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Today we've got a very cool video unearthed by Sega City. It's a preview of the Mega CD version of Wing Commander in Japan that was included on the April 1994 issue of SEGA Video Magazine. Contrary to what the name implies, this wasn't a print magazine with a cover disc - it was a VHS tape that included various game preview clips. A video advertisement for WC1 from Japan is quite a special find!
A preview of 'Wing Commander' on the SEGA Mega CD. SEGA Video Magazine, April 1994.
Jul
Cybot has returned with a variety of exotic renders. This set is based on familiar WC2 and Privateer-centric scenes with a little bit of creative flair. Cybot's also made a handful of model files available to download, including the Drayman cockpit and some of the guns. You can grab those at the CIC Forums!
A Drayman cockpit. I think it works.
May
What connects the Terran Confederation and the Tri-System? A love of Duck Dodgers, of course!
egr10 on the forums pointed out that ESK stands for Earth Shattering Kaboom and I feel like such an doofus because I hadn't figured that out in 32+ years.
May
Here's a grand revisit to some of John Nelson's recent Lego creations. The first couple images show the combined fleet of human fighters. His faithful interpretations of the Broadsword, Ferret, Lance/Dragon, Rapier, Thunderbolt, Hornet, Arrow, Longbow, Avenger and Scimitar are all there. He's also in the process of reimagining a couple of his Kilrathi designs. His Darket and Strakha have been rebuilt with darker brown and mustard-toned bricks to more closely mimic the color schemes of Wing Commander 3. That's some wonderful dedication to the cause!
I got more brownish colored bricks and swapped out the Darket and nearly rebuilt and beefed up the Strahka. I hope you like them. Look for a new model that I submit to Chris soon.
Mar
…We are very excited to finally unveil the finished version of elend's physical Dralthi model! As you can see, it's absolutely exquisite - just a sight to behold! The detail is completely next level. All of the angels, curves, panel lines, intake serrations, tubes and more have been carefully sculpted and assembled by hand. The paint has been layered for rich dimensionality and there's even a Kilrathi pilot in the cockpit! All told, it likely took some five hundred hours to complete, and it's an amazing counterpart to the Banshee that he built a number of years back. Enjoy the pictures!
This is a scratch built Dralthi from the Wing Commander games series. More specifically, this is a reimagination by "Hangar B Productions", which I used as inspiration. I started this last year in June and basically worked daily on it, probably 2 hours on average. In hindsight I should have planned some things
Aug
…Shot97 has snapped a fun preview from a 1990 edition of Dragon Magazine. At this point in time, the game was still sporting its Wingleader title after Squadron was nixed due to potential copyright concerns. Ultimately Wing Commander was selected over all. I love how the Kilrathi are called "vicious militarists" and the Friend or Foe missile is held up as a "deadly" weapon. And thirty years later, we're still trying to make ray tracing a thing!
Also coming from Origin is Wingleader. Mankind is locked in a deadly war with the Kilrathi in the 27th century. Battling these vicious militarists are the daring pilots of the Terran Confederation. With his faithful wingman flying at his side, the fearless Wingleader battles with Kilrathi aces in heated deep-space dogfights. The game features Panaview, 3-D technology that employs highly detailed, ray-traced, bit-mapped images modeled in 256 VGA colors.
Feb
L.I.F. has finished up the general hull of his TCS Victory model and it's now available to download and try out. Owners of From the Depths can grab the ship here. While the outside is basically finished, there are lots of internal improvements yet to come. L.I.F. projects that the "flight bay, hangar deck, living area, bar, flight control and bridge" will all be forthcoming in subsequent updates. We can't wait to see how that turns out!
The outer hull is finished! The first fittings were a pretty large generator and ion engines to keep the ship from falling down below, so if spawned in space, it should remain there.
Sep
…Inside Mac Games was a unique sort of magazine from the mid-1990s. It was specific to the small, affluent community of Macintosh gamers and instead of being printed it came on a CD-ROM! The articles were presented through an interactive executable and they could link to slide shows, trailers, advertisements and even game demos! Dundradal, who remembers IMG from his youth, located five major previews and reviews of Wing Commander games which we've extracted to the best of our abilities here. Links to copies of the ISOs themselves are also included in case you want to get the genuine experience emulating them on an old Mac!
