Category:Privateer: Righteous Fire

Privateer: Righteous Fire
Expansion for	Wing Commander: Privateer
Platform	MS-DOS
Engine	Origin FX
Release Date	February 24, 1994 December 20, 2012 (GOG)
Language	English

Privateer: Righteous Fire is an expansion for Wing Commander Privateer. It was released on February 24, 1994.

Description

Privateer Righteous Fire

Welcome Back to the Edge of the Unknown

So you think you're a hotshot pilot. A clever entrepreneur. A notorious pirate. You've destroyed the Steltek Drone, secured the alien artifact, and outfought and outsmarted everyone in your way. Now, you're taking a well-deserved break on one of Gemini's pleasure worlds. But relaxation will soon be the last thing on your mind...

In Righteous Fire, you're once again transported to the seamy side of the universe, where you discover a fiendish plot that threatens the order and prosperity of Gemini Sector. Whether you're a merchant, pirate or mercenary, plenty of action awaits if you're willing to risk all you earned in Privateer.

• Extend the career of your original Privateer character and ship as you undertake new money-making journeys through Gemini Sector!
• Engage in higher-profit trade ventures as you barter and scrimp to equip your ship with new hardware.
• Decide your own course of action and choose among multiple fixers. If you find a better offer elsewhere, take it!
• Unveil a startling discovery in Gemini Sector as you find out why law and order are dissolving into chaos.

NOT A COMPLETE GAME. You must own Privateer to play Righteous Fire.

System Requirements

REQUIRES: PRIVATEER GAME, Additional 4+MB on hard disk (in addition to that required for Privateer)

MS-DOS: 386DX/33Mhz+, Intel 486™ or 100% compatible PC system

SUPPORTS: DOS 6.0 with DoubleSpace

OPTIMAL: 486/25MHz+, 1 meg video card, joystick and sound board

Packaging

United States

Box Contents

• (2) 3.5" HD diskettes
• Privateer: Righteous Fire Installation Guide

Europe

Spain

Versions

There are two versions of Righteous Fire: the original diskette release and then an updated version included with Wing Commander Privateer CD-ROM.

Differences

• The CD-ROM version has recorded speech for all dialogue. In-flight speech included in the original Wing Commander Privateer Speech Accessory Pack is also replaced with new recordings.
• The armament of the Elite Salthi and Mordecai Jones' Centurion are changed. The CD-ROM replaces the Steltek Guns with Fusion Cannons.

Strategy Guides

There is no official guide which covers Righteous Fire.

Screenshots

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Music

Cutscenes

Ships

Righteous Fire adds two ships to the game.

Missions

Righteous Fire's campaign consists of 26 missions. It can be started by talking to Tayla at Oakham, Lynn Murphy at Edom, Sandra Goodin at Perry Naval Base or E. Masterson at the Oxford. The player must fly two out of three of the serieses from Tayla, Murphy and Goodin before they are able to progress past Masterson's missions.

Components

Righteous Fire adds eleven new upgrades to the game.

Universe

Characters

Other

Credits

Role	Name	Source
Production
Producer	Warren Spector	Game, Documentation
Development
Project Leader	Arthur DiBianca	Game, Documentation
Game Concept	Phil Wattenbarger	Game, Documentation
Programming	Arthur DiBianca	Game, Documentation
Design	Tom Kassebaum	Game, Documentation
	Phil Wattenbarger	Game, Documentation
Conversations	Arthur DiBianca	Game, Documentation
	Phil Wattenbarger	Game, Documentation
Art	Melinda Bordelon	Game, Documentation
	Alan Perez	Game, Documentation
	Brian Smith	Game, Documentation
Music	Barry Leitch	Game, Documentation
Quality Assurance
Quality Assurance Leader	Dan Orzulak	Game, Documentation
Quality Assurance Team	Charles Angel	Game, Documentation
	Jerrold Harrington	Game, Documentation
	Kevin Kushner	Game, Documentation
Packaging
Graphic Design	Trey Hermann	Documentation
Documentation	Arthur DiBianca	Documentation
	Tuesday Frase	Documentation
	Melissa Mead	Documentation
Thanks
Special Thanks	Ed Maurer	Game, Documentation

Fan Mods

• Test mission for Privateer / Righteous Fire

Behind the Screens

Point of Origin

February 15, 1994 - Vol. IV, No. 53

• Fiscal Fitness: "Righteous Fire, originally scheduled to ship this week, will have to hold until next Wednesday (2/23) due to a translation snag in the UK."

May 6, 1994 - Vol. IV, No. 55

• Pulse Check: "In fact, U8 came in at #2 on Software Etc's March sales charts, following SimCity 2000. On the same chart, Righteous Fire clocked in at #5."

July 15, 1994 - Vol. IV, No. 57

• In Ink:"Even Righteous Fire is getting in on the act. Al Giovetti writes in Electronic Entertainment, 'A fast-paced trading, combat, pirating space-opera game enhanced by an absorbing plot, involving music and captivating sound effects. The result: pure fun.'"

Packaging Design

These digital components and iterations of the Righteous Fire box art were recovered from the Origin files at EA Mythic.

Typefaces

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Logo

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Jerry Pournelle

In the December 1998 edition of Computing at Chaos Manor, Jerry Pournelle singled out Righteous Fire as "the single most enjoyable action game [he had] ever played."

Early on there was a spinoff game called Privateer which used the original Wing Commander engine and some of the original ships, but had a free form universe you could explore until you stumbled across the story line. That was followed by an ad-on scenario called "Righteous Fire" that was the single most enjoyable action game I have ever played. I loved Privateer and Righteous Fire... I still wish they’d simply publish the specs for writing ad on scenarios to the original Privateer, though. If they want to improve the graphics levels, fine, but in fact that was about good enough; and it sure was fun. I can think of a number of stories I could write in that universe.

