Wing Commander Movie Night: Aliens

If there's one thing we learned from Highlander it's that there can be only one. No, we actually learned the origin of Paladin's ship's name! More on that in the after action report. But next week's movie is even more of a crowd pleaser: Aliens (1986). So get ready to join the space marines and learn what Wing Commander took away from James Cameron's all time classic. You can join us this Friday via Discord to watch along.

We were first inspired to look at Aliens because of another quote from Chris Roberts' original treatment for the Wing Commander movie. Here he compares his goal to Aliens in a way that frankly makes a lot of sense: they're both movies where the characters are stuck on their own in a terrible situation and drama arises out of how they respond differently to that situation.

"The idea behind this project is to create a film that has the feeling of a tight character-driven rollercoaster ride--e.g., James Cameron's Aliens. The protagonists are placed in a situation in which there is no easy way out, no cavalry to rescue them. They have to rely on each other and their ability to rise above what they think is possible in order to fight their way out.

There's little doubt that Aliens was inspiring the series much earlier, though! Here's a 1991 list of Chris Roberts' favorite action films from an issue of Point of Origin which includes both Highlander and Aliens!

With this in mind, it's pretty clear that the entire character of Dekker the space marine from Wing Commander IV and Prophecy is based on the Colonial Marines from Aliens. We even get a callback to one of Aliens' beloved quotes, "Marines, we are leaving!" in the first mission of Prophecy.

Similarly, Privateer 2 quotes Aliens' famous "game over, man" as the death comm for some of the hireable wingmen. These comms are used for Delphinius, Alopecia Cook, Welpped Iuvenil and Pinet El-Susse. Privateer 2's files also list an NPC ship named SULAKO... but no one has ever found where or if it appears in the game!

There's a nod to Aliens in the Secret Ops passwords, too: the losing version of the first set of passwords is ACHERON, after the moon on which Aliens is set.

Where can I find a copy of the movie for the watch party?

Aliens is currently streaming on Disney+ and Hulu. It is also available for rent or purchase on all the standard services. If you would like a physical copy, the movie was released on UHD in 2024 and remains in print around the world. If you are not able to locate a copy please stop by the Discord and ping a CIC staff member before Friday's showing.

How do we watch the movie together?

It's pretty low tech! Simply join the Wing Commander CIC Discord on Friday and we will be chatting (in text) along with the film in the main channel. Everyone who wants to join in should bring their own copy and we will count down to play them together at 10 PM EST. Everyone is welcome and we encourage you to join in the conversation; sharing your thoughts helps make the experience better for everyone!

Happy CIC Easter!

Be sure to check everywhere for eggs today!

GOG Sale Discounts Wing Commander by 60%

Reminder: #Wingnut Movie Night Tonight!

This is a reminder that we have another fun #Wingnut movie night planned on Discord this evening! The ongoing theme will be movies that inspired Wing Commander in some way. Tonight's film is Highlander (1986) which, according to Chris Roberts, inspired the the original character of Paladin in Wing Commander I. You can find details on that as well as how to watch along with us in the announcement post here. The movie will start about 7 PM PST/10 PM EST but feel free to drop by and hang any time!

After Action Report: Monte Carlo or Bust!

Greetings WingNuts,

The Wing Commander movie club made it to Monte Carlo! And what a strange movie we saw. Monte Carlo or Bust! (aka Those Daring Young Men in their Jaunty Jalopies) is lush and elaborate, carefully plotted and edited… but to our modern audience, the humor was completely inscrutable. It was clear many things were supposed to be jokes (like how action scenes might speed up suddenly) but it all came off as alien. Such is likely the fate of all comedy, which adheres closely to its times… but it was a little funny (pun not intended) to see how absolutely that was the case here.

And this is an extremely short report because there's not much to say about the Wing Commander connection! Chris Roberts said in his original pitch that the Wing Commander movie's climax was "literally Monte Carlo or Bust!" and it seems that all that really means is that there's an elaborate, multi-tiered race moving the film to its conclusion. Here it's literal with cars flying off cliffs and jockeying for first place and in Wing Commander it describes the Tiger's Claw's battle with the Kilrathi as Blair and Angel face the Skipper and then the quasar jump to reach Earth before the Snakeir. We did note that in the original draft being described, Blair and Angel were the decoys to save the Tiger Claw… but that doesn't seem to impact the metaphor here!

