Classic Origin Series Revived, Note Lack of Exclamation Point (September 29, 2010)

I'm a huge fan of the series, especially USAF, and Fighters Anthology. I'm actually saddened to hear the way that this is all going... Janes would never make up a fictitious land where we have a conflict that's for sure. But I'm sure it will be a pretty cool game. At least they're reviving the game series.

Well hopefully it has more realism than HAWX.

The fictitious country part sounds quite lame. Its like they are combing a Middle Eastern country with Korea.

What surprises me is that this fictional conflict is explicitly being fought over oil, against what appears to be the popular leadership of this war-torn country. Like if we combined propping up the hopelessly corrupt and unpopular South Vietnamese government with our disastrous war to secure oil rights in Iraq.

I wonder if we'll get to play as the communists or whatever the popular guys are.

16 mission story? For real? And let's see, if it's authentic and you get what, like 8 missiles per mission, that's like six minutes of combat game play per mission? An hour and a half of gameplay? How do they think they can pitch a war with that complex of a back story into just 16 missions?

Terrible, I'll stick with Falcon 4.0, thanks.

This just puts the epic ness of Wing Commander into perspective though - how many missions are there averaged between all the games? I'm going to have to go look. There is simply a huge amount of material available there.

On second thought now that I see it's a super lamo company reviving it. I will probably NOT be a purchaser

It is such a pity that there aren't any good flight sims anymore.

I still play Falcon 4.0, LockOn, IL2 and that's it. All of those games are several years old now. Nothing beats Falcon's realism, but only one plane makes it a bit boring after a while, and the graphics are... not that good. I would love a mix between Falcon 4.0 and LockOn.

What I "need":
- Realistic Cockpit with all the instruments clickable
- Realistic radar and weapon modes
- Halfway realistic communication (like in Falcon)
- At least three or four different planes to fly, and I'm not speaking of four versions of the same one.
- Aerial refueling (even better if there are different ways)
- Carrier landing
- Halfway descent graphics (i.e. LockOn's graphics or better)
- Mission editor

The only game in development that has all those things is "Jet Thunder". But I fear the scenario will suck. Not that I don't like the falklands scenario, it is something that wasn't used very much yet and that is good, but that landscape down there is rather boring and I don't want to fight mostly over endless oceans. I like to fly low over pretty mountains and rivers and towns and stuff.

I hope that game won't suck. But I fear it will.... I was very disappointed when HAWX was released. That wasn't a simulation, but an arcade game. Arcade games are great (if you like them), but HAWX was more like WC-Arena than like Falcon. I want it the other way round.

Hardcore flight sims are a dead genre, there's no mass market appeal for them anymore. TBH I don't think there was much of a market for them originally either. People were just happy to get their hands on anything with vehicles. Ever since vehicles got into FPS games the market for simulators has basically died. Games companies have moved on into the mass market chasing $100 million dollar titles. The only flight games still going have carved out their niche.

The X series for example have made their market by reselling the same game with better graphics year after year. It's like EA hiring a bunch of artists full time to keep making privateer 1 over and over with better graphics (except X gameplay sucks compared to privateer). The only area I've seen decent progress in flight games has been open source with stuff like flight gear. Or commercial sims aimed at military/gov/training (X-plane). Combat flight simulators have basically died. Most people willing to put time in to learn how to play/get joysticks etc are already pilots/want to be pilots.

The other big problem with the space/flight genre is lack of tools. Noone can edit levels in these games easily. Prophecy has what 5 projects? and those took people years to learn how to program/reverse engineer. Freespace 2 keeps going because it had a level editor similar in complexity to a quake editor and the tools for ships finally came out about 3 years after the game was released. Freelancer because it has text files/privateer online style gameplay. The closed source engines are all aging out of existance. Who wants to edit a game that looks crap compared to other stuff on the market? Vegastrike, Gemini Gold, and all the other free spaceflight games I've come across are dying for similar reasons. Modders don't want to edit games without graphical tools, without manpower these projects don't get the art people want to play with, don't pull developers and they die.

Looks like another classic gaming brand being trampled into the dirt The demo video looked just like HAWX but with less action.

The dearth of good jetfighter simulations is perhaps a reflection of the changing face of global conflict today. Asymmetrical warfare on the ground marginalises the role of fast jets in real life, leaving the game designer with little choice to base their scenarios on. Having said that, it doesn't explain the lack of good helicopter sims as their role should still be very prominent...

On one hand it's a shame that the series will probably not get its well deserved successor. On the other hand it's a shame that EA is selling this brand without taking care that it stays in good hands...

This sucks. I have fond memories of Longbow, F-15, ATF, F/A-18 and WW2 Fighters. It really blows to see such a great series the thrown away like this.

So is this the 'Project Redlime' we heard about a year or so ago maybe?

I reckon it bodes well for the Wing Commander community - anything close to the genre has got to be good. Will be interesting to see if it does well in retail.

Oh, I see - my mistake. I thought that EA was still holding the Janes license.