RIP TRU

Toys R Us is in the process of closing, leaving many waxing nostalgic about childhood's spent at the beloved retailer. 1990s console gamers may remember needing to make purchases using a special security system: instead of finding a game on the shelf, you would take a printed card from a display to a 'lockup' where the physical media was stored. It turns out this process and the cards used were provided by a third party vendor called VidPro, which was based in Dallas. They would print the required cards and displays and provide them to toy and electronic stores as needed. Today, VidPro cards are considered a minor collectible, with ones printed for unreleased and especially popular games commanding a premium. In honor of TRU's final days, we tracked down a copy of the VidPro card for Mindscape's SNES port of Wing Commander I (scanned below.) We've also established that cards were available for Wing Commander III 3DO and Wing Commander IV PSX. It's likely (but not certain) that there were also cards for The Secret Missions SNES, Super Wing Commander 3DO and Wing Commander III PSX. If you have one of these in your collection, we'd love to see it!

Announcing Academy

There's a lot we don't know about the development of Universal's Wing Commander Academy series. While the men and women who developed the Wing Commander games are readily accessible today, the process through which the series became an animated series is still shrouded in mystery. Here's one small part we'd never seen before: an early 1996 advertisement announcing the series (and two others.) This full page advertisement was featured prominently in the April 1996 issue of GameFan magazine. Strangely, it features a logo and artwork taken directly from the game Wing Commander Academy (which despite the similar name was not the inspiration for the show.)

As a bonus, here are scans of a "Cosmic Cartoons" article published in the April 1997 issue of Sci-Fi Entertainment magazine (the official magazine of the Sci-Fi Channel.) The article previews Wing Commander Academy and several other genre shows airing at the time. Reboot, a major focus of the article, returns to Netflix with an all-new spinoff series today... if only Wing Commander could do the same!

I Dream of Genie

The Game Genie was a 'cheat' utility for cartridge-based systems developed by Galoob in the early 1990s. Game Genie hardware would act as a physical bridge between a game console and cartridge, allowing players to enter codes that would alter specific memory values in a given game. This would alter the game while in play, making changes to values like number of lives, amount of ammunition and the like. To allow the device to remain up to date with current releases, Galoob published a quarterly "Code Booklet" that listed cheat options for the latest titles. Three issues of the Super Nintendo code updates added listings for Wing Commander and The Secret Missions: "Vol. 1, No. 2" (Wing Commander,) "Vol. 2, No. 3" (The Secret Missions) and "E2C" (a compilation which reprints the codes from earlier booklets.) Scans of the Wing Commander enries are available below. Note that these codes are still useful for those running the games on modern systems; Super Nintendo emulators typically include an option to enter them. The codes for Wing Commander are specific to the Hornet and Scimitar while the Secret Missions selections have a much broader impact on the game.

Wing Commander (SNES)

Front Shield Increased on Hornet: 7ABC-3713
Rear Shield Increased on Hornet: 7AB4-4D1E
Front Armor increased on Hornet: 0DBB-4F1E
Rear Armor increased on Hornet: 0DBD-141E
Left Side Armor increased on Hornet: 0DBE-1D1E
Right Side Armor increased on Hornet: 0DB5-171E
Front Shield Increased on Scimitar: 17B8-3D13
Rear Shield Increased on Scimitar: 17B4-4F1E
Front Armor increased on Scimitar: 17BB-441E
Rear Armor increased on Scimitar: 17BD-171E
Left Side Armor increased on Scimitar: 17BE-1F1E
Right Side Armor increased on Scimitar: 17B6-1D1E
Mega Front Shields on Hornet: EEBC-37C3
Mega Rear Shields on Hornet: EEB4-4DCE
Mega Front Shields on Scimitar: 99B8-3DC3
Mega Rear Shields on Scimitar: 99B4-4FCE

Wing Commander The Secret Missions (SNES)

Unlimited Blasted Power: C2A6-4D0D
Unlimited Fuel: C2C8-14AD
Start on Mission 8: D668-C402
Start on Mission 4: D068-C402
Unlimited Missles: 3C66-C7A1

Amiga CD32 Bundle Found With Wing Commander

Here's a higher resolution shot of it! I'm so happy finding Wing Commander artwork I've never seen.

