Wing Commander

The Good
Wing Commander is one of those rare games that comes once in a lifetime, and which forever will go down in history as a classic of classics, defining a new genre, standard of gameplay and technical excellence. Before WC there had been some attempts at making space sims, but they were all geared towards exploration/trading sims a-la Elite, and none had managed to capture the more military-oriented action extravaganza of that which remained in everyone's mind as the definitive space "flying" experience: Star Wars. It's WW2-inspired blend of fast, agile starships dogfighting in space against each other remains to this day one of the best contributions George Lucas's saga gave to our collective imaginations, yet over 10 years later no one had managed to really capture that in a videogame. Enter Origin, the company which was previously better known for it's Ultima rpgs and Chris Roberts who singlehandedly jumped to videogame stardom with this groundbreaking title.

The reasons for it's success are varied, foremost among them the fact that he got it right from the start. Due to innovative game design, sheer programming prowess and technical proficiency Roberts and co. were able to translate the basic layout of a classic flight sim with it's "sitting in a cockpit" first person perspective and take it into outer space with simplified game mechanics that accounted for a more action-oriented gameplay that basically boiled down to controlling a magic jet that didn't have to worry about drag or gravity and which incorporated the notion of regenerating shields that you had to take down before you could knock down a ship. Furthermore, the fact that the game was set in space was actually a blessing for the developers, as no terrain meant they only had to spawn the ships and objects in a perpetual "starry night" environment that allowed the engine to focus on faster action that for the first time mimicked the breakneck pace and excitement of those kickass dogfights we had seen on Star Wars! Heck, I vividly remember wildly yanking the joystick and leaning sideways as if trying to dodge the oncoming laser blasts when things got too intense!! :D Finally a game got it!

Another area where WC broke new ground was in the technical arena, before I'd took the "Tech crown", there was only one company that forced players to upgrade their machines for their games, and that was Origin with their Wing Commander games which always included the latest and most amazing technical improvements. I dare say however, that in those days it was worth the cash and even if you couldn't go all the way the games allowed gameplay on lesser systems by toning down certain features, unlike in today's games where you need to update your system every month because your videoboard only has pixel shader 2.546456 and you need 2.546457 for a stupid stencil shadows effect that you have no way of turning off and thus can't run the game... What's that? Me, resentful? Naaaaaahh!!

But I digress, I was talking about WC and it's tech achievements, which included 256 full vga graphics that looked like a dream in it's day, complete with such graphic details as multi-function displays in the cockpits that showed detailed info on your target, damage status and even allowed you to communicate with your wingmen (using a numbered menu system that has virtually remained unchanged to this day) and which even showed the faces of whoever you were talking to in a green-hued display! That alone made it extra special to taunt your opponents and see their reactions. For as good as the graphics were however, one of the most incredible features in WC and one that got it incredible praises was it's pioneering use of stereo soundboards with digital sound effects that rivaled those one remembered from the Star Wars flicks and a musical score that will go down in history as one of the earliest dynamic soundtracks ever to appear in a game, not to mention some of the most memorable collection of tunes ever written in it's day (that's right fanboy, take your Final Fantasy soundtracks and shove them, WC got there earlier and did it better). It is a testament to it's quality sound design that one of it's more well-remembered feats was the fact that it got thousands of gamers to dish out the staggering amount of cash required to get sound boards in those days, I even suspect that this game alone is responsible for establishing Creative Labs and it's Sound Blaster board as the gaming standard (does anyone remember how the Origin logo came up with a simulated orchestra overture? Now that's what I'm talking about!)

However all of these features would have translated into just a really nice looking and sounding dogfighting sim set in space by themselves, with nothing to separate it from the boring pseudo-military games that appealed to the hardcore simmer fanbase and which have nothing but loosely arranged campaigns that just call for you to blow shit up and earn medals. Taking it's cues from space operas like Star Wars itself, Battlestar Galactica, etc. Roberts dedicated as much of his design focus on the gameplay in the cockpit as outside it, and crafted a believable gameworld thanks to superb character development and cinematic techniques. You didn't just tackle missions over and over in Wing Commander, instead, you took on the role of a new pilot in the terran carrier Tiger's Claw and mingled with your fellow pilots on board the capital ship by talking to them. While the interactions were relatively straightforward, they were filled with well-written tidbits that built up each character's background were they talked about their reasons for fighting in the war, their fears, doubts and even discussed between each other and argued about the way the conflict was being resolved. Come mission time, you would attend a briefing room where the character interaction continued as your CO assigned you your mission and often joked or made special comments regarding your upcoming assignment or who you had to take with you (Maniac took most of the flak in these scenes if he was assigned as your wingman); the characters would then scramble to their fighters in cinematic cutscenes and off you went! The result was that you weren't just blowing shit up for blowing shit up's sake like in most sims, but you were instead taking an active role in a space conflict in which the earth forces faced off against the alien forces of the Kilrathi empire (a cliche I know, but what the heck) and flew with actual characters you cared about and had a "life" outside the cockpit. Losing a wingman meant something more than just losing fire support for a mission, as that character was gone for good, with even a funeral cutscene for each one to drive the point home even more strongly. Furthermore the entire conflict went hand in hand with your campaign and if you completed your missions, you would see "victory" cutscenes that painted a bigger picture. Interestingly enough, should you fail your missions you got completely different cutscenes that branched the plot towards a "failed" conflict! How's that for added replay value?

