Time Slice Sliced Up
Next up something you don't see that often, background vehicles from Privateer. They may not be as detailed as the ships, but consider that normally you don't see as much as a few pixels of them, and they still pack a LOT of detail for that. So, we have the Inlvuil (?), some kind of Space Delorian and a car with a plasma gun(!) mounted on its side.
Storyboard for an ‘bullet time’ effects sequence in the film Wing Commander.
Miner Wars is a 6DOF underground and space shooter played in a fully destructible environment and is a combination of single player story game and MMO.As a player, you operate an advanced mining ship in an open world asteroid belt area. You dig kilometers of tunnels, harvest the ore, travel the solar system, fight your enemies and discover mysterious alien secrets.
Gameplay is led by an epic story and is a combination of a single/multi-player game, cooperative, or you against everyone.
The story will introduce you to many types of missions: rescue, exploration, revenge, base defense, theft, transportation, stealth, search and destroy, pure harvesting, racing or just flying around and destroying everything you see.
High quality rendering and special effects, realistic physics, unique 'destructible engine', and game area with no borders make this game a real life experience.
Part 9 will show the regrouping of Devers‘ unit from their crash landing and it will show just exactly what the U.S.S. Hammer finds out there by the wormhole and the results of bringing it onboard…
World War Toon is a quick-paced turn-based strategy game. Much like Risk, it has territories that the player fights for control of. However, instead of the flat board that Risk is played on, World War Toon spans a globe with randomly generated territories. This makes for a nearly infinite number of unique games, no two are ever the same.Where Risk had a basic concept of units, with the only difference between them cosmetic, World War Toon has three distinct unit types: Infantry, Tank & Rocket Launcher. Each type has an advantage against one other type when in battle. This makes for a new level of strategy as players try to maneuver their units to allow for the greatest advantage in future battles.
Also separating World War Toon apart is the concept of Reinforcement Dice. Where Risk rewarded you by allowing you to place more units into your territories, World War Toon allows you to add more dice to any battle. Rather than stacking huge numbers of units onto a territory, you can call up your reserves whenever you need them, even on your opponent's turn!
To quicken the pace of the game further still, the player can choose from traditional setup or quick play. In traditional setup, each territory is picked by the players before the game begins, much like in Risk. Quick play allows the player to skip that setup phase and gets straight to the action of battle.
"We will continue to focus only on a big production together with EA," says Starbreeze CEO Johan Kristiansson, and continues, "Our relationship with EA is stronger than ever, and the aim now is to spend more resources on the game that demonstrated the greatest potential. Detta spel är redan i fullskalig produktion.” This game is already in full production. "
The ships are as follows:
1) Triton special support vessel
2) Kraken Heavy Dreadnought
3) Tiamat Dreanought
4) Leviathan Fleet Carrier
5) Baracuda Class Frigate
6) Orca Class Cruiser/Carrier
7) Ammonite Class Destroyer
8) Hydra Class Cruiser/Carrier
EA has poured significant investment into growing its digital distribution business, a strategy that has for the past couple of years contributed to steep losses. One positive result for gamers, however, has been a glut of postrelease downloadable content packs for the publisher's top titles...
Richard Garriott, who created the Ultima Online multiplayer game, bought the Lunokhod 2 in a Sotheby's auction in New York in 1998, despite the fact that it was lost on the moon somewhere. He hadn't heard that the craft had been discovered when Wired spoke to him. ... Garriott told Wired that he was excited about the prospect of seeing the photograph showing the craft. He added that he is currently "the only owner of an object sitting on a foreign plantary body" -- and pointed out that while countries are prevented from buying property on the moon, individuals are not.
Ever wonder what was under all that make-up and prosthetics that made up the Kilrathi in the Wing Commander feature film? Well, apparently part of the answer is: a man named Ed Rice.
Ed was recently scouring his attic, possibly doing some spring cleaning, and came across some leftovers from his time on the set of Wing Commander. One item was a VHS tape containing an exciting behind-the-scenes look at the making of the film.
There's some pretty neat stuff in the video, if you have a keen eye. This includes some of the best views we've had of the Kilrathi bridge and its Sivar idol and some other hints at some footage missing from the film. You can watch it online at his Youtube channel here, or download the FLV here. For reference, don't forget to check out our rundown of some of the missing scenes from the movie here.
