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We've got new pictures today of Christian Klein's glorious Lego Epee. The first images revealed last month were digital renders based on the design. In there intervening weeks, Christian has sourced all of the parts from BrickLink and actually built the physical model. The results are just beautiful - click below to get a good look!
From BrickLink Studio to reality. I had to fix some structural issues but the Lego Wing Commander F-54C Epee is finally finished. In real Lego bricks
Dec
…LOAF was looking for a project the other night, and what better than an exploration of the history of the Dorkir transport?! There's probably more to it than you think! Read on for a full rundown:
It's your 1 AM meandering thread about the Kilrathi freighter with the absolute best name: the DORKIR! Dorkir appear throughout Wing Commander I configured as transports, tankers, command staff ships and troopships. Concept art:
A rare element cut (for space) from Wing Commander I is that there were originally separate 'sport and tanker versions of the Dorkir (which is why the briefings always clarify which is expected). The boxier 'freighter' version was reused for Secret Missions as the Lumbari.
The Drayman and the Diligent are the same story, reversed. Comparing the sprite sheets and you can see it's a common cab with a modular container that would change depending on role.
So things get a little weird when
Sep
We've unearthed a fascinating piece of pre-history: a detailed preview of Privateer 2: The Darkening from the August 1996 issue of Edge magazine... written when the game was still just called 'The Darkening!' The article includes a beautiful two-page gallery of artwork, plenty of pre-release screenshots and a surprising amount of technical detail about the game's development team. "Owen Roberts" is a first, though!
Jul
…We've very happy to announce that Wing Commander End Run is finally released! We've come a long way to reach this milestone as this completes the Baen set of Wing Commander novels - all are finally available to purchase digitally. The CIC has been lobbying the publisher for these for some fifteen years at conventions, on social media and through direct communications. We were extremely happy when it was announced in early 2016 that Freedom Flight was coming. Other books in the series followed, but not End Run. This was disappointing since End Run had a bit of a history as a slightly harder to find book in the later '90s. One even sold at auction for $85 during peak demand. So we got to the bottom of this and helped Baen realize their omission. It took a year for them to find a slot in their publishing schedule, but we're finally there! Pick it up at any of the major storefronts or direct
May
Death^_ tipped us off about a really cool advertisement for Dragon Con 1996 posted by Wade Haddock. The sheet shows off the various celebrities that would be in attendance, including Mark Hamill! Note that this is not "Star Wars' Mark Hamill." In fact, Star Wars isn't mentioned at all, which is funny since this appeared in a Star Wars comic. He is simply billed as
Colonel Christopher Blair in Origin Systems' Wing Commander IV.Right on! That's what springs to my mind first too... Of course, this appearance happened just four months after WC4's release, so it was particularly relevant at the time.
Scan of an ad from the April 1996 issue of the comic adaptation of the Star Wars EU story "Splinter of the Mind's Eye" (third of four issues). Notice the Special Guest announcement on the bottom-right corner of the ad.
Sep
…Centaurianmudpig
has released a new look at his space sim project, and it's come a very long way since we saw it
last year. The game has a new art style and a new name, Absolute Territory. There's also a neat behind-the-scenes look at the mission editor. The mudpig's looking for some Wing Commander fans to try the new playable alpha out and provide feedback. Grab it from
ModDBor
Steam Workshopand let him know what you think!
WE WANT YOU in the Imperial Space Force (ISF). Join us in protecting our borders from foreign and domestic opponents. Only in the ISF will you fly state-of-the-art space superiority fighters to protect the heavens with fortitude, skill and precision.Become the best of the best by training in our Digitum XR Sim, our most advanced simulated combat environment. Adapt to the rigours of being a pilot in the ISF, learn the art of combat, and master every fighter and every weapon at
Mar
It's almost time for another episode of ALL WINGS CONSIDERED! For our fourth episode we'll be celebrating twenty years of the Wing Commander movie with a group watch. Join us this Thursday, March 14th, at 7 PM Eastern US Time (4 PM Pacific) on YouTube and Discord; be sure to bring a copy of the movie to watch along with us!
Dec
Here's a couple of German gems provided by Deathsnake. First up is the review of Wing Commander 1 from the December 1990 issue of Power Play. It apparently gets a double "Super" and 88% rating. We previously posted the magazine's reviews of
WC2and
Power Play, and they all make great use of the games' screenshots. There's also a crazy GameStar video that uses Sinner's Inn briefly as a backdrop. I wish I knew what was going on there!
