Battle of the Bizarre WC3 Port Advertisements
Playstation: "Let's do a weird print campaign for our port of Wing Commander III."3DO: "Hold my beer."
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Challenge your piloting skills by creating your own missions. Develop unique scenarios envisioned from your imagination. You decide the difficulty by adjusting the environment and opponents. Fight with the most devastating weapons against lighter opponents or truly test your skills against-all-odds.
- 1st and 3rd person space combat action.
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MobyGames turns 20 years old on Friday March 1st, something I am overjoyed to witness. It’s occasion enough for me to come out of semi-retirement and tell my side of the story of MobyGames’ humble beginnings: A tale of two friends starting up a company to fill a void in the gaming community.MobyGames was created in a figurative basement (an apartment, actually) during the formation of the first Internet Bubble, and somehow stayed alive and grew once that bubble popped. It has become the de-facto source of historical data of the game industry, for people both inside and outside that industry. It is frequently cited as the source of material for tens of thousands of Wikipedia articles on video and computer games. It has achieved and surpassed the goals I originally had for it, and I’m grateful to everyone who volunteers their valuable time to contribute to the database, even more so by all of the admins who edit and audit all of the information for accuracy and authenticity. I am humbled by all of their efforts, past, present, and future.
It was in 1998 that I was motivated to revisit the idea. Fueled by nostalgic curiosity, I had attempted to search for some information on older games that I wanted to play or learn more about, but kept coming up short in all of my searches. I wasn’t being totally unreasonable; I was searching for answers to questions like these:
Who composed the wonderful AdLib music in Continuum, and what else have they worked on?
The first game ever entered into MobyGames was The X-Files Game. This was not because it was a great game, but rather because Brian was testing the system and it was the first game within arm’s reach. The second entry was by myself, for Who Framed Roger Rabbit?. It was, also, the closest game within arm’s reach for me; I’d grabbed a smattering of titles from my collection to start populating the database with. The third entry was more proper for a historical database on gaming: Wing Commander. (As of today, these last two entries still retains their original contribution date of March 1st, 1999.)
- Did that old Cinemaware samurai game ever come out for the PC?
- Everyone on the newsgroups talks about Star Control 2; will it run on this old Tandy I have lying around here?
- Speaking of which, what other games will take advantage of my Tandy’s sound and graphics?
- I like racing games; what other racing games were made for the PC?
- I am completely stuck in Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis; where can I get a hint or walkthrough for older games?
- Speaking of which, what other games are like Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis?
- I’ve never played King’s Quest 7; what does it look like?
When talking about space sims, sooner or later someone will mention Wing Commander. Developed by Origin Systems, Wing Commander can be considered one of the best and influential space sim ever created.Wing Commander had a different take on the then established space sim formula, bringing the game and space combat to the levels of Hollywood blockbusters. The game is set in 2654 and follows the Terran Confederation and the ongoing war against a predatory feline race called the Kilrathi...
I did want to post an update to the Excalibur kit I made a few years back though. Upgraded my printer recently and went all-in on a single-piece print of that model, upgraded to include panel line engravings. I haven't tried it on Shapeways or Sculpteo in this format, but the recent generation of printers is getting impressive.On a somewhat related note, Klavs also reports that his amazing Terran Fleet Supply 3D printed storefront has added options for "glossy full color sandstone" and "full detail frosted resin" to provide some fancy new options for cool Wing Commander ships. If you buy one, send us pics!My current project is re-engineering the individual parts of my original design to build a larger kit, hopefully about a foot in length, since my newer printer has a much larger volume than my older one I prototyped this on.
Good evening MUP fans! If you were at the party you probably saw this, but if not, we have a Beta 1 release candidate ready for you to try. We are officially moving to Beta as we are largely feature complete on engine and graphics upgrades. The only remaining work is art-based stuff. There is one pending feature: extending dead capships to WCP - which we are currently testing, hence why this is only a candidate and not an official full release.Features include:
We recommend a clean install for this one as it is a candidate and as always if you find bugs (pun intended) list 'em here and we'll squish 'em.
