Speed Runners Continue to Refine Wing Commander Playthroughs (January 25, 2022)

ChrisReid

Super Soaker Collector / Administrator



What the Fox Project has posted a pretty impressive speed run of Wing Commander 1. The game features an extensively branching mission structure, so players can experience vastly different games on multiple playthroughs. As we've previously noted, there's some strategy involved here. One short path through the game is to eject through the Enyo, Gateway, Chengdu and Port Hedland systems, then win in Hubble's Star (or Port Hedland) and Rostov, then eject again through Venice and still rout the Kats from the Vega Sector. This shouldn't be seen as cheating - it's its own type of art form to figure out how to legitimately game the game and still see the winning ending in the shortest possible time. The final score here is 23 minutes and 7 seconds, which is amazing! It's also half the time that speed runners were hitting four or five years ago. Check it out below:



Well, it's been a year since I've tried running anything - but I've really wanted to get back into space. Wing Commander is an awesome series from my childhood I'm excited to run, and hopefully improve my time on.

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Original update published on January 25, 2022
 
I've wondered what a WC1 speedrun would look like, so thank you for posting this. I could see that there were two short routes and both went through Rostov, so I thought you would have to navigate through the tedious asteroid fields of Rostov 1. But of course with sufficient knowledge of the points within each Series, you can eject in Rostov 1 and still win the Series! Clever. Same for avoiding Hubble's Star 2, the mission that makes Kurasawa 2 look easy.

As it was, they must have been sweating with the end in sight in Rostov 3 and at 22:10 suddenly every asteroid wanted to get in the co-pilot's seat.

I'm pretty sure it's faster to destroy the capital ships be slowing to a halt and shooting them, but this does come with risks of taking too much damage yourself. Apart from pressing the minus key to reduce speed, you can press backspace to instantly reduce set speed to zero. I only learnt this from Wing Commander 1 & 2 : The Ultimate Strategy Guide, I can't find it anywhere in the Reference Card that lists the other keyboard controls.
 
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