Never Say Netherlands
Kickstarter campaign has launched!
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You can read the discussion here. It turns out that George Oldziey, who composed the music for Wing Commander III, IV and Prophecy, lives just a few blocks from The Fatman. Visit the music section if you want to check out their work.Dave Govett, now a policeman, is using his newly found off-hours to fulfill a longtime promise--he'll be reorchestrating Wing Commander on the "good" orchestral libraries. He's re-keying in all the music, rather than using the old MIDI files.
If y'all follow his exploits, you'll know he's considered a big hot-shot expert on fake libraries. Hans Zimmer and Cirque de Soleil fly Dave in to help them with theirs. He edited a lot of the libraries that are out there, and wrote a lot of the tutorials, and that's what drove him to police work.
again with the smiley face
Look, here's his email address. Every one of you should hound him to get on the stick and finish this thing off. Encourage him, let him know he's good, that you like his music, bla bla bla.
Hi, I've been into Wing Commander for a few years. I started off with WC3 and loved it, then went onto IV and Prophecy, but Wing Commander III is my favourite. I wanted to create a Wing Commander III movie. I found this website recently and figured the best place to share the movie would be here.
The Gilgamesh was Wing Commander II's answer to the Exeter. Loyal Gilgamesh-class ships, the Hector and the William Tell, followed the Concordia wherever she went. Gilgamesh-class ships were in service than a lot longer than that, though - in fact, 2nd Lt. Blair's first assignment out of Flight School was a 30-hour stint on the TCS Gilgamesh herself. The Gilgamesh is armed with two Flak Cannons and two Anti-Matter Guns.You can download the model here (3MB). ScoobyDoo has also posted instructions on how to use this model in FreeSpace.
These ships are from my Wing Commander ship pack for Bridge Commander and BETA2 is nearly completed. These were just a test to see how they do without fighters, just capital ship VS capital ship. Most pics were taken while zoomed way out to get most ships. Also there are bugs in these shots. If you don't notice, then cool. :)
Jack Thompson has been called many things by anti-censorship campaigners, the gaming press and gamers themselves. He has become the father who thundered that videogames were evil, the school teacher who confiscated your gameboy, the bully who pounded you for quoting Wing Commander in class. In the video game industry, no man is more reviled.Now who can claim to have quoted Wing Commander while having their Prophecy Advance confiscated?
"We don't own this place.. but we have an understanding with the people who do!" For any stragglers still out there, the Lancers Reactor is online again.Branching stories. In these, the player's decisions, or sometimes his skill at overcoming challenges, determines how the plot line branches. The more frequently this occurs, and the more options he has at each branch point, the more material the designer has to create. The story can have multiple endings. The classic example was Wing Commander III, a large-granularity game whose plot lines branched depending on how well you did at the combat missions you flew.
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Now that we present video using the game engine rather than filmed actors, dialog is inexpensive to create. If we continue to research things like facial expression animation and body language, we’ll be able to do this kind of thing quite well.
The space game X3: Reunion and its predecessor X2: The Threat are now available via Steam. Regularly $19.95 and $14.95 respectively, they are being offered with an additional 10% discount during their first week of release. Both feature lush graphics and have been called the best in class by several publications.EA's own delivery service, EA Downloader, is slowly increasing its games library as well. Although they don't currently feature any space combat sims, EA's partnership with GameTap will bring at one classic Wing Commander game online soon.
This past week Farnborough in Hampshire, UK has played host to an international air show displaying the finest creations of aviation. There was also a small section of the show dedicated to developments in space technology including a Vulcain II engine from an Ariane launcher, a full scale Eurostar 3000 satellite model, and the European Space Agency's Mars rover (pictured below). Of course the stars of the show were the planes, with the Airbus A380 being the star attraction. The world's largest passenger plane took part in the air display, requiring an incredibly long section of runway to get in the air.
However the most impressive plane in the display in my opinion was Boeing's V-22 Osprey (third picture below). The Osprey is capable of rotating its propellers through 90 degrees allowing it to function as both a regular plane and a helicopter. It displayed impressive speed and agility so it should prove invaluable once it begins active service. More photos of these and the dozens of other aircraft on display are available here.
