Wing Commander

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It's a holiday in the US, so I'm going to cash in my "slow news day" credits and report on a couple of listicles that AD just found. As a reader of this site, you're already well aware of the WC entries in each article, so the larger topics might be of more interest. First up is a ScreenRant piece on movies with an unconventional cast list, which definitely includes WC and its hybrid America/international suite of stars.

Wing Commander is one of the rare movies adapted from video games that audiences actually seemed to enjoy upon its release, a trend that wouldn't really make it out of the '90s. The film follows a group of fighter pilots who join an intergalactic war in order to fend off the dangerous Kilrathi race.

I don't quite remember the reception being so positive, but I'll take it. Next up is a brief rundown at C86 on The Best Cartoons Based on Video Games.

7 Wing Commander Academy: The Series

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The Deluxe vinyl pressing of the WING COMMANDER score has launched! As of this writing, the project has hit almost $3,000, 19% of the total goal. That's a great start, but we'd like to see it higher. Stay tuned for more background and plans for how you can join in on celebrating the campaign in the coming days. For now, we're happy to report that several additional pledge tiers have been added based on folks' responses on the first day: a $150 "Collector's Trio" that comes with all three versions of the album, a $200 "Collectors Trio Deluxe" that has all three versions with the bonus swag and an alite tier $2500 "Dead Wax Dedication" option that will allow one backer to choose what appears on the record's dead wax. If you aren't familiar with this record term, check out this article for details. Basically, it's a chance to insert a sort of Easter egg that will appear on every record manufactured!

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George Oldziey

checked in again to provide fans an update on his Wing Commander jazz album, which was

recorded

a 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

campaign

can 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

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George Oldziey

reports that the Wing Commander

Jazz Albums

have been shipped! If you haven't sent your address in - or you don't receive yours in a week or so, let George know what's up! The cover art by

SabreAce

just looks fantastic. Some of the initial plans for a future campaign to record even more Wing Commander music are in the very preliminary stages, so stay tuned in the coming months for that. It's been a long road to get all of this amazing music put together, but the results have been very impressive!

Greetings all! All the CDs for which I have received shipping instructions have been shipped. I sent off the last of them today, mostly overseas. So if you have not received them in a week or so let me know. Most of you should have already received them. I hope you are enjoying them!

I'll keep you all posted on when the next phase of Volume 2 orchestral recording begins.

Thank you for

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Following up on his recent release of the

jazz and bar music

digital recordings, veteran video game composer

George Oldziey

has 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 patches

a 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 page

for the latest updates. Kickstarter e-mail updates always end up in my spam folder for some reason. The Victory bar music

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Following up on his recent release of the

jazz and bar music

digital recordings, veteran video game composer

George Oldziey

has 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 patches

a 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 page

for the latest updates. Kickstarter e-mail updates always end up in my spam folder for some reason. The Victory bar music

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

There's good news on George Oldziey's live Wing Commander

jazz album

. The production copies have finally come back, so George is ready to ship discs out to project backers. Very cool

album art

was created by SabreAce, which you can see below. If you pledged for a physical copy during the original campaign and didn't receive an email with shipping confirmation instructions, log into the Kickstarter's

updates page

for instructions on how to get your album. These have been a long time coming, so it's great to see they're finally here!

Greetings all! I'm so TERRIBLY sorry that this has taken so long, but I FINALLY received the CDs that feature the WC Bar Music and recordings of the MIDI mockups and I'm ready to ship them to you!

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Great news for Wing Commander music fans!

George Oldziey

has finished processing the Wing Commander jazz and bar music

recorded

earlier this year by his awesome Latin jazz band, and the digital version is now available. If you backed his

Kickstarter

last year, you should have received a message with download links and a password, so log in and check it out! If you didn't back the project but still want to hear an awesome sample, the Victory's famous tune has been released as a teaser here. It's my favorite - I just love it! More goodies are still in the works, which George details below.

Your browser cannot play this file. Click here to download the track.

Greetings all. I'm terribly sorry for the LONG delay, but I just sent links to the digital media versions of the Wing Commander Bar Music recording to those that contributed at $20 and more to phase 1 of volume 2, so check your inboxes. The CDs

Quote from Wing Commander News-Bot

Great news for Wing Commander music fans!

George Oldziey

has finished processing the Wing Commander jazz and bar music

recorded

earlier this year by his awesome Latin jazz band, and the digital version is now available. If you backed his

Kickstarter

last year, you should have received a message with download links and a password, so log in and check it out! If you didn't back the project but still want to hear an awesome sample, the Victory's famous tune has been released as a teaser here. It's my favorite - I just love it! More goodies are still in the works, which George details below.

Your browser cannot play this file. Click here to download the track.

Greetings all. I'm terribly sorry for the LONG delay, but I just sent links to the digital media versions of the Wing Commander Bar Music recording to those that contributed at $20 and more to phase 1 of volume 2, so check your inboxes. The

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Pedro

has released an exciting trailer for the

WC4 Fan Remake

! There's lots to unpack here. The team has been mostly focused on features rather than polish, and quite a few features have been implemented indeed! Many distinctive elements from the original WC4 gameplay mechanics appear to be in place to give the project a familiar feel. Check it out below!

I've been working with Defiance Industries to have a video ready for the CIC's birthday of early test footage.

