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Mr. Hasgaha recently shared this nifty video that he built for a "10-second Cinematic" contest in Star Citizen. He was able to use elements of the existing game engine to recreate the briefing room run, launch and death of a pilot in the original Wing Commander. It's a short clip, but it's very cool to see this modern take on a classic!
Mar
Thinking about the Privateer 2 pirate factions today. Do their VDU images match the lore? I think so!
- Chirichan - cyborgs
- Jincilla - hackers & small time criminals
- Kiowan - new age hippies
- Papogod - mutants
The official guide has two that aren’t in the final game, too: an evil Crow T. Robot for the Chirichans and a space owl for the Papogods. Seems like Priv 2 must’ve gotten a ‘is this too crazy?’ pass.
Maybe the same pass that robbed us of a space porpoise.
It’s an old trivia item that all four groups are named after North American indigenous groups too:
- Papogod - Tohono Oʼodham, formerly referred to as Papago
- Kiowan - Kiowa
- Chirichan - Chiricahua
- Jincilla - Jicarilla Apache
Mar
…
Today we have an interview from the Hollywood Reporter with the cast of Office Space on its 25th Anniversary. Richard Riehle has a lot to say, and I thought it was fun to hear his perspective on various things even if there's no direct connection to Wing Commander. I was surprised to see that Mr. Riehle is 75 years old now, which would have put him in his early/mid 40s when portraying the role of Pliers in WC4. That sure makes me feel old! I've cut a few quotes below, but you can find the full Q&A here.
How does it feel to hit 25 years since Office Space?Richard Riehle (engineer liaison Tom Smykowski): Hard to imagine it’s been that long. It seems like just yesterday, and people still talk about it. When I’m recognized, it’s one of the first things they ask about.
Riehle: Mike [Judge] always had things that he wanted to throw in — “Try this, try that.” He was the best host there in Austin, as
Mar
LeHah spotted a new Wing Commander autograph opportunity. SWAU is offering Freddie Prinze Jr signatures via its website for the next month. There are a lot of photo choices associated with his role in Star Wars Rebels, but it's nice to see that they have five WC Movie options as well. The final press kit shot with Prinze in marine armor is less common to see, so that's a fun inclusion! You can place orders here. Prices are a bit steep at $95, but autographs are expensive these days!
Mar
…The Wing Commander Academy press kit says that there were twelve cadets transferred to the Tiger's Claw. Can you name them all?
Alright, let's see if we can find them! We're looking for the original twelve cadets transferred to the Tiger's Claw's command school. So Victoria/Viking here and the veteran replacements from the Trafalgar who are added after Chain of Command don't count.
First up, the three leads. Christopher "Maverick" Blair played by Mark Hamill and designed from his live action appearances in Wing Commander III and IV (minus 19 years). Bios are from the series' press kit:
Todd "Maniac" Marshall voiced by Tom Wilson and also designed from his WC3 and 4 appearances (though a little bit more The Real Ghostbustersy).
And new character Gwen "Archer" Bowman played by Dana Delany! She voiced Louis Lane on Superman that same season and it sure feels like both character designs were influenced by the
Mar
…I have watched Wing Commander Academy hundreds of times but I somehow never noticed that the pilot helmets are color coded. They nominally match the Scimitars: blue for Maverick, red for Maniac, purple for Archer, etc.
It looks like they're forgotten or wrong a LOT... just like the ship colors. Hmm, maybe this is the kind of thing that needs a spreadsheet on a lazy Sunday afternoon...
Well I said I was going to do this and for some reason I did. I tracked every Scimitar that appears in the show (by sortie) and noted its pilot, color and fate. There are 150 and 25 are destroyed (or stolen by the Warrior King)!
Here are what seem to be the intended colors for the hero characters. Colors are repeated for extras (or are not visible).
There are a couple of exceptions: the trainers in episode one are all either red or blue, per the story... and The Last One Left gives Blair and Maniac black and a never repeated
Mar
The recent destruction of Titan Taranis has yielded a significant amount of data that scientists across the galaxy have begun interrogating.
