work extremely well as it would add more tactical intricacy and depth if handled well. The game’s release is still scheduled for the end of October in Japan.

There’s a nice review of the newly released Robot Damashii Turn A Gundam over at R-Side (as well as the Turn X too). The designs, by renowned American concept artist Syd Mead, caused all manner of controversy back in the day but the series, and its designs, have garnered a considerable following in the years since. So much so that these mecha were featured in Another Century’s Episode 3 and Super Robot Wars Z (here’s our review of the latter). For those that remember, there was a very nice die-cast Turn A Gundam toy released about ten years ago now. Though, the sculpt and detailing of this new Robot Damashii rendition still looks pretty decent for the money. You can buy this new toy here if you’re interested.