Happy CIC Halloween! Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

It's time for a new CIC Poll, and in the spirit of Halloween, we're asking what spooky-sounding Wing Commander fighters are the creepiest to you. Here's LOAF with a rundown!

Now that it's Halloween, it's time for the spookiest Wing Commander ships! It's enough to make an Ultima Online ghost say oooOOooOoooOOOOooOo!

Deep in the TCSNA TrainSim lurks a horrifying shadow, a mere reflection of that which was... a deadly WRAITH! (Wing Commander Academy, Armada)

Dare you enter the terrifying depths of... the Gemini Sector... knowing that therein lurks a DEMON?! (Wing Commander Privateer) But even more terrifying is that which haunts the Shiraak... the ghostly PHANTOM! (Wing Commander Armada, and it's actually scary because of the complete lack of cockpit visibility) And then, in the black cold of space came a terrifying sound... the deadly shriek of the BANSHEE! (also WIng Commander Armada) ... and also the... equally scary... other, unrelated BANSHEE. (Wing Commander IV) Happy Halloween from the spookiest class of spaceship in the Tri-System, the Jincilla SKULL! (Privateer 2: The Darkening) What's that? A cold breath touches your neck. You turn but it's too fast, you've already fallen victim to... the VAMPIRE! Alright, that's arguably more than enough of that... so I will leave you with a happy Halloween and a reminder that this Die Krupps song is actually about the spaceship:


The annual CIC Birthday poll has also come to an end. In keeping with previous demographic trends, more than a quarter of our audience has been with us since the beginning and another quarter arrived around the year 2000. Some ten percent are new arrivals though!

GOG Halloween Sale Scares Up 75% Wing Commander Discount Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Good Old Games is running a special sale for Halloween, and they are not limiting the deals just to spooky games. Wing Commander has been caught in their web, so it's getting a 75% discount across the board. Each title is $1.49 or less than $12 for the whole DOS/Windows series! Grab them in the next few days to complete your digital collection.

1996 Consoles Magazine Previews WC3 on Playstation Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Here's something kind of different. A few weeks ago, we posted videos that were actually scans of the Super Nintendo Wing Commander documentation. At the time, I talked about some of the reasons why this could be a good thing for certain use cases. Now, AD has run across the first video narration of an old school magazine that we've seen. This seems decidedly less useful than a traditional scan would be, but I can still appreciate people trying out different things and bringing light to vintage video game content in a new way. It's the Number 52 March 1996 issue of the French Consoles magazine. Starting at the 4:37 mark, the narrative walks through some of the features coming in the Playstation version of Wing Commander 3, which came out that month. There's some nice screenshots and set photos, plus the bizarre Spanish art that pops up here and there. I can't say I hope this becomes a trend, but it's nice to see how another region was looking forward to the game in this case.

Power Play Previews Wing Commander III Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

We've found another interesting Wing Commander III preview on Internet Archive! This three page article from the September 1994 issue of German magazine Power Play (No. 78) is a unique behind the scenes look at the game coming out of Origin's worldwide press junket for the game. Most excitingly, this article includes a number of behind the scenes images which have not been widely published elsewhere (alongside the very first set of in game screenshots released online by Origin). Come for the early Victory flight deck, stay for the extreme closeup of Flash's helmet!

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Check Out the Many Origin Back Cover Ads from Computer Gaming World Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

From May 1986 to September 1998, Origin Systems 'owned' the back cover of Computer Gaming World. Their first ad was for Ogre, a tank fighting game and the last was for Ultima IX. Origin did this marketing in house and got so good at it that instead of shutting them down after the acqusition EA used their team for studios like Firaxis and Bullfrog. Looking at them is a neat way to watch the culture, desktop publishing and the audience change. Since there are great scans of the full run of CGW, I thought pulling out all the Wing Commander ads would make for a good start to a larger collection. I've collected them all here.

You start out with handmade ads designed to capture the hobbyists of the early 90s...

