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Here's a Wing Commander/Origin ad I don't think I've seen before. Unfortunately, it's... not great. From the May 1995 issue of Wired:
And here's an Apple ad from 1996 with Wing Commander IV! All that empty space is because the Macintosh only had these ten games in 1996.
Mar
Today we've got a pair of tiny reviews from vintage mid '90s magazines. They're arguably less exciting than the big spreads that the main story games would usually get, but my take is that these are still important in the context of Wing Commander history. Both are short, but that's why I dug up two to share. Print real estate was valuable back in the day, so sometimes the only information you'd have about certain games would be a few sentences like this here and there. This would happen sometimes to games like Super Wing Commander (3DO) and Armada, which got a small strip in the January 1994 edition of Electronic Gaming Monthly and the February 1995 issue of Next Generation magazine. At least there were some screenshots, which is more than some of these titles got! Special bonus: Bioforge advertisement!
Mar
…Archon Delaine has rejected Prime Minister Mahon's warning over an alleged attempt to gain control of systems in the California Nebula.
"Wake up, Old Man Mahon!" Delaine said in a public broadcast. "The Kumo Crew migrated into the nebula with help from some mutual friends of ours… people you now consider allies. You like to portray us as criminals lusting for power and influence, but the real crooks are much closer to home. Rather than watching us, you should try looking over your shoulder."
Independent journalist Flint 'Firemaker' Lafosse published his observations via the Rewired network:
"Watching two of Sirius Corporation's business partners openly fight like this must be making Li Yong Rui cringe as much as his poker face allows. What's that? You never heard of the most powerful megacorp in history dealing with pirates? Surely not!"
"Delaine is clearly referring to 3307, when he somehow
Mar
Display MoreHello everyone,
Thank you to everyone playing the Fractal Update, especially those taking the time to report any issues they encounter via Zendesk or console crash reporting.
We are listening closely to your feedback, and have identified and resolved a number of issues. These fixes are included in patch 4.14, which is live on Steam.
Bug fixes
- Fixed a crash related to rendering.
- Fixed an issue that could cause some players to lose discoveries.
We will continue to release patches as issues are identified and resolved. If you experience any issues, let us know by submitting a bug report.
Thank you,
Hello GamesThe post Fractal 4.14 appeared first on No Man's Sky.
Mar
Here's a cool little clip of Normal_Andy firing up Wing Commander Privateer on the Miyoo Mini. We know it's powerful enough, because he previously got WC3 running. Controls might be a bit tough to manage on such a small device, but it's still very neat to see it in operation!
Wing Commander Privateer on the Miyoo, really gotta figure out control remapping though, dunno if it's possible with all the keys this game uses pic.twitter.com/dSd4ry9B5V
— Normal_Andy (@normal_andy) January 14, 2023
Mar
…We've got great news for Wingnuts today! DaveO's extensive archive of Wing Commander videos has returned to the internet. Dave started this vast archive some fifteen years ago with playthroughs of most main story games and their expansions, but over time some segments became unavailable.
There's all kinds of reasons why fans might want to have this at their fingertips. It's very helpful to be able to quickly check how something looked in a mission, consult a video for strategy or grab a certain screenshot. You get game flow, cinematic and gameplay here for a complete experience. A few samples are below, but you can find all of his various game-specific playlists here on YouTube.
The CIC also has its own large scale WC video archive, but it's a little more focused on things like trailers, promotional vids, behind-the-scenes content, fan projects and similar material. The two archives complement
Mar
Display MoreMy Privateer challenge was to get a screenshot of each ship in each base. So here's a quick post! Mining/pirate asteroids:
Agricultural/pleasure planets:
Refineries! A reminder that Privateer shipped on 6 3.5" diskettes: only the asteroid version has an animated spotlight.
New Constantinople...
New Detroit...
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Oxford!
Perry. Technically, this is a "hangar bay" instead of a "landing pad". The more you know!
And of course by far the biggest pain in the butt to collect... the derelict!
These are all bound for the WCPedia where I've been doing some pretty neat insane person stuff but also that I've been too brain exhausted to talk much about. You can check out the newly completed Hangar page here!
Mar
The Wing Commander Movie turns twenty-four today! As crazy as that sounds, it also means we're just a year away from it being a quarter century old. The film may be getting up there in age, but there's still plenty to learn about it. Check out the list below for some of our recent analyses and stories from just the last year!
