Arena Spring's Forth (February 23, 2007)

Bandit LOAF

Long Live the Confederation!
Electronic Arts has published a 'fact sheet' for Wing Commander Arena, complete with a new screenshot and a very high resolution logo. Take a good look at that -- you can see all kinds of details on the little fighters around 'Wing'. This release runs down all the numbers, and also gives a more optimistic hope for the release date -- late spring. Here's the word:
Wing Commander Arena blends classic arcade gameplay with modern multi-player mayhem.

The beloved Wing Commander franchise is back with an all-new game for Xbox Live Arcade. Form a squad, propel your ship through space, fire torpedoes, unleash deadly gravity bombs, and destroy enemy armadas as you try to climb the leaderboard. Online players compete for Frag count, high score and duelling stats. Offline the game offers four modes with online leaderboards where it's pure arcade style competition.

EA launches onto Xbox Live Arcade with Wing Commander Arena delivering 10 minutes or 10 hours of space combat entertainment. With four styles of gameplay players can play in single player mode or play with up to 16 players for an all out online space combat melee.

Wing Commander Arena offers everything a space combat rookie or a veteran Wing Commander pilot would expect from the game: Team Duels, Free for all play, single player modes, 18 different ships within nine environments.

Key Features

# With up to 16 players, Wing Commander Arena offers the largest multi-player melee experience to date on Xbox Live Arcade.

# The classic brand has now been rebuilt to maximize the Xbox Live Arcade feature set while providing the largest modern multi-player arcade experience available.

# 4 types of gameplay: single player, multi-team, multi-player free for all and both one on one and multi-player duel

# 8 maps, including team maps, free for all maps and dueling maps

# 18 ships in nine environments

# 2 Races with 18 ships for light fighters, medium fighter, bombers. Cloaking devices, energy sucking torpedoes, mines, homing missiles, energy weapons and a myriad of other guns, weapons and devices.

Publisher: Electronic Arts Inc.
Developer: Gaia Industries
Ship Date: Late Spring 2007




--
Original update published on February 23, 2007
 
Last edited by a moderator:
...# 2 Races with 18 ships for light fighters, medium fighter, bombers. Cloaking devices, energy sucking torpedoes, mines, homing missiles, energy weapons and a myriad of other guns, weapons and devices...
Hmm, so presumably that equates to 9 ships per race.

One of the videos shows three Dralthi IX variants (Striker, Shank, Rhino) so will be these be counted as distinct ships (i.e. 3 of 9 available Kilrathi ships) or a single ship? I was wondering if perhaps there is one ship per ship type, e.g. the Dralthi IX is the Kilrathi medium fighter, the Darket is the light fighter and the Paktahn Phantom is the bomber, with the Darket and Paktahn also having three variants or if there would be three distinct ships per ship type?

Cheers,

Bryn
 
Hmm, so presumably that equates to 9 ships per race.

One of the videos shows three Dralthi IX variants (Striker, Shank, Rhino) so will be these be counted as distinct ships (i.e. 3 of 9 available Kilrathi ships) or a single ship? I was wondering if perhaps there is one ship per ship type, e.g. the Dralthi IX is the Kilrathi medium fighter, the Darket is the light fighter and the Paktahn Phantom is the bomber, with the Darket and Paktahn also having three variants or if there would be three distinct ships per ship type?

Cheers,

Bryn

Yeah, a couple of the other Hands-on reports make it clear. There are 3 fighters per side with 3 variants per fighter (that all look slightly different apparently). You start off with the light version and unlock the heavier versions for a total of 18 ships.

Of course there may be more ships downloadable in the future but we'll have to wait and see about that.
 
Hmm, so presumably that equates to 9 ships per race.

One of the videos shows three Dralthi IX variants (Striker, Shank, Rhino) so will be these be counted as distinct ships (i.e. 3 of 9 available Kilrathi ships) or a single ship? I was wondering if perhaps there is one ship per ship type, e.g. the Dralthi IX is the Kilrathi medium fighter, the Darket is the light fighter and the Paktahn Phantom is the bomber, with the Darket and Paktahn also having three variants

That's correct, the Striker, Shank and Rhino are three of the 18 ships. The six "base" models are the Darket, Dralthi IX and Paktahn for the Kilrathi, and Arrow, Rapier II and Broadsword for the Terrans. The basic ships are relatively faster and more maneuverable. The heavier variants have additional weapons and/or special capabilities. They are also visually distinct with their additional armor plating. Here's a look at the differences between the three Dralthis.

dralthiixstriker.jpg

dralthiixshank.jpg

dralthiixrhino.jpg
 
Last edited by a moderator:
It's kind of hard to tell how different the last two Dralthi are in those pictures -- one has four wings, IIRC.

You'll be impressed with the Broadsword, especially -- a Broadsword Warpig is a huge visual shift from a Broadsword Behemnoth.
 
Hmm... capships that fuse movie and game designs, a Rapier that fuses the original with the SWC version, and some really great looking Dralthi designs... I'm still quite convinced I can't afford to buy a 360 this year at least, but I must say this game is making it very hard not to run out and buy one anyway, savings be damned.
 
Back
Top