News Collection: On This Day in WC News

2023.140 (May 20, 2023)

Massive 90% EA Sale Discounts WC to $0.49

Electronic Arts' Origin store may finally be no more, but EA is still selling a select sampling of Wing Commander games directly through their website. There are a few differences between these and the digital copies available from GOG.com, however. For starters, only Wing Commanders 1-4 and Privateer are available, and WC1/2 are split up into two separate packages.

2022.140 (May 20, 2022)

Extremely Obscure TV Movie Features Unusual WC2 Reference

Last week we reported about a custom arcade cabinet that appeared to be configurable with an emulated copy of Sega CD Wing Commander. That drudged up some deep memories in gr1mre4per of a 1994 Lifetime movie Children of the Dark. At the 57:50 point, it shows someone flying a WC2 Sabre in an a fake arcade box. Pretty wild!

2021.140 (May 20, 2021)

Private Righteous Fire Translated into Spanish

L@Zar0 is back with another impressive translation of a Wing Commander game! He's previously converted WC1, WC2, the Secret Missions and the Special Operations, and now he's done the same for both Privateer and Righteous Fire. It appears to be really well done. Cinematics and dialogue have new text, the spaceflight interface has been converted, and even the planetside menus and Quine computer are all seamlessly displayed in the new language.

2020.141 (May 20, 2020)

BREAKING NEWS: Restored Privateer 2 Footage Available

Very exciting news today that we just can't wait to share: Privateer 2 director Steve Hilliker has posted over an hour of footage from the game's FMV shoot to YouTube! The footage is sourced from a Beta SP tape and has been further restored by a genuine professional... resulting in a better look at the Tri-System than we've ever seen before! You'll see beautiful sets, props, extras and more for the very first time.

2019.140 (May 20, 2019)

Spinning Scimitars, Lively Longbows & Pirouetting Piranhas

The recent talk about the WC1 Sprite Refresh has gotten a lot of people excited, so here's a closer look at some of the potential assets. The original Wing Commander games worked by arranging and then displaying dozens of potential snaps of each ship from each potential viewing angle in order to simulate 3D. DefianceIndustries and Goliath put these three rotating gifs together to give fans a better sense of how this works. Click each one to see them in motion!

2018.140 (May 20, 2018)

Nifty Video Game Music Podcast Highlights George Oldziey's WC Soundtrack

The Composers Play podcast's latest episode is about Wing Commander 3. Scott Tobin interviews the original composers of major video games in his series of video game shows, and he's got George Oldziey on the line for this one. There's lots of great backstory about how Mr. Oldziey got involved with Wing Commander and what it means to him to be supporting the fans still after all these years.

Wing Commander Meme of the Day: I'll Just Wait Here

2017.140 (May 20, 2017)

Lazy Game Reviews Covers Wing Commander

Noted YouTube retrogamer Lazy Game Reviews (LGR) has just tackled our favorite: the original Wing Commander! Lazy Game Reviews produces excellent reviews of classic gaming and tech subjects… and this one is no exception. If you need to explain Wing Commander to someone unfamiliar with the series, this is a great way to start.

2016.141 (May 20, 2016)

LOAF Interviewed in Major Print Publication

The May issue of German PC gaming magazine GameStar contains a big Wing Commander retrospective, including an interview with Star Citizen community manager and CIC founder Ben Lesnick. Brian Chambers of Star Citizen's Frankfurt branch shared a teaser on Twitter. Pick up a copy if you can!And in case you missed it earlier, Big Box PC Game Collectors also spent an hour interviewing Ben about Wing Commander, the CIC, and working with Chris Roberts on Star Citizen.

2015.140 (May 20, 2015)

"Let's just say she could hypothetically cruise at a cool 500 kilometers per second..."

While cleaning his hard drive, Lc4Hunter stumbled upon old Excalibur model he'd created long ago. It brought back so many fond memories that he just had to take a stab at recreating it with all of the skills he's learned over the years! The result is a high quality update of one of the most beloved fighters in the series. You can also check out his recent Vesuvius remake here and more of his non-WC works here..

2014.140 (May 20, 2014)

New WC Strategy Mod In Development

Ron B is working on a new strategy game et in the WC universe. It's a hex-based fan project like WC TacOps but will share more in common with the Panzer Generals series. He's repurposed Midnightrunner's GalCiv 2 mod ships so that dozens of ship designs are already ready and implemented. The initial screenshots look pretty promising.

2013.140 (May 20, 2013)

Origin Museum Interviews the Vampire

Joe Garrity of the Origin Museum has a pretty cool toy and an interesting piece of history! The Vampire space superiority fighter pictured below was created by Origin Systems to advertise Wing Commander Prophecy at trade shows like E3. Joe recently came across it in a lot of props and costumes saved from Origin after all these years. The Vampire features light-up engines and was originally paired with a model of a Nephilim fighter.