- A Visual Guide to Uniforms
- Star Wars Actor Crossover
- Counting Ships of the Fleet
- On Declaration of War
- Vintage TV Spots
- The Diligent in Space Engineers
- Odd Connections
- Flight Suit for Sale
- Supertitle Megapost
- Tweeting in Real Time
For a nice visual pop, here's an upgraded trailer that AD put together as well as a gorgeous Rapier wallpaper by Klavs:
Mar
…Preliminary motions on the forthcoming Hudson Contravention vote have begun in Federal Congress.
The proposal, named after President Zachary Hudson's call to suspend the 77th amendment to the Federal Accord, is a point of significant contention. If approved, Hudson would be eligible to run for another term in this year's presidential elections, breaking with centuries of constitutional law.
Supporters of the proposal, led by Hudson's cabinet, point to the ongoing conflict with the Thargoids as a primary reason to vote in favour. With the significant escalation in Thargoid aggression and the loss of hundreds of systems, it has been argued that a change of leadership could weaken the Federation's ability to defend itself.
Opponents have called the move a 'dictatorial' tactic which uses the fear of alien attack to influence public opinion. Felicia Winters, the Liberal candidate and current
Mar
…Fun, minor change to Privateer: the build used for the manual screenshots says 'engage' versus 'launch' in the final game.
There are a few more of these in the manual! Since printed docs had to go to print well before a game went gold you can often find little changes like this. The price for the plasma gun was increased (inflation!) as has the location where the weapon gumps appear on the Tarsus:
The mission computer screenshots all show that this build had a '+' before the credits. Additionally, neither of the briefings for the missions on the greyscale shots are possible in the final game's mad libs random mission generator.
The Merchants' Guild mission example IS possible, though! Still has the old credit display:
The Orion cockpit has a Centurion VDU showing upgrades only possible on the Centurion... and one that isn't in the final game, a central tractor beam slot.
Big change in scanner prices!
The
Mar
…On this day in 2629, the Odysseus-class long range exploratory vessel CS Iason was lost with all hands after encountering the Kilrathi destroyer K’rath’kan. It was the first official contact between the Terran Confederation and the Empire of Kilrah.
Following the Iason incident, Confed interdicted all non-military exploratory, trade and colonization activity beyond the Vega sector frontier. At the same time they began a coordinated covert scouting operation to determine the extent of Kilrathi dominion. By the end of '38, Confed analysts had determined that the Kilrathi sphere of influence was at least equal to, and possibly greater than, that of humanity. Four separate envoys (under heavy escort) were sent into Kilrathi space in an attempt to at least open up lines of communication, but all such efforts were met by armed aggression. (All four missions were able to retreat under fire back to Confed
Mar
…Here's a recent discovery of mine regarding the unused hologram character Merlin in the Wing Commander movie. The film was shot to include all his scenes and his deletion had a knock-on effect for nearly all other elements of the film.
Merlin was Blair's PPC (Personal Portable Computer), a futuristic version of a Siri-ChatGTP crossbred with a holographic avatar. He would banter with Blair, make observations, and be a bit of comic relief. Here are a few early concepts of what he might have looked like:
Blair also would discuss things with Merlin while in the cockpit of his Rapier. When the decision was made to remove the character, they changed some of Merlin's in-flight dialogue to be from the Rapier Computer. We often speculated about what Blair's PPC unit (holo emitter base) looked like. Surely we must be able to see Merlin's base somewhere in the final movie. At the time, the obvious conclusion
Mar
…Hello everyone,
Thank you to everyone playing the Fractal Update, especially those taking the time to report any issues they encounter via Zendesk or console crash reporting.
We are listening closely to your feedback, and have identified and resolved a number of issues. These fixes are included in patch 4.15, which is now live on Steam and will be coming to other platforms as soon as possible.
Bug fixes
- Fixed an issue that caused some flat-mode settings to be incorrectly applied to PSVR2, causing performance issues.
- Fixed an issue that could prevent rumble from working correctly on PlayStation 5.
- Fixed an issue that caused water reflections to be missing on some graphics settings.
- Fixed an issue that could cause blurriness and other visual glitches during warp.
- Fixed a rare issue that could prevent players from accessing their refiners.
- Fixed an issue that prevented the “Unhide System” button from working in the
Mar
…*Pilots Federation Alert*
An analysis of the ongoing Thargoid war has been released by Aegis and made available to all superpower and independent navies.
The focus of the report centres on protecting systems at threat of Thargoid invasion. It suggests that anti-xeno forces are primarily fighting Thargoid invasion fleets which have already arrived, understandable due to the immediate risk to civilian life. However, Aegis proposes that increasing defensive efforts for systems at threat of invasion would be a more efficient way of slowing the spread of Thargoid-controlled territory.