...with Heinrich Lenhardt (Founder Powerplay, Founder PC Player, Co Founder Gamestar) with Privateer 2 Background - the Bar ;D
Mar
…Adm_Maverick's tabletop miniatures game has taken an interesting turn. Initial development so far has focused on
paper ships and cards, but Maverick is now looking at some simple 3D printing options. He's considering tweaking the game to use small plastic ships as well as some clever
pilot consolescorekeeping devices to even potentially minimize the need for cards. Something like that could be useful in conjunction with the official WC CCG. It'll be cool to see how that pans out! You can follow the development and help provide feedback at the
CIC Forums.
I've got a project file all setup to print 2 Bearcats and 2 Dralthi IV in different orientations so I can figure out which way it will work best to print ships.But I've got other things that will be printed up. For one thing, I'm working on some rough ideas for the 'pilot console' design. The Pilot Console will be a tray of some form that will
Jan
…jaw dropping
With 2018 now well in the rear view mirror and 2019 well on its way, it's time for us to jump into our annual fan project contest. We took nominations over the last couple months and have come up with this list of noteworthy endeavors to recognize. Of course, the standard disclaimer applies: this is by no means an exhaustive list of super cool things that Wingnuts have been up to lately. There were some
one-off items that didn't make the cut. This list is somewhat weighted towards the longer running projects that have demonstrate an enduring commitment from their creators and a steady communications clip so fellow fans stay engaged and know what's going on. For more variety, do check out our
year in review. And now on to the nominees! (And don't forget to scroll to the bottom and vote!)
- Adm_Maverick's Papercraft Adventures started off with humble beginnings. We initially got to
Sep
…Character-defining knives are a theme in the FMV Wing Commander games. We've learned about Cobra's Marto-Brewer Explora from Wing Commander III and now it's time to take a look at Seether's significantly more distinct knife from Wing Commander IV. Depending on your choices, Seether can use his knife twice: during the introduction he will threaten Blair with it if you choose to rescue the man he is roughing up and then he uses it to execute Captain Paulsen after the Lexington is destroyed or crippled. The close-up shot of the knife slitting the Captain's throat was censored in the German release of the game.
Seether's blade is called the Double Shadow. The Double Shadow is a 5 1/2" stainless steel split blade "fantasy knife." It was released in 1991 and created by famed fantasy knife designer Gil Hibben. Seether's knife was almost MORE distinct: instead of a fantasy knife, the script calls for a
Mar
…ODVS has more big news on the video enhancement front. He's no longer pursuing 4K remasters of WC4 footage, but he reports that 1080p versions are looking better than ever. With the latest iterations of the AI/neural net tools at his disposal, he's reached new heights of quality in the footage. There's less artifacting and crisper lines, but best of all, even traces of uncanny valley in the augmented eyeballs have been virtually eliminated. The technology continues to evolve and there will likely be even further advances in the future, but the clips below are stunning examples of what's possible today.
After much, much experimenting, I've decided to abandon 4K FMV for the remake. My reasons are twofold:When you combine those two
- The quality improvement over 1080p was neglible at best (it's just asking too much to upscale by 600%)
- The file weight for all the game's FMV at 4K would have been excessive
Oct
…
We posted an exciting trailer this past weekend that gave everyone a solid update on all of the progress being made for the WC4 Fan Remake. The team has also published a new article on classic assets and how they differ from the fancy new models. The original models and textures are used as an index to ensure the new content is spot on. There will even be an easy switch in the game that allows players to swap between the old and new graphics. Read up on what they're doing at WCRespace here.
One of our primary aims with this remaster is to create a version of the gameplay which matches the FMV as closely as possible. This means creating new models based on the FMV. That said it is fairly standard practice for these kinds of projects to offer a classic mode where you can play the game unaltered.Likewise when the remaster is eventually released you will be able to switch between Defiance Industries'
Mar
It's a stressful time out there right now for a lot of people. Some are worried that a loved one might catch the deadly coronavirus. Others are being impacted by the devastating economic slump that it has caused. Schools are closing, and you can't even take the kids to Disneyland. Although we in no way can claim to be as inspirational as Tom Hanks, we can offer you a few light hearted moments of Wing Commander joy to help take your mind off things. Here's the blooper reel and 'making of' clips off the Wing Commander 3 Behind the Screens discs. It looks like the filming of the game's FMV was an absolute blast. You can find more in the CIC Holovids. Have fun with the videos!
