"I'm putting you back in the cockpit..." (May 8, 2010)

ChrisReid

ChrisReid

Super Soaker Collector / Administrator
"...where you’ll be reunited with an old friend: the thrill of battle." Highball is in the process of replaying the entire Wing Commander series, and he's chronicling each game as he goes. The sense of rediscovery that he conveys makes this a good read, and there's lots of nice screenshot to accompany the recollections. Most of the Wing Commander series is still yet to be replayed, so more updates will follow. Visit his page here.





​

At the beginning of this year (2010.01), I decided that it was time to revisit a game that I greatly enjoyed during my youth, and have many fond memories of playing: Origin’s Wing Commander. With the advent of DosBox, all the games in the series were playable again, and I figured I’d fly a few missions for old time’s sake, think back nostalgically about what the game was like and what it meant to me then, and move on after a little while.

I played a few missions of the original Wing Commander, and found myself coming back time and time again to take the fight to the Kilrathi the way I used to back in the day. The game had the same effect on me at age 27 that it did at age 12: cool factor 50. What started out as something I figured I’d do for a lark turned into a cross-decade odyssey across gaming, seen through the Wing Commander series. Below, I hope to document my experience with the games as an adult versus how I remember them from my teenage years, and chronicle the moments I’ve had with the game since I picked it up again. Perhaps other Wing Commander fans (“Wingnuts”) will be interested in browsing these pages. Who knows? All screen caps are of actual screens from my computer, not pictures I pulled off of the internet.
Click to expand...


--
Original update published on May 8, 2010
 
Last edited by a moderator:
In the stable release of dosbox 0.73, Wc1 and wc2 still have timing issues leading to rapid or slow animations and rapid slowdown when you approach a ship or too much is going on in the screen. Of course you could change cycles on the fly, but it still is ungainly and make missions even harder. I suggest you take a look at the latest CVS they fixed a lot of the timing issues and Wc1 and 2 run better than ever!

http://www.emucr.com/search/label/DOSBox

Can't wait till 0.74, which is just around the corner that last news update said! :D
 
Quite coincidentally I'm playing WC1 and the SMs right now...for the first time actually. Rather fun really (well except for the rocks, I'm just cheating past those...getting better at avoiding them, though).
 
I'm doing the same thing, I discovered WC4 on the PSN store and played through it, and it made me want to replay the whole series. I'm up to the last mission of WC2 SO1 right now, but I can't quite beat it. I'm looking forward to WC3, as I haven't played it in 10 years since I couldn't figure out how to make it run on a more modern PC last time I tried it.
 
Trust me, the rocks hurt. I'm kind of taking a break from playing right now to write these pages, but soon I will be back in the cockpit for Wing Commander IV. However, the Secret Missions write up is done, and is live as of right now.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top