News Collection: On This Day in WC News

2023.136 (May 16, 2023)

Exhilarating Example Sets the Tone for More to Come

Today we have a couple of unfinished/test animations by Mac. It's possible that portions of what you see here could wind up in a future lore video, and certain elements might just be for practice. Despite these being just tiny little shorts, there's some amazingly talented animation going on, and I certainly can't wait for more!This weekend I learned how to animate with MMD.

2022.136 (May 16, 2022)

Feel Like You’re Back at the Office With Latest Tiger’s Claw Vid

Part 3 of Scribbler's ambiance video series is here! This one, unsurprisingly, comes from the briefing room aboard the Tiger's Claw. While the bar has a bright fun tone and the barracks is calm and relaxing, this sequence is a bit more technically oriented. You can hear computers chirping, people typing, doors opening and occasional scribbling on a white board.

2021.136 (May 16, 2021)

Wing Leader Improves Several Critical Elements

Here's something new and different in Howard Day's Wing Leader project. We've seen a lot of the pilots and their helmets lately, and Howard took this one step further to merge these characters with the exciting cockpit scenes shown off a while back. Check out Angel in the green VDU! To flip the camera around, the fighter seats have also been bulked up and fit a bit better with their flight suits.

2020.137 (May 16, 2020)

MicroProse Reforms to Make Classic Combat Sims

Classic PC game publisher MicroProse is making a return. The company was a major force in the '80s and '90s with series like Civilization, X-COM and Master of Orion under their belt. Like Origin, they also had roots in the Austin, Texas game development scene, but waves of industry consolidation caused the name to go under in the early 2000s. An Australian megafan and software developer has been steadily following the rights and buying up assets for the past 15 years in order to relaunch the brand.

2019.136 (May 16, 2019)

All Wings Considered - Episode 13 - LIVE!

The latest episode of ALL WINGS CONSIDERED is live now! All Wings Considered is the CIC's first ever streaming variety show which features news, conversation and gameplay relating to our favorite series. This week's Nav Points include: Earning our color scanner in PRIVATEER! Never-before-seen Syd Mead Nephilim art Privateer 2 ship of the week: the Aurora Fleet Action Book Club, Chapters 6 & 7Missed the stream?

2018.136 (May 16, 2018)

Brimstone Easter Egg Found 28 Years Later

LotsoRobbinBear has found a long lost easter egg built into Wing Commander 1. He was playing through the Vega Sector in such a way as to hit all of the losing track systems when he came across something odd in Brimstone 3. When he kills all the fighters, things proceed as expected. However, if he kills Maniac as well as all the fighters, he is awarded a Bronze Star!

Wing Commander Meme of the Day: Success Kid

2017.136 (May 16, 2017)

Acronym Party: VG&CE on WC2

Video Games & Computer Entertainment was the first outlet to cover the 'making of' a Wing Commander game, with a cover story on the making of the original game (available here.) Today, we're looking at their articles for the second game in the series, Vengeance of the Kilrathi. The first two pages are from the January 1991 issue which reviewed Wing Commander II. VG&CE's connection to Origin is clear, with the reviewer going into more detail than you would expect about the team building the game.

2016.137 (May 16, 2016)

Quick Strike Cruiser Zooms Into Secret Ops Upgrade

DefianceIndustries has taken a break from player pilotable craft for a moment to work on the most iconic ship of Secret Ops, the TCS Cerberus. He's got the shape down pat, and now he's adding subcomponent details throughout the model. Compared to the Midway and other contemporary capships, the Hades class had a cool blue hull with neat red accents, so we're anxious to see how this one comes out with texturing on!Work continues in Bartok Designs shipyards...

2015.136 (May 16, 2015)

Bearcats Bagged By Border Worlders

Klavs returns from Speradon with a fan favorite -- the iconic Bearcat heavy fighter. Its slick but powerful design has always had a huge appeal, although the ship itself only made a brief appearance in the series. Klavs has also provided a short animation showing a pair of Bearcats en route somewhere, possibly a manufacturing plant of some kind.There we go, textures!

2014.136 (May 16, 2014)

Behind The Voice

Narrated by John DiMaggio (Bender, Futuruma), I Know That Voice is a documentary about the world of voice acting. Mark Hamill is just one of dozens of well-known voice actors providing anecdotes and insight. He even pops up in one of the trailers.Executive Producer John DiMaggio (Futurama) and Director Lawrence Shapiro along with Producer Tommy Reid grant a backstage pass into the fascinating and little known world of voice acting.

2013.136 (May 16, 2013)

'Hazardous Duty' Pitch Revealed!

