For those that played the last game on the PSP, there are some link bonuses to be had in the forthcoming Super Robot Wars Z 2 Saisei-hen. The first is a bonus for a single playthrough on Hakai-hen, followed by a bonus based on how many times you did a playthrough (maxing out at 10) and the final is if you completed all the scenarios. These will net you a variety of upgrade points as well as parts. So whilst you can pre-order Saisei-hen here, you may want to go back and pick up a copy of Hakai-hen (also here) so you can squeeze out a good head start when Saisei-hen arrives on your doorstep.

The latest Wonder Festival has had all manner of lovely trinkets on display. From Sentinel’s RIOBOT versions of Anubis (pictured above), Jehuty and Detonator Orgun (though we’re more excited by the inclusion of the Tsugumori from Tsutomu Nihei’s brilliant though overlooked Knights of Sidonia manga), to some very nice figma toys of both Tekkaman Blade and Tekkaman Evil. The new VOLKS injection plastic LED Mirage is still looking all kinds of sexy too. Though the biggest and nicest surprise of them all is the appearance of Kazutaka Miyatake’s power armor from the 80’s Starship Troopers OVA as a new Revoltech figure. If you want to peruse more pictures at your leisure, then you can do so here, here and here.

For those that have been wondering what has happened to Hawken, well there’s now the chance to sign-up for what looks like a closed beta test. We’re assuming that this closed beta will be PC based (via Steam?) but this is entirely conjecture on our part. There’s also a Twitter feed you can follow for the beta test. What we do know is that some people will be playing the game on “12.12.12”. Catchy.

Update: Looks like this will indeed be a PC only title, published by Meteor Games. It also sounds like it will be freemium.

As promised, the first promo video for Super Robot Wars Z 2 Saisei-hen went up over the weekend. It’s a glorious 5 minute showreel with lots of very shiny battle animations. Interestingly, Bandai Namco are hosting the trailer on their official YouTube channel as well (so the encoding is actually decent). Overall, this game looks as lush as the first one (which we adored) so we can’t wait to play this too. Don’t forget that this is also out at the beginning of April and you can nab your copy here.

4Gamer has a really nice report on the Premium Dogfight event that happened for Gundam Extreme Versus last year. Not only did players duke it out in a tournament on the current game, the development team were also present to talk about Full Boost. The latter sounds even more intense now, as the gameplay mechanics appear to be even more immediate and visceral. Considering how fast paced the current game is, it will be interesting to see how far the team at Byking will push it further. On top of that Full Boost will receive a new opening song called Fight It Out Feat.K (Pay Money To My Pain) by Akihiro Namba and Takeshi Ueda (audio clip below). If we’re honest, we’re a bit disappointed that Linkin Park didn’t do it especially as they’re such big Gundam fans (especially of the UC timeline). Finally, the Extreme Gundam (aka: that annoying boss in the current game) has received its own serialised manga in Gundam ACE called Gundam EXA. If you’re still on the fence about getting the PS3 port of the current game, then have a read of our review and remember you can still buy the game here.

Well, the sales figures for Armored Core V’s first week in Japan are out. For the PS3 version, the game shipped a respectable 163,906 units placing it at the top of the Japanese charts and the 360 variant pulled in a more meager 24,719 and landed 6th in the charts. To put these figures into perspective the Japanese PS3 versions for Armored Core 4 and Armored Core For Answer only sold around 90,000 and 100,000 units in their first year of sale. Likewise the Japanese 360 versions also sold approximately 30,000 to 70,000 units respectively in the same time period. So from a Japanese standpoint this first set of sales figures is incredibly good, especially as it’s been less than a week since the game’s release. Talking of release, on a more personal note our order (which includes both versions) has been delayed somewhat, this means our review will be similarly later than usual. Unfortunately, these things happen occasionally. In any case, these sales figures are awesome news for the Armored Core series.

The official Super Robot Wars Z 2 Saisei-hen site is now open for business. Whilst there are no promo videos as yet, it does collate all the new series featured and their respective screenshots (which are also duplicated over at Game Watch, minus the flash leprosy obviously). We’re just glad that Final Dancouga is still present and correct. That said, seeing the mighty Shin Mazinger Z sporting its God Scrander (pictured above) brings warmth to our heart. This being the same God Scrander that in its post-modernist brilliance actually transforms Mazinger Z into a giant rocket propelled fist. We can also highly recommend the Soul of Chogokin toy too, if you can find it. Anyway, the game is still set for its April 5th release and you can pre-order it here.

The new browser based Web Power Dolls will be getting a new mecha, as designed by ToMo. Above is a sketch of a lighter weight mecha with more hard points. Its primary functions are for quick surprise attacks and reconnaissance. For those unfamiliar with the Power Dolls saga, it’s been a pretty successful series of PC based mecha turn based strategy games that were birthed in the mid-90’s (with a tie-in anime OVA to boot). Whilst this new game is browser based, it’s still being handled by the same Kogado Studio. This new mecha will be in-game around the 8th February apparently. We’ve included the current game’s promo video below too.

Towards the end of last year an alpha test was carried out on Mobile Suit Gundam Online. Today, we received the results. Of those that signed up, 1,269 opted to play in the Federation whereas 1,320 chose to join Zeon. Despite the slight numerical advantage, the Feddies were more often than not victorious over the Zeeks (Go Feds!). There are also a fair few comments from the testers asking for various features, though whether any of these come to fruition remains to be seen. Another test phase is planned for the end of February apparently and no final release date has been set.

To commemorate the release of Armored Core V today and courtesy of our good friends at HobbyLink Japan, we’ve been sent the Nineball (Armored Core Ver.) kit from the original Armored Core. Our review is also of the kit in its unpainted form. In addition, to help give the kit some context, we’ve also included some video footage of it from the original PSone and PS2 games at the end of the review.