... then a more prestigious Hollywood look (moving to digital layouts) for the multimedia era that brought in more gamers... And then some true X-TREME nonsense towards the end! Privateer 2, which had a totally separate marketing effort in Europe, got an insane six (!) page ad that... hmm. This was a weird find. It's especially interesting what DOESN'T get print ads: mission disks (after 1990), speech packs, re-releases (even Kilrathi Saga never gets a dedicated ad)... Secret Ops... While sorting through all the CGWs I found this ad I had never noticed before. If we'd seen it at the time (August 1994), we wouldn't even know it was our first look at the Victory's gunnery room! The Prophecy ads that are mostly built around beautiful renders of the cinematic models are totally rad, though, we absolutely went out on top. The Privateer 2 ads that aren't closeup pictures of noses are also extremely cool. There are also a couple issues where it's pretty clear something that was supposed to be announced got pulled at the last minute: And here are a couple of cool oddities: a collected Wing Commander ad from late 1992 when there were no games coming out... one for the Origin FX screensaver... a seemingly lost Super Wing Commander (not a PC game, guys!) and one that's telling you you need to buy a CD-ROM.
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Classic GameStar Spread Compares Wing Commander to Freespace and XvT Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Today we’ve got a neat comparison article courtesy of the X-Wing Game Series Twitter account. It comes from the German GameStar magazine in August 1998. In this matchup, we see Wing Commander Prophecy’s key features up against Freespace and X-Wing versus Tie Fighter. Although the publication is clearly a fan of all three, WCP narrowly takes the top spot. They credit its gorgeous graphics and convincing flight mode, but are disappointed at the lack of multiplayer. I usually let alternate language scans stand on their, but I also ran this one through a translator with pretty decent results. This was such an exciting time to be a space sim fan!

Tiger's Claw Upgraded in Space Engineers Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Aubi-Nation has completed an overhaul of his Tiger's Claw model built in Space Engineers. It's got lots of nice upgrades now. The basic geometry of the landing bay and engine nacelles has been tightened up to look sharper on the outside. Indoors, the flight deck has been spruced up with some new things, including access to an updated pilot's lounge - that even has a static TrainSim and killboard! Towards the end of the clip, Aubi fires up the engines and shows off how maneuverable the carrier is. It's quite impressive in the asteroid fields! Check out the video below:
#ThisDadPlays Space Engineers! I take one of my favourite ships from Wing Commander and I recreate it in Space Engineers! Here is the updated version of the Tiger's Claw! Almost finished!

Unreleased CDTV Port Mentioned in COMPUTE! Magazine Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Here's an interesting one in need of a followup: a COMPUTE! article from December 1990 saying that Origin is working on a Wing Commander port for the CDTV. That's not on my Wing Commander 1946 list! The CDTV was a very early multimedia-era console aimed at the same 'replacement for the VCR' dream later chased by the 3DO. I've never used one myself! The CDTV's followup was the Amiga CD32, which DID have a Wing Commander port. But that wouldn't have been the same project, the later Amiga efforts were all licensed projects handled by Mindscape.
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WC3 Destroyer Captured in Slick Sketch Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

CountvonSchnaps has sketched out a wonderful take on the Southampton class destroyer. It's a very sturdy and recognizable design, and the artist has accentuated the iconic features really well. We get an aft view here, so the turrets, engines and small flight deck are in view. It reminds me of the familiar perspective we would see from the Victory's bar or bridge. This is their only Wing Commander designs, but they have many more sci-fi ships in a gallery here.
Another universe (game) I recall with fond memories is the Wing Commander franchise so did my take on the already interesting WC3 Southampton Class destroyer. I made it an upgraded version but kept the general feel and structure intact. It is still armed with 9 dual turrets: 2 heavy anti matter turrets (dual barrel) and 7 laser cannons. It has also a heavy missile launcher and is capable to carry a half wing (2x Arrow light fighters) or a shuttlecraft.
Thanks to Rattler for the tip!

Excalibur and Thunderbolt Fresh off the 3D Printer Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Adm_Maverick just got a new 3D printer, and one of the first things that they made were some stunning Wing Commander fighters! The Excalibur is perhaps one of the most printed ships out there, but for good reason! It's just a gorgeous design with angular lines that make it nicely reproducible. The same goes for the Thunderbolt, which also makes a slick appearance here. After finalizing some of the sizes and designs, these are slated to make their way into her tabletop game. You can read more about that here. We can't wait to see how everything looks when it's all together!
Got a resin printer. Still learning the specifics of it. I decided to upscale the size of the fighter tokens for my game. Should give a greater emphasis on the dog fight scale I’m aiming for with the game.