Certainly the X games have failed to be the new Elite, while fun, their complexity ignores the relative simplicity at the heart of Elite. For me the closest game to capture the joy of Elite was Microsoft's Privateer... Compared to Privateer the atmosphere is lacking somewhat. Oh sure there's plenty of traffic around the trading stations and the like, but it feels rather artificial. There's no sense the planets are involved in the space economy, no sense of traffic between the surface and orbit and no chance to go down to the planets as one did in Freelancer.That's right -- Microsoft's Privateer. Something is rotten in the state of Denmark!
After Creative Labs stepped in, showing off their first 8-bit sound card revealing that games could not only have great-sounding music, but also voices behind the characters, there was no turning back. Games that were good before became even better with higher quality sound. Items like the voice pack for Wing Commander II: The Heart of the Tiger sold like hotcakes, ushering in a new job for video game design: The voice actor.Wing Commander's involvement in this aspect of modern gaming was essential. The technology to play digital sounds existed long before 1991... but Vengeance of the Kilrathi was the game that made the SoundBlaster the industry standard, and then ushered in a new generation of multimedia games.
The article is ultimately a criticism of Roberts' decision to move on to Hollywood... but it presents some excellent information before reaching that end. The online magazine also published an article on Origin itself back in October - you can find that here. You can also find the article in an easier-to-read straight format of the current article here.Wing II also used rotoscoping for its cut-scene animations. Stephen Beeman recalls, "We used people around the office, filming them with a camcorder, capturing with a really primitive capture card, and painting over the vidcaps in Deluxe Paint, frame by frame.
"The best part of the rotoscoping came when we filmed the scene at the end of Wing II, where Angel punches Jazz. Jackie Chapman, one of Origin's marketers, was playing Angel, and we had Chris play Jazz. Needless to say, neither of them was a trained Hollywood stunt person, so when Jackie threw that punch, it didn't breeze past Chris the way we intended - it socked him right in the nose! Naturally, that's the take we used.
"The fans should be pleased to know Chris literally put his blood, sweat and tears into that game. The rest of us settled for just the sweat and tears."
I'll end this article on a personal note. I have always been a gamer, and have often ran the debate through my head about the value of upgrading my computer for gaming versus investing in a console instead. Back in the days of Wing Commander III, I considered buying a 3DO, but instead put the cash into a new motherboard and video card, which I think was the right decision.Was that the right choice regarding III, though? To its credit, the 3DO port features more cutscenes and higher quality video. Still, Wing Commander has long driven PC gamers to upgrade -- from the very first game, which required a 386 for the best quality gameplay, on, Wing Commander has always pushed the envelope. Maybe the real problem with PC gaming in 2006 is that there aren't any new Wing Commander games...
The album is all sequenced out in its MIDI form. Dave has decided, however, _not_ to just take the old MIDI files and re-instrument them, but rather he wants to key the notes all in again, by ear.George "Fatman" Sanger and Dave Govett were responsible for the original soundtracks to Wing Commander 1&2. They've been working on a commercial reproduction of classic WC music, although the project has been stalled lately. One bonus track has been released and occasionally makes the live circuit. You can download the WC1 Surf Theme here.Ready for this one, though?
The Amazing Dave Govett is now a cop. He graduated near the top of his Academy class, and was, I'm pretty sure, their best marksman and their best driver. Yes, he is such a cool policeman that the crooks he arrests actually call the police department to tell them how great he was.
He's currently getting only nominal pay while he does on-duty training for the post he wants, so he's doing a sound library project for cash. He chose to do that rather than rush through the WC project. So, his studio is back on line and better than ever, and I've been told WC is Hot on his To-Do list.
We have put a lot of effort into game-play balancing to produce a well-pitched learning curve. To progress you need to continually upgrade your ship with pick-ups. In addition to the 'quick fix' of destroying things, there is a variety of different, well structured, increasingly challenging mission criteria which mean that thought is required as you progress - enemies have different weaknesses and attack modes, and need different strategies to overcome them. Later on in the game you also have to manage resources - for example as lasers get more powerful they deplete your energy quicker, requiring you to hunt energy crystals.
- Jump points. As seen below, a new 3D jump effect is now present.
- Completely scriptable custom cutscenes. Act as the director, script in smooth camera and ship movements. A sample cutscene is provided, showing a jump from one sector to another.
