News Collection: On This Day in WC News

2023.135 (May 15, 2023)

Gemini Surplus Design or Kilrah’s Vega Sector Brawler?

We’re kicking things off this week with a new Lego fighter by John Nelson. The design is most commonly know as the Talon from Privateer. I can see some diversion in the shape of the wings, but overall a solid effort given the pieces at his disposal. And with a new Lego store (third party brick exchange stores are a thing now??

2022.135 (May 15, 2022)

Wing Commander Unboxing & Retrospectiv Vid Presented in Both English & Tagalog

Today we've got a unique Wing Commander YouTube video. Pinoy Video Gamer titles this one as a WC3 unboxing, but it goes into much more. His copy of The Heart of the Tiger is obviously well loved, and he takes time to go through its contents. There's also a good discussion about the other major Wing Commander games as well.

2021.135 (May 15, 2021)

Perennial Rumor: Wing Commander Making a Comeback?

The German Shock 2 gaming site has posted a new speculation piece about the potential for a new Wing Commander game. They base this on comments in Jeff Grubb's GamesBeats show. As the story goes, EA Motive of Star Wars Squadrons fame is working on a new game that's a comeback of a popular franchise. For many years, Wing Commander was in a distant third place behind Electronic Arts' other space sim franchises, Star Wars and Mass Effect, so prospects were slim.

2020.136 (May 15, 2020)

Garage Sale Stock Photo Puts WC Front and Center

Mr. Freight was scrolling through Facebook and something caught his eye. Peeking out of a box in this advertisement for Country Living Magazine is the Wing Commander VHS. It's the poster child for an article about "garage sale finds worth a ton.

2019.135 (May 15, 2019)

WC1 Sprite Refresh Improves Blender Script & Tests Piranha

There's a nice new update to the WC1 Sprite Refresh project. A lot of work has been done this year on the process for using Blender to create WC1-style sprite models. This should be broadly compatible with different versions of the software, and look for an update soon. Also to whet the appetite of fans anxious for more delicious goodness in the WC1 engine, Goliath has imported a test Piranha.

2018.135 (May 15, 2018)

Now Playing Podcast Covers Wing Commander

The Now Playing Podcast's latest episode is all about Wing Commander. They are obviously a movie show, but this installment actually approaches the subject from a comprehensive Wing Commander franchise angle. At least one of the commentators has a long history with the series including the games, knowledge of the TV show and the back story of the WC Movie itself. They poke fun at some of the sillier elements of the film, but they credit things like its pioneering first use of time slice "bullet time," which is cool.

Wing Commander Meme of the Day: Finding Neverland

Nine Gothri and a Fralthra...

2017.135 (May 15, 2017)

Armada II Mod Returns

It's not uncommon for mods to disappear... so it's also a nice surprise when they come back! Back in 2012, Janos Miklos worked to convert the Star Trek Armada Wing Commander TC to the newer Star Trek Armada II platform. He released an initial version and promised he'd be working on new ships...

2016.136 (May 15, 2016)

Amiga Article Takes Us Back Nearly 25 Years

Janne Rautiainen tipped us off about a really cool July 1992 article on the development of Wing Commander for the Amiga platform. The piece was originally published in Britain's The One magazine and is saved at archive.org. What's really interesting is the challenge that the lead programmer, Nick Pelling, faced in porting the technically demanding game to the relatively underpowered 7.

2015.135 (May 15, 2015)

Lunchables Uploaded Reloaded With More McDowell

Lunchables Uploaded has produced three more videos of their spokesman, Malcolm McDowell. Although he's most renowned for his serious roles, Mr. McDowell is a super funny guy. You can find the earlier extended commercial here.

2014.135 (May 15, 2014)

Academy's Announcement Annniversary Fondly Remembered

1up.com has pointed out an interesting milestone. May 14 reflects the anniversary of the date that Wing Commander Academy was announced, and this press release was the vehicle that notified the world. It's an interesting read 18 years later.

2013.135 (May 15, 2013)

BREAKING NEWS: Wing Commander on Blu Ray

At long last, Chris Roberts' 1999 Wing Commander film is coming to Blu-Ray! Walmart's catalog has outed plans to release the Blu-Ray on August 13, 2013. A re-release of the DVD is also listed. Both are being put out by Anchor Bay rather than FOX; Anchor Bay is a smaller publisher which has previously re-released lesser known FOX titles on the HD format.

2012.136 (May 15, 2012)

Academy Just Two Weeks Away!

