Wing Commander 4 Cracks the Sadistic Endings List
Wing Commander 4 has popped up on Cracked's list of "Most Sadistic 'Game Over' Scenes." The Price of Freedom is a really rich field to harvest for this subject. Panther's ending with the newbie pilots is all warm and fuzzy, but the second endgame with Hawk and the Black Lance could be considered quite a downer for pilots trying to fight the good fight - and that was a winning ending! On the losing side, Blair's dishonorable execution is also a punch in the gut, but Cracked chose the less common conclusion to profile here. They've highlighted the sequence back in the Nephele bar where Blair winds up if he gets too far off the losing track early in the game. Ouch, I'd forgotten just how mean Tolwyn was there! Click the thumbnail for the animated gifs they made or check out the full article here.
Mark Hamill has had a long and varied career, but he'll always be remembered for playing a single iconic role: an ordinary farm boy who grows up to be one of the greatest space fighter pilots the galaxy has ever seen. We are of course referring to Christopher Blair from the Wing Commander series.One of the selling points of Wing Commander IV was a storyline that branched based on your decisions, actions, and accomplishments. By this point in the franchise, Blair is already a bona fide hero to humanity, but continued failure to meet your objectives leads to the worst fate a fighter pilot can suffer: a poor performance review from Malcolm McDowell.
That should be it. That's waaay more than enough humiliation for a simple "game over" screen. You've taken your lumps, and you're ready to jump right back into the game to- no? It's still going? Jesus, is this a tactical space fighter or a disappointed mother-in-law simulator?
The humiliation continues on, as the scene jumps to a desert bar on Blair's home planet. The bartender pours him a generous splash of space booze, and the utterly defeated Blair slumps into a drunken depression that surely ends with him placing the business end of a blaster in his mouth.
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