In the 1990's, console games were mostly side-scrolls, and people like me, who were of the Atari Generation, jumped ship to the power of a computer. My high school years (the mid-1990's) were filled with excellent flight simulation games like X-Wing, TIE Fighter, the Battle of Britain and Wing Commander. For years, I was forced to upgrade by Packer-Bell (don't laugh) desktop to load the latest incarnation of the Wing Commander series. Then by the late 1990's, the meteoric rise of Wing Commander came to an end, and it seems that the series was dead, but not before making the single worst MSF movie. For nearly a decade, the Wing Commander was dead, there were rumors of a remake or new release, or even a fan-made project. I thought that Wing Commander was gone forever until this month.
It seems for those ten years of limbo, fans of the series, pooled their resources and talent, and created Wing Commander Saga: the Darkest Dawn. This game, due out sometime this year, before the Mayan Calendar runs out, uses the Freespace 2 engine. The game is going for both PC and MAC, moddable, with cut-sides, voice-acting, 55 missions, and an AI wing man, and best of all, new ships. Personally, I'm hopping for someone to mod this for a Space: Above and Beyond flight simulator. How much is the game you say? How about free? Yep. FREE! Gotta love the frakking internet.
FWS will be devoted several blogposts on the Wing Commander Universe and the it's 1999 Satan Spawn of a film in the near future. Until then, there is the trailer:
WC III was my first, and fueled the thirst for WC IV and Privateer2 (my favourite still). The last, WC Prophecy, was crap; it's linear gameplay compared with the others killed the game for me.
ReplyDeleteDon't get me started on the animated series or that horror of a movie...
There were a number of fan mods out there using various engines, including one using the awesome Homeworld engine - talk about fleet action!
I still have the ripped game movies of both WC and Priv2 on DVD somewhere, and although WC III is really dated (crappy to watch on HD) it still fun to revisit 1990s...!
The only thing I really liked from that WC movie was the music soundtrack. I still have the Cd and loaded it onto my iPod and listen to it all the time. As for the movie itself - mindless outer space action was ok for me until the depth charge scene. Whenever that part comes up on the DVD when I am re-watching the movie; I fast forward that part.
ReplyDeleteIt is sad to say this, but the WC movie may be the Plan 9 from Outer Space of Military Sci-Fi films.
ReplyDeleteI remember spending hours playing the original WC and WCII over and over, and even having to upgrade my soundcard for WC II...took my Xmas money to do so. Ah...the days gone by. I didn't play Privateer, wish I had now, but I did play WCIII on my original Playstation, missed my joystick while playing it. Wing Commander was really a great game, it needs an update, and a TV series similar to BSG.
Thanks for the comments and memories.