- Two all new sim missions. These gauntlet missions are scripted to provide bonus power-ups for kills.
- Six more ships are included.
- Two more cockpits.
- A kill board. Kills are tracked across multiple missions.
- A login screen, so players can choose a callsign.
- Multiple rooms. Modders can now have an unlimited number of rooms. A sample ready room and rec room are provided.
- More screen resolutions are supported.
- Lots of new scripting commands for the modder. 33 new script functions are provided.
- A new orchestration of the Kilrathi theme: featuring a real electric guitar and organ.
Having a ship jump in is simple with the improved mission editor. Navigation points can have a name assigned to them, which should make it easier to tell them apart.
Flight Commander is a space combat game in the style of Wing Commander. The Flight Commander engine was programmed from the ground up, and comes with a graphical mission editor. It is designed to accomodate easy modding, using standard formats for images, sounds, and 3d graphics. All game stats can be changed easily with a text editor.
For the more advanced missions, scripting is done with the user-friendly but powerful lua scripting language. All scripting commands are well documented, and many examples are included for a variety of missions.
The Best Reuse of a Prop Award goes to... Wing Commander. I'm not actually sure if these are from 'Lion King the Musical', but perhaps the muppets have fallen on harder times than Mark Hamill. Either way, in the world of video games, you can't do much better.
Microsoft Virtual PC 2004 allows users to conveniently run multiple operating systems on a single computer. Users can switch operating systems as easily as they switch applications—instantly, with a mouse click. As a migration tool, Virtual PC provides a cost-effective safety net for certain employees to run critical legacy applications on an interim basis while you continue migrating to a new operating system. Virtual PC also helps companies more rapidly develop, test, support, and deploy applications.
Here are some Korean missiles that won't malfunction! Following in the grand footsteps of Alkarion's recent updates comes The Origin Museum's Joe Garrity, with a pair of high quality scans of foreign Wing Commander advertisements!
The pages are for Privateer, Wing Commander Academy and Tactical Operations. It seems a normal thing today, but the idea of developing Wing Commander 'spinoffs' was entirely new when Academy and Privateer were announced in 1992. It was an exciting time.
Tactical Operations was the add-on disk released for Strike Commander. It continued the story and introduced several new airplanes... including F-117 Stealth Fighters, which were white with green spots!
"Ground controllers, in a joking e-mail to the crew, suggested several games to pass the time, including "who can toss the laptop furthest down the station before it bounces off the wall" and "a few appropriate computer games" such as "Asteroids, Space Invaders or Star Wars' Wing Commander."Star Wars? Why, I never! But it's still pretty neat... watch out for stealth fighters, Discovery.
Rounding out his recent trilogy of classic Wing Commander advertisements (here, here and here), Alkarion has provided us with three scans relating to other amazing Origin games. In this case, it's Origin's three RealSpace engine flight games. The RealSpace 3D engine was also used on three Wing Commander games: Armada, Heart of the Tiger and The Price of Freedom.
First is Strike Commander, Chris Roberts' 'other' big interactive movie. Strike Commander a cross between Falcon and Privateer, with a Wing Commander style movie storyline thrown in for good measure. The player commanded a squadron of mercenary pilots flying F-16s... and was not only responible for shooting down a host of modern aircraft, but also for buying new weapons and picking from various paying missions. Strike Commander was also famous for its constant delays - it was released well over a year after its original announced date. Unfortunately, that delay meant that a followup game, Phoenix Force, was cancelled after being plotted.
Next is Pacific Strike, an earlier RealSpace game that met with a sadder fate. Pacific Strike was Origin's last disk-only game, and the version that shipped was unfortunately buggy. Low sales meant that two Pacific Strike followups, a '1946' mission disk and a full speech CD-ROM release, were cancelled during development. In the case of the full speech version, that was after all the dialogue had been recorded! Pacific Strike is actually a pretty cool game - one of its most exciting features is an entirely dynamic campaign... your performance not only defines how the war will end, but what kind of enemies you'll face in each mission (ie, kill enough carriers at Midway and fewer Japanese pilots will appear later on). The elaborate scripting was amazing!