This is it ever to movie villains:

Space Cadet Rewind Studies Privateer

There's a great new YouTube video making the rounds this week! Space Cadet Rewind is a channel dedicated to a careful study of classic space sims like Wing Commander and X-Wing and they've now tackled the original Wing Commander Privateer! The review (such as it is!) is very thoughtful and fair and it's very interesting to see how this classic game plays to someone with the benefit of knowing the next few decades of design evolution! The full thing is three hours but it sure doesn't feel that way.

New Starfighter Discovered!

Last night, AD picked up an old magazine and put down an unseen Wing Commander ship design! What he found was a 1999 advertisement for a company called BOXX Technologies which produces high spec computers for the film industry. The premise of the ad is that their computers are the biggest leap for visual effects since they started in 1903 with Georges Méliès's Le Voyage dans la Lune. And their modern example is about how Chris Roberts used their RenderBOXX rendering systems for Wing Commander:

Here's proof: Digital Anvil credits RenderBOXX with saving $2 million on Wing Commander production costs, helping the film land on time and under budget!

That would be an interesting factoid in its own right, but the visuals used to represent this are even more interesting! They show a collection of high tech starfighters blasting out of film frames displaying frames from Le Voyage dans la Lune: literally expressing the hundred year jump to Wing Commander. It looks like the ad was used in a variety of trade publications. With a brief search we located copies in Computer Graphics World (November 1999), American Cinematographer (September 1999) and Broadcast Engineering ("The Journal of Digital Television", July 1999).

But what are the ships? They aren't the Wing Commander movie's Rapiers so the first thought was that they must be generic artwork. That didn't seem quite right, though, because they are distinctly 'Digital Anvil' styled, looking like something right out of StarLancer or Conquest. And then we noticed the credit in the bottom corner: "3D Models created by John Sommer". A little research then revealed that Mr. Sommer was indeed a 3D artist at Digital Anvil credited on StarLancer and others! So are they reused StarLancer assets? They didn't match any particular ship in the game and an even closer look reveals that they have custom textures with the company logo on the top of the fuselage:

Then we realized that John Sommer is actually credited as an artist on Wing Commander… he just didn't come up in a search because he's listed John Paul Sommer! So what we have here is a newly created ship designed by Digital Anvil to represent Wing Commander in one of their partner's advertisements. That's a distant connection but we'll take it: the BOXX fighter is canon!

You Got Ultima in My Wing Commander!

Here's a closer look at Super Wing Commander's awesome cross-series Easter egg. If you leave the game idle in the Tiger's Claw's lounge for enough time it will occasionally trigger an animated figure of Ultima's Avatar who flies by outside the ship. Here's a shot of the game and the sprite sheet used for the Avatar.

The Avatar's 3D animation is from the ending cutscene to Ultima VII Part 2: Serpent Isle. There we see them flying through space to restore the balance between Order and Chaos. Then he is grabbed by an enorous red hand. This is the setup for the next game in the series which begins with the hand flinging him to the world of Pagan.

Wing Commander Movie Night: Highlander

The Wing Commander movie club hit the finish line with Monte Carlo or Bust!, although the Wing Commander connection remains pretty broad! More on that Friday when we'll be watching a completely different sort of movie: Highlander (1986). Highlander is a fantasy adventure film that has attained cult classic status and spawned a long-running IP with sequels, TV shows and other media. It tells the story of nigh immortal Scottish warriors battling across the ages–so you can expect plenty of swords and brogues! You can join us this Friday via Discord to watch along.

What's the Wing Commander connection? In Starlog's Wing Commander movie magazine, Chris Roberts talks about how Sean Connery's character in Highlander was the inspiration for Paladin's character in the original game. Which should give us a great chance to do the one thing everyone secretly desires: talk about Paladin.

When I was originally doing the game, I always saw Paladin as Sean Connery in gruff Highlander mode. That was always in the game, part of how Paladin came across as a fatherly figure.

Where can I find a copy of the movie for the watch party?

Highlander is currently streaming on Peacock, AMC, Plex and a variety of ad-supported services. The movie is available for download from the Internet Archive. It is also available for rent or purchase on all the standard services. If you would like a physical copy, the movie was released on UHD in 2022 and remains in print around the world. If you are not able to locate a copy please stop by the Discord and ping a CIC staff member before Friday's showing.

How do we watch the movie together?

It's pretty low tech! Simply join the Wing Commander CIC Discord on Friday and we will be chatting (in text) along with the film in the main channel. Everyone who wants to join in should bring their own copy and we will count down to play them together at 10 PM EST. Everyone is welcome and we encourage you to join in the conversation; sharing your thoughts helps make the experience better for everyone!

