As a die-hard Wing Commander fan of old, my initial reaction to news that Gaia Industries, through EA, was working on a new Wing Commander title was of glorious jubilation! The thought of bringing hellfire to the Kilrathi from the cockpit of a Javelin bomber with a few of my trust-worthy friends backing me up as cover over XBLA was more than I could bear. I was bursting at the seams with excitement…Then, EA released its first screenshots of the game, and my excitement turned first to disappointment, and then to bitter resentment. This was not a true Wing Commander title; it was…a mockery of the franchise! Instead of a true space-sim, it seemed as if they had dropped the franchise into a ¾ isometric remake of Subspace. I thought to myself “How dare EA release a Wing Commander title that wasn’t true to the series? Are they really that desperate to make a buck, despite the memories they would be raping by releasing this game?” …

Then I had a chance to play it, and speak with the developers.

Thankfully, There’s really nothing to worry about. After spending some time with the game and having a long discussion with the developers, specifically Sean Penney and Kyle Murray (both big Wing Commander fans), my fears have been resolved and actually anticipation has developed!

Wing Commander Arena is a charming little action-packed game specifically for release over XBLA  - but then, that was fairly obvious! It pits a maximum of 16 players against each other across several different game types with explosive, objective based shoot-em-up gameplay similar to Subspace. While that may not console you (pardon the pun), what should is that it’s the first Wing Commander title in something like 12 years, and it’s really quite a bit of fun.

 

While the game’s assets are limited due to the 50 megabyte dev-cap all XBLA games were required to meet when the game started development, Sean and the crew attempted to include as many authentic Wing Commander artistic and design elements as possible. Ships are named similarly, Kilrathi and Human craft are designed along the same lines as they should be, and weaponry/abilities are applied to the proper craft -  as they should be.. Gameplay is fun and relatively relentless, the only instance I ever experienced a lull in the action was when I respawned and actually needed to fly to where the action was. The game will feature a total of 8 online modes and 4 single player modes, the latter of which are primarily for teaching the player how to play the game, since unlocking the game’s 18 ships is completed through either single or multiplayer modes.    

 

For $10, this game is a bargain. It’s fun and it holds as true to the Wing Commander franchise as it possibly could, given the design restrictions. Probably most important of all, if it does well and enough people buy it, it could lead EA to fund a fully-fledged Wing Commander title, true to the form of the original, space-sim genre and campy live-action cut-scenes included (They did it with C&C3, so there's a precedent!). So, if you happen to be like me and pine for the days of Mark Hamill purposely overacting to fill a bit-role as Colonel Christopher Blair, you will buy this game. Don’t buy it for me, don’t buy it for Gaia Industries, buy it for you, because if you love Wing Commander, you’ll do anything you can to see a truly new WC title.