You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In NowSign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountJan
It’s here! It arrived as a shipping bag full of parts. Good thing I bought the original instructions a month ago!
Let’s do this thing! Do I think it will be remotely right? No. But maybe they’ll surprise me!
Wow! Every piece was there. It looks great! Nice job, Chinese bootleg LEGO factory. About two to three hours to build!
Jan
…LOAF has been doing some intense research of peculiar quirks and rare occurrences built into Wing Commander 4. He's discovering that there are a number of exotic things you can trigger by taking very specific actions. For example, if you fly the mission in the Speradon System to capture the carrier, you get Mace Missiles. Then, if you let Catscratch die, Pliers will offer you an upgraded Avenger. Upon acceptance, you'll get the bomber with a fifth torpedo slot, which you can equip with five Maces! What an amazing thing to be so buried in the game!
My newfound Wing Commander IV gameflow knowledge has allowed me to make a very big boom.If you play your cards right (capture the carrier, kill Catscratch, accept the upgrade) then you can make a really, really big explosion in Speradon L4B.
The first time I tried this the blast damage hit the Intrepid's escorts and I was immediately flagged as a traitor.
Jan
…The Imperial Senate has formally welcomed back Senator Zemina Torval, following an absence of several months.
Torval's reappearance put an end to rumours that she was suffering from ill health. Her youngest daughter, Senator Petra Torval, had been standing in for her mother by representing the Imperial populace of the Synteini system.
Addressing the Senate, Zemina Torval said:
"I am grateful to this august body, and to Her Majesty the Emperor, for permitting me a short respite from my duties. I have used this time to fully discharge my corporate responsibilities. As is common knowledge, ownership of Torval Mining Ltd has been transferred to my eldest daughter Constantia. She will ensure that Imperial industries continue to be supplied with vital mineral resources."
"My attention is now fully focused on my senatorial work. This is where I have best served the Empire, and will continue to do so
Jan
I'm short on time today, so here's a couple of Wing Commander shorts for you! They caught my eye because the videos below depict an Xperia Play (originally conceived as the Sony Ericsson "PlayStation Phone") running SNES Wing Commander and The Secret Missions. At first I wondered if there was some kind of EA Replay situation at work, but downloadable versions of that game were limited to the European-exclusive Playstation Network Store circa 2009. It's appears that these are straight emulations, which wouldn't be much different since EA Replay includes the Super Nintendo console editions anyhow. It's always fun to see Wing Commander pop up on a new kind of screen!
Jan
Binary Legends saw our recent post about their WC2 EGA video and offered up some more. While EGA clips are relatively uncommon, Secret Missions and Special Operations are even more rare! I know the typical video game archetype is to aim for the highest resolution and fanciest graphics options, but from an artistic and historic perspective, it's very cool to see how they made the game work with so few colors to choose from. Just check out that amazing EGA Waterloo class cruiser (the TCS Centurion!).
Jan
…IronWolf1970 recently posted this fun little anecdote from the set of Wing Commander IV. The scale of the WC4 film shoot is vast: real sets, tons of extras and lots of practical effects. However, coming hot on the heels of WC3, it often seems like the earlier game got a lot more press and analysis due to the novelty of FMV at the time. The Price of Freedom has a grand setup and much larger group of people that were involved, but the behind-the-scenes aspect wasn't always supersized to match. So that's why even though this is a brief recollection, it's still fun to get a peek into what went down!
IronWolf: My buddy and I were background on Wing Commander IV. It was the bar scene. He got to hang out next to Mark Hamill.LOAF: Totally cool! Do you know if you're visible in the final cut?
IronWolf: I found myself... big surprise it was at the pool table... lol... I'm the tall blur in the background with
Jan
…Li Yong-Rui, CEO of Sirius Corporation, has addressed the Alliance Assembly as part of its formal inquiry into the strategic defence pact.
The inquiry was proposed by Councillor Nakato Kaine, who highlighted the lack of military support provided by the megacorp against the Thargoids.
When invited to explain why most of Sirius Corporation's plans have not materialised, Li Yong-Rui said:
"Many new anti-xeno ship configurations were designed for the Alliance Defence Force and have been applied to thousands of ships. But we have encountered many obstacles along the way, which have severely undermined our progress."
