You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In NowSign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountAug
After several months of diligent effort, Greg14 has completed his French Translation of WC1 made with the WC Toolbox. See the game in action is below! French Wingnuts can grab the update package from a link in the description of the YouTube vid below. Greg is continuing to research methods to translate WC2, WC4 and the Kilrathi Saga. You can also find a previously translated update to WC2 here.
Aug
We're entering the home stretch here in the lead up to the CIC's 24th Birthday Party. Next Saturday we'll all be gathering in Discord #Wingnut to celebrate with everyone. I'm excited for the cool things that we've got teed up to share, and it'll be wonderful to catch up with so many people again. Stop by on August 13 at 7:00 pm EDT (4:00 pm PDT and 11:00 pm GMT) - or join in any time beforehand to hang out! See you there!
Aug
Gen Con, the largest tabletop gaming convention in the US, starts today. In 1995, Mag Force 7 gave out these stunning Wing Commander promo cards at the show… and special guest Mark Hamill was on hand to autograph them!
There was even some new lore on the show floor! Mag Force 7’s staff made these cool shirts for the event complete with a new Terran Confederation Marines fighter squadron designation!
Aug
…Back in 2016, we reported on Joe Garrity's discovery of Deluxe Animation animation files that seemed like they could be unused Wing Commander art. The files were located on a 5.25" disk that once belonged to Origin artist Daniel Bourbonnais and were dated between 1991 and 1992. We published an analysis that concluded that while it was possible the art was intended for Wing Commander it was also just as likely it could be connected to another project.
Now, we have the real answer! Mr. Bourbonnais himself has identified the material. He writes: "I drew the hands for the throttle controls animation on Wing Commander in 91… [but] oh, that was a demo I created to get freelance work. It is in a video on YouTube. Daniel Bourbonnais computer artist or animator." That video is available here: :
The animation in question starts at the 2m27s mark and includes many impressive elements not found on the original
Aug
There's lots of new artwork for EmuMusicFan's graphical novel project! He's sketched a whole handful of new Kilrathi in different poses - plus a new Confed officer. Between this and his Freedom Flight and Action Stations group read sessions, Emu's keeping busy with Wing Commander activities!
Aug
Andor isn’t the first television show with a sci-fi rifle problem: a model sheet mixup caused “Glory of Sivar” to accidentally assign all the Kilrathi soldiers Confed laser rifles!
Here’s the sane rifle used by Confederation marines on Repleetah followed by the distinct Kilrathi rifle used in other episodes:
Aug
Today we've got another fun vintage magazine scan submitted by Maxi de Sokar. It's a Spanish publication, OK PC, that highlights the DROSoft translation of Wing Commander 2 and Special Operations 1&2. Right off the bat, there's a glaring mistake. The box art on the second page is obviously a combo pack for Secret Missions 1&2, and if my translation is correct, there's nothing in the text that references these games. It's just the art they chose. After thirty years I can excuse the error - rather, I appreciate these kinds of finds like a coin collector might value mis-printed money. The screenshots are just as gorgeous as ever, and seeing these takes me back to when you might have flipped through these in print back in the '90s and been dazzled by the cutting edge graphics. This is a very cool find!
Aug
…Wow! Look at this awesome closeup of one of the large watches the Tiger Claw pilots wear in Wing Commander. Time for some more research!
@awesomead @banditloaf Only two years late but look what I stumbled upon! The watch from Wing Commander, I knew it was somewhere after I was given it on the film! pic.twitter.com/Gr333gk8xv
— Jordan Reeve (@R33VE) May 27, 202228 minutes later: I am now a member of a Storm Watch collecting group on Facebook.Here's what we've learned so far! The watches were from a British company called Storm Watches which still makes cool sci-fi looking watches. They show up in the credits:
Knowing that, I found a Storm Watch community on Facebook that has preserved 1990s catalogs! The watch R33VE kindly filmed is the "Camera". From there, AD and I started looking for frames in the movie where we could see the watches.
