If barely legal girls wired into some VR mainframe security hardlines had their own fashion niche, P.A.S.S. with her Christmas morning smile would be their idol. However, she ends up as a chibi tamagotchi for cyberpunk otakus with rooms not much bigger than claustrophy-rich dorm toilets lined up with shelves of manga, tinted with colors of scattered Skittles and bukkake beige.

N.U.D.E.@’s been the sleeping hit for 2003 and apart from Gamespot, a few minor sites (such as The Armchair Empire) and a FAQ compiled by a few dedicated players, nobody remembers it anymore, the game sinking with the original XBOX platform, us in despair. But still, if you had your own Japanese-speaking gal who would gladly operate your laptop and sing sad birthday songs to you, would you care?

Go watch Condition:Human instead.

Lovers of the post-apocalypse, save up your precious new yen. Both iD’s new mutant basher FPS Rage and the new Diabloesque first person role-playing shooter Borderlands are out with new trailers. Borderlands debuts Oct 20th in the US, 23rd everywhere else – as for Rage, there’s no rock solid dates, still.

The lady to the left, she’s familiar? Thought so. Reactor online, sensors online, weapons online, all systems nominal. Yes. That’s how you and me and half the mech loving community started each mission in MechWarrior 2. Fourteen years passed and Carole Ruggier (apparently she’s the voice talent behind the mech pilot voiceovers) could still make a small fortune from mech ringtones. Hopes up? Not quite.

Piranha Games announced a new mech game in the series (simply naming it MechWarrior, announced for PC and Xbox 360) and you know what the video and article comments miss the most? That’s right, it’s “the girl with the voiceovers”. Arduous mech fights, battle units constructed with painful care, wonders of cockpit claustrophobia (with the occasional wireframe rendering). The footage below, that’s in-game. The voiceovers? You will change it, will you not. (via ign)

One of the key features is a sense of information warfare, using everything from unmanned drones surveying the battlefield from above to light scout mechs relaying information to teammates. (…) The designers want to reward you for picking a mech and sticking with it — you will gain experience and become better at piloting your chosen mech, and that will translate into better accuracy and damage with weapon systems. (…) While the developers didn’t go into how many mechs will make the game, based on the video trailer and the discussions, we know of at least four. There’s the Jenner (light class), both the Warhammer and the Rifleman(heavy class), and an Atlas Prime, a feared assault-class mech.

UPDATE 1: Not completely sure about the exact person of the voiceover girl being Ms. Ruggier. Anyone with better intel?

Neo Tokyo, ネオ東京, short-cropped hair, burgundy lipstick, matching fingernails, automatic handgun, clichés of the futuristic Japanese urban environment. This time, it’s an FPS MOD released by NT° for the Half-Life 2 Source engine. By the trailer, a might fine job, clearly inspired by Akira and the Ghost in the Shell universe, as the creators actually state it. Instead of Capture the Flag, NT° opted for Capture the Ghost and it’s very thoroughly detailed for us noobs (discard this if you’re hardcore) on this page with all the treats from thermoptic camouflage to tachikomas. (neotokyohq.com)

NEOTOKYO takes place about 30-40 years from now in a Japan that has drifted into social/political strife due to the inevitable stresses that come from changing times. The Japanese government is grappling with intensified external (Asia geopolitics) and internal (economic/social) problems, and there is mounting pressure from within Japan to return to the days when it exerted influence through military power and strength. A failed legislative push to alter the Japanese Constitution (allowing the Japanese military to engage in offensive actions outside of the country) leads to an attempted military coup by members of Japan’s armed forces (GSDF). The coup fails, but was very close to succeeding. In an effort to suppress further coup attempts, Japan’s Prime Minister forms a branch inside the Interior Ministry’s National Security Forces (NSF) called GROUP SIX. They answer directly to the Prime Minister and are sworn to protect the Japanese Constitution at all costs. They immediately begin to hear rumours of a rogue element of the GSDF Special Forces (JINRAI) maneuvering for a second coup attempt. These JINRAI are Special Operations Group 43 (SOG43), fierce nationalist loyal to their love of country, and a desire to put Japan back into a position of strength and power.

This begins the war in the shadows between the NSF and JINRAI.