What moments stand out most?

Uh, Dund, I think you meant "unforgettable" there.

I have yet to succeed to get in to Privateer. Maybe I should try harder. For me, though the first game I played was WC2 and I loved it, my most memorable moments are all Malcolm McDowell stealing the show in WC4. Not sure which I prefer most, but it's either the scene with Paladin just after Blair defects, or the let him go/don't choice with Blair on the Intrepid.

I just wish it was a choice that actually meant something, given how hard I found it to make.
 
Ilanin said:
Uh, Dund, I think you meant "unforgettable" there.
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Oh, I don't know, the visual effect wasn't that special :p.

But, there was something really, really great about the jumps in Privateer - namely, that you got to jump while enemies were still around, and sometimes this was the only way out of a bad situation. It was fantastic, making a run for the jump point. Then your jump drives take seemingly ages to power up (probably a grand total of about one second), you're sitting there wincing as your ship gets beaten up... and finally, you make the jump.

(...and then see a bunch of pirates on the other side - darn, darn, darn! :p )
 
Quarto said:
Oh, I don't know, the visual effect wasn't that special :p.

But, there was something really, really great about the jumps in Privateer - namely, that you got to jump while enemies were still around, and sometimes this was the only way out of a bad situation. It was fantastic, making a run for the jump point. Then your jump drives take seemingly ages to power up (probably a grand total of about one second), you're sitting there wincing as your ship gets beaten up... and finally, you make the jump.

(...and then see a bunch of pirates on the other side - darn, darn, darn! :p )
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Except when you don't make it and your debris drifts through the jump nexus :p
 
Yeah, I remember hearing that horrible sound of armour getting blown to bits as I waited for the jump to start! Fortunately it didn't happen that often, but it didn't happen when under-equipped or still on the Tarsus.
 
Quarto said:
Oh, I don't know, the visual effect wasn't that special :p.

But, there was something really, really great about the jumps in Privateer - namely, that you got to jump while enemies were still around, and sometimes this was the only way out of a bad situation. It was fantastic, making a run for the jump point. Then your jump drives take seemingly ages to power up (probably a grand total of about one second), you're sitting there wincing as your ship gets beaten up... and finally, you make the jump.

(...and then see a bunch of pirates on the other side - darn, darn, darn! :p )
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Oooh, yeah, almost as nerve-wracking as the torpedo runs in Wing Commander 2.
 
For me, it has to be playing the original Wing Commander with my friend, Joe, when we'd spend the night at his house or when he'd spend the night at mine. Usually, my dad would be out of town for the weekend, and Joe would come over to keep me company. We'd play Wing Commander until the wee hours, trying to beat each other's train sim scores and drinking Mountain Dew.

Wing Commander has always been a series of memories for me. I don't know if I can pick a defining moment in the series that sticks out at me as being the best moment ever. As fun as Wing Commander was, I remember when I got a used copy of Wing Commander 2 for my birthday, and Joe's mom bought us a pizza, and we stayed up all night playing it at my house. We flew the missions over and over, seeing who could do better, which taunts got the cats to talk, etc.

The apex of my Wing Commander experience was probably Heart of the Tiger. The graphics and movie feel of the game blew us away. Plus, it was Luke Skywalker! Biff Tannen! Prof. Arturo/Sallah! We were in awe. Flying the new ships, graphics heads and shoulders above what we were used to from the previous installments of the game ... and oh, the Excalibur. Wow. That was the summit, right there, Wing Commander 3. Wing 4 just wasn't as exciting for us, what with the cats out of the picture, threat wise. It wasn't as fun blowing up humans as it was taking out cats. When you whacked one of those furballs, you felt like a patriot. He got The Price of Freedom for Christmas one year, and we just couldn't get into it the same way.

Maybe we had grown up too much. Who knows? We never played Privateer or Wing Commander Academy. Perhaps we should've, but our cone of vision was pretty limited then. We played Wing Commander for all it was worth, Secret Missions, Special Operations, etc. That was a great time to be a kid.
 
Highball said:
The apex of my Wing Commander experience was probably Heart of the Tiger. The graphics and movie feel of the game blew us away. Plus, it was Luke Skywalker! Biff Tannen! Prof. Arturo/Sallah!
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Yeah it was great huh? The Victory was a plethora of unusual talent. You had a an angry yet over indulgent trial judge as the captain, a Jedi as the Wing Commander, Biff Tanen as one of the top aces, a leading member of the Children of the Corn as the Radio officer, and a porn star as your chief tech.
 
frostytheplebe said:
Yeah it was great huh? The Victory was a plethora of unusual talent. You had a an angry yet over indulgent trial judge as the captain, a Jedi as the Wing Commander, Biff Tanen as one of the top aces, a leading member of the Children of the Corn as the Radio officer, and a porn star as your chief tech.
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Not to mention Caligula* in overall command of the fleet and Gimli in charge of Covert Ops.

And you know...despite all that talent, sometimes I still think the best actual performance came from Jennifer McDowell...though that could just be having better lines.

*I could have picked several better-known roles out, but this one makes for a better sentence.
 
It comes back for me every time I fire the game(s) up. Privateer is especially a joy to come back to after a while. Try it and see.
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It's not that I don't play Privateer anymore. I do.. The problem is.. I know the Gemini sector like the back of my paw :)

The first time was amazing.. I had no idea where to go, what upgrades are worth buying, I even didn't know that I would need the maps of Gemini!

