Happy Birthday Wing Commander 2! (September 4, 2016)

ChrisReid

ChrisReid

Super Soaker Collector / Administrator
Wing Commander II: Vengeance of the Kilrathi, shipped to stores 25 years ago today, on September 4, 1991. It followed the original game by less than one year and just five months after fans enjoyed The Secret Missions 2 - a very good time for Wing Commander fans! Amid the flurry of major releases and expansions packs, I'm one of the Wingnuts that actually stumbled into the early games somewhat out of order. Picking a favorite Wing Commander title is excruciating decision, but for me, I always end up back at WC2. It was my first PC Wing Commander, and it represented a certain gaming ideal. The importance of WC1's revolutionary spaceflight engine or the incredible set pieces of WC4 can't be disputed, but WC2 just exuded charm and atmosphere from every seam. WC3's introduction is technically superior on every level, but the Emperor's speech to Prince Thrakhath still gives me goosebumps and can't be topped in my mind. Everything from the Emperor's red eye piece to the sway of Thrakhath's cape is just exquisite. With some presaging from SM2, the intro introduced many of the major characters that would go on to define the series for the next five years.







For their time, the graphics are absolutely stunning, and I can't say enough about the color balance. All of the rich blues and greens with red and yellow highlights contrast wonderfully against the blackness of space. Moreso than just about any game, players can pick up and play Wing Commander 2 from anywhere at any time and feel absolutely immersed. My entire middle school career consisted of coming home each day, clicking "Resume Current Game," and losing countless hours to the Enigma Sector. All of the various people, locations and drama in the story are so memorable. Nobody liked to lose a wingman in WC1, but when they go in WC2, it's especially heart breaking. And for a game titled "vengeance," the sense of vindication players feel after clawing their way back onto the flight roster and then clearing their name just feels great. It's hard to believe 25 years have gone by. Happy Birthday Wing Commander 2!







For those who'd like to celebrate further, we'll be playing through and live streaming the entire game on Saturday, September 17! The action gets going at noon Pacific US time on Twitch. I'll be joining LOAF as he once again displays his stunning pilot skills against the Empire of Kilrah. And check out this awesome Rapier overlay frame by Disco Lando!


September 17th at 12pm PDT. We do this thing, again. Let's play. https://t.co/I4jZ9jefvi pic.twitter.com/ZW3Gxj1S5d— Disco Lando (@discolando) September 5, 2016[/quote]

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Original update published on September 4, 2016
 
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Best game ever.

Of all Wing Commanders it's the one that was able to better balance story and gameplay.

And the story was a game changer for me. Sure it was in 1991, but to see such a story in a game changed me forever. No more games without a story for me since then
 
For me it was a sort of irony: I became a huge fan of Wing Commander once I got my hand on the original Amiga version of WC1 in 92..(I think it was).
I had no gaming friends, PC, Amiga or console, so I had no clue of any sequel until much later.

In late 1995 I stumbled upon a copy of Wing Commander 4 at the local store. Again I had no idea there were sequel(s). I played WC4 on my fathers borrowed Laptop (25 mhz CPU I think) and got my blood up again.

Once I got my own PC in early 1996, (plus about 6 months worth of waiting for reasons not really interesting), I finally got my hands on Wing Commander 3 and thus finally got to know how the Kilrathi story ended.
I made no attempts at getting Wing Commander 2 though, (for whatever reason I do not remember, money maybe).

The first time ever I played Wing Commander 2 was sometime after 1997 and the release (locally) of "Kilrathi Saga".

1997+ I also finally played Wing Commander Armada and Academy. (and of course Prophecy)
 
Chris, you practically wrote my childhood story verbatim in that post! WC2 was my first Wing Commander game as well. It's hard to describe the impact it had on me, but suffice it to say it was one of the most influential games I ever played. Along with Strike Commander, this is what got me hooked on Chris Roberts games.

Happy birthday old friend, and thanks for the memories.
 
I had played WC1 + SM1, but not SM2. The only thing a bit strange was the characters from SM2 that seemed to know themselves and I had no idea where from. Still, it took nothing from it, this is sublime
 
It looks like I'm rather lucky to have played the main series in order, with the exception of SM1 and SM2, which were the hardest titles to find and the last for me to play.

Anyway, happy birthday - I think I've mentioned this before, but I scored Wing Commander 2 on the cheap...I traded £2.50 lunch money and a bag of Doritos for it with some guy at school; I'd played WC1 to death by this time and was absolutely delighted to get some new WC experience. Still a superb game for 25 years young.
 
