Inspiration & Gratitude Fuels Starcraft 2 Mod

Here's another brief update on the Starcraft 2 mod by CptnEisen. He's got big plans, but the first playable map sounds like an Arena-themed mode similar to the Battlecruiser attack/defense in the XBox Live Arcade game. We're anxious to see that beefy Broadsword in action too!

Wow everyone, thanks for the positive feedback!

With regards to the models, I think initially I want to focus my efforts on an Arena Tribute. Those guys put in a lot of work for us fans, and I want to thank them in my own way for the doing what I think was a great job for such a small game. I have a huge collection of Wing Commander models so I'll probably look at a different style of WC map after this one.

I'm currently working on the Broadsword models. From the scale of things, they're going to be huge! I've got some other pretty neat stuff lined up for this map - assuming everything works out the way I hope. :)

Once I get to destroyers, I'm hoping to implement a component system like Prophecy for kills. Shield Generator is primary target, once knocked down, bridge up next. The bridge will have a detector status to detect cloaked vessels. Once it's down, cloaked ships will have a much easier time of making direct attacks. There may be other components I'll add for capship weapons. It depends on what the engine lets me do. :)

I hope when it's finally done, people will be able to play in a team of 4. You'll have to plan if you want to all out attack or split up in pairs of 2 to defend and 2 to attack. There'll be a leaderboard for each game, though I'm not sure if that data can be saved out to have an all time killboard. So much still to do! :)

Last Chance to Grab Wing One!

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!!!!