WC SNES

Max Gene

Spaceman
So a few weeks ago, I went over to my friend's house and began looking through his giant collection of old games, found during many, many trips to large numbers of garage sales. On my way through I happen to find a copy of WC SNES. He knew full well that when I found that, I'd want to play it, so we popped it into his SNES and I started playing. After a few minutes and a quick look online, I had enough of the controls down to actually start playing.

Now, the question being, how the heck did some of you even get through this game? Precision definitely takes a hit on a system where 4 directions are easily used, and another 4 are possible but slightly more difficult. I can barely even hit the kats on this version, and let's not even speak about the asteroid field, whose difficulty seems to have been jacked up a bit.

Thoughts? Tips? Shared Frustrations?
 
My first run through I just used invincibility, this was on Secret Missions. Oh and my Game Genie helped a lot too.:D
Even with the cheats it took a lot of practice to get the controls down just right, but when I did I was able to adapt my PC tactics.
The biggest problem I kept running into is hailing the carrier and getting clearance to land before I rammed into it. A couple of times I even hit enough times that they went to traitor mode and shot me down.

P.S.
Heres the URL for Gamespots WC SNES cheat page if you want it.
http://www.gamespot.com/snes/sim/wingcommander/hints.html
 
Homing Asteroids that always show up in the center of your crosshair. They always seem to just dash at you when you fly at full throttle. A tip for that is to fly at a slower throttle so the asteroids don't come up as fast. Oddly enough, even if you come to a stop from, say, 1/4th speed, the asteroids will still fly at you as opposed to just being at a dead stop. For every unit of speed you move, the asteroids double that. I believe the same goes for the Kilrathi Mines.
 
Here is a hint from the hanbook to the asteroids, which was also a question in the copy protection of the PC version - I probably had to enter it a thousend times:

250kph is the safest speed in asteroidfields ;)

I always wondered if the SNES graphics or AI is worse as the one on PC (which it was in the case of Doom e.g.), but I never had both games at the same time to compare. Any observations?
 
Traitor mode?! The WC1 I remember had the Colonel pretending that the enemy had Knight shot down, as opposed to me! Homing asteroids?! Where did they get those from?! Yeesh....
 
I always wondered if the SNES graphics or AI is worse as the one on PC (which it was in the case of Doom e.g.), but I never had both games at the same time to compare. Any observations?

It has a smaller color pallette and because of space limitations, some ships graphics have been replaced. It does have some advanced mode-7 rendering however. You can look at the EA Replay stuff for an idea. The Super Nintendo version of WC1 was used for that game.

https://www.wcnews.com/news/update/7489

https://www.wcnews.com/news/update/7481
 
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Until i played KS, as far as I knew, this was how I thought the original was...

Yes I'm an SNES vet. The only thing (And I mean only thing) I liked about this version was the black star field instead of the navy blue one.
 
I think I would've hated the series as a whole if this was my introduction to it. Really makes you appreciate how much they got right in Prophecy Advance, and with fewer buttons...
 
I think I would've hated the series as a whole if this was my introduction to it. Really makes you appreciate how much they got right in Prophecy Advance, and with fewer buttons...



Pffffffft. You weren't 9 years old and playing it. WC SNES IS the reason why I'm here on this website today.
 
I suppose the age difference would help, and if it brought more Wingnuts into the fold, good for it! But having played and replayed WC1 on the PC, I can't stomach it... to each his own, I guess.
 
Pffffffft. You weren't 9 years old and playing it. WC SNES IS the reason why I'm here on this website today.

Well I guess then I'm lucky that I got seasoned on WC3 when I was about 12, thank god... although now that I think about it, that was the watered down PSX version!
 
I found the secret missions cartridge for the SNES better looking than the SNES:Wing commander, probably because the color palette had been optimized. Ofcourse the controls were not as natural-feeling as the PC-game, if you had a joystick.

I had hoped WC2:SNES had shown it's face bynow, but the game appears to be lost.. :(

The GBA-port of Prophecy was not really pleasing for me(I absolutely hated the sound!), and I'd say porting WC1 and adding a multiplayer mode to itwould have been a better experience(Like EA replay on the PSP). Controls ar flyable though
 
I think I would've hated the series as a whole if this was my introduction to it. Really makes you appreciate how much they got right in Prophecy Advance, and with fewer buttons...

