Fox's Review: Wing Commander Arena (360/XBLA)

[Fusion]

So it's the first entry from a rather respectable series in what, a few years?  Ever since Origin closed down, could EA get Wing Commander back on it's feet on their own or is Chris Roberts' vision doomed to obscurity now?  Well... Here's the review.

Graphics (6/10):

For an XBLA title, EA sure did some major rookie mistakes with the graphics.  Not only do the ships and such look out of realistic style that was Wing Commander, everything else seems to have taken a cartoony touch, and the fact that your default craft color is bright green doesn't help matters because you can NEVER change from that color.  There are some re-used effects, the power-up models are all just 1 model skinned a few different ways for different power-ups, and as I said things look a bit cartoony.  The laser blasts range from "What the hell are those supposed to be?" to "Meh, just generic lasers" which is disappointing, even for Wing Commander.  Usually there was something special about how the weapons fire looked but not this time around.


Sound (4/10):

Wing Commander games in the past mostly had a unique selection of sounds for every weapon that was fired.  They were loud, stood out and you could tell one weapon from another simply by the noise it made while firing.  What's the problem?  That's not the case any more because so many weapons are either too damn quiet or have the same sounds as other weapons.  You won't even be paying attention to the sounds of your craft moving, even though they're not important because the only time you heard your craft's engine is when you were firing afterburners in the older games.

Another bad point is the music... There's all of 3 tracks in the game.  The main theme, the multiplayer menu theme, and the in-game theme.  The other two are arrangements of the Main Theme.  The sound team did nothing to try and make this game feel anywhere as epic as past Wing Commander games were.  Wing Commander Armada didn't have memorable music either, but it had a better soundtrack than what this did.  You can even obviously tell when the track ends because there's a very small cut between loops.  Too lazy to loop the song properly!?


Gameplay (2/10):

I've already played a game like this.  It's called Subspace, and I can get out of it about the same I can get out of Wing Commander Arena here.  You aim at other players\bots, you fire, and you hope they die.  The sad part is I don't remember it taking about 50 hits to take down a bomber in ANY Wing Commander Game in the past.  The ships vary in speed though ironically the starter ships will ALWAYS be faster than the later ships you can unlock, and in some cases they'll be BETTER.

You've got... 3 gameplay modes.  The first is your standard Melee mode.  You battle it out on all of one map just fighting for kills.  The next is the Gauntlet mode which is about as difficult as the Melee mode, then there's the Asteroids mode where you protect satellites from asteroids.  The asteroids go down so easy it's not funny.  There's no replay value to be had.


(Overall 4/10):

Aside from making reference to multiple mods and adding them to the game's backstory, this game has no redeeming qualities whatsoever and is pretty much a slap in the face of Wing Commander and is evidence of ANOTHER GAME having a popular label (Need For Speed: Pro Street, anyone?) just so it'll sell and as far as support is concerned, the franchise be damned.

This game is like the anti-game in what we've come to expect of Wing Commander.  Typical Wing Commander games consist of: Story, Space flying arcade action, character interaction, FMVs involving Mark Hamill (as Christopher Blair) or other characters, and seeing the name "Chris Roberts" on the intro screen of every Wing Commander game.  Though sadly, his name isn't really anywhere in this game.  There's also no character development, no running plot, no characters to speak of, and there's certainly no real fun to be had.

If there is another Wing Commander game, I'll be reluctant to buy it because of what EA has suddenly turned around and done with the franchise.  Some Wingnut tells me to respect EA, I tell them "EA slaps on their famous labels on products that aren't related to the actual game series at all.  Look at Need For Speed: Pro Street.  It's completely out of line with Need For Speed standards and that's the only reason the game sold was because of the name."

God help us if they acquire Take 2 Interactive.  I was uncertain to be against EA before, but I am now.