Well this is a blast (titter) from the past and no mistake. Thank you for posting the review and commenting on it. For reasons best known to myself, I was Goggling to try to find if someone had scanned an edition of PC Gamer with my review of Hudson FBI and then happen-chanced upon this thread.
It's brought back many happy memories of that time. In 1996 my day job was editor of .net, a magazine about the Internet ("Look! Web sites! Usenet!"). Before that I had been staff writer and games editor on PC Format magazine for 3 years so had played a lot of PC games, Wing Commanders, Strike Commander, Privateer and LucasArts games included.
As I alluded at the end of that review, I was hugely fortunate to be one of a handful of UK journalists to be taken by EA/Origin to the film set of Wing Commander III in Van Nuys, LA (not quite Hollywood). I remember meeting Mark Hamill in his trailer - he was watching Dark Knight cartoons, he voiced The Joker. He was very friendly and signed 3 Star Wars comics I had bought for me and my 2 sons: "To a Jedi of the Future..." Wonderful.
Then we flew to Austin to meet Chris Roberts and the programming team. After work we went to "a bar" for "a drink" and I found myself in my first lap-dancing club, age 23 (ish). Yikes.
That was the trip that led to this Wing Commander 3 preview in PC Format in July 1994:
http://www.pixsoriginadventures.co.uk/wing-commander-3-preview-pc-format/
The quote at the end of that Wing Commander 3 preview is the one I repeated at the end of the Wing Commander 4 review in PC Gamer.
I'm not and wasn't a Wingnut but I had a lot of fun playing the Wing Commander games over the years - really enjoyed them and have some shrink-wrapped editions in my attic.
Time has obviously dulled the memories but I think my objection was that even though the flying-and-shooting bits looked amazing they weren't as good *to play* as TIE Fighter. I don't think I'll ever convince you WingNuts of that, but it's one opinion among many. ;-)
The film bits, meanwhile, weren't as good as they were cracked up to be, despite the big (for its time) budget.
While Richard Garriott's comment didn't come true in the sense that a script would be for linear and interactive usage, it did in the sense that the quality of acting, direction and photography in videogames is now as good as you can see in film. The Telegraph has categories for best script, director and acting in its videogame awards:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/video-games/9759402/Telegraph-video-game-awards-2012.html
I don't think LucasArts were chasing Origin. Lawrence Holland had already had success with flight sims like Battlehawks and Their Finest Hour before WC I was released. Then they had Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe, so it was a natural progression to make fly-and-shoot games in the Star Wars universe.
As for the score - yes, 50% was a strict average for PC Gamer UK edition. PC Gamer US was a totally independent beast even though it was published by the US division of the same company.
And check out that price tag - £60 in 1996 money!
Anyway, enough ramblings... thank you for prompting the memories albeit 6 months after you finished this thread.
But then, you know what they say about eternal vigilance...
Richard