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Last Line of Defense
now has a new Waterloo. It's an interesting translation of a WC2 design into WC3 styling. One of the most notable changes are the swap from flak cannons to designated gun and missile turrets.
Deathsnakeput together this nifty video of the ship fending off eight Dralthi with its updated weaponry. No problem for a heavy cruiser!
Wing Commander Saga Waterloo under attack
Sep
…Who says print is dead? In 2669, Major Todd "Maniac" Marshall, eternal teenager, still has a stash of printed pornography in his locker. When you chat with him in the barracks during the Blackmane series he takes a break from reading an issue of 'Playpen' magazine to tease Blair about flirting with Rachel. Is Playpen something created for Wing Commander III or is it the real 1980s magazine it appears to be? (And if the former is the case, why didn't they use the already-established Playboy parody "Plaything (tm)" from Privateer?)
Long story short: it's not real AND it wasn't created by the prop department. There are often legal issues involved with showing real products on television and in film. Take a close look at any popular sitcom and you'll find that what look like real groceries, magazines, books and posters are actually careful knockoffs that resemble (but are legally distinct from) familiar
Sep
…Popular video blogger
Spoonyrecently dedicated his live stream gaming show to Wing Commander 3. He's dabbled in Wing Commander stuff over the years, so it's interesting to see his take here. Perhaps even more interesting are the live reactions from the audience. It's a credit to WC3's engaging FMV and spaceflight engine that it still holds up remarkably well nearly 25 years later. This also speaks to the pace of advancement in the early '90s. This came just a few years after WC1&2, yet it's often a significantly easier point of entry to the series due to how much more it resembles a modern game.
We can also help clarify one mystery in the vid. At 1:30:30 he encounters a 'bug' where he appears to be zooming away from his target backwards. It looks like what happened was that he accidentally engaged auto slide (with the / key), which temporarily disables the atmospheric flight style and throws
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
Mar
If you were on the hunt for all of the international copies and translations of Wing Commander, Dennis Mull has an extra twist for the German edition of Wing Commander 4! He's got two different versions with some minor differences. On a later printing, the back side font was cleaned up, the age rating sticker was printed on the box and a couple missing name credits were added. I love tiny things like this. Good luck hunting your copies down!
Release (right) and re-release (left). The differences are a different font on the back of the box and the sticker "USK 12" is printed on the box. Jeffrey "JC" Combs and Frank Roan are also added.
Jun
FekLeyrTarghas a neat new audio treat for fellow fans. He's recorded a classic Star*Solder article to test out his new audio gear. If the story doesn't ring a bell, it's the one that details some of the exploits and fate of the final surviving Midway class megacarrier that fought in the Nephilim war. It's a very creative reading with music and sound effects layered in! You can find the original text on page 23 of the manual
here.
In order to test my new semi-professional microphone and practice my skills in Adobe Audition, I produced an Audio Narration of "Last of the Megacarriers" from "Star*Solder", the manual of "Wing Commander Arena". This is the tale of the TCS Port Broughton, a Terran Confederation Megacarrier and sistership to the TCS Midway from "Wing Commander: Prophecy".
Jul
…jazz and bar music
Following up on his recent release of the
digital recordings, veteran video game composer
George Oldzieyhas sent out three more updates to his backers. George has exported the sheet music for several tracks from volume 2 of the orchestral project to video format. You can follow the score as the music notation is played back through the Sibelious sound fonts. The second update shows a preview of the artwork for the physical copy of the jazz album. It was made by community member
SabreAce, who you may remember from his work on those awesome
squadron patchesa few years ago. And finally there was a response to a frequently asked question regarding the recommended listening order. If you backed this project, be sure to keep an eye on your e-mail or the
Kickstarter pagefor the latest updates. Kickstarter e-mail updates always end up in my spam folder for some reason. The Victory bar music
Jan
…Last year I tweeted a
long threadabout the Lightning jets used to build the Rapiers for the Wing Commander movie. I spent last night researching the BOMBER used in the film! Like the Rapiers played by English Electric Lightning interceptors, the Broadsword bomber in the Wing Commander movie was also a real aircraft. The cockpit is from a scrapped RAF English Electric Canberra B 2 bomber! Now join me for a space bomber history adventure...
