Happy Halloween! Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Here's a look back at a relatively obscure merchandise tie-in for the Wing Commander Movie. Along with items like books, action figures and the Pilgrim Cross, a company called Cinema Secrets licensed a Kilrathi mask and helmet to go along with the film. The mask featured a scowling Kilrathi face with full head for $44.99. The "helmet" was more of a shoulder piece and head covering for an additional $33.99 and wouldn't have worked well without the mask to go along with it. While the Kat head was pretty high quality, the secondary accessory was made out of a cheaper plastic material that degraded more easily over the years, so it's not likely that many still remain in existence. Because this was 1999, fans who wanted to buy these originally also had to do so via the company's mail-order catalog. It was big news later in the year when they started accepting orders online. We've come a long ways since then, but it still seems just like yesterday that we snapped the (October 1999) photos below!

The Other 25th Anniversary Live Stream Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

The Cloud Imperium games team wasn't the only group to play through the original Wing Commander to celebrate the game's 25th anniversary last month. The New Game Plus team spent 8 hours playing through it the next day on September 27. The trio at the helm don't have quite as much to contribute as LOAF and Chris Roberts did, but they actually used the Sega/Mega CD edition that includes full speech. There are a handful of miscellaneous changes with this console port such as different background music, cockpit / general font format tweaks and input differences related to the controller, so that alone makes it interesting to check out. They also go to some different systems on the losing track and finally end it in Port Hedland. Although they didn't take out the Star Post or save the Ralari, we applaud anyone willing to dedicate their entire day to Wing Commander like this!

Privateer Ranks In New PC Gamer Space Sim Review Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Long before listicles were a thing, video game websites loved to publish their top game lists. Some of these truly were simple rankings of a hundred games, so the modern format with a bit of text for each entry potentially represents a slightly deeper take. PC Gamer has posted a new article this week about the 20 best space sims on PC. It's an interesting subject for a major publication to take up in 2015 as it shows how far we've come from the space sim barren '00s. This would have been a pretty unusual sight in 2009, but not so much today. Two-thirds of the picks do come from the last 5 years, which highlights the positive resurgence we're in, but it also remains to be seen if most of these recent releases will withstand the test of time.


The oldest game on the list, one of just four titles older than 10 years, is Wing Commander Privateer. The author says that Priv is their preference due to the game's edgy atmosphere and sandbox freedom. It may be worth noting that upon its release in 1994, Wing Commander 3 garnered PC Gamer's highest review score in history until it was surpassed by Half-Life in 1998. Later in the early 2000s, WC3 again ranked 19th and then 48th best game of all time of any genre, which illustrates how all such lists are usually quite temporally biased. That makes this week's acknowledgement of Privateer all the more special. I wonder if the reviewer was even born when it was released! Check out the full feature here. Thanks to Delance for the tip.

Wing Commander: Privateer
Year: 1993
Developer: Origin Systems

Fans of the series will argue endlessly about which Wing Commander is the best, but we love Privateer’s darker feel. It’s a rich sandbox in which you can be a mercenary, a pirate, a merchant, or a mix of all three. You jump between systems looking for bounties to hunt and ships to rob, and the first-person dogfights are a thrill. There’s a linear story, but the real joy lies in doing your own thing.

More: Richard Cobbett explains why this one's brilliant in this Privateer retrospective.

Bootleg Wing Commander Phone Cases Totally Fail Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Here's a couple of fake Wing Commander products that were too hilarious not to share. We would normally withhold direct links to counterfeit goods just to prevent people from profiting off this sort of thing, but in this case I'm not sure that the source for these wasn't just some shady weird virus installer.


It's tough to pick a favorite. On one hand, the Privateer art is gorgeous, but on the other, the sheer absurdity of cropping "Wing Commander" so that only "VIN MA" is visible might take the cake. The source for the WC1 logo actually isn't the popular pixelated WC1 title image that often makes the rounds. Rather, it's a specific smoothed variant made by Kilrathikiller for a wallpaper we posted back in 2008. Similarly, the Priv source image is this wallpaper. I guess you really can find anything on the internet!

