23
Apr
Soo... either the grocery store changed up the preservative on the shells or the dye crayons got cheap this year, so you can't really make out our Wing Commander themed easter eggs. At least these eggs don't shoot Steltek guns at you!
Wing Commander
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23
Apr
…DefianceIndustrieshas debuted his Bearcat, and it's a beauty! Wingnuts overall have a bit of a love/hate relationship with the heavy fighter, but I've always been a fan. I love the aggressive stance from the head on perspective as well as the substantial engine cluster. It's hard to have a conversation about the ship without dragging in discussion about its wide-spaced guns, but they sure look cool. We really don't get to play with the ships nearly enough, and if we ever got a game where the Bearcat got more play time, it'd probably have a different gun loadout with better beam convergence anyhow.
Oh speaking of Bearcats...
This is oddly one of my favorite Confed designs, it's clearly an evolution of the Hellcat but there's some definite Excalibur influence as well. Also on paper, it's actually quite a nice fighter; she's fast, nimble, and has better shields and armor than her big
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21
Apr
…
The Maniac has become the poster child for social media support hell this month as he found himself locked out of his Instagram account. The saga began on or about April 1 when he got a new phone and was unable to log in. His password resets didn't work and he encountered some baffling "user not found" errors. And despite being an IG-verified celebrity with more than 150,000 followers, he couldn't reach a live support human to get him sorted out. So, he resorted to Twitter and various news outlets to get the word out. Apparently it worked, and as of last night, his account was reset so he could begin posting again.
Matthew Lillard is currently starring in NBC's Good Girls, so he's got plenty of promotion to catch up on! Social media platforms have long since moved beyond being frivolous sharing outlets and are a bonafide component of any professional marketing strategy, so something
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21
Apr
Happy 4/20! The following spacecraft have a maximum sustained speed of 420 kilometers per second.
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19
Apr
The latest episode of ALL WINGS CONSIDERED is live now! All Wings Considered is the CIC's first ever streaming variety show which features news, conversation and gameplay relating to our favorite series. This week's Nav Points include:
- Special Operations 1, Series 2: Testing the Morningstar!
- Privateer 2 ship of the week: the Velacia
- Book Club: Fleet Action, Chapters 2 & 3
We encourage anyone interested to sign in to the Discord Live Chat to talk about Fleet Action... or ask questions live via Discord or YouTube during the show!
Missed the stream? The replay will be available below once it has been processed by YouTube. You can subscribe to the AWC channel for future notifications here.
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19
Apr
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We've got some sad news to report today. Noted astronaut Owen Garriott passed away on Monday at age 88. Mr. Garriott was one of the early pioneers of long-duration space travel with a 60-day stint aboard Skylab in 1973. He also flew on the Space Shuttle Columbia in 1983. Early on in his career, he served in the US Navy before going on to teach physics at Stanford and hold a variety of positions at NASA.The elder Garriott also served as one half of the first American father-son astronaut duo when Richard Garriott went to the International Space Station in 2008. And while we often refer to Richard as "Origin founder" in our news stories, Origin Systems was actually co-founded by Richard and Robert along with their father, Owen, and programmer Chuck Bueche. In various interviews, Richard credits being sent to a programming camp that Owen picked out as a major influence that set him on
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18
Apr
Episode 9 of
All Wings Consideredis almost here! This week the team reviews another ship from the Tri-System and then heads over to the Deneb Quadrant to fawn over the Morningstar. It's also the second iteration of the Wing Commander book club - we'll be reading chapters 2 and 3 of Fleet Action. Join us this Thursday, April 18, at 7 PM Eastern US Time (4 PM Pacific) on
YouTubeand
Discord.
Join us Thursday, April 18 on or about 7 PM Eastern for another thrilling episode of All Wings Considered!