2012.141 (May 20, 2012)

"Sir, if we spot this ‘Fralthi’, should we engage?"

Now we go from Fralthra to Fralthi WIP images. CMDBob's latest design is a classic Kilrathi light carrier/cruiser. His model has real clean lines and an animated WC1-style set of textures. I'd even call the look quite charming, but such a sight would be nothing but terrifying to Confed pilots in 2655!

2011.140 (May 20, 2011)

Hometown Boy Makes Good

Wing Commander novelist Peter Telep has a new book coming out--and you could be forgiven for missing his well-camouflaged name at the bookstore next month. Mr. Telep has written Against All Enemies with famed military author Tom Clancy--likely rocketing his fame and fortunes ahead of all other former Wing Commander authors. What's it about?

Armageddon Outta Here

Hang on to your Pilgrim Crosses, it's the end of the world! Social media and some sort of cult that puts signs on cars are in rare agreement-- Kn'thrak is upon us. While our opinion is that the bible doesn't actually say anything about the world ending on May 21st, we did want to make sure everyone was prepared with these helpful blueprints:One thing's for sure--you can't be left behind when you're afterburning at 1200 klicks-per-second.

2010.140 (May 20, 2010)

A Delightful Digest of Digital Diagrams

Here's some more nifty shots from the 1080p broadcast of the Wing Commander Movie. These reveal a few of the super interesting computer displays from various points in the film. Apparently the Tiger Claw's NavCom AI has 2 petabytes of RAM!

Resurrected Fan Fiction Back in Action

Broadcast has reposted a variety of fan fiction from the late 1990s. Some of it should be familiar to old members of the WC Aces. The stories were originally sent out chapter-by-chapter via email, and different authors would pen individual parts. He's looking to wrap up some of the old unconcluded adventures, such as Battle Cry, Red Storm and The Armageddon Factor.

2009.140 (May 20, 2009)

One Fan Versus Sixty Origin Games

Pix is currently in the middle of an impressive undertaking. He's created "another" 'blog' dedicated to playing through Origin games. What began as an Ultima playthrough last summer has expanded to quite a few classic series. The writeups of his experiences are quite thorough and complete with interesting anecdotes and pictures.

Making the Game: Series S Overview

Series S is the designation these documents give to the Simulator missions. As you can see, they're a much more complex plan at this point, featuring a grand total of twenty-one missions patterned after the training missions used in the Star Wars space combat sims.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!

2008.141 (May 20, 2008)

Gaming Standards And The Mighty Micro

Rvcontre is putting together a neat YouTube series called 'The Gaming Standards.' He's creating a six-part documentary about Wing Commander and its time. Part four looks at the beginning of Chris Roberts' career and his early days at Origin. Ultima, Times of Lore and various BBC Micro games (like Stryker's Run) all make an appearance!

Making the Game - Part 15

Today we have a theoretical (and unused) mission series put together by Captain Johnny way back in June 1994. It details an encounter with the mysterious Prophecy aliens in a setting steeped in Wing Commander lore -- Olympus Station at Ghorah Khar. Any fan projects want to try making these into real missions?

2007.140 (May 20, 2007)

BREAKING NEWS: New Renders!

The Electronic Arts official press site for Wing Commander Arena has been updated with new wallpaper-sized ship renders. They've posted an image of the 'Space Station' level, three renders of different recharge satellites and a higher resolution image of the Dralthi Rhino:The official site has also posted a higher resolution image of the Darket Raptor!

Don't Have a Dray, Man

There's even more Privateer Ascii Sector material from Chris Knudsen! This new series of screenshots shows the process of outfitting and loading a transport ship. It's so elaborate... and that ship class looks very familiar!

Alone Together

Gevatter Lars' previously released "Lone Bhantkara" artwork is now available in three different wallpaper resolutions!

2006.140 (May 20, 2006)

Cyberion Burns Space For WC Pioneer

Cyberion continues the wallpaper theme with a commemorative image for WC Pioneer. The font choice is a bit different, but it's otherwise a pretty nice image of a flaming planet. If you like orange and yellow, this one's for you. This is probably the first time I've seen someone render a wallpaper in two different 1280x aspect ratios.

Fighter Wallpaper Pack Also Available

Sergio Leugi has also has a pack of wallpapers for everyone. Instead of one image, he's made fifteen Wing Commander shots to choose from. They each feature a popular ship from Wing Commander 4 or Prophecy. The source images for each fighter have been enlarged some, but the wallpapers should still look decent on medium resolution screens.

2005.140 (May 20, 2005)

Calling In A Mission Report

Four years ago we reported on a weird Wing Commander song by a group named The Theta Project. Forums member PeteyG liked it a lot:Back in the day, the CIC ran something on an mp3.com artist's WC-inspired tune. It is a telephone answering machine message describing the last mission of Wing Commander...

