Wing Commander

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Kotaku recently reported on a massive leak of Sega documents from the 1990s. One interesting bit for me: Sega's release calendar lists a Saturn port of Wing Commander IV for October '96. I don't believe that was ever announced (or otherwise leaked).

A Saturn port of Wing Commander III, not mentioned here, WAS announced and was supposedly shown in some capacity at the first E3 in 1995. Little else is known!

The leaked documents also have Sega's internal estimated release dates for the Playstation ports of WC3 and 4. They're just a month off for 3 (February vs. March '96) but way off for 4 (September '96 vs May '97). It's unlikely that a Saturn port could've shipped in October '96!

You can download the document leak directly from Sega Retro here (61 meg PDF).

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If you were hooked by LOAF's deep analysis of the Confederation Handbook over the weekend and can't wait for more, the time is now! Part two of the stream is live! Check it out below:

In 1999, HarperEntertainment published the Wing Commander Confederation Handbook. Was it the greatest book ever written in the history of the world? Yes. Let's talk about it! AGAIN.

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Today we've got a triple-pack of hardcore reviews from Hardcore Gaming 101. We reported on their WC1, WC2 and Strike Commander retrospectives back in the day, but we missed how these three prime spinoffs to the Wing Commander series also go their own proper articles.

First up is Academy. Taken in a modern context, some players may not understand how a mission builder could be its own fully boxed (and nearly full priced) standalone game, but that fails to capture the situation at the time. Fans were clamoring for the ability to do this. Fan mods were years away from being a thing, and Academy made it easy to craft your own WC games with zero learning curve. Plus, it packed in new ships as well as a really fun (and challenging) gauntlet mode.

Armada also gets a lot of credit for doing something different in such a way as to expand the Wing Commander tapestry. There is a some discussion on how the

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It's been several years since our All Wings Considered live Wing Commander show has been in production, but LOAF is trying to get his space legs under him again. He's messing around on YouTube this evening in a totally unstructured stream about the WC Movie's Confederation Handbook. Check it out below!

In 1999, HarperEntertainment published the Wing Commander Confederation Handbook. Was it the greatest book ever written in the history of the world? Yes. Let's talk about it!

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We're quickly cruising through the year here, so it's time for us to officially announce the next CIC Birthday Party! It's a big one this time as it will commemorate 25 years at wcnews.com! Mark your calendars for Saturday, August 19. The official event kicks off at 7:00 pm EDT (4:00 pm PDT and 11:00 pm GMT) on that night, but there will be plenty of people hanging out well before and after. You can join the fun in Discord #Wingnut. Feel free to stop by any time beforehand to get acquainted with how everything works. We'll see you there!

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Here at the CIC, we used to keep pretty close tabs on Ultima Online. As a product that was developed alongside contemporaries such as Wing Commander Prophecy at the famous Austin studio, it was a big deal to see EA continue the MMO long after Origin's closure. When Electronic Arts finally did decide that they were done with it in 2014, that could have very easily been the end, but the game has somehow continued to thrive for another decade under Broadsword. So I was really happy to see this recent PC Gamer blurb about high turnout for the game's summer barbecue event. The game has been continuously running for more than 25 years now, so the fact that it exists at all is impressive - but all the more so that they're still having fun events in their tight knit community! You can skim through a few recorded streams below to see what the game's like in 2023:

Ultima Online still boasts an active

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EmuMusicFan's super artsy take on the famous interrogation scene from Freedom Flight has been greatly expanded. Pages 8 through 12 now detail Prince Thrakhath and Lord Ralgha's interaction - and it's quite intense now with the visual. I've included the whole scene below so you can enjoy it as one! Let Emu know what you think at the CIC Forums!

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Wing Commander II has some excellent tuckerizations! This is from Special Operations 1. Denis Loubet is the famous Origin artist, and the Miller is Craig Miller, who designed the Wing Commander II box.

General Snell of Niven Colony was Wing Commander II's executive producer Dallas Snell (who is likely well known to many Origin Systems fans)!

Lady Blue, CO of the Concordia's Ferret wing, is writer/assistant diretor Ellen Guon (who you probably know first as the co-author of Freedom Flight).

Ghorah Khar Sabre pilot "Ladyman" is the man behind the manuals, David Ladyman.

Blair's gunner Lieutenant Haley is programmer Richard Haley.

Ghorah Khar rookie pilot "Cafrelli" is programmer Charles Cafrelli (who also voiced a Kilrathi admiral!).

Do you know any others?

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The WCRespace team is back with a new update on the WC4 Fan Remake. There's a whole new article by Pedro that goes into great detail about the game's user interface. He says it's not the most glamorous subject, and it might be tedious to design and program, but I love these liminal console screens. They're critical glue that helps sell the total experience. An especially big deal this time around is the adjustment to accommodate 16:9 widescreen settings. It takes some finesse to make them look authentic compared to the original 4:3 shape. The fourth and fifth images below are especially stark - they compare the original loading screen with today's update!

Now brute forcing in new UI wouldn’t be impossible but that removes some of the nostalgia. No problem, we’ll just upscale them like we do the rooms… except we optionally support 16:9 by zooming in on the gameflow rooms, and there is no way

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Destro has returned with a spectacular announcement for the future of Wing Loader, which is a program he built to add audio speech to the Kilrathi Saga's WC1. The next evolution seeks to add high resolution video to KS WC3. The videos already exist. ODVS massively upscaled and enhanced the footage from WC3, WC4 and Prophecy a few years back, but at the time, it was only possibly to integrate these cutscenes into the latter two game. Destro's patch will finally close the loop and make it possible to enjoy the improved video in the game. There are many challenges to overcome still, but his success with WC1 shows that he has what it takes to make this happen! You can download the latest working version of Wing Loader here.