- Corvette shield/hull fix - now once a corvette's shields are down, the engine registers the hits on the hull with proper FX, previously it just kept rendering hits on the shields (even though it was damaging the hull)
- Dead Capships in WCP (not implemented) - the code is there but there is a conflict with a previous .DLL from HCl, we are researching the impacts on removing the .DLL
- Tigershark 2.0
- Panther 2.0
- Kraken Dreadnought
- Hydra Cruiser (SO only, relies on dead capships for proper implementation)
Hey guys, lately I have been doing an evolution study on Klavs' incredible Wildcat. When I first saw his model, I did like it a lot, but I felt it too big as a Hellcat. So I wanted to do it myself, but since I am no 3D artist, I had to Photoshop my way through it... I hope you like it nonetheless.My thoughts were: What would ConFed do after the battle for Earth while in desperate need for new fighters? They would take what they could find and update it with the latest tech... So my goal was to keep the basic elements of Klavs‘ incredible design, while "developing" it further and also getting closer to the original in-game Hellcat.
I’d be glad for some feedback...
Random #WingCommander stuff ...
The latest episode of ALL WINGS CONSIDERED is live now! All Wings Considered is the CIC's first ever streaming variety show which features news, conversation and gameplay relating to our favorite series. This week's Nav Points include:
Missed the stream? The replay will be available below once it has been processed by YouTube. You can subscribe to the AWC channel for future notifications here.
From what I have been able to determine, the damage system differentiates between capital ships and fighter ships. Capital ships employ a simple system, once the shields and armor are gone, the ship starts taking generic ship damage. Once this damage reaches an upper limit, the ship is destroyed; the upper limit varies by ship type (see list below). Interestingly, Kilrathi capital ships take damage more quickly; less engineering proficiency I guess :).
Fighter ships employ a more complex system, once the shields and armor are gone, the ship starts taking generic ship damage as well as damage to specific ship components. Perhaps not surprisingly, the damage system differentiates between the PC ship and NPC ships (player character vs non-player character).
For NPC ships, the damage is determined at random and by the quadrant hit. For example, a hit on the front quadrant can result in destroying to the ship computer, losing communication, losing a weapon; a hit on the rear quadrant can result in damage to the fuel tank, the engine; the shield generator can be destroyed from any quadrant; etc. The ship also accumulates generic damage and will be destroyed when the upper limit is reached; the upper limit also varies by ship type (see list below).
For the PC ship, the damage is determined at random, by the quadrant hit, and the source of the hit: guns, missiles, or from impact (asteroid or ship). The ship also has a few more components and keeps track of damage severity allowing for repairs. The ship also accumulates generic damage and will be destroyed when the upper limit is reached.
Damage limits by ship type:
Ship 0: Hornet ; Damage: 5
Ship 1: Rapier ; Damage: 6
Ship 2: Scimitar ; Damage: 7
Ship 3: Raptor ; Damage: 8
Ship 4: Venture ; Damage: 70
Ship 5: Dilligent ; Damage: 60
Ship 6: Drayman ; Damage: 60
Ship 7: Exeter ; Damage: 200
Ship 8: Tiger's Claw; Damage: 560
Ship 9: Salthi ; Damage: 5
Ship 10: Dralthi ; Damage: 7
Ship 11: Krant ; Damage: 6
Ship 12: Gratha ; Damage: 7
Ship 13: Jalthi ; Damage: 7
Ship 14: Spikeri ; Damage: 45
Ship 15: Dorkir ; Damage: 35
Ship 16: Lumbari ; Damage: 35
Ship 17: Ralari ; Damage: 90
Ship 18: Fralthi ; Damage: 110
Ship 19: Snakeir ; Damage: 320
Ship 20: Sivar ; Damage: 200
Ship 21: Star post ; Damage: 120
The amount of internal damage is computed from the gun projectile damage, the missile explosive force, or the mass and velocity of a ship. A higher computed damage value will result in a greater number of ship components being damaged, increased severity of damage to a component, and additional generic ship damage.
