News Collection: On This Day in WC News

2024.107 (April 16, 2024)

Border Worlds Gets Its Turn on the 3D Printer

Here's a quick Banshee 3D printed by Knight26-77. The time lapse video may only be 30 seconds, but the real work (before, during and after printing) was certainly more time consuming. I do appreciate the slick results though! Here is lightly modified 3d printed banshee.

2023.106 (April 16, 2023)

Matthew Lillard Hosting Gaming Livestream with Todd Stashwick

Matthew Lillard has announced a fun event taking place on Monday afternoon. He'll be playing the board game Operation with Star Trek Picard's fantastic Todd Stashwick in order to promote the Tabletop News channel. He'll also have some giveaways related to his own gaming company, Beadle and Grimm's. Find it here live between 4 and 6 pm Pacific time on the 17th.

2022.106 (April 16, 2022)

It's What's Inside That Counts

A common trick 'under the hood' of many games is to make use of something called LODs, or Levels of Detail. LODs are a system where a given 3D model has multiple versions that are called at different times to maximize memory and other resources. For example, each ship in Wing Commander III has a less detailed (and thus processor intensive) 'far away' version and a more complex close up version that the game only renders if the player is nearby. It minimizes the use of resources and lets you display more spaceships at the same time.

2021.106 (April 16, 2021)

Google Translate Takes on Enyo 1

Plywood Fiend has a new video inspired by Google Translate memes. When you translate a string of text from one language to another and then back again to the first language, the results can be bizarre. While there are a handful of hilarious results, it's also almost as interesting to see how much lines stay pretty close the original despite the double translation.

2020.107 (April 16, 2020)

Large or Small, We Love Them All

EpytronOmega has been diligently working on rendering Wing Commander ships over the last few months, and he's got several sharp models to show for it. His first two designs exist at opposite ends of the Confed spectrum: a Behemoth class dreadnought and Arrow light fighter. I used to love flying around the interior of that giant gun, so the angle that looks down the Behemoth's maw brings back some fond memories. The Arrow is also quite respectable, and his new Bearcat is coming along quite well.

2019.106 (April 16, 2019)

All Wings Considered Episode 9 Trailer

Episode 9 of All Wings Considered is almost here! This week the team reviews another ship from the Tri-System and then heads over to the Deneb Quadrant to fawn over the Morningstar. It's also the second iteration of the Wing Commander book club - we'll be reading chapters 2 and 3 of Fleet Action. Join us this Thursday, April 18, at 7 PM Eastern US Time (4 PM Pacific) on YouTube and Discord.

2018.106 (April 16, 2018)

High Tech 1995 Preview Covers Wing Commander 4

Here's another cool CD-based review from the Interactive Entertainment magazine. We shared Episode 19 with a Privateer 2 preview last week, and here's Episode 20 on Wing Commander 4. Like the previous clip, their 'articles' came on disc in audio format acompanied by a slideshow (and advertising). In these early days when few people were yet online, this was a tremendously cool way to see footage of the new game and hear about what it had to offer.

Wing Commander Meme of the Day: Waiting Skeleton

2017.106 (April 16, 2017)

Wingmen Back from the Dead!

Happy Easter, WingNuts! In honor of the holiday, we present a list of Wing Commander characters who (intentionally or--often--otherwise) came back from the dead! (Presented in the spirit of good humor rather than sacrilege.) Please note that for our sanity we are not including ‘killable’ wingmen; the character needs to have (supposedly) died as part of a story.

Happy CIC Easter!

Hope you all had an eggscellent Easter out there!

2016.107 (April 16, 2016)

Freedom Flight "Half" Ebook Released!

Baen has partially released Wing Commander Freedom Flight has an ebook! The company is known for putting out draft half-manuscripts for its upcoming novels, so even though the book is already long complete in this case, they've issues the first portion as a preview ahead of its full July 5 debut. Fans can grab it now for $6.99 in a wide variety of DRM-free formats.