IMG 24 - January/February 1995 - Super Wing Commander preview
Sneak Peek: Super Wing Commander
by Tuncer Deniz
NOTE: Screen shots and information presented in this article are based on a pre-release version of Super Wing Commander and are subject to change before final release. This
Jul
…You all can identify any fighter in space at this point… but what about the small arms? Today we've put together a guide to the smaller weapons of Wing Commander Academy: handguns, rifles, grenades and more! Animated shows like Academy create a sort of visual bible of model sheets of "props" that can be reused from episode to episode… resulting in a consistency where the same weapon can appear each time that type is needed. It's interesting to see where Academy does this and where it creates new weapons for particular stories! We've divided everything by faction: Space Force, Marines, Kilrathi, Dioscuri and then unique weapons that appear only once associated with a particular character. Enjoy!
Terran Confederation Space Force
The Space Force pistol is the most common weapon to appear on Wing Commander Academy, used by six different episodes. Like the similarly prolific Kilrathi Pistol, it has more
Feb
…
The Wing Commander movie club had a surprisingly fun time watching An American Werewolf in Paris. It wasn't a good movie but it was a good time... and that's really what we need these days! You'll also be surprised at how obvious the Wing Commander connection is when the after action report comes out. But this week we're heading back to World War II with what is probably going to be our final movie about the RAF: 1969's Battle of Britain. You can join us this Friday via Discord to watch along.
Battle of Britain is a war movie covering the 1940 Battle of Britain (well, duh). The battle pitted the outnumbered but courageous RAF against the might of the German Luftwaffe as heroic fighter pilots desperately fought to defend their homes from Nazi bombers. The movie was lauded for its spectacular flying sequences; the story itself is less a character piece and more a Longest Day-style anthology that covers
Jan
…
The Wing Commander movie club thoroughly enjoyed revisiting Star Wars, which we felt was just about a perfect movie. Next up: a movie that is not at all perfect that most of us probably have not ever seen. This time around, we held a vote for the theme for the next movie and the electorate chose 'something weird' instead of another war movie or sci-fi classic. And that something is An American Werewolf in Paris (1997)! You can join us this Friday via Discord to watch along.
An American Werewolf in Paris is a 1997 horror-comedy film which is ostensibly a sequel to the 1981 film An American Werewolf in London (though this is apparently more of a Privateer 2 style connection). It might best be described as a totally forgettable 1990s horror movie that briefly held the attention of the MTV-generation. If you've seen it, it was probably at a dollar theater or the result of a questionable Blockbuster rental!
Aug
We highlight a variety of Wing Commander streaming playthroughs from time to time, but I get really excited when fans are showcasing one of the less common entries in the franchise. Mufasa recently kicked off a new series that is going through Privateer 2. And he doesn't just play the games - he's reading portions of the game's unique documentation with each show as well. The first two episodes are linked below, and the next is scheduled for Wednesday evening, 8/17 at 7 PM Pacific time. Give them a watch!
I haven't played Privateer 2 in decades, so I started playing through it again on Twitch on Wednesday evenings. I start each stream reading some of the manual because it's so unique, different and includes some really interesting backstory and design choices.Also, I forgot the days when there was zero in game tutorial. It just starts, and you have to know everything right out of the gate.
Aug
…An analysis of survivors from recent Thargoid conflicts and invasions has raised the possibility of human abductions on a colossal scale.
Professor Alba Tesreau, head of Aegis, delivered a personal statement to the media:
"A few months ago I was contacted by Zuri Afolayan , a senior analyst for Safeguard Interstellar. Her job involves collating civil and military data to determine where emergency aid is most needed. She had identified consistent discrepancies between the registered populations of Thargoid-occupied systems and all confirmed deaths, refugees and stranded survivors."
"Aegis performed detailed comparisons of Ms Afolayan's findings with other sources. This led to one inescapable conclusion: tens of millions of people have vanished since the start of the war."
"No doubt many deaths have gone unrecorded, and many others have fled into deep space. But the recent appearance of the
Jul
Display MoreWow, look who is trending! Mothers, lock up your ejected pilots.
To be clear: there are two Deathstrokes. They are similar but they are different kils. Dakhath nar Sihkag is the Wing Commander I ace, Dakhath nar Caxki is the WC3/CCG/Arena ace.
The original Deathstroke flew a Dralthi during the Vega Campaign. He was ultimately shot down at Gimle by Spirit! Color art from the SFC manual:
The later Deathstroke flew a Dralthi IV (and later a Dralthi Striker). The red livery is from WC3 but never actually appears since he isn’t really in the PC version!
