William BagleyWing Commander - A Dream
September 1st 2008 14:10
When I was growing up back in 1996, my Dad bought two games for our brand new PC. This powerful beast, just for anyone curious, had the following specs:
- Pentium 122Mhz processor
- 32MB RAM (which at the time was impressive)
- 1GB hard drive
- 6x CD-ROM drive
Oh yeah. It could turn some heads. But I digress.
The games which he bought were Wing Commanders III and IV. For those of you who don't know of the series, the Wing Commander saga up until WCIV told the tale of the Terran Confederation's battles against a merciless feline race, the Kilrathi. You play the part of one Confed pilot, Colonel Christopher Blair, a man whose skills as a pilot and determination as a warrior earns him the nickname "The Heart of the Tiger" by the Kilrathi. The aim of the game? Fly around and kill the enemy before they kill you.
The series was seen as ground-breaking due to the excellent storyline woven throughout the game, as well as a game engine which rivalled any other space sim of its kind at the time not only in the graphical detail it offered, but with the level of gameplay the developers could build into the experience. Quite simply, it was (and still is) a lot of fun to play.
With the release of Wing Commanders III and IV, the look of the series changed significantly from its predecessors due to the use of Full Motion Video (FMV) cutscenes much in the same way as the Command and Conquer series. WCIII spread itself out over four CDs, and included a star cast of actors, including Mark "Luke Skywalker" Hamill as Blair, Thomas "Biff" Wilson as his friend "Maniac", and the very convincing Malcolm MacDowell as Admiral Tolwyn. WCIV used the same cast, but this time utilized a paltry 6 CDs!
At the time my Dad bought the games, I had no idea what was going on in the game in terms of storyline. All I cared about was using this joystick which was half my size to kill these other ships before they killed me. It was fun, but the rest of the time I was trying to comprehend the cutscenes as a part of me knew that what was going on seemed kinda interesting. I guess someone under the age of 10 wasn't really supposed to understand what was going on, but I wanted to know all the same!
As I grew up a little more physically (mentally is questionable), I grew to appreciate the Wing Commander series more and more as the the storyline became more digestible. Recently I decided to play through the entire saga from scratch, including the sequal to WCIV, Wing Commander Prophecy. While the pre-WCIII games provided great entertainment, WCIII and WCIV always stands out in my mind as amazing examples of how a complex, yet enthralling storyline can be built into a game which can also boast fun gameplay. The latter game especially is a brilliant execution of space opera, somehow surpassing the games before it despite the game's new story path(won't ruin it).
However I am saddened by the seemingly bleak fate of the series and of the space flight sim genre as a whole. Origin Systems, the Austin-based company who created the series, was bought out by Electronic Arts in the early 1990s and oversaw the creation of the WC series from 1992 onwards. In the last decade however nothing has emerged from EA, save for a multiplayer-only version of the game on the Xbox 360 Live service, which received negative criticism for being shallow and repetitive.
Anyone who has played through the series knows that there is still an awful lot of depth to the franchise. I feel that the series hasn't been properly explored. It is to this end that I have made a promise to myself to one day purchase the Wing Commander license from EA (or whoever owns it by then) and see that the series is continued in a way befitting of its earlier titles.
Crazy idea maybe, but I admire excellent story-telling as well as good gameplay. I would hate for the Wing Commander series to be forgotten as the next generation of gamers emerges.
- Pentium 122Mhz processor
- 32MB RAM (which at the time was impressive)
- 1GB hard drive
- 6x CD-ROM drive
Oh yeah. It could turn some heads. But I digress.
The games which he bought were Wing Commanders III and IV. For those of you who don't know of the series, the Wing Commander saga up until WCIV told the tale of the Terran Confederation's battles against a merciless feline race, the Kilrathi. You play the part of one Confed pilot, Colonel Christopher Blair, a man whose skills as a pilot and determination as a warrior earns him the nickname "The Heart of the Tiger" by the Kilrathi. The aim of the game? Fly around and kill the enemy before they kill you.
The series was seen as ground-breaking due to the excellent storyline woven throughout the game, as well as a game engine which rivalled any other space sim of its kind at the time not only in the graphical detail it offered, but with the level of gameplay the developers could build into the experience. Quite simply, it was (and still is) a lot of fun to play.
With the release of Wing Commanders III and IV, the look of the series changed significantly from its predecessors due to the use of Full Motion Video (FMV) cutscenes much in the same way as the Command and Conquer series. WCIII spread itself out over four CDs, and included a star cast of actors, including Mark "Luke Skywalker" Hamill as Blair, Thomas "Biff" Wilson as his friend "Maniac", and the very convincing Malcolm MacDowell as Admiral Tolwyn. WCIV used the same cast, but this time utilized a paltry 6 CDs!
At the time my Dad bought the games, I had no idea what was going on in the game in terms of storyline. All I cared about was using this joystick which was half my size to kill these other ships before they killed me. It was fun, but the rest of the time I was trying to comprehend the cutscenes as a part of me knew that what was going on seemed kinda interesting. I guess someone under the age of 10 wasn't really supposed to understand what was going on, but I wanted to know all the same!
As I grew up a little more physically (mentally is questionable), I grew to appreciate the Wing Commander series more and more as the the storyline became more digestible. Recently I decided to play through the entire saga from scratch, including the sequal to WCIV, Wing Commander Prophecy. While the pre-WCIII games provided great entertainment, WCIII and WCIV always stands out in my mind as amazing examples of how a complex, yet enthralling storyline can be built into a game which can also boast fun gameplay. The latter game especially is a brilliant execution of space opera, somehow surpassing the games before it despite the game's new story path(won't ruin it).
However I am saddened by the seemingly bleak fate of the series and of the space flight sim genre as a whole. Origin Systems, the Austin-based company who created the series, was bought out by Electronic Arts in the early 1990s and oversaw the creation of the WC series from 1992 onwards. In the last decade however nothing has emerged from EA, save for a multiplayer-only version of the game on the Xbox 360 Live service, which received negative criticism for being shallow and repetitive.
Anyone who has played through the series knows that there is still an awful lot of depth to the franchise. I feel that the series hasn't been properly explored. It is to this end that I have made a promise to myself to one day purchase the Wing Commander license from EA (or whoever owns it by then) and see that the series is continued in a way befitting of its earlier titles.
Crazy idea maybe, but I admire excellent story-telling as well as good gameplay. I would hate for the Wing Commander series to be forgotten as the next generation of gamers emerges.
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Comment by Cibbuano
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I think the genre died out because there were no new ideas. Space is bleak and doesn't take much rendering. Ship-on-ship combat is fun, but how many ways can you do it?
Comment by Joey Crews
A game like Freelancer, for example. Full of exciting eye-candy (Nomad Sphere?) and a unique style of gameplay in the use of a mouse instead of a joystick. Also had a decent story along with it. The scale though was much too small in my opinion. The planets were impressive up close, but the ship scales were too close togeter.
Or the X series of games. Graphically stunning, but awful gameplay in my opinion and littered with bugs. Was just too boring, although you could see what the developers were aiming for in terms of gameplay. The scale was pretty good as well when it came to ship/station sizes.
It's a very fine balancing act I believe, but it can be done. X-Wing Alliance was a good example of a fun game with good scale, although I may be biased because I am a Star Wars fan and because I made custom missions for it.
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