Wings of Glory was the penultimate use of the RealSpace 3D engine, and certainly the most striking. The slower and more colorful world of World War I combat put Strike Commander and Pacific Strike to shame. The game also featured Privateer-style 'talking heads' and a classic Origin cinematic storyline (read: there is a traitor). If you haven't played WoG, give it a shot - it's on my personal top ten games list.
News From the Front:It is a time of great trials in Gemini and Enigma Sectors. The Kilrathi have committed their to multiple offensives, that are threatening Perry and have already crippled the Speradon Shipyards. However, the 8th (Gemini Sector) and 14th (Enigma Sector) Fleet commanders are vigilant in commanding their forces as ever. They are currently drawing up plans to put an end to these Kilrathi offensives. Though there is one problem, the plans require more task force commanders. We need YOUR tactical expertise in defending the Terran Confederation from the Kilrathi Empire.
Wing Commander: Against All Odds is a forum based role-playing game. However, it is unlike most Wing Commander rpgs. WCAAO concentrates on fleet based battles instead of fighter battles. You will start at the rank of Commodore, assigned to the command of a task force in Enigma, Gemini, or Vega Sectors.Once you have been given your Task Force assignment, and started a task force thread, you will begin to battle with the Kilrathi players.
Come and join us at www.wcaao.rpwsg.com/board/
As you can see we are really making progress - only need a bit patience for the next major release and you will experience a lot more Privateer like it was "back in the days"...
We're now just one month away from the next CIC Birthday Party! It's been almost eight years since our grand opening, and we're throwing an online get-together to celebrate. You're all invited to come and join us on August 10 in our #Wingnut irc chat room. The gathering begins at 7:00 pm Eastern US (4:00 pm Pacific and 11:00 pm GMT). Beginning at that point, we count down for one hour before updating the website with a ton of special updates. Check out last year's updates here to get an idea of what to expect. The party is always a great opportunity to meet fellow players, get involved with fan projects and win amazing door prizes. Although the main event is only lasts for a few hours, dozens of fans will stay all night catching up on old times and setting up multiplayer Wing Commander games.
First time users are welcome to stop by #Wingnut through our web browser interface any time. See you at the party!
Hurleybird tipped us off about another article on the fate of Origin. We get a lot of questions about this, so more clarification on the matter is a good thing. The Next-Gen article does a good job of outlining the structure of events and setting up a timeline. Origin began working with Electronic Arts as early as 1984 and was completely purchased by the company in 1992. The author injects a bit of commentary at that point about the negative impact of this. What the article doesn't spend much time on is how EA probably saved Origin from bankruptcy in the early 1990s and funded massive projects such as Wing Commander 3 & 4. Furthermore, Origin wasn't just dropped after Ultima Online's surprise success. For half a dozen years, EA went back and forth with them on a number of Wing Commander and Ultima projects that ultimately didn't work out. The complete story behind Origin's fate is very complex, and fans are welcome to ask questions by hitting the Discuss link below. Although the symbolic effect of closing Origin's Austin studios hit many people hard, EA continues to reevaluate Origin's classic franchises and pursue opportunities when the timing is right. The rerelease of Ultima and Privateer on the GameTap service is just a tiny glimpse at what the future holds.
You can cut straight to the Origin page here. Austin's Looking Glass Studios is also covered a few pages after that.
Here's three more full page Wing Commander-related advertisements, courtesy of Alkarion. You can see the last sets here and here. The first shot shows the classic Wing Commander III artwork, making the bold claim that it is "THE INTERACTIVE MOVIE." The four inset screenshots are taken from the first set Origin released to the public, well before the game's release. Note the "also available for the 3DO" logo -- Origin was taking that port seriously very early on.
The second is for 1993s ORIGIN FX screensaver package. OFX seems like an odd product in retrospect, but one must remember that this was an age dominated by After Dark's iconic Flying Toasters... Origin certainly hoped their flying pigs would earn them a piece of that pie. The release included several Wing Commander modules, including a customizable debris field, a set of spaceships that fly around the screen and 'TCS Paradigm' - a well rendered Paradigm flies back and forth across various space backgrounds. The advertisement reads: "Special Bonus: For owners of Wing Commander II, ORIGIN FX includes a module that plays all of WC II's cinematic sequences when the game is installed on your hard drive. And that's just the beginning - look for add-on ORIGIN FX modules shipped with future games, to showcase their cinematics, as well." Strange as this sounds, it actually happened - Strike Commander shipped with this feature. Too bad the project was abandoned by the time the FMV titles were released...
