Wing Commander

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The Digital Antiquarian has posted a lengthy article on the history of Wing Commander 3. Much like his previous works, the piece is extensively researched and draws on both archival materials and personal interviews to build the historical context for game. It's a good recap of what WC3 was and how it came to be. The later parts of the article shift more into a meta review from the perspective of 2021. Our author here comes across as fairly critical of the more formulaic missions, binary nature of the plot choices and cheesiness of big space cats. He seems to realize the tonal shift is somewhat jarring after talking about how impressive a product WC3 is, so he ends on a conciliatory note. You can check out the full article here.

The presence of so many recognizable actors on the set, combined with the broader mass-media excitement over multimedia and CD-ROM, brought a parade of mainstream press

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Following our Wing Commander references in StarLancer we thought it would be a good idea to archive the other major Wing Commander reference in a Digital Anvil game: this loading screen from Conquest: Frontier Wars which claims the game is "Loading Pegasus NavCom AI". This references the Confederation space station that appears at the start of the movie (and it's related MacGuffin, the NavCom AI device that will allow the Kilrathi to reach Earth). Conquest, a real time strategy game set in space, was the second Digital Anvil game released, published by Ubisoft in 2001. The NavCom message is one of several that flip by while any of the game's maps are loading. It's currently available on GOG for anyone interested in trying it themselves (though we'll warn you the 'Pegasus' loading message now passes too quickly to be seen with the naked eye!).

We've also learned that a higher quality version of the

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The Wing Commander Movie is seeing a rare digital discount this week. The Blu-ray and DVD went out of print after the film rights reverted back to Chris Roberts, and digital copies were slow to pop back into the various storefronts. It's starting to appear again more now though, and Microsoft has it on sale for just $8. It's then playable on Windows PCs and Xboxes. There are different storefronts for different regions, but it appears the discount applies in multiple countries. VUDU, Fandango Now, Google Play, YouTube and Amazon also carry it once again for $10 now.

On the gaming side, Solstice may be a few weeks away yet, but the GOG summer sale is in full swing. The Wing Commander series generally gets about a 75% discount, but there's a small bump to 80% if you buy three or more games at once. That's a whopping $10.24 for all of the original DOS and Windows Wing Commander games, including

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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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We've seen fans start to make some really cool stuff in Space Engineers lately, and here's another one! This time Psycho_Klops has built the Diligent from the Wing Commander Movie. This is a fairly unique design in the WC universe, and it's always great to see it get some love. The craft is the builder's favorite from the film, but I think the Concordia and a few others are close competitors as well. It's designed to be flown in Space Engineers' low gravity environments, and he's taken a bunch of appropriate planetscape pictures to match. It's pretty cool! You can download the model from the Steam Workshop here.

Thist is probably the only beautiful ship in the whole movie

Survival Ready, can only fly in low gravity.

All Tanks onboard are on stockpile, forget to change that before publishing it, just change it when you wanna fly the ship.

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LOAF stumbled across an interesting album cover here. It's the 1978 Voyage (A Journey Into Discoid Funk) by Brian Bennett and it features a pretty stellar - and familiar - space ship. Something about the six nacelles, narrow central neck and orange/red/silver color scheme makes me think Prince Thrakhath would have found this to be a perfectly adequate flagship in the 2660s.

I can’t speak to the music but this is an EXTREMELY handsome spaceship.

Here's a handful of other Rigakh sightings to compare: from WC2, Last Line of Defense, Klavs' Models and Standoff.

Oh, and what did A Discoid Funk sound like? Here's a sample! I could totally imagine this playing in the Concordia rec room.

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Here's a neat Privateer 2 preview that

Pix

recently found. It's from the September 1995 edition of PC Home. This was just before the game officially became a Privateer title, but the article draws the connection that The Darkening's existence owes itself to Wing Commander 3 & 4's live video success. There's also an interesting Q&A with Clive Owen - plus some cool set pictures. Check out Owen & Jürgen Prochnow leaning against a tongue!

