Wing Commander

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I'm comparing the UI in different Wing Commander III ports! Here's the callsign selection screen on the PC, 3DO, PlayStation and Macintosh. "Maverick" is my entry except on the PSX version which plugs in BLAIR automagically!

Here's the Victory's main menu on the PC, 3DO and PSX. The Macintosh port doesn't do any of this diegetically, it's handled all in the operating system's UI (boo).

Duty logs, aka save/load!

And here are the (gameflow) options screens.

Here's a really fun one: if you access the menu during the last two missions of the game (where you're flying from covert asteroid depots instead of the Victory) the menu changes to reflect the new location! And in the 3DO version only each depot gets its own name.

Vera: Are there differences in the Victory Streak too?

There are! They redid the layout so it would fit in the thin 3DO boxes and added all sorts of additional art. Even a System Shock

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Nightball06 has been on a load road to go from 2D sketches to 3D model. After a couple years refining the design, the digital representation is nearly complete. He's spent a lot of time working to get the shape close to the original, but one area that he has taken some artistic liberties on were the engines. They look pretty cool! Now that he's got a file that can be manipulated, he's exploring where to take it next - either through 3D animation or maybe a physical print!

Some final updates. Haven’t gone far on the animation part yet & I am still looking for someone who could turn the Blender file into a 3D-printable file.

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GOG.com is starting to rollout their annual Spring Sale, and Wing Commander has gotten a nice price cut across the board. In order to keep things interesting, rather than a straight 75% off each title, Prophecy, Armada and Privateer 2 are each marked down 65%. Happy Wing Commandering!

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Thanks for the background, friends. Of course, I was curious for Wing Commander-related reasons. Specifically, I was fascinated to see the names of the Kray twins because... of Privateer 2's Bray twins:

Reggie Bray is the guy who is selling Uncle Kashumai's religious artifact. For that mission you have to look up their bio in the database and then find their business partner.

There's also a Joe scene where he warns you to look out for the Brays. And you kind of have to wonder: why, since Reggie isn't any particular threat in the auction scene. And heck, why are there two of them anyway? Is it just for the (unknown to me until last night!) joke?

In fact, it's a case of cut content! In the shooting script we see that the Brays were supposed to be the enemies in the Tamessa Ames cinematic mission and that Ronnie (the muscle, as in real life apparently!) was then supposed to continue trying to hunt you down.

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If you kind of squint, it looks a little bit like a clover...

This is a repurposing of Music_Guru's green Dralthi, which is itself inspired by SNES Secret Missions' green Salthi/Jalthi.

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Today we have a jazzed up version of the Armada intro from Retrobear Diskette Quest. There's a little bit of DOSBox scaling happening that supposedly makes it look better at higher resolutions, but the visuals aren't the draw here. It also has some "Roland MT-32 emulation" turned on, and I do hear the extra notes associated with that! Armada is a wonderful game that doesn't get as much time in the spotlight as it deserves, so take this as a plug to fire the game up this weekend!

How do you think the video above compares to the version that FekLeyrTarg rebuilt from scratch with Origin model assets? They both have their particular charms!

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A lot of people (one guy on Discord) have been asking what the correct emblem for the Empire of Kilrah is. So let’s have a thread and find out!

Wing Commander I has matching emblems for factions on every ship. The Kilrathi have a red cat skull which we get to see close up thanks to the beautiful box shot of a high resolution Dralthi wing.

The ships are so low resolution that they’re just dots in flight, but you can pick them out every time. You can see the skull very clearly on the WC2 demo Bloodfang, which is its last appearance.

And there’s a black one on the Imperial Guard troops in The Secret Missions 2!

As an aside, we NEVER got a high res version of the WC1 Confed roundel. You can see it twice on the Drayman here. It looks like a TNG comm badge or maybe three ships orbiting a sun?

Now, this is the broad answer to the question. This is the emblem of the empire itself, the grouping of all eight clans.

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Aligned Peoples’ Manta-class heavy fighter. Initial concept by Mark Vearrier, finished concept sketch by Syd Mead...

Initial mesh blockout and then Alias "cinematic" model renders...

Final in-game assets for both the standard fighter and the deadly "red Manta" bomber variant!

Shout out to the OG.

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Dominus of Exult has some more cool collectibles to show off! He's managed to track down a pair of Wing Commander games localized in Portuguese. These rare copies of WC4 and Privateer 2 have a bit of warping and tearing damage, but it's still wonderful that they were saved. I'm still poring over the minute differences here despite not speaking the language! These should look great alongside his Portuguese copy of Privateer 1.

Got some new rarities. Portuguese Wing Commander IV and Privateer 2. Unfortunately the seller stored them in a very humid place. Trying to open the IV he destroyed the slide cover.

LOAF: Are they localized at all?

Dominus: Boxes and documents all in Portuguese. At least the intro has no subtitles. Look like the standard UK CDs. Even the quadruple CD case inlays are the UK ones and not translated (manual etc. are translated).

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The somewhat amorphous length of a generation is, give or take, about twenty-five years. This means that as of today, the Wing Commander movie is a generation old… and, it follows, so are those of us that once eagerly anticipated its coming. I've written extensively about whether or not it was good (it was not) and what it means to me (I love it dearly) and I don't need to relitigate any of that today. In fact, the war movie cliches about old soldiers are more accurate than ever: the guns have stopped, we're the old men, all quiet on the western front and alike. The bickerings and debates and once-so-important battles of our youth have passed us by as gracefully as such things ever do. No one in 2024 could conceive, for instance, of caring about the Tiger Claw's missing possessive or what the Ralari /really/ looks like or even particularly to complain about Freddie Prinze Jr.'s casting.