1992 Chris Roberts Interview

Game Bytes was one of the very first electronic gaming magazines. It was created by Ross Erickson and distributed as an executable through FTP sites, bulletin boards and services like Compuserv. Looking back, it's a particularly raw time capsule of the game industry at the time, an era before professional public relations had quite taken over. And lucky for us, Mr. Erickson conducted a thorough interview with a very young Chris Roberts in 1992. This one is well worth the time for anyone interested in the history of making Wing Commander. It brings you right back to a more romantic era of game making and it's full of fascinating details about the early Wing Commanders... from the origin of the Kilrathi to the nuts and bolts of how the games were programmed to a wild (but still recognizable) plan for Wing Commander III!

An interview with Chris Roberts (6/16/92), Author of the Wing Commander series of PC games

Conducted by David Taylor

For those of you expecting a real interview- you lose. Chris Roberts talks faster than a Kilrathi having a catfit, and I asked the questions in the order that I received them from fans on the Internet so disjointed is a mild way of putting it..

First off, the guy is obscenely successful for his age- 24. His office isn't very large, but it's got what he needs in it- a sofa, miniatures which he collects, and his desk with a 486 on it. Oh, and some serious stereo speakers.

(The following question was enough to keep him going for a healthy 30 minutes. ;)

GB: Where are you from? How'd you learn to program? What was your first game?

CR: I'm from Manchester, England. My father taught sociology at the University of Manchester. I lived there until I was 19. I was always fascinated by the ability to move images on a screen and learned how to program a Pet computer when I was 13. I was writing games to land helicopters on pads at about the age of 13, I think.

Then I got a BBC Microcomputer with 32k RAM, a screen resolution of 320x200 at four colours or 160x200 at 16 colors. It was pretty cool back then! I started to program in BASIC on that. Then one of my old teachers became the editor of "BBC Microuser," a magazine that supported the users of BBC Microcomputers. Back in those days, all the magazines had a game you could type in in BASIC, so he phoned me up and asked me to write a game. I had been writing text adventures, stuff like that, so I wrote my first game for them called "Kong". You had to throw rocks at helicopters and could climb around on buildings, etc. That was my first program, and I sold it to BBC Microuser for about 100 pounds, so I said, "Oooo- this is cool!" (Will have to digitize that if GB goes multi-media in the future... it's a neat accent but starting to become Americanized). Well, about this time, I was getting dissatisfied with BASIC because I only had 12k of program space to work with, and BASIC was slow. So a friend gave me a game which didn't work, and I fiddled around with it, learned how it worked, and fixed it. I finished this one game, "Wizardor", a side-scrolling game. You're a junior wizard, and your father was killed by an evil dragon in the castle. You jump around platforms gathering spells, magical items, trying to collect three pieces of this sword to kill the dragon with. I sold that to Ocean in 1984. So they gave me money for that, and it was like- "Wow, this is lots of money!" It was like the #1 bestselling game for BBC Microcomputers for about 6 or 7 weeks. Over there, because it's a small country, popular games last about as long on the charts as pop music. After that, I wrote a soccer simulation called "Match Day", and after that "Striker's Run." "Striker's Run" was a side-scrolling game where you have to relay a message from HQ that's too important to transmit, and you were like jumping in helicopters, planes, and grabbing weapons. It was the first game to take advantage of the BBC Microcomputer "Master Series" (which had 128k of bank-switched RAM like the Apple). 12k kinda limited the graphics you could use, but with all this extra memory, I could add bases and landscape.

GB: "So was all this interfering with school at the time?"

CR: I had finished school (our equivalent of high school) after "Striker's Run" and was working on my A-levels to get in college. Over there, you go to college for exactly three years. Over here, you just go until you've taken enough hours. Anyway, I decided to take a year off before going to Manchester University to study Physics to program computer games 'cause I was having fun and making money doing it. Started getting depressed writing for the BBC Micro because only about 500,000 people were using it. Started work on a Commodore 64 game called "Ultra Realm" because there were more of these machines. It was the precursor to "Times of Lore". Wanted it to be like "Gauntlet" but wanted to be able to travel around, talk to people and all that. My father moved to Austin, Texas in 1985 to work at the University of Texas as a professor in sociology. I came across mainly to visit him. And it was like- "Wow, it's nice and sunny and doesn't rain all the time!" So I stayed with my father and started writing games here. So I went to this thing called "Hex World", sort of like a role-playing games convention, and I saw this computer picture of a gladiator on the wall. I said, "Who scanned this in? It looks really cool." The man said, "No one. It was drawn." He gave me Dennis Lubet's name. At the time, he was a freelance artist. I asked him to do the graphics for "Ultra Realm," and he was later hired by Origin Systems (also in Austin) because he'd been doing their box covers for a long time and Richard Garriott wanted to bring him in house. That's where the connection was for Origin. I came in, showed them "Ultra Realm," and I also showed it to Electronic Arts and Broderbund and there was a sort of a bidding war over it. It was a pretty neat game for the C64. I eventually chose Origin because they were in town, I thought everyone that works here was really neat, and they're the nicest most honest people I've met in the industry. About this time, "F19" came out- and it was very cool- but it only ran well on 386's which costed about $15k back then and almost no one had them, but it was the best game out, so no one complained. People don't ask, "What's the best CGA game- they ask what's the *best* game?" That sort of taught me a lesson. The way to do it was to look at a particular hardware base, preferably high-end, and write the best game for it, no holds barred. "Wing Commander" was written on that principal. It used as much VGA, music, and processor power as it could.