Privateer Music Remixed in Retro 8-Bit Style Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

LividLiquid has put together a super creative musical playlist for your listening enjoyment. She's taken the moody atmospheric music of Wing Commander Privateer and transformed it with an NES-style audio filter. I didn't even know this could be a thing, and it's amazing how much it actually does feel like this is what the game could sound like on an 8-bit Nintendo. As an extra bonus, each track also has an accompanying piece of Privateer location cover art with an appropriately reduced color palette. Hit the little playlist icon in the upper right of the embedded YouTube video below to flip through the different chapters. You can also jump straight to the playlist here. If these really hit your ear in the right way, you can even download the mp3 album (35 meg zip)!
I ran each of the Midi files Wing Commander Privateer uses for its music through an 8-bit soundfont one by one, and this playlist is the end result.

Some fared better than others, but a fair number of them sound custom-made for NES hardware. I'm really impressed with the results. Even loaded up my savefile and flew around taking screenshots, then used tool to make those look NES-era too. those too for all the tracks. Like the music, some of it came out the other end better than others, but the stuff that hits is really cool. It was a fun day off.

Special thanks to Ben, Chris, and the rest of the staffers and community Wingnuts at WCNews.com for keeping the lanterns lit all these years.

You can also compare this to the original sound on Roland hardware here.

New Retro Portable Runs WC3 Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Wingnuts have a long history of trying to get Wing Commander games to run on portable devices, and here's a neat new addition to that list! Normal_Andy has taken several photos of Wing Commander 3 running on the KeepRetro MIYOO-Mini V2 device. It's a cute GameBoy-style handheld with a dual core 1.2 GHz ARM Cortex-A7 processor and a 640x480 2.8" screen. At $64, it's almost worth it just to be able to carry WC3 with you wherever you go! We'll see if I can talk AD into buying one! For comparison, here's other fans getting Wing Commander games running on a GPWD Win, nVidia Shield, Pandora, Android device and even a Nintendo DS!
Ok now I'm really impressed

Gorgeous Hand Made Gemini Maps Resurface Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Today we've got a wonderful pair of hand-drawn maps that date back nearly thirty years! Both carefully capture the details of the Gemini Sector's jump lines in Wing Commander Privateer. The first was posted to Reddit by TurbulentDev and the second was made by Richard Da Geek. These are such a nostalgic sight to behold. I used some of my own pen-and-graph-paper maps back in the '80s, and I'm sure many of you out there did as well. They're such a product of their time - for my most recent open world game, I used a high resolution crowd-sourced wiki map on an iPad.
Just when I am about to start a space campaign look at what I find from many many many years ago. I do believe this is the homemade map I made for the Wing Commander game back in the day.

Easy Tips to Obscure Your Light Cruiser Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Forget a capital ship? No problem! Wing Commander Academy's light cruiser TCS Manassas is mentioned in the script but seen only at an extreme distance (the top left triangle in the fleet shot) or extreme closup to hide the fact that they didn't have a design! But let's take some points away from the writer, too; surely it should be the TCS Bull Run.
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Famous Privateer 3 Preview Crisply Scanned Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Another kind gift from the @XwingGameSeries account: great scans of the CGSP article that announced Privateer 3 in spectacular fashion!… days before EA killed it. You’ll laugh and then you’ll cry forever. If you've followed our news in the past, you've probably seen these before - but maybe not at this level of quality! That chart of guns, though! There ain’t no justice. If you want to feel a LITTLE better, everyone would’ve hated the story (about the Kilrathi trying to resurrect Kilrah using a a Steltek time machine).
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Diligent Makes Its Appearance in Space Engineers Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

We've seen fans start to make some really cool stuff in Space Engineers lately, and here's another one! This time Psycho_Klops has built the Diligent from the Wing Commander Movie. This is a fairly unique design in the WC universe, and it's always great to see it get some love. The craft is the builder's favorite from the film, but I think the Concordia and a few others are close competitors as well. It's designed to be flown in Space Engineers' low gravity environments, and he's taken a bunch of appropriate planetscape pictures to match. It's pretty cool! You can download the model from the Steam Workshop here.
Thist is probably the only beautiful ship in the whole movie

Survival Ready, can only fly in low gravity.

All Tanks onboard are on stockpile, forget to change that before publishing it, just change it when you wanna fly the ship.

