Display MoreLast month, Greg14 was kind enough to translate a vintage French Wing Commander article. And now they're back with three more! This is a super cool look at how the original Wing Commander was received in France... and it's full of interesting takes, including a very early realization that Origin was headed for CD-ROM exclusivity with future games. Very cool time capsule--thank you, Greg!
Wing Commander [Joystick]
With this game, Origin clearly favors CD-ROM titles.
Near Vega, a star located some 26 light-years away, a fleet of Kilrathi is waging war against the Confederation's forces. A day never goes by without a pilot ending up scattered across the frozen reaches of space. After a short briefing, you climb into one of the tiny fighters, each equipped with an incredibly sophisticated cockpit. But don't expect to play the lone hero! Destroying enemy ships requires teamwork above all else.
94% (PC)
To understand just how impressive this game is, a few superlatives are necessary. Wing Commander was designed for 386, 486, and even 286 PCs. XT owners can safely return to Earth—they are not concerned. You'll also need at least a VGA monitor, preferably capable of displaying 256 colors, as well as a sound card such as an AdLib or Roland if you want to enjoy the sound effects and music. Otherwise, you'll have to settle for the PC speaker's beeps.
And that's not all. Wing Commander takes up 5.7 MB on the hard drive (which should know how to expand without spreading itself too thin, as Serge Gainsbourg might have said). Finally, your PC will have to work hard despite having very little memory.
For a typical 640 KB system, the installation manual recommends removing mouse drivers, the FILES and BUFFERS settings, CONFIG.SYS, and even ANSI.SYS. In short, you'll need to boot from a clean system disk or rename AUTOEXEC.BAT to AUTOEXEC.BAK so MS-DOS ignores it, or, more conveniently, use an LIM expanded memory manager.
At this price, the game starts faster than anything else available. The reward comes in the graphics. The scenes preceding each mission are true miniature cinematic sequences. The characters' faces remain static while speaking, so this isn't interactive cinema just yet, but you can already sense the developers' desire for realism.
In space, the cockpit displays are superbly designed. As for the rest—the backgrounds and various objects—you're content with what Dan Bunten (sic) achieved in Wing Commander. Enemy craft are not simple flat sprites like in many games, but genuine 3D polygonal ships, complete with thrusters spewing flames. Naturally, when they get too close, their pixels become as large as peas. But when one explodes, the result is a spectacular fireball, resembling a blazing hydrocarbon cloud with metallic debris swirling all around your ship.
The sensation of flying through space strongly recalls the famous sequence from 2001: A Space Odyssey, especially the helmet visor perspective. The spacecraft are extremely maneuverable (another cinematic comparison—you'd think you were in one of the Star Wars films). Enemy fighters avoid sitting directly in your gunsights, so every engagement demands real strategy and accurate shooting.
If we overlook the game's somewhat demanding graphics and sound requirements, one question remains: why consume so many bytes? Looking more closely, the scenario is one of the most polished aspects of the game. Performance for performance's sake? Far from it.
Wing Commander already favors what future CD-ROM games will become. Certainly, today's CD-ROMs hold only 650 MB, not the hundreds of gigabytes of tomorrow, but this game is already a style exercise—a glimpse of the future created by developers who know exactly where they're going. It's the embryo of tomorrow's games: full-screen action, stereo sound all around you, and almost endless options.
Will we have to wait until then?
(Editor's note: Apparently so.)
Ratings
Graphics: 19/20
Sound: 18/20
Animation: 18/20
Realism: 17/20
Available for PC/AT only
Price: 299 French francs
Wing Commander [TILT]
PC (all displays), Sound Card
Who would have believed it? A great action game on the PC really does exist! Just look at Wing Commander. Of course, to enjoy it fully you'll need a high-end PC/AT with a hard drive, a VGA graphics card and, if possible, a sound card. But the result is truly astonishing!
Origin Systems. Design and programming: Chris Roberts, Scott Muchow, Paul Isaac, Steve Beeman, Ken Demarest III and Hugh Miller; graphics and cinematics: Steve Beeman, Eric Roberts, Chris Roberts, Jim Miles, Chris Roberts; music and sound effects: Hugh Miller, George Alistair Sanger and David Govett.
Wing Commander is an impressive piece of software. Designed by a large and highly talented team, it will remain on your hard drive for a very long time. The graphics, animation, presentation, music and sound effects have all been crafted with exceptional care. Everything has been created to transport players far from traditional games and into the endless reaches of a vast galaxy.
Wing Commander is therefore intended for owners of powerful PC systems. To enjoy the game properly, you will almost certainly need a hard drive, extended memory, an EGA or VGA monitor, and above all at least an AT-class computer. With such hardware, you can expect thrilling missions, perfectly enhanced by outstanding cinematic presentation.