Huntress Phone Case\'s Shop Hot Wing Commander: Prophecy Custom Hard CASE for Samsung

2015 Wing Commander Privateer Custom Hard CASE for iPhone 5/5s Durable Case Cover 749

Thoughtful Movie Site Credits Wing Commander's Strengths Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

It's Video Game Movie Month at PodMeIfYouCan, and Wing Commander was is one of a handful of games like Dead or Alive, Silent Hill and Double Dragon that have been reviewed. There's always been negative reviews of the movie out there, but many of them are cookie cutter regurgitations of the same complaints: sound in space, gravity at the end of the flight deck, fighters that look different. PMIYC's review is refreshing because it comes in from a neutral perspective and doesn't attempt to be a high brow analysis that gets hung up on the small things. The podcaster takes notice of unique aspects such as how the same person led the creation of both the games and the film. Rather than simply trash Prinze and Lillard's performance, he appreciates the contrast between the hot shot young American actors and the seasoned European veterans. They're even forgiving about the look of the Kilrathi and role of the Pilgrims, although the speaker suggests the film would have been tighter had those elements been cut - or fully fleshed out in a director's cut with Chris Roberts' vision fully explained. We certainly agree with that!
Lloyd discusses the cult favourite 'Wing Commander' from 1999.

Paper Excalibur Model Being Engineered To Exact Specs Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Adm_Maverick checked in to provide a status update on his high precision Excalibur model. Development continues at a steady pace, but much of the work lately revolves around numerous careful measurements to ensure extreme fidelity to the Wing Commander 3 design. So, there isn't a lot of spaceship stuff to see at the moment, but the diagrams below provide a little peek into how seriously he's taking accuracy here. If there's any fighter that deserves to have so much care applied, this is it!
I've gotten the line-images compiled and uniformed so the various dimensions all line up. I took the files to Kinkos and got the full sized images printed out on 11x17 paper.

Because of the nature of this project, it's going to have several phases of intense work for little immediate result. This is one of those phases. Where I get to go through the line images I created, and begin extracting measurements. And measurements. and measurements. So far I have 25 measurements and I'm only... eh.... 80% finished. With the back view. I still have the front, side, top and bottom to do. And the top and bottom are going to be the big data-dumps! For reference, understand that the entire space the rear view takes up is 87.5mm high by 182mm wide while by comparison the top view occupies a space of 170mm wide by 305mm long. And the top and bottom views have a lot more detail then the rear. Still, gotta get started somewhere right? So what do I have to show today? Lots of lines and measurements, still have lots of lines and measurements to go.

Digital CCG Project Figures Out Major Game Mechanics Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

It's an all capi weekend here at the CIC! While keeping up with the RPG mentioned yesterday, steady work on the virtual CCG has produced some great breakthroughs. One of the first things that jumps out of the tabletop area is that the power point counters have been added for both Confed and Kilrathi sides. Also related to the game board, the four player variant of the game has been implemented so two Terran and two Kat forces can face off at the same time. Card handling has been significant improved with items such as user interface tweaks that show cards remaining in each pile all the way up to the system that allows players to potentially customize, save and trade custom built decks. A project page has also been set up at the VASSAL engine website. Eventually the mod will probably be hosted there, but for now the site has additional status updates, game mechanics info and screenshots. You can still help weigh in and provide useful feedback at the CIC Forums.
Getting there guys...this morning I added the necessary menus for card drafting, and I've added a feature that will tell players how many cards are left in the draw decks as well as the current size of their hands. I've also added the game rules, FAQ and credits from the data here at the CIC (taking the time to correct the board layout; I'll do further proofreading later) and added all of that to mod.

