Get Your Privateer Fix Here (February 4, 2017)

ChrisReid

Super Soaker Collector / Administrator
We've got a new poll today that asks about all the shady and interesting people of Wing Commander Privateer. If you haven't visited Gemini in a while, there might be more than you remember! With so much of the series focused on the military side of the war, seeing such a slice of civilian life is especially cool. Who's your favorite?



















We were planning to end our annual new year's poll this weekend, and when we saw the two leading options tie, that seemed like a good opportunity to call it. While both "Great" and "Poor" got the same number of votes, "Good" significantly beat out "Fair." It's encourage to see most fans have a pretty optimistic outlook, and it'll be up to the community to show everyone just how fantastic we can make 2017!

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Original update published on February 4, 2017
 
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Tayla has always been my favorite, especially for the things she says like "You look like your face" or "I don't want to hold your whiny hand." I had no idea she's that popular.

I'm also happy that Sandra Goodin was brought back as Admiral Terrel's successor in "Defiant Few". Shannon Lee Simmons did a fine job in bringing that character to life while sounding almost like her original voice actress from the Gold-Edition of "Privateer".
 
Tayla and Taryn, who both look pretty similar, are the two in the lead now. While thinking up poll topics yesterday, we realized we'd never done this one before and also didn't have a 'head museum' gallery of all the famous Privateer characters. https://www.wcnews.com/news/2005/11/25/head-museum-open-for-visitors Very happy to get all the headshots up in one place like this. It's pretty interesting to compare the subtle differences.

And who knew there'd be so many pay phone in the future?
 
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Tayla was certainly very memorable because she's the first real fixer you get, given what happens to Sandoval. But at the end of the day, I think by far the most memorable part of the game was the Taryn Cross series. You get to actually chart new star systems! (such a pity that they limited this functionality to just a few plot missions. It would have been awesome to have a bunch of other star systems out there that you can chart) Even if this is supposed to be a vote for you favourite fixer rather than your favourite missions, I think it's impossible for the missions not to colour judgement on this. But then again, it has to be admitted - yes, as a teen I enjoyed the innuendo in the Taryn Cross conversations. Thinking about it twenty years later, I guess it still fits those characters, and it's not so bad as to be cringe-worthy (as some of the conversations in Priv 2). But I do find it kind of funny, because it's almost as if the game was trying to compensate for the lack of a romantic subplot by making just about every conversation with female fixers seem like it might be leading into a romantic subplot.

I guess it's yet another one of Privateer's missed opportunities. This was the last Wing Commander game that had a storyline but did not have FMV video (yes, yes, until Secret Ops), and it's a pity they didn't make more use of narrative choices. It would have been so much cheaper to have narrative options, including romance, in Privateer, than in any FMV game. But then again, the few documents we do have on Privateer's development show that quite a few things were cut along the way, presumably not only to improve the game (yes, cuts do often improve things) but also to cut costs.
 
I really liked all of the female fixers in Priv, they seemed more than a match for our hero in terms of wittyness. But being the shallow being that I am, I ended up voting for Sandra Goodin who was cool and all but I also found her to be the most attractive.

From the male fixers, I think I liked Lynch best even though he so full oif cliché.


And who knew there'd be so many pay phone in the future?

:).
 
From the male fixers, I think I liked Lynch best even though he so full oif cliché.
I think that was kind of the point for Lynch. From the moment you start working for him, you're supposed to know that this will end in some sort of betrayal - so all the clichés are there to make sure you're not caught by surprise.
 
I think that was kind of the point for Lynch. From the moment you start working for him, you're supposed to know that this will end in some sort of betrayal - so all the clichés are there to make sure you're not caught by surprise.

I think so too. Yet, this obvious cliché character was more fun than any of the other male fixers. I mean, I somehow liked Masterson but he certainly wasn't very flashy.
 
I think so too. Yet, this obvious cliché character was more fun than any of the other male fixers. I mean, I somehow liked Masterson but he certainly wasn't very flashy.
Well, when you put it this way... it's actually interesting to notice that Masterson was the only other male fixer in Privateer apart from Lynch - since Sandoval, Miggs, Monkhouse and Terrell were really just bit roles, while Monte and the Retro informant only showed up in RF. Against that background, I guess it doesn't mean that much for Lynch to be more fun than the other male fixers :). And Masterson, of course, had his work cut out because hey, just how risqué can a job given by a librarian be?

Another sidenote - looking at these pictures, it's also quite striking how low-key Privateer was in terms of its futurism. It's not just the payphones, or Terrell's bookcase (...or the map of Earth) - look at the clothes! When we first talk to the Retro informant, he points to his own clothes as a give-away of the fact that he's a Retro... but Masterson or Taryn Cross could are also wearing those thick woollen sweaters. In fact, none of these characters would look odd on today's streets... or indeed, they might look a bit, ahem, retro :).
 
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