Point of Origin: Vol. III, No. 36

The moment everyone has waited many, many years for is here: Strike Commander has shipped! As you can tell from the font size of the front page alone, the guys at Origin are very, very relieved. The game is due out April 23rd. Now Chris Roberts can work on Wing Commander III...

A very special thanks to Joe Garrity of the Origin Museum for making this resource available and to Electronic Arts for sending them to him in the first place!

• As promised, this issue includes an article about Wing Commander Academy:

Face it: there's a little egomaniac in every pilot who's flown a Ferret. The 'brag factor' is what makes Wing Commander Academy (the current working name) look like it could be a big seller. Basically, WCA is a do-it-yourself mission builder in the Wing Commander universe. Programmed-turned-Producer Thomas Blom explains it this way: "There's no real story line, except what you design for yourself. Each mission can have an objective; maybe you have to retrieve a data pod or ejected pilot, or maybe you just want to do some dogfighting. In any case, you have total control over the design.

"WCA should really appeal to people who care about how good a pilot they are. After you design a mission, it will have a score based on its degree of difficulty. The files will be small enough so that you can dump the scenario onto a disk or post it online someplace like CompuServe. That way, you can challenge your friends or other players to try and beat you at your own mission. Players who whizzed through Wing Commander can actually create impossible missions, while other players may just want to use it as a way to play around with different kinds of spacecraft or study the way the Kilrathi fly."

WCA has another couple of big selling points. First of all, it's not as hardware-intensive, so there will be a lot of happy 386 owners out there. Second, it will be at a reduced price point (currently $49.95 as opposed to $79.95). WCA is planned as a fall project. Right now, it has a lean and mean team. Jeff Everett and Brent Thale are working on the programming and Whitney Ayres on the art. Thomas' goal is to have it in the box by the end of June (perfect for CES). In the next Point, we'll take a look behind the scenes of Interactive Movie #1.

• Review Revue has some last words for the screensaver: "At the Chicago Tribune, Dennis Lynch named ORIGIN FX 'Best Screen Saver of the Year.' He wrote: 'FX gets the nod for its totally groovy psychedelic displays and stunning music.' We're not quite sure what he was smoking when he wrote that, but we hope he has plenty more."

Point of Origin
Vol. III, No. 36 - April 9, 1993 Contents Strike Signs Off!
Slick Serpent Sales Sizzle
Strike Ready to Roll
Wing Commander Academy
On the Clock
Pulse Check
Off the Clock
Employee of the Month: Jennifer Davis
Review Revue
Misc.
Check It Out (And Bring It Back)