Shroud of the Avatar Released!

OUT NOW! Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtues is a multiplayer fantasy RPG and the spiritual successor to Richard Garriott’s wildly successful Ultima and Ultima Online games.

Artist Super Sizes Super Nintendo Logos

George Oldziey Releases Promo Reel

Just finished updating my reel! Hope you enjoy! #filmscore #gamescore #wingcommander

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Award winning composer, George Oldziey was an in-house composer for Electronic Arts, for whom he created scores for some of the biggest hits in the video game industry including the Wing Commander, Ultima and Crusader series. He continued to compose and produce music for other major video game titles, including Spongebob Squarepants for Playstation 2, the epic orchestral score for Shaiya, Red Faction: Guerilla, and Crimson Alliance.

George joined forces with film director Robert Rodriguez to create the score for Spy Kids 2 and has since served as composer, contributing composer, orchestrator and score producer for other feature films such as Spy Kids 3D, Once Upon a Time in Mexico, Kill Bill, Volume 2, Sin City, Grindhouse - Planet Terror, The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl, Shorts and Sin City; A Dame to Kill For.

George has also scored numerous documentaries and short films, including the award winning short film Remember Me, which won the award for best musical score at the 2017 168 Film Festival.

Gemini Loves Company

Watch Hamill Receive His Star

Mark Hamill aka Luke Skywalker from 'Star War' received his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. George Lucas, Harrison Ford and more were on hand to present Hamill with the honor. Mark thanked his fans and even ended his speech with his infamous joker laugh.

Upper Memory Block Walks Down Memory Lane

In the first of a new series, watch as I play through the first four missions of the amazing 1991 Origin space sim, Wing Commander 2: Vengeance of the Kilrathi.

In the next part of our Wing Commander 2 let's play, we jump to the Niven system, have an alibi for a murder and only blow up one time!

Homeworld Mod Deploys Black Lance

The Black Lance faction has been released as part of the main Flag Commander mod (nothing new to download, it will get automatically added), and the pirate/privateer gameplay feature is included. Enjoy, people!

A really big thanks to DefianceIndustries without whom this would never have been possible, the mate having remastered the ships of this faction. After a bit less than a dozen years, the mod is finally showing the same faction lineup as the initial version by czacen. Dang, it's been a long time. But the work is not over! If I can make work the missile/torpedo/decoy script, there will be a massive new gameplay update. And there is some content to add too over the next few years. Still, the factions are there, the AI is working. Feels damn good, people. Thanks to all of you, to the Wing Commander Saga team, to Deathsnake, to Klavs81, to Howard Day, NinjaLA and all others for their creative work, their willingness to share with their community. And to everyone in the CIC community!

New WC Toolbox Expands WC2 Campaign Support

Another update for WC2, added support for the CAMPAIGN, GAMEFLOW, INCIDENT, and SERIES files; all these files are structured the same way. But this time around, there is a complication: these files have bytecode embedded in them.

This means the flow of the game, the cinematic scenes, including all of the dialog, was done using a custom scripting language. Which was then compiled into a custom set of instructions to be executed by the game itself using a custom interpreter. I have never seen any examples of the scripting language used for the game or even any mentions of it. As far as I know, this bytecode is completely unknown, undefined, and undocumented.

The only way to tackle this is to completely reverse engineer it; I don't imagine that to be a small undertaking. In any case, for the time being, I simply export these bytecode chunks as binary files.

Kilrathi Fleet Gets Large Scale LLOD Upgrades

Continued to Transfer old ships into Saga and make some changes..

