Well shit.

Simplicity over complexity is part of the reason Consoles are doing better and PC gaming is taking a hit though. PC gaming is starting to shrivel up and only include games that are still too complex for consoles in my opinion.
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Thats excactly the reason why I am still at my PC...complexity.
About Halo...I have only played the PC version and is was damn boring. Worst leveldesign I have ever seen...stupid enemys and a lot of them (with the stupid explanation that PC gamers with mouse and Keyboard can aim better then with a Pad...man then give us real enemys instead of cannonfooder).
But mainly the bad leveldesign was the part I when I lost interest in the game.
The outer levels are ok, but the inner rooms...

About Full Spectrum Warrior...haven't seen it yet...are their any pictures/videos and for what system are they?
I remeber Dune on NES/SNES...
But still strategy with a pad...mh I prever my mouse.

About the Wing Commander on console thing.
Since the X-Box and PS2 have made some advandcement concerning graphiks I belive that their is the posibillity to have something good on it...still behind the PC, but allready nice. Man I wait to see the first games with these new rendertechnologie (forgot the name)
So graphikwise their wouldn't be that great difference between PC and Console...except that most modern PC graca can do more then the console...and the low resolution of the TVs..except the HDTV makes its way into every home.
Fazit -> Graphic nearly equal.

Gameplay....well this is the point I mostly fear. Since Freelancer the "lets do things simple" style is something I fear the most.
Freelancer is just a FSP shooter to me. I miss most of the flying feeling I had...it was allmost like playing an arcade game on an Amiga..what was it called...right spaceinvaders.
Or like the first CD-Rom games like Rebel Assault.
I don't know about the other WC conversations to the console..maybe someone can explain his feeling about it.
Fazit-> PC or Console dosn't matter for gameplay...the (damn) "make it simple for the dump virus" seams to infect every system.
(Sorry nothing against everyone who likes it simple..but I miss the time where games where more "demanding".

Cutscenes....dou to the cost such a projekt would have with real actors and a set, cam etc and the wish of the companys of today just to make much much money (something I can understand, but takes much of the quality of games) their would only be CGI things.
Its a strange thing for me to have CGI characters for WC...but we had them in WC1+2 and we all where happy...so maybe if the CGI is good we can live with it again.

Overall Fazit: The difference between the Console and PC version shouldn't be that much.
Personal Fazit: I have to work harder on WC Saga to get rid of these console idea ^_^
 
People say this. What they mean is "console games will not reach the complexity and flexibility of PC titles in 1982." PCs and consoles get the same consistent stream of knock-off crap these days.
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Thank you, that's exactly it.
 
I hate consoles but I already got my ass kicked while trying to justify it, so that's that...

I've been a simulator fan since I played F15 Strike Eagle, and I think most of the sales trouble with flight/space sims has to do with cyclical rises and falls in popularity with other generes. I was a kid at the time, but I can remember Falcon 3.0 having a lot of attention taken away from it for Doom 2 and X-Com (at least among my friends), but then X-wing, Tie Fighter and the Aces of the Pacific/over Europe bringing it back, only to be replaced substantially by Quake, and so on...

I think the Half-Life juggernaught has pulled a lot fans from simulators to FPS, perhaps to the extent that sims are now in a bit of a slump, and then you've got BF1942 roughly mixing both. Not to say that all these I've mentioned aren't excellent games, but it doesn't look good for sims these days, and developers know it.

In regards to Wing Commander, and I absolutely don't mean to offend anyone, I personally believe the movie is what put a real damper on new game development for the series. A friend of mine saw it before I did, and she was a real die-hard WC fan, and she hated it, which kept me from seeing it until it made the Sci-Fi channel. I can remember seeing promos for it on MTV all the damn time and I kinda already felt that it would flop pretty bad because of all the hype around it (like every pop teen star flick), so I think by friend's sentiments reinforced what I was already expecting. I can only specualte that Origin may have believed that the cast would reel new blood for the series, when that didn't come true they came up with the "mined all the spice out of Dune" excuse for not continuing new development. I hadn't played WC1 by this time, and I shudder to think of the possibly that if I had seen the film first, I might not have played the game...and not known the ship's correct spelling was Tiger's Claw.

