the Wing Commander Zombie

There was some exciting news briefly yesterday when word came out that EA was finally resurrecting the classic Wing Commander franchise as a new game for Xbox Live Arcade.

This is cool not just because, a) we need a new Wing Commander game dammit, its a fun series and it was the hallmark of PC gaming for years and b) im so god dammed sick an tired of lame ass ports for the Xbox Live system, I want to see cool new games that just are too small to make it via normal retail routes.

Sadly the coolness of this annoucement was a big fat facade, and here is why...

This is not a traditional Wing Commander game. First of all, the combat arenas, while rendered in 3D, are decidedly 2D in nature. Movement is confined to one plane, and players will pilot from a 3rd person view of their craft...

WTF! A space simulator game that isn't actually 3D, instead you are given the illusion that a poper fligh sim. What is EA afraid people are too stupid to understand more than 2 planes of movement because their market reserach, which is likely based on all the EA Sports players, says that the much vaulted 3rd dimension is too difficult to comprehend?

On top of that the game doesn't even look that great, the UI feels like there is an artificial seperation between you and the game world. The art isn't really that awe inspiring and the game play feels like its so hands off that this would be a really boring game to play.

Newsflash for EA and the Wing Commander Arena developers: I want a new Wing Commander game, what I don't want is the resurrected half decayed corpse being presented to me as a new propduct to remind me of the good times I used to have playing these games. If there is any decency in you, and if you even give a shit about the market you are trying to make this for you will scrap this monstrosity, bury it in a deep hole and start again from scratch.

On a side note, I honestly have to wonder why teams like Max Gaming or 21-6 aren't being given the proper chances to make XBLA games, we can honestly do better than the offerings that we are seeing put out at the moment.