Origin alumni and consummate archivist Binky has discovered another great treasure: the 1997 Origin pitch video for Wing Commander: Hazardous Duty. Hazardous Duty, named after one of George Oldziey’s music tracks for Wing Commander Prophecy, was an attempt to spin Wing Commander off into an FPS game. Binky saved a VHS of the demo all these years and recently digitized it for the ages!The Wing Commander FPS project would have been built on the then-modern Quake engine and pitted Terran Confederation marines against space pirates and Kilrathi warriors in the Border Worlds.

2012.137 (May 16, 2012)

Vega Sector Reinforcements Inbound

Here's a preview of new designs that Klavs is working to bring to the Shapeways model factory. If all goes according to plan, this foursome may be available in a future bundle pack together. It's an interesting assortment of ships - Rapier, Super Wing Commander Rapier, Scimitar and Dralthi - and they all look fantastic!I've ordered prototypes of these, just to make sure everything is working before I release them to you guys.

2011.136 (May 16, 2011)

Fleet Assault Introduces Weekly Column

Iceblade is continuing to work ahead on Wing Commander Fleet Assault at a steady pace. He's posted a batch of fun screenshots and a general progress update in a weekly article titled Fleet Friday. On top of direct work on the project, he's also written a very extensive piece on Flight Commander Advanced Mission Building for other aspiring modders. Follow all the progress on Fleet Action at the WCFA Forum.

2010.136 (May 16, 2010)

Snatch Some Steltek Ships

JasonRocZ has modeled several Steltek ships for aspiring modders to use. The egg-shaped Drone and Scout are based off the ships in Privateer, and the Fighter is an extrapolation of the derelict we see in the game. All three are now available in 3DS format (700 kilobytes), and they look pretty sharp. As an extra bonus, the Scout is also available as an insertable ship into Secret Ops.

EA's Fiscal Year Financials Released

Electronic Arts has reported its fourth quarter and year-end financials for fiscal 2010. The numbers were a significant improvement over last year, but they still represented a fairly substantial loss overall. Revenue of $3.6 billion was down compared to $4.

2009.136 (May 16, 2009)

Wing Commander Movie on HBO Slovakia

The wing Commander movie played on TV on 'HBO Slovakia' this Friday at 4:25 P.M. If you happened to miss the show, there will be two more showings near the end of the month. It will be playing Monday, the 25th at 1:15 P.

Making the Game: Series G Overview

The 'G' series is the short G'Wriss series, which leads up to the capture of the (first) Nephilim ship-killer. Note the lack of scripted FMV sequences...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!

2008.137 (May 16, 2008)

EA Wraps 2008 Books

Electronic Arts released its year-end financial totals this week. Their 2008 fiscal year ended on March 31. The company's overall revenue for the year hit a record $3.67 billion, but the company ended with a net loss of $454 million due in part to how it measures income from online games.

Making the Game - Part 11

We are going to round out May, 1996 with four more Component Manager Meeting agendas. This one is May 10th. I'd love to know more about the Confederation destroyer 'test' the Production Designer has been working on through several of these reports - especially since the finished game had no human warships other than the Midway. Another interesting fact?

2007.136 (May 16, 2007)

BREAKING NEWS: New Video Interview!

Game Trailers is the video-game-movie-clearinghouse-site that keeps on giving: they've just posted a new video interview with Wing Commander Arena Producer Sean Penney! It's in a crisp high-resolution format and lets us have a look at just how detailed the 'Freelancer'-style camera can be -- the tiny Confed symbols on Broadswords' wings are a sight for sore eyes. You can download the video here. Video - "Game Modes Interview" (44.

It's Showing Up On Radar

Online magazine Games Radar has posted a new preview of Wing Commander Arena! Like many others, this article is very positive about the gameplay. Here's the summary:Wing Commander Arena may be an extremely downsized version of the epic 3D space shooters it took its name from... but it's an extremely upgraded version of the retro shooters we usually see on Xbox Live Arcade.

Everything's Ship Shape

We took some time yesterday to collect all the recent data and put a new coat of paint on our Wing Commander Arena Ships Page. The article now includes all the hanger images released to-date set alongside specification charts for each ship. You can go ahead and learn their guns, missile and devices (where known)! There's also a new "cameos" section, archiving some of the cool background ships which have appeared in recent previews (like the Longbow and Centurion).

2006.136 (May 16, 2006)

Preview Plastic Piranha Prototypes

I love physical Wing Commander crafts, and Jacob Hudson is currently working on a neat project. He was inspired by the Pepakura paper models to create a similar design in plastic. With some sheets available at a local hobby shop, he was able to build the following Piranha model. The ship comes complete with a removable cockpit, but it is not finished yet.

Rushed Review Rates Right

We've listed millions of reviews for the Wing Commander Movie over the last seven years, but people still find ones we missed. AD found this quickie at HomeTheaterHiFi, which weights its reviews towards technical attributes. Wing Commander was a treat when it initially came out on DVD, because many special effects that were dimmed and obscured in theaters were much more visible and pronounced at home. Here's how they rated it.