GB: "Was 'Wing Commander' the first game to use 3D bitmapped graphics?"

CR: I think "Battlehawks 1942" was the first game to use them back in 1988, I think. We used a similar technique. We were playing with "Sculpt 3D" on an Amiga ray-tracing these space ships, and said, "Woah- looks cool! Wish we could get this in the game!" So we pre-rendered everything.

GB: "How do you scale the bitmaps so fast?"

CR: The scaling was two months of 16-hour days of hell to code. Came up with an algorithm to do rotation approximately without the need for the full mathematical rotation. It came to about 600k of assembly source.

GB: (prepare to totally change gears) "What are your hobbies?"

CR: I like war game miniatures. I'm having a new house built, and I'm going to have a table just for my miniatures, and no one will ever have to clean them up or anything. I painted some of them very carefully, but I don't have time for that anymore, so I have them painted. I need a high level of aesthetics to pull me into a game. My tolerance level for games is very very low unless I can be pulled into it.

GB: "What do you spend your workday doing?"

CR: Well, during the daylight hours, I'm managing. In the evening, I'm coding. I usually show up at about 10:30 or 11 and go home at about 3 or 4 in the morning. It's like working two jobs. When the game's finished, I take it easy. Right now for "Strike Commander", there's 6 other programmers, 3 artists, one technical design assistant (TDA), and one musician. We all talk alot. Spend a lot of time being involved with the creation of new technology and learning everyone's code. My advantage is that I've done everything before, graphics, programming, art, and sound. It's nice to understand how every part slots together. I see way to many people becoming specialists in their own area. That needs to change.

GB: "What programming languages to you use?"

CR: C++ and assembly. "Wing Commander" used C. "Strike Commander" uses C++. Only programming course I'd taken was BASIC way back whenI was 13. So I had to learn C++. Never read any textbooks.

GB: "What do your peers think of your code?"

CR: I think it's alright. I've gotten a lot better since I started learning about, I'd say, a year and a half ago. Nobody in our group documents very well because we're trying to get the code done. We use long variable names and good spacing. Like for example, one variable name is AccelerationG2Gravity. So the code reads like English. I like C++. It's a much more structured language.

GB: "What kind of source code control do you use?"

CR: We use PVCS on a Novell network. We'd be dead without the network right now. We use Borland C++.

GB: "What's the most frustrating part of your job?"

CR: Working in a large group. Smaler groups taking longer would be nice. Nice environment, though. It's nice to be closer to the code, music, and every pixel in the game. LI laid the foundation for "Wing Commander" for 12 months before anyone else got their hands on it. I knew everything that had to be done at that point so it was a lot easier to manage. In "Strike Commander", we had to scrap at least 50-60% of the graphics code because it was done on assumptions that aren't true today.

GB: "What's the most rewarding part of your job?"

CR: By far the coolest part is when you put stuff together and it works and someone comes in and says, "Wow!" I like doing demos, especially if I'm doing something which blows everyone away. Nothing like busting your ass for months and months, you turn up on the show floor after working for 48 hours straight, turn on the computer, and everyone is crowded around looking at something which looks great.

GB: "How did you get the idea for 'Wing Commander'? One person asked if you got the idea from Man Kzin."

CR: No, didn't get it from that, although I can see where he got that idea. I had fun reading about star fighter combat. Instead of big ships, though, I liked the smaller dogfights. I'm a big fan of "Battlestar Gallactica" and "Star Wars". I wanted it to become the equivalent of an F16 fighter but in space- wanted a very military feel to it. And I wanted a more cinematic package, like music which changed with the scene. "Wing Commander" was great because we used all these ideas I'd been kicking around in my head for the past five years. It was one big experiment- that worked. Wanted clearly good guys against bad guys, so I wanted an alien race, but not reptiles or insects. It seemed like everyone was using reptiles and insects. I wanted a warrior-type race similar to the Japanese in World War II, with an honorable bushido-like code. So I tried to link this idea with mammals on earth, mainly dogs and large cats. I liked the idea of big cats.

