If you're a Japanese otaku growing bored of your crippling iPhone GPS dependence, Namco Bandai could have the solution for you -- gaming your way to destinations with Mobile Suit Gundam. Gundam Navi, the first of a line of Character Navi programs, is a new GPS app that transforms a user's commute into "battle events" that pit a location marker against randomly generated enemies lined up on a given route. Basically you kick back and watch animations of Amuro Ray and friends blowing up a bunch of Zaku suits in his RX-78-2 while going about your trip. According to Andriasang this process requires no interaction, so the content is more of a bonus and less of a distraction.Fans in Japan can download it for the iPhone 4 or 3GS for a year of use if they've got ¥3,500 (roughly $45) to drop on a GPS/anime/videogame hybrid. No word if Namco Bandai plans to bring its Character Navi apps to other countries yet, but I imagine the price tag would have to drop exponentially to appeal to otaku in America.

Check out screen shots from Gundam Navi below:



[Via The Mary Sue]