We found the Base. Break and attack! ;)

Black Lance Transport Certified For Covert Cargo

Are you tired of pirates flying off with your shiny coins? In these hard economic times, who isn't? Allow me to present to you the Evansville fast transport, the solution to all your cargo-carrying woes! What's that you say? Clarkson got ya covered? Not along the Borderworlds bucko! Pirate and Union attacks are up 30% over this time last year, and that means shipping & insurance costs have gone through the roof! The solution? You guessed it, a freighter that's a fast as a frigate and almost as heavily armed! Haul your goods the (Redacted) way with an Evansville!

Excerpt from unused marketing material discovered on an old hard drive hidden in an unused lavatory with a sign on the door reading, "Beware of the leopard".

Happy St. Patrick's Day From The Green Salthi

Explore Wing Commander History as Prelude to Star Citizen

Part 2 covers Strike Commander, Wing Commander Privateer, Wing Commander 3 and Wing Commander 4.

Star Citizen is older than 2012. In fact its roots lie deep in the 90s. Do you know Wing Commander? Starlancer? Freelancer? No? Yes? Doesn't matter. Enjoy the video!

Un Juego de Chris Roberts

Wing Commander: The Secret Missions & The Secret Missions 2 - Crusade localized for Spain. Another one to add to my collection :D. #DOSgaming

Goodbye, Stephen Hawking

The extraordinary theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking has passed away and tributes are pouring in from across the internet. As a genius thinker and pioneer in space, he made his mark on the whole genre of science-fiction, including Wing Commander. On the universe map, star systems are often named after developers, authors and even fans. Large quadrants are reserved for luminaries such as Chris Roberts himself. Massive sectors are the backdrops that entire Wing Commander games exist in with famous names like Vega, Enigma and Gemini. Just one sector was named after a living person, and that person was Stephen Hawking.

Mr. Hawking was also friends with Origin founder and second-generation astronaut Richard Garriott. They famously explored zero gravity together aboard the vomit comet and collaborated to advance the cause of science and space exploration over the years. That he passed away on Pi Day is especially fitting and helps ease the loss slightly - he couldn't have calculated a better time to go!

Homeworld Players Prepare For Convoy Defense

The Black Lance faction has been using Pirates for deception and false flag attacks, which is why they are capable of building and deploying Pirate units such as the Razor, the Thunderbolt and the Caernaven frigate. However, if it was just this, the only result would, let's be honest, be to give low-level units for the Black Lance and that's it. There would be no interest beyond their lore and unique appearance, and that, people, would not do.

So, to have these ships become slightly more interesting, I just added, for the next update, a new gameplay feature that will complete the convoy system: pirates. Right now, every player has a jump buoy spawning a transport ship bringing supplies to their main base. The idea would be that attacking these ships would be profitable, as well as defending them, but trusting the AI or the player to just use this opportunity is a bit too passive, so from now on, the same jump buoy will also spawn a pirate unit made of two frigates, two Thunderbolt and four Razor which will automatically head towards enemy convoys and attack them on its own. Just like the convoy ships, the player will not be able to give them orders, and if they lose their target for a reason, they will automatically reacquire a new convoy to loot and plunde. First of all, it will force players to protect their convoys, add some more action to the games as the pirates could stumble on other units by chance. Second of all, it will be useful for the players to know the heading of at least one enemy convoy, by following the privateers (when bloodthirsty criminals attack your foes, they are privateers, not pirates, this is a very important distinction, people). Last, and very much not least, this will make pirates a common sight in-game.

Required "Arr, mateys!" here.

Hendrik Happily Helps Howard's Hornet Head Home

I wanted to write a short experience report about printing 3d models beyond finished STL files. There are spectacularly good and detailed 3D models of howie day here, which I wanted to print. It becomes problematic if you want to copy them directly into slicer software, because these models often have "open meshes" and "too" much detail.

What you can do:

1) Convert the model files. Here you have the possibility to make this online with various OBJ, DAE, 3DS, MAX files to STL, OBJ services. You can also open it natively with the respective designer software (trial version). In the case of Howie Day's F-36 Hornet, I loaded it into 3D Studio and exported it as an obj.