Commodore Emil Varga provided a statement alongside the report's release:
"The effort required to repel an invasion fleet is far higher than dissuading that fleet from entering a system in the first place."
"We believe that Thargoids have assumed a 'path of least resistance' approach to expansion. Thanks to the
Mar
…*Pilots' Federation ALERT*
Aegis and Universal Cartographics have announced that the project to survey ammonia worlds has ended satisfactorily.
Special mention goes to Commander aRadish, Commander Lone WolfPack and Commander T'Verez for their efforts.
The exploration initiative was praised by Congressman Tom Gillespie, who oversees Federal contributions to Aegis:
"An impressive number of terrestrial planets with ammonia-based atmospheres were scanned and catalogued over the last two weeks. Universal Cartographics certainly considers the project to be a great success, and I know our xenological scientists do too."
"This is the kind of task for which independent Commanders are absolutely unmatched in dedication and expertise, and they remain our indispensable allies."
Vice Admiral Skylar Anderson, the Imperial military liaison to Aegis, added:
"This information is of considerable strategic
Mar
Transmission Interrupted! I’m taking over your normal Wing Commander feed to wish a very happy birthday to CIC founder Chris Reid! Chris is the reason you’ve seen a new update in the space every single day for the past twenty years. Heck, most of the time you see my byline it’s because he’s taken the time to find something I was fooling with on Discord or Twitter. None of this site would be possible without Chris and he’s also one of the most thoughtful and competent people I’ve ever known. So in the greatest old IRC style, please put down your trouts and raise a virtual mug of Goddard Special to a real legend! Now, back to your regularly scheduled commlinks…
Mar
Recently I extracted all of Privateer's gameflow screens (the planets and bases) and matched them to their correct palettes. 229 animations with over 5,000 frames! It's everything from flashing lights on the landing pad to the little cars that fly by on New Detroit. But behold my most exciting discovery: a never-before-seen ship! Thanks to the palette I knew it had to go, specifically, in the Perry Naval Base landing screen... but as far as I can tell it doesn't actually spawn there in the game. You can even see it says PNB (for "Perry Naval Base") on the side! This is about what it would've looked like, though it might've crossed the screen lower. Not such a bad day when you discover a new Wing Commander ship thirty years after it was made!
Mar
John Nelson has another built another classy custom Lego fighter. Like his exquisite Longbow, this one also comes from Wing Commander 3. I like the bubble canopy and especially the lines of the aft fuselage. There's some forced scaling necessary for the gun pod, but that's a nice touch too.
While I gather parts to complete another project, here is the Arrow. This one is far from perfect. The canopy should be down further and the fuselage should end with a point and the back wings aren’t great but this is as close as it’s getting.Plier (would) say, “The Arrow is a fine dog fighter that runs circles around anything in space but ConFed cheaped out on the missile racks. Give me the Banshee anyday.”
Mar
…An anonymous source has leaked information regarding Seo Jin-ae suggesting that she may be in serious jeopardy.
Seo Jin-ae, the individual once known as Subject D-2, voluntarily departed from a private medical facility in January, where she was under the care of former Aegis members. She left a message stating: "I have unfinished business with Salvation."
The engineer Kit Fowler discussed the recent rumours during his End Times broadcast:
"Something is definitely going on, people. The interstellar grapevine is buzzing with gossip about Seo Jin-ae. That cortical implant in her head, which provides some weird insight into Thargoid behaviour, makes her pretty much most valuable person in the galaxy right now."
"Some say that a black ops teams have either kidnapped or assassinated her. Maybe it's Azimuth. Maybe it's a dead man's switch group belonging to Salvation. One pilot tells me he spotted an
Mar
Klavs has produced a new take on the venerable Wing Commander Movie universe map. About a year ago, he made an electrified version that really pops, and now he's got another novel recreation that looks like it was sketched on old paper. Both are based in the wonderful 275 megapixel corrected image photographed by LOAF and Thomas Hennessy and straightened by Jetlag. You can imagine this as some kind of Pilgrim artifact or even in-universe artistic interpretation. I also love that all the details like nebulas/galactic arms and Charybdis are there, although they look like they could be aged or degraded patches. Very cool!
Fidgeting with the star map today and I thought an ancient looking paper version might be cool!Here's the older two versions I mentioned, so I don't miss a chance to repost them!