Object 24: Laser cannon; Damage: 25; Explosive: 0
Object 25: Neutron gun ; Damage: 40; Explosive: 0
Object 26: Mass driver ; Damage: 30; Explosive: 0
Object 27: [Flak] ; Damage: 50; Explosive: 1000
Object 28: Dart DF ; Damage: 4; Explosive: 14500
Object 29: Javelin HS ; Damage: 4; Explosive: 13500
Object 30: Pilum FF ; Damage: 4; Explosive: 10500
Object 31: Spiculum IR ; Damage: 4; Explosive: 11500
Object 32: [Unused] ; Damage: 4; Explosive: 30000
Object 33: Porcupine ; Damage: 4; Explosive: 10000The explosive force is not directly used as damage, but used to calculate the amount of damage based on the distance between the explosion and the ship. Once the damage value is calculated, it operates the same, through the shields, then the armor, then internal components.
To celebrate completing over 2 million wishes from its Community Wishlist and to show appreciation for gamers’ engagement with the program, GOG.COM is holding a special Games Come True Sale, featuring over 250 deals with savings of up to -75%.Through the Community Wishlist, gamers can suggest, discuss, and most importantly, vote on the things they would like to see come to GOG.COM. These highly desired titles have been brought back (often after years of being lost or forgotten) by the GOG.COM team and restored to work on modern operating systems and made available DRM-free.
This feature has been a staple of the service for over a decade now, with no plans on slowing down! The present sale includes some of the most requested games on the platform, plus many more classic and memorable titles that everyone knows and loves, all at fantastic savings.
Games Come True Sale runs until August 26th, 1 PM UTC.
We had an absolutely fantastic weekend - one of our best birthdays yet! Thank you all for joining in and sharing it with us. If you couldn't make it to the party, we've posted the entire six hour stream below. The first three hours are a special bonus episode of All Wings Considered, and the back half is our official birthday celebration. Jump to 4:02:45 for the cake and countdown! We also took some time together on Sunday morning to play a bit of Wing Commander Armada together. There were some technical difficulties getting the game working initially, so Dundradal and I ended up doing a hot seat quick combat strategic game. It ended up being surprisingly close!
Birthday Stream:
Morning After Armada:
This year I've once again produced a little birthday video, returning to the Gemini Sector. Do you recognise the scene? ;)
Attached is my contribution to the festivities, a redo of some super fun old Topps aircraft trading cards. They were the “friend or foe” series from 1952 and they have kind of a fun retro vibe that looked kind of fun when Wing Commanderized.Enjoy and Happy Birthday!
I've been working with Defiance Industries to have a video ready for the CIC's birthday of early test footage.A brief list of things added since the last videos:
- Some early experimentation with updated sound effects (50/50 old vs new)
- View based missile lock-on
- Smoother external camera
- Damage displays
- Turrets (both on fighters and capships)
- Subtle cockpit motion on the primary cockpit camera
- A zoomed out camera (primarily for taking in the cockpit)
- Afterburners, Decoys
- Working cockpit (guns, fuel, damage, speed guns, decoys, targeting brackets)
- Friendly wingmen
The live demo's been updated! Includes the intro, menu (static for now) and initial fighting in a Dralthi! as soon as you die, tho, it switches back to Hornet.
Hello fellow Wing Commander fans and happy 21st birthday to the Wing Commander CIC! Thank you everyone for continuing to make this a fun and thriving community to be apart of!I'm continually amazed at the new creations made by fans or even finding new things in the original Wing Commander games. However, it isn't too often that a new easter egg presents itself, even after 25+ years. Today, in celebration of the CIC's birthday, I share an exciting new finding, a previously undiscovered easter egg in Wing Commander: The Secret Missions for SNES!
Below I will go over some of the highlights in discovering the easter egg, but if you just want to dive right in and see the easter egg yourself, you can watch the video provided or follow these instructions:
1- On the title screen, select "Continue Campaign"
2- Then enter "ACE" as the handle and "05HMY8?PVR" for the codeIn addition, you can also use a SNES Game Genie and input the following code: DB68-C402. You can then start a new campaign, enter a handle of your choosing, and access the easter egg that way. You can then talk with Shotglass or go to the Briefing Room to enjoy some fun dialog. A quick note is that after the briefing is over, the ship launch sequence may glitch a bit and cause some graphics to quickly flash (please be warned for those sensitive to flashing lights!). You may also be taken to the TrainSim for a "fake" mission as there is no official mission for this easter egg.