Super Wing Commander for Mac Becomes More Playable on Modern PCs Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Wing Commander emulation continues to make good progress, but one area we haven't looked at in a while is getting the Macintosh version of Super Wing Commander running on modern systems. There's a fairly limited amount of info out there on getting SWC going, and most of it pertains to the 3DO edition. One particularly challenging aspect is that Mac SWC doesn't even run on modern Macs. The game really wants an OS 9 install to fire up.

Gaijin has been exploring this topic and came across the Columbia emulator that simulates an OS 9 environment. He hasn't gotten it to work on his Apple silicon yet, but it does appear to work well on his Intel-based iMac, which is very promising!

I was running it on my PowerBook Pismo (which still works great) until the fantastic emulator from Columbia came out. I haven't gotten SWC to work on my M1 MacBook Air 2020 yet, but it runs like a charm on my Sierra iMac! Purrs like never before - no wait times and the graphics run smoother than my original PowerPC 7100 (?) or my Pismo.
For Windows environments, Panther also reports success getting the game going through SheepSaver / Basilisk II. We love to see it!
Not much experience with Mac and very little success with the 3DO emulators but I got the Mac version to work, I have an old 20" 4:3 LCD screen that works best for the older games incl SWC... It's running fine at 1280x1024 and best at 1024x768. Sheepsaver for PowerPC Mac's for MacOS 9.0.4. and below and Basilisk II (Mac's prior PowerPC). I think it looks good, running under Windows 10/11.

SNES WC Manuals Turned Into Convenient Videos Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

AD came across some interesting videos by RetroShell. They're digitized versions of the SNES WC1 and Secret Missions manuals that have been turned into YouTube videos. At first, the concept is puzzling. Why do these exist rather than PDF scans? The more I think about them though, the more I lean towards these actually being kind of genius. Yes, downloadable files are great for archiving, but in many cases there isn't a great way to find reliable sources for docs like these. Players usually end up at sketchy (virus red flag) websites. YouTube, on the other hand, is readily indexed by Google and is itself an ever growing resource for technical information. The interface also makes for really easy and convenient scrolling/scrubbing through the pages. In this case, RetroShell has even added a nice page-turning animation and overlaid music from the game - which is a fantastic touch! After you check out the vids below, you can find dozens of other WC game manuals in our archive here.

Quirks of the Armada Epilogue Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Found an ancient bug in Armada! The source for the credits reads "Music & Digital FX" but the actual game doesn't display the ampersand. (But I think we can give the team that was QAing this and Wing Commander III at the same time a pass...)

Also never noticed this cool footer on the credits! JEMM was the DOS extender and RealSpace was the 3D engine, both first developed for Strike Commander.
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Game Player's PC Strategy Guide Previews WC2 Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Here's an interesting four page preview of Wing Commander II from the November-December 1991 issue of Game Player's PC Strategy Guide (Vol. 4, No. 7), the magazine which eventually became PC Gamer. Much of the information about the game's early story elements and updates from Wing Commander I might seem commonplace today but in late 1991 it would've been mana from heaven!

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Listen to the Gemini Sector as It Was Meant to Be Heard Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Pekka Leppaluoto has put together a wonderful treat for Wing Commander Privateer fans. He's recorded the Priv soundtrack with his SCC-1 card and posted the results to YouTube in a convenient chaptered format. The SCC-1 is a variant of the Roland SC-55, which was one of the fanciest sound cards of the early '90s. The first few Wing Commander games sound just wonderful on the Roland hardware of the era. The YouTube clip below makes for easy convenient listening, but you can also download the tracks from our archives here.
Wing Commander: Privateer (the original floppy disk version) Complete Soundtrack on a Roland SCC-1 sound card. All files played back using AIL Sound System's XPLAY.EXE with static content extracted from the game. As I was preparing another Origin Systems game soundtrack, I discovered that the same extraction tools work with Privateer so I was able to easily produce this one.

Star Citizen Commemorates First Decade of Development with WC Easter Egg Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Today marks a full ten years since Star Citizen and Squadron 42 were first unveiled at GDC Austin in 2012. It's been quite an epoch for Chris Roberts and team. In comparison, the span of time from the launch of WC1, all of the subsequent DOS/Windows WC games and finally release of the WC Movie covered about nine years. Nevertheless, vast numbers of fans were enthralled by the virtual CitizenCon held on Saturday. As is tradition, Cloud Imperium continues to sprinkle Wing Commander easter eggs in from time to time. "Christopher Blair" makes a brief appearance in the introduction of the new MOBIGLAS interface. It's always nice to see them remembering their roots! You can see that reveal below starting at about the 1:20 minute mark. Thanks to Whistler and Dennis Mull for the tip!
Look at these babies!

