WC 3do ports-Is the joystick really needed?

JKM

Rear Admiral
On another forum I frequent there was a thread started about the 3do, and it made me interested enough to finally go on ebay and buy one. Naturally, I also picked up a copy of the Wing Commander 3 port, and will probably get Super Wing Commander when I get done with 3. I haven't played 3 in years (my PC hates part 3, and my PSX disc 1 is scratched up) so I'm pretty excited to finally revisit it.

One question. Obviously, any WC game is better with the joystick than the game pad, but the 3do's flight stick is pretty expensive and hard to find. How do these games play on the regular control pad? Do they play okay or will I be cursing as I miss shots? Sorry if this has been covered before, but the search feature can't search for "3do" since it's too short.
 
If you only ever have a gamepad for the 3DO versions you'll be fine--both were designed expecting most players would use them and the general experience is streets ahead of, say, WC1 on the standard SNES controller.

That said, the special support for the flight stick for WC3 (not SWC--it predated the stick) is *so good* that it absolutely blows you away how well it works once you get a chance to try it.
 
Thanks for this thread...i recently picked up WCIII 3do at a great price on ebay...i have had Super WC for the 3do for a long time but.....dont have a 3do system to play them...
it is interesting to know that both ports will work well with the game controller, at least i dont have to spring for the flight stick just yet....
i also was doing some research and found that emulators can play 3do games on a pc..but wasnt about to try my 3do disk in a dvd rom drive before playing on an actual 3do system....
 
I think I'll try it out with the pad first, then if I don't like it I'll pick up a stick. I just hate to spent $50 on a stick for one or two games, then have to find a place to store it. Besides, I played WC games for years in high school before I finally got a job and bought a real stick. Hopefully the 3do get here today...
 
Be sure to share your thoughts here about how you find the game, not as often we get to hear about the 'interesting' 3DO port.
 
Sure thing. It's been a while since I played WC3, but I have fairly strong memories of the PS1 and PC ports.

To answer my own question in the first post, a joystick is certainly not needed. Convenient and fun, yes, but not needed. I haven't had any trouble blasting small Kilrathi ships out of the skies like I would using a digital pad in the PC game. I'm still getting used to the controls since my copy didn't come with the quick reference card (it was supposed to be complete!)

The graphics seem like they have more detail, but run at a lower resolution than the PC version. The FMV looks considerably better than any other version, and the load times are nearly nonexistent. A huge step up from the PSX revision, which was agonizing at times.

The gameplay is fast and furious. I'm not very far in the game (Flash just landed on the Victory) but it seems very fast paced to me. Maybe it's because I'm at the beginning, but so far the game is extremely easy, I even killed a Vaktoth using an Arrow with no difficulty. If there was a difficulty setting I would turn it up.

I am missing some of the more detailed options, like pumping more juice into your shields and autosliding, which are absent. I'll reserve final judgement until I play some cap ship battles, but the 3do version might end up being my favorite.

Oh yeah, and in this game the Victory is HUGE! It actually seems larger than the Vesuvius in WC4.
 
I fell in love with the 3DO port during the first scramble mission... where instead of a few Kilrathi fighters the Victory is attacked by a whole Kilrathi armada that included destroyers!

Let us know how it's treating you a few weeks later! Everyone with a hole in their pocket who's missing Wing Commander should dig up a 3DO for these two unique games.
 
I've beaten it once, and I'm replaying it again. The 3do version is probably my favorite version of the game right now, the only bad thing is that you can't manually nuke Kilrah at the end. I also got a sweet deal on a Flightstick from ebay, so I'm playing with it now. I really wish that they had completed the 3do version of WC4.

I started to play some Super Wing Commander....then just went back to WC3 since it's more fun.
 
I really wish that they had completed the 3do version of WC4.

I wish I knew how far they'd gotten! I've been researching this and I still don't have a clue...

I've also heard that work was done on a Wing Commander 3 port for the M2 (the 3DO's ill-fated successor).
 
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