Hey everyone! I hope you are all having a great summer so far! This is my busy time of year but I'm keeping my head up and messing around with the next big feature of Wing

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Cybot has returned with a variety of exotic renders. This set is based on familiar WC2 and Privateer-centric scenes with a little bit of creative flair. Cybot's also made a handful of model files available to download, including the Drayman cockpit and some of the guns. You can grab those at the CIC Forums!

A Drayman cockpit. I think it works.

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Wow, look who is trending! Mothers, lock up your ejected pilots.

To be clear: there are two Deathstrokes. They are similar but they are different kils. Dakhath nar Sihkag is the Wing Commander I ace, Dakhath nar Caxki is the WC3/CCG/Arena ace.

The original Deathstroke flew a Dralthi during the Vega Campaign. He was ultimately shot down at Gimle by Spirit! Color art from the SFC manual:

The later Deathstroke flew a Dralthi IV (and later a Dralthi Striker). The red livery is from WC3 but never actually appears since he isn’t really in the PC version!

Some clever and handsome fellow did think to lampshade the similarities in their backgrounds:

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It’s a Shrike! Thank you to GeekToyLove for selling me this orphan torpedo bomber (and Thunder_Owl for sharing that it was available). Murphy Labs’ TB-81A Shrike was a four-person torpedo bomber (class B) developed for use aboard escort carriers during the post-war fleet modernization. They served with distinction during the first Nephilim incursions.

GeekToyLove also made this fabulous Arrow!

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Tonight's rabbit hole: I noticed that Privateer has two different internal sets of names for its commodities, one used in the exchange (and on your PPC) and one used on the in flight manifest. Some are the same but others are different. "Movies" becomes... "Moviechips"!

Games become Gamechips, Books become Bookchips. And PlayThing (tm) becomes...!

So I ended up extracting everything and making a Spreadsheet of different commodity names across six sources (three in-game, three from the Playtesters' Guide). It also shows what type of container displays for each:

Found some cut content, too: traces of the ability to eject passengers and a list of additional story-specific items that were cut when the plot was shortened: Alien Crystal, Alien Device, Ancient Gun, Alien Machinery and Alien Metal!

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My 4th of July contribution is a quick resource with the extracted fireworks graphics from Wing Commander I. The first three are VGA, and EGA is below. You can also find the sprite sheets here.

Stay safe out there!

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centaurianmudpig is back with a new space sim game to show his fellow Wingnuts. He previously released Absolute Territory, which was a more traditional WC-style shooter. Now he's branched out into a hybrid sim that blends newtonian physics and large capital ships with a variety of familiar concepts to WC fans. It sounds like a cool experience for people who would like to try something different just a little bit different! There is a demo you can try out via Steam and a preview video below.

Hey wingnuts, it's been a while since I last posted about my last big update for Absolute Territory, with space fighters and hostile aliens, on here.

Since then I started working on my next game, in keeping with sci-fi space combat, with large warships (corvette sized and bigger). I've been running a public playtest for A-Spec First Assault on Steam for the last year, and now preparing for Steam Next Fest: June

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Speaking of Wing Commander Academy, AD found some exciting evidence that the show was also dubbed and broadcast in South Korea. We've previously reported that the television program was translated into Arabic, but that was the only localization we were aware of. It appears to have been broadcast on the KBS station on Wednesdays and Thursdays, at 6:40, from June 17 to July 29, 1998. The name was translated to be 'Space Battleship Tiger'. And while we can't seem to find any clips of the actual show, AD dug very deep and found a Capri Sun advertisement that ran during the episodes and had a little logo in the top right corner with the revised title. He's also located a list of voice actors for the different roles.

cast list 성우진 Sung Woo-jin

김민석 - 매버릭 役Kim Min-seok - Maverick

유동현 - 매니악 役Yoo Dong-hyeon - Maniac

김 준 - 트라카 役Jun Kim - Thrakhath

온영삼 - 튤린함장 役Yeongsam On - Captain Tulin (Tolwyn?)

김익태

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It appears that the pending removal of Wing Commander Academy wan't a false alarm. The show is no longer listed for streaming on the Peacock service. With the removal of great shows from a number of platforms and new paywalling/gatekeeping happening all over, it feels like the hits just keep coming. Fortunately you can still pick up the DVD for about $11. And never fear, the Wing Commander CIC remains free and there's no limit the number of forum posts you can view in a day. You can also always join us in Discord #Wingnut!

A peek back at better days:

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AD, who is ever the finder of things, found an awesome Thai Wing Commander article today. We don't see many WC items in this language, so this is a nice treat! This issue is described as a "technique edition," and it includes strategy guide-style overviews of things like the game's guns. Very cool!

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Benjamin over at BigBoxCollection has made one of his biggest updates yet! Thanks to a generous donation from Dominus of Exult, they were able to 3D scan in a whole bunch of new Wing Commander titles! The new additions even include a little peek at some of the internal contents, which is a great touch. Check them out here.

And here's a look at the shipment when it arrived: