15 Years of Wing Commander - What Was Your First Time Like?

Hi! I will make my presentation:

My first contact with the Wing Commander Series was back in early 97 when I bought Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger for the Playstation console. A friend of a friend was selling some of His games cheap and one of them was WC III. Because I have read some great reviews about it I didn’t hesitated to buy it. It was a very good opportunity because there was not much money for full price games at the time.

I loved every bit of the game, for me it was one of those experiences that we don’t have often. Only a few selected games have the capabilities of give us that special feel. No need to mention that became one of my all time favourite games.


1 year after more or less I bought WC IV for Playstation, but I didn’t enjoy it as much as with WC III. I had the feeling that the space missions were too much repetitive, and not very enjoyable. Of course the movie part was excellent. Probably WC IV for Playstation was now as good as WC III in my opinion because they cut some things from the PC to the console version. It was good but could have been more.

After playing those 2 Wing Commander games I didn’t had the chance to play more. I had no PC until late 2000, and being a console gamer all my life didn’t help.


In 2001 I bought Starlancer for Dreamcast, and I loved and love the game, it was very similar to WC games. Not only had a great campaign mode, but also it supported online mode, which was probably the 1st space simulation online in any console (and probably the only so far!?). I played a lot online and only stopped playing online because I have no phone line anymore. I’m currently playing Starlancer campaign mode for Dreamcast again, after a few years since I finished the game.


After I complete the DC game again I will try to get used to PC controls, as I bought Starlancer for PC, the good thing is that is possible to configured a control pad to use in conjunction with the keyboard, so it will help a lot. This version has some additional things so I will be good to see all the complete game. Not to mention that it’s possible to play Co-Op with friends (and deathmatch like in Dreamcast).
Ok I know SL is not a game of the Wing Commander series, but it very similar, so it deserves a mention, also because I love it like I love WC III.


But getting more on topic with Wing Commander, probably most of the people here are more PC gamers than Consoles gamer, so I have a different background. People use to complain about the awkward consoles control scheme, but for me the use of all the keyboard keys to play games is annoying, and I prefer to have all at my hands in a control pad (depends on of course), but hopefully I will get used to it soon.

Shame no more WC games were released for consoles, so I had no chance to play more. And for example the Sega CD (Mega CD) version of Wing Commander was not released in Europe, and I bought the console at the time…


But now it a good opportunity and I would love to play the all the WC series (and revive some) as it’s looking easier to make the old games running good, thanks to people here and other people working in solutions.

I now have already a few games to start; Wing Commander 1 for Sega CD (because it has full speech and like I said for me control pads are not a problem, and I have 6 button CP), and WC Prophecy for PC. Hopefully I can get all the others to finally experience the Wing Commander series to the full, and make them to work well.


Thanks for reading!

1995 when I got my first PC that wasn't a Tandy 1000, a whoping 50MHz. ~~~. I fell in love with Wing Commander and when I got Heart of the Tiger...that was it. It was around the time I installed my first 10 MB hard drive! ~~~.

I eventually quit Nursing to go to Empire College and became a computer system specialist...in tweaking my Thrustmaster stick and PC for WC I fell in love with computers. With me all the way was Heart of the Tiger and Privateer.

I love the feeling in the pit of my stomach as I am chasing a skipper missle.

Hello Wingnuts and what not, if you have not read it from the other threads, Plywood Fiend and I have written a Fan Fiction dedication for the last 15 years of Wing Commander - "Fall of the Flag"
Hope you people enjoy it!!

I first encountered Wing Commander in 1996 when I was intrigued by the cover of Wing Commander IV at the mall. My computer was terrible at the time though so there was no chance to play it. However, soon after I rented the SNES version of Wing Commander from a local rental store. That was like a religious experience. I'd never experienced anything like it at all and I was quickly fascinated. By the summer of 1997 I was voraciously reading all of the Wing Commander novels and longing for the day that I'd have a computer powerful enough to play the games.