Most important of all - I've confirmed that decks can be built ahead of game time, saved and loaded at will. This fact opens up the game in ways I'm pretty sure I haven't thought of fully...it makes it possible for y'all to share decks among members of the community...something I hadn't really intended when I set out to begin the project, but a delightful bonus. I guess I'll build a few decks to put up on the VASSAL page along with the mod when the time comes, so all of you can adequately inspect my suckage. Seriously - I drafted the first deck for the game this evening and I think that if I were to have had to play an actual game with that deck, I would've rapidly gotten my backside handed to me......

The initial page at the VASSAL site for the mod is up. Not much there at the moment besides a few screenies. The mod itself is certainly not there (not yet anyway - give it time). As I've promised there, though, a "how-to" guide for using the mod is forthcoming.

Meantime - preliminaries: VASSAL has versions for Linux, OS X and Windows on their Download page. VASSAL is dependent on the Java Runtime Environment, so you'll need to install that before VASSAL will work. And you have to have VASSAL installed to run the mod, obviously. I say you have to have it installed - I've successfully been able to use VASSAL from a copy of the thing on my jump drive. Just saying. Windows users will be able to install the JRE during the VASSAL install if it detects that it's missing, Mac users have the JRE natively though if you're not using a version newer than 10.3 you'll only be able to install VASSAL 2.9.9. Linux users may or may not be screwed depending on your distribution; the VASSAL folks have links for the JRE for Fedora and Ubuntu.

RPG Continues Fight On Multiple Fronts Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Despite devoting considerable time to his project to digitize the Wing Commander CCG, capi has also been diligently keeping to his WC RPG schedule. He's been pushing a dual path agenda lately with work that both beefs up the core RPG as well as enhances the Elegy of Sivar campaign module. To add to the already vast amount of content in the general library, capi has been integrating items from throughout the WC Aces fan fiction fleet. This is on top of all of the ships featured in the games, novels and other fan projects. Much of the Kilrathi portion's work has revolved around characters, story and especially immersive translations. The improvised lexicon available to the game is getting huge! You can check out the RPG content for yourself at the project's Wikia home here.

Catch Up On Big Downloads Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

It's been quite some time since we promoted our Files archive, and although traffic is way up recently, we've still got plenty of bandwidth to spare. The links below are some of our top downloads over the years, and they're just a sample of what we carry. For even more neat things, check out our Music section or Development archive. Although download managers have gone out of style lately as our internet speeds get faster, they might still be helpful for some of the multi gigabyte packages below.


Amusing Armada Analyses Acquired Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

We've dug up an interesting assortment of Let's Play videos this month from the super comprehensive franchise overview to the relatively obscure Privateer 2 walkthrough. A playthrough of Wing Commander Armada is even harder to find, but Michael Perry took a stab at it below. He had some graphical glitches, but it's still a good example of what the Gauntlet missions in the game look like. More than just a repetitive set of enemy waves to find, the Armada Gauntlet is a text-based story campaign for both the Confed and Kilrathi - and it even features cooperative play for two pilots! All of this got us in a real strategic mood, so we've also included DTM's Armada review for good measure.

"How many people here know about the Maniac?" Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

If you've been on the Internet today, then you know today is the date that Back to the Future 2 takes place on in the future. With Tom Wilson's involvement in Wing Commander, that's a bandwagon that's just too hard to pass up! To celebrate the day Wing Commander-style, start by hopping over to Maniac's WCPedia page for a very thorough write-up of Todd Marshall's career defending humanity (and writing an autobiography). And although we only got a one-page advert for that book from Star*Soldier, there's a lot of great backstory behind ME: The Life and Battles of "Maniac" Marshall that's good to know. If you'd like to see Tom's thoughts on the whole interactive movie gig, check out his interview from the WC3 Behind the Screens CD. Or listen to his thoughts on pop culture, life and everything else at his Nerdist podcast. Finally, you can find out more about his real life biography here.