GB: "Where did you get all the names for the things in 'Wing Commander'?"

CR: Well, I couldn't think of good ones, so I used stupid ones until I could think of something better. Like I knew they were cats so they'd be killing a lot of rats, so Kilrathi. And you know the "Dorkir" class ship? I just used "Dork Here" and these dumb names- you start using them and they tend to stick.

GB: "How do you blit to the screen so fast with the differently shaped canopies?"

CR: We copy a list of line-segments to the transparent parts of the cockpit. We can't double buffer in true MCGA, but you can on SVGA. We're going to take a look at that later.

GB: "Does the PC architecture bug the hell out of you?"

CR: Yes. If we could work in 32bit full addressing in 386 protected mode, would not bitch at all about that. They were planning to put Ultima VIII in protected mode using a DOS extender, but the disk access was to slow. "Strike Commander" will do 32bit computation but not addressing. "Strike" won't be as frantic as "Wing Commander". If you've played "Aces of the Pacific" or "Chuck Yeager's", they're the best flight simulators - most fun to play. There's heavy dog-fighting. So in "Strike" we're going to have fewer missiles which allows neat situations like 2 F16's against 10 Mig 29's. If you're a good dogfighter, you should be able to shoot them down. And the cinematic wraparound will be much nicer. The storyline is interactive so you can control your own destiny.

GB: "Does Origin have an R&D department?"

CR: No. Me, Richard [Garriott], and the programming teams are about it. It'd be nice to have that luxury, but I find you tend to learn new technology by working with it.

GB: "Do you have any programming nightmares to share?"

CR: Well, when we're trying to reach a certain milestone, the whole crew gets infected with a bit of craziness. When people pull 48-hour stints. One time, we were all working a 48-hour stint on "Strike" and "Ultima VII" before Christmas, and there were 30 people working here at 4:30am on a Monday morning. So we took a picture of all of us holding a clock so you could see what time it was. My brother has a big ol' Cadillac, so about 10 of us would pile in and head for Magnolia Cafe sometimes. Also, some of the musicians made a rap song about life at Origin once.

GB: "To what extent is AI used?"

CR: "We're using more and more AI. It's all moving towards neural nets, but that won't be until much much later. One thing in "Strike" is we want to have it learn from you. AI will become more and more important later one. We can't take the technology of drawing the graphics much further. We need to work harder on different stories. The "Strike" engine will be used for "Wing Commander III" which will be the end of the Kilrathi War, by the way. And there will be more interaction outside of the dogfights. "Wing Commander II" was more like 'you're the stunt double which watches the actor play your role when you get back to the ship from dogfighting.' This time, you'll be in command of a squadron and can make tactical decisions. You can define your own character. For instance, if a rookie screws up, you can bitch him out, give him a pep talk, or tell him about when you screwed up as a rookie. There won't be any a., b., and c. selections, though. You'll be able to control the facial expressions of your character.

GB: "Do you get a lot of fan mail?"

CR: Yeah, but I don't have time to write back, but we're using a lot of things people have suggested this time.

GB: "How does one get into a career like yours?"

CR: Start on an IBM. Get Borland or Turbo C, something with an easy IDE (Interactive Development Environment). Get a book on C and write a simple game like Pacman or something. Get fancier later- add your own graphics primatives, get Dpaint and create your own graphics. Nothing impresses us more than submitting a game that you've written with your along with your resume. It's something you can't get at school. Definitely teach yourself C, C++. Maybe take some courses. I'd bet that most architects would make good programmers because you do all the small pieces and still keep the big picture in mind.

GB: "How do artists get in the game industry?"

CR: Lots of artists we hire have had no computer experience. But you might want to get familiar with it using something like "Animator Pro" for example. And send the computer art as well as the normal art you've done.

GB: "What are the worst bottlenecks for your games?"

CR: Definitely the video card because of the slow bus.I can only get 40 full frames per second ona 486/33 using an Orchid II Pro card on an EISA bus. Blitting is 40% of the game, drawing triangles is the next biggest part.

GB: "Will your game(s) be able to take advantage of a local video bus?"

CR: We don't use them in development, but yeah.

GB: "Are you abandoning the 286?"

CR: Yeah, our games will be for 386's or higher from now on. We need the speed.

GB: "Are you looking forward to the 586?"

CR: It'll be a faster 486. I just like it when Intel rolls back the prices on their 386's.

