wc4 discussion while doing a playrhrough

Jdawg

Commodore
Im playing wc4 for the 100th time lol and figured to do some discussion each time I stopped. this first entry will cover the first two play sessions, it will include thoughts on missions characters story set design and atmosphere. Im playing the game on the default difficulty level, by the way I think wc4 is about twice as hard as wc3.

opening- this is my favorite opening to any wing commander game, it just draws you right into the action with seether, civilians, and the flash pack. the music is great the look of the ships and design are great, everything is top notch. this includes the senate committee hearing and how the camera zooms out to the bar where blair walks in. I love the look at the bar and the costumes its kind of shocking bc they probably spent a good amount of money to shoot that bar scene and its the only time we ever see that bar

missions- I have played in two sessions up to the first mission in the Orestes system. the hardest mission of the batch is tyr 1 and it is prob one of if not the hardest missions in the game much less the series, which is odd bc I think its like mission 3 or 4. The rest are somewhat difficult to pretty easy. for some reason on this playthrough every time I pick vagabond he would eject really quickly.

My choices- I chose to befriend catscratch and defect with Eisen right away, I think those are all the choices that really matter at the start of the game.

Story- I love the opening and I think the story of wc4 is a masterpiece and everyone gives great performances, seriously this probably has the best cast ever assembled for a video game. My only problem is I always felt the start of the story was a little rushed, you are reunited with Eisen and within like 8 mission he is defecting. I know the game had a huge budget but I wish the pace of the story would have been slowed just a little there.

Set design- I think wc4 set design is near perfect from the senate floor to the bar, to the lexington. The lexington just looks like a first class carrier, from the hallways to the lounge, and especially captain eisen's cabin. that looks like something on a cruise ship. Compare that to what you see on the intrepid and is night and day, the design really helps set the mood.

closing comments- I have always said wc4 is my favorite of the series and that still holds true but it does have some problems all revolving around the gameplay to me. not being able to see your cockpit stinks, the missions are a little blah and the missile spamming is horrible, but it is still a lot of fun to fly and shoot, I just wish more time could have been spent on the game play. I know it was a quick turn around from wc3 to wc4
 
Back in the day, I always found the first part of the game kinda boring. The story really doesn't start moving until Paulsen relieves Eisen of command. There's a bunch of minor details in the background of the story going on that you don't find out about till later, but the missions just feel routine... After the intro, I just keep asking "when do we get to the real action..." but once the game gets going it really doesn't let up till the end.

The Tyr missions are really annoying, yeah. It's not so bad against the banshees in space, but that missile turret on the ground in each waypoint is awful. The faster you take it out, the better.
 
Back in the day, I always found the first part of the game kinda boring. The story really doesn't start moving until Paulsen relieves Eisen of command. There's a bunch of minor details in the background of the story going on that you don't find out about till later, but the missions just feel routine... After the intro, I just keep asking "when do we get to the real action..." but once the game gets going it really doesn't let up till the end.

The Tyr missions are really annoying, yeah. It's not so bad against the banshees in space, but that missile turret on the ground in each waypoint is awful. The faster you take it out, the better.


see I found the setup to be intriguing I just wish it was slowed a little it went for seeing captain eisen to he being a traitor quickly, but it does makes sense bc in the game world this whole conflict takes place within two weeks.

you know one thing that never made a whole lot of sense, tolwyn brings back blair to use as a figure to strike fear in the border worlds but when you blow up the lexington seether implies that Paulsen should have killed the captain along with blair, so was that tolwyns plan all along to assassinate blair or am I reading too much into dialogue there
 