Wing Commander casts you in the role of a young space combat pilot. Inside the base bar, the player uses either the mouse, joystick or keyboard to navigate the option screens. You can talk with other characters to gather information about missions, ship types and much more. You can also play arcade games to sharpen your reflexes before combat. Later, you'll visit the barracks (where games can be saved and scores displayed) and finally the mission briefing room.
Here the base commander explains your first assignment. You are sent to nearby planets on a reconnaissance mission. As soon as the orders are given, your two companions (one of whom will fly beside you during the mission) head for the launch bay. Moments later, space stretches out before your cockpit as your right hand settles naturally onto the laser controls.
All this pre-flight preparation is a delight for both the eyes and ears. Backed by a digitized musical score (with a sound card), the animations are worthy of an animated feature film. This introduction never feels too long for action fans eager to get into combat. At the end of every mission, your ship returns to base for an animated landing, followed by the colonel's debriefing and the opportunity to save your pilot.
The missions gradually become more challenging. At first, you simply perform reconnaissance. Later, your ship will escort an important vessel. Inside the cockpit, only a few keyboard controls are required. You can call for assistance over the radio, engage the autopilot for landing, and much more. The navigation chart allows you to select autopilot waypoints.
Routine flying maneuvers are, of course, merely the prelude to the action. Repeatedly appearing on the radar, enemies are represented by beautiful 3D sprites animated with remarkable fluidity. The design of the cockpits and engine exhausts is highly detailed. Missile and laser trails, looping maneuvers and the explosions of destroyed ships are all of excellent quality, provided you own a sufficiently powerful computer.
Whether you play with a mouse, joystick or keyboard, it is easy to become an exceptional pilot and to feel increasingly immersed with every mission.
Wing Commander possesses all the arcade qualities of a great 3D shoot-'em-up, something that is genuinely rare on the PC. Strategy plays a smaller role than action, but it is still important. For example, you may have to abandon a dogfight if it becomes more urgent to protect a friendly ship, plot efficient courses on the navigation map, or learn to use the most appropriate weapons.
Wing Commander follows a fairly simple scenario. There is no interstellar trading, character management, role-playing elements, ship maintenance or purchasing of new weapons and spacecraft. But what action! If you own a powerful PC, Wing Commander will captivate you not only with its arcade gameplay but also with the continuity of its campaign and its perfectly balanced difficulty.
I would buy it without hesitation. It is far too rare to encounter such graphical beauty and such smooth gameplay on a PC.
— Olivier Hautefeuille
CaptionsVerdict
- Beautiful VGA spacecraft.
- In the bar, players choose options from the on-screen menu.
- One of the superb animated and voiced mission briefing scenes.
- Autopilot and hyperspace jump.
- Pilot Cornichon receives his orders.
- Laser and missile combat.
- The hero's death—sad, but beautifully presented!
Genre: 3D Shoot-'em-up / Strategy
Overall Rating: 16/20
Graphics: ★★★★★★ (VGA)
Animation: ★★★★☆
Sound: ★★★★☆ (with sound card)
Price: Available on PC
WING COMMANDER [MicroNews]
Next to you, Perry Rhodan will look like a lunar cab driver!
For a long time, the Confederation and the Kilrathi have been clashing in relentless space battles. During a briefing, an officer explains the objectives of your mission, the conversations follow one another with more or less relevant interventions. Then the mission begins, the catapult launches you into space, and at that moment you are no longer playing a game—you are living it.
A cockpit closes around you, the ship launches from its hangar into deep space. Other ships emerge in formation. In Wing Commander, the player is no longer just an anonymous pilot in a vessel (who is also the only survivor after countless attacks): here, every mission contributes to eliminating the Kilrathi. Following your rank, the pilots available to you become increasingly skilled. Better still, they become your wingmen during long, powerful campaigns. As the missions progress, you get to know all your companions.
At this point, Perry Rhodan—the famous space hero—will seem like nothing more than a lunar cab driver compared with the scale of this adventure.
A game of this ambition obviously requires powerful hardware. A PC equipped with an Intel 286 is recommended, although a 386 with VGA and 256 colors will make the experience far more enjoyable. With 640 KB of RAM, you'll have to remove TSR programs and unnecessary drivers. Everything isn't perfect, however, and some parts of the game can feel repetitive. Still, the atmosphere is exceptional, with stunning audiovisual quality and an incredible level of detail. You'll come across wreckage drifting in space, ships that realistically suffer damage, and explosions that fill the screen in spectacular fashion.
The sound effects are equally impressive. Explosions, laser fire, and radio communications combine with a magnificent soundtrack to create a truly immersive experience. The game pushes the limits of what PCs are capable of.
Those lucky enough to own one of the many sound cards supported by the game will be delighted by the quality of the music. Needless to say, on a 386 the game runs smoothly, while on a slower machine you'll sometimes notice a few slowdowns when too many enemies appear simultaneously. Even so, this is one of the first titles to deliver an experience much closer to cinema than to traditional video games. A true masterpiece.
Three 3½-inch floppy disks, 1.44 MB. Original version available for PC/AT.
