If you're loving Wing Commander II, then you owe it to yourself to make the leap to the greatest fan project ever developed--Wing Commander: Standoff. Standoff is a loving tribute to Wing Commander II built on Wing Commander Prophecy's incredible Vision Engine. The look and feel of the classic game has been recreated... and they even have a cameo from one of the original voice actors!
I want to second this. I'm not one of the game developers, just a big fan. The game is awesome. It's as good as the official Wing Commander games (and, in my opinion, better than some of them).
A word of warning, though...it is also harder than any of the official games. Success at Standoff will require excellent flying skills, superb gunnery, carefully implemented strategy, good tactics, and sometimes, a little luck. It all comes with a little practice, though. Stick with it though, and the experience will become a lot of fun.
Also, the events in Standoff are based on the Wing Commander novel Fleet Action. Both playing Standoff and reading Fleet Action will greatly enhance enjoyment of the other. (I played Standoff first, and then read Fleet Action, and it was great, but most people would probably recommend doing it in the other order).
The strange part of Standoff is the missions are easier the first time you play them, I did a third run-through over the summer and holy crap I died a lot! Especially that mission with the Kilrathi destroyer and carrier you have to take down.
It's pretty rare to find a player who doesn't think they're intended to win every mission though. But I see what you mean from a Fleet Action perspective.
The order of Standoff/Fleet Action is an interesting one. I played the first four episodes, then read FA, then played the fifth episode. The big thing that Standoff does different is in Episode 5, though - the game doesn't reveal the main part of the Terran plan to not all die horribly until much later than the book does. I'd actually be pretty interested in hearing how the Standoff-first people reacted to that.
edit: Oh, one comment to make about the advisability of playing Standoff: If you don't play Standoff (and make it as far as Episode 3 or use the simulator), you won't have flown the Standoff version of the F-44G Rapier II. And that's something that nobody who loves space shooters should miss out on. I think the only starfighters I've had as much fun with would have been the shielded TIE Interceptors in X-Wing vs TIE Fighter: Balance of Power
It's pretty rare to find a player who doesn't think they're intended to win every mission though. But I see what you mean from a Fleet Action perspective.
The order of Standoff/Fleet Action is an interesting one. I played the first four episodes, then read FA, then played the fifth episode. The big thing that Standoff does different is in Episode 5, though - the game doesn't reveal the main part of the Terran plan to not all die horribly until much later than the book does. I'd actually be pretty interested in hearing how the Standoff-first people reacted to that.
I played all of Standoff before reading Fleet Action. So the end of Fleet Action was a little bit spoiled, but not too bad. I actually like the Stanodff reveal of the "big surprise" better than the novel's reveal. In STandoff, you just keep hearing that the commanders have something "totally insane" up their sleeves, but you don't find out what it is till you help it happen (on the winning path, at least; you never even find out about it on the losing path). And somehow, in standoff
actually seeing the civilians die to help protect you is way more poignant than just reading it in Fleet Action
.
Of course, Fleet Action fleshes out a lot of the characters a lot more than Standoff could, so it was really cool, after playing Standoff, to read the book and see just what was really going on with those cruisers at the end of the Ep 5 losing path, and why it is you run into the FRLS ships and how cool that is.
edit: Oh, one comment to make about the advisability of playing Standoff: If you don't play Standoff (and make it as far as Episode 3 or use the simulator), you won't have flown the Standoff version of the F-44G Rapier II. And that's something that nobody who loves space shooters should miss out on. I think the only starfighters I've had as much fun with would have been the shielded TIE Interceptors in X-Wing vs TIE Fighter: Balance of Power
Totally agree. The Standoff version of the F-44G is an amazing craft to fly. And best of all, it's perfectly balanced. We've all flown super fighters--TIE Defenders, and F-107 Lances, and F44-A Rapiers in the Vega Sector, etc. But in many cases, they're so overpowered that they take a lot of fun out of the game. The Standoff Rapier was fun to fly, and had almost no "gripes" (the only *slight* gripe I ever had with it was it could have used a few more missiles, for some of those insanely large STandoff battles), but it was certainly mortal. Having it made the missions possible, but not easy. Which is to say the game designers got the gameplay balance perfect with that ship.
Well, almost. I seem to remember them complaining that it was a little too good of a ship for their AI...in the mission where the
techs are flying rapiers and you have to escort them, the techs can actually get a few kills, because their ships are so good.
A few months ago i started playing the WC games again ( 1-5). Then i tried standoff this week and i must say it was a great journey!!! I enjoyed every minute of it, though i found some missions pretty hard but that's a good thing.
I want to thank the entire standoff crew for this experience! Thanks guys for giving me another WC game to play!
Next stop will be unknown enemy and wc saga when it's finished
It is winnable, but we didn't expect players to.
but that's a good thing.