I appreciate the beginning of WC4 more now, but mainly with the benefit that I already know what will play out so it's easier to pick up on the subtle hints of Tolwyn's manipulation of events... which kinda leads in nicely to your second point. I don't think Tolwyn intended for Blair to die. I think it's the opposite. Blair was the by-the-book pilot that was extremely loyal to Confed for decades despite being branded a traitor and despite his Pilgrim heritage. He didn't question orders, even when it was to destroy an entire homeworld. If anything, Tolwyn likely was hoping that his "rocky" history with blair would actually lend greater credibility to his plot when the great war hero would report back how borderworlds forces were harrassing 'innocent' confed transports and so on. Every mission in the early part of the game is framed to paint the Borderworlders as the bad guys to lend weight to Tolwyn's position. Would Blair have been any the wiser if it weren't for Eisen? Seether's comments were more likely said in hindsight, rather than any indication of a greater plan to do away with Blair.
 
I appreciate the beginning of WC4 more now, but mainly with the benefit that I already know what will play out so it's easier to pick up on the subtle hints of Tolwyn's manipulation of events... which kinda leads in nicely to your second point. I don't think Tolwyn intended for Blair to die. I think it's the opposite. Blair was the by-the-book pilot that was extremely loyal to Confed for decades despite being branded a traitor and despite his Pilgrim heritage. He didn't question orders, even when it was to destroy an entire homeworld. If anything, Tolwyn likely was hoping that his "rocky" history with blair would actually lend greater credibility to his plot when the great war hero would report back how borderworlds forces were harrassing 'innocent' confed transports and so on. Every mission in the early part of the game is framed to paint the Borderworlders as the bad guys to lend weight to Tolwyn's position. Would Blair have been any the wiser if it weren't for Eisen? Seether's comments were more likely said in hindsight, rather than any indication of a greater plan to do away with Blair.


or tolwyn being the evil genius that he is was trying to kill two birds with one stone, he obviously already knew eisen was receiving and feeding information to the border worlds, so it was his chance to sniff out eisen and to test blair's loyalty at the same time, if blair is loyal great, confed still has their war hero and eisen is captured or dead, if blair defects than thats fine too bc it shows how far the border worlds will go and they even corrupt a war hero (also great for tolwyn's plan to start a war), and either way he is confident seether will clean up the mess lol. such nuisances in the dialogue and story
 
my playthrough today consisted of Orestes 1 thru Peleus 1.

New bug that I encountered on Orestes 1 the game would crash every time I got close to a cap missile, finally just ejected to pass the mission have not had a problem since. anyone else ever encountered this problem let me know. anyways

Story and characters- This is part of the story that really kicks things into gear. Vagabond dies you help out the kilrathi, you become the ships captain, and you meet Dekker. I remember how sad I was when vagabond died when I was a kid and it still saddens me. he was my fav wingman from wc3. Although as I have stated before I think the game didnt quite earn his death, he was a semi Mcguffin aka just a plot device to move the story, I wish they would have given him a tad more to do or placed his death farther into the game, at least he went out like a boss with two guns blazing. Eisen really is one of my favorite characters in wc, when he transfers control to blair it is pretty awesome and I salute him when he gets on the shuttle every time lol. One of the few characters in the game that I think could easily be cut is catscartch and not bc the actor is not good bc he is, but bc his story arc is a little tired and lame, although the little romance between him and sosa works and is adorable yes I said adorable lol. I love panther and hawk even though their true point of being game devices to the player is cliched (what I mean is hawk is the dark side panther is the light side to the players morale) I still love them mostly bc the actors do such an amazing job especially hawk, I really hated what happened to his character in wc prophecy and the actor did not do the best job with the material there, but then again the writing was horrible for prophecy. Finally Maniac this is where the writers ever so slightly start to give him some depth, is he still cocky sure, but you can tell vagabonds death does really bother him, but he tries to deal with it with a sense of humor. add what they did to his character in wing commander prophecy as another reason I hate the story of the game, they regressed his character to something worse than what he was in wc3.

