Captain Johnny Reveals Super Wing Commander (April 18, 2005)

ChrisReid

ChrisReid

Super Soaker Collector / Administrator
Quite a lot of fans have never experienced Super Wing Commander, and one of our most important tasks here is to highlight Wing Commander products such as this. SWC was a Macintosh and 3DO revision of Wing Commander 1 and the Secret Missions. Significantly improved graphics and full speech were added, and an entirely new Secret Missions set now takes place between the destruction of the Sivar and the Firekkan affair. The amazing Captain Johnny has created a video introduction to the game. The events occuring in his clips should be incredibly familiar for fans of the first Wing Commander, but the look and feel might be all new. There are five clips from the intro through the first mission.
The capital ship you see there is the Tiger's Claw, and the model was later used as the Lexington in Armada. Paladin and Shotglass are next, and check out that crazy suiting-up process. The hangar and bay doors (along with the rest of the hull) are very similar to what the Claw featured in Wing Commander Movie.










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Want more? A while back LOAF put together a feature showing off each of the redesigned characters in SWC.

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Original update published on April 18, 2005
 
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I was *really* impressed, right up to the point that people start talking. Ugh. That's has to be some of the worst voice acting I have ever heard. Maybe I'll go get a copy and mute the sound. :D
 
Neat to finally see what swc was like and to see "Lexington" and "Shiraak" in action!

Really didn't like the process of getting into the fighters. I think they made the 2650s look too strangely futuristic. :)
 
SpaceDrake said:
Boy, we sure didn't miss much. I don't know which accent made me cringe more, although I'm leading toward Spirit.
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If you're gonna skip it just because you don't like how they talk, you certainly are missing quite a lot. People are spoiled by the professional movie stars that voice today's games, but back then, it was an incredible treat to just be able to hear Origin office people voice the intro to a game and do a few in-flight comms. In addition to the whole campaign where you track down the Sivar's shipyards, the rest of the script has been improved with early allusions to stealth fighters and impending events. The tractor-beam landings and crazy suiting up process are great too.
 
Too bad I don't have a 3DO Console (yet. Hard to find in Germany. But luckily I just found one. Have to ask buyer which version it is - no idea if there are diff. versions.) - my Super Wing Commander CD is getting dusty. :(
Stilll no-one knows a way to get it working with an Emu like FreeDo, right? :(

EDIT: Now I remember what was really hard to find here: A Joystick for that console :( - Argh.
 
WC2 had similar voice acting but I think that the fact that the brefings have audio makes this game a stand out to me. I think the accents help you connect with the characters more. It'd be almost like playing a new game. Anyone who has the ability should look for this game.

-Rance-
 
@ChrisReid: Yes, I remember that. - The Emu is for the Mac version, but I've got the 3DO version :(

@criticalmass:
Thx. But i'm searching for a Joystick, not a gamepad - gamepads are quite easy to get via ebay as well ;)
 
THE_WUQKED said:
@ChrisReid: Yes, I remember that. - The Emu is for the Mac version, but I've got the 3DO version

@criticalmass:
Thx. But i'm searching for a Joystick, not a gamepad - gamepads are quite easy to get via ebay as well
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Chris is entitled to whack me on the head, but I'll answer anyway:
FreeDO 1.6.x does have problems running SWC - no key mappings are available, so the game will boot & start, but you can't run it. Supposedly (according to the FreeDO forum), FreeDO 1.4 was able to run SWC fine under certain circumstances (high-end hardware mostly). Since I already sold my SWC 3DO copy after some frustration with 1.6.2, I can't prove that (and yes, I'm biting my knuckles for that).

Joystick: There were some strange MAME-type ones from Japan, and a version of the Flightstick Pro if I remember, but you're right, those would be hard to get.
 
I know the FreeDo 1.6.x bugs - I tried it myself. But if the info about FreeDo 1.4 is right, I'll try to find it and try it out with it :D (My 3.2Ghz should be good enough, if not, I'll OC some more ;) )
EDIT: 1.4 is even more buggy for me. - voices stuck in intro, can't select/ change any controller, but better gfx. :( I have also tried out freedo 1.7, runs SWC just like 1.6 (=no controller, bad gfx both in Window and full-screen)

Joysticks: Yes, that are the ones I was talking about. - Never saw any of them for sale :(
 
Thanks Capt. Johnny! I had never seen videos of the game before! But why are they in 16X9 format?

ChrisReid said:
If you're gonna skip it just because you don't like how they talk, you certainly are missing quite a lot.
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It does sound like the majority of the voice actors did't really care about the game & just read their lines without intonation, soulless really.
But any speech is always better preferable to having to ready the lines yourself.

Question : Did they force Origin employees to be voice actors & were they even paid for it ? :D
 
One of the problems regarding intonation is that they adhered to Wing Commander's modular speech - so each line is independant and can be played in different orders depending on how you flew the previous mission.
 
FlashFire82 said:
I have a question - if someone say... didn't have a mac... what would be the most economical way to obtain and play this game?
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Getting a Mac OS emulator for Windows and buy SWC for Mac is one option - another is to run VMWare with a MacOS install and do it that way. It's less expensive than a few hundred dollars for a Mac, at any rate.

Or find a used 3D0 on eBay or somewhere, buy that and SWC, and enjoy it on disks.
 
I don't think circa-1993 Macs cost a few hundred dollars... or that SWC comes on disks... or that there's a zero in 3DO.
 
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