I invite others to take a stab at this. A fresh pair of eyes always helps. It’s cool that such a resource was found. Granted it’s more than a little weird that the Kilrathi would have a 26 letter alphabet, but whatever. We’ll just work with it.However, my work is hampered by a few things:
First off, the camera angle is slanted slightly, making it tricky to determine a shadow from a shallow cut in the stone at.
Secondly, some of the letters aren’t exact matches, and other could be any of two or three characters. Still some of the letters/characters on the tome appear to be mirrored or inverted versions. And a few appear to not be on the list. I can only assume that if these is some sort of Alphabetic writing system, then it has many more than the 26 letters listed.
Now, the fact that some of them appear to be reoriented in different directions, similar to the characters seen in the movie, makes me wonder if there is some underlying element of the Kilrathi psyche at work here.
For real world example, if you take the symbol for “War” (it kind of look like a bird’s foot) and invert it, making it negative (while placing in a circle representing a continuous or endless existence) then you get the famous “Peace Symbol”. Symbology can be a fun, and at times eye-opening, excursion.
Hello again all. I finally decided to include the Nephillim as the third side (I'll go into the Border Worlds after). The reason for this is that I want to try to stay as close to the original mod as possible, and even though the Border Worlds were given consideration, I felt that the side was more of a mish-mash of Confederation ships.With this choice I encountered one problem. All the Nephillim models from the original project were basically a pile of rubbish, so I had to find something for the new starbase model. Thank the lord for WCNews archive. Now I don't know if Nephillim ships are basically "living" entities but they sure seem to be, so the starbase is more of a "mother"-ship than anything. It will, like the other starbases, grant access to ships and upgrades at the various levels and as such the current list of ships is:
- 2 Bombers: Raynode and Heavy Skate Cluster
- 7 Capitals: Ammonite (the construction ship from the original Invasion project), Hydra, Kraken, Leviathan, Baracuda, Orca and Tiamat
- 9 Fighters: Devilray, Lamprey, Manta, Manta (red), Skate, Skate Cluster, Squid, Stingray and Moray
- 1 Special: Triton (the freighter from the original Invasion Preject)In other news I have begun to compile the v2.5 patch. This patch already has some tweaks and a couple of minor editings, but the long part begins now. Special weapons have not been decided on at this current time, but the Sensor Jammer and Corrupt abilities may be used.
Anyway, any questions from anyone please dont hesitate to ask.
First used in Operation Iraqi Freedom, the multirole JHMCS gives flight crew members the ability to rapidly acquire and designate a target simply by looking at it. By placing an aiming cross, projected on the helmet visor, over the desired target and pressing a button, pilots can quickly and easily aim weapons and sensors to designate and attack airborne or ground targets. The JHMCS visor also displays tactical information, aircraft altitude, airspeed, g-force and angle of attack to increase the user’s situational awareness.
This is the soundtrack to the first Wing Commander game by Origin Systems. I was asked by the game's producer, Chris Roberts, to write something that sounded something like Star Wars and Star Trek the Motion Picture. My Team Fat writing partner, Dave Govett, had this little tune (the fanfare/theme) in his head already. It took him about a day to get finished music to me--and with that one tune, game music took what is perhaps a bigger step than it had taken before or has taken since. If you don't believe me, do the research. Try to find a soundtrack with stronger musical sensibility, better composition, or better arrangements. This game supported the then-new MT-32 sound card--this was pre-General MIDI, and most games had just used the internal FM sound card--which was considered high-quality at the time! In addition, Chris Roberts insisted on making the soundtrack interactive. There have been other soundtracks before and since, but this one stood out. Wing Commander was the hit of the CES show that year. These days, game soundtracks that attempt to imitate John Williams are commonplace. I don't like to do it anymore. But to my knowledge, this is the first one, and compositionally remains one of the better ones. I believe that for several years after this, game composers were still not asked to imitate John Williams. They were asked to imitate David Govett and Wing Commander.