2015.106 (April 16, 2015)

WC Skin Pack Jazzes Up Modern Jets

Cannon Song has put together a nifty skin pack for Vector Thrust, a new flight sim based around today's fighter jet designs. Rather than import Wing Commander models though, he's reimagined the paint schemes of six craft based on their WC equivalents. Looks closely and you'll see this was accomplished very creatively! The "Confed" jets below sport the right colors, stripes, checker patterns on the Hellcat and even teeth in the case of the Arrow and Thunderbolt-inspired designs.

2014.106 (April 16, 2014)

Wing Commander Tastes Metal

Wing Commander fans are constantly impressing us with their creativity. We love seeing what Wingnuts will come up with next. 'Michael Lochlann' recently debuted a new rock mix of the Wing Commander 1 theme oven on his soundcloud page. In the vein of previous Wing Commander remixes such as LittleVMills' "Epic Rock Cover" or Cerberus Music's Kilrathi Remix, this version mixes the opening theme with a metal inspired sound.

2013.106 (April 16, 2013)

Warbirds Infiltrate Civilian Population

The Terran Fleet Supply has been hard at work fueling the war machine of the Confederation and Empire. Now that Wingnuts like you and me have gotten a chance to get their hands on these gorgeous creations, a whole bunch of amazing photos have started to trickle out. The shots below show off the Hornet, Rapier, Raptor, Arrow (both Armada and WC3 variants!), Hellcat, Scimitar and Dralthi, but there are even more designs available.

2012.107 (April 16, 2012)

WC Saga Mission Editor Released

Wing Commander Saga's developers have released a toolkit for creating new missions for their game engine. One of the most notable contributions is a code template for mimicking Wing Commander's fly-by autopilot sequences. The team has also put together a care package for aspiring modders: documentation and a tutorial on how to recreate the first two missions from Wing Commander III, complete with briefing, launch sequence and autonav. You can grab the editing tools here.

2011.106 (April 16, 2011)

New Poll Focuses on Iconic Briefings

There's a new poll today that asks which 'wing commander' delivered the best mission briefings. Colonel Halcyon had the original games on lock, but there was more diversity in Wing Commander 2 and even Paladin got in on the action in Special Operations. Eisen, Blair and Wilford are sprinkled here and there in the later games. Commander Drake is the last one we see, but Clippy delivers some of the best lines in Secret Ops.

2010.106 (April 16, 2010)

WC Composer Awakens Astronauts

LeHah noticed that David Arnold's "Theme from Stargate" was used to wake up the crew of the shuttle Discovery this morning. NASA has put together this feature to describe how wakeup calls are chosen, along with an 85-page list of calls used to date. Mr. Arnold composed the theme to the Wing Commander Movie soundtrack.

Syndicate Title Registered by EA

Various news sites are reporting that Starbreeze Studios and Electronic Arts have registered the name "Syndicate" with the US Copyright Office. Though still not officially announced, all indications at this point continue to suggest that Project Redlime is still in production and will be a modern release of Bullfrog's classic, Syndicate.

2009.106 (April 16, 2009)

Press D For Decoy

The Wing Commander Saga website has been updated with another batch of screenshots. This time they show off their Kilrathi missile designs. The first two images are of a heavy ship-to-ship missile and a torpedo. The remaining shots depict missiles that are found in many fighter loadouts.

Making the Game: Mission S6

Mission S6 is very similar to S5; or at least neither has been entirely planned out yet. It would cover whichever advanced topics weren't addressed in the previous mission. These updates are thanks to John "Captain Johnny" Guentzel, who provided several CD image archives of material used by the Wing Commander Prophecy development team!

2008.107 (April 16, 2008)

Revamped Ralari Readied For Battle

After a virtual fleet of amazing human capships, Howard Day has returned to Kilrathi models. This Ralari is based off the original design shown in WC Pioneer's announcement update, but the mesh has been tweaked and the textures considerably reworked in greater detail. Some parts were also inspired by the high detail Fralthi on the cover of the FM Towns WC1 box. The colors are accurate to the WC1 paint scheme, and sharp-eyed Wingnuts will notice a few common elements with ships like the Bengal.