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16
Apr
…Adm_Maverickhas mocked up a neat 'pilot console' for his Wing Commander
tabletopgame. He's built a template for the variety of fighter status that a ship would want to track, and it's been paired with a simple peg counter system so everything is neatly tracked. In the future, it could even be modified to hold the
miniature shipand any associated cards. Something like this would even be pretty neat for the official
WC CCGtoo!
I had posted a design idea for the pilot console the other day. Well I spent a decent amount of time cutting and drilling and came up with a sort of prototype of the pilot console. It's not perfect, and still nowhere near what I envision when I try to market the game, but then again at this point I'm nowhere near that stage anyway. This is just for alpha testing of gameplay mechanics.
The design is such that it's intended to allow you to track the information on
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15
Apr
Klavsis back to tinkering with his iconic
Hornetdesign. In the progression shots below, you can see how he's got the overall spaceframe super solid, there's some neat engine nozzle action happening, and he's even got a new take on the fighter's familiar long bore laser cannons. Looking good!
Starting over!
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15
Apr
Dardaelhas created another YouTube video, and this one is highlights a number of similarities between Wing Commander and the classic Battlestar Galactica. This isn't necessarily to say that WC copied BSG - rather, WC plays on a lot of classic themes from Star Wars, anime, famous sci-fi novels and more. A few noteworthy ones here include the look of the initial intro logo, the fighter launch sequence and even Dralthi/Cylon Raider similarity. It's a fun comparison to see them side by side like this!
Comparative video between the famous 1978 series and the Origin Systems Space Game from 1990
In 2007, Auran Games and Sierra published a
Battlestar Galactica gamefor Xbox Live Arcade, and numerous
reviewsnoted how close it was to Wing Commander Arena.
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14
Apr
…Here’s why weird eBay listings are so much fun. I took a chance on this “NEC PowerPlayer CD Collection” which claimed to include Mechwarrior 2, Command and Conquer, Descent 2... and Wing Commander IV! I had never heard of this bundle and thought it might be a case of a PC owner storing his game discs in a random booklet. But worth a look for a few bucks. Then I saw the WCIV discs: “not for resale” with a unique EA number! It’s an OEM WC4. By searching for the included games, I discovered that it's a software bundle included with two models of computer in late 1996: the NEC PowerPlayer 2010 and the PowerPlayer 2020!
Hereare some very old stats for the 2020.
As I write about this, the postman delivered two more neat pickups! Here’s a German Wing Commander IV promotional mousepad with a second design I’d never seen before. And here’s the original painting for the Kilrathi “Ram” -
12
Apr
The latest episode of ALL WINGS CONSIDERED is live now! All Wings Considered is the CIC's first ever streaming variety show which features news, conversation and gameplay relating to our favorite series. Join us this week for an all-singing, all-dancing celebration of Privateer 2's starter Straith, the first missions of Special Operations 2 and a surprise jump to a universe so weird you're going to need to wear shades. Missed the stream? The replay will be available below once it has been processed by YouTube. You can subscribe to the AWC channel for future notifications here.
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12
Apr
…DefianceIndustrieshas revisited the two iconic Confed heavy fighters of Wing Commander 3. Both the Excalibur and Thunderbolt have been retextured, and the results look great. Thanks to the new normal maps, they have excellent detail without overdoing the greebles.
So I was looking over my stuff on lunch break the other day and realized that I hadn't done any WC3 skins for my Tbolt or Excalibur. I am pleased to say this has been rectified. I also did a few small tweaks to the normal maps to make a few things pop (pun intended) that wasn't as obvious before.
As a side note: a few folks have asked if they can use my renders in their personal projects. My thoughts on that in general are that if I post it up here on the forums the community is perfectly welcome to them. Go forth and be creative! I only ask that if you do use my renders I get a nod somewhere in the credits is all.
As always
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11
Apr
After LOAF's successful completion of
Ghorah Khar 2D, the team moves on to Special Operations 2 this week. They're also taking a good look at Privateer 2 ship identification, which is subject we could all use a refresher in!