You will hear the authentic, original MIDI files, playing back on a Roland MT-32 sound module, as you would have heard if you were playing a Brand New Wing Commander game on The Best Game Sound-Equipped Computer Available At The Time. A touch of Roland Sound Canvass (in MT-32 emulation mode) was added just because it was easy to do and made the tones just a tad-bit richer. Other than that...Welcome To The State of the Art in PC Audio, circa 1990!!!!
You can see I took away a little of that brownish color away and added a few details to the model. I also brought up the texture quality (sharpened, different placed items, etc...), and I changed up the metal between the parts of the ship too. To me it looks a little better, a little more uniform.
* We may have our first nod to Blair--Colonel Halcyon is cut off just before we find out who's going to be Paladin's wingman.
* There's some contradiction vis a vis Jazz--the idea that he's an inexperienced new pilot (with two kills) doesn't jive with his Super Wing Commander/Wing Commander SegaCD bio.
* Green goop is an awfully odd way to cure a hangover. But I didn't know that in 1992!
* Spirit is flying a Raptor, although she was at the briefing with Hunter (in a Rapier II). Also, it lets loose a volley of "red" weapons!
* The Kilrathi ships aren't identified at all -- just 'heavy cruisers' and fighters.
Wing Commander is back with an all-new game for Xbox Live Arcade.It's the year 2701. Head to the fringes of the former Frontier to join or destroy what's left of the Kilrathi Empire. Form a squad and destroy enemy armadas as you climb the leaderboards. Featuring four modes of gameplay, eight maps, and the first 16-player action on Xbox Live Arcade, Wing Commander Arena is the perfect mix of classic arcade fun and modern multiplayer chaos.
Features
- The first 16-player game on Xbox Live Arcade
- Form your squad then hunt down and destroy enemy armadas
- Four game modes: single player, plus multiplayer Team, Free for All, and Duel
- Eight game maps set in the outer reaches of space
- Track your progress as you climb single- and multiplayer leaderboards
- Blast away and earn new Xbox Live achievements
If Prelude to Darkness got you on an animation kick, don't stop there! Watch the Wing Commander Academy series and increase your WC knowledge at the same time! Check out the Viewers Guide for some helpful information on alternate orders to watch the episodes in. Happy weekend Academy marathon!
NOTE: Wing Commander Academy episodes are no longer available for download. Please support the franchise by buying the complete DVD set through the link above.
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MAIN STORY - In the 23rd century humans have ventured into the stars. Two empires vie for power along the known sectors of the Milky Way - the Terran Imperial Union and the Dakota Republic.The invasion begins, Devers and his platoon are launched down to the surface onboard a UC-78 Raven - however the ride will be far from a smooth one. Meanwhile the wormhole opens again spitting something out - Commodore Greene orders the U.S.S. Hammer to investigate.
Final thing: What are we doing about the live story arc (see the reference to Magincia above)? We need to resolve the relationship between Dawn and Zah. How are we going to do that? Well I’m a believer that we seed you with some of the basics and let the community roleplay the outcome and transitions for the story. In short, as in Dungeons and Dragons, we’ll give you the nodes of the story, and allow you to fill in the blanks.Finally, not sure if you’ve heard, but the team has been playing in Baja. The reason? Cause we laugh hysterically when we do, and two, we want to learn how to reduce the barrier to entry for those who want to play our game. We need to understand what the ‘X” is for UO and help others get into it and love it as much as the community and the team does. I’ll be opening a blog in the near future that will journal our exploits (in a journey sense, mind you … not a cheating sense).
I will tell you I recently played another game that had a barrier of entry not unlike UO’s. But there was one major difference … when I play on any shard invariably there is a person who will assist and take me aside and shake his or her head sadly saying …”No no no … This is what you do …” Recently someone has helped one of our artists make her way into the warm fold of Ultima Online, and now she’s working on buying a house, when she swore she’d never be able to get into the game. That is UO. Eventually, everyone will understand how magnificent and sublime it is. I believe it because I’ve seen it.
Oh ... one last note... thanks to the guy who put up the MacDonald’s on Baja … it looks great in presentations to execs about what makes UO … UO. And for the record … I am gearing up a mage. Yes, I played a tamer for a while, and got all kinds of grief … and why the heck do I have to have 100 LRC anyway? There has to be a way that I can reduce the cost of reagents without having to know a dozen imbuers to get what I need. I’m gonna have to see who is in charge around here!!
