Raylight Updates Their WCP GBA Page Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

It's always hard when a new project gets announced but information remains scarce (WCATV2). Fortunately so far news has kept coming in with regards to Wing Commander Prophecy for the Game Boy Advance. I still haven't even gotten over the multiplayer confirmation yet. For today it looks like WCP GBA developer Raylight has updated their webpage with a special Wing Commander section. Some questions are answered, new questions are raised, and there is some familiar text.
One of the defining game sagas of the last decade is landing on the Nintendo GameBoy Advance with "Wing Commander Prophecy." Thanks to Destination Software Inc., Raylight gets the license for its space shooter previously called "Star Giants" and will bring a portable verison of "Wing Commander Prophecy" that will look as close as possible to the original PC version thanks to their "Blue Roses" 3D technology for the AGB.
Sounds great! You can check out their new section here. Be sure to have a look around the rest of their site as well. There are plenty of neat looking older Star Giants and other Blue Roses screenshots on the site to whet our appetite until actual WCP GBA screenshots are available.

Comprehensive WCP GBA Information Comes Together Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

To further streamline the information process here, we've also gone ahead and put together our own interim section for WCP GBA. Hopefully we'll need to expand it soon as more information becomes available, but for now, the new WCP GBA Section is where you can go to get caught up on all the relevant news. We have also put together a FAQ for some common questions out there. Feel free to email us or stop by Crius.net if you have any more questions or find anything we should add.

Prophecy GBA : Technological Excellence Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Prophecy GBA won a runner up award in Pocket IGN's Best of E3 2002 Awards. Better yet, according to this, Prophecy GBA will include something a lot of us have been hoping for :
Raylight Studios is known for their BlueRoses 3D toolkit on the Game Boy Advance, and the team was recently signed to produce a GBA port of the PC space flight sim Wing Commander Prophecy for Destination Software. Just wait until you see this game in action, folks...the 3D engine does the game extreme justice on the small screen...and it's expected to feature all the missions of the PC game (sans FMV, of course) and four player link as well.
You can check out the other upcoming games here.

Holding the Line: Chapter 130 Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Here's Raptor with the introduction to the latest in the series :
HTL continues with the third chapter of "Further Down The Spiral" Part Three. As you saw in the previous chapters, the Forge's pilots and crew had taken on the enemy dreadnought in a pitched battle, while the Captain had been imprisoned on charges of murder. Now, events come to a head both on and off the ship, as the Valley Forge plunges towards the disaster that Jed Wright alluded to in his meeting with the reporter. This chapter is written by all the Valley Forge writers, so please send any and all comments to them.

On another note, the mailing of HTL chapters via the Aces Club mailing list has been rescheduled slightly, so that they will go out every three weeks rather than fortnightly for the next four or so mail outs. This will allow me to align the chapters on the mailing list with those published here, so we can start publishing stories simultaneously on both within the next three months.

Last, but certainly not least, the new HTL archives hosted by the CIC are now up. The new domain, htl.solsector.net, will be the permanent home of the archives. It will eventually be the repository for all published HTL chapters, and for now holds all chapters up to the end of FDTS 2. You can access the archives at http://htl.solsector.net.

You can read this chapter here.

More On The Blue Roses Technology Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

There are a number of interviews with Raylight that shed some light on the Blue Roses 3D Engine for the Gameboy Advance. Blue Roses is the engine that will be used for Wing Commander Prophecy GBA. Here are some interesting bits from these interviews :
Planet GameCube
PGC: When do you believe that this technology will be available to the consumer in a final product?
RL: By the end of this year we'll see the first games based on this technology.

Tiscali Giochi
Lord Axl: What kind of games will you be launching through BlueRoses?
Massimiliano Di Monda: Certainly, PSX games will be our main target. Games like Metal Gear and Resident Evil will not be a big problem for us. BlueRoses, having been written nearly entirely in Assembler, is so versatile that allows for conversions which are definitely faithful to the original game.

GBA Dome
GBA Dome: Star Giants is also some sort of 3D, what's the difference between the Star Giant engine and the 3D engine?
RL: At present (maybe past :)) stage Star Giant is 3D only internally, I mean no polygons at all, it's part of another technology of ours for GBA: the "3D sprite" one! But we are porting now o the 3rd dimension and have all the ships in polygonal models! Stay tuned!
GBA Dome: Why haven't you used the 3D engine for Star Giant?
RL: Simple, because when we started the development of Star Giant BlueRoses didn't exist for AGB... but now...!!!

BREAKING NEWS: Wing Commander for the GBA Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

We crossed our fingers and hoped it would happen... and it has! Raylight has apparently announced at the E3 that they will be producing a Wing Commander game for the GameBoy Advance. IGN Pocket has the wonderful, wonderful news in this article. Here's the important bit:
The team informed us that they recently signed with Destination Software to produce Game Boy Advance versions of Wing Commander Prophecy, the PC space-combat game released several years ago, as well as Freekstyle, the soon-to-be-released PlayStation 2 over-the-top motocross game. Both games will use the team's BlueRoses technology for their 3D engines.
A new Wing Commander game, people... a new Wing Commander game!
author avatar
LOAF

Earth & Beyond Beta In Full Swing Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

PhilPro sent in this snippet from an article at RPGamer.com :
Westwood Studios, known for such strategy games as Command and Conquer, recently announced their plans to expand the impending beta test of upcoming title Earth and Beyond to 100,000 players prior to the release this fall. Currently, the game is scheduled to be published by EA in August.