If anything,

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I have watched Wing Commander Academy hundreds of times but I somehow never noticed that the pilot helmets are color coded. They nominally match the Scimitars: blue for Maverick, red for Maniac, purple for Archer, etc.

It looks like they're forgotten or wrong a LOT... just like the ship colors. Hmm, maybe this is the kind of thing that needs a spreadsheet on a lazy Sunday afternoon...

Well I said I was going to do this and for some reason I did. I tracked every Scimitar that appears in the show (by sortie) and noted its pilot, color and fate. There are 150 and 25 are destroyed (or stolen by the Warrior King)!

Here are what seem to be the intended colors for the hero characters. Colors are repeated for extras (or are not visible).

There are a couple of exceptions: the trainers in episode one are all either red or blue, per the story... and The Last One Left gives Blair and Maniac black and a never repeated

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The Wing Commander Academy press kit says that there were twelve cadets transferred to the Tiger's Claw. Can you name them all?

Alright, let's see if we can find them! We're looking for the original twelve cadets transferred to the Tiger's Claw's command school. So Victoria/Viking here and the veteran replacements from the Trafalgar who are added after Chain of Command don't count.

First up, the three leads. Christopher "Maverick" Blair played by Mark Hamill and designed from his live action appearances in Wing Commander III and IV (minus 19 years). Bios are from the series' press kit:

Todd "Maniac" Marshall voiced by Tom Wilson and also designed from his WC3 and 4 appearances (though a little bit more The Real Ghostbustersy).

And new character Gwen "Archer" Bowman played by Dana Delany! She voiced Louis Lane on Superman that same season and it sure feels like both character designs were influenced by the

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LeHah spotted a new Wing Commander autograph opportunity. SWAU is offering Freddie Prinze Jr signatures via its website for the next month. There are a lot of photo choices associated with his role in Star Wars Rebels, but it's nice to see that they have five WC Movie options as well. The final press kit shot with Prinze in marine armor is less common to see, so that's a fun inclusion! You can place orders here. Prices are a bit steep at $95, but autographs are expensive these days!

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Today we have an interview from the Hollywood Reporter with the cast of Office Space on its 25th Anniversary. Richard Riehle has a lot to say, and I thought it was fun to hear his perspective on various things even if there's no direct connection to Wing Commander. I was surprised to see that Mr. Riehle is 75 years old now, which would have put him in his early/mid 40s when portraying the role of Pliers in WC4. That sure makes me feel old! I've cut a few quotes below, but you can find the full Q&A here.

How does it feel to hit 25 years since Office Space?

Richard Riehle (engineer liaison Tom Smykowski): Hard to imagine it’s been that long. It seems like just yesterday, and people still talk about it. When I’m recognized, it’s one of the first things they ask about.

Riehle: Mike [Judge] always had things that he wanted to throw in — “Try this, try that.” He was the best host there in Austin, as

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Thinking about the Privateer 2 pirate factions today. Do their VDU images match the lore? I think so!

• Chirichan - cyborgs
• Jincilla - hackers & small time criminals
• Kiowan - new age hippies
• Papogod - mutants

The official guide has two that aren’t in the final game, too: an evil Crow T. Robot for the Chirichans and a space owl for the Papogods. Seems like Priv 2 must’ve gotten a ‘is this too crazy?’ pass.

Maybe the same pass that robbed us of a space porpoise.

It’s an old trivia item that all four groups are named after North American indigenous groups too:

• Papogod - Tohono Oʼodham, formerly referred to as Papago
• Kiowan - Kiowa
• Chirichan - Chiricahua
• Jincilla - Jicarilla Apache

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Mr. Hasgaha recently shared this nifty video that he built for a "10-second Cinematic" contest in Star Citizen. He was able to use elements of the existing game engine to recreate the briefing room run, launch and death of a pilot in the original Wing Commander. It's a short clip, but it's very cool to see this modern take on a classic!

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I added a WCpedia page for the Wing Commander II Demo with all kinds of neat history:

Wing Commander II Demo is a rolling demo of Wing Commander II: Vengeance of the Kilrathi. It features an early version of part of the game's introduction showing Prince Thrakhath's audience with the Emperor. It was the first Origin product to include recorded speech. The demo was created by Origin Systems to demonstrate the game at Winter CES 1991 (January 10 to 13 1991) and was released to the public via BBS afterwards. At the time it was published Wing Commander II was scheduled for a Summer 1991 releasee. It ultimately shipped in September, making the eight months between the demo and the final product the longest such stretch in Wing Commander history. The demo is not known to have received a physical commercial release.

Differences

• The 3space engine section uses a version closer to the original Wing Commander. It

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Super cool news: Christian Klein discovered a piece of Wing Commander ship art previously unrecorded by history! Check out this cool silhouette art from the cover of the Hebrew translation of the Wing Commander II manual!

It's done in the same style as the "World War II" silhouettes in the original manual... but it isn't one of them!

There's a similar piece of mystery WC2 art in the FM Towns port packaging: line art of a Drakhri that's shown in part on the case, disc and back of the box. It has seven missiles instead of four! I need an art person to make a whole version of it.

Discovering liminal art like this is one of my favorite things. A couple of other examples: the Czech cover of Fleet Action, Chinese disk labels for the original Wing Commander, the Korean 1999 movie poster and an early Privateer placeholder to fill out a '92 catalog!

Here's another example of this: the banner GOGcreated for their

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Tonight’s little project: a spreadsheet of all the ship graphics that appear in Privateer 2’s booth and which palette they use! Find the full link here (second tab).

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It's a good week to buy Wing Commander games thanks to GOG's Sci-Fi Sale! Each of the WC titles is marked down 75% to $1.49. Since the theme is science fiction, the discount doesn't extend to games like Strike Commander, but it does include Bioforge, Crusader, System Shock and others. The sale should last all week.