Wing Commander Arena Hands-On

When we say "Wing Commander," what comes to mind? The epic struggle between the Terrans and the Kilrathi? Groundbreaking space combat? Mark Hamill? If EA Games and developer Gaia Industries have their way, the Wing Commander series will have a whole new meaning for a new generation of game fans with the upcoming release of Wing Commander Arena for Xbox Live Arcade. We had a chance to play the game today at EA headquarters and, while it is a departure from the traditional Wing Commander formula, the central "dogfights in space" components are still well intact.

First things first: Wing Commander Arena is not played from a first-person perspective like the old games in the series. Instead, you control your ship from the third-person point of view, dipping and dodging your craft as you pilot through outer space and battle it out with up to 15 other players online. While the game moving away from the traditional format might upset Wing Commander purists, it makes sense for this game, which, at its heart, is an action-packed shooting game that puts an emphasis on quick-and-dirty action.

The game is split between single-player and multiplayer. The single-player modes include melee, meteor storm, gauntlet, and proving grounds. Melee is a good introduction to the action in the game, as it's a standard free-for-all against a number of bots. Meteor storm is a bit like Asteroids; your goal is to protect a space station from wave after wave of meteors. Later on in the mode, you'll have to deal not just with huge chunks of rocks but with bandits intent on destroying your stations. In gauntlet mode, you take on multiple waves of enemies. Finally, in proving grounds, you take on different bots in wide-open environments with plenty of pickups to choose from.

While the single-player game serves as a good introduction to the action, you'll likely spend most of your time in Arena's online multiplayer modes. In addition to the standard free-for-all, duel, and team battle modes, there are a couple of interesting modes that add some welcome twists to the typical zero-gravity dogfighting. Our favorite was a mode known as team capital ship. Here, you team up with a number of teammates to take down your opponents' capital ship, while at the same time protecting your own.

As you might expect, the capital ships are much, much bigger than your tiny fighter (think Imperial Star Destroyer from Star Wars for a general idea) and, as a result, it takes a while to take them down. In fact, the capital ships have three levels of destruction, starting with the onboard turrets and weaponry and ending with the bridge. All the while, you'll have to deal with your foes who are intent not just on stopping you but taking down your capital ship as well. Thanks to the massive scale of the big ships and the wide-open feel of the environments, this was our favorite mode to play in the game, and one we think will be a favorite once the game is online.

In addition to large 16-player battles, Arena will include more up-close-and-personal matches for two players. One mode, known as the "bear pit," sounds like a lot of fun. Here, two players enter an arena to fight it out; the winner stays, and the loser goes, to be replaced by the next person in the queue. The idea here is to build up the longest winning streak you can by staying in the "pit" as long as possible.

Arena will include 18 ships to pilot, nine from the Terran side and nine from the Kilrathi. Longtime Wing Commander fans might recognize that this will be the first time players will be able to pilot the Kilrathi ships, some of which have a distinctively Battlestar Galactica Cylonlike design to them. The different ships will come in three different flavors: the light and nimble scouts, the powerful fighters, and the heavily armored bombers. Each will have its own strengths and weaknesses. Scouts, for example, are agile but don't have much in the way of armor. Similarly, heavy bombers can't easily evade enemies but hold more firepower and are tougher. This mix of ship types should prove especially important in modes such as the capital ship battles, where you'll want to find a nice mix between speed and firepower.

All the ships will include a variety of blaster and rocket weapons, as well as different devices you can use when in flight that will give you a leg up on the competition. These devices include things like cloaking devices, vampire torpedoes (which suck away the energy of a foe and add it to your ship), mines, heat-seeking missiles, and more. Finally, you'll run into various pickups. Among the pickups we saw were shield boosters, weapon refills, and even wingmen, which let you add up to two other "clones" of your ship flying in formation with you, essentially doubling or tripling your firepower.

We tried a couple of the eight maps in the game and found a good amount of variety to the environments. One, called the boneyard, featured a huge planetoid in the center of the map, filled with massive crystals jutting at every angle. In addition to fighting around the huge planetoid, you could actually pilot your little ship into the crevasses that ran through the middle of it, resulting in some truly tight squeezes. Another map took place within the confines of a Deep Space Nine-like circular space station. As mentioned before, the capital ships' battle maps were much more wide open and, as a result, it took a while to get from where you spawned to where the action was happening.

Controls in Arena are simple enough to pick up, though not without their subtleties. You move your ship with the two analog sticks; the left stick controls your thruster, and the right stick, your steering. Your ship seems basically stuck on a single plane in the game, so you won't be able to approach an enemy from above or below. That said, there are some special maneuvers you can pull off with the right stick when the going gets tough, including barrel rolls, loops, and 180 degree turns, the latter of which is perhaps the most useful. All weapons are fired with the two triggers and the two bumpers on the Xbox 360 controller and while blasters are more or less unlimited (governed only by your ship's energy level), you have a finite amount of rockets. Even so, don't expect to live long in Arena battles--our typical tactic was to face down an opponent and then unload with every weapon we had until we died. You can choose a new type of ship in between spawns if your current ship isn't working out.

In all, Wing Commander Arena's new approach to the series might be a shock to longtime WC fans, but it seems as though the developers are doing their best to create a game that is both respectful to the Wing Commander legacy but also approachable to an entirely new generation of players. The game is due for release in late spring, and we'll be bringing you more as it becomes available.