No review of the "good" about Wing Commander would be complete however, without a mention of the amazing documentation. Games like Wing Commander are the reason I can't help but curse publishers when I see a flimsy, 6-page pdf manual when I get a game nowadays. Origin made a name for itself by including extensive documentation with their games that introduced everything you needed to know about the game while keeping the context of the gameworld. WC is one of the best examples of this, as the entire manual is written as an issue of the onboard magazine of the Tiger's Claw, complete with strategy tips disguised as ads., character bios and lots of subtle info that helped build the gameworld even before you played the game!

The Bad
Are you kidding me? Move along dork!

Ok, ok maybe in retrospective some missions were too repetitive (something which would eventually become the mantra of Chris Roberts) and the storyline in the end isn't that amazing. Actually I think WC is a lot like Half-Life in the sense that both excel at storytelling, but neither tell a particularly amazing or innovative story per se. Anyway, that's all I can think of.

The Bottom Line
Wing Commander is one of those titles that will forever grace Halls of Fame and "All-time best" lists. It is one of those rare cases in which everything comes together in sync. and the result just becomes a massive breakthrough in technology, gameplay and storytelling. A game that has spawned entire cloned series (even including the famed X-Wing games), imitators, sequels and spin-offs that continue to be respected titles to this day.

Wing Commander is a masterpiece of masterpieces, and it's also a game that will forever be linked to fond memories of my childhood as it was one of the few games I vividly recall playing with my dad, who managed to beat that final mission against the main Kilrathi base where I failed, forever gaining my neverending admiration. WC is required gaming for anyone that wants to call himself a game buff. You never touched it? Then stop reading this and get a copy n00b!

The Good
Back in the glorious year 1991 I saw an impressive review in a games magazine presenting the game... impressed because it gave out a glimpse of this game's richness, plus many impressive screenshots... but only recently, over 10 years later, I managed to get halfway through the game and experience what that magazine was trying to tell me...

The reason: I started playing simulators since Inca and then Xwing, which in fact, are Wing Commander clones! Then I tried to play some WC games but never managed to get a grip of its gameplay and controls, but my last attempt brought success!!

The game is impressive, unique, brilliant, even nowadays, and I am telling you, after having playing other, more recent simulators! It makes me wonder how much impressive that would have been back in those years...

It is maybe one of the first games that makes use of hand drawn comic-like 256 coloured graphics... the game menu appears in the form of your mothership's (Tiger's Claw) interior you explore... you can visit the Bar to collect gossips of the Kilrathi war (helps building a realistic sensation of the background while you play) and hints from other pilots, the barracks to save your game (each game appears as a sleeping pilot on the bed), and your locker to see your score and performance..

The astonishing fact, which is absent even from later WC's clones, is that the pilots you meet, interact wit in the bar, which later become your wingmen, are characters on their own and have separate personalities and behaviour in combat!! When they die while being your wingmen, you will see a sequence with their funeral and never appear again..

The game is non-linear... when you fail some missions, you won't replay them, but will maybe 'punishing' you by opening plot forks and have additional missions before returning to the original story... I imagine addicted WC fans experimenting by losing missions and try to live ALL the forks and missions availiable.

I loved the way the cutscenes are presented... combined with the appearance of the pilots you can interact, it creates a realistic 'being there' sensation.. the briefings for example, don't show only the officer saying 'your mission is blah blah', but the briefing of each mission is different: the pilots ask questions and the officer makes his comments... it will make you feel like watching a movie, although years before the Interactive Movie games!

Cutscenes also appear when you are transferred, in funerals or in promotions... some cutscenes also show 'meanwhiles' advancing the storyline background.

The manual is also exceptional, published in the manner of a magazine that supposedly circulates in the Tiger's Claw (the mothership) for the pilots... it gives you in a realistic fashion the background of the story, presentation of the pilots you are gonna meet in the game (in the manner of interviews!), ships presentations, the officer ranks and hints (in the manner of magazine articles!)