Banbridge's Fleet Preps for Major Action Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Here's a fun little teaser of the next's Mac's Lore video. It features a vast Confed fleet inspired by the massive task force assembled at Vukar Tag in End Run. Everything is anchored around Klavs' massive Confederation class dreadnought model, but there are plenty of gorgeous ships flanking it as well. We can't wait to see the finished product!

WC4 Remastered Trailer Now in German Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

ODVS has a nice treat for German Wing Commander fans (of which there are many!). With the help of Bernd Vollbrecht and Dr. Gerd Naumann, he's redone the audio for the WC4 Remastered trailer. It's a wonderful video, and now more people can listen to it in their native language! You can download the playable demo for the WC4 Fan Remake yourself here (900 meg exe).
Here's a little something for German-speaking Wingnuts, courtesy of MrCoffeeee:

Wing Commander Arena's Achievements Restored Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

We've got good news to report today for Wing Commander Arena fans! Back in August, people started to notice that the Xbox achievement records for certain games were no longer showing properly. This was distressing to us, since Arena was one of the games that appeared to be suffering from this predicament. Players' total point score seemed unaffected, and the achievements still appeared to show up at third party websites that had access to the source data, so we were hoping that this was just some kind of technical glitch. Additionally, other classic Xbox Live Aracade games like EA's Boom Boom Rocket were still appearing normally. Fortunately, we noticed this week that the game was one again showing up properly in Xbox gamertag profiles. You can now see all 12 Wing Commander achievements on your console, the web or mobile app. Check out how your score stacks up here (may need to log in to an Xbox/Microsoft account for the link to work).

Art History: The Ships of Wing Commander I Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Concept Art

Early in Wing Commander's development, Origin artist Glen Johnson created a series of schematics showing the 21 ships the game's designer had planned to include. Each schematic was created using a traditional draughting technique which resulted in five different views: front, back, side, top and bottom (only three for the Star Post). Origin didn't yet have their own 3D artists and so the schematics were sent to the team of Mary Bellis and Steve Spear in New York City who rendered out the in-game sprites using an Amiga.

We recently published a selection of the images scanned from Claw Marks and modified to show both the top and bottom views of the ships (available here). That project prompted us to take a look at the history of how these original 103 ship views were reused over the years and to inventory exactly which remain lost to time.

Claw Marks

Sixteen of the schematics were reproduced in Claw Marks with the front and back views removed and the top and bottom shown as a single mirrored figure. Five ships did not appear in Claw Marks: the end-game 'boss' Star Post plus four that were cut from the game during development for disk space: the Diligent tanker, Lumbari freighter, Sivar dreadnought and Spikeri corvette.

Blueprints

The original ship concept art was also reused to create Wing Commander's signature blueprints. The blueprints reproduce the side, front and back art for each of the Confederation fighters as well as an update of the top view that adds additional details and a 'cutaway' section. Want a closer look? You can download a high definition set of blueprint scans here (42 meg zip).

Press Kit

There was one additional 'lost' schematic printed in 1990: the front of the Dralthi is included in Wing Commander's original press kit (as well as the unmirrored top)!

Computer Gaming World

Origin provided 'advertorial' content for the July 1991 issue of Computer Gaming World's review of both Secret Missions campaigns. This included artwork and specifications for several of the 'cut' spacecraft that were reused in those expansions including the Spikeri, which was reused as Secret Missions 2's Snakeir carrier (note the large cockpit on the final model!).

Origin's Official Guide to Wing Commander I & II

Origin's Official Guide to Wing Commander I & II reuses the Claw Marks artwork with a twist: it has been 'painted over' with an early 1990s desktop publishing program. These slightly more textured ships appear throughout the book in a series of side views, as page headers for the different Kilrathi AI routines and as a series of detailed maneuvering diagrams, something the series would adapt in different directions in later game manuals. Most interestingly for the sake of our inventory, this is the only place the 'front' view of the Salthi has ever been published.

