07
May
Seven, seventeen, same thing...
Wing Commander
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30
Apr
Today we've got a Dralthi sketch by DingoPatagonico. I suppose I have no idea how long sketches are supposed to take, but this one apparently took under an hour, which seems impressive. It's really smooth for a freehand drawing, and by my eye, this one runs very close to the Claw Marks lineart. You can't go wrong with that as your inspiration!
Done in 50 mins in the calm of the work. I think looks a quite good X3
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21
Sep
…Video game artist
Mike Winterbauerhas shown off the first images of his latest project, a Wing Commander Art Portfolio! Mr. Winterbauer was the person commissioned in 1992 to hand paint the
box art for the SNES versionof Wing Commander, among many other cool contemporary pieces. These were showcased last year in a book launched via a
successfulKickstarter campaign. Next month he plans to launch a followup that specifically focuses on the process of creating his well known WC design. Along the way, there will be opportunities to have your name included in the book as well as pick up a very slick metal reproduction. Stay tuned for more info as the campaign approaches!
Hello backers of Classic Game Covers! I hope you all are doing great.
Be sure to look for my up coming Kickstarter campaign call Wing Commander Art. It will feature a beautiful hard cover portfolio art book showcasing the art
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11
Oct
…Veteran Wing Commander artist Alan Gutierrez has updated his DeviantArt page with three of the astronomical paintings he created for the Wing Commander card game's nav points. One of them has even been repainted digitally for more detail! An in-depth look at Mr. Gutierrez's Wing Commander card paintings is available here. Check out his updated nav point paintings:
- Alpha: From the card came Wing Commander, commissioned and published by Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman, 1995. One of the most striking cards of the 12 I did, it is one of the last astronomicals left in my archives. I had to recreate the art, as the scan brought up the printed pixels too much (very small image), so it is a digital version of the original trad. version. Part of a series that includes Alpha, Beta, Delta, Gamma, and Epsilon.
- Beta: From the card game Wing Commander, commissioned and published by Tracy Hickman & Margaret
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12
Sep
…UnnammedCharacterhas released another big upgrade to the
WC Toolbox. This update adds preliminary support for WC Privateer, which opens up a whole new sector of possibilities! Through a variety of screenshots and
tutorials, UnnammedCharacter goes through how to access the core game assets, manipulate in-game text and pick apart the graphical elements. I can't wait to see what people do with this! You can grab the latest download package
here.
Work on the toolbox has continued and this release begins support for Privateer 1.
This update adds the ability to create or edit many of the Privateer file types: IFF, PAK, PAL, PFC, SHP, TRE, VPF, VPK; it expands the number of image formats supported: BMP, GIF, PNG, and TIFF; and also provides the ability to create compressed files where appropriate. All of this new functionality is specific to the Privateer tools.
There are major changes introduced in
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08
May
You only get the Golden Sun the first time...
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31
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
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01
Jul
…Wing Commander veteran Paul Hughes has posted a shot of some fabulous wall art he's had made. They're Photobox canvas prints designed to commemorate Starlancer, Elite and Privateer 2. The '90s space sims are based on the straight European box art while the Elite cover comes from the fancy Acornsoft release. Modern print-on-demand services make cool projects like these relatively easy, and the results are super sweet!
Final home office canvases. Really chuffed how well they came out. Space games and I have a bit of a history.
So many tales to tell... It was a fun project.We were lucky; the cover art and manuals were done in house by a member of the Dev team - Mr Paul Chapman. The Elite one is a Photoshop retouch of the artwork that I did, the other two come from the original hires artwork and were all printed on Canvas by Photobox.
Loved Wing Commander (especially WC3) I was a tad star struck when
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08
Dec
Wing Commander fans have dressed up as their favorite pilots and
paraded aroundat a number of conventions over the years, but most have been associated with a CIC-sponsored activity. That makes st3lt3k's recent find a fun surprise. He spotted this image taken by
foxpawsat the 2011 San Diego Comic Con. Even more unusual is the actual outfit depicted here: a flight suit from the Wing Commander Movie. You don't see too many fans wearing these in the wild - especially a dozen years after the film came out! I don't think I've worn mine in public since
2002. It looks to be an actual prop from the production due to all the small details that seem spot on. High five, dude!
This was a fairly obscure costume. My initial guess was Kaneda from "Akira" until the person clarified.
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09
Jun
…Fans getting ready for the upcoming
Flat Universe tournamenthave noticed that the core game download has been temporarily suspended. This is in preparation for major updates set to launch soon that will be highlighted in the impending competition. On top of some major bug fixes, there will also be a host of new features and additions. It sounds really cool - I'll let the
Maslas Brothersdescribe the specifics below. We'll be sure to share when the upgrade is available!