Aces Club Reaches Its Teens

Another US tax day has come and gone, so that means the Wing Commander Aces Club is another year older. Long time Wingnuts will remember the Aces the largest organized body of Wing Commander fans of the 1990s. They focused on coordinated email stories but also spawned a large assortment of role playing games, website resources, web boards and more. The club's thirteenth year has been somewhat subdued, but its main storyline - Holding the Line - is still readying its next chapters and conclusion.

2007.106 (April 16, 2007)

The Vanguard Nears

HammerHead caught something we missed for our ship article -- a second Wing Commander Arena Rapier II is revealed in GameSpot's Sean Penney interview: the F-44 Rapier II Vanguard!

Lost But Not Forgotten

In yesterday's interview update I mentioned putting together an article about the history of 'lost' Wing Commander novels... and now it's available! This short article collects information which has been sitting around in our archive for a while, in the hopes that it will help some future publisher continue the novel series where it left off. It runs through the history of the HarperCollins' movie novels, Andrew Keith's False Colors concepts and a couple of other unexplored possibilities.

2006.106 (April 16, 2006)

Action Picks Up In Comic Story

Fongsaunder's Wing Commander comic story has been updated with several new pages. In the latest installment, pilots from the TCS Enterprise discover that the system they've jumped into is crawling with Kilrathi when their routine recon patrol turns hairy. Check out the images below to see if Viper and Wise Guy will be able to alert their carrier and avert a surprise attack. Vermin has colorized the first page, and the results look pretty sharp.

Poll: Deathstroke Takes A Holiday

Nobody knows made up holidays like WingNuts know made up holidays... and now you have to pick from seven of our favorites. Which Wing Commander-created holiday do you take off work for? Did all that time in a Dralthi II turn you on to the Cult of Sivar...

2005.106 (April 16, 2005)

Hit The Classic Privateer Stop

ClassicGaming.cc is a stylized resource for a small number of elite classic video games. Each one of their featured games gets an in-depth walkthrough and resource guide. Recently Wing Commander Privateer got a full treatment and a variety of information is now available.

Got Cards?

If you're one of the few hardy collectors of the Wing Commander Customizable Card Game, we might be able to help eachother out. Even if you have a complete set, there's always room for a second or a play deck. And the cards you trade to us will help other Wing Commander fans finish their collection. If you're missing a few cards or have a few extra, you can contact us about trading possibilities.

EB Sale A Bust

Unfortunately, it looks like most people who tried to order cheap copies of Prophecy Advance during the EB sale last week won't be receiving their copy. EBgames.com strives to fill all of the orders that we receive but once in a while a product that is on backorder does not make it back onto our shelves. This has happened with an item that you have on order.

2004.107 (April 16, 2004)

Official Origin Wallpapers Available Again

LOAF has added the official Origin graphics to our Wallpapers Section. Because they are in the area of ten years old (wow!), the resolutions are not as high as what people are used to today. The OriginFX wallpapers include a few from Privateer 1, plus Ultima and Strike Commander.

New Chris Roberts Film Released, Punish or Perish

The new cinema adaptation of The Punisher releases to theaters in Canada and the United States today. Chris Roberts is executive producer on this one. His next two movies should be The Big White and American Knight. We should have a review later this weekend.

Bill Forstchen Breaks His Ribs

There's a bit of odd news from the William Forstchen front. His official site reports that the famous Wing Commander novel author broke some ribs doing who-knows-what in who-knows-where. On other fronts, Bill spent last fall in Mongolia exploring the country on horseback. He even sustained a "battle injury.

2003.106 (April 16, 2003)

Still Waiting & Wondering

As of this writing Kaybee still hasn't changed their listing for Prophecy Advance. They still list it as shipping April 16 here, which is a good and bad thing. It's good news that a release date has come without being pushed back.. but where is the game?

MyJemm Site Up & Additional Observations

If you didn't catch it earlier, Ross Ridge's homepage should be in working order now. His MyJEMM area here also features icons that you can use while playing Privateer in Windows (95/98/ME). Karl Frank suggested this additional tip. myjemm _DOES_ work with the disk version of Privateer, but it is slightly more complicated to run it: myjemm PRIVATER.

