The fly boys over at the Wing Commander CIC have pieced together all known information about the ships of Wing Commander Arena. The page goes into brief detail about what each ships role is and also shows the historical accuracy of the models for Arena vs old school Wing Commander. The information should give any of you who are green to the WC universe a bit of a chance to catch up on just what are the ships and what they will more than likely be good at.

The Xbox Domain has an interview with Damon Branch of Gaia Industries about Street Trace: NYC. The interview covered the basics of what is Street Trace, what were the inspirations and history of the game, and also the future of Gaia (2 new games + Wing Commander). Noted in the interview also is that Street Trace will have a 60 second trailer released sometime in the future on the Xbox Live Marketplace. The interview noted a spring 2006 release date, but keep in mind Street Trace isn't in the list of the next eight titles on Xbox Live Arcade.

Reader Prym3 pointed out that [url=http://www.gamespot.com/xbox360/sim/wingcommanderarena/screenindex.html]Gamespot has six screenshots of Wing Commander Arena[/url] available on their site and rejoice for it looks to be an entirely new 3D Wing Commander game.

The [url=http://xblarcade.com/node/417]rumor[/url] is true. Wing Commander Arena has been confirmed for Xbox Live Arcade. The [url=http://www.ea.com/article.jsp?dcr=ea&id=wca]press release[/url] (below) hit the internet today and explains the game in detail, but I'm still wondering if this is a 2D or a 3D game. The game itself is being developed by Gaia Industries, who are also releasing [url=http://xblarcade.com/taxonomy/term/99]Street Trace: NYC[/url] soon.

EA Launches Wing Commander Arena onto Xbox Live Arcade Legendary Game Franchise Delivers 16-Player Online Space Combat Redwood City, Calif., - February 23, 2007 - Electronic Arts (NASDAQ: ERTS) today announced the return of its beloved Wing Commander™ franchise with Wing Commander Arena in development for the Xbox LIVE® Arcade*. With up to 16 players, Wing Commander Arena offers the largest multi-player melee experience to date on Xbox LIVE Arcade. The game is scheduled to go live worldwide on the Arcade service in Summer 2007. Wing Commander Arena is a fast-paced space combat game where players can team up to attack other teams of ships. The game introduces the classic franchise to an arcade-style experience that allows up to 16 players online in battle at once. Players can propel their customized ship through space, fire torpedoes and unleash deadly gravity bombs as they try to climb the leader board. Online players will compete for Frag count, high score and dueling stats. "We're really excited to deliver unparalleled multi-player arcade action," said Chip Lange, EA Vice President. "The design for Wing Commander will appeal to both long-time fans of the franchise and immediately engage anyone who wants the melee style action of an arcade shooter." Wing Commander Arena will feature four styles of play: single player, multi-team, multi-player free for all and multi-player duel. Within the game there are eight game maps that include team maps, free for all maps and dueling maps, so Wing Commander Arena offers a gameplay experience for every Arcade gamer, whether they want a quick ten minutes of action or a longer more immersive game.

After the x360a.org Event went so well, Gaia Industries is putting on another pre-release event, tentatively scheduled for Feb 6th in the evening. If you'd like to go, simply send me an e-mail at xblarcade@gmail.com final details will be announced soon.

Hexx, who runs the fantastic site ilovexbla.com, sent us a heads up to a comment on his site about the price and release time frame for Gaia Industries' Street Trace:NYC. Well we've just now been able to confirm the comment and it is certainly great news for everyone looking for new indie content coming out soon.

On one of the four Wednesdays in February, we will be paying 800 points to play Street Trace:NYC.

Thanks again Hexx

It seems that in all the excitement of X06 we missed the announcement and info about Street Trace:NYC. Xboxyde has posted some pretty good looking shots and a bit of info of the Gaia Industries game. According to Xboxyde:

[quote]

The game supports four player split screen multiplayer, and up to eight players over Xbox Live, with over 40 leaderbords to compete in. There are 4 battle modes and 3 racing modes, with 3 arenas and 3 race tracks to choose from. The game is planned for a release in October this year.

[/quote]

It's great to see that we will soon be getting some new IPs released on XBLA.

Also, while it's not live yet, the official site is supposed to go live today.

You can check out the shots here.

[UPDATE] The official site is now live, so go check it out.