design- like I said in my OP the design of the game is great, but the kilrathi is the one weak area, bc yes Melek looks pretty bad especially his paws, they look just like rubber gloves. although cant knock it too much he is in the game for like 3 missions and for the devs to not have some kilrathi in the game would be a crime after you just spent three games and their expansions fighting them. As I stated before I love the look of the Intrepid bc it looks like a half blown to bits carrier, the mood is really set in the new berths with pilots and marines sleeping on the ground and on boxes

Missions and gameplay- the missions all together are pretty easy here and the designs are too they mostly consist of go to each nav pt. and destroy all baddies, the game does throw in like two transport mission. At least in the Peleus system they throw some wrinkles into the mix by adding the ship jammer

random thoughts- I always thought it was strange the game gave you an option to hold off bringing Melek to the star base bc the enemy never shows up until you do lol, so whats the pt of giving us this option. Does anybody else think Manaic got it on with that female Helmsman its one of the few times it looks like his "flirting" is paying off just a great little scene.

thats it till my next play session
 
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A few opinions about characters:

Hawk: Liked him a lot in WC4 and Prophecy, only at the end the character's behaviour was regrettable but before that point (let's say it was a device to test Casey) he was always professional and very likeable, his bitterness all too understandable. An honourable, trustworthy veteran pilot.

Panther: Like Hawk a reputable veteran. Different opinions only on issues where it's really close to 50:50, not SO much difference anyway.

Catscratch: I don't like him. There was a small discussion about Flash (WC3) a few days ag here; Catscratch is another type of rookie coming to the action. I like Flash more than Catscratch, he's a douchebag but his attitude is much more professional. Pilots do have expensive training, they are professionals, a lot of people trust in their abilities. If one of them is afraid and doubts his own abilities, he should at least not show it to others if at all possible, or wait until after the battle situation.

Maniac: The Tom Wilson Maniac wasn't as bad as many think in my book.... Reckless pilot, very big mouth yes. But he certainly had his qualities as a pilot. One of the best wingmen IF he does what he's told, he went to Kilrah with Blair (don't know if that's canon), he had the right gut-feeling about the Border Worlds crisis and defected with Eisen and he did his best to be a good leader in Prophecy. So give the poor man a break, he's certainly one of the greatest heroes in the Confederation.

Vagabond: He just rocks, nuff said.
 
it's also two different type of pilots though flash was still coming into a war and cat scratch was coming into it after the war was supposedly over. plus I always took it as flash had a little more experience under his belt.Blair even says catscratch is basically right off the training academy graduation. also within Days of boarding the Lexington he betrays confed he joins the border worlds that's gotta be tough.

as far as maniac in Wing Commander 3 he was funny but mostly an asshole in wc 4 he was great and the writers added some depth to his character but then in prophecy the writers just sucked and they reduced his character to nothing more than a cliche and it was terrible.


if y'all can't tell I hate prophecy and not because of the game play because the gameplay is pretty awesome and tight but I thought the story was cliched the writing was horrible and the actors either could not act or the writing was so bad it couldn't be saved. I think it's a mixture of the actors cannot act and the veterans of Wing Commander did not care or just did not take it seriously like they did wc3 and wc4
 
I honestly don't think anyone in confed knew for certain that Eisen was a spy. They just knew he wasn't friendly to the Black Lance scheme, and that he was poking around. And at the time Lexington was key to their scheme so they needed a Black Lance ally commanding her.
 
I honestly don't think anyone in confed knew for certain that Eisen was a spy. They just knew he wasn't friendly to the Black Lance scheme, and that he was poking around. And at the time Lexington was key to their scheme so they needed a Black Lance ally commanding her.
I disagree Im pretty sure tolwyn had a good idea that he was a spy, which is why eisen in uneasy from the start of the game, like I said he is removed from command quite early in the game, so they had more than just a hunch
 
today's play session consisted of peleus 1 to the start of Ella. I chose to go to sperador this time bc I never got the new fighters the bearcats

