Origin Systems, Inc. made history when they shipped the original Wing Commander. On September 26, 1990, after ten months of development, the world's first interactive movie shipped to software stores and changed the world. At 5:00 PM CST on that day, during the release party outside Origin's old Wild Basin office, Richard Garriott announced that the game's creator, Chris Roberts, had been hired as Director of New Technologies.
The importance of the original Wing Commander can not ever be understated. For the industry it was a new way to make computer games, one that continues fully unabated today. For the fans - us fans - it was the most exciting adventure we ever experienced. Never before did a computer game offer such emotion and such interaction.
We have a lifetime of war stories from that simple computer game: we struggled to save the Ralari, we were thrilled to fly the new Rapiers and any wingnut worth his salt will chew your ear off about the time he lost both his guns and both his VDUs and still made it home in that Hornet, given the opportunity.
We loved the characters -- we followed Colonel Halcyon to hell, laughed at Maniac Marshall, had a not-so-subtle crush on Angel Devereaux and we hated the furballs for what they did to Iceman's family.
We pored over the blueprints and Joan's. We memorized Claw Marks. Show a Wing Commander fan a Scimitar or a Dralthi today, and he'll have true feelings about what flying them and fighting them were like.
Wing Commander was the greatest game ever made; it is entirely appropriate that to this day it has the greatest group of fans ever assembled.
