News categories list

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Way back in 2005, we reported on the surprising find that the semi-official Wing Commander Movie website at wingcommander.gms.lu was still live and operational - albeit untouched since 1998. These days it's common to see corporate websites taken offline rather than sit idle for years in suspended animation, which owes to both the cost of maintenance and to avoid the appearance of stale content. Even if that doesn't happen, after five or ten years, somebody pulls the plug. But a few slip through from time to time, and the Carousel Picture Company and Global Media Systems' "Wingcommander Homepage" is one of them! You can visit for yourself here. It's a simple site that primarily focuses on photos taken from the set. This leads to some amazing shots of the Rapier fighters and Kilrathi suits. The cast list still lists Ken Bones as the "traitor," which was a subplot cut from the film, although the

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

The recent NMLA attack in the Paresa system has encouraged the Imperial Senate to reach out to Imperator Hadrian Duval.
An official pronouncement was made by Senator Caspian Leopold:
"A majority of us believe that preserving the Duval bloodline is paramount for the future of the Empire. Hadrian Duval is not officially a member of the Imperial Family but he is the grandson of Emperor Hengist, meaning his as-yet unborn child is also of royal lineage."
"The NMLA has already murdered many Duvals, including Prince Harold. Indeed, Hadrian himself barely survived an assassination attempt last year. It's clear that the Empire can provide greater security than he currently has, and it is our duty to do so."
"Therefore, we propose making both Hadrian and Lady Astrid wards of the Senate. They will be placed under the highest level of protection, at least until this grave threat has abated."
Imperator

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Spooky season is here which means it’s once again time to unleash the scariest spaceship of all time… Privateer 2’s Jincilla Skull!

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Variety recently did an interview with Matthew Lillard where they talked about the original Scream movie's 25th anniversary (and release of Scream 5). There's one small part where he compares his excitement with Scream to starring in Wing Commander, and it's something I've always appreciated about Lillard's involvement with the film. This isn't a new off-the-cuff take - he usually reflects fondly when talking about making the Wing Commander Movie. Last year he even put together an awesome table read for April 1! You can find the full Variety article here.

When “Scream” first came out, did you ever think you’d be here 25 years later discussing its legacy?

Matthew Lillard: The short answer is no way. I think we’re surprised, but we love it. It holds an emotional place for all of us because we were so young and had an incredible experience shooting the movie. Going into it, none of us had any idea,

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Enough time has passed that I think we can finally share this spoiler content in the news. A recent episode of The Book of Boba Fett features an AI-enhanced CGI-esque Mark Hamill along with similarly artificial spoken lines. Respeecher was the company involved with doing the voices, and Klavs has nifty WC tie-in anecdote to share. He had the opportunity to work with them in the past, and he made sure the team was aware of Hamill's Wing Commander performances to power their machine learning engine. In fact, it was literally ODVS' video packages that they used for easy access to all of FMV Blair's lines! You can read more about this process here.

The Respeecher staff also used the High Resolution video packs from Wing Commander IV and III by Owen Davies. A veritable treasure trove of ~10 aby Mark Hamill audio! I know because I provided it to them during a collaborative project last year.

Here are

Quote from Elite Dangerous Galnet News-Bot

The megaships Musashi and Heart of Taurus have entered the Synuefe CE-R c21-6 system to perform a mining-related research operation.
Taurus Mining Ventures is an independent mining corporation closely associated with Salvation. It has acted as his intermediary in recent months, directly supporting his efforts to combat the Thargoids.
Dr Ruben Carpenter, head of the company's research division, provided a statement:
"We have recorded some unusual radioactive signatures in the Synuefe CE-R c21-6 system. This has had a transformative effect on the molecular structure of certain naturally occurring substances."
"Our objective is to perform a detailed analysis of these irradiated materials and determine if they have value as mineable resources. Customised laboratories have been set up aboard both megaships, and work is already underway."
The Empirical, an independent journal aimed at the scientific

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

I bought a joystick! Normally if it ain’t Thrustmaster I ain’t going, but I think they’ll forgive me for straying in this case... Look at the insane choice of screenshots! One is a clip of the box of a different game! Wild!

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Today we have a gorgeous Wing Commander 3 spread posted by the Spanish magazine PCMania in 1994. It features a lot of familiar prerelease art, plus gorgeous renders of the Thunderbolt, Longbow and Arrow. Gunnery and flight control are looking good too. The game flow backdrops in WC3 are some of my favorite in the series. At the conclusion of the six page article, the reviewer gives the game a 92% score. Thanks to Maxi de Sokar for the find!

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Another wonderful Origin ad layout from 1993! What are the odds? I wonder if there's anything interesting in here...

Academy's stunning key art is by Chris Douglas (again!) and Jake Rodgers, another one of Origin's talented early 3D artists. It has two Return of the Jedi explosions, too! The oddest part is the ships which... aren't in the game at all, no "Dralthi MK VII" in Academy.

These ads started running late summer 1993 and continued through the end of the year. There was a pretty significant running change towards the end of the campaign that's worth comparing to the scan above:

The first one: "holodeck console" becomes "holographic simulator". I've worked in game marketing long enough to know EXACTLY how that conversation with legal went.