It's a game that introduces a whole new space saga from nowhere: i'ts not taking place in a Star Wars/Trek universe, nor is it based on them... it's totally a unique new mae universe with its own fictional timeline and philosophy and waits for you to explore.

The Bad
What I didn't like was the difficulty of some missions, and the cockpit design, which hides from you some part of the action... thus you are forced to maneuver all the time to bring the enemy on your visual field...

I didn't like the fact that you are always a wingleader, and all the pilots are always wingmen... I didn't find this realistic since this makes you commander even of pilots that are superior in rank... the good stuff would be if you started the story as a wingman, and then advance, but anyway...

The Bottom Line
Too bad that all those revolutionary elements haven't been copied by the various WC clones!

The Good
Wing Commander gave gamers a product that was not only a new (for the time) first-person perspective pseudo-3D space shooter, but also had a storyline with an engaging story and well-drawn characterization.

A first for games of the time, music was very well done, thanks to The Fat Man and his team. The music was also "aware" of the action, and increased or reduced tension depending how much trouble you were in.

The Bad
The artists chose to use the color blue when drawing highlights in black hair. (This is where the main character, Blair, got his nickname "Blue-Hair".) This isn't really a massive flaw, but it lowers the graphics down to the comic-book level occaisionally.

The pseudo-3D engine didn't have any minimum-distance clipping, so when you got close to a ship, you really got close to a ship. The resulting pixelicious display that resulted slowed the game down to a crawl on low-end systems.

Speaking of low-end systems, this game performed perfectly on them--but was way too fast on high-end systems out at the same time, like a 386/33. Tsk tsk, Origin... needed to do better planning. (This speed problem was eliminated in The Kilrathi Saga, a re-release of the first three Wing Commander games rewritten for Windows 95.)

The Bottom Line
An instant classic. If you haven't played it, you owe it to yourself to play the game through to completion.

The Good
This is one of the first games I ever played, and the one that got me totally hooked on space combat and flight sims. You really felt like you were part of the story, and talking with your wingmen between missions made you feel like you were really there. I actually felt depressed when one of them died, and I had to go back to the pilots lounge and see an empty chair and KIA beside their name on the killboard. The gameplay is still great after all this time, and the campaign tree was one of the best in all the games. I must have played this game fifty times through, and has never lost its fun factor.

The Bad
Wingmen are admittedly useless.

The Bottom Line
If you've never played a Wing Commander game, start with this one. If you've played other WC games but not this one, play it. If you haven't played it for a long time, it's time to reload it and play it again.

The Good
The first thing that grabbed my eye when I spied it on the shelf were the graphics. Simply ubelievable for the time. As I drove home with it I found myself guessing that the graphics on the box must all be from cut sequences and was AMAZED to find out they were the graphics from the simulation itself.

The character interactions were wonderful. I really had a sense of getting closer to the other pilots.

The combat was just difficult enough to make it challenging. I'm one of those freaks who, if he dies, starts the game over from scratch and replays. I finally did beat this series front to back without losing a single man and felt an overwhelming sense of accomplishment.

One aspect that hasn't been mentioned in other reviews - the branching storyline. This, to my mind is a MUST in games of this nature, but is so seldom implemented. I HATE games that, if you fail in a mission force you to replay it. There's no sense of cohesive story there. This game actually altered the storyline based on your success or failures, but NEVER made you replay a failed mission. Absolutely brilliant.

The Bad
My main gripe with this game is that it doesn't run on my 400 mhz machine. I'd play it before I'd play it's more modern aspects like WC IV.

There is a small flaw in the game logic - as long as you survive the final mission, you win. Therefore (although I didn't win this way my first time through) if you really want to beat the game, just eject as soon as you leave the Tiger's Claw on the final mission. You survive and somehow remain responsible for destroying the Kilrathi base.

The Bottom Line
An amazing feat of technology for its time, a whole lot of fun, and my favourite simulator in any genre ever.

The Good
The storyline was great. The graphics, at the time were spellbinding, and the first of their kind. The music brought inspiration and fit the scenario perfectly. The flying interface was simple for non-sim guys like me, yet detailed enough to keep everyone happy. The sense of achievement was also great. You begin to feel like you actually are out there in space. You develop a hate for the Kilrathi, and a build up a duty of service, how great is that!?!

The Bad
Doesnt work at the right speed on 486s and Pentiums. Secret Missions too hard.

The Bottom Line
Take a bit of flight simulator, add a dash of Space Quest, a pinch personality and charm, and your just beginning to scratch the surface of Wing Commander.

