BREAKING NEWS: All the Ships Revealed Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Update ID

TeamXbox has scored a real coup - a massive article comparing and contrasting all eighteen of Wing Commander Arena's ships! We now know their exact loadouts, specifications and some background history about each ship. If that wasn't enough, they've also posted all eighteen of the high resolution wallpaper-quality renderings that WingNuts have been lusting after since the official site posted the Rapier II Blade! You can now examine each of Arena's ships in painstaking detail! The articles seem to be expertly written:
The Cavalier and the Rhino are the ultimate evolutions of their respective, storied design lineages. The Cavalier is a nimble all-around fighter with an emphasis on shields. Its device bays carry both a power core and a battery. As the Rhino's name implies, it focuses its energy on sheer battering capacity. Enhanced generators power large bore Plasma cannons capable of knocking down the heaviest enemy shields. Under normal circumstances a proficient Cavalier pilot can dance circles around a Rhino by making sure to avoid its powerful forward guns.
All it needs is a Venn Diagram (and it does include charts!) You can read all nine here!

BREAKING NEWS: A Different Kind of Interview Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Update ID

Noted freelancer Paul Semel has interviewed Wing Commander Arena Producer Sean Penney for a story in his videogame blog at Riottt. This article is especially cool because it's a lot less formal than the videos and gaming news interviews we've seen so far - you get the impression that, Wing Commander involvement aside, Sean is one of us. He talks about everything from wanting to work on a bigger Wing Commander title to the continuity of Chris Roberts' Wing Commander movie:

IT HAS BEEN A WHILE SINCE THERE’S BEEN A “WING COMMANDER” GAME. DID THE MOVIE FUCK THINGS UP THAT BADLY?

Um... one of the big questions in the "Wing Commander" community is, "Is the movie part of the universe?" And I had the opportunity in this game, by simply making references to events in the movie, to put a stamp on the "Wing Commander" history and say “this is the next step of the history. And people are looking at this game and are taking it as holy writ for the "Wing Commander" universe. So did the movie fuck up the storyline? No.

Read the whole thing here. To editorialize for a moment, it's great to see EA letting Sean put his face on this game - it's the sort of 'focus on the creative team' that we haven't really seen since the days of the original Wing Commander games.

This Presentation Is Spot On Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Update ID

Matt Clothier has a great Wing Commander Arena story for us: GameSpot's weekly video show, On the Spot, included a presentation about Arena! In the process they managed to reveal the last unknown player ship: it's the Darket Dragonfly! You can download the entire presentation here or stream it here. The Arena material, also extracted below for your convenience, begins around the 1h03m mark.

  • Video - "On the Spot - 5/17/07" (19.1 megs, .AVI)
And for those who aren't video-inclined, here's a transcript:
Rich: I love Tom F. Wilson.

Jeff: Dude, me too.

Rich: Yeah.

Jeff: And finally he's back in video game form with Wing Commander.

Rich: Kind of.

Jeff: No, not at all.

Rich: Not even kind of?

Jeff: No, not even kind of. Wing Commander Arena is an Xbox Live Arcade game that's coming soon, and this aint the Wing Commander that you are thinking of, essentially. Though it does have a lot of what you'd expect a Wing Commander game to have. There's Kilrathi ships, also the Earth forces. We'll pick an Earth ship and get right in. Now look at that! It is like a top down kind of shooter game and it's primarily focused for multiplayer action. Now this... it'll have sixteen player support when it does come out, but we're in a match with bots right now, which will not be the most exciting thing in the world, but we can get in here and fly around and do some stuff. Multiple weapons and basically you just kind of fly around and shoot stuff. There's a few different modes. There's one where each side has a capital ship you're trying to take out.

Rich: These bots are pretty good. I can see this game getting pretty hectic with sixteen players all yelling at eachother and playing this game.

Jeff: Yeah, and with team based stuff and the right stick will do your little evasive maneuvers, you flip around and dodge shots. You can actually, you can change the camera perspective here if you want a different look at the action, but none of them are going to give that first person kind of Wing Commandery feel that the original had. This is a very much different game which, you know, if you're the sort of person who's been expecting a new Wing Commander game for years and years you might be a little angry. But it's actually pretty cool.

Rich: Maybe there'll be enough clamor over this that then they'll make a new Wing Commander game. Mark Hamill is available.

Jeff: Mark Hamill, yeah, Mark Hamill not doing much. Tom F. Wilson, he can still do the, he can still say "chalk up another one for the Maniac". He can do that. Drop of a hat he's showing up to say that for you.

Rich: Bot names also awesome. Fireclaw, Lone Wolf, Hollywood, Deathstroke.

Jeff: Yeah, all really awesome. You have afterburners here, if you click in both sticks you get a little boost. Little powerups to pick up that'll restore your gun efficiency and you know, repair your engines if you afterburn too much. And yeah, it's just a fun little action packed multiplayer shooter. And it's surprisingly exciting, you know, for what looks l ike a pretty simple game.

Rich: Ryan Davis, I want one question about Wing Commander Arena.

Ryan: How much is it going to cost asks {someone} from Finand.

Jeff: I don't believe EA has announced a price for the game, but I'd say it's a pretty safe bet that it's going to end up being 800 points. That seems like pretty much the base level maximum for originally developed content for Xbox Live Arcade and for the Playstation 3 is that 800 point $10 mark.

Rich: Cool, and I'd ask for a release date but...

Jeff: Oh, you know how this Xbox Live Arcade stuff is. We don't know.

Rich: It could show up tomorrow!

Jeff: I know that this is not the final version of the game as I understand it. So, I don't know, maybe it'll come out next week, maybe it'll come out next year.

Rich: It looks like it could be a lot of fun.

Jeff: Yeah

Rich: Great. Thanks.

Jeff: No problem.

Rich: Wing Commander Arena.

Take special note of those bots -- Fireclaw is flying a Darket, Lone Wolf is flying a Rapier... awesome stuff.

Forstchen, Live On Tour Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Update ID

Want to meet Dr. William Forstchen, author and co-author of six Wing Commander novels? I'm telling you, you do! He's currently in the middle of a book signing with Newt Gingrich for his new historical novel, Pearl Harbor: A Novel of December 8th. Be on the lookout if you're in one of these cities and want to meet the author of Fleet Action:

Thursday May 17 - Reston, VA
Friday May 18 - Atlanta, GA
Sunday May 20 - York, PA
Monday May 21 - Manchester, NH
Tuesday May 22 - Council Bluffs, IA
Tuesday May 22 - West Des Moines, IA
Wednesday May 23 - Dallas, TX
Thursday May 24 - Yorba Linda, CA
Friday May 25 - Honolulu, HI
Saturday May 26 - Waipahu, HI
Wednesday May 30 - Maui, HI
Good call, writing a book that would make your publisher send you to Hawaii for a week. You can view the whole schedule (with specific locations) at Newt.org.

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