The final advertisement was part of 1995s 'interactive movie' push, which included System Shock, Ultima VIII, Wings of Glory, Wing Commander III and Wing Commander Armada. "Hunt down the meanest aliens in dozens of different galaxies -- without having to guess what they really look like."
There are a few things that we've come to expect from "space games," regardless of whether they rest on the Wing Commander or Master of Orion side of the spectrum... From our time playtesting a preview build, the game sits squarely on the Wing Commander side of the spectrum... The actual gameplay, as mentioned, is pretty action-oriented -- think Wing Commander."While Gamed has conducted an interview with the game's lead designer:
Since a lot of us are fans of titles such as "Elite", "Wing Commander" and "Freelancer" the decision to make a space shooter came naturally. We decided to create a "simulated" civilization in space that we then connected with a compelling story and a lot of action.
ULTIMA™ II: THE REVENGE OF THE ENCHANTRESSHop through space and time and stop the evil enchantress, Minax, before she erases your very existence! © 1983 Electronic Arts Inc. Ultima and Origin are trademarks or registered trademarks of Electronic Arts Inc. in the U.S.and/or other countries. All Rights Reserved. Lord British is a trademark of Richard Garriott.
Here's another set of awesome advertisements from old issues of Computer Gaming World. Alkarion grabbed these from issues of the magazine published in the early 1990s. Like the last set, these are creative ads that are full of tough talking verbiage and feature original takes on familiar Wing Commander art.
The first image is a 1992 advertisement that covered the entire series released up until that point. It's hard to imagine, but WC1, WC2 and their four add-on campaigns were all released within a two-year time span. The novel Freedom Flight and ports of the original Wing Commander for the Super Nintendo and Amiga were still in the works as the second Special Operations pack rolled out of the factory. These original titles account for some 160 missions and quickly established Wing Commander as the premiere space combat simulator and interactive movie. The middle strip is a Spring 1991 advertisement promoting the release of the second Secret Missions title. Both games in the ad pioneered the expansion disk concept and were created very quickly to seize on Wing Commander's surprise success. The last ad plays on the film strip concept also seen on the WC2 box. Long before Wing Commander 3's live actor FMV made its debut, the WC series was already known for its cinematic storytelling and lifelike characters. Origin emphasized this by showing scenes from the game in distinctive film reel highlights. The bullet points at the bottom also remind us just have revolutionary this all was at the time. WC2's digitized speech made Soundblaster a household name and kicked off the multimedia PC era.
Last year, ORIGIN defined the state of the art in computer games... Now, we're doing it all over again.Can Furballs Really Fly? There's only one way to find out. Jump into Wing Commander, the game series that defined interactive entertainment on the PC. You're whisked to the front lines and left in the middle of an intergalactic brawl with a bunch of flea-bitten, battle-scarred felines from Kilrah.
MORE WING COMMANDER ACTION!
We realize that some of checks for amounts over one million gold were created by players who did not intend to exploit or harm the game. The vast majority of these checks have been automatically replaced with separate checks equal to the total amount of the replaced check, which can be found in a brown bag where the original check was located. If the check was inside of a container, you will find the brown bag in the same location as that container. Please note that in some cases the brown bag will be underneath the container, so you will need to move the container to access the bag. If the check was in your backpack or in your bank box, the brown bag will be located in your bank box.And so on.In some cases, this may cause your bank box or your house to hold more than their item limit. Don’t worry; the new checks are still safe! However, before you will be allowed to place anything more into your bank box or lock down an item in your house, you will have to remove enough items from your bank box or unlock enough items from your house to bring the total number of items below the item limit.
In rare cases where we could not safely convert these checks, the checks were automatically placed in a red secure container with the label, “Please contact a GM about this item.” These containers will not decay, so you may page a GM at your leisure to convert the checks. Please note: If these containers reside in a house, the house owner must be present.