"Usually these obstacles are bureaucratic in nature, but sometimes we simply cannot communicate effectively with the necessary individuals. I find it hard not to conclude that our progress is being deliberately impeded by forces within government departments. Sadly, not everyone shares
Jan
We now know why the Wing Commander series was left out of GOG's big annual winter sale... because it was being saved for the Classic Winter Sale! A whole host of games from a similar era are now on sale, especially from Origin and EA. You can complete your digital collection for less than $12 as the series is now 75% off.
Jan
…We've got a new project intended to help out Wing Commander fans in 2024: save game archives that allow you to jump as close as possible to any given point in a game! We're kicking things off with a couple of playthroughs of Wing Commander IV which will allow you access to every single mission with every single ship and loadout option possible. We flew as "Maverick" and saved each game as soon as the previous mission ended to allow you to view any cutscene as easily as possible. Simply drop the contents of the archive in your Wing Commander IV folder; they should work on the MS-DOS, Windows 95, DVD and Macintosh versions (including the GOG and non-GOG releases). Please note that if you have your own saves you want to preserve you should back them up first; they're the files with the .WSG extension. (Warning: if you have your own saves you don't want to replace, be sure to back them up first; they're
Jan
Today we have a very cool flythrough of a set of Space Engineers maps by Jason Musgrave. We've seen a handful of impressive designs over the year from Wing Commander 1 to Privateer to WC4, but WC3 was relatively untapped territory. Now we're getting three-in-one by way of a fantastic TCS Victory, plus a Confed cruiser and Kilrathi carrier. There are even fighters across the deck that you can get inside. Phenomenal effort on display here!
Jan
…Emperor Arissa Lavigny-Duval has decided that all Imperial citizens recovered from Thargoid Titans will remain in quarantine indefinitely.
An official pronouncement on behalf of the Emperor was distributed by the Imperial Palace:
"Every subject of the Empire who was abducted by the Thargoids is receiving the highest possible quality of treatment and support. The Emperor has ordered that they will be given exemplary medical and psychological care, for as long as they remain in medical isolation."
"As is always the case, the security of our society is paramount. Protective sanctuary is being provided for tens of thousands of individuals, in order that billions are spared the prospect – however unlikely – of an alien influence taking root within the Empire. That is the honourable path, and the Emperor is confident her people will understand the wisdom of this decision."
The Imperial Herald's
Jan
It's a new year, but we're turning back the clock today with a new batch of retro reviews found by Maxi de Sokar. The first is a wonderful five page spread in PC Review for Wing Commander 3. It starts off with a couple pages of "behind the scenes" info before launching into the actual review. Then we have a quick take on Super Wing Commander for the 3DO by Micromania. Finally, there's a six page spread in OKPC about Wing Commander 4. I love how much space was dedicated to these new releases at the time!
Jan
…New year, new Originator! AllTinker is kicking off 2024 with another release to his impressive Wing Commander modding and hacking tool. New features include a better reader for hex editing, support for more WC3 elements like cockpits, improved decompression of Privateer 2 contents and more. You can download the updated package here!
Version 0.2.03 (2024-01-01)
- Improved the hex viewer; added hover highlighting between hex/character views, also fixed an issue with larger font sizes.
- Added support for packed WC3 shapes (e.g. for cockpits), and more IFF-embedded shapes in general.
- Added automatic decompression for IFF chunks (QFS/Deflate), which is especially relevant to Privateer 2. As usual there are many palettes still requiring hook-up logic, so colours will be wrong in many cases for several games (including P2).
- Added "Experiments" (under "Tools") which I will be adding to over time. Currently the
Jan
Happy New Year Wingnuts! We made it through another year. Some very cool projects got off the ground in 2023, and we're super excited where they go in 2024. Our annual new year's poll is live now. Got an idea for something that might interest Wing Commander fans in the year ahead? Or just want to hang out with a bunch of retro video game nerds? Stop on by the CIC Discord server!
LOAF also pointed out that we've got quite a few exciting 30th anniversaries on deck this year!
Some pretty big 30th anniversaries this year! 1994 was one heck of a year.