story- this is where the story of wc4 starts to take a lot of twist and turns, you capture Tolwyn, get to choose where to send the intrepid and finally find out who is behind it all which is tolwyn, plus you get to choose rather catscratch lives or dies. I love this part of the story, my only very slight problem here is the pacing of it, I feel this is part of the story where things speed up rapidly until the end. all you have to do is look at the missions in each system from telamon on you basically only have one mission in each system. After capturing tolwyn I wish we could have kept him prisoner for a couple of more missions. I feel like that was just a little rushed, it was literally he is our prisoner to manaic let him go before the next mission. But when Tolwyn was reveled to be the traitor I was shocked as a kid my jaw dropped, just an epic scene as a kid and still an epic scene, I loved all of it lol.

characters- I feel like the writers continue to give manaic some small growth even though half the crew has a problem with him from panther, to hawk, to dekker. like I said he felt bad about vagabond, he seems to feel bad about letting tolwyn go, and finally he feels bad about the catscratch situation. In my playthrough I saved catscratch mostly bc sosa wanted me to, I felt like saving him was a minor let down bc you never see him in the game after that at all. It would have been nice to have seen one more scene with sosa and catscratch. Speaking of Sosa I love her, she is m fav comm officer ever. she is pretty cute and sweet and the actress does a great job with her. after the bio weapons attack she does a great job acting out that scene with hamill. Yon know something I never noticed before......... it is shocking with how much screen time Pliers gets, after boarding the intrepid he is in almost scene it seems.

missions and gameplay- Once again the missions are pretty easy here and the Sperador missions are def easier than the Circe system missions. I love the bearcats, such cool ships too bad you dont get to fly them much in the game. Like I said before the thing that keeps wc4 from being a perfect game to me is the gameplay just too much of the same mission type and too much missile spamming of the enemies, especially from the dragons. Choosing what type of missions to go on in this part of the story does help raise the gameplay. I remember when I was a kid, I never saw a game that let you decide what type of missions you wanted to do, plus it was the first time in wing commander that you were able to choose where to fight, just very cool.

Design- The design is still top notch, the only small gripe I have is the starbase it is pretty obvious they are using the lexington carrier and just turned off the lights lol, and the guards with the motorcycle helmets do look a little lame but at least they can shoot a little. on the plus side I loved the battle cutscene to open the Peleus system missions, and I love the design of the bearcats and the dragons, I think overall the ship designs are better in wc4 than wc3 even though the Excalibur or the rapier are my fav ship designs from the entire series.

closing comments- I still love this game and it is EPIC. I found a small blooper in the game though, after returning from the starbase blair talks to pliers about the flashpack, well it shows pliers leaving the scene and climbing a ladder, except he only climbs two rungs and comes back down bc he thinks the camera already panned away lol, nothing big but I thought it was funny. well thats it till next time.
 
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I disagree Im pretty sure tolwyn had a good idea that he was a spy, which is why eisen in uneasy from the start of the game, like I said he is removed from command quite early in the game, so they had more than just a hunch

The novelization talks about it. The conspiracy arranged for Eisen being assigned to command Lexington before trying to recruit him. After the recruitment failed they needed someone to replace him because it was vital that Lexington be captained by one of their allies. They had assumed from his war record that he would support their cause.
 
The novelization talks about it. The conspiracy arranged for Eisen being assigned to command Lexington before trying to recruit him. After the recruitment failed they needed someone to replace him because it was vital that Lexington be captained by one of their allies. They had assumed from his war record that he would support their cause.
that may be true in the novel I never read it, all im saying is as far as the game goes, the dialogue speaks clearly that eisen is already paranoid in the first conversation with blair when blair says " looks like confed has been taking care of you" eisen says "yes confed has been taking care of me" he said it very sarcastically and that is blair's first conversation with him in wc4
 
I beat the game tonight and write my final thoughts tomorrow or Thursday, gog now keeps track of playing time and it says I beat the game in 5 hrs, wc4 feels a lot longer than that I guess bc it is just so epic
 
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