The First Time Ever I Saw Your Space (October 26, 2010)

[Bandit LOAF]

A long-lost treasure has been restored to the archives: the very earliest Wing Commander III screenshots! These were put out by origin in late May 1994 and they broke some hearts. It was immediately obvious to everyone that Heart of the Tiger was a spectacular leap from Wing Commander II in terms of graphical quality... and system requirements! Take special note of the oddly textured carrier flight deck and the 'triangle' Kilrathi transport. The tringular troopships did not appear in the PC release of Wing Commander III... but they did star in the 3DO version and appear in a famous Wing Commander IV cutscene.

​

--
Original update published on October 26, 2010

 

[TCSTigersClaw]

Yes ! Finally ! thanks LOAF

I scanned and posted these shots from a greek magazine. a couple of years ago,
I coulndt find them anywhere on the net and I wanted to share ,but these are in good quality ,finally!

They are indeed very interesting !


thanks

 

[Bob McDob]

I'm impressed by the amount of detail on that Arrow, especially the glossy sheen. I don't remember Wing Commander III looking that good.

 

[NinjaLA]

am I going to get slapped for saying I like this look better than the *finished* product?

 

[Bandit LOAF]

Back when the game was coming out someone (probably someone we know?) talked about how they wanted to do a nicer 'Pentium only' version after the launch where they wouldn't have to cut back so much to run on 486ses... I wonder if that went anywhere.

 

[HCl]

Hey, more WC3 goodness

I like this set of images a lot, as you can see how detailed the spaceflight models were meant to be. Makes sense the guys at Origin tried to make the game as detailed as possible, but then scaled details down when they couldn't get an acceptable framerate on the 486 (as the Pentium 66Mhz was bloody expensive back then). Interesting to know that a "Pentium-only" version of WC3 was planned!

Also, I like how some of the "lost" Arrow features from Armada (blinking lights on the wingtips, rear and bottom) are visible in these pics.

 

[Bob McDob]

Something similar seems to have happened at LucasArts. When X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter was first being previewed the demo shots that were released looked *amazing*, but then the game came out and the ships didn't look nearly as good. Mostly in the textures - the X-Wing lost a lot of detail, the little scratches and blemishes on the hull.

It makes sense that a prototype done before final optimization should look better than the finished product, but it almost seems strange today; games in general look as good as the previews make them look, maybe even better. I wonder why that is. More scalability?

 

[Bandit LOAF]

It makes sense that a prototype done before final optimization should look better than the finished product, but it almost seems strange today; games in general look as good as the previews make them look, maybe even better. I wonder why that is. More scalability?

Better workflow in general, sure--but game PR today is also a much more professional process that's wary of overpromising. (Also remember that way back when these would have been seen, primarily, as inch-wide boxes in a gaming magazine...)

(Less pioneering, too. Origin and Lucasarts were building and rebuilding their engines from scratch for these games... today they would license Crytek or Unreal or something and know the basic limitations of the engine from the start.)