See How Fan CCG Is Stacking Up Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

capi has a new feature to show off with his digital CCG project. The first shot below demonstrates how a "Flight" could look in the VASSAL engine. It shows a fighter stacked on top of a pilot, pilot's commendation, fighter weapon systems and incurred battle damage to form the primary fighting unit of the game. Just getting this far is quite a milestone, and we're excited to see how more of the mechanics come together. Feedback is still especially helpful at this phase of development to help shape how core elements like this come together.
I need to increase the size of that stack preview but that's no big deal. I think I also need to go ahead and rename all the cards based on their titles instead of their filenames (or just remove the piece movement reporting from the dialogue box; that would actually be easier to implement, IMHO.)

Alright - I still need to get the Power Point counters in, I still need to implement hands and I still need to set up card drafting, but there's been some definite progress today.

SciFi Tech Talk Talks Wing Commander Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

SciFi Tech Talk is a site that analyzes various science fiction products and attempts to pick apart the technology involved. The Wing Commander movie is their latest subject. All three commentators had different reactions - one hated it, one liked it and one thought it was about average. There are comparisons to Das Boot and the speakers touch on many of the obvious topics like sound in space and gravity aboard the ship. They don't have much knowledge about the game series, so the reviewers get hung up on such things as the movie being named "Wing Commander" despite the main protagonist not commanding a wing. There's even surprise by how "WW2 in space" it feels. Of all things, the space ships are their favorite part.


The podcast concept seems like it's a good way to suck the fun out of any film, and it doesn't even get into tech very much. Still, it can be interesting to hear some people's take from a slightly different perspective sometimes. It's just kind of amazing that they can carry on like this for almost 50 minutes! (with some bonus hating on Starship Troopers tossed in) You can listen in for yourself here.

Graceful Dralthi Pierces The Night Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

NinjaLA has created a new sketch of a gorgeous Dralthi. It's by no means his first outing with the famous Kilrathi medium fighter, but this one is his best foray yet. The engines crackle and spark while the lasers pulse with an altogether different energy. Our perspective in this shot also allows for more of the shapely spaceframe to be seen, and it's nicely illuminated for full effect. A colorful space background contrasts for a nice finishing touch. It would make a nice smartphone wallpaper!
Quick to make and it turned out pretty neat! A Dralthi from the iconic fighter series Wing Commander.

Tutorial Helps Maximize Your Digital WC3 Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Phil's Computer Lab has posted a detailed how-to "tweak guide" for the GOG edition of Wing Commander 3. One of the biggest benefits of the GOG releases are that they automatically just work, but that's not to say that various install options can be customized or improved to fit each player's tastes. Many people these days are not as fluent in DOS settings, so this can be helpful for fans who didn't realize these options still existed in the game. It also brings back a flood of great memories to see things like the Victory spinning around during the installer's initial speed test. Check it out below!
I will cover:

- Configuring the game for General MIDI
- Using VirtualMIDISynth and SoundFonts
- How to toggle subtitles
- How to change the language to German or French (Text only)
- How make the graphics smoother when moving around the ship
- Setting the perfect cycle speed to avoid some bugs
- Boost the sample rate for digital speech and sound effects
- Configure joystick as input device
- Configure joystick hat and rudder with the game

At the end you can watch me play the game a little bit (first mission).

New Space Game Integrates RPG Elements Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Long time Wing Commander fan Silverforce has set out to create a space epic that combines elements from role playing games (skill trees and squad members), Wing Commander (space combat, fleet action) and Privateer (trading). Star Nomad 2 is set in an open, dynamic universe in which the player is free to join one of the warring factions, or instead fly for fun and profit. The game provides a top-down point of view, similar to Asteroids or Subspace. It is currently in Steam's greenlight process, awaiting sufficient community support for the go ahead.
  • Space Trader: Dynamic chain of supply (each tradeship that lands on a port affect production), affected by events, piracy, supply/demand etc.
  • Squad Combat: Real-time, WASD flight, mouse weapons control with Tactical Pause to issue accurate commands to your squad.
  • RPG Progression: Player & NPC Progression via XP/skill trees as well as ships & a vast amount of modules.
  • Complex Faction Dynamics: AI conquer & defend systems with fleet movements. Your actions, big or small, have a major effect on the tide of conquest!
  • Dynamic Sandbox: A universe that is alive & responds to your actions, for good or bad.

