In a weird coincidence, the Wing Commander III novelization also names the TCS Victory’s bartender Rostov and makes him a shameless Space Russian in the grand tradition of Ensign Chekov.
There is a lot to talk about here. For one, isn't it odd that they just borrowed Shotglass' setup from Wing Commander I? Is every bartender in the fleet a wounded veteran? I'll let folks with actual culture decide if "Dmitry Rostov" is a terrible made up Russian name but it certainly is an odd coincidence (?) that it's the same name as a system from WC1... which I can confirm was all over the series bible provided to Forstchen and Keith. On the other hand, the TCS Leningrad reference is a very deep cut. It's from a brief mention in Freedom Flight where Hobbes reminisces about the time he destroyed it. But just the implication that a ship named after a Russian city would naturally have a super Russian crewman is kind of silly. And he calls Blair Comrade! Also odd is that Blair calls him Bear (and “Rosty” at the same time)… despite the fact that the major Wing Commander character already named Bear APPEARS IN THIS BOOK. But by far the strangest decision in all of this is the fact that they decided to make this character who appears in the script (and would surely be visible in the game)’s distinguishing characteristic the fact that he has ONE ARM. Spoiler warning: the bartender in Wing Commander III... who appears in many cutscenes!... HAS TWO ARMS. Jean Pierre Pereat played the bartender; he was not an actor but a production worker. Here he is today! Another odd coincidence (?) is that the WC3 novel ends Bear Bondarevsky on a cliffhanger where he is injured… and three books later we find out that… he lost his arm! Whoops, perpetuated an error there. While Bear’s Special Operations 1 sprites have a uniform with Space Force Captain’s bars it never actually appears and he is referred to as a (Navy) Lieutenant. Novel protagonist Bear started life in the initial draft of WC2 as a Georgian bomber crew chief redshirt with a secret who bonds with Blair over their dedication to the service. He too was a goofy space Russian: After he was cut, his artwork was reused for the Bear we know in Special Operations. The age backstory survived in the series bible and is referenced extensively in End Run! End Run claims that he is from a mostly Russian colony “in Alpha Centauri”. His dad was Russian and his mom Australian. But then Fleet Action says he’s from a distant frontier colony 500 light years from Earth. A lot farther than Alpha Centauri! His third story as protagonist claims his colony was named Razin and that it was settled by Eastern Orthodox Christians (by way of setting up a cute Christmas scene with a black cat! Sully will model.) Anyway I think we got sidetracked somewhere. Let’s down one of Shotglass’ famous Rostov Hairballs and pray that whatever war is going on now will quickly end.What is a Rostov Hairball, named after the star system’s asteroid fields? It’s an unspecified mixed drink… except for SNES pilots for whom it is an ice cream sundae! The SNES bar serving ice cream instead of booze is actually closer to reality (enormous hook pulls me off stage).
If you haven’t filmed an exhaustive retrospective of the Wing Commander series on a hillside while sitting on a giant boulder, are you even a Wing Commander fine? Yes, if you’re reading this, you definitely are, but this is still one of the most unique takes on the WC series rundown video I’ve seen in a while. Where will the next Wing Commander fan vid take place?
Just added to the collection: A promotional Wing Commander II Mercury telephone kiosk card!A handful of these were made in places like Japan and Germany over the years for various WC games. Check out the wonderful Prophecy phone card from Dominus of Exult's collection here.-----------------------------------------
Card for use in a Mercury telephone kiosk, with Wing Commander II design.
Mercury Communications was a national UK telephone company formed in the early 1980s, and was an early competitor of BT. Mercury's payphone kiosks were in use in the UK from 1986-1995.
The card states on the back that Mercurycards are available in £2, £4, and £10 values, however the card itself is a £1 value, so was likely given away as a promotion.
Hey guys! I did a paint over a 3D model I sculpted years ago. It's of a young Angel. Originally I was going to make a 3D model of her WC1 character, but liked the look of a younger Angel. I thought you would enjoy it. Hope you like it! Here's the original model:
It was used for Howard Day's Wing Leader characters. But I really wanted to finish it in the way I wanted it to look so I finally got around to finishing it. And I made a 16 bit look for those that prefer the old pixel graphics:Here's a few original shots to compare: WC1, Claw Marks, Super Famicon Claw Marks and WC2.
I just noticed the Wing Commander IV PlayStation disc change screens all have different ship reflections. Cool as hell!