Pffffffft. You weren't 9 years old and playing it. WC SNES IS the reason why I'm here on this website today.

It wasn't about age. Wing Commander 1 on the SNES had cutting edge graphics and the most elaborate/engrossing control scheme available at the time. The system and cartridge cost more compared to today's prices, and people were happy to pay for it.
 
Didn't the WC Secret Missions for the SNES have some special takeoff and landing sequences to make use of the SNES's mode 7 capabilities? I think mode 7 was something that allowed games to rotate around an object and show it from different angles and make it look more 3d.
 
Pffffffft. You weren't 9 years old and playing it. WC SNES IS the reason why I'm here on this website today.


I heard that! I remember renting the game from a local video store, along with Sim City and King of the Monsters. Not only did WC get me interested in the space combat genre, but all the games I brought home that day had some lasting impact.

King of the Monsters got me interested in SNK games, and there's not telling how much money I've thrown at the Fatal Fury licence over the years. Sim City is also one of my favorite game series to this day.

In other words, it was a good trip to the store ^_^
 
I cut my teeth on the SNES version...my best friend introduced me to it while I was on leave. Next thing you know, he was leaving for something or other and I was still at his house by myself banging away at the kitties.

I was happy. :)

As for how I controlled the game...well, I hadn't used a joystick since my Commodore 64/Atari games and I didn't have a computer at the time, so the control pad for original NES and SNES were what I was used to.
 
Didn't the WC Secret Missions for the SNES have some special takeoff and landing sequences to make use of the SNES's mode 7 capabilities? I think mode 7 was something that allowed games to rotate around an object and show it from different angles and make it look more 3d.

I know for a fact the takeoff was different in Secret Missions, yeah. The music was the same, but instead of seeing the pilots run down a tunnel to their ships, you instead saw your ship, from the top down, being risen up to the flight deck before launching.

(I'm kind of amazed I still remember that...)

Anyway, I never had much trouble with the control, but I thought that the afterburners being mapped to the "Y" button was a little odd. I also remember there being a trick to the asteroid and mine fields. Goes something like:

Fly into a field, and cruise along until an asteroid appears dead center of your crosshairs. When this happens, pull up and hit your afterburner. You want to pull up about 45 degrees, and fly over the asteroid. As soon as it passes you, another will appear directly where you're looking, again dead center of the screen. This time, fly *downwards* about 45 degrees, and fly under that asteroid. When it passes, *another* will appear in the center of the screen, and to avoid it, pull up 45 degrees again, speed up, and fly over it. A new asteroid will appear every time the old one passes you, and to avoid it, all you have to do is fly in that "wave pattern" menoined above.

Give it a try -- it'll take a minute to figure it out (you *will* die a time or two...) but once you get it down, you've got it forever. I used to clear asteroid fields with my finger on the afterburner the whole time, using this method. No joke :)

Anyhoo, give it a try!
 
This game was my intro the the series as well. And definitely one of my favorite. You forgot to mention the improved sound over the pc version. :) The asteroids probably take some getting use to at first but they are really easy once you get the hang of it. They don't actually track. They simply pop up in your reticle. All the others on the side are fake. as soon as you see one move to a slightly different direction, let it pass and do the same for the next one. Piece of cake. Not like the pc one where you have to watch out for the random asteroid coming at you from the side or above and below. Also the SNES version had the feature of shooting as rapidly as your finger could press the button. There are times I miss that in the pc version. :)
 
You'd need a better rig to get the most out of the PC version, only the-fly-by sound is actually better, and if you had access to a Roland MT-32, or in later years the GUS, you could enjoy the full glory of the music(but then the mass drivers sound like someone hammering a bell, since it uses samples of for that perticular sound)

I have a setup that can playback all versions either through emulators or directly on one system,
My opinion:
WC PC: best musical score(with the right setup), best handling,
WC SNES: Less palette actually made some human faces appaer more colorfull, but i miss two bunks, and the music misses my fav part of the baracks, where the music turns into a marching sound. Using an emulator and joystick on a special setup, the gameplay is actually better!(but halcyon looks really skinny and old?)
WC SegaCD: the music is, way, way different, it is not thesame to me, also the voices, while neatly done, are a bit on the cheezy side.

I'll look into the amiga version next, if i get my hands on it.
 
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