The Good
At the time, Wing Commander's graphics and sound were literally unparalleled; there was no game like it. The dogfighting is fast and furious (even if ridiculously unrealistic) and the ships and weapons are terrific. The missions were very well designed, and the Wing Commander backstory was excellent. A game head and tails above everything else, and followed by a number of outstanding sequels.

The Bad
It was a ripoff that you had to buy a speech pack separately.

Wing Commander is a difficult game to run, as it requires a huge amount of sub-640 memory to get going. Configuring regular memory to play this game is often more trouble than it's worth.

The Bottom Line
A classic, but doesn't age well.

The Good
Everything!

The Bad
Scimitar shielding wasn't all that great. The Wing Commander movie was frankly, crap, but, as always, the music was superb. ^_^

The Bottom Line
Play it once. Play it twice! Play it every day! Better yet buy the whole damn SERIES online, and with Kilrathi Saga currently going for a measly US$150 on e-bay, you now have no excuse!

The Good
Graphics especially in the character interaction part, mission briefing, all 2d parts are quite beautiful for the mega cd. Full digitalized speech with lips synchronization. A lots of missions.

The Bad
Music are ugly, the Pc version has ever much better music. Speech in space are not understandable, see the pc version for better speech in space. No subtitles in the character interaction part, mission briefing, all 2d parts. An horrible slowness especially were there is more than 2 enemies, or mine field, or asteroid field. So a difficulty to strong to progress normally.

The Bottom Line
Don't by this version.

The Good
I'll start with the technical aspects. First of all, the game was perfectly playable on a 286, albeit you had to get rid of some details. The music was also really good; sound cards were being used since a maximum of two years in 1990 and this game really set a standard in terms of music quality.

Along from the very beginning at the credits, you were immersed in what looked more like a movie rather than a game. Nice cut scenes, briefings, funerals and chit chat in the mess hall gave a never-before-seen dimension to this game. All of this on three 5 1/4 HD disks!

Some might disagree with me on this as I don't have a huge gaming portfolio, but this was the first game that I've played that featured interactive fiction which you really felt that you were part of. You could talk to other characters and get to know them; rather than seeing an idle image or a text description of the characters, you saw them interact with you. This really contributed to give a more realistic image of the game.

WC was the first game in which I've somewhat got involved personally. I was so inside the game itself that I remember feeling really bad when one my colleagues was KIA. I've never felt anything like that again in a game afterwards.

I must have got used to it.

The Bad
On a system with low memory (1 Mb), some options were disabled, such as seeing the face of people who talked to you on your radio.

The game was difficult, and I eventually got discouraged. That's too bad, as I didn't have the opportunity to see the ending.

The Bottom Line
In perspective, a trend-setter. Most games now feature lots of cut scenes and cinematographic elements, but I still believe Wing Commander was the first to do it so sharply.

The Good
This game is the grandaddy of all space flight sagas and was truly revolutionary for its time. I liked almost everything about it, and I'm a flight-simulator hater. The game is easy to learn, fun to play, and satisfying to complete. We're talking leaps and bounds compared to the then staple flight sims that have you drone on and on for hours over the Kansas corn fields!

As the title suggests, you are a Wing Commander. Your mission each time is to go out and kick some Kilrathi behind in one fashion or another. Depending on your success, or lack thereof, the plot branches off in one of several directions. But fear not, you are not in this alone. You have trusty wingmen (some are women, and some not so trusty) who will accompany you on each mission. So communicate and coordinate with your compadre, and go take out them cats out there!

The Bad
Overall, the game was too easy to beat. Also, the wingmen that accompany you on each mission flew more like nincompoops than graduates of a military space academy. It's not uncommon for you to finish a mission having garnered 9 kills while your wingmen came home with zippo. What do they think this is? A casual Sunday flight through Kansas?!

The Bottom Line
The Wing Commander series is better than the X-Wing/Tie Fighter series. When Paladin died, I almost cried...Okay, enough sentimentality! Chalk 'em kills up, Charlie!

