No, you haven't been transported to the year 2701. You are just looking at the heading for the just released manual to Wing Commander: Arena. The quality (and presence at all) of this manual is astounding considering almost all previous XBLA titles have simple built-in instructions and no online manuals at all (Jetpack being an exception to this.). Mind you, the absence of manuals has not been a problem to this point since most XBLA games have a shallow learning curve.

But even though it has no competition, EA did not take the manual's construction lightly. It's a beast of a document. Not only do we get detailed stats on all the ships, but the entire manual is made-up as a 64-page magazine to aid you on your quest for interstellar glory. That's right. Sixty-four pages. It brings me back to the good ol' days of PC gaming where the art form of solid and interesting manual design was perfected. (I can live without hunting for the 3rd word in the 12th paragraph on Page 23 to continue my game though.)

One could hope that this signals an imminent release of WC:A. Here, kitty kitty kitty.

Direct link to the PDF.

[via WCNews, thanks to Ben "LOAF" Lesnick]

[Update]: I stand corrected about the presence of online manuals for XBLA games -- namely, Jetpack Refueled.