Dec
Display MoreThere's
moreWing Commander cosplayers out there than we thought! st3lt3k found a pair of Kilrathi warriors who were on the scene at the Stuttgart Comicon just last year. A casual observer might be excused for thinking these are space cats from another series, but upon closer inspection, there are Kilrathi symbols on their shoulder patches and Kilrathi text on the front of their costumes. That's dedication! Pictures from
lavi_bookman_j,
Andreas Kinderand
Facing My Life.
I think the cosplayers (cosplayerinnen?) are 2 sisters. Totally on point! It looks like there are even paw pads on the paws! They're downright menacing!
Sep
…We are again sad to bring you news that another Wing Commander veteran has passed. Artist Micael Priest died on Tuesday, September 18. Mr. Priest was an Austin legend who began drawing concert posters in the early 1970s. His artwork and connection to the music scene is recognized as a major factor in the 'weird Austin' sensibility that defines the town to this day. It should come as no surprise that Mr. Priest was also an employee of Origin Systems during the company's heydey. He worked extensively as an artist on the Ultima series, including Ultima VII, Serpent Isle, Ultima Underworld II, Runes of Virtue II, Ultima VIII and the first three iterations of Ultima Online. True to the all-hands-on-deck spirit of the era, he even posed as the model for Remarro Monik in Bioforge, one of the potential identities the player must discover (pictured.) Wing Commander fans will best know his work on the
Oct
…Billboard is a trade magazine for the entertainment industry which reports on the production and marketing side of films, television shows, music and others. In 1996, that included the burgeoning CD-ROM industry. We've found an interesting story in the February 3rd, 1996 issue about the marketing plans for Wing Commander IV... which include some things we'd never heard of, like print ads in American Airlines' in-flight magazine! It's a fascinating look at how Origin was preparing to sell a game that, frankly, didn't need to be marketed to us at all!
"Wing Commander IV' Set To Take Flight
Movie Game To Get Theatrical -Film Promotion
BY DOUGLAS REECE
ORIGIN Systems is hoping to shrink the gap between film and game with its upcoming release, "Wing Commander IV: The Price Of Freedom." The interactive movie game, which will be shipped worldwide the first week of February, will be promoted
Jul
…Stingerhas released a long-awaited update to his
WCDXpatch for Kilrathi Saga. The program makes a number of critical updates to the game's DirectX implementation in order to improve compatibility on modern computers. WC1 has been the primary focus, but the last couple updates provide initial support for Wing Commander 2. This update refines that and improves stability and smoothness of your WC2 game in Windows. Grab the files
hereand give it a try!
General changes:
WC2:
- Patcher internals have been completely overhauled. Ideally, you won't notice any difference, but you should now get better error messages when things go wrong.
- Due to implementation divergence in the underlying platform, wcdx now handles scaling of the game's graphics internally instead of relying on the operating system.
- Restored mouse cursor positioning for all games.
- Much better multi-monitor support.
- Fixed a couple of
May
Just kidding. Today actually marks fifteen years of continuous daily WC news updates. The last day we missed was May 25, 2003, short of the occasional technical issue that may have slightly delayed the daily news a bit. Back in the spring of 2003, we were all eagerly awaiting the imminent release of Wing Commander Prophecy for the Gameboy Advance.
Not every day features major breaking stories or unearths startling revelations, but there's always something happening in the Wing Commander community. That's thanks to how engaged and dedicated you all are every day. Where will we be in another five, ten or fifteen years? Probably looking back and wondering what the heck the headline on this post meant.
Sep
…It's been a fun week for non-WC space sim news, so we'll keep that rolling today with another look at Star Wars Squadrons. We briefly highlighted the game back when it was announced in June, and now we're quickly coming up on release. In the intervening months, there have been new videos released that highlight both the gameplay and story. It looks to be shaping up quite well, and the price is decent too. It'll be just $39.99 when it ships October 2. A bunch of Wingnuts will be flying in the game's cross-platform dogfights when they arrive next month. Stop by #Wingnut on Discord to see who's playing and link up!
This is a story of daring pilots and a deep-seated rivalry. At the start of the game, you’ll create two customizable pilots: one flying for freedom as a part of the New Republic and the other imposing the Galactic Empire’s vision of order. From both their perspectives, you’ll get to
