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Yesterday's shocking Wing Commander II SNES painting news wasn't just of interest to the Wing Commander community. Hardcore fans of Nintendo history were also all over the reveal! John Rairdin of Nintendo World Report even went right to work creating an image that simulates what the game's box likely would've looked like:

This is a case where the artist is the bigger expert to begin with but it looks pretty accurate to us! The real game probably would've had a different tagline but since we have no idea what it would've been reusing the original is a smart choice. Nintendo World Report also published an article on the find as did Go Nintendo. It's great to see coverage from the serious Nintendo community; when the game is someday located, I suspect they will be prime movers! For those unfamiliar with SNES branding and who would like a point of comparison, here are box scans for FCI's other Origin ports

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We recently posted a scan of the 1997/2673 Kilrathi Saga calendar, a classic Wing Commander document that hasn't been available online. But wasn't there another Wing Commander calendar? There was! The fancy Premiere Edition of Wing Commander III came with a trilingual calendar that shows off high resolution stills from the game's FMV. It's not quite as cool as the Kilrathi Saga calendar because it doesn't have any original lore... but it sure is pretty! But we've scanned the whole thing anyway and you can get either the high resolution version here (298 megs) or a smaller reading copy here (12 megs). You can take your time, though: you can't use this one again until 2034!

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The master of the VHS strikes back!

Jim Leonard

has restored a copy of the Wing Commander III ESRB submission tape to give us some of the clearest Wing Commander III footage ever preserved. Mr. Leonard has

previously restored

the Wing Commander III 'Behind the Screens' documentary from a copy of the commercially released VHS. This time around, Joe Garrity of the Origin Museum was kind enough to provide him with an original copy of the ESRB submission tape that Origin produced for Wing Commander III.

The ESRB tape includes roughly one hour of Wing Commander III's FMV footage which was cut together so that the game could be content rated. The footage covers most of the game but does not include every branching path or optional decision. The Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) is a voluntary video game content rating organization widely recognized by consumers in the United States. The ESRB was

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Now THAT was an exciting three days of Wing Commander in real time! We got a lot of great feedback, and that's given us lots of ideas on how to take the experience further in the future. It was wonderful to see LOAF's idea for this finally pulled off, and AD/Kris did some impressive last minute video prep so everything was ready in time. Thanks for coming along with us in this crazy Wing Commander adventure!

Day 3 - 1000 Zulu - The Tiger Claw has suffered significant damage in the depth charge attack. Another enemy destroyed has been spotted and Commodore Taggart has a new plan! MORE

Day 3 - 1030 Zulu - The Diligent and a pair of escort fighters have launched to intercept the Kilrathi. Aboard are a company of marines who wil attempt to board the enemy ship to salvage his fuel stores. MORE

Day 3 - 1100 Zulu - The situation aboard is hazy but Confederation marines have boarded the Kilrathi ConCom!

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Surprise! Most diehard Wingnuts know the movie takes place from March 15 to 17, but the novelization has an epilogue that happens the next day. It's a dark scene that takes place on Mylon III. This sets the stage for the events that unfold in Wing Commander Pilgrim Stars and are concluded in Pilgrim Truth. There's some wild stuff in those novels!

Day 4 - 1900 Mylon Time - BREAKING NEWS: The supercruiser TCS Olympus has fired on Confederation forces in the Mylon System?! MORE

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Super XS was a UK gaming magazine that covered Nintendo systems for six issues between March 1993 and January 1995. It billed itself as "Britain's only Nintendo players' guide" and luckily for us, it existed at exactly the right period of time to have covered Wing Commander and The Secret Missions for the SNES! In fact, the magazine opens with a pretty neat Wing Commander guide… and then replicates it again for Secret Missions! It's full of made up information (Angel is from Paris? Salthi have four lasers?), weird commentary (Iceman and Bossman have stupid names) and great SNES-specific bits like the correctly described 'green Salthi' in the ship guide. It's not a great resource but it is utterly charming, a perfect example of how some obnoxious graphic layout and jaunty prose can create something very special. Special challenge: try to identify three ships from the movie Alien used as background

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AD, the CIC's resident finder of things and doer of stuff, came across this video to help you start your Wing Commander week. It's a nifty animation by Kyle Bumpus that recreates the initial intro to Wing Commander 1. I'm actually surprised there aren't a lot more takes on this iconic scene. Check it out below!