Wing Commander Added To Amazon Prime Video Streaming Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

There's another major resource out there for Wingnuts to get their Wing Commander Movie fix. The film was first added to Amazon's Unboxed service way back in 2006. Then it became a high definition Instant Video selection in 2011, and it was marked down to $10 early this year. Now free streaming is available for members with Amazon Prime. The movie was huge during its Netflix debut in August, but there is a subset of people out there who subscribe to Prime for free shipping and not to any dedicated video services. Now's their chance to catch WC for free! Fans with the Amazon Instant Video app for mobile devices can even download the movie for offline/airplane viewing!
Blair, a fighter pilot, joins an interstellar war to fight the evil Kilrathi who are trying to destroy the universe.

Digital CCG Project Off To Great Start Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

capi3101 has embarked on a new project to digitize the Wing Commander Customizable Card Game in the VASSAL engine. He's studied prior attempts to do something like this and has already made some good progress laying the project's foundation. capi has an excellent track record of sticking with projects and providing regular updates, so we're excited to see where he can go! Right now he's soliciting feedback from people who've played the CCG to help shape how the things comes together. He's already made a useful addition to the Stealth Technology cards by adding missing text about how they can be used in conjunction with other weapon systems. Follow the project and help weigh in with your perspectives at the CIC Forum here.
It's a pretty slick little engine. I myself have used it to make nine mods (soon to be ten :) ), four of which are up on their site. The module for Dennis Sustare's Star Smuggler, a solitaire RPG, is one of mine (and arguably the most complex mod I've built to date). VASSAL can be used for practical purposes too - the nav maps I built for the Elegy campaign were all originally built with a VASSAL mod.

GREAT way of prototyping and playtesting a game without having to spend money on real parts. I've already had a thought about the possibility of expanding the CCG mod with new cards (or maybe ships/pilots/factions from different eras), but that's just a thought. Probably oughta get the basics in before any tinkering happens (if at all).

The process of cleaning up the card images has begun. Really, all I'm wanting to do there is to clean up the edges a bit so that there aren't white borders around everything. So far I'm off to a bumpy start; I was working on the card backs yesterday and while I think the Terran back is okay, the Kilrathi back had a lot of noise in the border for some reason. I'm probably going to want some extra pairs of eyes out there once the cards are in to help look for stray pixels against the backdrop. 2 down, 312 to go...

Let me ask you guys - as far as a "tabletop" is concerned, I was thinking about going with a starfield, maybe with the "nav map" connections drawn on top of it. My current plan is to set up the Nav Point cards so that they can be randomized prior to gameplay. I've also given some thought to the possibility of having the four-player map in the mod somewhere; it wouldn't take a great deal of additional effort to add it, methinks.

Any suggestions or ideas about what needs to be in the mod or any wanted features would be most welcome.

Prototype Rapier Trials Begin Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

It's your lucky week! Two ships from DefianceIndustries in just a few days. This one is a tasty teaser preview of the Rapier II model. Some aggressive lines on areas like the engine intakes and control surface stabilizers are very well done. What do you think? Comment below or help provide feedback at the CIC Forums.
No rest for the wicked. The UBW needs a second line fighter so here's a concept I've been noodling around on for a Rapier II; and there are some additional capships in the works as well. Curious what folks think of the fighter though.

