Over at Hideo Kojima’s Twitter feed, he recently posted some photos of Yoji Shinkawa posing with a large prototype of ThreeA’s new Metal Gear RAY toy. This is a follow up to the equally large Metal Gear REX released by ThreeA last year. Whilst we love Shinkawa’s designs, we were pretty disappointed with ThreeA’s REX toy. It lacked any real diecast and subsequently felt very cheap. In addition, the colour scheme was also completely wrong and all the lightning felt out of place too. No word on price or release date for this new RAY toy though but it will probably be similarly priced to the previous REX toy.

The beta for Gundam Breaker has passed half million downloads since its launch. That’s not at all shabby for basically a glorified demo. In addition, save data from the beta will also be carried over to the full game come its release on June 27th. Finally, those that buy the game at launch will get all manner of parts perks with the MSN-00100 Hyaku Shiki (pictured above) being one of them. You can pre-order the PS3 version of the game here.

In the upcoming Masou Kishin III players will be given a special bonus code in the initial run of the game. This will give a different version of Valsione as seen in the Super Robot Wars OG: The Inspector anime series. This is not to be confused with Valsione R, which is a different mecha entirely. However, this redesign from the anime will have different attacks and animations from the standard Valsione (so it’s not just a simple re-skin). As always, these kind of little bonuses appeal to us and we’ll be definitely nabbing the game come its August 22nd release.

A YouTube user by the name of wipp er has uploaded an impressive fanmade anime intro for Mobile Suit Crossbone Gundam. Written by Gundam creator Yoshiyuki Tomino and drawn by Yuichi Hasegawa, the Crossbone Gundam manga series spans several series (Crossbone Gundam, Skull Heart, Steel Seven and Ghost) and is a direct sequel to Gundam F91 and pseudo prequel to Victory Gundam. The series has spawned some very iconic mobile suits, designed by Hajime Katoki, that have graced several video games such as the Super Robot Wars Alpha series on the PS2, Another Century’s Episode R for the PS3, the G Generation series on various consoles and of course Gundam Extreme Versus for the PS3 and its arcade sequel Full Boost.

It has taken the creator of this animation around two years to complete and arguably has done a fantastic job capturing both Hasegawa’s character designs and Hajime Katoki’s mechanical designs in an animated form. If this video doesn’t get your mouth watering for some animated Crossbone Gundam goodness, I don’t know what will.

The second livestream for Armored Core Verdict Day will be happening on the 17th May (you’ll be able to watch it here). The main point of discussion will be about the new UNAC system, which is the new AI setup that harks back to earlier Armored Core games and allows AI wing-mates to help you out on missions (in the absence of human players).

Bandai Namco have announced the third entry into the Masou Kishin series with a new promo for Pride of Justice (shown below). The game will be released on both PS3 and Vita and seems to be using the same engine used on OG3. What’s unknown at this point is whether winkysoft will be developing this, as they’ve done all the prior Masou Kishin games (though this would be an obvious technical step-up for them). Whilst the engine is being reused due to the Masou Kishin character list a lot of this will be new animations and art for the game. In any case, both versions of the game are released on August 22nd for 7,480 yen (PS3) and 6,480 yen (Vita).

Someone nice has uploaded beta test footage from Armored Core Verdict Day (shown below) and it looks pretty great. The new scan initiation looks cool and the whole game runs smoother too. We’re not sure on the size of the maps but the one in the video looks pretty expansive and varied. Obviously, the music isn’t from the game (in case you were wondering). In addition, Famitsu also has some scant details on “UNAC”; a new AI customisation setup for NPCs on the field. This harks back to the likes of Ranker Mk in Master of Arena and the AI setup in Silent Line. It seems Verdict Day is shaping up quite nicely and we’re really looking forward to its September release.

Not for the first time, but the recently announced Zone of the Enders sequel has been put on hold. The difference here is that this game was publicly announced compared to the previous attempts at a sequel. What’s also interesting about this announcement is that the HD version (which we reviewed) was also brought up. With Hideo Kojima himself apologising pretty profusely to (Japanese) fans at the sub-standard quality of the port. As such it’s been indicated that Konami themselves have taken matters into their own hands and an internally produced patch for the PS3 version, though no news on anything for the 360 release sadly (though this is likely due to the fact that the PS3 version was the best selling one in Japan, so it takes priority). In some sense it seems that the poor sales performance of the HD release is likely one of the causes of the sequel being put on hold.

It seems the beta/trial version of Gundam Breaker will be getting a fair few updates. From fixing the lock-on system, as well as new customisation and multiplayer options. Considering that the game is out next month is interesting as it’s not obvious how much use these changes will be (in terms of feedback loop and implementation) when it’s likely the game is already in certification at Sony. That aside there are new units announced too, with the RX-93 Nu Gundam (shown above) being notable. You can still pre-order the PS3 version of the game here for it’s June 27th release.

Whilst we have lost somewhat all hope for Lost Planet 3, this new trailer has re-ignited a modicum of interest on our part. In so far that this trailer covers the multiplayer aspects of the game, it also reveals that the game will have early vital suits (rather than the huge and fugly “rigs” that we’ve seen thus far). Admittedly you still seem to control these VTs in first person (why Spark, WHY?) but the fact they’re here at all is still a blessing. Especially as from a multiplayer standpoint VTs are more comparable in terms of size to that of human players and that makes it more of a fairer and faster paced fight (read: good). The game is still on track for it’s late August release this year and we will be reviewing it once it’s out.