Some clever and handsome fellow did think to lampshade the similarities in their backgrounds:
Jun
It's time for the annual GOG Summer Sale, and this time 5400+ games are being discounted. Wing Commander wasn't included in the Spring Sale a few months back, so it's nice to see the omission was short lived and the markdowns are back. Each game is 75% off or $1.49 each. Less than $12 for the whole DOS/Windows Wing Commander experience!
Jun
…The UK-based Centre for Computing History recently tweeted about this really cool collectible phone card made as a promotion for Wing Commander 2. I realized I actually have a couple of these laying around, but somehow we've never shared them in the news before! You can find their profile page on this item here. I really like their website and mission!
Just added to the collection: A promotional Wing Commander II Mercury telephone kiosk card!-----------------------------------------
Card for use in a Mercury telephone kiosk, with Wing Commander II design.
Mercury Communications was a national UK telephone company formed in the early 1980s, and was an early competitor of BT. Mercury's payphone kiosks were in use in the UK from 1986-1995.
The card states on the back that Mercurycards are available in £2, £4, and £10 values, however the card itself is a £1 value, so was likely given away as a promotion.
A
Aug
…Form up, Wing Commander fans! Tonight we're taking a look at some spaceships that never were: the ones that were being built for Privateer 3 when it was cancelled in 1998. Thanks to years of game archaeology, we know quite a bit about them!
The CRUSADER (sometimes called FURY) was shaping up to be the big hero ship, equivalent to the Centurion:
Here's a shot of the Crusader in the game engine (a development of Prophecy's Vision technology):
The Crusader is actually 'canon' since EA reused its artwork for a recruiting ad in Star*Soldier. The concept artist, Ruben Garza, also submitted it to an art book called Spectrum 6 where it was printed as "Privateer--Black Star". (Available on Amazon!)
I should also mention the origin of the name! Privateer 3 was being developed by Origin's Loose Cannon team which had previously develoed the Crusader series of games.
Next up we have the VAKTOTH which is slotted here as
Apr
…Artist Denis Loubet has put together a thoroughly badass video biography that covers the numerous highlights of his storied career. His latest venture is to help with a crowdfunded vampire film called Captive. The movie wouldn't have ordinarily caught my attention, but Denis' video is so great that I had to give it a look. And it looks pretty cool! If you'd like to check it out, there's a few days left on its Kickstarter campaign. No matter what, check out Mr. Loubet's clip below!
Denis Loubet is most prominently known for his work on the Ultima franchise, as well as Wing Commander, but he artist presence extends into the world of comics, table top rpgs, and more.Denis was kind enough to lend his considerable talents to the crowdfunding efforts of Captive - an upcoming vampire film. In addition to designing the art of the campaign, he has also contributed two unique perks.
- A custom credit card
Nov
…We have exciting news! Captains on PC will be able to enjoy a bonus on purchased ZEN! Is there a ship in the C-Store that is tempting you? Now is the perfect opportunity to grab ships, keys, and whatever else has caught your eye. From November 22nd at 9am PT to December 2nd at 9am PT, Captains will earn an extra bonus on purchased ZEN when you charge through Direct Credit Card, PayPal, Skrill, BoaCompra, Xsolla, Paysafecard, or Steam. *Please note that this Charge Bonus offer is ONLY available for the following payment processors: Direct Credit Card (Visa, Mastercard, American Express and Discover) PayPal Skrill BoaCompra Xsolla Paysafecard Steam .share-footer a { margin: 20px 10px 10px 0; background: url(d7afaaa14e96d0d973f76157ae31ec5b1466398539.png) no-repeat 0 0; opacity: .5; display: inline-block; height: 60px; width: 60px; padding: 0;
Dec
It's been a while since the Cloud Imperium team has shown off new Squadron 42 material, so they've put together a striking teaser of the game's visual effects. The new graphics shown off here are intended to highlight advancements made in the past year. There's definitely some pretty space environments to see! The Wing Commander-style single player campaign associated with these visuals will star Mark Hamill, John Rhys-Davies and many others. It's currently scheduled to advance to beta state in the later half of next year.
As a special holiday gift to all of you, we put together this visual teaser reel, highlighting some of the work we’ve done on Squadron 42 over the course of 2019.