Later Ports

In 1994, Origin created a series of updated 'how to maneuver' schematics based on those first seen in the Wing Commander I & II Ultimate Strategy using the concept schematic artwork. These were included in the Sega CD, Super Wing Commander and Kilrathi Saga manuals (despite the fact that Super Wing Commander otherwise redesigned all of the ships).

Japan

The Japanese Mega CD and Super Famicom versions of the Wing Commander I manual both update the line art, colorizing it and using it to create completely new sets of maneuvering diagrams. Both also feature closer looks at the Tiger's Claw!

What's Missing?

Out of the 103 original drawings, 64 are known to exist in some form or another. This leaves 39 that could still be discovered:

  • The back views for the Salthi & Dralthi (2)
  • The front and back views for the Kraht, Gratha, Jalthi, Dorkir, Ralari, Fralthi, Drayman, Venture, Exeter and Bengal (20)
  • The bottom, front and back of the Spikeri/Snakeir (3)
  • The bottom, front, back and side of the Sivar (4)
  • All five views of the Diligent and Lumbari (10)
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Inventory: Wing Commander Academy Co-Belligerents Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Wing Commander's background lore has long established that the Confederation includes multiple alien races in addition to humans. We see the Firekkans join in Secret Missions 2: Crusade and Voices of War's history says that "the Terrans, likewise, had befriended several nearby worlds and quickly assimilated them into the Confederation. All were advanced, but none possessed technology that could rival that of Earth’s." Action Stations has the Kilrathi describe the Confederation including perhaps six additional species ("If they have an advantage it is in their depth, their web of alliances with half a dozen races, the sheer number of worlds they have colonized."). This was 2634, so Firekka would be a seventh if no others joined between then and 2655. The Wing Commander movie and Star*Soldier flags have ten smaller stars on them, which could indicate member species or founding governments. Similarly, there are sixteen large flags on display in the Grand Assembly in Wing Commander IV, which are too few to represent hundreds and hundreds of member planets on their own.

But who are these aliens? With the exception of the Firekkans, they are rarely mentioned or seen, with most productions choosing to describe human extras. Action Stations does mention that young Geoffrey Tolwyn "had met Firekka, Varni, Hagarin, Wu, and others at the Academy", though it's not clear if these are actually member races (the Firekkans certainly were not at this point and the Varni and Wu are both refugee groups fleeing the Kilrathi). With little available specifics, the next suggestion becomes something seen but not discussed on Wing Commander Academy: the series' variety of humanlike characters with unusual eyes and/or skin tones.

Before we continue, it's worth noting that we do not have an answer as to what the intent of the unusually colored characters was. We spoke to Michael Edens who was responsible for the series bible and many episode scripts and he had no idea; his world building work had predated anything visual. It's possible they're intended to be members of other Confederation member species but it's also possible they're intended to be humans in a unique art style, or even some futuristic form of human similar to those in Larry Niven's Known Space who choose new colors or designs for their skin. Of course, no one could ever accuse Wing Commander of stealing something from Known Space!

Lavender Skin, Yellow Eyes

The first unusually colored character we see in the series is Payback, who appears at attention after Red and Blue's opening TrainSim dogfight. She goes on to appear in almost every episode of the series with a particularly major role in Expendable. At one point she does establish that she is from "Icarus colony", but there's no detail as to just what that means. Her lavender skin, yellow eyes and red hair certainly seem to suggest that she's an alien… on the other hand, her full name, Lindsay Price, sounds extremely human. Payback is the only 'alien' that matches her general appearance on the show. She was voiced by Lauri Hendler.

Green Skin, Yellow Sclera

Red and Blue also features a second character who is the only known representative of their phenotype: Hilthros' Flight School Commandant who has a light green skin and distinctive fully yellow sclera. The character seems to be close friends with Commodore Tolwyn, prompting some to suggest he might be intended to be Admiral Banbridge from the tie-in novels. The Commandant is voiced by Earl Boen, better known for his recurring role as a psychologist in the Terminator film series.

Light Blue Skin, Blue Sclera

2nd Lt. Alan "Blizzard" Getz is another character who is seemingly treated as being identical to a human, though his callsign does seem to acknowledge his ice-blue skin, hair and eyes. Blizzard features in The Most Delicate Instrument and he is flashed back to several times later in the show (he's also referenced in The Last One Left as one of the pilots ordered to the briefing room… but he never shows up!). Is he an alien… named Alan?

