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LOAF recently found a nifty marketing prerelease snap of the Wing Commander 4 box. As the story
goes, the stark geometric pattern of the main box eventually gave way to a slipcase sleeve with a more action-oriented center. You can see in the shot below that this bears a fairly strong resemblance to the final design. The core art and even font are in place, but the lettering was repositioned a bunch before production. Note that it just says "Wing IV" on the side though!
May
You only get the Golden Sun the first time...
May
…The final missing ebook from the Baen Wing Commander catalog continues to march towards release. As previously mentioned, the Milk Run story is available as a sample chapter to help get fans excited. Since we last reported, the novel has been added for preorder on Kobo, and we've added links to Google Play as well. End Run fully releases on July 3, 2018. Also check out our new the new and improved Book Grid that Kris and LOAF made. All the digital options you could want in your WC novel life are now at your fingertips! (except Freedom Flight on Google Play, apparently)
- Baen Ebook
- Amazon Kindle
- Apple iBooks
- B&N Nook
- Kobo
- Google Play
- Baen Ebook
- Amazon Kindle
- Apple iBooks
- B&N Nook
- Kobo
- Google Play
- Baen Ebook
- Amazon Kindle
- Apple iBooks
- B&N Nook
- Kobo
- Google Play
- Baen Ebook
- Amazon Kindle
- Apple iBooks
- B&N Nook
- Kobo
- Google Play
- Baen Ebook
- Amazon
May
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.
May
…George Oldziey
checked in again to provide fans an update on his Wing Commander jazz album, which was
recordeda couple months ago. He's recently overcome some delays and is now ready to check off some of the few remaining production-related tasks. One thing he's asking fans for help on is the cover art. Anyone who has ideas or input should hit the comment button below and let him know. The sooner this gets finalized, the sooner fans who supported his recent album
campaigncan get their music! Listen to a preview below.
Your browser cannot play this file. Click here to download the track. Greetings WC music fans! Firstly, I have to apologize for not being very present here. Some life's challenges took my attention, but they have been resolved and I now have the music for the WC bar music CD ready to be manufactured.But first! I would love suggestions for art work for the CD. If you have
May
Friday night score! Happened across several pre-release Super Wing Commander screenshots. Note the older VDU graphics and the early cockpit that's more TIE Fighter than Hornet!
A preview build seems to have been provided to magazines in early 1994... wonder if it's floating around somewhere! Here's what the finished cockpits looked like.
And here's some footage of a pre-release build, from a VHS trailer. You can see the same WIP VDU images... plus a cut enemy ship at the 28 second mark!
May
…The Now Playing Podcast's latest episode is all about Wing Commander. They are obviously a movie show, but this installment actually approaches the subject from a comprehensive Wing Commander franchise angle. At least one of the commentators has a long history with the series including the games, knowledge of the TV show and the back story of the WC Movie itself. They poke fun at some of the sillier elements of the film, but they credit things like its pioneering first use of time slice "bullet time," which is cool. They spend a full 90 minutes hashing everything out, so they cover quite a bit of ground. Check it out for yourself
here.
Game developer Chris Roberts was on course to deliver the first major science fiction film of 1999 when he personally piloted his massively popular flight simulator Wing CommanderPhantom Menace and The Matrix. Do fighter pilots Freddie Prinze Jr. and Matthew
May
DefianceIndustriesis hard at work cranking out the most plentiful peashooter of the Gemini Sector, the F-38 Talon. Unfortunately, they're mostly up to no good on behalf of the Retros or pirates, but occasionally the Confed Militia will trot a few out as well. The Talon might be a bland workhorse in Privateer, but these updated renders are gorgeous!
I finally finished up my F-38 Talon. These things litter the Gemini sector and everybody has at least ten. From the Retros, to pirates, to in-system security - you can't throw a rock and not hit one; even the Kilrathi have a few. But I currently only did two paint schemes. By far the most famous - and obnoxious:
DIE BY THE VERY WEAPONS YOU ADORE!!!!!
And to counteract the crazies - here's a Confed ISS version: Best not be carrying any contraband around these guys - oh, who am I kidding, they're made entirely of tissue paper. Anyway - enjoy!
May
Display MoreThe
Maslas Brothershave announced the first multiplayer tournament for Wing Commander
Flat Universe. They will be holding the big contest over the weekend of June 23-24 next month. More details will be announced as the date approaches, but pilots can register for the event
herenow. Head over the Daedalus Station to
downloadthe game and start practicing. It should be lots of fun!
The wait is over...The first Wing Commander Multiplayer Tournament will become a reality only if... YOU JOIN US
Do you feel the heat?
23/24 June 2018Let's find out!
May
FredDude posted this nifty sneak preview of Privateer 2 from the October 1996 issue of Computer Gaming World. You can see they're pretty excited. The author spends quite a bit of time talking about the dark and cutthroat environment that the game exists in. There's also some hints of the devious storyline highlighted by a number of star actors. They're almost more optimistic about it than WC3/4, and it's perhaps these lofty expectations that affected the general perception of the final game. You can find their somewhat disappointed final review
here(although they did still end up being jazzed about the unique story).
