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CD-ROMantics
Ars Technica has published a look back at Myst in the context of having created the CD-ROM gaming market. It begins by acknowledging Wing Commander:
On September 24, 1993, Broderbund Software released the game Myst, and in the process, substantially contributed to kick-starting the nascent CD-ROM software industry. Myst, to be fair, was only one of several excellent games that shipped around this time and made good use of that new-fangled CD-whatsis thingy—The Seventh Guest, Wing Commander III, and Alone in the Dark were all popular titles that sold well. But Myst shattered sales records and set marks that stood until The Sims came along in 2002.
Wing Commander III was a big deal, but Myst does deserve this crown - while Heart of the Tiger sold a record number of copies, it shipped over a year later. It is also worth noting that the very first computers to include CD-ROM drives standard, the Japanese FM Towns systems, had upgraded disc versions of Wing Commander and Ultima titles available as early as 1991!
[LOAF] [# 9013] [Discuss]
Star*Soldier Gloss: Page 52
This is the Star*Soldier gloss for the third Port Broughton page:
CONCEPT: See the previous post!
REFERENCES-
- The screenshots on this page are both from Arena itself, from the Midway map. Is it just me or does the exploding Dralthi look more like a Vaktoth in that frame?
- "lighting seem almost Kilrathi" - References Hobbes' preference that for a red light to emulate Kilrah, from the Wing Commander III novelization.
- "Cube-warren" - ... is a funny word.
- "Xanadu" - Pleasure planet mentioned in Victory Streak and the Kilrathi Saga manual.
- "Centrax" - The type of Nephilim facility where Blair was tortured in Wing Commander Prophecy.
- "Celeste" - Celeste was introduced in Wing Commander III, where Vaquero plays "rockero" music from it.
- "Varni" - Another race of lizards from Action Stations; in so far as non-trifecta Wing Commander races go, the Varni have been fairly developed.
- "Warlord" - The 'highest' class of Nephilim from Wing Commander Prophecy; Blair was kidnapped/killed by Warlords.
- "Army Ranger" - Another reminder that there's an Army in Wing Commander - as touched on by the Wing Commander I & II Guide ("BEAT ARMY") and Fleet Action.
- "habicubes" - ... is a funny word.
- "gold-bordered holoframe" - I'm constantly impressed by those fakey gold framed pictures of Jesus you can buy at dollar stores. Who is the audience? People who love their religion but don't want to spend a lot of money?
- "Lance Casey" - The player character from Wing Commander Prophecy.
- "President Harrison" - Addressed earlier; he's my own character. He actually comes from an old IRC joke involving elaborate Presidential quotes about waffles.
- "Maverick Blair" - The player character from Wing Commander I - IV.
- "Sorn, Ka" - More conquered races listed in Fleet Action. I believe I was trying to make a point of mentioning all of them.
- "Hector Paz" - Grunt from Wing Commander Academy. This is where I try to explain that medicine in the 28th century means that it's ordinary for humans to live longer... I've done that for a few reasons, not the last of which being that I wanted to sue some pilots who were flying in the 2650s (Doomsday, in particular). There are also a few other examples of very old humans in Wing Commander, including Admiral Wilson in the movie (presumably a result of an earlier script).
- "Chameleon BUD" - This concept came from End Run and if you don't read carefully you gloss right over it - the Confed marine outfits change color to match their surroundings in that book. Here it's stuck on purple.
- "not protected by the carrier's phase shields" - It has always bugged me that occasionally turrets (and in this case structures) on capital ships can be knocked off with ordinary weapons. Ah well...
[LOAF] [# 9014] [Discuss]
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