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Are you familiar with MobyGames, where that archive came from? It's like IMDB for computer games. As with all user-editable sites it contains some errors and in-jokes, but it's pretty good. Your own developer page is at http://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,111/. Most of...

No, the file contents aren't readily available for cutting/pasting, unless someone has figured out the format. Here's what I did to get all the characters: (1) Create a duplicate of WC.EXE (for Wing Commander 1) or WC2.EXE (for Wing Commander 2). I called mine "WCFONT.EXE". (2) Open your...

The fonts in WC1, WC2 and Academy are stored in files called FONTS.FNT. No one appears to have deciphered this format, although it's probably feasible. The existing damage reports display arbitrary text with the cockpit font, so it's easy to hex-edit the executable to display an alphabet with...

Logical thinking, but the EGA graphics aren't on the floppy disks. They're handled in a way that is right at the intersection of clever and aggravating. Back up your Wing Commander directory before experimenting with the steps that follow - it will delete files that you can only recover if you...

I can imagine a third-party observer (who would need Arisian-level powers of predicting all possible outcomes) concluding that the Kilrathi victory is less damaging because, while being enslaving mass murderers, they don't destroy two entire planets. The Kilrathi bombardment as described in the...

Thank you for your detailed answers to our weird questions. Some 3D Studio files survive from that era. I have not worked with them myself, but there's a dump of them here: http://download.wcnews.com/files/priv1/wc3d.zip. Despite being stored in the "priv1" directory, it contains files from...

There are actually 4 heads - helmet, hat, long hair and short hair. See the three different head sequences below. Looking at the data files with WCNAV (they're in SCRAMBLE.VGA), there's a sequence of pictures single headless running figure, and then 4 different heads...

Oh yes, we still discuss the WC1 and WC2 graphics a lot around here. I can't speak for anyone else, but I remain fascinated by the combination of art and programming involved in getting the most out of low resolution, limited palettes, limited memory and synthesised audio. For example, see...

No, it's not weird, and it may be because you're noting a limitation in the regular WC1 explosion. The WC1 explosion (on the left) only has 6 cels. The game stretches this by displaying each cel for multiple frames - 1, 2, 3, 3, 4 and 6 frames respectively, for a total of 19. The cels are...

Nice video. It's good to see a reminder about how the PC version of a game could change radically on different systems and configurations. While my computer ran VGA/MCGA just fine, I spent many hours seeing how well different games handled EGA. I'd like to extend a dishonorable mention to...

The spontaneous explosions are by design... mostly. Probably as a memory management issue, WC1 defines 2 fighter graphics and 2 capital ship graphics to be loaded for each encounter. If you reach a new encounter while ships from the previous encounter are in your field of view, the old ships...

The very first story pitch for WC2 (written in November 1990) does that. It was a neat idea, but it would probably never have survived into the final game. You'd probably need a whole extra floppy disk to store all the Tiger's Claw art assets, and then they'd appear in that one mission and...

I'm astonished at the complexity of the WC3 and WC4 fighter debris. Did anyone see any pieces during gameplay for long enough to realise that the holes in the outside were exposing some interior textures? If the artists who put all those craters and burn marks on the fighter textures ever read...

Other endings in WC4 include: Blair's carrier is destroyed. Blair is executed. A war begins that will probably kill billions. Despite those, I agree that the "poor performance review" is the most painful ending to watch. The scenes playing on the TV in the bar may also be the war you could...

After the update, I'm seeing some sort of corruption during explosions. I would have posted this to your Bug Reports forum, but I couldn't see a way to attach images. Is there one? I'm running Mac OS 10.9.4 with an AMD Radeon HD 6970M. I don't encounter these effects while booted to Windows...

The projectiles that look like giant neutron gun shots are actually from anti-matter guns: longer range and greater damage than anything a WC2 fighter can carry. They also penetrate phase shields, which is why you'll see capital ships firing them against each other. Meanwhile, if you see the...

It was designed for professional musicians, and those who could afford one bought it. The fact that computer games started supporting it, and a few wealthy gamers purchased one, was a happy side effect for Roland. Thanks for that explanation. I know game boxes often included screenshots from...

Does anyone remember the days when just capturing a screenshot from your DOS game involved messing around with a TSR? Those took additional memory of course, so you'd probably have to modify the CONFIG.SYS on your boot disk to squeeze a few additional kilobytes so your game would continue to...

Yes, the mouse controls in Privateer are terrible, and the keyboard controls are even worse. There doesn't seem to be any excuse for this, since WC1 and WC2 engineered both quite well. The difference is that WC1 and WC2 apply some acceleration to keyboard inputs, so if you tap a key you turn a...

Do you mean that you're on Series 4 Mission D? This is commonly rated as the hardest mission in the Wing Commander series. I've never finished it by playing fairly. On rare occasions I've shot down all the Gothri, but with so much damage that I can't survive making the torpedo runs. The...