Wing Commander Retires From Netflix & Amazon Prime Free Streaming

It seems like just yesterday that the Wing Commander Movie arrived on Netflix and Amazon Prime's free video catalogs in the US and Canada, but the film has been removed from both services after its one year contract expired. The delisting comes as no shock, since many titles regularly come and go from streaming providers, and we've started to see Wing Commander disappear from some of the European providers that got it first.


While it's disappointing to see it come to an end now, it was certainly a very productive run. The movie made the "popular on Netflix" trending circuit for some time, got lots of positive press on social media and spawned numerous fun viewing parties. Fans continue to have access to the film on a wide variety of platforms with digital prices around $6.99 and the Blu-ray hovering at $12 or less. Amazon is also offering a new promotion where WC is included in a subscription to STARZ.

And on the bright side, this marks the end of Fox's distribution rights. As scheduled, Chris Roberts has regained the rights in English speaking territories after 17 years. Although he's still super engrossed in Star Citizen for now, Chris has mentioned before that he'd love to return and recut the film for a modern audience!

Shroud Of The Avatar Nears Release; Star Citizen Making Progress

We haven't covered Shroud of the Avatar very much over the years, but Richard Garriott's spiritual successor to Ultima appears to be coalescing nicely as it drives towards a full fledged release. Last week the team conducted its last "wipe" of the pre-release servers, and the world that players are now exploring is the game's final persistent universe. Crowdfunding pledges will also sunset in a couple weeks as the various preorder bonuses expire. A new Star Citizen cross-promotion also caught our eye that offers up some nifty steampunk gear with the SC logo.


Speaking of Star Citizen, most exciting to us is that LOAF's recovery is going well and he's back on the job at Cloud Imperium LA. Their office move and subsequent futuristic remodel has been complete, and it's looking really cool. They've finished the shoot for the Squadron 42 story and audio elements, which is an important milestone for the campaign aspect of Star Citizen. The team is now focused on preparing a big status update at Gamescom in Germany later this month. There are still a variety of cool ships being turned out as well as some neat merchandise that have pushed them past an amazing $115 million.

Tom Wilson Performing In Irvine Sunday

Meeting up with your favorite Wing Commander actors isn't always easy. A few make occasional convention appearances, but you might only end up talking to them for a minute or so in an autograph hall. One notable exception is Tom Wilson, who continues to regularly make the rounds in the comedy club circuit. The CIC Staff did happen to first meet Tom at his Dragon*Con autograph table in 2003, but other fans have more choices to seek him out around the US today. Wingnuts near Irvine, California have a chance to catch the Maniac this Sunday evening at the Irvine Improve Comedy Club. A limited number of free tickets are available with the promo code '2TOMS'. His shows come highly rated, and fans often report that he appreciates people who are familiar with his non-Back to the Future history in things like Wing Commander. If you get a picture with him signing your copy of WC4, send it in to us!

Homeworld Mod Beta Opened Up To Wider Audience

The Homeworld Remastered Mod continues to improve based on the feedback of beta testers and the constant refinement that L.I.F. has applied. There have been many bug fixes, formation improvements and updates to fuel and ammunition scripts. He's also made the test release more widely available at MODDB for players who've purchased the game at places like GOG. Steam owners can grab it here. All of your feedback and bug reports for the new version help make the game better for a big release planned later this month, so get to playing!
This is the new version of the mod, revamped and reworked to be compatible with the versions 2.0 and 2.1 of HWRM. It currently has only the Confederation and the Kilrathi working, further updates will be coming to restore full functionality. Right now, I'm fixing the bugs in the current release as the testers report them. The goal is to have something cool for the birthday.

Retro Korean Privateer Review Scan

AD found one more classic Korean Wing Commander article on the Old Game Scan blog. This Privateer review appeared in the January 1994 issue of 마이컴 (MyCom). At a length of 14 pages it's pretty substantial, and it appears to cover all aspects of the game. There also seem to be some spoilers! Unlike the Korean reviews of Prophecy and Armada we reported on earlier, this article does conclude with a rating: sound gets four stars, graphics five, and "difficulty" four.

Flat Universe Provides Glimpse Behind The Scenes

For this week's peek inside the continued development of Wing Commander Flat Universe, the Maslas Brothers have pulled the curtain back to reveal what it looks like as the game is being made. The screenshots reveal some of the coding that goes into potential mission/cinematic design and how these sequences can be observed. It looks like a lot of work to me, but the final product is sure to be impressive!
This snapshot was taken during the benchmarking/debugging phase of the navigation and formation AI of Flat Universe. As a matter of fact, this is what my displays are showing for the past few days.

Enjoy!

Fan Covers WC2 & U6 In Familiar Mix

Jason Walton has been doing some experimentation in Garage Band - with impressive results! He's remixed the Wing Commander 2 intro as well as music from Ultima VI. The way the original was combined with the Vengeance of the Kilrathi cinematics and especially speech really helped cement it in my mind. It's one of my favorite in the whole series!
Playing with Garageband...

Two Weeks To Party Time!

We're now less than two weeks away from the CIC's 18th Birthday, so the countdown is really starting to heat up! My fellow CIC staffers are hard at work on new features that I'm getting anxious to see myself. Our official birthday is the evening of August 10, but this year we'll be celebrating on the following Saturday, August 13. Everything gets going at 7:00 pm EDT (4:00 pm PDT and 11:00 pm GMT) in #Wingnut on irc.wcnews.com or our easy web chat interface. As usual, we'll have trivia contests, lots of site updates and tons of fun with our fellow Wingnuts. See you there!


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