2) Open the files in Meshmixer and click Inspect. Inspect finds the open meshes and can correct them if necessary. The purpose behind it is that 3D meshes must be waterproof for optimal 3d printing. Often, some parts of the model cannot be corrected automatically. In the case of the Hornet, these included the engine and parts of the wings. In addition, the cockpit was completely unprintable. There are some things you can put up with, some like the cockpit and the wings you have to correct. Mesh mixer can select individual parts from the model. This is very handy because I wanted to print the Hornet very large. I have saved the entire model in wings, cannons, rockets, and bodies in separate files. After that I cut some parts again with a "plane cut". The goal was to glue everything together again later.

3) Improve 3D objects: I have used Autodesk Fusion 360 and an old version of 123D Design to redesign simple parts and surfaces in existing meshes. Some individual parts may not be edited in the conventional way (open meshes). I solidified these parts with Meshmixer. There's a function there that needs to be played around with.

4) Scaling and printing: All parts should then be printed individually. If everything goes well, you get great prints, if you make mistakes you have to improvise. I had a lot of trouble with the engine. (dremel)

5) Afterwards everything is a walk in the park. Gluing, sanding, priming, sanding, sanding. Then airbrush (preshading), clear varnish, decaling, matt varnish.

I have experimented on this model for a long time with all kinds of programs. Basically, however, it is the listed steps that have always appeared in similar models.

It'll be a pleasure to help you guys if I can!

Color Cats Come Calling

So in a sort of weird not exactly but still connected tangent to my idea of a Wing Commander Miniatures game, I did some coloring of the image of the Kilrathi Ace, Bhurak Star Killer. And then I decided to do all 4 of the Kilrathi aces from Wing Commander 1.

Get Huge With Classic GOG Wing Commander Preview

GOG.com Gets Huge with Addition of EA Classics

The trailer announcing Electronic Arts classics on GOG.com. Wing Commander: Privateer, Dungeon Keeper and Ultima Underworld 1+2 are now available on GOG.com!

Tom Wilson Appearing At Calgary Expo

Future Flat Universe Plans Teased

Our future/ultimate goal regarding server management is the following, keep in mind that we are going to reach this goal only if we are going to have a great number of registered FlatPilots.

The player will have the option to play the game in single player mode where he will be flying on a free-flight mode, privateer like mode (with systems, space stations, ai traffic, pirates, militia etc.) and of course he could choose to start playing campaigns, not only one story but more just like the Quests and side Quests work in an RPG world.

Now, when he will be in multiplayer mode the game will work in the same manner but on a parallel universe like an MMO where himself together with other players he could join or create squadrons giving them the choice to play coop missions. We have also decided after some propositions from the ALPHA testers to also add a multistation mode (Broadsword pilot with 3 gunners for example).

The server management should work on the following logic. When on free-flight mode there will be at least one server used for this purpose. Now, for every new sector that we will introduce and if we have more than one servers in our disposal, we are going to use one for every sector depending on the number of the registered FlatPilots, their geolocation the server's capacity. If the population will increase in a sector we will assign a server on one or more quadrants of the same sector.

When the player will play a coop mission or a quick skirmish there will be given a list of available servers to choose from or to automatically get positioned depending again on the server's capacity and his geolocation.

Again, this is a rough estimation of our plans and we are open on suggestions, as always. :)

New Ships & Features Homeworld Bound

Teaser for something to come soon (TM)

SNES Speedruns Set New WC Record

World Record because I've found no evidence that anyone else runs this. The SNES version of Wing Commander differs from the PC version in a number of ways that contribute to make it a much slower run, even in the best circumstances. "Much slower" still means pretty quick, however. I intend to get this record under 45 minutes, and it could probably get under half an hour with a good run and good RNG.