In a couple of days, we will release the final version of the launcher only which is going to be smaller in size and seriously debugged (No UAC problems, no compatibility bugs on Windows 10, no download loops etc). With the release of the new launcher you will, at first, be able to download the previous multiplayer version of Flat Universe, and during the weeks that will follow the launcher will upgrade you to the tournament
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28
Jan
…
We've got a new poll up now, and this time we're asking about the worst places to need to eject. The options in this survey are bit deeper lore than we usually include, so here's a fuller rundown of the choices available:- Planet Pisces is the place where Krulan nar Ragitagha is stalked by the infamous Arthrosquids
- Angel is forced to eject after taking out the skipper missile bearing down on the Claw
- Minx is in an escape pod poisoned by radiation after the destruction of Ayer's Rock
- Vagabond loses a fight against a wing of Darket in the Kilrah System on the Temblor Run
- This is the pilot that Seether executes if you stay aboard the Lexington
- Hawk reveals to Casey that Iceman saved him in B'shriss, but he was found and captured by the Kilrathi - the remains in the pod retrieved by Blair weren't pretty
- I can only imagine what new challenges Arena's Nephilim fluid-space presented to ejected pilots
- The pilot of
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31
Aug
…We're a little bit late to the party here, but
Jim Leonard, one of the co-founders of MobyGames, recently posted a neat look back on twenty years of the useful game data website. As we've just recently celebrated our 21st, it makes me feel warm and fuzzy that simple old gaming sites like ours are still humming along after all this time. "Simple" is probably not a very fair label for such a vast and exhaustive resource, but they've managed to keep a lot of their classic charm intact to this date. I use it frequently to check up on classic developers and gaming credits, and thousands of other folks find it useful in other ways. Speaking of which, I should really go figure out how to get the voice actor credits separated off from
my profileon the site. Yes, the Serious Sam special thanks is legit. Back on topic: the article is a really interesting history of how a classic gaming site came to be.
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24
Aug
ShadowArmrecently shared the Galaxy merchant vessel that he created in the sandbox game
Space Engineers. Players build their own creations and fly them through the cosmos. The outer hull looks pretty good, but the interior cockpit is where the design really shines. Privateer conveyed the fact that the Galaxy has a large two-pilot setup, but good use of windows and position of screens does a lot to enhance the atmosphere here. He's taking a break from Space Engineers for now but could come back for more with a future iteration of the game as it gets updated.
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13
Jul
…While flipping through the October 1994 issue of British gaming magazine PC Zone, noted retro gamer
Pixspotted a vintage
Armada review. The reviewer praises the graphics (a low resolution preview of the still upcoming Wing Commander 3) and was especially impressed with the hybrid turn-based/split-screen multiplayer feature, in which two players can go head-to-head on a single computer. The user friendliness of the menu system for setting up modem or netBIOS sessions also received a nod of approval. The five page spread contains ample screenshots of
Armada's different game modes, although some space is reserved for a large inset preview of Wing Commander 3. Shortly after the game's release, the free
Proving Groundsexpansion would add support for IPX networking and six player sessions. A decade later, a
fan patchby
HClenabled internet play. Scans below courtesy of
Pix's Origin Adventures!
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19
Feb
…
CIC Forums
Frequent visitors to thehave already noticed that our message boards got a big upgrade this weekend. We first switched over to
Xenforo 1.0back in 2011, and this brings us up to 2.1 (skipping right past 2.0)! There's a long list of basic quality-of-life tweaks that bring the forums in line with modern user interfaces. Graphical elements scale better to high res displays, a variety of post reactions are now available, more types of uploads can be added and the site displays much better on mobile devices. KrisV is still working on several additional features, including a more extended menu of emojis that will be available soon. We're also looking at a handful of neat optional upgrades that could be possible with the new setup - would people be interested in two-factor authentication? Check things out and
let us knowwhat you think!
Xenforo 2.0 highlightsGreatly-enhanced mobile-friendly
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17
Feb
Yesterday we were talking about collecting rare international versions of Wing Commander, and here's another prime example. AD found this awesome set of Wing Commanders 1 through 4 from South Korea. WC1&2 got an especially nice combo treatment with localized fighter blueprints and everything. We know it got a big promotional push at the time too from various artifacts that have cropped up over the years. The first package was done by SKC Soft Land, but I can't quite make out the details on WC3 or WC4. The originating post on this dates back to 2004, so the original poster is probably hard to find today, but if you've got experience with these, please share in the comments! It does appear that WC4 was censored in South Korea to remove the throat cutting, Telamon body and Tolwyn hanging to conform to local ratings pressure. This is a very cool find!
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07
Dec
The ever-creative Tarsus has created another fun Wing Commander distraction to bring you some holiday cheer. With resources from the new Head Museum, he's created an automatic advent calendar with your favorite original WC characters as the daily reveal. It's a simple concept, but I can't wait to see who's queued up for tomorrow! Check it out for yourself here.
I've taken the liberty of making an advent calendar out of your heads.
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19
Mar
fringeaggressor recently came across this neat triangular piece in a group dedicated to real life military patches. It's pretty is unlikely to have been worn by any modern air force as it prominently features an F-103 Excalibur with a Confed star on the left wing. The origin doesn't immediately jump out to me either, but it's pretty darn cool nonetheless!
The following showed up in a Facebook group recently related to the F-14 Tomcat, which fits given squadrons used a triangular patch style this particular item mimics. Never noticed it in WC3, figured it was perhaps a prop item.
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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” maneuver card