Light Green Skin

"Raker" is a light green-skinned humanoid with ordinary eyes who appears repeatedly after he joins the Tiger's Claw's complement from the Trafalgar. Additionally, a female green skin character appear as a background extra in both Recreation and Invisible Enemy, the latter of which includes a number of 'alien' background characters. She is boarding the shuttle in Recreation and then attending the funeral and eating at the mess hall in Invisible Enemy.

Magenta Skin

A variety of background characters with magenta skin and different hair colors appear as pilots in the funeral and mess hall scenes in Invisible Enemy, with a total of nine among the crew eating before the scramble scene!

Yellow-Orange Skin

A single extra in Invisible Enemy has orangish skin and red hair. He appears at both the funeral and in the mass hall. Additionally, another humanoid with the same characteristics (and a very similar face) appears as a pirate ground crew member in The Last One Left.

Turquoise Sclera

The unusually colored humanoids are very apparent but there's also another strange one hidden in plain sight. The Tiger's Claw's psychologist, Dr. Guthrig Andropolos, seems to be an ordinary human… except that he's always depicted with blue-within-blue eyes, similar to the Fremen in Dune. This is all the stranger given his connection to the greater Wing Commander history: he's the son of the captain killed during first contact with the Kilrathi and the man who goes on to write the official history of the Terran-Kilrathi War.

Falcon

While there's plenty of room for debate as to whether or not the unusually colored humanoids are intended to be aliens, there's one that seems much more clear: "Falcon" is a squat pilot with no neck and unusual face markings who seems to be less human and more of a pineapple creature. Like Raker, he's a survivor of the Trafalgar and he appears several times. (Despite his unusual design, his simplified face markings do seem like they could be Academy's style of Doomsday's Maori tattoo).

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Another Bengal Class Carrier Built in Space Engineers Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Today we've got another amazing Wing Commander ship recreated in the modding workshop game Space Engineers. It's got a lot of wonderful touches designed by Aubi-Nation. The spaceframe shape is pretty solid with all of the recognizable pieces in place. I really like the running lights on the landing deck, and there are some nice moving doors and motion activated components as well. The interior of the ship has also been modeled as well, although it's a bit less complete. It's not the first Space Engineers Claw we've seen this year. You can also find NakaKen's here!
#ThisDadPlays Space Engineers! I take one of my favourite ships from Wing Commander and I recreate it in Space Engineers! Here is the rediscovered version of the Tiger's Claw!

Vintage Television Show Reviews WC2 Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Today we've got a tiny 1992 video review from the British television show GamesMaster. Non-print reviews are quite rare from this era since we were still a couple years before magazines starting including multimedia cover discs. Wing Commander 2 is one of my favorite games, so I was anxious to see what they had to say. And boy, they did not like it! Both reviewers say the game just has graphics going for it and award it a failing 59% score. I'm honestly pretty shocked at that assessment. The graphics were only minimally refined over WC1, but there were some wonderful advances in terms of storytelling, sound/speech and gameplay mechanics (torpedo bombing, turrets, tractor beams, jump points, etc). Ah well, check out this thirty year old clip below! Thanks to Oli for archiving this.

GOG Anniversary Sale Marks Down Wing Commander Series Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

The folks at Good Old Games are celebrating their 14th anniversary, which means cheap Wing Commander for you! I know, it seems like there's a new sale every other week, but we hear from players excitedly picking these up every time, so we're happy to promote each event! It's the customary 75% off sale, so each title is $1.49 or less than $12 for the whole DOS/Windows Wing Commander lineup - an absolute steal!

3DO Store Tape Reveals Wrecked Rapier Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

The The Museum of Art and Digital Entertainment (MADE) has been digitizing video donated by Electronic Arts and 3DO founder Trip Hawkins. Among their collection is the '3DO sizzle reel' found below, a store looping tape created to show off the first round of games available for the 3DO. VHSes like these were sent to stores like Babbages and Electronic Boutique to display games to customers on in-store TVs. The tape includes a short-but-interesting pre-release teaser for Super Wing Commander which includes clips from several cutscenes and some early gameplay. Pay special attention to the action: the player attacks two Scimitars which still have the original Hornet art as their VDU and when one explodes it spawns what looks like a pretty spectacular destroyed Super Wing Commander Rapier (which isn't in the final game). Neat!

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