Fill the Void

Here's a weird one: Hyper Void is a space-based 3D shooter game from InFramez Technology . It was originally released for the Playstation 3 in 2015 and is now available for the PS4, Xbox One and Windows PCs. In an interview with Montreal game development magazine Le MooQC the game's creators Homam and Wessam Bahnassi talked about the game's unusual connection to the Wing Commander universe! Asked if there are any Easter eggs, the developers note that "the shipwreck in level 09 belongs to the Lexington from Wing Commander 4. One of the quotes in the story mentions 'cats and insects.' The guy is referring to the Kilrathi and Nephilim races (from Wing Commander.)"

You can find the game's story text here, which includes the mention of cats and insects. The story itself is about a space virus which the player must fight in a variety of environments using his starfighter. The wreckage of the Lexington appears in Level 09 which can be seen in this YouTube playthrough. It's hard to tell exactly where it is; the original printed magazine included a low resolution image of the entire ship, but the version included at the Hyper Void website and in the game is much more broken apart. While Hyper Void is not an Electronic Arts game, it was the first project from a team that had formerly been EA Montreal... perhaps these assets were once intended for another purpose! Want to hunt for the Lexington yourself? Hyper Void is a digital-only release, with links to each version below. There is an additional patch available for free which allows you to play the game with the Playstation VR headset.

• Xbox Live (Xbox One)
• Steam (Windows PC)
• PSN (Playstation 3)
• PSN (Playstation 4)

Even More WC Ships Ready For Your 3D Printer

Digital Antiquarian Explores Enigma Sector

Most of all, though, Origin poured their energy into the story layer of the game — into all the stuff that happened when you weren’t actually sitting in the cockpit blowing up the evil Kilrathi. Wing Commander II: Vengeance of the Kilrathi took an approach to game design that could best be summed up as “give the people what they want.” With barely six months to bring the project to completion, Origin combed through all of the feedback they had received on the first game, looking to punch up the stuff that people had liked and to minimize or excise entirely the stuff they seemingly didn’t care so much about.

Refit Cruiser Joins The Fight

The next entry in the Black Lance faction is a WC4-ized re-do of NinjaLA 's TCS Falcon. L.I.F. felt that the BL forces needed a light/fast cruiser and well, we all liked the design. Howard Day did the original model version as far as I know, and Deathsnake made a version for Saga/Freespace all were things of beauty in their own right. So I decided to add my own take on it as a "late war" version incorporating more of a WC3/4 paint scheme while retaining some elements of the previous versions and sneaking in a few WC2 details for the fun of it.

Admiral,

I believe I have identified an excellent candidate for the next phase of the GE project. You were looking for a number of older vessels, which would not attract too much attention, with a good fighter carrying capacity, and can be reclassified either as "training" ships or simply stricken from the naval register entirely. The Tolmacs-class fast cruiser will fit all those criteria nicely.

Firstly, they are nearing the end of their refit schedule - so we should be able to appropriate them without drawing too much attention, especially if we convince the assembly that this is a cost-saving measure. Secondly, their fighter compliment is excellent for its size with ample bay storage and workspaces; I realize that late-war bombers such as the Longbow or Avenger won't be able to use the launch tube system due to their size, however Seether believes we could reasonably spot them for launch on the recovery deck should we need to do that. I mentioned that the recovery deck is not sealed and is exposed to vacuum, but Seether said the pilots are ok with a little space walk, his words sir, not mine. Third, they have exceptional firepower and speed allowing our captains to position the hired help where they are needed most.

I realize many in the admiralty view the Tolmacs as something of a "glass cannon." It's true that its shields and armor are not to the same standard as a Tallahassee, but it should be able to use its speed to outrun or outmaneuver anything it can't outgun. But overall I think this is a perfectly suitable platform to base a cruiser force around. At least until Project Guillotine is complete.

If you approve I'll begin making the necessary preparations with the appropriate sector personnel offices and naval yards. Respectfully,

Cpt. H. Paulsen

Take WC To Funky Town

OK. I have to confess, I have NO idea what part of which game this bar music piece was for. Does anyone know? First 5 to give me the correct answer (pending expert verification) will get a FREE CD of the bar music!