As for the story behind discovering the easter egg, it is a long and technical one but a story I may share in more detail one day. For now, I will detail some of the highlights. I was one day looking through The Secret Missions' binary data and noticed something odd. There was a text string in the data, specifically referencing a "Town Meeting" that didn't seem to be from any Wing Commander game. The game's text pertaining to conversations with Shotglass, your fellow pilots, and mission briefings are encoded in the data thus making it more difficult to get some context behind this mysterious text. One idea I thought of is maybe this is a hidden series in the game. The Secret Missions game has 8 total series, 7 on the winning path and 1 on the losing path. I wondered to myself if this could possibly be a hidden "9th" series in the game. In addition, I came across some old Game Genie codes that allowed you to choose which series you started with. With the help of these Game Genie codes, I was able to create a new code, DB68-C402, that would start you at the 9th series. To my surprise, it actually worked and discovered this easter egg!
However, I wondered if there might be an easier way to get access to this secret as not everyone has access to a Game Genie (although emulation could be an option). I got some assistance from an anonymous source about how to get access another way. It was through this assistance that using the handle "ACE" and code "05HMY8?PVR" provided an alternate way to the easter egg. The wonderful thing about this is that no Game Genie code is required! My thanks to this source for their help!
Anyway, I hope you really enjoy this easter egg as much as I did! It just shows that there may be many more hidden discoveries to find in other games! Once again my thanks to this community and I look forward to new creations and discoveries in the years to come!
-Music_guru
Just in time for the party, DefianceIndustries, PopsiclePete and team have released another exciting update to the Prophecy and Secret Ops Model Upgrade Pack. It includes multiple new Confed fighters, stations and Nephilim capshiips plus a variety of technical upgrades. It's really just in time this year - this post will be updated in a few minutes with the new package when the file finishes uploading!
And here (115 meg exe) it is!
1. Updated Panther
2. Updated Stations (Callisto, Confed starbase)
3. Updated Tshark
4. New Kraken ship killer
5. New Hydra (SO only currently - we're still working out bugs in WCP but it should be in a week or so)
6. tech fixes: Fixed the corvette bug: once shields fall, the ship actually takes hull hits.
The Concordia wasn't exactly the first ship I'd have thought about when it came to pull a gut punch like this one, but I was a pilot, not a brass, so there I was, flying escort in my trusty Sabre. Sure, we were going to be cut off from reinforcements or easy retreat, but the Cats wouldn't see us coming, if Intel didn't mess up too much on that one.
It was a long shot that ultimately paid off big, since I'm able to write about it now. A science officer briefed us about some strange astrogation phenomenon that involved a couple of jump points in interstellar space that somehow got tangled together. Don't ask me the physics behind it, I'm sure there is a few dozens papers about the entire thing.
The important thing is that it gave us a backdoor that we would use. Once. These jump points interacted together in a way that made this batch of empty space one of the deadliest traps around, frying anything or anyone stumbling in an insane radiation field... except for one place.
The physicist talked about Cherenkov radiation, interstellar dust and dark matter, but she didn't sell it as she should have: the second most breathtaking sight I ever witnessed in my career. The Iselhorn Corridor, they called it. Of course, you can find the holograms, but let me tell you that no recording will ever come close to that feeling of awe I experienced, in this small cockpit, as we moved forward.
A Wing and a Prayer: an Ace's View, by Colonel Winfield T. Hart (retired)
Enterprise Press, 2675
I don't know if that Salthi pilot was as distracted as Bucky was. Probably not.
We expected the Corridor to be clean of Kilrathi presence, that they wouldn't have found their way through the radiation from their end of the sector, and we were wrong. Thankfully, they never really understood there was another jump point on the other side, so when our scanners found the Cats, they were as surprised as we were, but we had a task force and they had a small research outpost with a couple of fighters.
I was flying CAP with Bucky while the two Exeter went in for the kill. These light fighters couldn't hope to do any serious damage to them, and they neither had the range nor the jump drive needed to send a message away, but they fought well. I hope I would have done the same thing in their place.
This encounter didn't scrub the mission, but we were a lot more cautious afterwards, which saved us on the return trip. I hear that afterwards, the Cats decided to make sure noone would ever go through this backdoor again. They set up large antimatter warheads in the inner dust and dug big enough holes with it that even a dreadnought of theirs would be sterilized by the radiation.