Attendees will have a chance to meet fellow players and the developers, as well as get the inside track on future developments for the game. The Roundtable will feature Dark Age of Camelot -themed activities including LAN play (sponsored by NVIDIA and NEC Display Solutions of America, Inc.), open discussion forums with the development team, guest speakers, and contests.Players who register before August 25, 2006 will receive a beta account for the next Dark Age of Camelot expansion, a free copy of the expansion and an exclusive in-game item.
CGW: Roger Ebert recently held a debate about the much-reviled "games as art" issue, but included no acknowledged speecialists like Henry Jenkins. Does it damage the "cause" when prominent media personalities have these kinds of "disconnected" debates?If you read nothing else, check out the Wing Commander box jacked into his eyeball.WS: Roger Ebert has no impact whatsoever on the future of gaming... The fact is, almost everyone under the age of 30 grew up with games (and a lot of us over the age of 30!), and there's no sign that gamers stop being gamers as they get older... We do need to create a wider variety of game types and offer a wider range of content, but games are here to say. Universities are starting to recognize our cultural significance. Parents are playing with their kids. It's only a matter of time before the President's a PlayStation owner. We're an art form. We've won. Get over it, Roger.
Chris Roberts founded Ascendant Pictures in spring 2002 and in just a short time, established himself and the company as a force in the world of independent film production and finance. In 2004, Roberts earned an Executive Producer credit on THE PUNISHER and produced THE BIG WHITE and LORD OF WAR.In 2005, Roberts served as Executive Producer on THE JACKET and the upcoming Robert Towne film, ASK THE DUST. The end of 2005 finds him prepping for two films aiming for a spring 2006 start: Neil Jordan’s historical drama, BORGIA starring Colin Farrell and Scarlett Johansson, and the effects laden sci-fi Viking project, OUTLANDER. Roberts will also serve as Executive Producer on BLACK WATER TRANSIT.
Prior to founding Ascendant, Roberts was Chairman and CEO of Digital Anvil (DA), the game development and digital effects company he founded in 1996 with funding from Microsoft and Advanced Micro Devices. Roberts guided DA’s growth to annual revenues of $14 million, prior to the release of many of its games in development. His innovations changed the gaming industry. His games were the first to perfect the use of 35mm film as narrative in interactive game titles, and DA became the first interactive entertainment company to produce a game title, WING COMMANDER, into a $25 million feature film, directed and produced by Roberts. The film starred Freddie Prinze Jr., Saffron Burrows and Matthew Lillard.
DA and the video game titles it created won numerous gaming awards and the company became a digital effects powerhouse, creating all of the digital effects for the WING COMMANDER movie and contributing to the digital effects for several other films, including SPY KIDS. In December of 2000, Roberts sold DA to Microsoft. DA remains a successful subsidiary of Microsoft and content provider for the XBOX.
In 1987, Roberts joined Origin Systems, Inc. (OSI), which was later acquired as a wholly owned subsidiary by Electronic Arts (EA) in 1992 for $30 million. Roberts was instrumental in OSI’s growth from a company with $4 million in annual revenues to a company with annual revenues of $50 million. In 1990, Roberts developed WING COMMANDER, which set a new standard in PC games and evolved into a franchise series of game titles, all developed and produced by Roberts. With its cinematic quality, clearly developed storylines and well-known actors, the WING COMMANDER series created a whole new genre within the gaming industry known as the "interactive movie."
By 1995, the WING COMMANDER series had generated well over $110 million in revenues, and from 1990 to 1995, the series accounted for more than 60% of OSI’s revenue. In addition to selling more than 3 million units worldwide by 1995, the series has also won a record setting number of gaming awards. To date, WING COMMANDER has generated over $400 million in global retail revenue.
A gaming wunderkind, Roberts sold his first computer game at the age of 14, and by the age of 20, Roberts had developed three #1 hits in his native U.K.: MATCH DAY, WIZ ADORE and STRYKER RUN.
These are exciting days for MMORPG fans here at EA. With the acquisition of Mythic, the UO team will be working with the creative folks who brought us Dark Age of Camelot and are hard at work on the spectacular-looking Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning. I’m thrilled that the UO team and Mythic will work together to forge Britannia’s future.There is much to talk about with our new partners, and it will take some time to review and finalize our plans. Because we need to take that time, we are postponing the announcement that we were going to make this week. The in-game fiction cycle will take a break for a bit and will return soon.
