Happy Birthday, Frosty! Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Update ID

Here's something important that we almost missed in the rush of Wing Commander Arena news this morning: today is the birthday of our newest staff member, Asher "Frosty" Lawson. Frosty is one of my best friends and he has stuck by me through more crazy projects than anyone will ever know. Everyone here at the CIC wishes him nothing but the best. You'll all be seeing a lot more of Frosty in the immediate future -- he's already taken on some important site development projects. Please take a moment to wish him well via e-mail or at the forums!

BREAKING NEWS: Arena Concept Art! Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Update ID

Gaia Industries, the developers of Wing Commander Arena, held an event this weekend to promote their other Xbox Live Arcade title, Street Trace NYC. The Street Trace community came out in force and, in the process, managed to snag some very interesting data on Arena. First up are these two pictures from the Gaia offices, which show a board of Arena concept art. They were taken by Wondermonkey2k, who has more from the event at his flckr page.

We can see high resolution renders of all six fighter types and one of the capital ships - hopefully we'll see these available as wallpapers from the official site! Even more interesting is the cockpit (upper right) and character (left) art. Is that a Firekkan? What are the Kilrathi symbols and knife images at the bottom? Keep in mind that this is all concept artwork - there's no guarantee that any of it will make it into the finished game... but it's pretty cool to see the process!

BREAKING NEWS: Gaia Interview Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Update ID

Even more: GamerTag Radio has interviewed the team from Gaia about Street Trace... and also Wing Commander Arena! You can learn more and download the podcast in various formats here. The biggest news is a brief mention that doing more with Wing Commander in the future is a possibility! The Arena-relevant portion is transcribed below:

Q: I know you guys are also working on Wing Commander, and this this is crazy cause you guys haven't even released Street Trace yet. So how'd that happen with EA and you guys. Did EA contact, contacted you guys, or you went up to them? Want to, anybody want to...

A: Uh, yeah, EA... uhm, I, you know, I think they heard we were developing action titles for XBLA, so they, they went with us to develop Wing Commander for them, and that's, and that's gone pretty well. I don't know how much we're allowed to say about it with EA, but ah, but ah, but yeah, no, it's gone really well and EA's been great, and yeah, so.

Q: One question, though, because I know Wing Commander is also a Xbox Live Arcade, I mean Xbox Live, with Street Trace. So how is it different working on a new title straight to Xbox Live than a classic, you're bringing it back but now it's going to have a new, you know, Xbox Live for the first time in this game. How difficult was it, like, to work on...

A: Wing Commander, yeah, I mean, when you're dealing with a title like that, a classic, you really have to spend a lot of time with the universe and the property. You have to be very careful with it because it's, you know, it's a great classic property that you don't want to mess up. So, so yeah, we did some great stuff with, you know, the old ships and sort of, you know revitalized them and put some new life into them. And the gameplay, the gameplay is a lot different from the classic, so it's sort of a different type of game there. But, but yeah, overall, the transition was good, I think the creative team did a great job sort of getting the art straight and the universe right.

Q: So, what, whats next for you guys now after Street Trace and Wing Commander? What's the plan? You gonna take a break or are you gonna work on other stuff. Anything you want, little hint for the fans?

A: Ah, I don't know if we'll give any hints, we do have another one in the works, it's different, it's a detachment from, you know, what, what we're doing now. A little comedy, a little action, a little adventure. It's fun, yeah. Did you want to say?

Q: Say something, or?

A: Yeah, no, that, that's it, we're doing an original title, the next one. We've also got some seriously cool ideas now with Street Trace for the second one. Some, some, some really, I don't know if I can talk to you much about it now because the designs are all just sort of just like flying around. I don't want to say we're going to be doing this and that when the designs aren't all nailed down, but we do have some really cool ideas for the sequel that we've been developing. So the sequel, the new game we're doing, potentially we'll see what EA wants to do with Wing Commander and yeah, that's the plan, between those three, the three games. That's kind of all working on. That's it.

Fantastic stuff. Finally, if you missed the new Arena screenshots from yesterday be sure and check them out - they're amazing!

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