A brief list of things added since the last videos:

• Some early experimentation with updated sound effects (50/50 old vs new)
• View based missile lock-on
• Smoother external camera
• Damage displays
• Turrets (both on fighters and capships)
• Subtle cockpit motion on the primary cockpit camera
• A zoomed out camera (primarily for taking in the cockpit)
• Afterburners, Decoys
• Working cockpit (guns, fuel, damage, speed guns, decoys, targeting brackets)

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It's common knowledge that Wing Commander IV doesn't have cockpits, famously dumping them in favor of displaying the UI on the previously optional 'invisible cockpit' (an option popular among players at the time.) But it turns out the game isn't completely without cockpits! The production built multiple physical cockpits for the full motion video sequences (including one extremely detailed Confederation shuttle set) which give us a look at what the 'real' world of Wing Commander IV is intended to look like. We've collected reference screenshots of these cockpits and the various control surfaces seen in brief cuts. Together they make up a few seconds of screen time… but seeing them together really gives you a better appreciation for what went into Wing Commander IV.

Several angles of the Terran Confederation Hellcat V's cockpit are seen during the game's introduction, including views of the flight

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AD, the CIC's resident finder of things and doer of stuff, came across this video to help you start your Wing Commander week. It's a nifty animation by Kyle Bumpus that recreates the initial intro to Wing Commander 1. I'm actually surprised there aren't a lot more takes on this iconic scene. Check it out below!

Modeling/Animation by Kyle Bumpus
"Wing Commander 1 Intro Theme Orchestra" by Blake Robinson (Synthetic Orchestra)

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Surprise! Most diehard Wingnuts know the movie takes place from March 15 to 17, but the novelization has an epilogue that happens the next day. It's a dark scene that takes place on Mylon III. This sets the stage for the events that unfold in Wing Commander Pilgrim Stars and are concluded in Pilgrim Truth. There's some wild stuff in those novels!

Day 4 - 1900 Mylon Time - BREAKING NEWS: The supercruiser TCS Olympus has fired on Confederation forces in the Mylon System?! MORE

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Now THAT was an exciting three days of Wing Commander in real time! We got a lot of great feedback, and that's given us lots of ideas on how to take the experience further in the future. It was wonderful to see LOAF's idea for this finally pulled off, and AD/Kris did some impressive last minute video prep so everything was ready in time. Thanks for coming along with us in this crazy Wing Commander adventure!

Day 3 - 1000 Zulu - The Tiger Claw has suffered significant damage in the depth charge attack. Another enemy destroyed has been spotted and Commodore Taggart has a new plan! MORE

Day 3 - 1030 Zulu - The Diligent and a pair of escort fighters have launched to intercept the Kilrathi. Aboard are a company of marines who wil attempt to board the enemy ship to salvage his fuel stores. MORE

Day 3 - 1100 Zulu - The situation aboard is hazy but Confederation marines have boarded the Kilrathi ConCom!

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The master of the VHS strikes back!

Jim Leonard

has restored a copy of the Wing Commander III ESRB submission tape to give us some of the clearest Wing Commander III footage ever preserved. Mr. Leonard has

previously restored

the Wing Commander III 'Behind the Screens' documentary from a copy of the commercially released VHS. This time around, Joe Garrity of the Origin Museum was kind enough to provide him with an original copy of the ESRB submission tape that Origin produced for Wing Commander III.

The ESRB tape includes roughly one hour of Wing Commander III's FMV footage which was cut together so that the game could be content rated. The footage covers most of the game but does not include every branching path or optional decision. The Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) is a voluntary video game content rating organization widely recognized by consumers in the United States. The ESRB was

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We reported earlier this week on the untimely passing of Wing Commander superfan Adam "Klavs" Burch. It can be hard to find the words to appropriately express people's thoughts at a time like this, so some fellow fans have turned to more visual attempts. Both tributes below features Klavs' famous Rapier models in a classic 'missing man formation'.

The first is a beautiful scene by Mac:

In remembrance of Adam "Klavs" Burch.

Thank You Adam, for everything.

Kevin Caccamo also featured this honor to Klavs in today's Spacey Saturday stream.

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Pix

recently came across a pretty neat article in the UK magazine

PC Zone

. I really like it's graphical layout with the Dralthis overflying the slick text. The author is a big fan of the WC series and uses it as an example for awesome '90s games that were outside the realm of his usual fare. I do wonder about the Hobbes blurb a bit, and I think the suggestion in the gray box is just that GOG exists. It's a little odd to not come out and just say that, but this is still a great quote:

Just give me a lantern-jawed, blue-haired hero fighting some big cats in space, and I'm as happy as a porcine covered in excrement.

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Dowlphin

spotted a couple of nifty easter eggs in a recent World of Warcraft quest. Wing Commander Black and a blue-haired Kilrath make appearances as a couple of Orcs in a story mission. These aren't random gaming references either - WoW executive producer

J Allen Brack

is a major Wing Commander vet. He got his start in the industry as a QA tester on Wing Commander 3 and went on to work on P2, WC4, Kilrathi Saga, Prophecy and Secret Ops. There are likely numerous such gems hidden in the game. Another player spotted

Wing Commander Mulverick

a while back too.

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Good Old Games is running a variety of new sales, and there latest discount is marking down the Wing Commander series by 75%! The theme revolves around games that are 10+ years old. This is an especially welcome event because GOG skipped the WC games in their big Spring Sale last month. Cheap Wing Commander is always a big hit, so we're glad folks get another chance to grab the franchise on the cheap. You can fill out your digital collection via the links below. Grab them before the end of the weekend!

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A few months back, LOAF took a look at the development timeframes for the Wing Commander games. It's really interesting comparison! Someone asked how these durations correlated with the size of the development teams, which is also a very neat set of data, so LOAF compiled a new table!

This question fascinated me so I decided to put together some rough numbers with the previous chart. I divided credits by modern disciplines... you can see the size of the development teams basically quadruiples in eight years! (Does not include film shoot crews.)

With regards to the expansion packs, they were all very tight 3-4 month productions. A small team of rising juniors would usually develop them while the rest of the group moved to the next big game. They kept it up as long as the concept was profitable!