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Register a new accountJan
The widescreen Confederation images that we posted last week were a big hit, and now AllTinker is back with a whole set of expanded background plates for Secret Missions 2: Crusade! These include some great Firekkan scenes as well as some well-outfitted Kilrathi. He's got a great eye for continuing out the scene in the style of the original art.
Secret Missions 2 more or less done for now. Not everything is visible here because of animation/parallax in the real deal.
Oct
…LOAF thought you all could use a primer on the WC3/WC4 shuttle. It's a cute little boxy craft that's a fan favorite in this pair of FMV games. But how does it differ between (and within!) these games? Read on to find out!
Did you ever wonder why the Wing Commander IV shuttle is slightly different from the Wing Commander III shuttle? Of course, we all have!
The reason is... they built a physical shuttle set for Wing Commander IV and adapted the 3D models to match it!
... but then they remove the forward struts for certain shots! It’s especially noticeable in the intro once you’ve seen it.
The shuttle only appears in cutscenes in WC3 but there is a 3D model (complete with damage states) stored in the game assets [pictured below]. Wing Commander III has a lot of cut models!
There are two more shuttle meshes in Wing Commander IV. The camo version is used for the Tyr and Masa boarding missions and the Border
Sep
Hunter_13 found a cool starship size comparison video that includes a neat Wing Commander mention. There's a bunch of these types of videos and depictions across the internet, and we appreciate all of the Wingnuts out there who report these types of things because we can't catch them all ourselves! The clip begins with some familiar small ships like Tie Fighters and X-Wings and then progresses through a nice variety of sci-fi fighters before getting up to medium size vessels like what you might encounter in Star Trek. Eventually they reach large megastructures like the Death Star and Halo ring. Wing Commander 2's F-57 Sabre appears at about the 2:20 mark!
Here is 3D animation of the spaceship size comparison inside the Matrix city using Unreal Engine 5.
Jan
Here's another fantastic piece of Wing Commander art by HandofManos. This one is a "master systems display" style cutout for the Southampton class destroyer. I always used to love these for Star Trek designs, so it's wonderful to see one imagined for a Wing Commander ship. He actually made this quite a while back, so it's unlikely that there's another forthcoming any time soon, but we would love to see more! Thanks to Klavs for the tip.
An older MSD which someone asked my to upload. It is a design seen in Wing Commander 3 and 4 and is the mainstay Terran Confederation destroyer.
Mar
…DisplayI went back and compared those Wing Commander 2 WIP cockpits we recovered with the final assets. Check out these Broadsword turrets which lose, among other things, the hand graphics!
A set of three hard drives belonging to an unidentified Origin Systems employee was recovered by Joe Garrity of the Origin Museum and Dan Chisarick. The contents included installations of Wing Commander I and II and a copy of DeluxePaint with several Wing Commander II-related animation files saved.While the images were originally stored as ANM animation files they are actually collections of static images, likely grouped together as animations for ease of organization and/or presentation. Inividual unique frames have been saved as PCX files and exported as PNGs for the galleries seen below.
Some are pretty similar, like the Epee...
... while others like the Ferret are very different!
You can find them all here!
Aug
We've got another very cool ultra widescreen art piece today by AllTinker. It depicts the harrowing scene at the McAuliffe VI Research Colony where the scientists either turn the tide against the Kilrathi - or are massacred. He's added a ton of detail to the sides. This will eventually make its way to the Confederation project. At first glance, you might think this is "just" a door and some walls, but it takes some superior artistic talent to pull something like this off! And to show exactly what that entails, Tinker also made a time lapse video. It's amazing to see the expanded scene come to life like this!
First pass down. Like a few of the others, I have to make them wider than 21:9 so that they can still scroll/parallax.
Nov
…Here are storyboards for an establishing shot in Wing Commander IV that would've had Colonel Blair arrive at the Nephele bar on a speeder bike.
"I bet they didn't want it to look TOO much like Star Wars!"... the final version of the bar exterior would beg to differ.
The establishing shot ended up not being necessary because they dropped a previous scene where we see Blair as a sad drunk haunted by the war. So instead they match cut from the Senate scene to a news broadcast in the bar and pan over to Hamill entering, which is a neat trick! (I'm VERY curious what the backlit poster to the right is; sadly, not much set photography has survived!)
Here are boards for the dropped scene. You would've gotten a brief 'dear John' video from the lady you chose in Wing Commander III. This was on the schedule up through when the shoot started, so it must've been dropped very late!
I always wondered if they had
Dec
Did you know that Wing Commander III has THREE different official guides?!
I thought it would be fun to compare what ships, wingmen and loadout each book recommends for each mission. And I was right, it was extremely fun.
Sep
FekLeyrTarg shared this neat clip of the German Amiga translation of Wing Commander 1. Both the Amiga and SNES editions of the game got proper German localizations, but the more common PC DOS version did not. Both FekLeyr and Dennis Mull confirm that the text comes across quite well here. If you're a PC player looking to try things out in a different language, Marty2Life made a German conversion package available here (also French and Spanish!).
Footage from the German Amiga version of WC1. And I must say the translation is pretty good.
May
Either on 16th or 17th May there will be a security update on the SWAT Server.
This means that the webside will be offline for about 10mins.
Also the connection to the Crossfire Server could be disturbed during that time.
Feb
A Federal Navy vessel has reported the discovery of an unregistered outpost with all occupants murdered, following a response to an automatic distress signal.
The incident is being investigated by the Federal Intelligence Agency. Senior Agent Rochelle Karim made the following statement:
"This remote lunar base was designed to prevent detection, and yet it has been located and invaded by unknown forces who chose to gun down its inhabitants. It appears access codes were used to bypass security systems, as there are no signs of forced entry."
