PCPLAY Reviews Wing Commander Prophecy

TheOneZytel was kind enough to share a Wing Commander article from his country! This issue of the Croatian magazine PCPLAY reviews Wing Commander Prophecy positively (giving it a 90%.) And of course, the cover also has Lara Croft! TheOneZytel was also kind enough to translate the article, which is available below. We love seeing Wing Commander articles from around the world, so please feel free to share if you have any!

Wing Commander: Prophecy

RETURN TO THE ROOTS

If we think of the first Wing Commander we will recall low resolution and a small number of colors, but if we think of it's previous sequel, The Price of Freedom, we will recall a SVGA resolution engine and a ton of video sequences. Wing Commander is a game that during its years on the scene didn't only follow the technological achievements, but it also stood out.

It set standards that other games followed. The fifth Wing Commander has thrown away the numerical behind its name, so now it is called Wing Commander: Prophecy. Besides the numerical mark missing, the man who designed this game and is probably the most credible for its success, Chris Roberts, has also left Origin. Only time will tell how this is going affect the new version of Wing Commander and its future.

After the war with the Kilrathi an even nastier race of alien has appeared. Ugly, slimy, with hideous plans and bad breath, but also with much more powerful ships the aliens should give you a lot of trouble. In any way, you must put a stop to them.

This time you won't be a veteran pilot Blair (played by Mark Hamill in previous two Wing Commanders) instead you will start as a complete newbie who still needs to work his way toward success. Even though your character won't be played by Mark Hamill he will still make an appearance in the video sequences, as will Tom Wilson (also known as Maniac) and the lovely Ginger Lynn (your mechanic). Unlike the previous two Wing Commanders this one will not have a great emphasis on the video scenes (they will be shorter, but still made spectacularly) therefore a greater emphasis is on the game itself. Graphics engine will work in 16-bit color with various light effects. There will no longer be any unnecessary strolls around the ship, but everything will be accessible with a click of a mouse. Prophecy will bring more branching in between missions so that the game loses its linearity and there is a larger number of variants of mission objectives as well.

The biggest novelty is capability playing multiplayer in cooperative and death match style. A support for playing over the internet is also in the works.

In any case, Wing Commander: Prophecy brought lots of new things, even if that was not what you were expecting. The future of wether we will play Wing Commander games in the future will depend on it.

Pros: Greater emphasis on the game itself, network play
Cons: As always, This Wing Commander requires a strong hardware too

Upper image: One of the crafts you will control
Right image: These effects will appear in the rendered clips and in the game
Left image: The man who worked at the design of aliens and their craft has also worked on several well known movies. As you can see they look very original. Besides the crazy design they also have an ability to merge several smaller ships into one large so they increase the fire power. If you see a similar example run to the nearest black hole.