Modeling/Animation by Kyle Bumpus
"Wing Commander 1 Intro Theme Orchestra" by Blake Robinson (Synthetic Orchestra)

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It's common knowledge that Wing Commander IV doesn't have cockpits, famously dumping them in favor of displaying the UI on the previously optional 'invisible cockpit' (an option popular among players at the time.) But it turns out the game isn't completely without cockpits! The production built multiple physical cockpits for the full motion video sequences (including one extremely detailed Confederation shuttle set) which give us a look at what the 'real' world of Wing Commander IV is intended to look like. We've collected reference screenshots of these cockpits and the various control surfaces seen in brief cuts. Together they make up a few seconds of screen time… but seeing them together really gives you a better appreciation for what went into Wing Commander IV.

Several angles of the Terran Confederation Hellcat V's cockpit are seen during the game's introduction, including views of the flight

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Pedro

has released an exciting trailer for the

WC4 Fan Remake

! There's lots to unpack here. The team has been mostly focused on features rather than polish, and quite a few features have been implemented indeed! Many distinctive elements from the original WC4 gameplay mechanics appear to be in place to give the project a familiar feel. Check it out below!

I've been working with Defiance Industries to have a video ready for the CIC's birthday of early test footage.

A brief list of things added since the last videos:

• Some early experimentation with updated sound effects (50/50 old vs new)
• View based missile lock-on
• Smoother external camera
• Damage displays
• Turrets (both on fighters and capships)
• Subtle cockpit motion on the primary cockpit camera
• A zoomed out camera (primarily for taking in the cockpit)
• Afterburners, Decoys
• Working cockpit (guns, fuel, damage, speed guns, decoys, targeting brackets)

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In yesterday's update about connections between Wing Commander and Star Wars, we mentioned that the Hellcat takeoff scene from the Wing Commander IV intro had been the last one created. It turns out that that story hasn't been widely told… and it answers a small mystery the fandom has wondered about for almost thirty years!

Here's the story: As Wing Commander IV was preparing for launch, Chris Roberts wasn't happy with the game's introduction. He felt that the game's cinematic introduction wasn't doing enough to capture the player. A long standing philosophy at Origin was that the most effort (and by implication money) should be spent on the opening of a given game because that more than anything was what could guarantee a title would capture the player's attention. And Wing Commander IV had a spectacular intro… although it was one already compromised by the film shoot running out of time for the

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Great news for Wing Commander music fans!

George Oldziey

has finished processing the Wing Commander jazz and bar music

recorded

earlier this year by his awesome Latin jazz band, and the digital version is now available. If you backed his

Kickstarter

last year, you should have received a message with download links and a password, so log in and check it out! If you didn't back the project but still want to hear an awesome sample, the Victory's famous tune has been released as a teaser here. It's my favorite - I just love it! More goodies are still in the works, which George details below.

Your browser cannot play this file. Click here to download the track.

Greetings all. I'm terribly sorry for the LONG delay, but I just sent links to the digital media versions of the Wing Commander Bar Music recording to those that contributed at $20 and more to phase 1 of volume 2, so check your inboxes. The

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Great news for Wing Commander music fans!

George Oldziey

has finished processing the Wing Commander jazz and bar music

recorded

earlier this year by his awesome Latin jazz band, and the digital version is now available. If you backed his

Kickstarter

last year, you should have received a message with download links and a password, so log in and check it out! If you didn't back the project but still want to hear an awesome sample, the Victory's famous tune has been released as a teaser here. It's my favorite - I just love it! More goodies are still in the works, which George details below.

Your browser cannot play this file. Click here to download the track.

Greetings all. I'm terribly sorry for the LONG delay, but I just sent links to the digital media versions of the Wing Commander Bar Music recording to those that contributed at $20 and more to phase 1 of volume 2, so check your inboxes. The CDs

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

There's good news on George Oldziey's live Wing Commander

jazz album

. The production copies have finally come back, so George is ready to ship discs out to project backers. Very cool

album art

was created by SabreAce, which you can see below. If you pledged for a physical copy during the original campaign and didn't receive an email with shipping confirmation instructions, log into the Kickstarter's

updates page

for instructions on how to get your album. These have been a long time coming, so it's great to see they're finally here!

Greetings all! I'm so TERRIBLY sorry that this has taken so long, but I FINALLY received the CDs that feature the WC Bar Music and recordings of the MIDI mockups and I'm ready to ship them to you!