Broadswords are flown by Paladin and Knight for the battle in act two. The real cockpit is visible in their close-ups but is usually cropped close since it doesn't match the CG scenes as closely as the fighters.
The plane: the Canberra was a jet-powered medium bomber originally intended to replace the famed de Havilland Mosquito. Development began in 1944, the first prototype flew in 1949 and the first production models entered service in 1951. The Canberra quickly
Oct
Display MoreThe
Maslas Brothershas been hard at work all summer to fine tune the online code for Wing Commander
Flat Universe, and now they're ready to share it with you! The team will hold a dogfighting tournament this Saturday to have some fun and run the new version through its paces. They've also put together a really awesome trailer. If you're on the fence, check it out - it'll make you want to hop in the cockpit! Download the game (in either Windows, Mac and Linux variants!) and sign up at Daedalus Station
here.
Saturday, 6th of October, 16:00 UTCTo All Wing Commander Fans out there...
You have been recalled to active military service.Flat Universe: Tournament is Back!
Deserter or not you are going to be shot anyway. BE THERE!
Apr
…Adm_Maverickhas mocked up a neat 'pilot console' for his Wing Commander
tabletopgame. He's built a template for the variety of fighter status that a ship would want to track, and it's been paired with a simple peg counter system so everything is neatly tracked. In the future, it could even be modified to hold the
miniature shipand any associated cards. Something like this would even be pretty neat for the official
WC CCGtoo!
I had posted a design idea for the pilot console the other day. Well I spent a decent amount of time cutting and drilling and came up with a sort of prototype of the pilot console. It's not perfect, and still nowhere near what I envision when I try to market the game, but then again at this point I'm nowhere near that stage anyway. This is just for alpha testing of gameplay mechanics.The design is such that it's intended to allow you to track the information on each fighter
Mar
…ODVS' enhanced video packs are well known for boosting the visual quality of the movies for WC3, WC4 and Prophecy, but the audio is another undertaking unto itself. Owen made significant strides last year to upscale the footage for the Heart of the Tiger, but he was limited to what he had on hand. Requests have streamed in recently to add different languages, and ODVS has been happy to oblige after obtaining the corresponding language packs. As a result, we now have German, French and Japanese editions of the enhanced WC3 cutscenes to share! Note that these are just for direct viewing at this time - there is not currently any way to integrate them into the actual game, but they're all set in case fans eventually figure out a way to do it someday.
- Wing Commander 3 - English: version 2.0 (3.7 gig zip)
- Wing Commander 3 - German: version 2.0 (3.7 gig zip)
- Wing Commander 3 - French: version 2.0 (3.7 gig
Mar
AD found a really cool trove of movie concept art images! Costume designer Magali Guidasci contributed to films such as Leon, Zombieland, Armageddon and Wing Commander. And she's posted a fantastic gallery online that shows off how many of the film's most iconic outfits began. Perhaps most notably, there's even a mockup for the deleted Merlin character, Blair's holographic assistant! Check them out below:
AD: Found the WC movie's costume designer's site and she has some cools from the movie - including a concept for Merlin - that I hadn't seen before! Magali Guidasci is the talented artist behind the costumes on films like La Femme Nikita and Armageddon.LOAF: True excitement tonight: this unused costume concept for the Merlin hologram! VERY different from the storyboards and other art we've seen.
Jan
…As the calendar crosses over into another new year, we took a look back and were once again amazed at all of the happenings in the world of Wing Commander. You guys were busy! And so were we - here's a look back at some of the highlights of 2018.
WC Toolbox
One of the more surprising things to me was how much happened with WC1/2. UnnamedCharacter's
opened the door to some pretty fun stuff. In conjunction with Goliath and Howard Day, they're working on amazing
model upgrade tests. Sheppard developed
Wing Hardto adjust game difficulty. Rehsin is
adding charactersand creating
campaigns. Some of this is bleeding into WC2 and Privateer 2, and it was pretty neat to see a WC2
arcade cabinetat Britizencon. We continue to learn a lot about these games even after 28+ years, including the recent discovery of multiple
easter eggsburied in WC1. And it's neat to still see WC easter eggs pop up elsewhere in
May
Nerds that Geek has posted a quick flashback on the majesty of Wing Commander 3. The article's not long, but it captures the essence of what made The Heart of the Tiger great. The author credits the game for kickstarting FMV and next-level storytelling in games without compromising on the gameplay. He leaves off by encouraging people to pick up a cheap digital copy and relive the adventure. That's advice we can certainly stand behind! Check the full piece
here.