Maniac and Blair are both certainly wearing the "Navigator" which
Jul
Dennis Mull tipped us off about a Wing Commander-themed stream happening this weekend. The Sol Citizens show on Sunday will be about Chris Roberts' earlier games from Wing Commander to Freelancer. It'll be broadcasting starting at 5 pm US Eastern Time. Sounds like a good time!
What was the name of the "Bengal-Class" carrier introduced in Chris Roberts' game "Wing Commander"? Watch the SOL Citizens Sunday, July 31st at 8:00pm ET to see if you're right? Twitch or http://youtube.com/solcitizens
To his credit, I don't think Dennis will have a problem tackling these trivia questions!
Still unpacking boxes from my move but I already unpacked these.
Jul
The clock is ticking and we're now just two weeks until the CIC's annual Birthday Party! You can join in and celebrate our 24th anniversary on Saturday, August 13. We'll be hosting a huge bash in Discord #Wingnut. We'll have some fun things to share and it should be a great time for all. The main event gets going at 7:00 pm EDT (4:00 pm PDT and 11:00 pm GMT). Hope to see you there!
Jul
…AD noticed a new Hobby Lark article about the biggest space ships in sci-fi. Some franchises have absolutely ridiculous monsters that are the focus of the piece, but Wing Commander still got an honorable mention thanks to the 22,000 meter Hvar’kann class Kilrathi dreadnought. There’s really not much to the reference here, but it’s fun for sticklers like us to see people still bringing up this crazy 28 year old stat. While some have wondered if it’s a typo, the novel False Colors doubles down on the length and makes it part of the tactical landscape in its story. Likewise, the visuals in WC3’s losing endgame also imply a ship on the larger end of the scale.
Hvar'kann Class Dreadnought (Wing Commander): This monstrous showpiece of the expansionistic Kilrathi Empire is 22 km long; expectedly, armed to the teeth too. The sizable starfighter fleet it carried is also capable of defending the dreadnought from
Jul
…We’d like to spend time in today’s news taking a moment to recognize Wing Commander Arena’s belated 15th birthday! We reached the milestone on Monday, but the unfortunate passing of the legendary David Warner preempted this story. Arena was released on July 25, 2007, which feels like a lifetime ago now. It was one of the few 2000s WC releases, including other notable titles like Prophecy for Gameboy Advance and EA Replay on the PlayStation Portable. Arena was made for Xbox Live Arcade, which was the platform for downloadable games on Microsoft’s Xbox system. As such, there were some major constraints. The size limit for DLC games at the time was a mere 50 megabytes and the selling price was just $10. So the game was built within some pretty major technical and budget limits. Despite these challenges, the team at Gaia Industries and EA Vancouver managed to pull off some impressive achievements worthy
Jul
…I'm saddened to hear of the passing of David Warner. He may have had no more than 5.5 min of screen time in Wing Commander (if you count the disk audio), but it was memorable and added a touch of class. In his honor, enjoy a couple brief extended scenes...
First up, his call with Blair:
The additions there regarding Blair's mother are nice echos to the also-deleted credits voice-over. It helps to sell that Blair has a bit of a chip on his shoulder regarding his heritage. It also resonates a bit with the other scene below. Belegarde's objections are kind of left over from an earlier draft. There was a medal ceremony ending at one point they cut and never shot probably because making everyone wear dress uniforms (while awesome) for one scene would have been expensive.
