Over two months ago XBLArcade.com posted about the EA's Monopoly and Scrabble press releases that fueled rumors of an Xbox Live Arcade game in the works for both of those titles. Gamasutra has today unveiled new information about this Monopoly release; however, mum is still the word on if this will be a retail title or not. Interesting details to note about this title is that the game will be based Hasbro's Monopoly Here & Now: The World Edition board game (credit cards, skyscrapers, cell phones as game pieces, etc.). EA has plans to deviate slightly from the current "Here & Now" edition of the game by adding a "party twist" to the game. The twist will feature four player simultaneous play, new game boards and mini-games.

[UPDATE] This unfortunately is going to be a $40 Retail disc and not coming to XBLA. I wish I was making this up folks, but it's true.

Link

DaKing240 of 360Sync has uncovered a possible sentence in an EA press release that leads to evidence of Monopoly and Scrabble both coming to Xbox Live Arcade in the future. This evidence comes from the following snippet from today's press release about the first games coming from the EA and Hasbro partnership

.

EA also is developing new Monopoly and Scrabble®(in North America) titles for multiple platforms, as well as other titles that will be announced later this year.

Normally, this would be filed completely in the rumor department, but I just want to point out that DaKing240 has been right on other EA related rumors.

EA has announced that available starting right now the promised Boom Boom Rocket update is available along with five new songs available free until December 16th (250 MS points after that time).

• Eine Kleine Rochtmusik
• Cannon in D
• Sugar High
• Sting of the Bumble Bee
• Explode to Joy

It's great to see the continued, free updates for this title.

[Update] According to the BBR forums there has been a mix up and the tracks will be available soon.

[Update 2] They appear to be online and ready for download. It is called the Boom Boom Rocket Guitar Pack.

[Via 1up]

Sick of Guitar Hero 3 and still waiting on Rock Band to be released? You may want to go back and hit up the good ol' Boom Boom Rocket as it has received a signficant title update. The update hasn't been released just yet, so don't go running to your Xbox 360. The latest Bizarre Creations update mentioned that the title update has passed certification and is awaiting a release slot. Ok, so what exactly is in this title update?

• Guitar and dancemat peripheral support (oh yes!)
  
• Japanese and Korean language support
  
• Tweaked scoring system to make grade awarded more fair (now purely based on accuracy)
  
• The huge loud "noise" which popped up occasionally on endurance mode is now gone
  
• Occurrences of scores getting overwritten with a lower score when playing with 2 profiles signed in is now fixed.
  
• Display updates when viewing the game through a VGA cable.
  
• Friends leaderboard now shows extra information such as grade, accuracy, etc.
  
• Multiplayer endurance mode fix for player colours swapping sporadically.
  
• Slightly bigger and better explosions (updates to firework rendering)

Faithful readers, will this bring you back to Boom Boom Rocket after all of these months away?

[Via Gaming Bits]

Today's marketplace update from Major Nelson includes a couple bits of interest to the community here.

Namely, three Wing Commander: Arena videos, giving you a look at an epic 16-player battle as well as doling out some team strategies. Before you all retrieve your "EA's DLC is a ripoff" signs and pitchforks consider this: These videos are free. That's right. EA is giving you tip videos for free. And since these videos easily qualify for the "totally worth the price" category you can douse the torches, stow the signs and go back to work return to your relaxing breaktime (since you'd never read this blog at work...no, never).

Worth the money sure, but can anyone who has watched them tell us if they are worth our time?

Full details post-hop.

[via Major Nelson]

EA, the generous and lovable company that they are, sponsored a Wing Commander: Arena tournament amongst various community sites (some 360-centric, some not). Well, the tournament has come to a conclusion and Xbox360Fanboy came away victorious.

Why am I wasting your time with this information? Because the winning site (Xbox360Fanboy) now has a massive list of prizes (courtesy of EA) to give away to their readers. So, if you think your pad might be spruced up by a 50" 1080p TV then you know which site to stalk. (And no, this is not the time to gloat about how you already have a 50" 1080p TV...geez.)

[via Xbox360Fanboy]

We knew about Wing Commander: Arena (thanks to EA) and we knew about Super Contra (thanks to some PartnerNet Speculation) but we certainly did not expect them to arrive together. But unless those pesky press releases are merely yanking our chain, we can now safely assume that this Wednesday will be filled with a lot of shooting. Some at felines, some at aliens but shooting all the same.

Press Release after the jump.

Skipping directly over that whole Microsoft press release step in the journey to XBLA, representatives from Electronic Arts have confirmed with xbox360fanboy that their baby, Wing Commander: Arena is set to launch this week. Then again, thanks to Skeptical gaming, we already knew that (and we shouldn't have doubted you. We've learned our lesson.).

Gaia Industries (also responsible for the puzzlingly absent Street Trace:NYC) have crafted the largest online multiplayer experience currently available on XBLA. With up to 16 players, it's bound to get a little crazy.

With Bomberman Live! this past week and WC:A coming this week, there seems to be a glut of XBLA multiplayer action. Anyone complaining?

[via x360f]

Skeptical Gaming is reporting that next week will see the launch of Wing Commander Arena. No official word has been given though, so you may want to stay a skeptical gamer.

[Via WCNews]

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.