It's Here: Wing Commander IV GameTap

As promised, the GameTap service has added Wing Commander IV: The Price of Freedom to their amazing library of classic and modern video games! The game is the original PC CD-ROM version and it requires a hefty one-time 1.5 gigabyte download and a 4.1 gigabyte slice of your hard drive... a shock to those who remember when the game's thirty megabyte demo took days of waiting and a lot of floppy disks. As with the original Wing Commander, the service has done right by the game by offering a bit of 'bonus materials' (pictured below), an online control guide and even scans of the game's manual (PDF) -- even though it's just an excerpt from the novelization!

GameTap is a pay service which allows players access to over 900 games (emulated to run on modern systems where necessary), including the original Wing Commander and the first six Ultima titles. An advertising-supported 'Lite' player also exists allowing players access to a rotation of games for free (as of this time WCIV is not available in this format). Subscriptions are available for as low as $6.95 a month... and a trial membership can be purchased for only 99 cents for the first month! It's a good bet more Wing Commander titles are on the way... the future of legal classic gaming looks bright.

Just Another Word...

In honor of Independence Day (and especially apropos given todays major news), GameDaily has written an article discussing games that involve "the never-ending struggle for freedom". Their eclectic selection includes Oddworld, Tony Hawk's Underground and, of course, Wing Commander IV:

Wing Commander IV: The Price of Freedom
With the Kilrathi thoroughly defeated in the previous game, earth had no more enemies to fear. What remained was the task of establishing and maintaining a sense of social and economic security. But like a scene from A Few Good Men, some people overstep the line in their quest to ensure freedom, like mass murdering civilian refugees and blaming the act on Border World colonists. Made for a whopping $12 million, a then unheard of budget for a video game, Wing Commander IV features a slew of notable acting talent, including the Jedi himself, Mark Hammill. While most other games focused on the fight for freedom, WC4 illustrates that what humanity does after winning the fight can be just as important.