Having completed the playable demo available via Steam, here a few of my first impressions for the upcoming indie mecha game Dual Gear.

No bugs encountered, just a few rough edges. As expected. Game play was pretty intuitive, and I didn’t really need to bother with the tutorial at all. Battle system is a real time, strategy/turn based hybrid with movement based auto counter attacking. So positioning will be key. AI is pitifully stupid right now. You can avoid most damage by using terrain as cover. The AI will attack you as if you’re out in the open. Graphics are pleasing, clean. Needs some refining, as I am seeing a lot of jagged edges even with all settings maxed on 1080p. Speaking of. The game doesn’t appear to be a graphical power house but it was really working my GTX970. Even experiencing some odd surges in power needed. In spite of this, it still ran above 60 frames per-second without issue.

The UI could use a bit of work. Just to make things a tad clearer. The info it displayed felt muddy, not obvious as to what it was telling me. The mecha featured were well designed aesthetically, and made me quite eager to see what the customization will add to that. The combat was fun to engage in. The missiles and long range cannon were really fun to use, and made short work of enemies. Melee was confusing at first. Looks like it’s a timing based attack(at least with the sword). The blowing off of limbs is fun to watch as well. You can free aim weapons, but it didn’t appear to me that you could specifically target areas of the body. As long as your reticule was on the enemy, you just fired center mass.

This demo was simply fun. It really does remind me of games such as Front Mission, Armored Core, and a bit of Sakura Taisen

Now, you must keep in mind. All of this is Pre-Alpha. So a it is very early build of the game we’re seeing here, all of this then is subject to change. Although it’s already shaping up to be a great new mecha intellectual property.

While we’re still not fans of the mecha design in the upcoming game game Rigs, it does look like it will be functionally good. Considering all the hype surrounding VR, much of it down to visuals rather than functionality, we’ve been pretty skeptical about how much traction it will have with gamers. From a mecha standpoint, it could really help to make you feel that you are a pilot but much of that is also down to how the game controls. The good news here is that Rigs looks like it really understand the latter as well. With PlayStation VR out at the end of the year and for a decent price at that, we will definitely be picking Rigs up come its release.

We’ve been keeping an eye on Dual Gear since its Indiegogo campaign was announced a while back. Using Unreal Engine 4 it looks to be an interesting blend of turn based strategy coupled with a more action based approach. While it’s sad to see the crowdfunding campaign not supported as fully as it could be, the game now has a demo on Steam. Visually it looks good too and we really appreciate the mecha design as well. Developed by a small team in Thailand, we hope this game gets the support and recognition it so clearly deserves.

Version 1.03 for Gundam Extreme VS Force has been released, bringing in lots of new content. This new patch adds six playable Mobile Suits to the fray, Course Battle mode, and other quality of life additions. Some of the new mobile suits include the brand new Mack Knife, GP02A, and Turn X Gundam. The inclusion of Course Battle mode was one of the many modes fans were clamoring to be added when the game first released in December of last year. It brings in the usual multi-stage courses that have been in previous Gundam Extreme VS games with varying difficulties. In the quality of life updates, Free Battle 1.01 adds the VS screen prior to a match starting and you can now change locked mobile suits in the Extreme Force mode once you’ve completed the mission. There’s also a custom button configuration for those of you who don’t like the default controls.

As for Version 1.04, Gundam Virsago Chest Break and Tallgeese II are joining the roster on top of more Free Battle updates. There’s also another addition to the roster that is currently unknown. Hopefully we’ll see more additions to the next update list, but until then check out the video of the Version 1.03 below!

Looks like we have our first individual mobile suit gameplay trailer for Gundam Extreme VS Maxi Boost ON! It features the Mack Knife from G no Reconguista. As a 2000 cost mobile suit, it looks to have many tools with mid-range stuns, a mobile armor mode, and grappling hooks to pull enemies in for some close range shenanigans. The unit will also be released on Gundam Extreme VS Force as part of the co-collaboration between the two games on March 9th. Perhaps we’ll see more units from ON come to Force in the near future as well. Until then, check out the gameplay video below!

Great news non-Japanese speaking Gundam fans! Bandai Namco have announced they will be localizing Gundam Breaker 3 with English subtitles for Asia in June this year! This has become a growing trend lately with Bandai Namco bringing English localized games to the territory with Gundam Extreme VS Force being one of them. Interestingly, this might open the floodgates for future Gundam games to come to the West as well since the previously mentioned title has been confirmed to do so late last year. Needless to say, those who were on the fence about getting a Japanese copy Gundam Breaker 3 and dealing with the language barrier won’t have to wait too long for their preferred version. But for those who were planning on playing the game on their PS4 with their Vita, it’s been recently revealed that remote play has been disabled. As always, we’ll let you know more as new info drops!

