Wing One Blowout: Tracks 17 Through 21 Added

It's been a few days since the last tracks were added to Wing One, so The Fatman has added a whopping five songs to the growing virtual album. Each one is quite impressive, and the set has a good variety. "Grim or Escort Mission" is a classic patrol march and "Extra Long Victory" is an embellished Wing Commander theme. "Debriefing Successful" and "Funeral" are both proud and emotional pieces. They're both on the long side too. The final track (#19 in the list) is an amazing bonus track that was not included in the original game: "Damage Sketch" includes recognizable WC elements but almost feels like it'd fit right into Privateer. Very neat.

From RealSpace Combat to Real Combat Spaces

With a pair of hoops in his left earlobe and a graying goatee, Mark Day doesn’t look much like the corporate suits, scruffy-bearded professors, and crew-cut officers hanging around the DARPATech conference in Anaheim. That’s because he’s a game designer by trade, not a military scientist; he produced a couple of installments of the Wing Commander franchise for Electronic Arts, then started his own gaming company.

Today, he's still putting together games, But now, it's for the government. He's using a version of the Gamebryo engine -- which forms the heart of everything from Civ IV to Morrowind -- to put together Real World for DARPA. "I still treat it as a game -- otherwise it gets too scary-serious," he says. Still, "after being responsible for supposedly corrupting the youth of the world for so long, it's nice to do something with actual meaning."