Super Wing Commander

Raul2106 said:
It's a shame Wing Commander IV never made it to the 3D0 I heard it was in development when 3D0 stopped making games.
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That's correct - I have never been able to figure out how far it got into development, though, because nobody seems to remember the 3DO (the producer thought I was talking about the PSX ports when I asked...).

There was also work done on an M2 port of Wing Commander 3, which would also be very interesting.
 
An M2 version of Wing Commander III probably would have consisted of better graphics and higher quality video. One can only imagine what that would have been. Wing Commander IV was the 3D0 game I was most looking forward to after having played through Super Wing Commander and Wing Commander III. LOAF was Super Wing Commander II ever in development? I'm curious to see what a remastered Wing Commander Saga would look like on today's consoles XBOX360 & PS3. All the video done in 1080p and the gameplay updated with new graphics and the like.
 
I'm playing an ongoing game of SWC using a G3 Mac PowerBook (Pismo). I use the cheat (shift-4 -> SWCBuster -> Enter and then click the on buttons to off and vice versa) to see how high I can get with my score. Now at 4780 KIL for 392 SOR on the board. FUN NEVER ENDS!!! Lose Mariko early on and can't recover her without losing the ongoing score. Hopping back and forth through the missions to maximize fun and score. BTW here is the full cheat for that game on Mac OS7-9:

Cheat Dialog
1 Type a "$" (dollar sign) at any point during the game. This brings up a password dialog.

2 Type "SWCBuster". This brings a further cheat dialog. Case sensitive.

3 The option have these meanings:

"Bangable" unchecked disables all collision damage (including those pesky asteroids and mines)

"Killable" unchecked makes you invulnerable

"Finger of Death" checked enables you to kill any targeted ip by pressing "s". This works only on the enemy.

"Pickable" checked lets you pick any mission or campaign in the game by cycling through the options in the rec room using the TAB or LEFT/RIGHT ARROW keys until Pick Mission or Pick Campaign comes up, and then using ENTER to select it. Missions and campaigns are numbered more or less in order of appearance and can be rotated through using the LEFT/RIGHT and UP/DOWN ARROW KEYS.
 
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I was very lucky to find an old Mac cheap (one I coveted when it came out but that was too expensive then - still great!) and dust off my CD from the 90s. After hitting 500 missions and about 8000 kills I also realized I didn't have to lose Spirit if I used the mission selector carefully. Right now I'm going for all the medals and then will try to build up my score again while keeping everyone alive. That said, one of the best Easter eggs in this game is the ghost visitations at the end of the game by all shipmates who've been killed during the game. For that reason, it's worth playing through once ensuring all your wingmen get killed by stopping beside a capship, station, etc. so you don't actually shoot them yourself. Then watch the incredible seance sequence at the end of the final campaign.
 
BTW if you're having trouble selecting a Campaign or Mission in the rec room, move your mouse cursor to the top center of the screen. If it has any of the options selected it will revert to those instead of cycling through the list to the Campaign and Mission selectors.
 
Raul2106 said:
The voice acting for Super Wing Commander wasn't bad. The Sega CD version of Wing Commander would have been ok if they didn't change the music too much from the PC version.
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I can still here the lines from this as if it was my favorite movie.
 
One more addendum to the cheats section. The game only allows eight saves at a time. But by finding the prefs file and archiving these with accurate labels, you can go back to any game you might have saved in the past. Not practical for hundreds of games, but great for the few perfect score setups and situations (all wingmen dead, no wingmen dead, etc.).
 
A year ago I sent my old SWC cd out to be resurfaced because it didn't really survive my childhood. When I got it back, it worked but didn't behave well in classic mode on the G5. So I put it away until later.

Anyway, I finally dusted off my old beige G3 from almost 20 years ago (You wouldn't believe what 20 years of dust look like!). I had to reinstall the OS as it ran slow and was having all sorts of graphics issues with SWC (I blame some version of QuickTime that was on it). But once I did, BAM ran like a charm! I even got my old Gravis Mousestick II running! That thing refuses to die (Testament to just how awesome the Gravis company was). My G3 must have been on the slow end because I didn't even need to use the CPU throttle plugin. I even had to raise the memory to the 7000-8000k range to get it running just right in Large Screen mode. I then turned the monitor resolution down to 640x480/256 colors and I was good to go. The game has weird centering issues if I use a higher resolution. That can be managed by respecifying the screen size each time, but this works better.
 
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I want a fucking emulator for this game so bad... Sheepshaver & Co just don't cut it. SWC is simply a brilliant game, plays and sounds great and provides hours of good fun.
 
I've been sitting on SWC for the MAC for I don't know how many years now but never had the luck to get a suitable MAC. SWC eludes me...
 
Luck? keep an eye on eBay, very often you can land yourself an old mac very cheaply. If not a G3, then one of the old Performa's will do the trick nicely.
 
Thanks for the model hint. Still, a quick ebay a few days ago search didn't reveal really cheap MACs:the only one below 100 € was one without a harddrive...
 
Maybe this? IDK maybe too weak. I would stick with OS7 on this thing.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-App...066927?hash=item58e0687fef:g:AywAAOSwrnNXP2C3

It would also need a monitor (If VGA then also an adapter from VGA to that apple monitor port), serial mouse, and serial keyboard. Maybe you're right, about $100 total.

And then you might want a joystick. I always loved my Gravis Mousestick II, it's lasted decades with no sign of wear, has great compatibility with all the mac games. We loved it so much we bought two of them for both our Macs and they both still work! But it is a simple joystick with only 5 buttons. I'd understand if you were to look for its far superior sibling the Gravis Firebird, or some other ADB joystick.

[EDIT] Regarding the monitor adapter, it looks like a normal density 15 pin male end, almost like a joystick port on a dos machine, to a high density 15 pin VGA port female end.
 
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Thanks again but I should have pointed out that I live in Germany and thus use the German ebay - the offers there seem quite a bit more pricey. And buying from the US site is not very appealing with the shipping costs (80 US-$ in the auction you linked) alone (if they ship to Germany at all).
 
The 6300 should be fine for Super Wing Commander, but I'd recommend going just a tough farther to guarantee it plays Wing Commander III and IV well. I went with a PowerMac 7300, and I've been very happy with the choice!

For the joystick: Thrustmaster produced ADB (Macintosh) versions of their Flight Control System (FCS) 'stick and their Weapons Control System (WCS) throttle, and their Rudder Control System (RCS) worked on both Mac and PC!

Here's an old-Mac-to-VGA adapter; surprised they're still available new! https://www.amazon.com/C2G-Cables-02902-Female-Adapter/dp/B0002J1JAE/
 
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