Jan
LOAF has recently been accumulating some neat '90s hardware with a connection to Wing Commander. The first is a customizable keyboard device with different profiles for various sims. The Katt "Games Master Keyboard" also supported Strike Commander, X-Wing and a couple of Ultimas. He's also picked up a couple of Thrustmaster sticks with WC fighters on the box. The X-Fighter joystick sports a Dragon and the Top Gun has a Heretic from Privateer 2! Even without explicit tie-in features, adding a WC ship to your box was a good way to pick up some PC street cred back in the day.
It's here! The world's first new product.
Oct
We have a small treat for you today: a significantly higher quality version of the Wing Commander IV 'making of' featurette that was released on German magazine cover discs! It's also slightly longer, with an additional minute of behind-the-screens footage. Check it out!
Feb
…This week the WC4 Fan Remake team has an update on sound effects. They revealed last month that a new composer had signed on, but a specific audio effects specialist, MrCoffeeee, is now also on the team to punch up what you hear even further. This is one of those things that your nostalgia brain might think was just fine back in 1996, but when bringing those dated chirps forward 25 years, the quality don't match the stellar visuals and music that fans are creating for the remake. Check out the sample below to hear what the updated version sounds like! Don't forget to visit the full article over at WCRespace.com for more background on today's update.
Recreating sounds for Wing Commander 4 turns out to be a task on its own. When playing the old lady again in 2021, it turned out that the game holds some very cool sounds for its time but unfortunately in low audio quality. In order to save space in the
May
…BritizenConis an annual event for fans of Star Citizen in the UK. In conjunction with
JR Design & Fabrication, the main panelists at the event were able to sit behind a really cool desk inspired by a setting in the game. On top of that, the WC fans there also built a really cool arcade style kiosk with built-in Wing Commander games! They designed a cabinet around a 27" monitor and loaded up Wing Commander 2, Armada and more on the systems. Everything was topped off by a keyboard and joystick built into the frame so that fans could simply walk up and jump into the games. You can read up further on how everything came together
here.
Second on the list was to recreate some of the trading consoles and re-purpose them as Wing Commander arcade machines. As soon as we had this idea it had to be done!!Painted and in place at the event they certainly went down well with the crowd and the people we spoke
Mar
…We've got lots of pretty ships in the news this week! The designs that we've shared the last couple days have been high quality digital models, but today's work is a little different. Nightball06 has returned to his hand-drawn Hellcat sketch. At first glance, it might look like these are different rotated perspectives of a computerized model, but they're actually digital sketches. He's taken a few liberties to streamline and enhance a few general elements and is looking for feedback below!
Hey folks, Well since Corona has its deadly clasp all over the world - I hope you're all well.And with all those Lock-downs, the one good thing that disease gave me is time to work on my design again... (As I mentioned before - it's also some kind of stress relief for me)So here’s my latest attempt:
I went back to my first drawing (the perspective one / left upper corner) because that's where all my ideas
Feb
…
Screenrant has posted a new article proposing the novel idea that Electronic Arts remaster the Wing Commander series. We wondered when Command & Conquer's remaster was announced if now was finally the time. The author notes that EA's loss of Star Wars exclusivity may push them back towards their original franchise like Wing Commander and Mass Effect. He also muses that "if it were possible to upscale" the '90s video, then the whole thing might have a chance. Of course, as ODVS has proved time and time again, it's not just possible. The footage has already been remastered at a superior level of quality than that which was included with C&C, so that's not an issue. Surprisingly, they don't seem to know about the WC4 Fan Remake. The project is the top result in Google (and three out of the next four videos after that!) and well on their way to accomplishing a high quality new take on the game. Of