Science correspondent Leon Banerjee summarised for Vox Galactica:
"Research on Titans has been ongoing since their first appearance, and understanding how they function has been considered crucial to humanity's survival in the Thargoid war."
"I have spent time with everyone from the smallest private research bodies to the largest corporations in the past few years, and the common anxiety amongst the scientific community is still how little we truly understand about the Titans."
"What answers does the caustic remnant of Taranis contain? What might have survived the destruction? When the wreckage is safe enough to enter, the additional data to be found there will doubtless benefit humanity in some form."
Mar
…
The somewhat amorphous length of a generation is, give or take, about twenty-five years. This means that as of today, the Wing Commander movie is a generation old… and, it follows, so are those of us that once eagerly anticipated its coming. I've written extensively about whether or not it was good (it was not) and what it means to me (I love it dearly) and I don't need to relitigate any of that today. In fact, the war movie cliches about old soldiers are more accurate than ever: the guns have stopped, we're the old men, all quiet on the western front and alike. The bickerings and debates and once-so-important battles of our youth have passed us by as gracefully as such things ever do. No one in 2024 could conceive, for instance, of caring about the Tiger Claw's missing possessive or what the Ralari /really/ looks like or even particularly to complain about Freddie Prinze Jr.'s casting.
If anything,
Mar
Dominus of Exult has some more cool collectibles to show off! He's managed to track down a pair of Wing Commander games localized in Portuguese. These rare copies of WC4 and Privateer 2 have a bit of warping and tearing damage, but it's still wonderful that they were saved. I'm still poring over the minute differences here despite not speaking the language! These should look great alongside his Portuguese copy of Privateer 1.
Got some new rarities. Portuguese Wing Commander IV and Privateer 2. Unfortunately the seller stored them in a very humid place. Trying to open the IV he destroyed the slide cover.
LOAF: Are they localized at all?Dominus: Boxes and documents all in Portuguese. At least the intro has no subtitles. Look like the standard UK CDs. Even the quadruple CD case inlays are the UK ones and not translated (manual etc. are translated).
Mar
Display More*Pilots' Federation Alert*
Titan Leigong is under siege. This is an urgent call to all independent pilots to aid in the complete defeat of a second Titan.
The key modules for the assault continue to be readily available at all Rescue Megaships:
• Thargoid Pulse Neutraliser – To break through the maelstrom defence wave.
• Caustic Sink Launchers – To protect your ship from caustic effects of the maelstrom.
• Guardian Nanite Torpedo Pylon – To hamper the Titan's vents and make it vulnerable to damage.
Rewards have been requisitioned for all Commanders able to participate in ending the Titan threat.
Good luck, Commanders.
Mar
Aligned Peoples’ Manta-class heavy fighter. Initial concept by Mark Vearrier, finished concept sketch by Syd Mead...
Initial mesh blockout and then Alias "cinematic" model renders...
Final in-game assets for both the standard fighter and the deadly "red Manta" bomber variant!
Shout out to the OG.
Mar
…A lot of people (one guy on Discord) have been asking what the correct emblem for the Empire of Kilrah is. So let’s have a thread and find out!
Wing Commander I has matching emblems for factions on every ship. The Kilrathi have a red cat skull which we get to see close up thanks to the beautiful box shot of a high resolution Dralthi wing.
The ships are so low resolution that they’re just dots in flight, but you can pick them out every time. You can see the skull very clearly on the WC2 demo Bloodfang, which is its last appearance.
And there’s a black one on the Imperial Guard troops in The Secret Missions 2!
As an aside, we NEVER got a high res version of the WC1 Confed roundel. You can see it twice on the Drayman here. It looks like a TNG comm badge or maybe three ships orbiting a sun?
Now, this is the broad answer to the question. This is the emblem of the empire itself, the grouping of all eight clans.
Mar
Today we have a jazzed up version of the Armada intro from Retrobear Diskette Quest. There's a little bit of DOSBox scaling happening that supposedly makes it look better at higher resolutions, but the visuals aren't the draw here. It also has some "Roland MT-32 emulation" turned on, and I do hear the extra notes associated with that! Armada is a wonderful game that doesn't get as much time in the spotlight as it deserves, so take this as a plug to fire the game up this weekend!
