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Happy Halloween from the Wing Commander Combat Information Center team! Can you identify all the spooky ships in this festive seasonal collage?
... and of course, if you have kiddos out trick-or-treating tonight you should make sure to check their candy. Some sicko might put a Razor in it:
Nov
…If you've followed these posts for any length of time you probably know that I find it particularly fascinating to look backwards at design documents, demos and unreleased builds of games because it lets you see how many individual elements were adapted and changed during the creative process. But games aren't the only Wing Commander stories that we can 'space telescope' back in time: many of the Wing Commander novels had published preview chapters which ranged from slightly to significantly different from their final forms!
To make a study ot these preview chapters, I collected their text and then diff'd each one with the equivalent chapter in Baen's ebook version of the final text. What I found ranged from many typographical and grammatical changes but in some cases some pretty significant edits to content and meaning. Below we'll look at each of the chapters and point out what changed in them but
Nov
…Warfare isn't all space fighters dogfighting and battleships pummeling each other with plasma weapon. Wing Commander has always imagined a universe with a complex supply chain and support system behind the action with a variety of transports, depots, shuttles and other vehicles that are perhaps less sexy than a Rapier or a Bloodfang. Chief among these is the Kilrathi salvage tug, an impressive design that is only ever seen very briefly. For a better look at the tug than ever before we've recreated two images of it from panning shots (including one originally blocked by text):
On 4 July 2654, a flight Scimitars off the TCS Tiger's Claw commanded by 2nd Lt. Lindsay Price encountered a salvage tug escorted by a pair of Sartha and carrying a derelict human spacecraft. Price ordered her wingmen to attack, with 2nd Lt. Todd Marshall and 2nd Lt. Gwen Bowman each dispatching a Sartha. Despite the loss of their
Nov
The Wing Commander series has a long history of drawing on familiar people and places when it needs to create new names. Some can be pretty unique one-off jokes, references or combinations of things, so when we see something in external media that happens to overlap with WC, it always gives us pause! The manual to Wing Commander Academy mentions Gorath as the site of a major Crossbow action. LOAF recently saw that that's also a the name of a famous 1962 Japanese sci-fi film!
Oooooooh!
Nov
…If you're like us, you may be experiencing exorbitant levels of anxiety at the moment. Fortunately, we noticed that Volt Silicon just posted a soothing AdLib / OPL2 recording of the Wing Commander 2 soundtrack. As one of my favorite games in the series, these iconic tunes always take me back. They're a soothing trip down memory lane for when you need something to calm the nerves!
Wing Commander II: Vengeance of the Kilrathi is a space combat simulation game developed and published by Origin Systems in 1991. As the sequel to Wing Commander, the game transports you into an interstellar war between the Terran Confederation and the Kilrathi, a warrior race of feline-like aliens. While maintaining core gameplay from the original, such as space dogfights and managing wingmen, this installment places a greater emphasis on narrative, featuring structured missions and captivating sprite-animated cutscenes.
Nov
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Today is the big quadrennial election day in the United States, so I wanted to reshare a magnificent article that LOAF put together a few years back on everything we know about how the human government functions in Wing Commander. The snippet below pertains to the role of the Confederation president, which is fascinating unto itself. You can read the whole piece here!
The Executive BranchThe Terran Confederation is lead by an elected President and Vice President. There is no known term limit; President Harold Rodham held the office for fourteen years. 2634 was a presidential election year.
The President has the ability to order the military to mobilize for emergency action. He may elect to order the military to Defense Level Two, authorizing the putting of ships to space and the cancellation of leaves and mobilizing the active reserve forces, or Defense Level One, which also authorizes cross-border
Nov
…With the Thargoid invasion force seemingly on the edge of defeat, political analysts have presented several arguments for what follows.