2005.136 (May 16, 2005)

Flight Commander Reaches Linux

After a few days of tinkering by Flight Commander programmer eddieb, there has been some success in getting the game to run in Linux. Flight Commander is a complete Prophecy-style game with an open source engine, all created by eddieb. The engine itself has an impressive list of features. While the Linux version hasn't yet been released, cross-platform compatibility will no doubt make the engine more attractive to mod makers.

Grow Your Own Tiger's Claw

Budding horticulturist Death was browsing the USDA's plants list when he came across the Tiger's Claw.. in plant form! Apparently it's a tree that produces beans. Personally I fail to see the resemblance, but it's a neat find nonetheless.

God Speed, Chris Reid

Right now Chris is in the middle of the 18 hour long road trip to E3. All being well he'll be able to report the best bits of the event and post the best of his photos. If he's lucky he'll also be able to meet with some of the more special guests in attendance. Just last year he was able to meet Warren Spector, Destination Software, and almost walked in to Electronic Arts CEO Larry Probst.

2004.137 (May 16, 2004)

Warren Spector Draws Crowds At E3

Thee world renowned Warren Spector held an interview with the IGN LiveWire radio show at E3 last week. Many people attened to hear about his philosophies on game design. He is a strong proponent of non-linear open-ended gameplay. Titles such as Deus Ex and the upcoming Thief sequel can be played in many different styles.

The Fatman Visits CGE

Original Wing Commander music composer The Fatman apparently made an appearance at the Classic Gaming Expo held at E3. I didn't catch him to ask how progress was going on his classic Wing Commander music album, but I did find one of his posters advertising the event. Apparently he is visiting various events to promote his new book, The Fat Man on Game Audio: Tasty Morsels of Sonic Goodness.

2001.136 (May 16, 2001)

SWC Character of the Day: Paladin

Just when you thought it was over, they pull you back in! I think you get the idea of this next run... first up, Paladin! He looks like me...

Hidden Gold

While looking through the pack of models that WildCat extracted from Wing Commander IV the other day, I found two very strange things: first, the Kilrathi rock fighter was included among them... and second was this Black Lance carrier! It never appears in the game... but it sure is neat!

Invasion Shots

More stuff from the Invasion: A Confed Ships page, which shows off all the TC ships which will appear in the mod, and a screenshots page, which features twenty-plus new images from the game.

Leggo my Legos

Bob McDob, of the Chat Zone, has been making little LEGO starfighters... and you can find them all (seven, to date) at his home page. A terrific waste of time!

2000.137 (May 16, 2000)

Something For Saffron Burrows Fans

Saffron Burrows, who is better known (to WC fans anyway) as Angel from the WC movie, features in a newly released movie called Time Code. The unusual thing about the movie, is that throughout the movie, the screen is split in to four quadrants, each with different things happening. Could this be the start of a major new technique in Hollywood? Maybe, as people over at IMDB rate the film quite highly.

Perhaps We Should Review It Too

Everyone seems to be getting in on the Starlancer act. Today, the guilty party is Daily Radar. The review rates the game as a "hit", and of course hit space sims can't be mentioned without mentioning WC. Here comes the obligatory quote:For those who have ever played and enjoyed space shooter-type games, be it any of the Wing Commander or the excellent Freespace games or more recent titles like X -- Beyond the Frontier or Tachyon, StarLancer should be riding high on your list of games to buy right now.

The Answer Comes From Within For Lottery Winner

Zany news from Norry Lekter. How do YOU pick your Lottery numbers? Perhaps you just make them up? Or maybe you run a randomising program through your P.

1999.136 (May 16, 1999)

Fried Chips

Sorry folks, but unless some kind of miracle occurs, there'll be no new trivia today. A couple of days back, Chris' computer died so he'll be offline for an unknown amount of time. Normal service shall be resumed shortly.

Cross News!

RAMROD was kind enough to call United Cutlery for us, where he found that the Pilgrim Crosses are, and I repeat are still coming out! They will be shipped to distributors on June 15th. Apparently a company in Georgia, BudK Worldwide has placed a large order for them. BudK can be contacted at (912) 985 1667.

BLEEM!

BluesNews reports that the commercial Playstation editor Bleem! has been released. I tried the demo (the full version costs around $30) on Wing Commander III and IV PSX, and they both seemed to run just fine -- I'll let you know how it works with the real thing.

Your Title Goes Here!

In an effort to be even more of a Wing Commander based ripoff of every other gaming news site ever, I've decided to start doing one of those meaningless daily rambling updates -- the catch is, naturally, it needs a title. I'm asking for any suggestions, since I can't really think of anything that fits -- it should somehow work in either my callsign (Bandit) or my name (LOAF). Winner gets... the honor of having their slogan used?