Anyone interested in participating can sign up for possible inclusion in the beta test here. The plan is to select players on a per-month basis until the 100,000 mark has been met. All beta testers will participate in the creation process of the game, and will be able to note the changes being made to the worlds as more missions, areas, monsters, and items, among other things, are added. Players will also be able to participate in preliminary scenarios involving upcoming plotlines and new characters, as well.

I'd tell you to hurry and sign up, but hey, 100,000! Now you can find out for yourself if it would have been too soon for a Privateer Online, had it not been cancelled.

Wing Commander Invasion Progress Report Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Here's WildCat with the latest :

There is a 3/4 complete beta (version 3.5) available for download here and a patch to upgrade the beta to version 3.6 at this location.

A new torpedo I've modeled. Excuse the low detail level, it'll hardly be seen. [link]

Retextured version of the Kilrathi Heavy Destroyer from WC3 [link1] [link2]

Shot of the original WC3 model for comparison. [link]

Retextured version of the Kilrathi Light Destroyer from WC3. [link1] [link2]

Shot of the original WC3 model for comparison. [link]

There's also some pictures of extracted WC3 Kilrathi models at the site.

The Invasion website can be found at http://www.scifialliance.com.

Have You Seen My +1 Mass Driver? Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

"The Original Wing Commander RPG" is a recent addition to our Solsector.net family. Michael Coe is working on a pen-&-paper Wing Commander RPG, and he wants some feedback. If you like pen-&-paper games or if you've given his game a try, drop him a line. The website is located at wcrpg.solsector.net. The quote below gives you an idea of what a game could be like if you're really into these things.
Maniac is flying for his life, due to the fact that a lucky hit has taken out his weapon systems and auto pilot on his Arrow light fighter. He approaches the TCS Victory and must make a simple piloting roll, which he unfortunately fails. He must now succeed in a hard piloting roll to avoid the massive carrier and come around for another landing attempt. His Light Fighter SN is 14, but with a -6 penalty becomes 8. Maniac, being the lucky SOB we have all come to know and love, rolls 2+3 and manages to avoid reducing his fighter to scrap metal and himself to a red smear on the bow of the TCS Victory.
So go check it out!

Bear At The Movies Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

No, not Jason. TC has dug up this peculiar Wing Commander movie review. It's an odd little thing, but I like the way he sums it up: "Spaceships, explosions, battles and babes - what more could you ask for in a movie?". You need to see this one for yourself.

Joan's Fighting Spacecraft Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

LOAF recently tracked down the July, 1991 issue of Computing Gaming World. It includes new specifications and drawings for spacecraft that were in Secret Missions.

Happy Birthday, Kris! Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Today is CIC staffer KrisV's 21st birthday. I would write something about how that makes him legal drinking age, but since he isn't American, he's already been able to do that for years. You may wish him a happy birthday by emailing him here.

Animatronic Kilrathi Sells For $2,500 Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Last month The Propstore of London auctioned off a full size Kilrathi with animatronic head. The costume, standing nearly 7.5 ft tall, was used in the 1999 Wing Commander movie. We don't normally report on auctions before they end as to avoid influencing the outcome, but in this case it probably wouldn't have made much of a difference. The auction closed at an impressive $2,500. You can view the auction page here for a limited time, until eBay removes it. We've preserved the auction text and a couple of pictures below.
From the Sci - Fi movie we are offering an incredible animatronic costume set. This is the main Kilrathi character costume worn by actor during filming. it is currently mounted on a fiberglass body cast of that actor for display purposes - this can be removed to ease shipping if required (please contact us for shipping estimates prior to bidding). The head is fully animatronic with light up eyes but has not been tested since use in the movie - all of the components are still in place and have not been tampered with in any way. The hands feature cable controlled extendable / retractable claws.

The costume is principally made up from fiberglass components with lots of hand sewn and stitched dressing with a heavily padded foam underbody suit. The 'feet' are fiberglass plates built up over the top of training shoes worn by the actor. The shoulders and head of the creature are lifted to create the high of the character by using a lightweight aluminium rigging that mounts onto the actors shoulders - eye line for the actor is through the faux chain mail just below the creatures chin. Standing at an intimidating 90" (230cm) tall x 35" (90cm) wide x 24" (61cm) deep this amazing piece would be the center piece for any collection.

Holding the Line: Chapter 129 Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

"Further Down The Spiral" continues here on the CIC. Here's the introduction to the latest chapter.
Hey all, Raptor here

HTL continues with the second chapter of "Further Down The Spiral" part three.As you saw in the last chapter, retired TCN veteran Jed Wright had begun telling a journalist of the last hours of the TCS Valley Forge, and her fateful battle against an enemy dreadnought battlegroup. This chapter picks up from there, as the battle intensifies in ferocity. This chapter is jointly written by all the Valley Forge writers, so please send any and all comments to them.

Holding The Line: Chapter 128 Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Here is Raptor's introduction to the latest chapter in the Holding The Line series.
Hey all, Raptor here.

HTL continues with the third and final part of the "Further Down The Spiral" saga, as the TCS Valley Forge and her crew continue their battle to take out an enemy dreadnought. This part of the story is a whopper, and so has been split into four chapters. As you saw in previous chapters, the Forge's pilots had found the enemy ship and weakened its escort battlegroup with their earlier strikes, but the hardest part of the fighting is still ahead. We also learned that the Captain and First Officer were part of the Movement, a neo-Black Lance group, and that the Captain had been arrested on suspicion of murder. All these threads come together in this final stretch of the saga. This chapter has been jointly written by all the Valley Forge team, so please send any and all comments to them.

Best, Raptor

You can read "Further Down The Spiral" here. We also have previous chapters online.

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