Schappert said EA has seen consumers buying fewer games of late. Sales of the top 10 games are representing an increasing amount of the industry's total take. He added that if a publisher doesn't have a game in the top 30--and arguably, the top 20--then that company isn't making money. Hit games are bigger than ever, he said, and they're selling for longer thanks to downloadable map packs and other add-ons. While Schappert stood by the "shiny disc business," he emphasized that the model has changed, saying the days of "ship it and forget it" are behind the industry.
The next updates will give away some of the plot details about the main character and the beginning of the campaign, and possibly an interview. As a little preview of what's coming next, the main character's callsign is going to be Rider. Belated credit goes to Travis Baldree for the Hornet model.Oh, and you know the reverse afterburn thing that Bondarevsky does in FC while escorting the Bonadventure on its kamikaze run? Although it's against just about every safety regulation, YOU CAN DO IT TOO! I added a reverse afterburner to the Raptor, thanks to a new feature in 3.6.12. To activate it in-game, press the decelerate key and the afterburner key at the same time.
DISCUSSION POINTS
- Are there any changes between the excerpt included in Wing Commander II and the finished book?
- This chapter immediately seems different because we've "seen" these places before. What impact does that have on the narrative for you? Do the authors address that fact?
- Start weaving this chapter in with specific conversations and missions in Secret Missions 2!
- Who the heck is "Puma"? Why wasn't he in the Super Wing Commander manual?
Strife of Sevens is a free to play game set in the magical lands of Isdyle. Take part in story driven adventures and quests, explore new kingdoms, and fight epic monsters with your friends. In Strife of Sevens, many challenges and rewards await!....
Sneaky Games' "Vanguard Alpha" Program
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Freddie Prince Jr, Saffron Burrows and Jurgen Prochnow star in a splashy videogame spin-off. Six hundred years into the future and human exploration has reached beyond Earth's galaxy. But the future is not so bright. As more galaxies mean more chances of alien hostility, Earth's existence hangs in the balance. This is an adventurous and courageous film of a battle against the odds as the threat of human extinction is all too eminent.
INTRODUCTIONThere was the Pilgrim conflict, the first Kilrathi War, then the Border Worlds and Black Lance Crisis, then the Second Kilrathi War and the war with the Nephilim.
I take you back before it all began, before it all happen just before the first war occurred. Five years before the Battle of McAuliffe there was an internal threat which threatens to destabilise the Confederation from within.
...
Meanwhile somewhere else within Confederation space…
Of all the times he had been summoned to the Council, he never knews where exactly he was. Every time he is called before the Council, he follows a series of instructions to where the meeting is held. He flies to several different locations in an unmarked and unregistered craft. The ship he flies runs on some automated system which doesn’t give him much of an idea where he is going. Sometimes he wishes he knew where exactly he was...
The last poll inquired about landing methods. Different ships we've flown off have markedly different touchdown routines. Although far less technically advanced than zooming through the Victory's flight deck (the 2nd place winner), the most popular option was lining up with the Tiger's Claw's nose.
If you’ve watched any of the behind the scenes material from Lord of the Rings you know what a struggle it was for John just to make it through filming on the first trilogy. His makeup was brutal and caused an allergic reaction. He had trouble breathing inside his costume and let’s face it, he’s not getting younger. Just doing Lord of the Rings was a struggle for him, a struggle which he embraced and an experience which he loved, but now that he’s even older and presumably even more fragile it’s easy to understand why he might be unable to take the punishment of putting back on his dwarf costume.
Just something quick to prove that work goes on. The third race has been decided as the Nephilim (I have something else planned for the Border Worlds). This starbase will provide access to the Nephilims ships and upgrades. Now before anyone mentioned it, yes I know this is the actual Nephilim Relay from Prophecy, but the other structures from the original Invasion mod were, to put it simply, rubbish. This has been scratch built using the references from WCNews as well as the texture I already had (which was also mapped onto the model). Poly count is under 7500 so its well within tollerances for a single usage model. The basic idea behind this structure is that it has the ability to launch "spore" like creatures who can latch onto asteroids. These are then held within a gravity type distance and would "orbit" the central structure. These spores are also capable of firing Nephillim style weapons so eash asteroid also acts as a heavy "turret". Upon the structure's destruction the spores will also detonate and destroy the asteroids they inhabit. The structure itself is also armed with smaller weapons than the spores so can defend itself directly.