A Wing and a Prayer: an Ace's View, by Colonel Winfield T. Hart (retired)
Enterprise Press, 2675
The real targets were in range, a hidden shipyard providing ships and logistics support for the rear echelon of the Kilrathi. The cats had set up a clever installation around a large telluric planet: a few of the smallest moons - big asteroids, really - were turned into mining rigs feeding a shipyard that was orbiting in spitting range of the planet's surface.
There was barely any defences, the idea was apparently to avoid being noticed by one of our deep strike groups while reinforcing the defences and possibly reinforce any reaction force. They didn't see us coming until it was too late, when the Concordia launched several strike packages at all the mining stations at once.
I remember feeling a bit annoyed on our way back. It had been murder rather than war. I knew they did worse to the colonies in the Border Worlds, but it didn't make me feel better knowing our torpedoes destroyed life support, communications and power on these moons, letting the Cats there die slowly.
A Wing and a Prayer: an Ace's View, by Colonel Winfield T. Hart (retired)
Enterprise Press, 2675
While we left the Kilrathi miners suffocate, the capital ships deorbited, going deep inside the gravity well of the planet, jamming all communications as our Ferret squadrons made sure noone would carry a message of our presence.
In hindsight, we should have connected the dots when we were surprised by a quick reaction force on our way out of the system. The shipyard must have had some stealth fighters that sneaked out of range of our jammers, but by then, our tactics were not yet properly updated, so we had holes in our coverage that the Cats exploited.
It didn't save them, though, as I barely had the time to land before the admiral wanted me back outside to escort one of our destroyers on an attack run on the shipyard.
A Wing and a Prayer: an Ace's View, by Colonel Winfield T. Hart (retired)
Enterprise Press, 2675
Maintaining different color schemes for our discussion boards used to involve styling dozens of tiny images for the various buttons and labels, so at some point we picked one scheme that matched our homepage reasonably well and stuck with it. Fortunately, XenForo's user interface components are entirely CSS based, allowing a return to user-selectable color schemes! All we have to provide is a matching CIC logo. Look below for our hi-res logo in the various CIC colors that you are familiar with -- and perhaps a few others! You can find the style selection button near the bottom of any Chat Zone page. These updated logos will also make an appearance in our classic Guides and Ships sections.
The News Collections section is where we package up sets of news updates that follow a specific theme for easier consumption. Here are a few we've just added:
Previous collections include our memorials for developers and artists that have passed away, an overview of our anniversary updates and the April Fools slates.
Happy CIC Birthday everyone! Cake!
We used to celebrate the party on the CIC's original August 10 anniversary, but often that doesn't work out for us logistically anymore. Nevertheless, this year we managed to time the party to fall on Dundradal's actual birthday. Happy Birthday Dund! Hope it's been a good one so far!
We've been around for quite a few years, and new fans have been joining the community for the entire time. It's always interesting to see the spread from old timers that found us in the '90s compared to newbies that weren't even alive back then (we also appreciate people who are old timers but just now found the site!). Vote below to let everyone see when you joined in.
The old poll asked which faction logo was your favorite. Perhaps not too surprisingly, the Confed Star won out, but in a major upset, the UBW beat back the Kilrathi for second place! The Black Lance also had a surprisingly low fourth place turnout.
And that's it for the front page! But the party continues! Come on back to #Wingnut on Discord to rejoin the fun! The livestream broadcast will also continue well into the night. There's lots of people we'd like to thank for helping make today possible. This has been a HUGE year for fan projects with a ton of absolutely marvelous efforts in full swing. Howard Day, DefianceIndustries, Popsicle Pete, Pedro, L.I.F./Rufus, UnnamedCharacter, Goliath, Dark Sentinel and Denis Loubet are just some of the people who are killing it this year. This makes our job tremendously fun since there's so much to report on. Once again, KrisV has outdone himself in literally keeping the website online from a technical perspective and doing all of the behind-the-scenes maintenance and upgrades that nobody else will touch.
And completely sincerely, I'd like to thank all of YOU for coming. It's the shared excitement and spectacle of the annual CIC birthday that makes it special. The CIC staff could hang out any time, but knowing that we get to do it in such an environment with all of you really puts it over the line for us!