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Press

Reviews

Publication	Issue	Pages	Score
APC	July 1994	237-238	None
ComClub	April 1994	35	4+/5
Computer Gaming World	May 1994	25	None
Electronic Entertainment	July 1994	91	3/5
Game Bytes	Issue 19	n/a	None
Hyper	July 1994	66	82/100
HiScore Professionel	May 1994	36-37	85/100
Joystick	April 1994	98	None
Micromania	April 1994	28	90/100
OK PC	April 1994	60-61	90/100
PC Action	April 1994	55	68/100
PC Review	May 1994	76	5/10
PC Games N	May 1994	114-115	80/100
PC Zone	May 1994	46	80/100
Pelit	March 1994	16	76/100
Play Time	May 1994	52	90/100

APC

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ComClub (Finnish)

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Computer Gaming World

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Electronic Entertainment

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Game Bytes

RIGHTEOUS FIRE from Origin.

Reviewed by Nigel Slater

          Computer     Graphics      Memory        Disk Space
Minimum:   386/33      256 VGA       4MB              5MB
Max/Rec:   486/25      1MB SVGA
Control:   Joystick, Keyboard, Mouse.
  Sound:  Music  = Adlib, Soundblaster, PAS, MIDI
          Speech = Soundblaster, PAS
  Notes: Supports DOS 6.0 doublespace. Must own PRIVATEER.

Reviewed version 1.0 on: 486/66, 8MB RAM, SB, TMFCSPro.

With an enormous silence, Origin released RIGHTEOUS FIRE (RF). This is the much unexpected follow-up to their popular PRIVATEER game, which is itself the latest iteration of the venerable WING COMMANDER (WC) series. Although a follow up product to the game is obvious in hindsight, especially given the expansion disks that the WC games produced, there was hardly any publicity about this product - which is a shame, as there is plenty here for fans of the parent game.

For those not in the know, a brief precis on Privateer follows: the player is cast in the role of a space-faring adventurer. On planets, the character buys and sells goods, takes on missions, and talks to various characters that show up from time to time. In space, you occupy the cockpit and try to avoid getting blown up by your enemies while getting to your next destination. Opposition is in the form of Militia, Federal Navy, Pirates, Retros (religious Luddites in space), bounty hunters, and the big kittys - the Kilrathi. There is a strictly linear plot, revealed in three to four mission episodes, that the player is encouraged to follow and "solve" although there is plenty of fun to be had in just flying around and performing the randomised missions. The game is not quite as free-form as it was advertised to be, but is still entertaining as long as you liked the basic mechanics behind the WC series.

RF adds quite a bit to the original package. You do get to retain all that you had gained in the first game...except for the alien gun, which gets stolen in the opening introductory animation sequence. The initial mission is to try and get it back, which leads on to others and so on. There were no patches released for the original game, and the modifications introduced by RF are more "nice to haves" than necessary, and are not retroactive - i.e., they don't change the original Privateer game.

There are three areas of change:

1) Kill breakdown: you can now see how many of the various types of factions' ships that you have knocked off. This also shows your current relationship to these factions. This is a great boon in trying to figure out how to restore friendly relations with some factions, as this is based on kill ratios that you have run up of one faction vs. another.

2) Ship enhancements: Seven enhancements for each major ship component except scanners. Some have very subtle or hard to detect changes, while others are really clear - like better shields and armour. These all cost but for those who have run up the bank accoutn in the original, these are all immediatly available.

3) Keyboard: there are now keys for increasing shield level step by step instead of having to wipe out your shields and then select highest setting to step backwards. There is also a key for setting throttle to maximum instead of having to hit the + key repeatedly.

Fine. Now what was that about plot again? Origin probably listened to the complaints about a lack of freedom to manouver in the game galaxy, and decided to produce a multi-thread parallel plot. There is still a start and end point, but at the beginning, there are several multi-mission episodes that can be done in any order. You still have to finish all the missions in one episode before starting another, but at least you can choose which order to do them in. Once past the plot mid-point though, and the epsiodes come in strict order again.

The main enemy this time are the retros - this isn't giving anything away, it becomes clear pretty quickly after a couple of conversations with the entertaining series of bar-tenders. There is also a new ship type - not particularily effective - that appears irregularily. Finding the people to start the episodes is not obvious - you actually have to go looking for them. Trying all the main haunts from the first game is a good start but not guarenteed. Taking the missions offered by the mechants, mercenaries and mission computers will take you there eventually - just remember to keep checking the bars.

The problems in basic game design present in the parent still remain. There is something definetly fishy about the Origin joystick routines. Many players complained about the difficulty of particular missions, and the enemy ship AI can reduce the player to just holding down the trigger button and attempting to ram - a not ineffective tactic, and how I finished the final mission. However, the image of oars and a brass prow is not what I expected to be using my totally kitted-out Centurion for.

Bottom line - I payed for it, I played it and I enjoyed it. You get a feeling of accomplishment each time you complete an episode. The dialog is still hopelessly wooden and repetitive - but you end up blowing away most of the annoying ones so there is some satisfaction in that. Finishing it was tinged with relief, I have to admit, but I would still buy the next add-in if there is one. This is not going to change your opinion one way or the other about the system. If you liked the forebears, you'll like the progeny.

This review is Copyright (C) 1994 by Nigel Slater for Game Bytes Magazine. All rights reserved.

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Hyper

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Joystick (French)

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HiScore Professionel (Danish)

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Micromania (Spanish)

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OK PC (Spanish)

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PC Action

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PC Review

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PC Games N (German)

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PC Zone

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Pelit (Finnish)

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Play Time (German)

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Guides

Play Time

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