Armored Core 3 brings lots of new interesting changes. New goodies to look forward to include an updated gaming engine, sharper graphics, smoother framerate.. and of course there is that little 4 player linked battles thing. The possibilities!

UPDATES - Armored Core 3 is now available in North America.

Updated information from Staarchylld - Not plus as you know it now. Basically you have to beat the game first to unlock what is called the OP-INTENSIFY optional part and when you equip it it takes up all of your slots no matter which core you have. So that means no plus and optional parts, now its plus or optionals. On top of that it comes with no abilities and in order for you to get the abilities you have to equip it and go back through certain missions and fulfill certain requirements to get the specific ability. There are now 10 abilities. And the good part is that once you unequip the OP-INTENSIFY you become fully legal, so no more need for seperate files for legal and plus. Information originally obtained by Gideon Darke.

The Shield Attack is iffy, I haven't heard anything solid on the shield attack. This may of been a misinterpretation by IGN. As well as lower shoulder parts.

I've heard arm weapons have two modes of fire, probably using the fire button and the sword button for the different modes.

Parts list available on Armored Core Extreme, as well as some configs and a builder.

Last Update - 28 May 02: Updated information obtained from gamers who have imported Armored Core 3.

Standard Info:
Platform: Playstation 2
Developer: From Software
Localization: Agetec
Availability: Released Sept 10th 2002
Number of Missions: 50+
Arena: 50 Opponents
Number of Players:
- 1 Player Missions
- 2 Player Split or Linked Versus
- 1 - 4 Player Arena Mode

So whats new?
- New Parts of course, More then 200!
- "Drop" feature, allowing you to drop weapons to improve speed and performance. In arena mode any player can pick up dropped weapons.
- "Wingman" feature allowing you to buy backup support.
- "Exceed Orbit" parts, allowing you to attach orbiting parts to your mech, without adding weight.
- You can equip ranged weapons in your sword hand!
- 5.1 Dolby Surround sound.

So what's changed?
- "Walking" quads available.
- Overweight cores can be used without the overweight cheat, overweight cores do have penalties for movement and heat transfer.
- Expanded arena mode, allows up to 4 players! Sweet!
- Updated interface, more intuitive and faster to allow for quicker AC construction.

Media:
From Software - Lots of good media here. Desktop images and videos. Japanese language.
Agetec's AC3 Press Release - This is where I confirmed the information regarding Armored Core 3.
IGN's AC3 Preview - Lot's of good information here with the standard complaints about Analog control. Also has 2 desktop images with other media.

We also have these 4 Real Player videos from a Japanese site. After some talking we are provided with some awesome Armored Core 3 in game footage.
- Video 1 (15.1 MB)
- Video 2: Very nice show of speed in this one. (15 MB)
- Video 3: This shows the intro movie in almost it's entirety. (15.3 MB)
- Video 4: Very short, shows the enemy AC being bladed in half. (702 KB)