See you in Britannia,
Darkscribe
Back in the early '90s, Origin fans could look forward to advertisements, previews and special features on their favorite games in almost every issue of Computer Gaming World. Last week we posted some lost artwork that was revealed in the magazine, and even a Joan's Supplement made it out in 1991. Today we have three really cool Wing Commander advertisements from the CGW back page thanks to Alkarion.
Armada's artwork features the familiar Arrow, but only in this scene do they face off against a trio of heavy Gorans. Placeholder text seems to exist instead of mine, shipyard and fortress images, and the final look of the strategic map was tweaked slightly before release. Academy's sheet also has some temporary art in the form of a Morningstar schematic on the Wraith's left VDU. The Wingmen are also different from what made it to the final game. Rusty, Dingo, Gauntlet and Harridan were eventually replaced by Maniac, Hobbes, Angel and Lightspeed. The primary fighter pictured is the Dralthi VII, which also made it to the game's box art, but not the game itself. Privateer's ad also focuses on the box art with a set of mostly final screenshots. The ship dealer screen seems to be selling a Plasma Gun for a mere 15,000 credits however! They all have pretty exciting taglines and text which sets the tone for each game very well. Be sure to check out the high res links below if you really want to see the minute details.
Wing Commander Armada: The life of a seasoned starfighter pilot isn't all glory and adventure. After years of following orders and losing ships and friends, you are finally the sole commander of the fleet, responsible for heading up a final strike against your enemy's homeland - either the Empire of Kilrah or the confederation.Wing Commander Academy: Relentless Space Combat - For Naive Rookies or Hardened Vets. As a student at the TCSN Academy, you custom-design and fly unique combat, rescue, and search and retrieval missions from the CyberSchool's holodeck console. In the Wing Commander tradition, the game features a dynamic musical score, improved rendered, bit-mapped graphics, and a dazzling array of customizing options. But Wing Commander Academy isn't another cinematic extravaganza - it's an intense dogfighting marathon.
Wing Commander Privateer: The War against the Kilrathi Rages on. To some, it means death, slavery or dishonor... To others, it's the chance to make a quick buck. Privateer - where deals are made with a handshake and broken by a volley from a meson cannon.
Our new poll asks which famous Wing Commander takeoff sequences were your favorite. There's some real classics to choose from. Everyone remembers the dash from the briefing from in Wing Commander 1 (grab the scramble mp3 here) or Blair scrambling down stairs in Wing Commander 3. Prophecy's unique crane on rails was cool to watch, and Academy's holodeck flash was a nifty effect back in 1993. Wing Commanders 2 and 4 gave us quite a few different scrambles based on story situations, and Privateer's happy takeoff music still rings in my ears. One of the least well known, but most exotic launch scenes occurs during the robotic flight suit application process in Super Wing Commander. You can find a video of it in motion here. Check out the Mission Briefing & First Mission clip about about 2:12 in.
Our old poll has closed, and it turns out that people liked Wing Commander 4's cutscenes the most in the series, followed closely by Wing Commander 3. Wing Commander 2 actually managed to beat out Prophecy, and Wing Commander 1 even passed Privateer 2. It appears that live actors and real sets aren't all that matter to people.
I have been hard at work on an aspect of the mod that I can not post updates about in the usual fashion. As of last night all fighters have full WC sound, weapon fx and weapon sound fx. It feels so good to hear some familiar audio, and I can definitely tell you it's taken the feel 'up a notch'! I would like to thank Stefan, my friend over at the HW2 forums, for his valuable time and help on getting the fx started. He was kind enough to donate me a few files to help me understand the process and get the fx overhaul underway. Going to spend tonight coding the respective damage capacity of each specific weapon into the mod. I'll try to post a few pics, though gunfire is an effect to be heard and seen in realtime to get the actual feeling.
A new entry in the space-combat genre isn't an everyday occurrence. DarkStar One is a modern update on the old-school space combat and adventure game that used to be a staple on the PC a decade ago, with games such as Wing Commander: Privateer. And like in that game, DarkStar One lets you fly around the galaxy in a customizable spaceship, battling pirates and other foes while also buying and selling on the open market.Edit: t.c.cgi let us know that joystick support is actually included. Just enabled it in the options menu first.
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