Still, another friend of mine simply left after WC4, even as Prophecy was comming out, saying it was a "good time to leave." Maybe it's just a stupid guy saying when they want out of a committed relationship, like that which existed between every major fan of WC and the series I've known, but I do admit there was a lot to live up to after WC4. I got pumped up the summer before my Senior year when Secret Ops came out, which were probably the 7 most exciting weeks of 1998, I even came to this site for the episodes when they were legal and to see how to save the base that kept getting nailed when the Mantas escaped. But that too fizzled...I can't say for sure, but 6 years without a new WC title is not a good sign that another will be made. It looks like the mods will live on for a while, but I'm not overly optimistic that WC will return, just like I'm not overly optimistic that Star Trek will make another TNG movie.

I never played any of the Freespace series, but blaming it for the fall of WC, in my opinion, would be like blaming Yoda Stories for the lackluster performance of SW Galaxies. I really don't think they were made for the same audience; WC fans were pretty well dug in with the series, while something like Freespace was probably directed toward the "lighter" space sim market, much like Tachyon (IMO) was.

Bottom line, I think WC has had its fame. It'll be a warmly remembered treasure of a video game, but I don't think anything WC in the future will catch lightning in a bottle again.

Just thought I'd speak, thanks for listening. Sorry this went all over the place.
 
It's not a theory, though. It's a case of the people who made the decision specifically saying that Freespace's sales affected their decision. (Privateer Online was in development for almost a year after the movie came out, anyway. As big a fan as I am of randomly attacking the movie (...), it doesn't fit facts here.)
 
I like PC's and Consoles for different reasons which have all ready come up for the most part. I've played some outstanding titles on both. Most gamers that started gaming on the PC usually drift towards PC gaming, most players that started with consoles drift towards consoles. That's my theory anyway.

Since most modern day video game players started with consoles they'll stick to their consoles. The only event that drug gamers away from their Segas Nintendos and Sonys was the creation of the internet. Which if you look around the mid to late nineties when the Internet started to become the monster it is today, PC gaming rose to its peak.

But now younger children are being introduced to videogames through consoles that have the internet so they don't see a reason to jump to the PC anymore. The PC still manages to have it's own niche thanks to the ability to be customized to the users preferances and that almost everyone in an industrialized nation has one, so PC gamers don't see a reason to buy a console since their PC can do the same thing.

It will forever be an ongoing war between PC and consoles. When the PC gains ground, console gaming slows, when consoles gain ground, PC gaming slows. Right now consoles are the top of the heap, but in the next five years the PC might over take the consoles again. One or the other will probably never lose, and it's better that they coexist as it offers everyone choices. I think PC gamers are the more hardcore of the bunch and console gamers are the more casual as PC gamers usually prefer their games more challenge and complex and customizable than those on the consoles that offer more instant gratification. I think the consoles are gaining ground over the PC market right now simply because people right now don't want games that take too much involvement or too much difficulty that they become frusterating.
 
True...but the problem is that the main game developing companys are sitting in the USA and most of the time the EU marked is ignored.
 
Europe is not a big enough market in which to risk big budget games - otherwise they'd certainly continue developing Wing Commander titles solely based on their popularity in Germany.
 
Let's just say this...

WC1 created the sci-fi space jock "industry". It was nothing before, and after some time (and a lot of good games in between) the buyers just weren't there to justify more and more games of the genre. Some titles (anyone saw Echelon warriors or something) came too late and missed the show. Others reverted to basically Freeware status and keep the flame alive.

But that is not the point I am trying to make. We owe WC1 and the genious of the "later film-maker" englishman the genre we are now fighting to keep alive. All the Freespaces and Tie Fighters can't change that.

I still fondly remember playing WC1 on a friends' Amstrad PC 1640 with double floppies, and changing about 7 times floppy discs during a single mission (of course 5 1/4), but WHAT A GAME... WHAT A GAME.

