The upcoming PSN/PSP re-make of the classic NEC PC-8801 shooter Thexder has had its site launched. Apart from a selection of interesting screenshots there’s also a gameplay trailer. Thexder is an interesting game as it was one of the first dedicated mecha gaming IP’s and it successfully featured in-game transformation. Unsurprisingly, it was hugely popular at the time of its release. The game will be available on October 1st for a 1000 yen via the Japanese PSN store.

The DLC for Gundam Senki 0081 that was announced not that long ago has been released today on the Japanese PSN store. Both the FA-78-3 Full Armor Gundam and RX-81AS Assault Armor cost 300 yen each. However, these mobile suits can only be used in the Free Mission mode (either offline or online) and whilst the DLC makes these units available you still have to buy them in game. The RX-81AS costs 450,000 points and the FA-78-3 costs a cool 1,200,000. Bear in mind that each mission you play nets you about 10,000 points on average means that those costings are a little brutal. Thankfully, Bandai have recently released an HG model kit of the FA-78-3 if you can’t face the grind to unlock it in game and it only costs 1,500 yen. Bargain!

As part of our service, we regularly post videos from our YouTube channel showing off the latest mecha games. To tie in with our recent review, we’ve captured three gameplay videos of the new PlayStation 3 exclusive Gundam Senki 0081. Naturally, these are quite spoiler ridden in terms of the game’s narrative so you’ve been forewarned. The videos were captured at 720p too, so make sure to select the HD option.

IGN has an enlightening interview up with some of the people behind the upcoming new entry in the MechWarrior series. After the announcement trailer was released, after a bit of “ooh” and “ahh”ing at the pretty robot graphics, I was left with a lot of questions about what direction they were attempting to take the new MechWarrior, and the interview is uncharacteristically insightful. Not only do these guys really seem to care about what they’re doing, but they sound like they’re capable of doing it, too.

What with this years’ Tokyo Game Show around the corner, the Japanese games industry marketing machine is going into overdrive. The upcoming Front Mission Evolved, being developed by Double Helix, has been given another trailer. Unlike the first, this teaser is predominantly CG footage and not in-game (which is a bit of a shame really). That said, the wanzers have been recreated faithfully enough it seems so there’s at least that aspect to be thankful for.

When the PlayStation 3 launched in Japan back in 2006, one of the available games was that of Gundam Target in Sight. Put simply, it was pretty awful. It ran at a hugely inconsistent framerate and was deeply unbalanced in the initial part of the game’s learning curve, often pitting you in sub-standard hardware against well armoured foes that could kill you with one shot. Couple that with the framerate and you rarely saw the shot that actually killed you. Unsurprisingly the game was wholly panned upon release and didn’t exactly do the PlayStation 3 many favours, as it was a platform exclusive.

Now fast forward to the recent Japanese release of the PlayStation 3 Slim and again another exclusive Gundam game has been bundled with it; that of Gundam Senki. However, despite using Target in Sight’s engine as a base it’s a completely new game and much like the PlayStation 2’s Lost War Chronicles (which we’ve also reviewed) this title has a lot more going for it than many may appreciate or initially realise.

The successful Capcom Gundam arcade games are finally getting a decent console port for this generation, in the form of Gundam vs Gundam NEXT. The last iteration of Gundam vs Gundam got an admittedly quite competent PSP port but it lacked online multiplayer and it had a few minor performance issues in AdHoc versus. The NEXT update will now get an exclusive PlayStation 3 release and considering the recent Gundam Senki boasts some pretty impressive (and thoroughly stable) online multiplayer options it’s logical to assume that a series of games based on the quality of its human versus setup will follow suit. Not much is known about the release as yet though, as in date, pricing and any additional mobile suits but the base set of playable mecha will obviously make the transition. So, for those that have been gawping at the awesome potency of the Unicorn Gundam in various shaky cam videos it’s nice to know we’ll get to initiate Destroy Mode within the comfort of our own homes in the near future.

Normally, in the history of Armored Core, the subsequent releases within the numerical classification are broader in scope and obviously more polished. Master of Arena had a customisable AI setup called Ranker Mk, Silent Line had an organic learning AI and an enormous amount of parts. Yet all these improvements were off the base release that preceded it. Admittedly, I am selling the earlier games a tad short but compared to For Answer, the improvements were linearly obvious.

This cycle has been broken with the latest version as it’s evolved past its roots to a terrifying degree.

Back in the 80’s when the early iterations of Battledroids (then later Battletech) surfaced, many of the designs had been not very surreptitiously lifted from various anime shows. Notably that of Dougram and Macross. FASA were suitably sued for their troubles. That said, over the years FASA did their best to throw several olive branches in the direction of the anime industry. Especially when they hired Shoji Kawamori to pen the designs for the Japanese edition of Battletech.

Fast forward to the recent trailer for the MechWarrior reboot featuring a Warhammer (or a destroid Tomahawk from Macross in case you’re wondering) and it seems that this has opened up the legal can of worms all over again. Considering the original case was with FASA it is interesting that the same designs can come under dispute when the rights are owned by another institution.

Personally, I don’t understand why they just didn’t get Hajime Katoki, Yutaka Izubuchi or Junji Okubo to pen new designs for the reboot and be done with it. At the very least they’d have had mecha that at least looked awesome.

Set in a not too distant future, the planet has gone to hell in a hand basket. Global environmental catastrophe is very much a reality and warring corporations now pretty much run the planet, under the false pretences of Pax Economica. To meet the ruthless needs of profiteering corporations, mercenaries by the name of Nexts pilot massive and customisable war machines by the name of armored cores, or ACs for short.

Nexts are also a new type of human – they directly interface with their mechanical avatars via their brain stem and consequently have unparalleled control over their AC.

The focus of the game is to undertake missions in a third person action setting, which pay money for you to buy more parts and undertake more challenging though better paying sorties. Now that the player is a next level pilot, the emphasis is much more on refined control than in previous iterations.