Haven't I Seen Your Face Before? (July 8, 2007)

[Bandit LOAF]

In the grand tradition of MANTIS and FreeSpace, Sierra Online has unveiled the first copy of Wing Commander Arena! It's an Xbox Live Arcade shooter based on the BattleStar Galactica license that seems to borrow Arena's concept point by point - 3D ships on a 2D plane, a more complex maneuver system, a limited set of single player missions... in fact, the game as-announced literally does everything by halves. Battlestar includes eight ships to Arena's eighteen, allows eight players instead of sixteen and features five game modes instead of ten. Even their space backgrounds seem a lot less inspired. Where'd you go, Roger Wilco?

Perhaps this announcement will best express to those unfamiliar with XBLA how cool a concept Arena is - its very announcement is now inspiring a host of imitators the same way that the original Wing Commander lead to games like X-Wing and Star Crusader. Only time will tell if particular example innovates on the concept like the former or if it steals whole cloth like the latter. TeamXbox has posted an article on it here. They've also released some familiar screenshots. Pictured below: a Paktahn bomber heads into the Boneyard (left) and a Dralthi dogfights a Rapier (right).

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Original update published on July 8, 2007

 

[sq_paradox]

I hate to burst your bubble but this Battlestar Gallactica game has been around since before Wing Commander Arena. There have been rumors afloat about it since summer 2006. Additionally the official announcement came on Febuary 12, 2007 ten days before the Arena announcement. Granted that doesn't mean ideas weren't stolen from Arena, but it does make the two games contemporaries, neither one being a copy of the other. Alot of ideas probably were taken from Arena, but its also possible that Arena got its idea from Battlestar Gallactica to begin with, considering information about the game has been floating around for over a year. I think it's highly unlikely that the Arena developers knew nothing of this game and took nothing from it, thus it would have been a give and take on both sides not just from one. I'm not trying to start a fight or attack Wing Commander in any way; I just though I should point out that some of the information presented may not be as accurate as it was thought to be. I apologize if any of my facts are off or if I have offended anyone or if perhaps I missed some joke here... I can be kind of dense sometimes.

 

[Bandit LOAF]

Yeah, you're pretty dense.

(But seriously, BSG was originally announced as a first person space combat game in February... this clearly isn't that game.)

 

[Frosty]

a whole lotta bullshit

Wait, wait, wait, aren't you the silly faggot who started a giant troll war about a year ago because he didn't like a poll? Listen, buddy, you maybe want to get a few more than 16 posts under your belt before you try to burst any staff bubbles, know what I'm saying? Nobody here takes you seriously.

LOAF is completely correct and your assumptions are wrong. The giant canyon of time between Arena's first screenshots and the ones for this disappointing BSG game in the news post should be plenty good evidence of that.

Next time you feel like making a shitty, insulting post, I want you to sit back and consider where it leads: nowhere you want to go.

 

[Bandit LOAF]

Caustic, but essentially correct - sq_wish's original post is pretty darned obnoxious an awful 'protests too much' style. You're worried that we're speculating too much and in the same breath are sure that "it's highly unlikely that the Arena developers knew nothing of this game and took nothing from it". Yeah - right.

Here's the BSG 'announcement', which was pushed out in February (just after it became known in the industry that a new Wing Commander XBLA game was in the works - eight or so months after development of Arena had started): http://kotaku.com/gaming/battlestar...galactica-game-hits-live-this-fall-235563.php Take a good look - it has almost nothing in common with the screenshots that were finally released last week (we already mentioned the first person line). Beyond that, they clearly don't have even the game design down - *maybe* it'll feature the cast's voices? They even let slip that the game is very, very early in development... it *will* have a one-year development cycle? A few days later you had the planned press launch of Arena, complete with HD video, exacting descriptions of all the game's modes, screenshots, etc. These two announcements have nothing in common -- one was a rush job responding to the other. Sierra had the BSG license and realized they needed to promise something... just like LucasArts and X-Wing in 1990, after seeing Wing Commander at Comdex.

... and now only *after* Arena has been detailed in full, made available to developers on Partnernet, debated by fans and analysts do we see the Battlestar game and get a feature list... you don't need a weatherman.

 

[Cardinal]

After looking at LOAF's link, I think that he's correct. The February article mentions concepts such as episodic content that would be constantly updated with new missions and multiplayer maps. That option was never mentioned in the July article; if I were selling the game, that would be my second or third bulletpoint. That fact indicates to me that their game concept has radically changed in the past five months.

I'm interested to see how this will all turn out in another five months. When they review BSG, they're bound to compare it to Arena. If the bulletpoints from the recent article still hold true, these reviews are likely to be in Arena's favor. Arena offers more spacecraft, missions, players, etc. On the other hand, BSG is a well-known name, and Sierra is timing the delivery for the upcoming final season, not to mention the holidays. If Wing Commander can hold their own with this game - and right now, I don't see why not - then the community's made a solid case for another WC game.

Finally, there is one thing which encourages me: Sierra Online is releasing BSG on both XBLA and Windows. I'm hoping this will convince EA to eventually do the same with Arena.

 

[Bandit LOAF]

To be clear, I have nothing against the game itself - if it *is* like Arena then it's bound to be a lot of fun.