Pix Reviews Rare WC2 Port

Pix is on another Origin Adventure, and this time it's with the Japanese FM Towns port of Wing Commander 2. WC2 is somewhat unusual in how few ports it got. WC1 is all over the place, WC3/4 got their share of console variants, and Prophecy was even ported to the Gameboy Advance, but WC2 remarkably shows up in just two places besides standard DOS releases: on the FM Towns and again in Windows via Kilrathi Saga. Sadly, a SNES port was made, but it has not yet seen the light of day.

Back to the story at hand, Pix has written up his experiences giving this new edition a go. There's a unique callsign inputter right off the bat, but his overall impression is that it's fairly similar to the PC release. Sound is improved and the Japanese speech is pretty cool, though not full speech (similar to the English speech pack). There's also some pretty darn snazzy box art, so even if you don't have an actual FM Towns unit, this still makes for an awesome collectible when you can find it for a decent price. Check out the full article here or catch up on Pix's earlier FM Towns reflections here.

Wing Commander II was released for the FM Towns somewhat belatedly in 1995. Once again it got some cool new box art. I’ve been looking forward to playing this one for a while now actually. WC1 received numerous ports and even a complete remake, most of which I’ve already played through on here. I haven’t played Wing Commander 2 on the other hand since blogging through it about 9 years back.

Double Your Density, Double Your Fun!

The original Wing Commander shipped on three different formats. This 5.25" DD release with ELEVEN floppy disks is the rarest (pictured first below). The box these were in was labeled 5.25" HD, so I suspect they came into the world via Origin's disk exchange process. Probably made ad hoc with whatever was available! Now that I think about it, I haven't seen a 5.25" DD retail box... but I dug up this materials log (pictured second); it looks like Origin ordered labels and boxes for 5.25" DD versions of Wing Commander and The Secret Missions. But where are they? Much more common were three 5.25" HD or six 3.5" DD disks. Does your copy have three 3.5" HD disks? That’s a 1991 "promotional" re-release!

Dennis Mull snapped some pictures of his German and French disks, which confirms that Secret Missions 2 in 5.25" DD exists. Check out the last shot: Disk #19, crazy!

Ready To Haul Some 3D Printed Cargo

Galaxy class freighter

Turned out fine. :) The models are not to scale to each other... this one should have been printed HUGE. The tachyon cannons are tiny compared to the tachyon cannons on the Centurion. :)

Cha Cha To This Kilrathi Theme

Greetings all! As we head into the weekend I wanted to leave you with just a TASTE of one of the pieces we recorded last week. The world premiere of the Kilrathi Cha Cha! It's basically a Latin Jazz arrangement i made of the main title theme to WC3 (the Mission to Kilrah theme). The entire track will be on an upcoming CD, but I thought I'd give you a little bit of it right now as a preview. I'm super excited about it, and the band played it great! Hope you enjoy!

More to come!

Musically yours,

George

Maverick Gets Pantsed

Found while sorting a box of Wing Commander Academy cels: a fine painting of Maverick’s crotch.

Mark Hamill Premiering New Documentary at SXSW

This documentary is an inside look at the process of moviemaking & one of the best documentaries on that subject I've ever seen. Plus, 2 of my sisters & a brother live in Austin so my visit will also double as a mini-family reunion. See you soon Texans!

Mark Hamill To Receive Hollywood Star

Can't say this is a dream come true because I was never foolish enough to think something like this could ever happen. When part of me doubts I deserve such an honor, I remind myself that someone got a "Star" for just one crappy reality show. #BeyondGr8ful

Banshee Kicks Off Flat Universe's Border Worlds Faction

Please take a look on the flight deck, and meet... your doom, you Broadsword addicts!

The details that you see on the ships from these screens come from the detailed models that you can experience them in-flight if you zoom close enough the camera during the game play. Of course we are preparing camera close ups with K/B shortcuts (missile follow, target follow, follow me etc.) to the increase the graphics experience.

If you are interested to know why we stick so much with graphics detail on a top down shooter, the answer is simple... Persistence. Every time you will see an in game cut-scene or you return with a damaged ship from a mission the damages will be there sitting on top of your wrecked ship. In other words you will have to be especially careful with what the chief mechanic will have to tell you after a bad luck on your mission!

New 3D Prints Highlight Gemini Sector Hotness

Hi Guys. Just joined, but have been on the site lots of times during the years. :)

I played WC1 and then Privateer in the 90`s and was totally hooked at the time....just loved the games. I recently gave Privateer a go again. and got hooked again. I'm actually following the game plot this time, instead of just flying around blowing up stuff :p

Anyway, 2 years ago I got my first 3d printer, and now I'm on my third and got everything sorted out... it is a hobby in itself, and is just not plug and play yet.....