I just can't describe what it was like playing for the first time. Even on the SNES, a far inferior version, I was enthralled. I remember when I finally completed the Venice campaign I triumphantly marched out of my room pretending I was a Tiger's Claw pilot returning to Earth as a celebrity, waving to the crowds, etc (sue me I was 10).

The rest as they say is history. The game series had a tremendous influence on my youth. From 1997 - 1999 I played on various AOL Wing Commander RPG's, and later spent three years on the MUSH Wing Commander Red Horizon (a fantastic game while it lasted). I was eventually able to play all of the games (except for Prophecy, I haven't gotten around to it yet). Most recently the release of Standoff has reinvigorated my interest in the series and I've been replaying the games.

Been playing WC since I got WC1 back in 1991 or 1992 I believe. I think I read about it in an issue of CGW (my fav mag!) and asked a friend, and he said it rocked. So I bought it, beat it a few times. Then I got WC2, WC3, skipped WC4 for whatever reason, got WCP. I also played X-Wing, TIE, XvT, XWA, Freespace2, Iwar2, and X2. I'm a pretty big space sim buff, too bad so few I know have even played such games. Damned MMOs!

I actually just got WC4 and have started playing it. I'm trying to get ahold of the double sided DVD version for the far higher quality video. Very tough to find.

I am a bit dumbfounded as to why the space sim had to so totally, utterly die. Surely such a movie game could be produced today for a similar cost, excepting that the 3D engine would probably cost a lot more to develop. But, the new "online world" nonsense has caught the eye of every businessman in the business and has basically ended all but a few genres. Yay for the evolution to extreme mainstreamism.

The real time strategy and first person shooter genres, coupled with the ability to go online with these games, pretty much terminated all other game genres. At least for the time being. RTS and FPS games became extremely popular around 1999 and 2000. It's no coincidence that these two years were also the end of space sims, wargames, flight sims, adventure games, you name it. It's quite ironic too because 1999 and 2000 were the dates for the release of some of the best space sims and flight sims in history, i.e. Freespace 2 and Rowan's Battle of Britain. When they flopped the genre died with them.

This won't last forever though. Someday space sims will make a comeback.

Well this mainstream stuff was going to happen sooner or later. It's just the philosophy of the business to attract as many people as possible.

Out of curiosity ChrisReid, what in your opinion caused the decline in space sims at the end of the 1990's?

I think EA and LucasArts have waited too long. They would really have to reinvent the genre now. So much has changed since those days, and what people remember does not compare well with what gamers have grown accustomed to today. Most of my friends who were into such games, like I still am, are not enthusiastic about it anymore. I don't think the market is there anymore honestly. The space sims were sort of the FPS of the '90s, but now the modern FPS games have captured those people, and/or those people looked to new genres because there hasn't been a really memorable sim for years and years. I think LucasArts thinks their shallow Battlefront space action, and their Galaxies Lightspeed nonsense, have taken the place of the real sims.

My brother, who was too young (9 yrs younger than I) when space sims were big, couldn't care less about them and barely acknowledges their existence. He's almost 17. He finds the graphics of the old games laughable and shallowly considers them pathetic games as a result (the same response as 9 in 10 people I imagine). He has no friends who have even played such games to my knowledge (I've exposed him to them and many other older games, so he's a bit ahead of most of his buddies).

I also don't think science fiction games are nearly as big as they were during the '90s. It's now the era of oodles of WW2 rehashes. The Star Wars prequel movies IMO have sorta tarnished sci-fi, and Trek is dead. The WC film destroyed WC's image among anyone who saw it (IMO). And Totally Games might as well be out of business.

And I totally disagree with the concept of MMO players being a new, separate group. I have a big EQ2 player next to me right now who used to be big into WC. It has been so long since those games were big that he has basically forgotten them, and he wasn't overly entertained by my playing WC4 on the TV tonight. I doubt he would move back to WC-type games anymore, because he associates them with his younger days and not with what he wants to play today. I was trying to entertain my friends with WC4, a classic game and basically best of the series, and a waste of my time as it didn't really go over well.