How do you think the video above compares to the version that FekLeyrTarg rebuilt from scratch with Origin model assets? They both have their particular charms!
Mar
If you kind of squint, it looks a little bit like a clover...
This is a repurposing of Music_Guru's green Dralthi, which is itself inspired by SNES Secret Missions' green Salthi/Jalthi.
Mar
Titan Leigong in the HIP 8887 system has been eliminated, following the same tactical approach used against Taranis.
Vox Galactica's Jade Sanderlyn reported:
"Two of the eight Thargoid Titans have now been put out of action. Leigong suffered the same fate as Taranis, with its core being targeted by a sustained bombardment."
"Aegis is overjoyed at these results. Both Professor Palin and Ram Tah are being praised for their development of the Guardian nanite torpedo, which is crucial to these attacks. And word is spreading that the Thargoid war machine has suffered a critical defeat, one that may change the entire conflict. Can these victories be repeated a further six times?"
Mar
…
Thanks for the background, friends. Of course, I was curious for Wing Commander-related reasons. Specifically, I was fascinated to see the names of the Kray twins because... of Privateer 2's Bray twins:
Reggie Bray is the guy who is selling Uncle Kashumai's religious artifact. For that mission you have to look up their bio in the database and then find their business partner.
There's also a Joe scene where he warns you to look out for the Brays. And you kind of have to wonder: why, since Reggie isn't any particular threat in the auction scene. And heck, why are there two of them anyway? Is it just for the (unknown to me until last night!) joke?
In fact, it's a case of cut content! In the shooting script we see that the Brays were supposed to be the enemies in the Tamessa Ames cinematic mission and that Ronnie (the muscle, as in real life apparently!) was then supposed to continue trying to hunt you down.
Mar
GOG.com is starting to rollout their annual Spring Sale, and Wing Commander has gotten a nice price cut across the board. In order to keep things interesting, rather than a straight 75% off each title, Prophecy, Armada and Privateer 2 are each marked down 65%. Happy Wing Commandering!
Mar
Nightball06 has been on a load road to go from 2D sketches to 3D model. After a couple years refining the design, the digital representation is nearly complete. He's spent a lot of time working to get the shape close to the original, but one area that he has taken some artistic liberties on were the engines. They look pretty cool! Now that he's got a file that can be manipulated, he's exploring where to take it next - either through 3D animation or maybe a physical print!
Some final updates. Haven’t gone far on the animation part yet & I am still looking for someone who could turn the Blender file into a 3D-printable file.
Mar
…Intense investment into research on Titan travel has been announced by the aerospace subdivision of the famed robotics company.
Their research has been centred on the method used by the Thargoid Titans to travel at speeds well beyond that of humanity's current technological capacity.
A spokesperson for Achilles Aerospace had this to say:
"For so long now, the means of space travel have been controlled by one company in a strict monopoly. Under that monopoly, progress seems to have stagnated entirely. But Achilles is a corporation built on the iteration and refinement of technology, and we intend to bring space travel into a new age."
"We have been limited to observational data alone so far, but that is no longer the case. The remnant of Taranis is now accessible, and within it lies the missing component to our work. We urge pilots to venture to the wreckage of the destroyed Titan and try to
Mar
…I'm comparing the UI in different Wing Commander III ports! Here's the callsign selection screen on the PC, 3DO, PlayStation and Macintosh. "Maverick" is my entry except on the PSX version which plugs in BLAIR automagically!
Here's the Victory's main menu on the PC, 3DO and PSX. The Macintosh port doesn't do any of this diegetically, it's handled all in the operating system's UI (boo).
Duty logs, aka save/load!
And here are the (gameflow) options screens.
Here's a really fun one: if you access the menu during the last two missions of the game (where you're flying from covert asteroid depots instead of the Victory) the menu changes to reflect the new location! And in the 3DO version only each depot gets its own name.
Vera: Are there differences in the Victory Streak too?There are! They redid the layout so it would fit in the thin 3DO boxes and added all sorts of additional art. Even a System Shock