The Good
I bought this on my 11th birthday, less than a week after it came out, based solely on a preview in a magazine I liked, to go with my dad's brand-new 386/16 speedster. (old computer gurus can chuckle now) Now, a decade later, I still play it, and despite going through four computers, it's stayed on the hard drive of every one. The gameplay is still possibly the best of the series, with slower-paced, more realistic dogfights. (instead of the two-hits-and-they're-dead mentality of the sequels, you had to really WORK to take out the ships in this one) The music was incredible for its day (and still extremely good if you're lucky enough to have The Kilrathi Saga and its reorchestrated, digital soundtrack) . This and the Secret Mission addons probably still have the most interesting missions of all of them. (my all-time favorite may be the "escort the friendly Dralthi" mission) Finally, this seems to be the most overall immersive of the games. Just from talking with fellow WC fans, we've got tons of great war stories from this (and some from WC2) but few (if any) from any of the other games. (mine is when I took out a space station in a Scimitar with every system down, no missiles, and only one gun)

The Bad
Not much. The AI wasn't that great, but it was probably the best of its day. I'm probably the wrong person to ask, though - I've played it so much, I can predict what the AI is going to do 90% of the time. The Secret Mission disks were incredibly difficult at the time (old WC fans still get a cold sweat if you mention the Gwenhyvar) but seem easy if you've managed to pull yourself through Privateer.

The Bottom Line
Probably one of the top-10 best games of all time. This is one any fan, especially one raised on new games like Freespace, owes it to themselves to play for the sake of history.

The Good
The story was excellent, gameplay was not boring. It was intense trying to complete a mission. And the fact that if you fail or lose a wingmen in the mission, it does affect the gameplay!

The Bad
Some missions were a little difficult to beat 100%. You would lose a ship or something in a mission but still win the mission.

The Bottom Line
This is one of a kind! The game that started it all. This game is one of the reasons why Im still playing PC games!

The Good
Dynamic music that changes depending on combat rhythm, the back story, the graphics, the little graphical touches like hand moving the stick, intelligent wingman...

The Bad
A bit too repetitive, AI needs work, too much talking heads, a few impossible missions

The Bottom Line
Wing Commander is the game that managed to combine all the great touches into one solid package, and forever changed PC gaming. Wing Commander is hardly the first PC game to use bitmap for 3D graphics (Falcon was), or the first game to feature MIDI music, or digitized sound, or any of the many features that we now take for granted, but it's the first game to do ALL of that in a single game.

You're a 2nd Lieutenant just out of the Academy, with some good work under your belt. You're posted to Tiger's Claw, the flagship of the Confederation Fleet. The Confederation have been at war with the Kilrathi for the past 20 years, and you're just now joining the Vega campaign. Will you help the Confederation to victory, or go down in infamy?

The game is divided into two parts, the shipboard activity where you save/load game, visit the bar to get the latest gossip, or go on to the next mission briefing, and the 3D space combat part. The 3D space combat have you sitting in the cockpit, where you control the craft like roll, turn, up/down, afterburner, as well as fire guns and launch missiles. There are four different crafts on the Confed side, each with different flight characteristics and armament. You will have a wingman on each mission, and you should keep the wingman alive as the wingman will help you if you issue the right orders. You can also taunt the enemy. When the mission is complete, land back onboard the ship and get ready for the next one.

The mission tree is quite complex, and you do not need to "win" every mission. In fact, it's often more fun to try to lose a few missions in order to fly more missions and get more kills on the killboard (yes, every single kill you make are recorded). You also get promotions and medals should your performance warrant it.

The overall experience has forever changed PC gaming. Medals and promotions are nothing new, musics are nothing new, speech are nothing new, but all together, Origin has shown the world that a space combat sim need not be boring with just stats and shooting. It can have a decent backstory and emotional impact as well. This game launched a whole franchise for Origin, and even inspired cartoon series, several novels, and a major motion picture!

The Good
Fast paced action, great control interface, and above all a cool Sci-Fi experience -- great feeling with great programming!

The Bad
Not enough, more, more ....

The Bottom Line
Old but very good then. Too bad they do not make them as well now'a'days.

The Good
The first thing you will notice when you start the game is the incredible quality of the graphics. And the Hollywood style epic sci-fi soundtrack is simply impressive for a PC game made in 1990.

All the characters, and the settings look so real. You feel just like you are in there. In almost all of the major cutscenes screen sized animations are used. In no other game excluding the games using real movie clips or vector graphics I have ever seen that big character animations. The cutscenes are also random in themselves (e.g. everytime the briefing starts people sit down or stand up in different order).

The Bad
The game is generally very hard, and the perceived distance between the enemy ships and your ship does not match closely with the actual distance due to the pseudo 3D game engine.

The Bottom Line
Definetely a milestone in PC gaming.

The Good
Wing Commander started the space flight sim, so its no wonder it's still a good game. There are many different missions, and all of them you end up blowing up the enemy ships; in other words, mindless gameplay. But it worked, and that is why it is still the classic it is now.

The Bad
The cockpit is so fragging huge, sometimes you can't tell half of what you're doing; also, you'll find yourself shooting your allies by acident a lot.

The Bottom Line
Fly in a ship, blowing up (almost) evrything you see. Simple, huh?