Join us Thursday, April 11 on or about 7 PM Eastern for another thrilling episode of All Wings Considered!
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10
Apr
Dardaelhas put together a neat live action interpretation of Enyo 1 from the original Wing Commander. It starts with the run from the briefing room, engages the Kilrathi in space and then successfully heads home to the Claw. He employed a couple clever video editing techniques to blend a small amount of green screen footage with cockpit action. The language is Italian, but most Wing Commander fans are familiar enough with what's going on here to infer the meaning. This style of Wing Commander fan tribute has a lot of potential - it'd be great to see more like this, including new missions/stories!
First mission reimagined with the help of Blender and Da Vinci Resolve
You can also find Dardael's extensive Italian WC retrospective
here.
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09
Apr
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SyFy
's
Fan Grrlsteam has recently started up a neat feature called 'Forgotten Women of Genre', which highlights various science-fiction creators that have done great things behind the scenes or are otherwise under appreciated. Ellen Guon (now Beeman) was recently profiled for both her video game and writing credits. She's well known as the co-author of the Wing Commander Freedom Flight novel, but she also had a huge influence on the narrative style set forth in Secret Missions 2 as well as Wing Commander 2. In recent years, she's
mentionedthat she pitched allowing the WC2 player character to be male or female, but was shot down. She's currently a senior professor at the DigiPen Institute of Technology, but she has quite a history! Check out the audio
articlefor a thorough rundown.
Beeman was writing in genre long before her stint in video games. She worked as a writer for the Jem and
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08
Apr
Display MoreThe new poll is about
All Wings Considered, the CIC's weekly streaming program. The options below are a list of the the common features that fill out a typical episode. There's lots to like about each one, but which is your favorite? If you're not familiar with the show, you can find back episodes online
here. You can also provide feedback or make requests at the CIC Forums
here.
which Talon variant
Our old poll askedpeopled liked to shoot at the most. The Retro model was overwhelmingly popular with more than half the vote. Pirates got about a fifth of the vote, and the Privateer 2 easter egg actually got about a sixth.
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06
Apr
Here's a better look at the really cool Japanese brochure that accompanied the launch of the Wing Commander Movie in theaters there. Wingnuts got a preview in this week's episode of
All Wings Considerednow that LOAF has added one to his collection. Even if you can't read the text, it's easy to appreciate what a gorgeous collectible this is. It'd be great if these types of things were more common!
In Japan, theatrical movie releases have printed programs (sort of like a non-interactive @themoviebill.) After some hunting, I’ve found the one for Wing Commander!
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05
Apr
The latest episode of ALL WINGS CONSIDERED is live now! All Wings Considered is the CIC's first ever streaming variety show which features news, conversation and gameplay relating to our favorite series. This week we're going to look at some of the ships from Super Wing Commander, play a little more Special Operations 1 and then have an in-depth conversation about the prologue and first chapter of Fleet Action! You can join in the Book Club chat via Discord during the show. Missed the stream? The replay will be available below once it has been processed by YouTube. You can subscribe to the AWC channel for future notifications here.
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05
Apr
…
strangest start cameos in video games
The Guardian has posted an interesting article on the. It's an interesting lot. Even the bad cameos are fascinating in their own way. Mark Hamill is included on the list for Wing Commander 3, and both John Rhys-Davies and Malcolm McDowell are mentioned too. Wing Commander actors indirectly dominate the list as both John Hurt and Tim Curry are mentioned for their roles in Tender Loving Care and Command & Conquer 3. Hurt played Joe (Kane) the Bartender in Privateer 2 and Curry was the voice of Melek in Wing Commander 3. I'm very surprised Clive Owen didn't make this list! Check out the full article
here.
Mark Hamill – Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger
Ten years after Return of the Jedi, “Luke Skywalker” Hamill made his onscreen video game debut in this science fiction epic from Origin Systems. Mixing interactive space battles with quaintly