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We see so few clips of modern YouTubers and streamers trying their hand at Prophecy for the Game Boy Advance, so I'm always eager to share the ones that I run across. Here's a mission from fastrun14. It doesn't really sound like they enjoyed the experience - the game controls take some practice to get used to - but it's wonderful to appreciate the technical aspects here. Check out the 3D autopilot effect and the paint scheme on those Piranhas! And wow to the "mission accomplished" spoken audio at the end. It's hard to avoid comparisons to the 3D accelerated PC version, but the game is running on something less than a tenth as powerful as the minimum PC specs here. What Raylight achieved never ceases to amaze!

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Necroware has posted an extensive video about a project to create a more capable USB to Gameport adapter. Plenty of basic dongles already exist, but they are apparently limited in function with some of the more capable old school sticks. This experimental device uses an Arduino Pro Micro to emulate/pass along some of the more complete functions. A full rundown is available in the video. The creator is a huge WC fan and uses various WC games to test the device. Scroll to the 28:00 mark for a few minutes of WC3 and Prophecy in action with an old MS Sidewinder. You can read more about the project here.

How does it work?

The adapter is built around Arduino Pro Micro, which uses the same ATmega32U4 microcontroller as Leonardo. This microcontroller has built-in USB HID capabilities and can be used to build HID input devices, like joysticks. The adapter itself is super simple, the main brainwork was

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Alright, I can't think of a good reason for this, but here's the Wing Commander knife post. To start, WC always loved using knives to show a character was troubled. The one Cobra is sharpening in WC III is a Marto-Brewer Explora, a Spanish survival knife from the 1980s.

Hawk’s thematically similar knife in Wing Commander Prophecy is called a hunting knife in stage directions but the actual prop is a United Cutlery Bushmaster survival knife. These are still made!

Seether’s knife in Wing Commander IV is a Hibben Double Shadow, a design often used in sci fi productions including Star Trek and Babylon 5. The script calls it a “laser-blade” which it describes as “a curved handle with a lethal thread of light that pulses from one end of the handle to the other”. As a result, the novelization refers to Seether’s blade as a “laser knife” and says they are “plunging weapons that could also

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After a yearlong battle fighting for humanity, Docteur J has wrapped up his epic French language playthrough of Wing Commander 4. Through his YouTube channel Oldies Games TV, J is a prolific gamer and Wingnut who has long been helping spread appreciation of the WC series to an underserved audience. He's even covered the translated version of Prophecy for the Gameboy Advance. While most of our visitors may not understand exactly what he's saying, the emotion, excitement and fun come across in his vids very well. It's also really cool to see what the game's like in a different language, and WC4's high quality sets and videos are always a joy to watch. You can find more of his vids here.

C'est avec une certaine émotion que nous voici arrivé a la fin de cette incroyable jeu

It is with a certain emotion that we have arrived at the end of this incredible game

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The

Document Archive

is where we try to collect and categorize all the neat finds related to the development history of the various Wing Commander products so you can more easily research your favorite titles. These might include storyboards, early product shots, art sources, and draft scripts that we've featured in one of our daily updates, but otherwise risk falling by the wayside. With Secret Ops turning twenty this year, the time was right to expand the archive's coverage of that game. The project was more limited in scope than Wing Commander: Prophecy, but we've still uncovered a few interesting items over the years:

• Secret Ops Scripts: 30 items added, including the lost web fiction.
• Secret Ops Artwork: Six art pieces added, including the backstory of the Plunkett design.
• Secret Ops Ads: A contemporary print article providing some fascinating insights on the impact of a burgeoning internet.

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Here's one for the history books: the original four-page story premise for the tenth episode of Wing Commander Academy, "On Both Your Houses". A premise document like this was the first step in developing an episode of the show. Once it was approved by the show's producers it would be expanded into a three act outline and then a full script (which would go on to be boarded and then animated).