Wing Commander Aces Turn Eight

The longest running active Wing Commander Club, the WC Aces turned eight years old this April 15. I'll leave it to one of the club's founders to sum it up. It's April 15, 2003 I Just want to wish every member a Happy Aniversary. This club's lasted 8 years now to the date and I hope it continues to last and hold interest for WC gamers, designers and writers worldwide.

WCPolaroids: Maniac (6/12)

You ever wonder what it'd be like if they'd have chosen a callsign besides "Maniac." What would that be like?

2002.106 (April 16, 2002)

Lighting the Flash Game

Emperor Quark has created a nifty Wing Commander Strategy game using Macromedia Flash. You can try your hand at it here (700k) -- a great way to waste those long hours at work. Requires Flash 6, available here.

And Speaking of Flash...

Happy has done a super-neat animated CIC logo! Check it out here. Flying one's and zeros -- take that, old Origin site!

2001.106 (April 16, 2001)

Trivia 3, Week 25

If this week's trivia were the age of Jason Bondarvesky, it'd be the same as that given at the start of End Run...Welcome to Game Three, Week Twenty-Five Trivia. We play each week. Every Monday two main questions and one bonus question are posted to alt.

Jolly Bengal

Two amazing new screenshots of Unknown Enemy's Bengal class Strike Cruiser (they're everywhere!). The carrier was recently re-textured by the talented WildCat -- who is also working on re-doing the Scimitar, Fralthi and Ralari for the UE project.

High-Res Carriers

The Invasion team posted some wonderful new renders -- they've re-textured the Concordia, Durango, Vesuvius and Fralthi II class ships... with excellent results!

Invasion Plus?

Another interesting layer to Invasion -- Mike12 has proposed doing a space-sim mod that will complement the Star Trek Armada mod's story -- following the Midway after Secret Ops. He's even created a teaser poster... He requests that you comment on the idea here.

Fun Fiction

NoRemorse has written a Wing Commander story! You can find it, titled "Battle Frenzy", divided into two sections -- the prologue and the first chapter. I certainly enjoyed it... he asks that you send him your comments.

Background Characters

More artwork from the Chat Zone: panther has created some Wing Commander character wallpaper at his site -- you can find it here (along with some similar Babylon 5 work).

2000.107 (April 16, 2000)

Ten Best Sidekicks Feature

Asterix reports that Gamespot is running a Ten Best Sidekicks feature. One of the sidekicks you can vote for is Maniac. A snippet from his page:Maniac and Blair had a love-hate relationship throughout the Wing Commander series. He was the Maverick to Blair's Ice Man.

Hey, It's Not a Star Trek Site

Sci-Fi Gaming at Federationhq.net has put together one of the most Wing Commanderish Starlancer previews yet. Otherwise they hit the story basics and give the game a good rating for solid, though not particularly new, gameplay. You can find the preview here.

Defence Secretary Resigns After Sex Shocker

Scandal-digger Tania Gell reports. Selton Tubsworth, Defence Secretary for Hades, revealed that he would be standing down from his position in a press conference this morning. His resignation comes two days after a former love revealed his outlandish sexual proclivities, which include penchants for fluffy rodents, rubber tubing, baths of strawberry jelly and a small bucket of molten wax. Tubsworth said he was retiring to spend more time with his menagerie.

1999.106 (April 16, 1999)

Many! Exclamation! Marks!

The CIC's very own Chris Reid is the star in the latest Lanced.net interview and of course the subject is our beloved WC with a side order of Starlancer/Freelancer and CIC questions. CIC accepts no responsibility for any damage caused by the excessive use of exclamation marks in the interview, and no, Chris doesn't normally add !s to the end of every sentence.

Revised French Release Date

Marc Charlot reports that premiere.fr, allocine.fr and planetecinema.com say the Wing Commander movie is expected to begin showing in theaters in France on June 23 instead of the previously reported June 30.