Saturn Preview Provides Glimpse At Canceled Product (October 2, 2014)

[ChrisReid]

Andi Green posted this neat French preview for Wing Commander 3 on the Sega Saturn. The Heart of the Tiger was rereleased for 3DO, Playstation, Macintosh and Windows, but the Saturn port never saw the light of day! Nevertheless, it did make it into some magazine previews and advertising. WC4 was also proposed for the system, but never released.

The Sega Saturn provides an exciting platform for bringing Origin Systemsa?? groundbreaking _Wing Commander III_ to the advanced entertainment system market. The Sega Saturna??s built-in texture mapping and impressive 640 x 480 high-resolution graphics provide exceptional video quality and realistic gameplay. In true interactive style, the player controls the intriguing twists and turns of the plot by engaging face-to-face with such legendary actors as Mark Hamill (_Star Wars_ trilogy), Malcolm McDowell (_A Clockwork Orange, Star Trek_) and John Rhys-Davies (_Raiders of the Lost Ark_).

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Original update published on October 2, 2014

 

[-danr-]

That's interesting. Was the game ever ported to Saturn and not released? Or was the idea scrapped before a conversion took place?

If it's the former, it sounds like another lost wonder, like WC2 on the SNES.

EDIT: Just read the CIC section about the ports and how a Saturn version was even put on display at a trade show. Can we deduce that this port is out there somewhere? Given how much different the 3DO version is from PC, it would be interesting to see how the game would have been on that platform.

 

[ChrisReid]

Yeah, in theory there's a playable Saturn demo that exist(ed) in some form, but I don't have the impression it was that far along or that different from the 3DO release. WC2 SNES is especially excruciating because it was 1) a "substantial" upgrade from WC2 (color comms... and a Ferret with two VDUs!) and was 2) totally completed - just canceled before being mass produced.

 

[Bandit LOAF]

This is a pretty exciting scan! There’s a chance it could be the first (and only?) ever screenshot from the Saturn port. It’s NOT the PC version (lower resolution, color VDU) or the PSX version (has a cockpit)… there’s a chance it’s cropped from the 3DO port, but it doesn’t feel like it (colors and screen area aren’t the same.)

Wing Commander III for the Saturn is probably the #2 ‘missing’ Wing Commander game at this point. Unlike Wing Commander II SNES, it wasn’t finished or even close… and it also likely isn’t as interesting a port (this and the PSX port were not done at Origin, but instead by outsource companies arranged by Electronic Arts; both versions tried very hard to emulate the PC game instead of going a different way like the 3DO release). But it WAS announced and demo’d at E3, so there’s a working build somewhere out there!

 

[Darkmage]

The Sega Saturn is a pretty sad tale of how not to market/sell a games console in North America. As both a sega and WC collector I'd definitely be interested in seeing the Saturn port.