Relive Tri-System Life In Privateer 2 'Let's Play' Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Last week we shared a YouTube channel that had carefully documented playthroughs of almost the entire Wing Commander series. It includes hundreds of videos from WC1 to Secret Ops, and while coverage of Privateer and Righteous Fire is there, Privateer 2: The Darkening is not yet included. That brings us to Hellygator's channel, which was one of the first to post a significant amount of P2 content starting several years back. He successfully conquers the Tri-System in an expansive 30-video playlist. It's well done, and Hellygator's love for this unusual installment in the Wing Commander universe really shines through. Privateer 2 can be a game that fans sometimes miss when replaying through the entire series, but there's a lot of fascinating content packed in there to see! Much of it is crazy and quirky, which makes it a great for kicked-back 'Let's Play' viewing. There's been a lot of buzz this weekend about high profile video game casts, and P2 remains a standout with Clive Owen, Christopher Walken, David Warner, John Hurt, Jürgen Prochnow, Brian Blessed and more! If you somehow missed this one back in the day, this is an easy way to get a taste!
Nice try Ryan... ...nice try.

Look Back In Time At The Intrepid's Former Self Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Fans haven't had to wait long to see the repainted variant of DefianceIndustries' slick Intrepid model. In this version, DI has reimagined the vessel as it may have looked prior to service with the Border Worlds when it was known as the heavy destroyer TCS Delphi. The use of the classic Confederation green and gray color scheme really seals the deal. It's likely we'll see this design pop up in the Homeworld Remastered mod in the future, although that fan project is currently on hold as it works through issues created by engine changes recently made by the developer.
Here's the Durango in her (original?) Confed livery circa 2665. This version is the TCS Delphi, DD-47 the original incarnation of the BWS Intrepid before she was sold to the UBW and rechristened CVL-06.

Squadron 42 Cast Revealed; Hamill & Rhys-Davis Again Voicing Space Sim Characters Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

There's big news coming out of the UK today at Cloud Imperium Game's third annual Citizen Con. A stellar cast for Star Citizen's storyline campaign, Squadron 42, has been revealed. Gary Oldman, Mark Hamill, John Rhys-Davies, Andy Serkis, Rhona Mitra, Mark Strong and Gillian Anderson will all be voicing characters in the game next year. This certainly fulfills the team's 2012 commitment to add "Celebrity voice-acting for Squadron 42; we will bring back at least one favorite from Wing Commander!" for achieving their first $5 million stretch goal milestone. A storyline trailer that's reminiscent of Admiral Tolwyn's WC4 speech to the Confederation Senate has been released starring Gary Oldman. Additional behind-the-scenes videos have also been posted that shows most of the cast during their motion capture sessions. Chris Roberts describes it all as advancing the art of cinematic storytelling in games similar to what he did in the '90s with Wing Commander. Check out the action below!

Oldies Games TV Reviews Prophecy Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

OldiesGamesTV is back with their in depth French language video review of Wing Commander Prophecy. Like their WC4 review, it's been broken up into two thirty minute chunks for easy watching. A lot of the space sim community is centered on English or German speaking regions, so it's nice to see people who are so passionate about the series from all around the world, whether or not you can understand exactly what he's saying. If you've never tried playing around with the different options, it's also interesting to see what parts of the HUD, options menus and captions are changed when playing with a different language selected - up to and including which ships get new names!

Avid YouTuber Records Almost Entire WC Series Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

We've scaled back our coverage on 'Let's Play' videos as they've become more commonplace, but we really missed the boat on the series of playthroughs made by BCSBuster. He got going with these more than six years ago and has covered a huge portion of the Wing Commander series - maybe more than anyone else out there! His playlists include WC1, The Secret Missions, WC2, SO1, SO2, WC3, WC4 and Prophecy. While a handful of dedicated Wingnuts have posted YouTubes about the franchise's "main" games, Buster's attention to completing Secret Ops, Privateer and even Righteous Fire is fantastic! I don't even know where to start watching. He's also got a Starlancer run in the works. Be sure to subscribe or bookmark his channel for future reference!
You've asked for it, and now you're getting it! I am FINALLY going to revisit Wing Commander: Privateer - Righteous Fire and finish this LP that I started 3 years ago! In this episode, our 'hero' has his Steltek gun stolen, and we have to figure out how to get it back! I also just go over a few mechanics to get things underway.

