IGN Has Our Back

Gaming megasite IGN has surprised everyone over the weekend by publishing a major article about Wing Commander. Wing Commander Redux focuses on how three of their writers would relaunch the series - something that I think we can all agree is absolutely necessary. Suggestions included:

As far as the gameplay goes, I think, again, we should get back to the basics that made the original series so appealing. Make the space battles cinematic, with lots of energy and action. Let's have lots of mission variety, from escorting transport ships through pirate territory, to wild chases through asteroid fields, to full on assaults between capital ships. And in true Wing Commander style, we should never have a mission play out the way the original briefings suggest. Have a player's successes and failures influence that path they take through the branching campaign. As the player progresses through the story, he'll gain access to better and better equipment, new squadron assignments, and, most important of all, a higher spot on the kills board. You've got to have a kills board or it's just not Wing Commander.

Making the Game: AI Plus Maneuvers

Making the Game is back! Starting today we will be looking at a large number of documents and other types of material relating to Wing Commander Prophecy. We hope that future game designers - as well as historians - can someday use this material to understand exactly how one of the greatest games of all time was created.

Today's update is a nine page plan for the artificial intelligence system in 'Wing Commander Armageddon' (Prophecy's original title). This is a particularly fascinating thing to study because AI is such a mystery. It's so often (and easily -- and, in my mind, cheaply) criticized. We picture programmers trying to grow a living Kilrathi pilot or Halo robot in a lab, when in reality the true success isn't in creating an AI that is especially stupid or especially invincible. Rather, it's in creating one that doesn't feel like a selected number of routines being called in some predictable fashion.

These updates are thanks to John "Captain Johnny" Guentzel, who provided several CD image archives of material used by the Wing Commander Prophecy development team!

AI Plus Maneuvers Download (47 kb) Date: March 25, 1997 Project: Wing Commander Prophecy Donated By: John Guentzel Pages: 8