The final episode is very close to this initial premise although it does feature some differences, including setting Archer's robot fight at the Greenhouse lab, having Maverick ultimately be the one to shoot down the Kilrathi pilot and ending with an unused coda aboard the Tiger's Claw. You can download the PDF here; a full transcription is available in the WCPedia.

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Displaced Gamers has put together a fascinating video that dives into the classic DOS game 320x200 pixel resolution. If you deal in old screenshots as much as we do, you'll notice the original Wing Commander games come in this slightly odd resolution and aspect ratio compared to the 4:3 640x480 stats of later games. The clip goes into the technical details of exactly why this is, and there's also comparisons between the vertical pixel stretch on PC versus the Super Nintendo's horizontal stretch. This is why the Super Nintendo characters look squished in the recent Head Museum update. LOAF has mentioned this in passing in a few episodes of All Wings Considered, but this video really dives into the topic. Wing Commander is depicted at the 12:17 mark, but it's a cool watch regardless of the WC mention. Thanks to ShadowArm for the tip!

Examination of the 4:3 aspect ratio of DOS gaming - primarily VGA

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Fun Privateer 2 background element: Angus Santana has a model of a Bexian public transport balloon on his desk.

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DefianceIndustries has another wonderful take on the Thunderbolt, and this one's destined for the WC4 Fan Remake. The game had a placeholder TBolt imported from the Secret Ops Model Upgrade Pack, but this one takes the fighter to the next level. You can see the new design in the first image below and compare it to Sean Murphy's render for WC4 promotional materials after that. The third pic is the original in-game model compared to today's version. Defiance details the process that went into upgrading the ship at a new article over at WCRespace. You can also provide feedback (and see a bonus render of the pirate version!) at the CIC Forums.

Art department here. We've closed out the new and improved HF-66 Thunderbolt and updated the turntable animations in the media section accordingly.

The original Tbolt (below) was a reskin from the Secret Ops Model Upgrade pack. The model was a fine workhorse

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If you missed the big news earlier this week, be sure to check out the new WC4 Fan Remake demo! There are numerous fixes and updates, better joystick support and new in-flight comms. You can download it here (886 meg exe) and get right to playing! The WC Respace team has posted a full article with instructions and FAQs if you have any questions or issues. If you're not quite ready to jump in yourself, here's a video of The Eradicator checking the demo out. It's actually the original release, so the latest version is even better!

It looks like a team of modders are trying to remaster Wing Commander IV. In this video, we will check their work out.

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Rotten Tomatoes has put together a ranking of 47 movies based on video games. It's an interesting read to see all of the different films represented here, even if the Wing Commander ranking is atrocious. WC comes in at 35th place thanks to its 10% score. I get that it's not the type of film that a professional reviewer is going to rush to thumbs up, and there's plenty of reasons why casual fans may or may not like it, but it's just not that bad. Among the ranks of cringey awful video game movies, it should really be in the upper quarter. You can check out the ranking for yourself

here

.

Thanks to Robin Ward and Gordon Lucas for the tip!

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Defiance Industries' tabletop Clydesdale was a big hit last week, and he's quickly followed it up with a miniature Dorkathi. The fun doesn't stop there though! He's also finalizing the Gilgamesh destroyer and Confederation dreadnought models for his digital TacOps remake. And Kilrathi counterparts are in hot pursuit! I just love how realistic this looks - right down to the crisp shadows and reflections.

The Empire of Kilrah, your one stop shop for those really aggressive looking transports. William Tell and associated Gilgameshians are ready to go. Working on the Ralatha.

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BastichB 64K has posted a new video in his DOS Days series. This episode focuses on Wing Commander 2, and it's been a long time coming since his WC1 profile originally dropped way back in March 2020. This isn't a particularly long clip, but it's nice how the narrator tries to set the stage and describe the early '90s pop culture context. WC2 gets a lot of credit for its new gameplay mechanics, narrative-driven story, interesting characters and engrossing expansions. Check it out below!

A look back at Wing Commander 2 a classic sequel to the much beloved original space opera by Origin Systems.