"Initial findings suggest the outpost was dedicated to advanced nuclear research. This may have been a targeted attack in order to steal a power source, a weapon, or valuable data."
"We are conducting a thorough examination of the site, and expect to learn more soon."
Nov
LOAF and AD have completed another game in their march to completely overhaul the CIC's Holovids video archive. Secret Ops is the latest addition. You might be thinking, "Did that gave have video?" It didn't have a live action shoot, but it had a bunch of in-engine and specialty cutscenes/trailers. Plus, it had a ton of in-game audio, which the new archive also fully includes. There were also narrated ICIS briefings, and you can find them all here!
Although I may have called WCSO 'complete' above, is anything ever really complete? AD has added a new specialty page to the recently added WCP video archive. It now has all the public address announcements spoken over the loudspeakers aboard the TCS Midway. It's VERY COOL to have them all consolidated in one place! Check them out here!
May
The Secret Ops
Model Upgrade Packhas a new Nephilim transport. Thanks to some graphical magic by Dark Sentinel and DefianceIndustries, the Triton goes from being an ugly gray
tubeto an exotic alien worm. It looks like a lot of fun to blow up!
Here's the explodey version!
Update time true believers! Today we are showcasing another great Nephilim ship brought to you by Dark Sentinel. The Triton (aka Leatherback) transport. Essentially a giant cigar case with guns, DS has done a great job making it look more like the original concept art, good and buggy! He's also bringing spines back. That's right spines! This ship is loaded with them! If you don't like spines, go home! Also I got the fun part of blowing it up, and so can you! Look for this and other exciting Nephilim additions in the next patch - Coming soon!
Jan
…Here's a treat! People tend to think of Wing Commander Secret Ops as a game without FMV and a story told via text, but there were actually wonderful flashes of "video" throughout. Every chapter had some nifty in-engine cutscenes, and there were also a couple of really cool teaser trailers posted to the web. The first teaser revs up Prophecy's ICIS interface. It includes a terrifying distress signal that indicates the bugs are back! The second trailer builds on this but adds communication from the TCS Mistral Sea, which the Prophecy documentation mentioned would be the second Midway class megacarrier off the line. The third clip is a gameplay trailer that shows off the first mission and new dust cannon in action!
Both of the ICIS trailers were originally presented as Shockwave Flash files. While these have been in our archive for more than two decades, with the recent deprecation of Flash on the
May
The aptly named Tiger Claw TV YouTube channel has done a review of an interesting bootleg "100 in 1" SNES cartridge from AliExpress. It contains the ROMS of a hundred Super Nintendo games, including Wing Commander: The Secret Missions. It looks like this dates back to 2021 and just includes the standalone expansion sequel. We don't necessarily encourage piracy, but we do like finding Wing Commander in crazy places! You can jump to 4:35 for the SM part.
SNES Multicart from AliExpress
Jan
Here's a throwback to a classic issue of Nintendo Power magazine. It comes from Issue 60 in May of 1994. I used to absolutely love the Classified Information section with things like cheat codes and passwords. This one is specifically for The Secret Missions. Press the Left and Right bumpers, plus Select and Start, on the second controller while on the title screen. Then press start on the first controller, and you'll go to the debug menu. This lets you pick what mission you want to play, turn on invincibility or play with the game sounds. You can do the same thing with the original SNES Wing Commander by typing "B, A, B, Y, B, Y, L, A, R, A" at the title screen and then pressing start.
I've previously expressed mixed feelings about mag scans going into YouTube videos, but I happened to see this one through a Video Games Magazine clip, which is pretty neat!
Dec
Here's an early Christmas present for Wingnuts with high res monitors! In response to popular demand, Mac has rerendered his recent End Run wallpaper in dazzling 4K. This version is also uncompressed and the detail is just dazzling. Everything from Klavs' Dralthi fighters to the explosions to the lines on the foreground capship are super crisp. You can even clearly make our the second escort carrier in the distance. Enjoy!
Mar
…The head of personnel at Rackham Capital Investments has died in an accident, becoming the second senior-level employee to have died in recent weeks.
Journalist Bryanna Blanco commented in The Federal Times:
"Senior executive Derrin O'Shea was killed when his personal limousine malfunctioned and crashed. The incident has not been ruled as suspicious. O'Shea's position was filled within hours by a supporter of Taja Gavaris, however. Gavaris herself inherited the CFO role in a similar fashion following her predecessor's recent death."
"With two close allies gone, CEO Zachary Rackham must feel under threat. This corporate power struggle increasingly resembles two pirate captains fighting to become overall leader."
"The authorities have again declined to begin a formal investigations into Gavaris and Rackham, claiming a lack of evidence. How many more casualties must occur before this conflict is
Jun
…
Christian Genzel reached out to discuss a recent interview he did with Kevin Droney, the original screenwriter for Wing Commander. We indirectly linked to this conversation back in March, but we wanted to highlight it again. So much fascinating stuff happened during the development of the Wing Commander Movie, so it's always interesting to hear another angle. Mr. Droney talks at length about how a swap in the producer led to numerous changes in his script that disrupted the flow, especially in the beginning. Had he been given the opportunity, he'd have gladly gone to Luxembourg to help smooth over scenes. The general tone is disappointment rather than bitterness, and Kevin mentions that the original payment basically put one of his kids through college and he long got generous residual payments as a testament to the success of the film on DVD, Blu-ray and digital. You can find the interview here
May
May 2 - Destiny Dev Team
Alongside the launch of Warmind, a new season of gameplay updates begins for all players of Destiny 2, including powerful upgrades to Exotic weapons, the introduction of Ranked Crucible play, new Crucible maps, Private Matches, Heroic Strike Modifiers, Multi-Emote, additional Vault Space, and much more.