WC Toolbox Relaunched With Even More Editing Features Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

We haven't properly kept up with the WC Games Library since UnnamedCharacter debuted it towards the beginning of this year. The program contains a package of applications that allows fans to more easily manipulate data in the original Wing Commander game. Last month the project was renamed to Wing Commander Toolbox to better reflect the growing suite of abilities that it has to offer. Progress has recently been made on editing the various fonts/dialogue, campaign structure, briefings, mission data, communications, color palette, ship formats, music sand savegames. Even the intro has been cracked, which allows for customizable copy protection questions! Grab the program and learn more here.
The Wing Commander Toolbox (WCToolbox) is a set of tools to work on Wing Commander game data. It is the same project as the Wing Commander Games Library, just renamed. Seems a bit more appropriate, especially if I continue to add or expand functionality. It is also a play on the name WC Workshop which seems fitting as it served as inspiration for this project. I thought I would recap the support that is presently available in the toolbox and I will also be doing individual post for each supported file format. Included in the WCToolbox:

* The API Library provides an application programming interface for the Microsoft .NET Framework v4. It is a fully documented set of types which provide read and write functionality to many of the game data formats. Consult the help file for additional information, including the underlying data structures of the data formats.

* The WC1 XML Converter is a console application which converts game data to/from XML. Once the game data is in XML, it can be edited and converted back to game data.

* The WC1 Extractor is a console application which extract assets (images, music, etc) from the game data files. It also outputs the content as text.

The following screenshot is a very quick test to see if it was possible to include extended characters. In the test, the diacritical marks are not very obvious since the font does not provide a lot of space for them, but it works.

Intrepid Ready For Frontier Cruise Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

DefianceIndustries first teased his Intrepid model back in August, and it seemed quite far along at that point. However, the subsequent texturization took the month of September and then some! Fortunately all of that effort was time well spent, and the result is the beauty below. Even the flight deck has been faithfully recreated! We're anxious to see some of DI's planned sister ship variants next.
Finally! Here she is, the finished Durango! The model seemed cursed for a while there, I lost the diffuse texture file twice (both due to sudden and unhappy power losses).

I went ahead and painted her up as the most well known of the class, the Evil I, but I'm also working on a few alternate textures for it: TCS Delphi and the Tango.

She has a fully modeled and textured hangar deck as well. I was going to write up some fun little in-universe blurb, but honestly right now I'm a bit brain fried... hope you like it!

Watch System Shock's Wing Commander Minigame Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Afrim Kosovrasti just learned about Wing 0 last week during our coverage of System Shock Enhanced, and he immediately set out to play it. He loaded up a special save file (500 k zip) with the appropriate Entertainment Pak already unlocked and jumped right in. The top-down space shooter plays in the lower left VDU of the game's interface. The brown pirate vessels give off a Jalkehi vibe, and the purple Tri-Lacky ships remind me of Dorkirs. Mission 10 appears to do him in as the action really amps up, but it's a really good effort for someone's first time in. Wing 0 might not be a technological marvel today, but what an awesome easter egg to be embedded in this classic game!
Just found out about the Wing Commander mini game called "Wing 0" on the PC game System Shock. I searched online and could find almost zero info on it so I decided to play it and record it. I ended up with 45 minutes of footage. If you wanna check it out here is the link! Also my apologies for the lack of commentary. Issues with my mic, tried getting it working for about an hr and finally caved and just did the video without it.