I found the Privateer ships: Centurion, Tarsus, and the Galaxy class freighter. I have printed the Centurion, and in the progress of filling and sanding it, and I'm also printing parts for the Tarsus.

I think these models look great, and just wanted to share some pictures of what I have got to so far. Anyone else print WC models?

Paper Cruiser Returns Stronger & Better Armed

So I ran into a bit of a snag. Basically I lost my source file with all my resized parts and info for resizing parts. Hence why the inner body is exposed like it is. In the short term this is actually a good thing. My ultimate end-goal with this project is to build it in styrene and apply some lighting effects. So this gives me a good means for planning out component placement.

I used a new method of mounting the neck to the rear assembly. Nothing terribly complex, but I used parts from the neck to form plates that provides some good contact area and reinforcement for where the parts come together.

Live Wing Commander Jazz Recording A Huge Success!

Greetings all! It's been a while since my last post. I just wanted to report that we recorded the Wing Commander bar music in my Austin studio last weekend, and the results were great! The musicians did a great job, and the fans who were there (who backed at that pledge level) had a great time.

I'm almost done mixing the music, which will of course be on a new CD very soon. In the mean time, here is a "teaser" MP3 for you all to enjoy!

Also, there is a "surprise" track in which I took probably the most famous theme from my Wing Commander scores and turned it into a Latin Jazz arrangement! Might sound a bit sacrilegious but it was meant with a lot of excitement.

More news very soon!

Musically yours,

George

RPS Highlights Origin Fandom

RPS: We talked about how the museum got started, but what was your own first Origin game? What got you started on this kick?

Garrity: I’d bought Ultima IV for my C64 back in 1985, but didn’t play it much. The real breakthrough for me was my first PC in early 1991 – a 386 DX33 with four megs of RAM and a Soundblaster! I went to my local Walden Books – back then, games were sold in bookstores – to take a look around. The salesman asked me what type of system I had. When I described my beefy PC, he instantly put Wing Commander in my hands, and said, “This is the game you want.” It’s been a love affair ever since.

Wing Commander On Sale For Lunar New Year

We've seen this sale before, but not quite for this reason. GOG.com is running a Lunar/Chinese New Year event that lops 71% off the price of the Wing Commander series. That's all DOS & Windows games for just $14.02! Individual titles you might not have ever picked up are just $1.79. GOG typically runs several sales like this each year, and every one is another great opportunity for new fans to join the fold. If you have a friend that still hasn't joined in, let them know about this affordable chance to help save humanity!

Daedalus Station Gets Major Facelift

Let me get a more technical approach on our new website and do a little versus with the old one. There are some fundamental characteristics that our older web site was lacking:

• a. New people should play Wing Commander! The old Daedalus was created by WC fans for fans. As a result most out-worlders who were visiting Daedalus didn't know what was this game all about. We attempted to keep a dual personality on this refit and keep both the old fans and the new-commers happy.
• b. It is dynamic. Old Daedalus was taking much of our precious development time to update and maintain its assets and contents. This site is version controlled and its content can be updated easily.
• c. It is responsive. As you may have already noticed we like our projects to work on several platforms. Based on that philosophy Flat Universe website should be able to look well on you mobiles and tablets too.
• d. Daedalus talks with Flat Universe. The new flight deck collects information regarding the ships and their stats from the same database that the actual game does. That means that you pilots can have an almost realistic idea on how a ship will respond during a flight session.

Hope you like our additions. Catch up later,
the MaslasBros :)

Happy Valentine's Day

You asked for it, and here it is once again! The Love Arrow. Where would we be without it? I always remember it being bigger though...

Check Out Kilrathi Saga's Swag

Longtime Wingnut Joshua Dworkin has put together a pretty neat unboxing video. Since this trend came along relatively recently, it's cool to see these done for classic Wing Commanders, and I don't think we've posted a Kilrathi Saga version before. Completionists will be happy to see that he's kept his unrelated reference cards and advertisements, and we get good glimpses at the awesome discs, beefy manual and super cool 2673/1997/2003/2014/2025 calendar. Before DOSBox and GOG, Kilrathi Saga was highly sought after for its ability to play in Windows, but now you can see what else made this such a hot collector's set!

Stealth Carrier Sneaks Into The News

Space Marshal,

I'm pleased to announce that the prototype of the next-generation carrier is in the final stages of fitting out near Axius and is on-schedule to be delivered as promised. I hope that you will be able to attend the launch, however with events in the Borderworlds proceeding as planned, the crew would certainly understand if your schedule wouldn't allow for an in-person send off. I can personally attest to each one's willingness to serve the greater good.