- Privateer: Righteous Fire - February 24
- Super Wing Commander - March 23
- Wing Commander (Sega CD) - March 24
- Wing Commander Privateer (CD-ROM) - June 13
- Wing Commander Armada - September 22
- Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger - December 8
- Wing Commander Armada Proving Grounds - December 20
And... here are the results from the birthday poll!
Jan
…We've come to the end of another year, but before we say our last goodbyes to 2023, it's time to take a look back at the highlights from the past twelve months!
The year began, as many do, with lots of glorious fan art and beautiful creations. Mac and Klavs had another very prolific year with a steady stream of gorgeous sights. Many of Klavs' designs were later released as 3D models while Mac took his renders all the way to multiple full fledged lore videos on YouTube.
It didn't take long to get our first "official," WC release when Google finally added Freedom Flight to their digital bookstore in January. Although it's been available for years on competing platforms, having this one title missing from such a major outlet was a constant annoyance to completionists.
Fan projects like WC4 Remastered and many different impressive Lego builds were frequently in the news through the (northern) spring.
Jan
…StarvingPilot shared a cool tip for anyone with a Playstation 2 and PSX Wing Commander 3 or 4. There's a neat backwards compatibility feature for people who have the original Playstation versions of these two games. The PS2 supports "fast loading" and "texture smoothing" that adds bilinear filtering. This means the textures appear slightly less blocky and pixelated. If you've got the right hardware, it's a neat trick to check out!
I found that texture smoothing can be enabled for old PS1 games. This includes the PlayStation version of WC3 (tested), and possibly WC4 (which I don’t own). This is done for any PS1 game without emulators on original hardware, although I imagine anyone running a PS emulator has been doing this for years.To get to the option, just enter the main menu for the console, highlight Browser and press triangle to enter the Version Menu. Using the menu options, Texture Mapping
Dec
Sorting through Wing Commander Prophecy's cutscenes means stopping everything each time I come across another exterior shot of the Midway hidden in a longer cutscene.
Where ya goin tonight???
In response to your many cards and letters:
- The G'wriss jump doesn't have text
- The G'mar jump isn't on the DVD (everyone boos forever)
- There's no H'rissith jump scene
Visit the massively expanded Prophecy Holovids video archive here!
Dec
Binary Legends has posted an awesome 16-minute video featuring the intro and first mission from Wing Commander 2 - in EGA graphics mode! We've posted various screenshots before and LOAF has done some wonderful comparisons between EGA and other iterations of the games over the years, but I don't think we've ever shown off a raw clip like this. If you haven't seen it in motion, it's something to behold. There's an interesting contrast between the EGA visuals and digitized speech with beautiful music behind it. The game may not look quite like the WC2 that you remember, but it gives big vintage '80s Tandy/Sierra game vibes, which is pretty awesome!
Wing Commander II: Vengeance of the Kilrathi (EGA - Intro and First Mission). Running in EGA 16 color mode with Roland MT-32 for the music and Sound Blaster for the digitized sounds.
Dec
…As the year draws to a close, Jade Sanderlyn reflects on humanity's ongoing conflict against the Thargoids in a summary for Vox Galactica.
"We began 3309 reeling under the colossal impact brought by the Maelstroms, which had arrived on the fringes of the core systems. Unleashed from within these corrosive clouds were Thargoid attacks on a scale never seen before. Hundreds of systems fell rapidly, with the current death toll over a billion. Billions more were forced to flee from their burning homes."
"It was months before the Thargoid motherships within the Maelstroms were revealed. The Titans remain in place to this day, seemingly indestructible. Their unearthly horror was enhanced when it became clear that they are also prisons for living humans abducted by the aliens."
"With a reformed Aegis in place, our resistance to these invasions grew stronger over the months. Many fallen systems were
Dec
Found a Wing Commander III bug! In the first scramble mission (B1 or C1) you are automatically assigned three wingmen: Weasel (a scripted death) and then Maniac and Mitchell. If one is shot down, they're replaced by a rotation: Vagabond, Bacon Boy, Hobbes, Flint, Cobra, Vaquero, Maniac, Vagabond. But it doesn't check for duplicates, so you can end up with two Maniacs or two Vagabonds! It's unlikely to ever happen during regular gameplay because there isn't really anything in the mission that will kill six of your wingmen.
