Old favourites coming to a Next-Gen console near you

Mike Bantick
Saturday, 24 February 2007 10:10

Opinion and Analysis

Electronic Arts name Wing Commander Arena for the Xbox Live Arcade, and Nintendo announce Ocarina of Time, amongst others for the Wii Virtual Console.

Nostalgic gaming is still very popular, be it with Microsoft's LIVE Arcade series of games giving us classic eighties translations and reinterpretations, or the Nintendo Wii Virtual Console providing increasing access to long gone console favourites.

As the millions of downloads have shown, there is a market for what was up until now boarding on abandon ware games - which makes the Sony decision to knobble the PAL PS3 hardware to limit its back levelling compatibility with the PS2 more than baffling.

Still from February 26, for 1000 Wii points you can download the game most critics have near or at the top of their all time lists; Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.  The first ever full 3D Zelda opus from 1998

Furthermore we hear that some extra ancient gaming consoles are joining the Wii VC band wagon, with NEO GEO and MSX games slated for release.  So far the only announced games are Eggy and Aleste both coming in at 800 Wii points.

If you are Xbox 360 owner, EA has announced it will be joining the download frenzy as well with Wing Commander for the Live Arcade service.  Yes! The 3D space fighter shooter game franchise that launched Mark Hamil's return to acting (remember those sphincter clinching FMV days of computer gaming?). 

In this case however we are talking an all-new reinterpretation of the Wing Commander series with a 16 multiplayer offering dubbed Wing Commander Arena.  Eighteen different types of craft with four modes of play are on offer.

Wing Commander Arena is still in production, as such no release date has been officially announced.