The other one is that "The Wave" becomes "The Gauntlet"... that's clearly a development change and it is a much better name!

The screenshots are fascinating.

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

centaurianmudpig is back with a new space sim game to show his fellow Wingnuts. He previously released Absolute Territory, which was a more traditional WC-style shooter. Now he's branched out into a hybrid sim that blends newtonian physics and large capital ships with a variety of familiar concepts to WC fans. It sounds like a cool experience for people who would like to try something different just a little bit different! There is a demo you can try out via Steam and a preview video below.

Hey wingnuts, it's been a while since I last posted about my last big update for Absolute Territory, with space fighters and hostile aliens, on here.

Since then I started working on my next game, in keeping with sci-fi space combat, with large warships (corvette sized and bigger). I've been running a public playtest for A-Spec First Assault on Steam for the last year, and now preparing for Steam Next Fest: June

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Accelerwraith tipped us off about a wonderful little easter egg segment in the animated show Invincible on Prime Video. He captured the clip below where a bunch of purple people in helmets and suits run down a red corridor. The way it frames both their heads and their feet seems to confirm it's an intentional nod to the classic Wing Commander dash from the briefing room to the flight deck. Here they are side by side so you can appreciate the similarity!

.@banditloaf Someone(s) on the @InvincibleHQ team played Wing Commander. pic.twitter.com/XOFfh3bogZ

— 山ㄩㄥ千 (@Accelerwraith) November 10, 2023

Did you know there are actually several different running sequences in the original Wing Commander? You can get different combinations of crew wearing a flight helmet, cap, long hair and short hair. Pretty neat!

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Whether you're looking for the perfect WC gift or trying to fill out your collection, here's a rundown of various Wing Commander items on the market today. You might be surprised to see how many things are still being sold! Although most items are digital, there are some fun physical items in the mix too. New additions this year include a stunning print of the End Run cover art by artist David Mattingly (pictured right) as well as the new CIC pint glass. The pint glass and coaster set are 25% off right now for Black Friday. If you see this after that coupon has lapsed, hold off until they issue their Cyber Monday coupon!

Print Art

End Run Cover by David Mattingly $20-$100 Malcolm McDowell Autographed WC3 PSX Print $65

PC Games ($5.99 each)
Wing Commander 1&2 Wing Commander 3 Wing Commander 4 DVD Wing Commander Prophecy & Secret Ops	Wing Commander Privateer Wing Commander Privateer 2 Wing Commander Academy

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

I've been waiting for this day: AD has discovered the first ever bootleg Wing Commander LEGO set on AliExpress!

Here's the original source - a fantastic design by Paul Magurean.

The F-107 Lance was developed in the immediate aftermath of the Terran-Kilrathi War by the Black Lance, an elite special forces organization created by Admiral Geoffrey Tolwyn. It was designed as an all-purpose heavy fighter to be used exclusively by the Black Lance for its intended use in defending humanity in future conflicts. It was funded by the Black Lance's many elusive backers and like all Black Lance projects, was designed and tested in the utmost secrecy. Ultimately though, the Dragon was an illegally-produced spacecraft that had been fielded without the approval of the legitimate Confederation authorities.

The Dragon was a heavily-armed fighter with some of the most advanced equipment to emerge in the 2670s. It was

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Aligned Peoples’ Moray-class fighter, from the initial painting by Syd Mead to concept sketch with feedback from art director Mark Vearrier to Alias “cinematic” model to in-game asset!

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

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.

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

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.

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

You asked for more options to hack into Prophecy, Secret Ops and Privateer 2 - and AllTinker has delivered! The latest update to Originator add support for extraction of the more complex models in the later Wing Commander games. There's also better support for alternate disc formats such as the 3DO, recognition of P2's xmidi music format and much more. You can grab the latest version of the tool here!

Version 0.3.00 is a fairly broad update.

Support has been added for Prophecy/Secret Ops and Privateer 2 models. The former took longer than I thought - I forgot many models included polygonal faces, which required triangulation - the details of which are quite complicated and probably not that interesting.

Prophecy models are quite modular; eventually I may add a specific Ship Viewer, which combines the various models for viewing - also handling things like the WC3/4 hangars. A task for another day!

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

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,

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

AD spotted a phenomenal pair of art pieces by AEdwardBaker. He's just created a beautiful take on the TCS Victory. This test render is only available in 1080p, but there's already so much great detail in everything down to the laser turrets and weathering on the hull paint. It's really slick! You can give him feedback or check out his many other gorgeous space scenes here.

"She's a fine carrier with a long history of service to the Confederation."

"Yes sir. A very long history."

A test render of my model of TCS Victory from Wing Commander III.

Done in Blender

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

It's a new year and time for a new poll! Our annual new year's poll asks what kind of year you think it'll be for Wing Commander. As we saw in yesterday's recap, 2019 was a big year for Wing Commander, and there's no sign of letting up in 2020!

---

The old poll asked about the most underappreciated Wing Commander games. Armada, with its strategic mode and expansive multiplayer options, took the lead with Privateer 2 a close second. Super Wing Commander, Academy and even the Prophecy port for the Game Boy Advance also took in a good number of votes. It's great to see people who are fans of all these lesser-known WC products!