Last, but not least, I'd also like to personally congratulate LOAF and Dundradal for running such an engaging and creative Wing Commander show. I mentioned to LOAF years ago that this would be a dream of mine, but it would probably be too much work to pull off. I imagined it'd just be audio back then and definitely under an hour, and somehow they pull off a three-hour WEEKLY multimedia variety show. The work Trelane and LeHah do behind the scenes is also very important. I'm completely dedicated to daily website updates to show the enduring nature of our fandom and community, but being able to see the excitement about Wing Commander in each week's live broadcast really takes this to the next level!
To the Wing Commander Combat Information Center's 21st birthday celebration! TONIGHT at 7:00 PM Eastern US (4:00 PM Pacific and 11:00 PM GMT) in #Wingnut - now on Discord! BONUS: A special episode of All Wings Considered will precede the formal party! We expect this to start at 4:00 PM Eastern US (1:00 PM Pacific and 8:00 PM GMT) - please tune in!
Featuring...
The latest episode of ALL WINGS CONSIDERED is live now! All Wings Considered is the CIC's first ever streaming variety show which features news, conversation and gameplay relating to our favorite series. This week's Nav Points include:
Missed the stream? The replay will be available below once it has been processed by YouTube. You can subscribe to the AWC channel for future notifications here.
Dralthi updates! Enjoy!
Shades of MagentaThe following images are two different representation of the game palette. The first image represents the colors as extracted from the GAME.PAL file and the second represents the colors as extracted from game memory. Notice how several of the magenta colors have been blacked out when loaded into memory.
At first I found that curious: Does the game not use those colors? Often time magenta is used to indicate a transparent color, but several of them? Then I remembered what seemed like an oddity of the radar screens in the cockpit image of each ship.
When all put together and observing the behaviour of the game it becomes clear. When taking a hit on your ship, the space background turns to red and so does the radar area representing the location hit. Instead of redrawing the individual sections of the radar screen, the specific color position in the palette is change and every time the screen is redrawn, the appropriate color is shown.
What a clever way to provide a wonderful bit of feedback to help a pilot know where enemy fire is coming from.
Happy Birthday, friends! Today marks 21 years of the Wing Commander CIC at wcnews.com! We first opened our doors in 1998, and it's been a crazy ride ever since. We're super happy to have made it this far with all of you. As we've previously announced, we'll be formally celebrating the event in an enormous chat party and livestream next weekend. It's easy to join the fun in #Wingnut on the CIC's Discord Server. The YouTube video link will be provided here closer to the event. Mark your calendars for 7:00 pm EDT (4:00 pm PDT and 11:00 pm GMT) on Saturday, August 17. We can't wait to see you there - it's going to be super fun!
This special shows games for Amiga CD32 and Commodore CDTV and explains something about the origin and why both systems have failed. There is also a commercial for the games Banshee, Wing Commander and Defender of the Crown II.
I got noodling on my doodling again (sorry it's been a long week already). And the things that to me say "this is a Hellcat" are the downward pointing wing tips, squared-off and stubby nose, overall delta shape, and 3 main drives. Otherwise it's a Bearcat XD. So I didn't want to just throw a 3rd engine on the back, it would ruin the tail assembly, so I tried offsetting an engine along the centerline. Above the hull oddly caused the ship to look A) too much like a viper and B) it kind of messed up the lines. So I stuck the engine on the ventral hull and I think it looks pretty good - it blends in better with the lines and gives it a bit of "meat" on the tail section. The change necessitated moving the canards outboard a bit but it gives them a secondary purpose as additional protection for the 3rd engine. Finally because this is a WC1/2 version it needed external missile pylons - so I gave it 2x Javelin and 2X Darts for fun which would pair nicely with the 4x laser cannons. (I figure this would be a medium fighter somewhere between a Hornet and a Scimitar).On an unrelated note, LOAF is traveling this week, so tomorrow's episode of All Wings Considered will likely be rescheduled for Sunday.
Tuesday Opinion time! For the Dralthi cockpit, I'm toying with adding some subtle color ramping to the metal tubing throughout the cockpit. Which is best: plain original gray, brown, or blue?Additionally, Goliath has taken Howard's updated Dralthi model and incorporated it into the Sprite Refresh, which is another cool WC1-centric project. Whereas Howie is recoding the engine from the ground up, Goliath is finding clever ways to incorporate higher quality assets into the original engine. And it's just fantastic to see how far both projects can go when they work together!