The potential balance of power across the core systems will be heavily influenced by the ambitions of its primary players – perhaps crucially in the Federation, claims Jean-Daniel Moulin:
"President Winters has finally taken up residence in the White House, ready to face a multitude of challenges. A depressed war economy, mass citizen displacement and a series of late-term policies implemented by the outgoing Zachary Hudson will keep her schedule full for months. Jeremy Archer stands opposite her in Congress, ready to pounce on any signs of weakness and eager to fully emerge from the long shadow of Hudson as the true leader of the Republican party."
On the Imperial front, Cassia Carvalho of the Imperial Herald has provided a summary of those most likely to
Nov
We know it's a rough day out there for lots of folks. As I mentioned earlier this week, sometimes a good old Wing Commander soundtrack can help transport you to a different place and time, so here's Orion2349's iconic Privateer recording on a Roland Sound Canvas. And if you still need some cheering up, come visit #Wingnut and pass the time with us!
Nov
It's been a very long week, so we're hosting a hangout tonight on Discord! We'll be watching the Wing Commander Movie starting at 7 pm Pacific / 10 pm Eastern US time. Nothing fancy - just queue up your copy and we'll press play together. You don't even have to watch, if that's not your thing. And if the time doesn't work for you, then stop by earlier or stay later. Just come and chill with fellow fans!
Nov
Nov
Display MoreWe've got a treat for fans of the Wing Commander movie today! We've done high resolution scans of a collection of 48 set photographs saved from the film. These images are stunniing and they give us a new look at some of the incredible sets and props created for the movie... as well as a window into what life was like for Chris Roberts and the crew working on the film at the time!
Concordia - Bridge
Diligent - Bridge
Spacecraft
Time Slice
Film Crew
Chris Roberts
Sound Stages
Nov
…Pretty neat to see a full sized Hornet made for this year's Star Citizen CitizenCon! (Pictures from Citizen Erased) It may not surprise you that this is not the first time Chris Roberts has built a full sized spaceship! Let's go back...
Wing Commander IV had a full sized version of the previously all-CG shuttle introduced in WC3! It's used for several big scenes. Some folks have criticized the shuttle set as a big waste of money but I would argue that those people aren't fun.
But that wasn't the only real ship they built for Wing Commander IV! They also constructed two cockpits, the first being the Dragon seen in the intro:
And the second was the Hellcat V! It was mostly shot without the canopy bubble which is too bad because it looks very cool on. Like the Hornet, this is a ship that was never designed to be constructed physically!
They also redressed the Dragon cockpit to use as a Banshee for one
Nov
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We had so much fun watching Wing Commander on Discord last week and it was such a nice distraction that we thought we would try making it a regular event! And what could be more fun than going back in time to watch some of the classic movies that have been credited with inspiring Wing Commander? This week, we're watching The Dam Busters, one of the films Chris Roberts wanted the 1999 Wing Commander movie to emulate. Details about the film and how to find a copy follow.
The Dam Busters is a 1955 film which dramatizes Operation Chastise, a daring 1943 air raid in which specially trained British bomber crews dropped purpose-design "bouncing bombs" to destroy German dams. It's considered a classic war and aviation film, particularly in the United Kingdom where Wing Commander Guy Gibson's World War II heroics are revered. The film is also famous for being a major inspiration for the original Star Wars'
Nov
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Today we're sharing a podcast that Mat Bradley-Tschirgi created and sent over way back in 2016. Look, it's been a rough eight years, and we're a little behind. Better late than never though, since this is a great episode that you should definitely check out. He's assembled a medley of tracks that does an excellent job of taking you on an aural journey through the series. You've got music from WC1-4, the Privateers and even Cobalt 60's techno Prophecy album. There's also an intro and conclusion that set the stage and give a little bit more context. Give it a listen at the KBOO website here!
Air date: Sat, 12/03/2016 - 9:00am to 9:30amCombining the earnest plots of World War 2 films with an original sci-fi setting inspired by Star Trek and Star Wars, the Wing Commander games were a load of space sim fun. The Terran Confederation waged a years long battle against the evil feline Kilrathi alien race.