I've finished Privateer more than 5 times (including RF). When I start playing it I exacly know what to do, where to go, etc. The first time was magical though.
 
frostytheplebe said:
Yeah it was great huh? The Victory was a plethora of unusual talent. You had a an angry yet over indulgent trial judge as the captain, a Jedi as the Wing Commander, Biff Tanen as one of the top aces, a leading member of the Children of the Corn as the Radio officer, and a porn star as your chief tech.
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Don't forget that the apparent 3rd in command of the Kilrathi Empire was either a mad scientist, Wadsworth the butler, or Cardinal Richelieu!
 
frostytheplebe said:
Yeah it was great huh? The Victory was a plethora of unusual talent. You had a an angry yet over indulgent trial judge as the captain, a Jedi as the Wing Commander, Biff Tanen as one of the top aces, a leading member of the Children of the Corn as the Radio officer, and a porn star as your chief tech.
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You know what's funny? I never knew she was a porn actress until about a week ago. I wouldn't have even known if it weren't for the Wing Commander wiki highlighting her name. I thought: "Oh, I had a crush on Rachel something fierce. Her name is highlighted, so she must be somebody. Wonder who it is?" *click* "PORN!? I wonder if Mark Hamill knew that when he kissed her?" That was the weirdest thing to find out about that game, and I am kind of glad I didn't know that as a teenager! ~~~!

It was a trip seeing Liar Liar and going: "Hey, that's Capt. Eisen!" I almost wanted to salute in the theater. It's funny, if I were to meet John Rhys-Davies, I would probably be wearing my whole Indiana Jones costume to whatever convention he was at, but I would tell him Sallah/Gimli are great characters, but to me he'll always be Paladin and Prof. Arturo.
 
I believe Mark Hamill knew. I don't think I did at the time of playing WC3 either. Doesn't make too much difference to me either way, at least in the context of the game.
 
Wedge009 said:
I believe Mark Hamill knew. I don't think I did at the time of playing WC3 either. Doesn't make too much difference to me either way, at least in the context of the game.
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Yeah, it might have been ackward if you were a porn addict that was *overly* familiar with her body of work... but to your average teenager/movie-goer/game player back when the internet wasn't quite so common she was pretty much an unknown. To me, playing the game when I was 14/15 she was just Rachel.
 
I went backwards as well (or something) - Priv2-WCP-WC3-WC4-WC2 Deluxe-Priv1-WC1.

Privateer 2 would be a candidate for a couple of strong moments, but... Besides the cinematics, I guess there isn't really that much going for it. Seeing Clive Owen putting the muscle on Hal Taffin despite being at gun-point, and the whole exotic universe, had a charm all of its own, though. And WCP... I played that on a Pentium 100 MHz with 16 Mb RAM, shared with integrated videomemory. 'Nuff said. When I got to play it on a newer machine and bought a Voodoo 2 for it - teh SCHWEET!
And endearing as moments like when I flew all banged up through an asteroid-field in Priv1 and a Militia Gladius suddenly turned up and helped me against some Mercenary Demon and a couple of Pirate Talons (and then the dumb SOB got a fistful o' rocks *sniff* ) are, and the thrill of for the first time ever managing to complete the final mission in WC1 without cheats (so I suck - I think I even cheered out loud)... I'd say the second half of WC3 was just one big massive moment for me. Granted, there are spots of WC4 that stands out brighter - Black Lance infiltration, Vesuvius turning around, Vagabond's death, the abrupt start with Seether toasting your first destination - but the entire feel of WC3, of being there at a long and brutal war that was drawing to a desperate close... Grand. Just grand.
 
There was something absolutely wonderful about starting out in Privateer, and working my way up to a better ship. Jumping was also one of the best things in that game, especially with that damned drone gunning for you.

WC2 torp runs were absolutely killer. I'm a sucker for torp runs, and the whole concept of well-coordinated strikes going off like clockwork. None of the other WC games really made torp runs feel the same. Some of the mods did well enough, though.

As a side note, I absolutely LOVED how lethal a Ferret could be, since you could unload your entire gun pool of mass drivers in less than a second, and pretty much ruin whatever fighter you were pointing them at. I loved loved loved loved Ferret missions.

The mission in wc3 where you stumble across that asteroid base, and you have to tangle with like 6 Vaktoths at once. I must have played that mission a hundred times, always increasing the difficulty, so that I could improve my skills. That's how I became proficient in an Arrow.
 
AD said:
Yeah, it might have been ackward if you were a porn addict that was *overly* familiar with her body of work... but to your average teenager/movie-goer/game player back when the internet wasn't quite so common she was pretty much an unknown. To me, playing the game when I was 14/15 she was just Rachel.
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Well it's not unusual... the only reason I found out was because my older counsin, who introduced me to WC3 thought that was the funniest thing. He was a teenager back when her porn career was at it's height. Lets not forget that was back in the 80's. (Note the 'Big hair' styles she had.)

Personally, I doubt Mark Hamill would have cared.
 
Hobbes' betrayal was pretty shocking to me as well. And waiting for you ship to jump while it gets hammered was pretty exciting as well. As was getting my first Gold Star or better even, the Terran Medal of Honor (or Valor?) at the end of WC 1. It really felt like you've accomplisehd something.
 
Highball said:
It's funny, if I were to meet John Rhys-Davies, I would probably be wearing my whole Indiana Jones costume to whatever convention he was at, but I would tell him Sallah/Gimli are great characters, but to me he'll always be Paladin and Prof. Arturo.
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Yeah good ol' Paladin!
 

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