For those of you lucky enough to be living in Japan, the month of March will be exciting for Gundam VS fans over there. At the recent JAEPO expo, Bandai Namco have officially announced that Gundam Extreme VS Maxi Boost On will be released on March 9, 2016. As the latest version of the Extreme VS series, there will be the usual new suit additions, move changes, and game mechanic changes from the previous version. New to the fray are the G-Self, AGE-FX, Akatsuki Gundam, and Gundam Barbatos. There also appears to be a pink Gundam with a peacock smasher-like in the opening movie, which is probably from Gundam EXA. There are also three new bursts to choose from which replace the Drive system from Maxi Boost. Fighting Burst improves your melee capabilities, Shooting Burst improves reload speeds and allows you to cancel shooting attacks into each other, and Extend Burst allows you to escape attacks at half meter. There are over 160 units in the game as well!

As for everyone else that doesn’t have access to an arcade in Japan or Asia, we can only hope they announce Maxi Boost for the consoles soon after Maxi Boost On is released. Until then, check out the opening video and first PV below!

Bandai Namco have recently released the second PV to Gundam Breaker 3. This time it’s an 11 minute video showcasing the new variations of customization you can have on your mobile suits, how SD Gundams are implemented, and other game modes such as Story mode, Bounty Hunter and Challenger mode. Visually, the game is looking very nice running on the Playstation 4, especially when adding the weathering options to your mobile suit. While we still have more than a month until release, check out the video below!

The thirst for Free Battle is real as Bandai Namco have announced its addition in an upcoming patch to Gundam Extreme VS Force! Patch 1.02 released today includes the much wanted game mode that has been a staple of Gundam VS series. This will allow the usual 2v2 option of playing against the CPU, but of course players can adjust it to be 2v1, 1v2, or even just 1v1 to train with movesets. Free Battle mode can be accessed in the newly added VS Extend menu option. The addition of this mode has already been so well received that prices of the game have increased in Japan!

Other additions to patch 1.02 include an extremely hard mission centered around Gundam Barbatos. In Patch 1.03, there are even more additions across the board. Added playable mobile suits includes the Mack Knife, 00 Gundam, GP02A, Turn X, Master Gundam, and Strike Freedom Gundam. Course Battle (another staple of the VS series) is on its way as well where you battle multiple rounds of CPU mobile suits of varying degrees of difficulty based on the course chosen. Free Battle 1.01 adds the VS screen before the match starts. Other quality of life additions will be implemented to include custom button configurations and the ability to choose your mobile suit after completing a mission that restricted choice.

Hopefully these additions will already be out of the box for the Western audience when it arrives on their shores in the next couple of months. At the very least, these obvious game mode inclusions increases value to the overall product considering its single player focus. It’s good to know Bandai Namco have addressed some of the concerns players have had with Force since its release, but hopefully we’ll see the addition of online play and even more gameplay improvements in future updates!

Over the weekend, a twitter image had been making waves across western Extreme VS fans regarding its content and what it might mean for future console releases of the Extreme VS franchise, or rather lack thereof. Originating from a Japanese blog, the picture above is supposedly from an internal Bandai Namco report showing how there will be no console ports of Maxi Boost or Maxi Boost On due to the potential loss of players at game centers. As the Extreme VS series is a consistent top three small cabinet earner in Japan for the past several years (coming in second to Tekken 7 last November), the reluctance of bringing the newest version to the PS3/PS4 makes a lot of sense from a business perspective. But to not bring the previous version of the series to consoles on the verge of releasing the newest one like they’ve done with Extreme VS and Full Boost is somewhat shocking.

Perhaps the writing was on the wall with the release of Extreme VS Force for the Vita. With a single player focused version, maybe Bandai Namco were hoping to somewhat satiate the VS need at home while still bringing in the numbers in game centers all over Japan. While the game itself isn’t bad, the lack of content, reduced movesets, and lack of online play was not very favorable in the eyes of many. The Japanese audience particularly definitely let their opinions be known about Extreme VS Force via Amazon reviews and other outlets and prices of the game almost plummeted immediately after release.

While this may not necessarily be a huge problem for Japanese and Asian fans as they can make it to arcades to play Maxi Boost and eventually Maxi Boost ON, Western fans are practically out of luck. There was a slight ray of hope when it was announced Extreme VS Force was coming to the West as it possibly meant a future Maxi Boost console version would be next, but the messaging above does not appear to be kind to those waiting. Coupled with the way Bandai Namco have been flooding the console version of Full Boost with Maxi Boost unit DLC, the rumor does lend credence to the possibility that they don’t have plans of bringing Maxi Boost to the PS3 or PS4. Barring a trip to Japan or Asia, loyal fans in the West might not get a chance to play future versions of the series.

Mind you, we are treating this as a rumor so here’s to hoping it is false. As Maxi Boost ON gets ready to release in arcades this March, we may possibly get more info on a future console port that many of us have been waiting for.