Fleet On Display In New LLOD Flyby

• Still some errors, texture problems and missing turrets on the Tolmacs - next overwork.
• Missing - I lost my Drayman :/
• And the Wake Needs a few overworks too before I post some new Screens

But here: the Fleet of Confed 2654-2668 ;) Confed Green and Confed Blue 2669 Colors ;) And a fly to Olympus - a bit bigger :D Scooby did great work on that base. With some relax Music featuring Jazz ;)

Quirky 1993 'Gamecheater' Added Super Powers To WC

LOAF> Behold: AXIS the GAMECHEATER! He has a code wheel built in to his box that tells us... nothing?

Welcome, warrior, to the cyberspace game zone. In the cyber zone, your weaponry is superior, you are immortal. Because you have Axis the Gamecheater, you cannot be defeated anywhere on the game grid. You are invincible!

With the Gamecheater installed in your computer, you can override predefined game functions with assignable hot keys. In your favorite games you can add time, lives, money, extra ammo or fuel, jump to different play levels or whatever it takes for you to win.

Each game module provides you with special weapons. Rotate Axis's selector wheel to view how many weapons you have in your arsenal for each supported game.

Follow The Maniac To Europe

TomVlog36. I met an Oompa-Loompa.

New WC Toolbox Expands WC2 & Academy Support

Another update with more support for WC2/Academy file types: ALTINT, ALTSHIPS, INTEL, MISSILE, MODULE, PCSHIP, SHIP, and XSHIP. Also Updated WC1 EXE file to support editing of closing dialog, comm message, insert disk, landing comment, medal, mission type, rank, and stranded strings.

Tester Needed For Next Secret Ops MUP Release

Hello fellow MUPians,

Firstly a big thank you to everyone for voting us fan project of the year! We had stiff competition this year with many worthy projects so it means alot to all of us working on this project. We have some changes coming this year, and our goal for this year is to get the MUP to a stable version 1 release. We're close on getting the main assets converted, and I think this is an attainable goal for the team.

News: JOB OPENING - The MUP team is looking for one person to help us out as a release tester. There's an old saying about QAing your own work (well, maybe there isn't but it's still a bad idea) The job shouldn't take more than a few hours of your time as we package up releases for general distribution. You'd be working with the MUP team to identify bugs in ship files, graphical issues, and game-balance between WCP and SO. If you're interested please PM me or nudge me on the Discord modding channel.

Once again - thanks to all you wing nuts for keeping this going, and here's to a great 2018!

SpaceX Nails Falcon Heavy Launch

Elon Musk and the SpaceX team once again made history today with the successful launch of the Falcon Heavy rocket. We don't post nearly as much real life science and space news as we used to, but today's remarkable achievement deserves all the recognition it can get. It's hard to believe that just three years ago, there were many headlines about how SpaceX was failing and we just weren't ready to jump the technological hurdles that the company was proposing. Now they've landed nearly two dozen rockets vertically and make it look routine.

Today's launch was significantly more challenging, however, yet they were able to both lift a payload into orbit and return multiple boosters simultaneously back to the launch pad. It's possible that the third booster may not have properly landed on target at sea, but Elon Musk's personal Tesla Roadster is now on its way towards the Mars orbit and the whole mission has been a huge success. They plan to start ferrying astronauts to the International Space Station next year and launch the first mission to Mars in five years. It's possible these dates could slip, but SpaceX's impressive track record inspires a lot of confidence that they will eventually succeed in reaching another planet in the near future!

End Run Ebook Still In The Works

There was a delay with the company we use to scan old books into digital, and it must have fallen through the cracks. We're on the case.

Tallahassee Cruiser Added To Papercraft Fleet

This is the finished rough model. For a quick build it turned out rather well. But there are some problems with it, some of them because of how I built it and others because I used something a lot thicker then a single sheet of card stock to build.

The first thing is that I built the model from front to back and then bottom to top. Having built the model once, I would completely reverse that and build it from top to bottom, back to front. The front is largely enclosed and self supporting, while the back with the bridge, engines and several sections all joining together is more dependent on components joining together properly to support other components.

Select A System That Suits Your Style

A whole bunch of exciting new video game hardware has come out in the past year, and it's been quite a while since we last asked what systems people would most prefer a new Wing Commander game on. The latest console and handheld devices out today are more powerful than high end PCs from just a couple years ago, so any of these platforms could produce stunning results. Which would you like to see?!

Amigos Look Back At Amiga Wing Commander

Confed Destroyers Serve As Last Line Of Defense

Still need a shine texture and try to make another hangarbay. The windows on the Exeter do not match with Saga details. The video is of the Kilrathi Frigate and heavy cruiser Fralthi II - this time the enemy are three Exeter...