FiringSquad has posted an article about some of the most notable games of the last two decades. The author chose to narrow his focus to games that had the most influential impact on their genre and the gaming industry as a whole. Wing Commander is cited as more impact than earlier sims such as Elite for giving the player a purpose to exist. This was also combined with technological breakthroughs that all subsequent space sims were held to match. Command & Conquer also gets a similar comparison to Dune 2 and Quake to Doom. You can check out the full article here.
Origin gave us something special in Wing Commander, a space shoot'em up with a story. Branching missions, where the outcome of one mission influences what happens in the next helped to create a sense of purpose, and that there was a real meaning to your actions. Classic titles such as Freespace 2, Freelancer and the more recent Darkstar One have followed in the footsteps of Wing Commander by combining space combat with an evolving plotline.
The influence of this game was also felt in the hardware industry, with it commonly being used as a display title to show off the power of modern PCs such as the 386, utilising a whopping 8bit (256 colour!) palette. At the time of release, 1990, the Commodore Amiga had established itself as the home computer of choice for gaming, but Wing Commander was one of a new wave of titles which helped to drive the emerging PC gaming market forward.
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