The age of our favourite series continues to surprise me, as does the dramatic pace of change they displayed. I know I've talked about this before, probably repeatedly, but it's just so incredibly astonishing that WC2 is 25 years old, WC4 is just coming up on 20, while WCP is 19. By video game standards, not only are they all now very old, but more importantly, they're all almost equally old. Yet, when you look at them, the change that took place over the space of less than a decade is mind-boggling.

WC2, for all of its greatness, looks every bit its age, and always will. There is no possibility whatsoever that the game could be upgraded in any way without destroying its soul. By contrast, there is relatively little difference now between WCP and games ten years younger, because of the visual upgrades it has undergone, and the DVD-quality videos.

Sorry to drift away from WC2 a little bit, but as I think about this, it's just so incredibly unfortunate that WC died when it did. All it would have taken, is just one more game in the series. In the same way that WC2 is WC1 with a new, dynamic (and editable!) storytelling system, the next WC game would have been WCP with a new, dynamic (and editable!) storytelling system. In-game rendered characters, with Half-Life-style skeletal animations. Sure, its graphics would have quickly dated, but we'd have upgraded the daylights out of it. It would have been beautiful. But it wasn't. All we can do is look to Freelancer to see what the game would have looked like, and to Standoff to know what we would have done with it.


Ok, now back to your regularly scheduled WC2 nostalgia. Yes, damn it, WC2 is the best Wing Commander game ever (could anybody doubt my opinion in this matter? Isn't Standoff already a love-letter to WC2?). It had a magnificent balance of story and gameplay - neither too much, like WC4, nor too little, like WCP. It had the most enjoyable story in terms of characters and plot - neither the dark seriousness of WC3/4, nor the 90210 feel of WCP. It was neither new, like WC1, nor amnesiac like WC3 - the characters you met were mostly old friends, who really did feel ten years older and more interesting for it. WC4 tried to do a bit of this, but it crashed and burned, because while it brought back characters, it didn't change them - it never felt like Vagabond or Maniac had anything interesting to say about the intervening four years. Even Tolwyn, when you first met him, seemed to have walked straight in from WC3's surrender ceremony. WCP failed in a similar, but different way - there, the return of characters like Maniac, Hawk, Rachel, and Wilford felt utterly gratuitous. Blair felt interesting and fascinating for the change and for the possibility of seeing him from a third-person perspective now. But the others? Maniac was literally a joke - his perfectly unchanged personality, untouched by three decades of war, was a fun joke, but just a joke. Hawk was fascinating, but not for the change from WC4 to WCP, but for the backstory now revealed. Rachel and Wilford weren't even narratively justified, let alone remotely interesting. I suppose you could argue that WC2 was actually the only true sequel in the entire series - every game after WC2 involves some sort of seismic shift in the story (in the case of WC3, a shift brought on not so much by story demands, but by production considerations). Which is ironic, given that the gap between WC1 and WC2 chronologically is the biggest in the series.

Of course, it's not just the greatness of WC2 that moves us. It's also the newness of it - a newness that's long gone, obviously, but still memorable. Who didn't restart the Concordia rescue mission five times over, determined to save Shadow this time? We've become so used to inevitable scripted events in games, and indeed we've come to regard them as bad game design in some ways, that it's easy to forget how dramatic it felt at the time, how astonishing. Here was a game where the story did not stop when a mission begun. The story was actually integrated. The missions could affect it, and were affected by it. So what if it was mostly pre-determined? It was astonishing and innovative.

The other thing I'm always amazed by, when I look to WC2, is its incredible missions. Did you know that WC2 only allowed for half the amount of ships in the air as WC1 did? Seriously, missions had a maximum of 16 ships, compared to WC1's 32. And WC1 managed to use up those 32 ship slots in more than a few missions. WC2 made do with half, and managed to deliver far more exciting and interesting missions (obviously, there were exceptions; some WC1 missions are amazing). It also had fewer fighter types, and made them more unique.

Finally, it has to be said: the characters of WC2 were simply more relatable than any of the other WC games. This is not due to some innate superiority of the character design or writing, but simply because they were cartoons - close enough to photorealism to not feel childish or abstract, but distant enough from photorealism to allow the viewer to project tons of emotions onto the characters. It really did feel like Blair's direction-less stare conveyed more of his personality than Mark Hamill ever could - but that's simply because we provided that personality, and we decided what that direction-less stare meant emotionally. I'd like to imagine that this is what that sequel to WCP (well, to SO) would have been like, with 3D characters circa 2000 necessarily going back to a more stylised look. I'd also like to imagine that, to some slight degree, we accidentally conveyed a little bit of this in Standoff, but I guess we didn't - our faces were modified photos, and probably too photorealistic to allow this sort of emotional projection.