GB: "Will CD ROM's be used in future games?"

CR: The full speech and score for "Strike Commander" will be on CD shortly after the initial release.

GB: "Are you ever going to port your games to Macs?"

CR: No way. They cost a lot to port. No one around here will tell you they're a stupid architecture or anything. If there were 10 million Macs out there, we would be more than happy to write games for it. The Mac market is not very game oriented at all. And people do a lot of pirating on them, too. Every time we've sold a game on the Mac, we've lost money.

GB: "Will there by a way to network machines so that someone else can manually control the wingman?"

CR: We will do that in house for testing the AI, but that would need a lot of testing, and we won't put it in the released version. We may have an expansion disk later to do that. The system is very object oriented, so it's easy to do that.

GB: "How do you debug a game like this?"

CR: The only way is to break it into smaller modules. Our biggest problem is that Turbo Debugger 386 doesn't work with EMS. TD 286 uses DOS memory (which we desparately need). Turbo Debugger is a real life-saver so we'll be working on that.

GB: "What would you say are the most innovative games outside of Origin?"

CR: I'd say Dynamix is really good. "Aces of the Pacific" and "Red Baron" are really good simulators. I also have a lot of respect for Lucasfilm. Virtual reality will be fun. We're waiting for a VR headset.

GB: "What do you see in the next 10 years?"

CR: 3D games are coming around. Virtual reality. CD ROM's will be useful for somethings but their slowness makes them good for mainly just mass storage.

GB: "What does a 'Creative Director' do?"
CR: I maintain the story integrity for the "Wing Commander" series, the technology integrity. I do that for projects based on intellectual property of mine.

GB: "Have you considered having a female player?"

CR: I have wanted that, but the problem is that there's a lot of artwork associated with the main character. To have two characters doubles the amount of artwork for the game. When 92-96% of your players are male and you have to do twice as much work, that's just not a reasonable thing to support. It's a male character for economic reasons. Unfortunately...


With that, we ended this high-speed interview. I left, and he moved right onto the next order of business. For all the games they play, those people seem pretty busy. Sufferin' hairbals- I forgot to ask how much he pulls down a year. Oh well...

Big thanks to the many questions submitted by the following Internetters (arranged in the order that I received questions):

Mark LoSacco
Adam Pletcher
Ross Erickson
Rob Johnson
Kevin Lucas Lord
Amit Patel
Adrian Esdaile
Jason O'Rourke
David Yip
Richard Park
Ryan Bayne
Ted Ward
Jim Luchford
Matthew Wigdahl

These interviews wouldn't be half as fun without your questions, guys! Thanks!

Slava Ukraini!

The ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War is one of the darkest current events in a time that offers no shortage of such things. Escaping into fiction, however, we will find that Wing Commander's lore offers us some good news: the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv still exists in the 27th Century… at least until 2668! Today we're taking a quick look at the surprising numbers of times Wing Commander references the city. Kyiv was founded over 1,500 years ago and today is one of the largest cities in Europe. Since 1991 it has been the capital of an independent Ukraine. Note that the modern spelling of the city name, Kyiv, has only become standard in English in the past five years. When Wing Commander was being developed, the Soviet-era "Kiev" was still the common spelling. Our editorial standard is to use the current spelling for anything newly written and to retain the old one only for quotations.

Kyiv was first mentioned in Wing Commander II by way of a well-worn science fiction trope: human place names that are intended to mirror specific, familiar cultures on Earth. In this case, it's the "Novaya Kiev" star system which was intended to imply that the area had been settled by space-faring Soviets (Wing Commander II shipped three months before the dissolution of the Soviet Union!). The correct name today would be Noviy Kyiv, although our language advisor also notes that it should've been male-gendered "Novvy Kiev" in 1991. The series occurs directly after the final Ghorah Khar missions where you and Hobbes defend Olympus Station. If you win that battle, the Kilrathi retreat and you chase them; if you lose it, they withdraw after destroying the station and the Concordia follows. You fly four missions with Doomsday in Broadswords in either scenario; the winning version has more strikes (including a rare attack on a listening post/supply depot) while the losing one sticks you with escort and patrol missions. Both takes end with a jump to the Talbot System to rendezvous with a courier. Additionally, in the 'reassigned' losing endgame, a damaged TCS Agincourt returns to Gwynedd and informs Blair that the Concordia was lost as the Kilrathi invaded the system. Note that the winning version must be the canon take as Olympus appears intact in Special Operations 1.