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Following up on his recent release of the

jazz and bar music

digital recordings, veteran video game composer

George Oldziey

has sent out three more updates to his backers. George has exported the sheet music for several tracks from volume 2 of the orchestral project to video format. You can follow the score as the music notation is played back through the Sibelious sound fonts. The second update shows a preview of the artwork for the physical copy of the jazz album. It was made by community member

SabreAce

, who you may remember from his work on those awesome

squadron patches

a few years ago. And finally there was a response to a frequently asked question regarding the recommended listening order. If you backed this project, be sure to keep an eye on your e-mail or the

Kickstarter page

for the latest updates. Kickstarter e-mail updates always end up in my spam folder for some reason. The Victory bar music

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Following up on his recent release of the

jazz and bar music

digital recordings, veteran video game composer

George Oldziey

has sent out three more updates to his backers. George has exported the sheet music for several tracks from volume 2 of the orchestral project to video format. You can follow the score as the music notation is played back through the Sibelious sound fonts. The second update shows a preview of the artwork for the physical copy of the jazz album. It was made by community member

SabreAce

, who you may remember from his work on those awesome

squadron patches

a few years ago. And finally there was a response to a frequently asked question regarding the recommended listening order. If you backed this project, be sure to keep an eye on your e-mail or the

Kickstarter page

for the latest updates. Kickstarter e-mail updates always end up in my spam folder for some reason. The Victory bar music

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

George Oldziey

reports that the Wing Commander

Jazz Albums

have been shipped! If you haven't sent your address in - or you don't receive yours in a week or so, let George know what's up! The cover art by

SabreAce

just looks fantastic. Some of the initial plans for a future campaign to record even more Wing Commander music are in the very preliminary stages, so stay tuned in the coming months for that. It's been a long road to get all of this amazing music put together, but the results have been very impressive!

Greetings all! All the CDs for which I have received shipping instructions have been shipped. I sent off the last of them today, mostly overseas. So if you have not received them in a week or so let me know. Most of you should have already received them. I hope you are enjoying them!

I'll keep you all posted on when the next phase of Volume 2 orchestral recording begins.

Thank you for

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

George Oldziey

checked in again to provide fans an update on his Wing Commander jazz album, which was

recorded

a couple months ago. He's recently overcome some delays and is now ready to check off some of the few remaining production-related tasks. One thing he's asking fans for help on is the cover art. Anyone who has ideas or input should hit the comment button below and let him know. The sooner this gets finalized, the sooner fans who supported his recent album

campaign

can get their music! Listen to a preview below.

Your browser cannot play this file. Click here to download the track.

Greetings WC music fans! Firstly, I have to apologize for not being very present here. Some life's challenges took my attention, but they have been resolved and I now have the music for the WC bar music CD ready to be manufactured.

But first! I would love suggestions for art work for the CD. If you have

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

The Deluxe vinyl pressing of the WING COMMANDER score has launched! As of this writing, the project has hit almost $3,000, 19% of the total goal. That's a great start, but we'd like to see it higher. Stay tuned for more background and plans for how you can join in on celebrating the campaign in the coming days. For now, we're happy to report that several additional pledge tiers have been added based on folks' responses on the first day: a $150 "Collector's Trio" that comes with all three versions of the album, a $200 "Collectors Trio Deluxe" that has all three versions with the bonus swag and an alite tier $2500 "Dead Wax Dedication" option that will allow one backer to choose what appears on the record's dead wax. If you aren't familiar with this record term, check out this article for details. Basically, it's a chance to insert a sort of Easter egg that will appear on every record manufactured!

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

It's a holiday in the US, so I'm going to cash in my "slow news day" credits and report on a couple of listicles that AD just found. As a reader of this site, you're already well aware of the WC entries in each article, so the larger topics might be of more interest. First up is a ScreenRant piece on movies with an unconventional cast list, which definitely includes WC and its hybrid America/international suite of stars.

Wing Commander is one of the rare movies adapted from video games that audiences actually seemed to enjoy upon its release, a trend that wouldn't really make it out of the '90s. The film follows a group of fighter pilots who join an intergalactic war in order to fend off the dangerous Kilrathi race.

I don't quite remember the reception being so positive, but I'll take it. Next up is a brief rundown at C86 on The Best Cartoons Based on Video Games.

7 Wing Commander Academy: The Series

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