Bandit LOAF
Long Live the Confederation!
Hello, WingNuts. Since today is the 15th anniverary, I thought it'd be nice if we all told the stories of our first encounters with Wing Commander. I don't care how uninteresting you think your story will be to the rest of us -- tell it! Even if it's just remembering what software stores used to be like, or about how somebody you haven't thought of in years let you try his copy. It'll bring back some great memories, and that's what matters here.
--
My story has a couple of false starts.
When the original Wing Commander came out I was ten years old and eagerly awaiting the release of Lucasarts' final World War 2 game, Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe.
As was frequently the case in those days the game was delayed again and again. My precocious ten year old self checked at Babbages so often that they eventually started recognizing me and telling me it wasn't out yet before I could even ask.
Around that time my dad was assigned to work in Marseilles for a year and my family got ready to move there -- I was an IBM brat. Before we left he offered to get me a different computer game: Wing Commander.
He had read about the game in Jerry Pournelle's Byte column, Tales from Chaos Manner. Mr. Pournelle was a huge advocate of the original Wing Commander, singing its praises whenever he could.
I was interested, but I declined. To a ten year old living before the stupid ages, a new computer game was a precious, once-in-an-age event, and darnit I wanted to play SWOTL.
While I was living in Europe, one of my friends had a pirated copy of Wing Commander... and none of the copy protection. I spent hours at his house watching the game start and then randomly guessing numbers. It looked fascinating, but never broke in -- and yet somehow I turned down other contemporary classics, including Civilzation and Falcon 3, to play guess-Wing Commander-numbers.
When I got back to Maryland, my best friend from elementary school had a copy of Wing Commander. I took one look at Claw Marks and it was love. I have fond memories of copying out the statistics over and over, reading the articles until my copy fell apart and (in the years before screenshot utilities) delicately transcribing the VDU images to make my own spotters guide. Basically, the kinds of things I still do fifteen years later. I didn't learn how to play the game right, though -- I made it half way through Secret Missions 1 without knowing how to autopilot or afterburner!
That Christmas the second game came out... and, well, the rest is history!
--
My story has a couple of false starts.
When the original Wing Commander came out I was ten years old and eagerly awaiting the release of Lucasarts' final World War 2 game, Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe.
As was frequently the case in those days the game was delayed again and again. My precocious ten year old self checked at Babbages so often that they eventually started recognizing me and telling me it wasn't out yet before I could even ask.
Around that time my dad was assigned to work in Marseilles for a year and my family got ready to move there -- I was an IBM brat. Before we left he offered to get me a different computer game: Wing Commander.
He had read about the game in Jerry Pournelle's Byte column, Tales from Chaos Manner. Mr. Pournelle was a huge advocate of the original Wing Commander, singing its praises whenever he could.
I was interested, but I declined. To a ten year old living before the stupid ages, a new computer game was a precious, once-in-an-age event, and darnit I wanted to play SWOTL.
While I was living in Europe, one of my friends had a pirated copy of Wing Commander... and none of the copy protection. I spent hours at his house watching the game start and then randomly guessing numbers. It looked fascinating, but never broke in -- and yet somehow I turned down other contemporary classics, including Civilzation and Falcon 3, to play guess-Wing Commander-numbers.
When I got back to Maryland, my best friend from elementary school had a copy of Wing Commander. I took one look at Claw Marks and it was love. I have fond memories of copying out the statistics over and over, reading the articles until my copy fell apart and (in the years before screenshot utilities) delicately transcribing the VDU images to make my own spotters guide. Basically, the kinds of things I still do fifteen years later. I didn't learn how to play the game right, though -- I made it half way through Secret Missions 1 without knowing how to autopilot or afterburner!
That Christmas the second game came out... and, well, the rest is history!