The 1991 Wing Commander licensing bible includes a system description which has some fascinating information that never made it into the canon: the system is uninhabited and is intended to become a warhead test site. Note that it doesn't totally square with what we see in the game as at one point it's mentioned that the Concordia's escort, the William Tell, has broken off to defend the system. (The "3 million klicks" is also wrong prima facie; that would be much, much closer to the sun than Earth! This error appears throughout the bible systems for Wing Commander II which were likely sourced from some WC2 development doc.)

NOVAYA KIEV

3 million klicks from Sol. Planet count: 32 (none inhabitable)

Major uses: Former Kilrathi territory that is expected to become a military warhead test station.

The original Kyiv shows up in the novel Wing Commander Fleet Action where we learn that it's one of the primary control centers for Earth's European space defenses in 2668. Unfortunately, that makes it the target of a Kilrathi antimatter strike that devastates cities across North America, Europe and North Africa.

Down in the Earth's atmosphere Doomsday could see pinpoint winks of light as point defense systems fought to knock down the incoming wave of more than a hundred missiles. And then there was a flash of light over the center of the North American continent. It looked like Chicago going up, followed seconds later by a dozen more: Pittsburg, Boston, Miami, Quebec, then across in Northern Europe: Amsterdam, Berlin, Stockholm, Constantinople and Paris. Other flashes detonated over the primary control centers for Earth's American and European space defenses at Omaha, Rio, Tripoli, and Kiev.

But there's one more reference! In the conclusion of the Wing Commander IV novel, Maniac learns that he is to be assigned as wing commander to a light carrier named the TCS Kyiv:

Maniac scanned the sheets. "Command school . . . The Kiev . . ." He looked up. "I'm getting a carrier?"

"A light carrier, actually," Taggart replied. "You'll have the task of policing the border." Blair grinned knowingly at Maniac's beatific smile. Marshall had finally gotten his coveted independent command.

Reminder: #Wingnut Movie Night Tonight!

This is a reminder that we have another fun #Wingnut movie night planned on Discord this evening! The ongoing theme will be movies that inspired Wing Commander in some way. Tonight's film is Monte Carlo or Bust! (1969) which, according to Chris Roberts, inspired the climactic battle at the end of the Wing Commander movie. You can find details on that as well as how to watch along with us in the announcement post here. The movie will start about 7 PM PST/10 PM EST but feel free to drop by and hang any time!

After Action Report: Battlestar Galactica

Greetings WingNuts,

The Wing Commander movie club has returned from the Twelve Colonies and we're here to report that Battlestar Galactica remains fairly impressive! It can't hold up to Star Wars in terms of narrative or world building but boy do those special effects come close. It's obvious that it's a TV pilot turned into a movie but everything is still pretty satisfying… although we probably spend a little bit too much time on the casino planet.

And Battlestar Galactica's reputation as a major source of inspiration for the early Wing Commander games is well deserved. From Ferrets and Dralthi to Hunter and the Tiger's Claw, it's all in there to some degree or another. We'll start with the takeoff scene that Denis Loubet has noted as an inspiration for the one in the original Wing Commander. We've got both the red-tinted 'closing the cockpit' scene and a launch tube that shoots the Viper out of the car…battlestar. The forward angle in the tube is also pretty close to the version seen in Super Wing Commander!

Landings are also very similar to those in the original Wing Commander and a couple of the later games. The fighters land in a bay to the rear of the ship rather than the same place they took off. In Wing Commander I that bay is front and center but it moves around in other designs in later games; Armada's Lexington (and the Super Wing Commander's Tiger's Claw) has recovery on the sides of the ship and Prophecy's Midway has the same traffic pattern as Galactica with two rear-facing recovery bays!

The pilot uniforms look pretty familiar, too–brown outer shirts with tan underneath is a close match for the original game.

And Hunter surely acquired his cigar habit from Starbuck, who is seen with one throughout the movie. Wing Commander even stole his name–the Japanese MegaCD port of Wing Commander I uses it as your default callsign to cover the necessary audio recording (the US version uses "Hotshot").

Even the silver-armored Kilrathi from Wing Commander I are a pretty close match for the Cylons.

... and the blue-tinted cockpit shots have a very similar vibe to Wing Commander's greenscale comm messages!

Now let's look at the ships! The dogfights are all straight out of Wing Commander and all of the interiors are very familiar. Here are some of the Viper interiors:

Wing Commander II's Ferret is another clear nod to Battlestar's Vipers:

And the fearsome Cylon Raiders are just Dralthi with a little chunk taken out of the front!

Galactica's warbook looks like a pretty close match for Joan's Fighting Spacecraft… with a pretty familiar style of VDU art!

