Wing Commander Successor

Theres a great game successor to Wing Commander - Wing Commander II
 
Terminus and X-Wing Alliance are probably the best space combat games I've played apart from the WC series, the first being much more fun than the latter.

I've never tried any of the X or I-War series, though.
 
Terminal Velocity was pretty darn great until Microsoft bought out the series and made the much-lesser Fury3
 
Archmedian Dynasty had certain je ne sais quoi that reminded me a lot of the original Privateer. The setting was also a lot of fun -- submarines were a fun take on the space sim genre. I did not especially enjoy the sequel.

I would highly reccomend X-Wing and its sequels. The Lucasarts sims had a very different, particularly skill-based take on space combat that made them feel unique from Wing Commander. Getting behind the wheel of an X-Wing felt unique instead of like flying a Rapier with a different (or no, thanks modern jerks) cockpit. The sequels become increasingly flawed, but the original X-Wing and TIE Fighter are both spectacular games.

The modern crop of space sims - StarLancer, Descent: Freespace, Tachyon, etc. are all formulaic. They're all Wing Commander + graphical improvements - character driven story. Exactly why the industry as a whole thought it could get away with this over and over is beyond me, but we've all suffered for it. If you like Wing Commander Prophecy, but you don't like the fact that Wing Commander Prophecy has characters and a story, then these games are for you. Interestingly, the first crop of games trying to take advantage of Wing Commander at least got the formula right -- games like Star Crusader and MANTIS knew not to drop the story (not that I would reccomend either of these titles).
 
I would recommend Star Crusader. I quite enjoyed it. Certainly it was different from Wing Commander (although the box advertised it as being "like Wing Commander" I played it without that expectation and found it to be a blast). Graphically it was good, at least it had some good variation in mission types, the ability to switch sides was cool (one I exploited many times) and when you lost pilots you felt like you lost something important...that's a big thing that most games don't have now. Starlancer's character interaction was limited entirely to the cockpit and then almost solely to Moose and one or two others. The overall plot wasn't bad to Starlancer (it did have some nice aspects to it) but the lack of interaction outside of the cockpit really downgraded the game.

The combat was quite good although it suffered from the oh-so-familar "skeet-shoot" missions. (It was easy to wind up with 20+ kills each mission!!!) I find those kind of numbers insane. In the first world wars, 5 kills made you an Ace. In the early Wing Commander games a good mission was anywhere from 3-6 kills. If I'm eating up 20 Coalition ships a mission and my comrades are supposedly doing somewhere about the same...we should eat through their fleet in about 10 missions!!! Game designers need to put less emphasis on sheer numbers and focus more on the difficulty and associated reward with each kill. I can tentatively accept Wing Commander Prophecy's unusually high kill counts (one mission I came home with 41 kills) due to the fact that the Bugs were dependent on numbers rather than good ships and skill. I've long since believed that enemies must be in ships comparable to your own and of decent skill to make the dogfight a challenge. Just my $.02

Despite my misgivings about Starlancer...I'd still probably rate it as the best space sim after the Wing Commander titles. (Freelancer was an excellent game but I compare that more to Privateer than WC necessarily).
 
Maj.Striker said:
I find those kind of numbers insane. In the first world wars, 5 kills made you an Ace. In the early Wing Commander games a good mission was anywhere from 3-6 kills.
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Five kills makes you an Ace in Wing Commander too. Twenty-five WC kills makes you a Confed Ace of Aces. Prophecy mentions that Maniac has the equivalent of sixteen Ace of Aces medals, each with the full four bars (each bar denoting an additional twenty-five kills). I averaged 11.1 kills per mission from WC1 through the end of SM2 on my last play through, but I do agree, WC1 definitely makes you feel like you earned each one.
 
ChrisReid said:
WC1 definitely makes you feel like you earned each one.
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Thats the reason I like the game so much. I sweat nearly every mission in that game; its tough but very rewarding.
 
I think that I have replay all of Wing Commander 1 and 2 missions/campaigns and refresh myself of all the things that happen. It sounds I missed out a few important information
 
TIE Fighter is really excellent, altough some of the several expansions get a bit too cheesy. But the original campaings and the first extra campaign are a blast. And the implementation of the whole primary, secondary and bonus mission goals was simply superb. Who wouldn't want to become the Emperor's Hand?

The only caveat is that the missions focus mostly on mutineering (sp?) Imperial fleets, very few tours of duty against Rebels. It is like we get a WC game where you fly kilrathi ships against the Gorah Khar Separatists instead of fighting the Confed.
 
Agreed. the only star wars based sim I never had the chance and wanted to get was the Balance of Campagin for Xwing vs Tie Fighter, I cannot find any old copies around and would love to grab a copy if there any around the only thing I recall was that it had to do something with prior the battle of endor or something
 
I love my space combat games. Yes, even the ones that are not WC.
1) Xwing Alliance: If you get the ships the Upgrade project put out, they are amazing. The original ships were pretty bad.
2) Freelancer: Get the mods. They have a pretty good no story mod that allows you to just fly around. Not to mention Reckoning which is alot of fun.
3) Starfleet Command I: This game was awsome. The campaign was really tough and did not lead up to anything. However, with friends it was alot of fun
4) SFC:III: The campaign was a little better, led somewhere but it was not enough to keep someone interested. However, the missions were pretty fun.
Thats it really. SWG is sort of fun but it gets old quickly, which is a shame due to its pace.

My other favorites that are not Space Sims
1) Pacific Fighters
2) Battle of Britain II
3) World War II Online
4) IL2
5) CFS3 with Firepower
6) Operation Flashpoint: Not really a sim but helo combat was great
 
Dahan said:
Agreed. the only star wars based sim I never had the chance and wanted to get was the Balance of Campagin for Xwing vs Tie Fighter, I cannot find any old copies around and would love to grab a copy if there any around the only thing I recall was that it had to do something with prior the battle of endor or something
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I got lucky a few years back - I was able to buy pretty much every single X-Wing & Tie game (except for the very first X-Wing - all I got was the XvT version) over the space of a few weeks. It was weird - I went into this used games store, and there was one of them. I buy it, I go there a week later... and there's the next. So I buy it... and the same thing happens again. And then, just when I got the entire series, I go there again... and there's KSaga.

After I bought KSaga for AU$25, I told the store owner how much he could've gotten for it on eBay. He didn't seem too happy ;).
 
ChrisReid said:
I'd just wait until the next Wing Commander game.
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i'm not really seeing this happening. ea is letting a load of good pc licenses go to waste (C&C for example) and a new wc game would have to have totally new setting and plot. i mean the bugs are a joke and the kilrathi are beaten...
 
Chevieblazer said:
i'm not really seeing this happening.
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I didn't know you had the Sword of Omens in your possession. Only with such power could you see what EA is exactly doing!
 
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