The first disc image with the Hellcats is also used as a splash screen for the DVD version of WC4.On Monday, June 19th, from midnight to midnight Pacific Time, we’ll hold our fourth annual Juneteenth fundraiser, where we donate 100% of our share of sales to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, a racial justice organization with a long history of effectively enacting change through litigation, advocacy, and public education.There is also a publisher-authorized free streaming version available below. We recommend buying it outright, but enjoy the full sample below!
Privateer 2 is great and you can't tell me it's not. I love the weird aesthetic and the novels worth of bizarre world building in all the booth and mission text.
Raylight Games is a leading European videogames development studio based in Benevento and in the sunny Napoli, south of Italy. Funded in 2000. Raylight Games has developed dozen of games ranging from Handheld Consoles. Home Consoles. Mobiles and PC. In 2001 we started the development of BlueRoses, our own multiplatform framework on which our core team develops games. Originally developed for the Nintendo GameBoy Advance, BlueRoses has been used to develop Wing Commander: Prophecy. which has been nominated as runner up game for the best technological excellence at the 2002 E3 IGN Awards, and also the much acclaimed Resident Evil 2 demo. Since 2001 BlueRoses expanded on other emerging platforms and is currently available for PlayStation 4. PlayStation Vita, Microsoft Xbox One, Nintendo Switch. Nintendo 3DS, mobile platforms (Android. iOS, Windows Mobile) and PC.
We remember it taking FOREVER for each new Wing Commander game to come out... but how long did it actually take to develop them? It's pretty crazy compared to how long it takes to make a AAA game today!
This is production to release only, though, so it's not the full story. For instance, Chris Roberts spent several months developing the technology behind the original Wing Commander on his own before it became a budgeted Origin project. Similarly, Wing Commander Arena signed off months before it was released and it sat in a crowded XBox Live Arcade release queue. For further comparison, Strike Commander's famously endless delays meant that it spent... 18 months in production! That's nothing today.I mentioned a few posts back that I was looking at voxel conversion as a potential option for adding full 3D rotation to the original 2D sprites. My early tests are pretty positive; here's an early (pretty rough) test of the WC1 Dralthi, converted (manually) to voxels from the original sprites. Each one seems like it will take a fair chunk of work, but it seems far from a prohibitive amount... Some will certainly be more difficult than others though.
Hi everybody... thank you so much for supporting this project. I'm incredibly excited to make the Wing Commander orchestral score on deluxe vinyl a reality. That said, it goes without saying that I'm disappointed the campaign did not reach it's minimum funding goal and am in the process of sorting out some issues with this platform as a result. I cannot press the planned quantity of LPs for less than $15K and am deciding whether to do a follow-on fundraising campaign or reduce the quantities for the first production run. Checking with the pressing plant on minimums and metrics now. Please be patient while I work out how best to move forward, should have an update by end of week. Grateful for your support!
Here are the amazing takeoff and landing sprites from the original Wing Commander. Along with the cockpits these were absolutely essential in establishing the player's ship in their head (and showing-not-telling damage after a mission!).
Here are the Wing Commander II versions: This is an interesting comparison to the WC2 landing art, the similar (but decidedly different) side views used for the eject cutscenes. They didn't do these for the new ships in the mission disks! And here's the kind of detail that makes a Chris Roberts game special: when the cockpit slides open you can see just a little strip of the tan cockpit... which matches the side view you have in flight! You can download a reference pack with dozens of cockpit images from WC1, WC2, WC3, Academy, Armada and Privateer here!Wing Commander Prophecy veterans: do you remember Lt. Anderson, the TCS Midway's comm officer? He showed up in briefings and other cutscenes as well in dozens of postage stamp videos in-flight.