As I played on and started figuring things out it actually really started feeling like Wing Commander to me. It's tough doing all the flying and aiming with only a mouse but being the nerd I am I had to check it out since I couldn't find any videos of it anywhere. It was fun but I don't think I will be attempting mission 10 again, that was too tough! I need some missiles and afterburner to take on all those fighters!

Wing Commander Album Complete, Digital Reorchestrations Released To Backers Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

George Oldziey's campaign to create a high fidelity remaster of his famous Wing Commander music has reached another big milestone! The digital reorchestrations that he has been working on to fill out the full album are now complete, and a download link has been sent out to fans who backed the project. If you didn't receive it, log in to Kickstarter to access the files. They include seven more tracks that very nicely complement the ten recordings that were performed by a live orchestra last year. This supplemental package includes lots of great foundational music that players of WC3&4 should readily identify with. They're a joy to listen to! George has provided the full scoop below. He's now working on getting the physical album discs into contributor's hands by the end of the year. Fans have had to wait a bit to get this far, but the audio goodness is worth it!
Greetings my VERY patient friends!

I hope you all enjoy the sample based bonus tracks that I'd promised you all. They obviously don't have the amazing breadth and, as conductor Allan Wilson so poignantly said in his interview, "soul and spirit" of music recorded with a real orchestra, I think they they are light years ahead of the original versions of 20 years ago!

Next step is to finish off the physical CD, which I promise to have shipped out to the appropriate tier levels by the holidays, along with the other bonus prizes that were bid upon.

Again, thank you to all of you for your amazing support! Shall we think about volume 2 for next year? :)

Musically yours,

George

If you haven't yet seen the documentary that chronicles the effort to get this music recorded, be sure to check it out below!

Red Alert 2's On The House Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Electronic Arts' latest game to go on the house is Command & Conquer Red Alert 2. Titles in this program briefly become free to download and keep via EA's Origin games storefront. Wing Commander 3 and a number of other classic Origin Systems titles have been given away as a part of this program over the last couple years.
The C&C series has had an interesting run with several incidental links to WC. It began as a hit real time strategy game made by Westwood Studios in 1995 (the series turned 20 on August 31!), who were also purchased by Electronic Arts. Like Wing Commander, this afforded bigger budgets that resulted in some relatively big names starring in well done live actor FMV cutscenes. While space sims went somewhat dormant, EA doubled down on C&C and invested heavily in promoting multiple sequels that continued the FMV tradition through Command & Conquer 4 in 2010. Malcolm McDowell even starred in 2009's Red Alert 3: Uprising, which resulted in a somewhat bizarre advertisement for the game that entirely referenced footage from Wing Commander 4. Things have been relatively dormant for the last five years, except for a free to play MMO released in 2012. But RA2 is a fantastic game, grab it free here!
In related news, EA announced earlier this year that Origin accounts would be known instead as EA accounts. It seemed at one point like this might mean the Origin service itself would be rebranded, but several months have passed now and there don't seem to have been any significant changes.

Wing Commander Broadcasting On German TV Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

In this day and age, with all the online streaming options for the WC movie, it's hard to imagine anyone not having either purchased a digital copy of the movie or having access to a streaming service that hosts it, but if you are one of those people and happen to live in Germany, your next chance to catch the Wing Commander film on TV happens this month. RTV will be airing the show on Thursday, October 15th at 7:15. You can visit the RTV site for more details.
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Wing Commander Out Of The Mouths Of Babes Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Here's something to lighten the mood and provide some hope that future generations are being brought up right! Trey's a little kid that makes two minute reviews on YouTube. The Wing Commander series was recently playtested, and the results are in. While Trey enjoys walking around the carrier and interacting with crew members in WC3/4, the animated art style and moving joystick hand in the cockpit made WC1/2 his favorite. Check out the full review below. Based on his preference for the slower paced action in the earlier games, I'd recommend he try Privateer next!
That time my kid played Wing Commander and @HamillHimself reminded him of Luke. From Percy Jackson. :(

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