It is just a rotten shame that the juniors of this age will not have something as good to jolt them up. That's were Standoff and Saga come in. To keep the dream alive.

It can be on Freespace engine, Vega Strike engine, Starshatter engine, what have you. IT WILL STILL BE WING COMMANDER AND YOU WILL KNOW IT FROM THE GET GO!

So, may you all grow Bluehair!!! Antio!
 
It might take some time for the PC gaming industry to catch up....Computer technology has increased in leaps and bounds in the last decade. My dad works for Hyundai america making some of the most advanced chips in the world, and they are expecting a huge dropoff in sales do the technology outstripping programming. He says its a cycle that has been happening about every 5 years.

I think with consoles like the X-Box (and maybe the playstation 3) which are basicly computers in themselves lol, may dominate the market in gaming for a while. And while I have only ever played one WC game I enjoyed on a console (WC CD), it would be a logical step to develop one and port it to Playstation and X-box. It would be a logical step to attract a younger crowd as parents (damn that is scary lol), who played the earlier WC games when they were teenagers bought it for their kids.

I hope the franshise will be revitalized, online RPGs are the thign right now, and I play one despite a growing hatred for the devs of it lol. It might be ten more years until someone decides to bring forward a old video game legend and give it a new pair of shiny shoes...but I will be there waiting.
 
I enjoy gaming in all of its forms. I have 2 pc's an xbox, ps2, gc, gba, snes, n64, and nes. All hooked up, all with games I like playing on them.

The pc is good for some types of games and cons for others. I think that the cons will be dominate because of the ability to play the game without the setup. A pc needs to have the game installed and many times have the settings adjusted.

Look at WC1, if I want to play it I must either play ks or spend several hours adjusting my machine to work. If I want to play the original super mario brothers then I just plug in the game.

Both will be here to stay. A con has a longer shelf life than a pc because it is standardized and left that way for 2-3 years while a pc has several different componets which may or may not be needed for a particular game.

jim
 
I have to admit that for pure gaming and the younger generations the consoles are the best platform. So it would be so that if their is a new WC in the next...lets say 2-8 years it will surly be for the console.
For the hardware part its no longer the big difference if its PC or console. What makes me fear is the loose of complexety...storywise...except for some rare games consoles seams to be more simple. Other point is gameplay has to be simple on consoles, cause of the leak of inputhardware and the current generation just like complex stuff.
Well since their are allways some exception I hope if WC comes for the console it will be one of these....and that it will be ported to the PC ^_^
 
I always psychologically blame the lack of Wing Commander sequels on the movie. When people that never played the games but saw the movie see a Wing Commander game, they'll now think, "Well that must be crap." I somehow feel that if the movie would've done great, we would've seen more games.
 
Spien said:
I always psychologically blame the lack of Wing Commander sequels on the movie. When people that never played the games but saw the movie see a Wing Commander game, they'll now think, "Well that must be crap." I somehow feel that if the movie would've done great, we would've seen more games.
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Way to repeat something I just told someone wasn't true three posts ago.
 
Spien said:
I always psychologically blame the lack of Wing Commander sequels on the movie. When people that never played the games but saw the movie see a Wing Commander game, they'll now think, "Well that must be crap." I somehow feel that if the movie would've done great, we would've seen more games.
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Even if the movie had done great, the sudden downturn in space-sim games would've stopped production - selling 20,000 copies of a game which cost a few million to make is NOT the way to profitability. The movie may not have done well at the box office, but that alone wasn't enough to kill any WC sequels; the recent death of Earth and Beyond, however, may be yet another nail in the coffin.
 
I know that, like I said it's a psychological thing for me. I was apprehensive to read any of the novels because I was afraid of Wing Commander quality outside of the games, because of the movie.
 
Spien said:
I know that, like I said it's a psychological thing for me. I was apprehensive to read any of the novels because I was afraid of Wing Commander quality outside of the games, because of the movie.
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And if you've ever read science-fiction or military fiction, then you shouldn't have been as afraid after seeing who wrote the novels. Ellen Guon and Mercedes Lackey are well-known sci-fi writers, and Forstchen's been writing military fiction for years.
 
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