So, Origin's Official Guide to Wing Commander Prophecy has a surprisingly extensive biography that claims that Anderson traces his lineage back to an RAF pilot who fought in World War II. Is there a historical figure who matches the clues? We're looking for an RAF pilot (specifically an officer) who defended against the Blitz. Luckily, The Few are extensively memorialized online… which leads us to a clear candidate: Squadron Leader Michael Anderson! Anderson commanded 604 Squadron during the Battle of Britain flying Bristol Beaufighter night fighters. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for shooting down a Heinkel 111 (and two probables). Here's a great painting of that encounter by Mark Postlethwaite! … and wouldn't you know it, he ended the war as a Wing Commander! Here's a fantastic page with a detailed biography. Anderson was played by Seth Walther. He went on to guest on a couple TV shows but ultimately became a writer. He often adapts Japanese shows for English audiences, with stacks of credits on shows like Digimon and Power Rangers! Couple of more continuity polaroids: Anderson isn't the only WC character with ancestors in the Battle of Britain! In Fleet Action, Admiral Tolwyn claims that "Tolwyns served at Waterloo, on the Somme, in the Battle of Britain, at Minsk and the siege of London and shed their blood heavily in this latest war." Dr. Forstchen is the master of the sci-fi list, sneaking in future events with ones we know. A second one that's also about Tolwyn's family later in the book: "It had been used by his ancestors when they had stood at Agincourt, Waterloo, the Somme and against Hitler and Zhing." Not enough to find Tolwyn's ancestor? Luckily (?) there's another reference towards the end of the book: "He thought for a moment of a distant ancestor... who... announced that even if England fell, the Empire, and with it the fleet, would still continue the fight." … which refers to Prime Minister Winston Churchill's June 4, 1940 "we shall fight on the beaches" speech to the House of Commons where he promised that even if England fell the Empire would battle on. You can watch the full speech here: … so Churchill is a distant relative of Geof Tolwyn and you are all welcome to unpack that on your own. But the resemblance is uncanny! Admit it, you didn't think this was where this post was going to end. Good night, everybody!On a very much related note, there have also been some big changes in who has access to Peacock and what they pay. Originally people with the popular Comcast Xfinity internet service in the US got free access to the lower paid tier, but it was announced earlier this year that this would be going away for most users. The company recently confirmed that people with Gigabit plans would retain their access for two years until June 2025. People who are Diamond/Platinum level members of the Xfinity Rewards program can also log in to claim a similar deal. Other users have access to a $3/month (rather than the typical $5/month) plan. Finally, there's a limited time deal to get a year of access for $20. And with all of that, this directly pertains to the United States. Other countries may have different levels of visibility, plans and so on, or users may VPN into the US for the access described above. Good luck getting your optimal Academy viewing experience!
Wing Commander II - TC Fighter F-44 Rapier IIFlying high with my brother @boldyfrenk and his beat straight from the shadiest systems in the Enigma sector
Wing Commander II - Kilrathi Empire Fighter DrakhriSecond joint with my brother @boldyfrenk and his beat recovered from a covert operation behind Kilrah's lines in the Enigma sector
A longform review/analysis of Wing Commander, the original space sim.
A quick update on the project: I've recently started work on splitting out the code for reading the original data formats into a separate C++ base library which will be open sourced as soon as it's stable API-wise.The idea is that it will be shared between Confederation and WC4 Remake; thus we can more easily pool our efforts - and those of anyone else who'd like to contribute. The library will be usable by any projects wanting to read (and perhaps write) formats used by the Wing Commander & Privateer series, and perhaps some other Origin games too (e.g. I've done some reverse engineering of BioForge previously, and Strike Commander has been mostly(?) reverse engineered already).
Armageddon is an Origin FX movie which displays a variety of explosions and damage effects on the desktop. There are six types of explosions, two of which are taken from Wing Commander Privateer. Three sound effects can play. The movie is named after the armageddon spell from the Ultima series.Here are the other four explosions in case anyone else can ID them. Sergorn says the third one is from Ultima… if the mushroom clouds are reused they’re probably from Strike Commander."Be careful — if you stop typing for long, there could be trouble brewing. It’s a terrorist attack of the software kind . . . explosions everywhere, blowing away your application and clearing the screen with the violent beauty of detonation after detonation. Whether they leave pitch black craters, smoke or no trace at all is your own decision to make from the safety of your console."
Wing Commander: Armada is a spinoff of the Wing Commander series with music composed by "Midian" (Marc Schaefgen, Dana Glover). Recorded from two Roland SC-55mkII units in a split-channel configuration. If anyone can help us identify the two unknown tracks, we'd greatly appreciate it.00:00 - Introduction, Main Menu
01:24 - Gauntlet Mode
03:52 - Confederation: Cruising
05:19 - Confederation: Regular Combat
06:09 - Confederation: Intense Combat
07:04 - Confederation: Target Destroyed
07:08 - Confederation: Victory
07:41 - Confederation: Death
08:14 - Confederation: Unknown
09:11 - Kilrathi: Cruising
10:55 - Kilrathi: Regular Combat
11:30 - Kilrathi: Intense Combat
12:01 - Kilrathi: Target Destroyed
12:06 - Kilrathi: Victory
12:37 - Kilrathi: Death
13:28 - Kilrathi: Unknown
14:52 - Multiplayer Setup
16:06 - Armada/Campaign Mode
18:29 - Your Carrier Destroyed
18:59 - Opponent's Carrier Destroyed
19:30 - Credits
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