BOOK INTRODUCTIONFreedom Flight is the first Wing Commander novel. It is often overlooked, as it has a distinctly different tone and connection to the Wing Commander games. In fact, it is probably more like a real Wing Commander game than any other book, since it is written by the same woman and in the same style as Wing Commander II itself.
It is also often written off as a novelization of Secret Missions 2. The two stories overlap, but I would argue this is a narrative device rather than the whole of the book. Freedom Flight ends up telling a very different story, which goes well beyond the bounds of Crusade.
It’s also an enormously important look at Kilrathi culture and general life in the Wing Commander universe. While few of you consider Freedom Flight your favorite, it probably impacted later stories in ways you don’t yet appreciate.
IMHO: it looks like it would dance around the Excalibur while blasting it to bits. Got to be one of the coolest designs ever. Got to be my most favorite paper design.Alternate parts are included, so you can either build it with the red tattoo lines, without the red lines, or edit your own tattoo pattern in (via Windows paint) or print the no-lines version and then use a marker or whatever to design your own.
Suggested print instructions:
- open each bmp in windows paint
- page setup > have 0.5" margins... horz and vert centering off... if you have paint in XP or newer, also make sure you have it set to "adjust to 100% of size" (setting it smaller may result in parts too small to handle if not parts not printing at all)
- set print quality to BEST (the "good" setting may result in some uneven coloring)Special notes:
Windows XP does some wierd funky thing for some printers where your monitor's display settings will alter the exact size/dimensions of printouts from windows paint. Make sure your screen setting is at 1:1.333 (1280x960 is good setting, as is 1024x768). A good way to test is to draw a vertical line 96 points long, and a horizontal line 96 points long and then print it and measure it with a ruler. If the vertical and horizontal lines aren't identical, then your monitor's display setting is causing windows to slightly "stretch" the print-job... the result being that many of the model's parts won't fit together nicely.
GOOD MORNING, GHORAH KHAR!Keep reading here!Welcome to the first-ever Wing Commander Combat Information Center Wing Commander novel read-along (try saying that three times fast)! We will be conducting a ‘group read’ of the entire Wing Commander series of books, starting with Freedom Flight. Anyone is welcome to join in, and there’s no requirement that you all read every book. Join in when you can and have fun!
I will provide an introduction, a reading assignment and some materials each week and will then join in the discussion myself. We’re going to start very slow in order to get the hang of the process—with a single chapter or two. As we get into the swing of things, we can choose to do longer portions of the books depending on how we feel it’s going.
This isn’t just fun and games, though! We’re also hoping to use the experience to ‘finish’ the portions of the Wingkipedia which relate to the novels as we move along.
GENERAL QUESTIONS
- Find any references to time. When does this chapter take place? What other events are mentioned? Even without a chapter heading specifying the date, we can construct a timeline using internal references to the amount of time that passes.
- Where does the chapter take place and what does the text tell us about a particular ‘set’? For example, the first chapter of Freedom Flight includes a conversation between Ralgha and Kirha as they travel from the bridge to the flight deck of a Fralthi. What do we learn about the layout of the cruiser, as a result?
- Can you find any references to real historical events? Is the story an allusion to something that actually happened in military history (this is common in Dr. Forstchen’s books)?
- Are there any references to the events of Wing Commander games? Are there any ‘in jokes’, references to Origin or Baen?
- Did you enjoy this chapter? Why or why not? Be honest!
- When did you first read this book? Why was it important to you? Lets learn your ‘personal history’ in addition to that of the Wing Commander universe!
- Can you find any portions of the book which are setting up for future stories, either in game or book form?
The creative director listing indicates that the game will be a new intellectual property and asks for experience with single-player and multiplayer online games. Meanwhile, the art director should have experience with "a mature, contemporary art style," and EA wants a senior online engineer with experience working with the online functions of the Wii, Xbox 360, and PS3.
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