All in all... it's always felt a little bit like there wasn't enough innovation between WC1 and WC2. The two games are as similar to one another as WC3 and WC4. And yet, they are not. Behind the scenes, WC2 shares more with WCP and SO than it does with WC1. As far as sequels go, WC2 must have been like a dream to work on - it didn't desperately try to break new ground, or to overwhelm with production values; instead, it focused on improving delivery and production efficiency, with a slew of innovations hidden behind the scenes. As a game developer, I wish I had more opportunities to work on projects of this nature, and I admire the outcome that the WC2 team produced.
 
Whiplash said:
Chris, you practically wrote my childhood story verbatim in that post! WC2 was my first Wing Commander game as well. It's hard to describe the impact it had on me, but suffice it to say it was one of the most influential games I ever played.
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Glad to hear it connected. One thing I had been thinking about but didn't manage to put into words was the effect of it being pre-internet. Wing Commander 2, for me, was a game I wanted to talk about. It had twists and drama and tons of excitement. So when you stumbled across somebody else in real life who was playing Wing Commander 2, it was awesome to be able to share experiences and compare notes. The other game in the series that evokes a similar feeling in me is Armada, but for obviously different reasons (multiplayer - no null modem, IPX network or dialup for me in 1994, I played split screen on a shared keyboard!).

Quarto said:
As far as sequels go, WC2 must have been like a dream to work on - it didn't desperately try to break new ground, or to overwhelm with production values; instead, it focused on improving delivery and production efficiency, with a slew of innovations hidden behind the scenes. As a game developer, I wish I had more opportunities to work on projects of this nature, and I admire the outcome that the WC2 team produced.
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It must have been incredibly exciting for the small team who was really moving the franchise forward. It wasn't just WC2. You had SM2 setting up and teasing characters like Prince Thrakhath, Ralgha and Admiral Tolwyn. You also had Freedom Flight vastly expanding the scope of the storytelling. Ellen Guon, Stephen Beeman and many others were just on fire. I think there was another similar burst of activity in 1996 when you had the big budget debut of WC4, more novels flying out the door, the TV show arriving on scene, CCG launching, rumors of a movie starting to swirl and so on (all of the activity that got us into the Wing Commander news business...).
 
Still have not finished it :( It is just so goddamn outdated compared to Privateer and others.

I grew up with a Mac and SuperWingCommander, which I adore. WC3/4 where also brilliant there. When I bought my first Windows Gaming PC and reacquired the Wing Commander games, I was shellshocked by the "ugly" comic graphics, the terrible controls and the lack of Voice Acting for WC1 and 2. And, in case of WC3, it was the primitive MIDI-Music, I was used to an Orchestra and then THIS?

I later learned of the Kilrathi Saga Edition and that was bearable and I had fun with WC3 again, but WC1 and 2 are still too outdated for my liking. I guess with the nostalgia goggles missing, I will never finish them. I played both obviously, for game design analysis reasons and stuff... not finishing them though.


Why does no one do a fucking source port of SWC for me ;) so I can play it on a modern system?
 
I love the timing of this. I literally just fried Jazz in his cockpit last night after a full play through of WC2/SO1/SO2. WC2 I think had the best story of the main series. Privateer will always have my heart for gameplay. The characters and drama of WC2 just take it to a whole new level for me. WC2 was the first WC game I got legitimately. Privateer was the second game I got and WC1 I eventually got from Kilrathi Saga instead of off a school PC.

No one does a source port of SWC because the source code probably doesn't exist. A lot of Wing Commander 2's assets are missing from the 3d pack, let alone Super Wing Commander. A complete set of assets and source code might not even exist (not to mention the Apple formats were damn weird, HCL did get into the 3DO files though). Rewriting SWC from scratch is a lot of work, start writing it and someone might join in. The Strike Commander Rewrite has basically stalled though now that Fabian is working professionally at (I think Google?) Coding is time consuming and can be difficult if you don't have the knack for it.