ChrisReid Reports From E3

Here's the first bit of news from ChrisReid down at the E3 Expo. Expect a lot more coverage when he gets back.The expo here is going very well. Everyone is tired and bruised from running around all day, but it's a lot of fun.

2004.141 (May 20, 2004)

Thunderbolt on the Loose

Wing Commander artist Sean Murphy has a portfolio online where he displays some of his work. There is a big Origin section with artwork from Bioforge, Strike Commander and Wing Commander. This stunning 1280x1024 rendition of a Thunderbolt really stands out and makes a great wallpaper.There is also a neat Space Quest 5 area (under Dynamix) for all you Roger Wilco fans.

What You Need To Know About D*C

To celebrate the release of the new Dragon*Con website, we decided that now would be a good time to update about TyeDyeBoy's D*C FAQ. If you have never been before, it tells you pretty much all you need to go about going, including why you'd want to go in the first place. Additional posts by other experienced D*C veterans cover the rest. 1 - What the bloodly hell is DragonCon?

2003.140 (May 20, 2003)

Space Empires IV: The Price of... Space... Empires

Bob McDob reports on the availability of Confederation and Kilrathi shipsets for Space Empires IV. No one is completely sure what, exactly, Space Empires IV is... but careful use of the scientific method has revealed that it has absolutely nothing to do with TradeWars 2000.

WCPolaroids: Stiletto (8/8)

Look closely in the lower-left corner: the TCS Midway is actually propped up by a small bottle of water. But is it berry-licious Wing Commander Prophecy-brand water*?* - Actually exists. For some reason.

2001.140 (May 20, 2001)

SWC Character of the Day: Halcyon

It's Colonel Peter Halcyon, commander of the 88th Fighter Wing and (during Operation Thor's Hammer) Captain of the Tiger's Claw... and he's never looked more like Colonel McQueen from Space: Above and Beyond!

Trivia Reminder

Week 30 of agwc/CIC trivia starts Monday morning -- so have your Week 29 answers in to Chris today! New questions and scores will be posted in the morning...

WCA Mirror: Episode 13

Tye has posted Episode 13 of Wing Commander Academy for download. The episode, titled "Glory of Sivar", was the second portion of two-part series finale... grab it here (67618 k).

UE Marches On

The Unknown Enemy team is busy with exams right now -- but the development marches on! They hope to release the first half of the game (Episode 1) in the near future... and Pedro is making significant progress in creating Prophecy capital ships. And here's their Ralari!

2000.141 (May 20, 2000)

Active Artists Abound

We've been receiving a steady stream of fan art over the past few weeks by talented fans. Our latest update today includes four pieces by Snake and one from Brian Fasano. Lots of beautiful scenes involving Hellcats. For other works by them and other artists, check out our fan art section here.

Beyond the Frontier and The Fringe have a Cosmic Similarity

Avault's on a roll. Two non-Starlancer space sim reviews with Wing Commander memories embedded within. Reviewers sure like to talk about old times in reviews nowdays. I've noticed that in more than just space sim articles.

Opthalophagia Epidemic on Hermes

Medical correspondent Tony Knox reports. There has been a huge surge in reported cases of Opthalophagia, a fast-acting degenerative eye disease, on Hermes. Hospitals are working overtime to deal with the afflicted, and Optic Nerve supplies are running out. New supplies are urgently required, and prices have soared considerably.

1999.140 (May 20, 1999)

DVD Specifications

Here's the specifications for Wing Commander DVD... from DVDFile. Doesn't sound like it has anything new in it, but here's to hoping this isn't 100 percent correct.Twentieth Century FoxMSRP: $34.

Good Novel News

Amazon is starting to take pre-orders for Wing Commander: Pilgrim Stars. There's no plot description yet, but the price is $6.50 and the ISBN number is 0-06-105986-2. Grab it here.

No New Novels

After lots and lots of running around I've finally gotten a response from Baen -- they are not currently planning any more Wing Commander books. Damned shame, but at least we have two more novels from HarperCollins...

Pass it On

Lady Whisper of WOO recently returned from the E3, reporting some interesting news about the future of Wing Commander. This, straight from Richard Garriott goes with some odd rumors I've heard lately...1. Maverick be dead.

Bleem Update

I... aquired... the full version of Bleem! (so as to test WC3 & 4, naturally) and both games work.

Our Daily Bread

Well, Star Wars madness is in full force everywhere (not a pun). I saw it twice yesterday, and it was a fairly incredible movie -- I'd rank it up there with the original (below Empire and above Jedi). As with Wing Commander, the critics are just plain wrong. Today's WC news is either very good or very bad, depending on how you look at it...