Also, Tolwyn comes across as kind to Blair in the theatrical cut. The scripted ceremony would have had Tolwyn admit he had pretty much
Jul
…
The BBC has reported that actor David Warner has passed away at age 80. To say that Mr. Warner was prolific would be an understatement; his stunning, sixty-year career had him effortlessly jump from lead roles to villains to supporting character roles. The genius of David Warner was not simply in his spectacular talent but in his willingness to apply that talent indiscriminately. He was as at home playing Lysander as he was ruling the Klingon Empire or acting in front of a CD-ROM's green screen. He brought the same deep dignity, respect and talent to every performance. Here was a man who could move effortlessly from a movie bound for Mystery Science Theater 3000 to the biggest, most acclaimed film of the decade (1993's Quest for the Delta Knights and 1997's Titanic, respectively). He elevated the material with every bow, impressing generations of genre fans who knew him best for the likes of Tron and
Jul
…The topic of Wing Commander I's save slots came up on Discord this evening and I jumped at the chance to escape to 2654 for a little bit and look at the barracks in different ports. And so, here's the Wing Commander bed time post!
The save system in Wing Commander I is one of those famous Chris Roberts immersive touches. Instead of a save menu you have bunks and when you save your game a sleeping wingman appears! And instead of alt-x'ing to DOS, you open the airlock, etc. This is the PC version:
The environment is also amazing at bringing you into the world, from the low tech dripping bucket to the clearly-inspired-by-2001 vital signs monitoring the pilots (but only when one is present!).
In Secret Missions 2, you can even click on the pin-up and get... this. (And who put up the headless one?! I mean, I guess obviously it was Maniac.)
Anyway, let's look at the different ports! These three are extremely
Jul
Guilherme Poggiali sent along this Ação Games scan of a vintage 3DO review of WC3 from Brazil. Look at that crazy header art! Classic '90s magazine formatting has such a distinctive style. It's always fascinating to see what they choose to point out, such as the detailed diagram of what each cockpit/HUD element is. That speckled starscape background doesn't help legibility, but again, it sure is a product of that era.
Jul
Today we have a short musical piece that was written as part of a film school project. The artist, Sean Sumwalt, used about a minute of footage from the end of the Wing Commander Movie right after Angel ejects and Blair is forced to keep moving. A new instrumental track accompanies the scene and attempts to set the tone. AD found it while looking for Overture covers, and it's definitely not that, but it's not bad.
Jul
It's been a few months since we last checked in with the crew of the TCS Majestic and the Gemini Sector RPG, but they've been very busy! The group has been involved in a whole host of missions ranging from hunting down a Kilrathi battlegroup to warding off an incoming strike force. They've also done escort duty and seen the famous Kilrathi defector Hajjnah. Everyone behind the game puts a ton of creative energy into it, and if you'd like the join the fun, hit up their Discord server. Events are held almost every Friday night! Here are a few of their recent mission briefings:
The crew scramble trying to find the hidden colony base in the Ragnarok sector.The professor Hajjnah speaks to a new client. He will not need all his charisma and wits about him.The team must escort a shuttle to the Oxford system to allow their resident doctor to pass their quals and be allowed to practice.
Jul
Demon27248 has posted a nice capture of several rounds of Wing Commander Arena. Modern streaming content for WC Arena is sorely lacking, so clips like this are unfortunately few and far between. The foursome playing the game hits several different types events: they take down a Battlecruiser in capship combat, hunt down satellites and conduct a team deathmatch in the Boneyard. Arena is a unique WC experience and it's really a shame that it doesn't run on modern Xboxes. But it's good to see people still having fun with it in 2022!
Jul
…3DOgaming has posted a neat scan from a 1995 special edition of 3DO Magazine. It's interesting to see people's perspectives from the time. A lot of people now might consider Super Wing Commander a curious oddity, but this review considers it "massively upgraded for the 3DO, and as addictive as ever." They give it a solid four stars with the game's difficulty being pretty much the only thing keeping it from a higher score.
Combat certainly feels realistically hectic. Enemy ships whirl about desperately jockeying for position, your wingman invariably flies into your line of fire and loudly protests over the radio while your instrument panels flash red, then explode under enemy fire. Your various weapons all look great, laser bolts sparking quite cinematically while the excellent sound effects could well have been sampled out of Star Wars.Wow, cinematic laser bolts and Star Wars quality sound. I