How can you post on a Wing Commander site and say that? Doesn't the mere existence of this website ruin that narrowminded notion?

Oh, adjust your sash, Carl.

The rest of your post is pretty generic internet fluff. "Star Wars Prequels ruin things! Star Trek is over! Games aren't as good as they use to be!" are the prattlings of people who don't care to think under their own power. I'm telling you, flat out, there will be another Wing Commander game. Look at Prophecy being released to the Game Boy Advanced; that seemingly came out of nowhere and was given strong critical praise. Who's to say that it won't happen again, next time for PC or a nextgen system.

The genre is not dead - people are generally just too stupid to help resuscitate it is all. But it's time will come. Like everything else, video game genres run in cycles - the space sim will happen again.

Space combat in Battlefront 2 is pretty decent, although obviously not as good as a dedicated space sim like WCP.

MMO's can be good games, definitely not responsible for the death of any other genre. I have a pretty good time with WoW, Guild Wars, City of Heroes... I'm far from being a hardcore MMO player, and dedicate my time to other types of games. I still play the original Privateer inbetween sessions of Wow, Oblivion and Half-Life2 Ep1.

Its worth to point out that what made Wing Commander 1 so special back in 1990 was that it was a marked departure of space simulators that had the standard formula of games that only approached the level of space combat from the Star Wars films, at the time, and created its own unique storytelling extravaganza that generated a number of successive titles that made a universe that so many (probably even non-wing commander fans) are familiar to.

Yeah I agree with that. The was a lot more Star Wars buzz back then, and I'm positive that is what made WC a success. It also probably helped that science fiction was almost dominating TV at the time with TNG.

It just doesn't happen anymore commercially. X3 is probably the biggest such title, even though it's not much of a combat sim. It's also in the bargain bin already, and was hopelessly bugged on release. The rest of the games today that are in the genre are very small, low budget titles that don't gain much success or popularity. Their production values are nothing like the old Star Wars/WC games either.

Gamers have moved on. I'm surprised that more of you don't see that. Most of the time I feel totally alone even remembering these games. People give me a backwards fallen-behind-the-times look when I mention I'd like a new WC. Back in 1998/9, Prophecy and XWA weren't very popular at my college, especially compared to Counterstrike, Unreal, or Quake 3. Today the games are almost completely forgotten, even by most serious gamers.

This forum is the last bastion of Wing Commander games. It's like TAUniverse.com, XWAUpgrade.com, or the plethora of LucasArts fan sites dreaming of rekindling the glory days of that company. We aren't even remotely representative of a marketable majority.

I suppose the potential is there to reawaken the interest in the games, but I just don't know if it will ever happen. It would require EA or LucasArts to actually take risks, and they've proven for years now that they aren't really willing to do that anymore.

It is wonderful to have a site like this to come to though! Man I miss the days when these games got big publicity and were on the cutting edge....

My first time.

The first time I played on Wing Commander was back in 1992 or 3, I think we had a 386 at the time. I was really young back then, about say 3 years old, maybe less, I can remember at that time I couldn't play very well and so the most memorable thing about it at that age was... well, the funeral. I think I also had strange thoughts about the Dralthi, thinking that it was a half destroyed version of the Enterprise.

The next one I got to play on was WC4, I was about five or six then and I can remember not being able to get past the first mission in the Tyr System because of that ground turret and I'd never really understood the use of decoys so i just layed them out in front of a transport to hear them all go BOOM!
At that point in my life I had a feeling that Admiral Tolwyn was a bad guy, just for the simple fact that he was in Star Trek Generations.

Many years later, I found WC3 in a second hand shop, bought it, completed it, 'nuff said.

The one I was truly proud of was getting WCP and completing it on the first day I got it, I only failed one mission out of the lot and then thought, wait a minute, Blair can't die!

And that is my history of playing the official WC games except the Privateers, I'm currently in the process of completing WC1, in one day I've made it to the last mission in the Dakota system