May
…LotsoRobbinBear has found a long lost easter egg built into Wing Commander 1. He was playing through the Vega Sector in such a way as to hit all of the losing track systems when he came across something odd in
Brimstone 3. When he kills all the fighters, things proceed as expected. However, if he kills Maniac as well as all the fighters, he is awarded a Bronze Star! Normally, losing a wingman (even Maniac) results in a reduction in medal points that would often disqualify you from an award. In just this system, the opposite is the case. This isn't random either! Recall that at the start of the Brimstone series, Halcyon gives you permission during the mission briefing to shoot Maniac down if he disobeys. This is apparently not just idle chatter - the game mechanics have been slightly tweaked to reward the player for following through! It's pretty neat that this has been hidden in the code all
May
…Fans continue to do amazing things by digging into the earlier Wing Commander games' code. One of the latest findings has led to the manipulation of the screen transitions between segments of the Wing Commander 2 cutscenes. They've found that there are ten possible ways to wipe the screen and launch the next clip - variants of wiping side to side, diagonally and circular from the middle. This is just one of many findings that Wingnuts have discovered recently, albeit a more visible one that's easy for us to highlight. If you'd like to learn about even more detailed hacking that UnnamedCharacter, delMar and lskovlun have revealed, check out the
CIC Forums.
As for the wipe index, the following values are possible:0: wipe down; horizontal line wipe (from top to bottom)
1: wipe left; vertical line wipe (from right to left)
2: wipe up; horizontal line wipe (from bottom to top)
3: wipe right;
May
…Most people are familiar with the infamous video cuts that were made to fit all of the video on the Wing Commander 3 discs. Helpful sequences such as the TCN news bursts and Hobbes explanation were omitted due to space constraints. Fortunately, these are now
available hereat the CIC, but for a long time, the main way players could watch the Hobbes scene was to track down a copy of WC3 on the Playstation or 3DO. But how many people have watched this clip in German?! It's a cool recording, since the German voice actor behind Hobbes is nearly as good as the
original.
FekLeyrTarghas posted it to YouTube so you can see it now!
In dieser Szene, die wahrscheinlich aus Platzgründen nicht in der PC-Version aber dafür in der Playstation- und 3DO-Version sowie in der Romanfassung von "Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger" enthalten ist, entdeck Colonel Christopher "Maverick" Blair (Mark Hamill/Frank
May
Christian Kleinhas found another rare and exotic Spanish Wing Commander translation by DROSoft. His
last couplefinds were for WC1 and the Secret Missions, but this jumps all the way forward to Armada. It would be a treat to see how they changed the Voices of War manual and how the English and Spanish versions would mesh over multiplayer. The Spanish Victory Streak is just there for fun and wasn't part of this set. Armada was ahead of its time and is a ton of fun, so it's great to see other regions that got it!
Just got this hard to find Spanish Wing Commander Armada. The box is in a good shape and the disks are still readable. It's added to the archive now. #DOSgaming
May
Display MoreNow that the Talon's out in the wild,
DefianceIndustries' focus shifts to the Gemini Sector's other workhorse, the Tarsus. It's kind of a shame you don't actually run into them out and about, because the design is just so darn charming. Perhaps some of the allure is simply because it's your own unique home away from home out in space for so much of the game. There have been some
amazing lookingTarsus models made over the years, but this is certainly one to watch!
Sorry boys, I'm just a tourist with a fragged nav console - can you tell me where I am?Well..... you can't have a Talon without giving it something to shoot at.
May
The
Composers Playpodcast's latest episode is about Wing Commander 3. Scott Tobin interviews the original composers of major video games in his series of video game shows, and he's got George Oldziey on the line for this one. There's lots of great backstory about how Mr. Oldziey got involved with Wing Commander and what it means to him to be supporting the fans still after all these years. It's definitely worth a listen! Check it out below, and if you like this one, their previous episode was about the
Crusaderseries with composer Andrew Sega.
Composers Play - "Wing Commander 3" with the composer George Oldziey!Apologies about the audio at the beginning. Check out and support George's music.
May
Dennis Mull came across a hardware setup from the mid '90s that's a pretty neat time capsule of the era. The Quickshot "Squadron Commander" QS-202 is a very early example of a Hands-On Throttle And Stick (HOTAS). Lots of joysticks at the time were sold as "compatible with Wing Commander," and this one includes pre-programmed controls for Wing Commander, Wing Commander 3 and Strike Commander. Given the rapid pace of PC advancement during that time, it's pretty cool that you could regularly find equipment that worked with all of these games. The box even advertises Windows 95 compatibility. And there's lots of other titles besides the WC series listed on the box, which gives you an idea of how popular the flight sim genre was at the time. TheSynrgy also put together a cool unboxing of the unit if you'd like to see more!
May
Check out this pre-release screenshot from Privateer 2 that AD discovered and compare it to one from the final game. The UI isn't as developed, ship icons are in color, BUY/SELL is named TRANS-ACT... and all of the ships have different names: JACKAL becomes Straith, FLEA becomes Shaman and MANTIS becomes Icarus. MULE and CORSAIR don't match ships in the finished game! Most interesting: your ship isn't pictured but is listed as a "TIGER SHARK." That's not in the final game, but it IS referenced in passing twice in the flavor text. Melissa Banks is said to fly a Tiger Shark named Fatale (she flies a Faldari when you rescue her).
This was part of the CD-ROM Interactive Entertainment previews recently discovered. It's worth comparing side by side here in greater detail, because the differences are so cool!
May
Display MoreAtherin has been busy recreating nearly every ship in the Wing Commander film using
SketchUp. There's really not much missing - we don't see the Kilrathi Concom, Diligent or some of the small background items, but just about all of the other major stuff is there. It's a pretty nice lineup! He's been uploading everything to do the
3D Warehouseso you can download copies for yourself
here. Or you can find more comprehensive info on the ships that appear in the Wing Commander movie
here.
SivarSnakierRalariFralthiConcordiaTiger ClawRapierBroadswordDralthiKilrathi
His own design: the
Gwenhyvar