Wingnuts now have less than 14 days to prepare for the release of Wing Commander Academy on DVD! All thirteen episodes of the television series will be available in this set starting on May 29, 2012. Barnes & Noble and Deep Discount have some of the lowest prices, and there's still time to order from Amazon.com with release date delivery!

Scimitar Prepares to Slice Up a Dralthi

And to further get you in the Academy mood, here's another beautiful NinjaLA sketch. The CF-105 Scimitar was the workhorse of the cadets flying off the Tiger's Claw, and soon you'll get to watch them again in the new high quality release!

2011.135 (May 15, 2011)

On Attack Aproach to K'Tithrak Mang...

FekLeyrTarg has uploaded a copy of the intro movie to Deathsnake's WC2 Remake project. The game is rendered in the Freespace 2 engine and uses a handful of mixed WC Saga and Standoff models, but the classic WC2 audio overlay really pulls it all together. It begins with the destruction of the Tiger's Claw, and the result is pretty neat. There are no people models, so voiceovers follow various ships through space.

Playstation Network Back Online

Sony announced early this morning that the Playstation Network is now beginning to come back online, almost one month after the service went down following a security intrusion. Online gameplay, friends features and Playstation Home should now be up in many regions. The update also includes a mandatory password reset. Remaining features should be gradually coming back online over the next two weeks.

2010.135 (May 15, 2010)

It's Like Six-Views Times a Hundred

This one falls squarely into the oldie but goodie category. Many years ago Jetlag made a nifty composite image of all the various ship angles that HCl's WC1 Ship Viewer could produce. The picture never made it into the news, and it's quite impressive to look at. Check out the more than 40 views of more than 15 ships by clicking on the thumbnail below.

2009.135 (May 15, 2009)

From The Outside Looking In

It's not that often that we uncover new tidbits of behinds-the-scenes material from the Wing Commander film, but we recently uncovered this cool shot from the movie's set. It shows a camera rig set on a track for steady shots of the bridge set. Anyone want to guess whether this is the Tiger Claw or the Concordia?

Making the Game: Series F Overview

The 'E' series is the second half of the game's long series of missions set in the T'lan Meth system. F is where the game's "in-flight choice" concept finally comes into its own, with a variety of outcomes stemming from your performance in the Cult of Sivar rescue mission.These updates are thanks to John "Captain Johnny" Guentzel, who provided several CD image archives of material used by the Wing Commander Prophecy development team!

2008.136 (May 15, 2008)

Rapier Vanguard Grabs Texture Upgrade

JasonRocZ has gone back and cleaned up the Rapier Vanguard model to be used in the WC Collateral Damage mod. The pictures below represent the first draft and current version of the design. There's quite a noticeable improvement in the textures and their accuracy compared to the actual ships in Wing Commander Arena. The colorization mimics the improvement that we saw in screenshots released from progressive builds of Arena last year.

Making the Game - Part 10

This collection of emails between the team's designers shows the thought process that went into designing MED, Wing Commander Prophecy's mission editor. A lot of it is Greek to me, but I'm sure those who have toiled with editing Prophecy by hand over the years will appreciate what it all means. What's more, thanks to Captain Johnny (whose comments appear in the last email in the set) we may soon be able to play around with MED ourselves...

2007.135 (May 15, 2007)

Official Site Updated!

The EA Arcade site for Wing Commander Arena has been updated with fantastic new content! Included are four new movies -- two fast-paced high-resolution trailers and two funny 'instructional' movies about satellites:You need to head over to the official site and watch them right now! Take a moment to post to their forums, too - lets show EA what a great community we've formed. There's also a new 'ship fact' which reveals the name of one of the yet-unseen Darkets (Raptor)!

Mo' Previews, Mo' Problems

AD came across a new preview of Wing Commander Arena at GameDaily. It's not especially long, but we're nothing if not dedicated completists. The tone is overall positive, with a complaint about the graphics. It's an odd criticism (if anything, previews make the game seem too bright), but a much more reasonable one than we've seen from the likes of Kotaku and Mercury News:During our brief hands-on session with the game, we noticed that occasional lag time in the controls left our ship wide-open to incoming enemies.

2006.135 (May 15, 2006)

The 11th Guest

Origin Museum curator Joe Garrity has cataloged the 11th box of Origin archive material sent to him by EALA, and he's put them online for everyone in excellent archival-quality resolution! Box #11 includes some exciting Wing Commander materials, including master artwork for the covers to the first three games -- you can see the elements that made up the Wing Commander II box... or the original 'Wingleader' logo both as it would have appeared on the box and during the autopilot camera scenes! The box also contained a video master marked as a 1997 Wing Commander Prophecy Behind the Scenes shoot...

Sprechen Sie Deutsch?

Acclaimed fan fiction writer Deacon is looking for a new translator to help make his Privateer 2: The Darkening based epic available to English speaking audiences. Deacon's story, The Awakening, has drawn special attention because he went through the trouble to publish it himself in German - you can find details on that here! Here's his request:Help wanted!Since my translator still don't have the time to deal with my novel, I just asking you (!

2005.135 (May 15, 2005)

Watch Out For The Bang Bang

Kilrah Moreira created today's music video. It's a tribute to the destructive side of Wing Commander 4. Rammstein provides the explosive soundtrack. You can grab the 40 meg clip here.

How Crazy Are You?

As I was afraid, the more obscure choices in our last poll were mostly ignored this time around. And it's no surprise that Spirit's Death and Hobbes' Defection performed so well. We got a significant write-in response in the form of Angel's Death however. Quite a few people found that to be the most emotional scene in the Wing Commander series.

2004.136 (May 15, 2004)

Quick! Turn On Sci-Fi!

Apparently the Sci-Fi channel is showing the WC movie TONIGHT at 11:30pm Eastern time. If you've somehow managed to miss it before, or you need a copy on VHS, this is your chance! Thanks to Shades for pointing this out.

A Closer Look At EA And The PSP

On Friday we spent some more time working in the EA areas and found their cushy secret VIP room at the show. It was more elaborate than the actual front offices of some other developers. We also got into a nice Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth screening that was fairly impressive. The game interface has been streamlined and made more efficient to handle the massive battles being carried out in the C&C Generals engine.

Catching Up With Destination Software, Inc

At last year's E3 we got our first hands on look at Destination Software and Raylight Studios' Prophecy Advance. I found the Destination team again at this year's show and talked to them about the developments of the last year. The game finally made it out approximately one year ago and is still one of the most technologically impressive games on the system. Its original four-pilot multiplayer linkup is loads of fun.

2003.135 (May 15, 2003)

Wing Commander Prophec-E3

Chris Reid files this report on Wing Commander Prophecy GBA direct from E3! It's great news for everyone eagerly awaiting this title...Prophecy Advance is on display and appears to be generating a lot of attention. After several months of relatively little news on the Destination front, it's very refreshing to see how excited they all are about the game.

WCPolaroids: Stiletto (5/8)

Stiletto (x2) and... various background pilots! Including, but not limited to, Capp and Lisa! How many TCS Midway pilots can you name?

2001.135 (May 15, 2001)

SWC Ship of the Day: Spikeri

And the very last SWC Ship of the Day is... the Spikeri class corvette! This ship was originally cut from Wing Commander 1... and it never appears in SWC, either!

A Bit of Wire for a Mod

The Wing Commander Invasion mod for ST:Armada's beta release has been delayed a few days... so that the team can update it with new wireframe models of the various ships... here's the new version of the Midway!

Cannon Still Loose

According to a press release at FragLand, UbiSoft has purchased the Digital Anvil's Conquest: Frontier Wars and Loose Cannon. Both games were dropped by Microsoft several months ago.PARIS, France – May 14, 2001 – Ubi Soft Entertainment has signed a deal with Digital Anvil Holdings to publish Loose Cannon and Conquest: Frontier Wars worldwide. With this agreement Ubi Soft acquires the rights to publish Loose Cannon on all platforms, and the rights to publish Conquest: Frontier Wars on PC.

By the Skin of Our Hornets

HellcatV has re-textured the Vega Strike Hornet... the results can be seen below! The last image is the games new beam weapon feature...

That's a Mass

Hobbes has found some more... oddly coincidental real-life news! Check out this quote from a recent article at Space.Com.

1999.135 (May 15, 1999)

Lord British Speaks

Here's a usefull little tidbit from an interview GuruTech did with Origin founder Richard Garriott... the rest of the interview can be found here, but it's all UltimaStuff.Q: I've heard that all games made by origin after Ultima: Ascension will be online-only. Is there any truth to this?

Where's the Cross

Today was the supposed release day for the Pilgrim Cross from United Cutlery. I'll try and figure out where it is when the world opens back up on Monday... I'm crossing my fingers and hoping we can get it real soon now!

Wing Commander in Panama

-=PHOEN|X=- reports that the Wing Commander movie is opening tonight and tomorrow at military bases in Panama, where it will probably run for several weeks. Phoenix reports that it opens on Howard at 8pm tonight and Clayton at 6:30pm tomorrow. I knew I should have joined the army...