So, to be absolutely clear: you actually want us to believe that you went in to Wing Commander Arena, a ten dollar, fifty megabyte download for Xbox Live Arcade from the earliest days of that service, expecting that it would somehow be multi-million dollar AAA followup to Wing Commander Prophecy? And you really think that setting up your argument in this way comes off as biting criticism instead of just telling us all that you're a complete and total moron? You think this argument is worth *celebrating*?
Of course Wing Commander Arena is an inexpesive arcade game--it's, literally, an inexpensive arcade game. I mean, you have to connect to an inexpensive arcade game providing service to get it. I want to say I'm sorry you were... tricked?... but I can't really imagine how that would even be possible (or by whom, or for what reason...). Moreover, I think the news staff here did more than their due diligence in letting everyone know exactly what gameplay is in Wing Commander Arena down to the tiniest detail during the release. So.... I'm sorry you're stupid?
That established, here's the hard sell. Stow your cynicism in your locker and let yourself have some fun instead of borrowing a chewed up argument from the dumb part of the internet. Wing Commander Arena is a neat little game, worth a heck of a lot more than you have to pay for it. It's absolutely steeped in Wing Commander lore, from text to visual, to the point that it even bends the gameplay the wrong way design-wise to accomodate our universe. It's also a heck of a good time. One of my favorite Wing Commander memories (and I have a hell of a lot) is playing sixteen player capship battles in Arena with all my real wingnut friends as my wingmen. It's *that* good. It's such a brilliant game mode because it forces you to *live* Wing Commander--you have to use the voice chat to rally your squadron to properly defend your carrier while you're attacking the other... and the visuals! No, it's not Halo 4 but it's absolutely brilliant (and a far higher resolution than any other Wing Commander, if you care about such things!). Dozens of little fighters jettingback and forth while these capships exchange broadsides... it's wonderful. (I could go on for days about all the neat little touches. The Longbows! Thelittle call out on the ship selection screen! DRALTHI! On and on and on... you spend a tiny fraction of the cost of a full game and you get so much from it.)
But no, they didn't spend fifty million dollars on it, it's not good enough for you! Did previous Wing Commander games do absolutely groundbreaking things? Yes, many of them did. I'd make the argument that Arena did (it was built in the era of the 50mb download limit... and it pushed that past the breaking point, with more players than any XBLA game to the point, more impressive graphics, more everything) but I don't have to. If you bought it expecting Wing Commander 7 you're just a doofus or a liar (pray I never find out you're not a doofus, friend--that's the situation you've put yourself in here). Wing Commander has done expensive giant things but it's also done small brilliant things--Armada, Academy, OFX... hell, even the concept of the 'addon disk' was invented by Wing Commander to save money and it lead to some of the most wonderful, inexpensive games ever.
So... sorry you're sad, but... well, you're sad.
My friends may be assholes, but they're not outright stupid.
Disagree.