Good news for people who love the pew-pew-pew: Microsoft announced today that the new shmup Aegis Wing will be made available this coming Wednesday on XBLA, free for Silver and Gold Xbox Live members. The game was originally conceived by three Microsoft interns between sessions of coffee-nabbin' and savage beatings by the higher-ups. From the release:

"Aegis Wing" was originally conceived by three students -- Scott Brodie, Danny Dyer and Matt Monson -- during a summer internship at Xbox LIVE Arcade. The students worked in tandem with Carbonated Games -- the creators of fan-favorite, UNO® -- to bring the game to the Xbox LIVE Arcade community.

The plot rings the familiar bells of a standard shooter -- Earth is dying! Let's go to Europa! Oh no, aliens! It's a good thing we have ships! -- but with Xbox Live multiplayer and up to four player co-op, it sounds like it's shaping up to be anything but standard. Once you've got some cohorts in tow, you can combine your ships Voltron-like into multiship configurations to gain access to world-splattering super weapons.

Aegis Wing will be free for a limited time, so be sure to nab it quick when it pops up on XBLA this Wednesday -- not just because it's free, but because it sounds like it's bringing something new to the table. Besides, shmups are awesome, and we ought to demand more of them, especially on platforms like XBLA. Hit the jump for the full press release.

Xbox LIVE Arcade Intern Project Game "Aegis Wing" Launches This Week as Free Gift to Gamers

REDMOND, Wash. -- May 14, 2007 -- This Wednesday, team up with up to three of your friends and prepare yourselves for intense side-scrolling, sci-fi shooting action in "Aegis Wing." Originally conceived by three Microsoft Corp. interns over the course of a summer, "Aegis Wing" will be available for free to all Xbox LIVE® Silver and Gold members in North America for a limited time. "Aegis Wing" will be available for download on Xbox LIVE Arcade for Xbox 360™ beginning Wednesday, May 16, at 2 a.m. PDT.

"Aegis Wing" is a 2-D side-scrolling space shooter that combines epic space combat with fantastic visuals, and is set to a rich symphonic soundtrack. It is set in the year 2105, when humanity must flee a dying Earth for the distant world Europa. But this new home is soon threatened by a powerful alien race, the Araxia. With stolen Araxian technology, the Europa fleet develops an experimental star fighter and assigns four ace pilots to test it. The Aegis Wing is born, and it becomes your mission to wield this new technology as humanity's last hope for survival.

Up to four players can play together either locally or over Xbox LIVE to defeat waves of nefarious Araxian ships and bosses, and can even combine spacecraft in two-, three- or four-ship formations to access powerful Super Weapons.

"Aegis Wing" was originally conceived by three students - Scott Brodie, Danny Dyer and Matt Monson -during a summer internship at Xbox LIVE Arcade. The students worked in tandem with Carbonated Games - the creators of fan-favorite, UNO® - to bring the game to the Xbox LIVE Arcade community. The full version of "Aegis Wing" is being released on Xbox LIVE Arcade free of charge and will be available for a limited time.

Game Features

Game features include the following:

· Amazing environmental art
· Full symphonic soundtrack
· Up to four-player simultaneous cooperative multiplayer gameplay, either locally on the same Xbox 360 console or over Xbox LIVE*
· Ability to attach your ship to your wingmen's spacecraft to gain the "turret" ability and increase the firepower of the Super Weapons
· Four Super Weapons: the Hades Beam (wreaks total destruction), the Gorgon Burst (wipes out incoming fire and disables enemy spacecraft with an electromagnetic pulse), the Arcus Missile (a heat-seeking missile) and the Lambda Shield (deflects incoming fire back at enemies)
· Six epic missions and several memorable boss encounters to fight through

Where Can I Get It?

You can download "Aegis Wing" beginning Wednesday, May 16, at 2 a.m. PDT on Xbox LIVE Arcade. "Aegis Wing" will be available for download in North America only. "Aegis Wing" is rated E for Everyone, with Mild Fantasy Violence. More information is available at http://www.xbox.com/games/livearcade