Nov
…It's been thirteen years since GOG.com started selling Wing Commander games. Over the years, they've added the entire primary DOS/Windows catalog, but some of the packages are starting to show their age. The last WC game to be added was Armada in November 2013, and there hasn't been a whole lot of tweaking since. A few critical bugs were fixed here and there, but as hardware and operating systems change, glitches have started to arise. And that doesn't even count the occasional bug that's been around since the games were first listed!
To help combat this, the service announced a new effort today to shore up some of their top titles. There are 100 games in the initial rollout, including Privateer and Wing Commander 3. Both have gotten a handful of updates to ensure they continue to run on modern systems. And both are 50% off to celebrate! We hope to see many more improvements added and more WC
Nov
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This is a reminder that we have another fun #Wingnut movie night planned on Discord this evening! The ongoing theme will be movies that inspired Wing Commander in some way. Tonight's film is The Dam Busters, which Chris Roberts credits as inspiring the WC Movie's fantastic score. If you don't own a copy, a version is hosted by the Internet Archive. Feel free to drop by and hang!
When I set out to make "Wing Commander," I envisioned a classic World War II film as its model. Except that it was set in space, 500 years from now. This motif played strongly in the design and look of the picture. I also wanted it to play strongly in the score. I wanted the music to evoke some of the glorious old war film scores; full of heart, melody and heroic acts. "633 Squadron," "The Dam Busters" and other such classics came to my mind. When I first talked to David and Kevin about the score, they were in tune from
Nov
The fact that Wing Commander III drops you in media res instead of having a start screen has long been cited as one of those brilliant immersive Chris Robertsisms. Well, here's the original start menu from an earlier build! Suggests you would've had the option to transfer your character from WC2.
The logo is pretty fascinating on its own! I suppose it's intended to be for the Victory but it reminds me of Blair's later (and similarly unexplained) nose art crest in the movie. I think we need to find a heraldry expert to think about both of these!
Another fascinating and rarely seen Wing Commander crest: the Wing Commander Academy (game) team shirt! Designed by the late, great Paul Steed. I dream of having one of these in my collection!
Nov
…Today we've got a different kind of video to share. PixelPusher Mailman is going page-by-page through a thirty year old copies of PC Games. I just like the concept of someone lovingly paging through a vintage magazine like this. There is a section in his latest issue on Wing Commander Armada that actually makes the game look really cool. Unfortunately the narrator here wasn't into it, but both the strategic gameplay portion and multiplayer are very special. Anyhow, this clip is in German, but you can turn on YouTube's automatic translation feature to get real time captions in your language of choice. Jump to 17:41 if it doesn't auto start in the right place.
Come with me back in time again – to 1994, to be precise! In this video, I flick through the 09/1994 issue of PC Games.Star Wars is on the cover, unfortunately not quite as present in the inside pages. There is only a small preview box for
Nov
Tonight's project: added the Super Wing Commander cockpits to the WCCIC's cockpit reference page!
Don't forget the SWC Dralthi! I do three versions: no alarms at 100%, all alarms active and then one with damage states:
I've also added Wing Commander III and I'll start looking at the console ports at some point. Find all of these and more in the WCPedia here!
Nov
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I'm happy to report that our second Wing Commander movie night was a success! We had a great group of fans who enjoyed seeing–and lightly roasting–The Dam Busters together this past Friday night. You can find the complete after action report later this week. So next we're going to be watching a movie that's a little more modern… with some more obvious connections to both the original Wing Commander game and the 1999 film. That's right, on Friday you are welcome to join us for a group watch of Top Gun (1986).
Top Gun is a 1986 action film based on the United States Navy's elite program that teaches top fighter pilots skills that they in turn pass on to their compatriots. It helped usher in lead Tom Cruise's ongoing superstardom and is one of the prototypes of the modern blockbuster. My generation loved it for mixing pulse-pounding air combat with engaging characters we couldn't help but root for… but