Dralthi update for the #WingCommander #Pixelart #Remake! More details, markings. Done before I got Arne's feedback, so I'll likely change it even more. pic.twitter.com/M478Y6Nnly
— Howie Day (@howieeday) June 15, 2019
Dralthi Ace! pic.twitter.com/hZG032NLnq
— Howie Day (@howieeday) June 15, 2019
'In the distant future, mankind is locked in a deadly war...'As Kilrathi fighters fly past, laser bolts shoot past and one explodes into little pieces. Its enemy, a triumphant Earth fighter, turns away while giving the player a good view of its design. As the score soars, the title comes into view: WING COMMANDER. You are a nameless 2nd Lieutenant in the Terran Confederation Space Force. Your mission: save humanity from the evil claws of the Kilrathi Empire!
It's not an understatement to say Wing Commander looked like nothing else at the time, for many reasons. Its clearly defined storyline, characters, and cutscenes rivaled the most ambitious RPGs in the market. While a space sim, it emphasized quick reflexes instead of exploration, as well as tactically deploying your wingman. Add the most sweeping, military-symphonic score your MIDI-enabled sound card could muster, and a branching mission system, beautifully rendered ship interiors, a performance-based promotion system, a box packed full of lore-heavy literature, ship blueprints, and — you get the picture. The game was presented as a prestige product, showing that Origin was betting big on Wing Commander. And the bet paid off.
Sunday afternoon grind in a special bonus All Wings Considered hangout! Join me for Privateer and conversation.
As the CIC's 21st Birthday fast approaches, it's easy to find ourselves thinking back to how things have changed over the decades. I remember stressing about how it felt like we were late to the game in 1998 since there were already so many well established Wing Commander and space sim websites out there and we were starting fresh post-WCHS. Eventually, hundreds of other sites faded away, and while there's still a few great ones out there, not a whole lot of new entrants appear. Some of the ones that do only live in social media.
So it's especially exciting when someone does kick off a new site, puts down roots on the web and dedicates themselves to the space sim genre. In my mind, Space Game Junkie is one of these new places out there, but it's actually not very new at all. Brian Rubin founded the site way back in 2011 and has been steadily building a larger following all this time. He got a job shortly after the site first appeared, and it's been a busy part-time hobby ever since. However, he recently lost that job, and he's decided to focus full time on SGJ! We applaud the commitment, and we're excited to see what he does to help bring more space sim fans into the fold next! Check him out on the web as well as Twitter, YouTube and various other platforms. If you like what you see, you can help fund the effort on Patreon. The new push kicks off next week!
I'm writing because I recently announced I was taking Space Game Junkie full-time, and the outpouring of support has been amazing and humbling.First off, let me say again, THANK YOU!
This means daily streams, more written content, and more of the content we already do. Read about it here, and if you could, please help me spread the word.
But OMG things are happening! Thank you all again, so much, for your support and your faith in me.
Oodles of Doodles. One of the advantages of having all day mandatory training is that you have time to do some doodling... not that I'd ever recommend anyone do that of course, your full attentions should always be on your course work...Anyway I started noodling on what a Wildcat might look like, as a predecessor to the Hellcat it should share some design similarities but would look a bit more anime styled ala WC1/2. So I worked from there. The end result isn't really that I don't think but it did come out looking alot like what a regular F-45 Hellcat might look like in Super Wing Commander. So yeah here is my SWC Hellcat doodle... that I totally did on my lunch break... C&C Welcome as always
...it definitely has that Rapier vibe to it. It isn't distinct enough to fit in the SWC canon per se - considering how wacky they all are. But that's why I gave it the single vertical stabilizer, which is practically unknown in WC 1-3 and SWC. But it does kind of fill a niche between the SWC Hornet and a Scimitar (demon). The backwards spikey things were just a stylistic choice... er I mean they maintain the super-quantum hydro-spatial tachyon field in a state of partial flux; which, as we all know, is essential for the safe operation of space craft at the speeds in which they operate...
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