I don't think a remake of WC2 would kill it's soul, but it would need a LOT of work to do it justice. The character animations would be the hardest part. Updating the models/3D art I don't think would be too difficult, but the animated characters.... There's the ultimate challenge. I would want some freaking genius hand animators to redraw it, or better yet get the original artists to draw it. You would have to keep the original cartoon style/colour selections. Anything less would be a crime. Actually that's something I'd like to hear from the community on. If someone was to throw WC1/2/3/SWC/Armada/Privateer era ships into an engine. Would they prefer them drawn as WC1/2 style, or as the more realistic WC3/4/Privateer style? Keep in mind that we have both Privateer and WC2 original art assets available so it would be possible to have perfect colour reproduction for either style.
 
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Like I told chris I just beat this game again like two days ago. It really is a blast to play, and it was a bold choice to destroy the tiger's claw and move the story forward 10 yrs. As far as design goes the Tiger's claw cant be beat, but from a ship that can handle itself the concordia is awesome. I remember one mission where the concordia killed 3 outta 4 fighters lol. You add the in flight cinematic and take off and landing animations and it is in a league of its on to me. Sometimes I wonder if full VO would have hurt the game bc 90 percent of the characters are kind of dickish including blair. I truly do adore this game
 
Privateer was also great. It had a great nameless character too. There were some really funny exchanges. I always imagined moving that character to the main series to replace Blair
 
jpasan said:
Privateer was also great. It had a great nameless character too. There were some really funny exchanges. I always imagined moving that character to the main series to replace Blair
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Going to go a little off topic here, forgive me. Before the Privateer hero had a name (we now know him as Grayson Burrows) I had decided that he represented *me* much better than Bluehair/Blair ever did. The Privateer guy wasn't a conventional hero, he was just an average Joe trying to make a living hauling freight across the galaxy to make a few credits to pay for engine oil for the Tarsus and the odd debaucherous weekend break on Jolson. You know the type, a salt of the Earth spacer - not too keen on InSys and often packing a sly sack of Brilliance in the glove box if he needed the extra cash. Blair on the other hand, although purposefully modest was far too much of a living legend and hero for me to really relate to him.

I remember when Blair first got his name in WC3, I decided he was no longer a 27th century incarnation of myself as the first two games had me believe, he was his own man with his own story. I realised then that Privateer guy much better represented me, very much the plucky sarcastic type and pretty far from heroic; but that suits me just fine.
 
Doing some house cleaning here and remembered I own a LOT of copies of Wing Commander 2. And I kept finding even more manuals after I snapped this picture...

lotsomanuals.jpg
 
ChrisReid said:
Doing some house cleaning here and remembered I own a LOT of copies of Wing Commander 2. And I kept finding even more manuals after I snapped this picture...
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Hehe, and in so doing, you accidentally reminded all of us that actually, there was one aspect of WC2 that unexpectedly sucked (...relatively speaking). With all the glorious things Origin's writing team was doing at the time... with WC1's Claw Marks, with the magnificent Ultima VI, Savage Empire, and Martian Dreams manuals, with the upcoming Freedom Flight... what on earth happened? Man, if there's one question I could ask Ellen Guon, David Ladyman, and the rest of the writing team, that would be it.

Seriously, WC2's manual was pretty good by the day's standards for any company other than Origin. But by Origin standards, it may well have been the single worst manual produced during the first half of the 1990s (in the second half, that crown probably goes to WC4). I got into WC pretty late in the mid-1990s, so I actually do not own the original DOS editions of WC1-3, only the Kilrathi Saga edition. I would utterly love to have the original WC1 manual (and blueprints!) in my collection. Equally, I would love to have WC3's Victory Streak and all that. Heck, Academy and Armada, even though they were small spin-off products, had great manuals. Wing Commander 2 stands out as the only game where the manual is utterly forgettable. In that one aspect, WC2 ended up being the only game that actually ended up improving in the Kilrathi Saga edition. Actually, given the KSaga additions, I imagine it must have bugged the team, too.
 
Darkmage said:
No one does a source port of SWC because the source code probably doesn't exist. A lot of Wing Commander 2's assets are missing from the 3d pack, let alone Super Wing Commander. A complete set of assets and source code might not even exist (not to mention the Apple formats were damn weird, HCL did get into the 3DO files though). Rewriting SWC from scratch is a lot of work, start writing it and someone might join in. The Strike Commander Rewrite has basically stalled though now that Fabian is working professionally at (I think Google?) Coding is time consuming and can be difficult if you don't have the knack for it.
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I know, it was only a rhetorical question. I actually contacted Fabian back in the day and offered to help but Google had already employed him ;-)
 
I started poking in Fabian's code and was able to get the ship viewer to do a few tricks (mainly with rotating the ships). I'd be interested in working on it if someone else could get the file format parts going. I was hoping to make it into a general WC3/4/Armada engine.
 
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