We even get one sequence (repeated multiple times) that must have been the basis for WIng Commander I's opening 'chase shot' of Dralthi flying towards the camera as they break formation.

As noted above, the Tiger's Claw is functionally similar to the Battlestars.

One sequence that's repeated is a Cylon Raider 'strafing' a Battlestar. Super Wing Commander adapts this pretty closely for the first midgame which shows Kilrathi fighters attacking a carrier (the confusingly named TCS Exeter).

The Confederation starbase in Wing Commander II heavily references the Cylon basestars.

And you can even see the functionality of the Drayman/Diligent in the external cargo boxes on the famous Colonial movers ship!

Finally, Grandpa Mac's old Tarsus bears a striking resemblance to the colonial shuttle seen several times in the film,

WCPedia Takes up the Gauntlet

Do you remember Wing Commander Armada's Gauntlet mode? We do! It was essentially a 'Wing Commander lite' included with Armada that let you (and optionally a second player) battle through one of two fifteen mission campaigns. Instead of cutscenes or dialogue, the story is presented as text-based mission briefings aboard the TCS Lexington or the KIS Shiraak… but it's still packed with lore and there are some pretty interesting engagements that most players never had a chance to explore! Here are two favorites: a Kilrathi mission where you fight a renegade Admiral and a Confederation mission where you escort home a pair of new bombers in an Arrow:

Human Confederation campaign

• Mission 1
• Mission 2
• Mission 3
• Mission 4
• Mission 5
• Mission 6
• Mission 7
• Mission 8
• Mission 9
• Mission 10
• Mission 11
• Mission 12
• Mission 13
• Mission 14
• Mission 15
• Transfer Mission

Empire of Kilrah campaign

• Mission 1
• Mission 2
• Mission 3
• Mission 4
• Mission 5
• Mission 6
• Mission 7
• Mission 8
• Mission 9
• Mission 10
• Mission 11
• Mission 12
• Mission 13
• Mission 14
• Mission 15
• Transfer Mission

One interesting thing we learned while taking a close look at the system is that it's actually impossible to beat the leaderboard! By our calculations, the highest score you can achieve in the Kilrathi campaign (which has more opponents) is 4,305… well short of the 5,000 you'd need to beat "Litespeed"! There ain't no justice. Also: all six wingmen are named after the game's developers! You can find out which is which at the links below:

• Damon
• Foster
• LiteSpeed
• quarters
• Danthrax
• Kar-Pak

Zero Pilots Given

The SNES port of Wing Commander II isn't the only Origin game that was essentially finished but unreleased. Here are two advertisements I recently noticed while working on another project: published advertisements for Pacific Strike CD (1994) and Bioforge Plus (1995). These were both 'budget' projects that were far in development when Electronic Arts decided to reorganize Origin's projects. Some material from Bioforge Plus has leaked over the years, including the completed 'gauntlet' feature. I wonder if the unreleased Pacific Strike audio or the extra missions are out there somewhere…

... but one thing Pacific Strike-related that IS out there is its largely undocumented Japanese sequel/remake. In 1998, Sony published a game in Japan called Zero Pilot which according to its packaging is credited to Origin Systems. Huh?! That's right, Zero Pilot is a licensed sequel to Pacific Strike that updates it to be from the Japanese point of view. Instead of fighting through the real World War II, you instead have a fictionalized version along the lines of Ace Combat… and given the fact that the RealSpace engine was ported to the PlayStation for two Wing Commander games, it's possible this game actually uses Origin's technology, too.

Zero Pilot: Ginyoku No Senshi (1998)
ゼロパイロット・ 銀翼の戦士
Zero Pilot: Fighter of Silver Wing
Marionette / Soliton
4 948872 100496

Like Wing Commander III PSX, there's also a published guide for the game! We haven't located a copy yet but they seem to be available cheaply in Japan. The ISBN is 4-7669-2941-1.

Over the next ten years, Zero Pilot got four sequels! Three were for the PlayStation 2 using the RenderWare engine and the last release was for the PlayStation Portable in 2008. None of these games credit Origin Systems in their legal information so whatever deal the series had about Pacific Strike must not be related… but it's pretty satisfying to see that Origin technically had a series of spinoff games that ran into the 2000s!

Zero Pilot: Kokū no Kiseki (2003)
ゼロパイロット・孤空の奇蹟
Zero Pilot: Miracle of the Solitary Sky
Opera House / SAMMY
4 991694 000789

Victory Wings: Zero Pilot Series (2004)
Opera House / SAMMY
4 991694 000970

Zero Pilot: Rei (2006)
ゼロパイロット・零
Zero Pilot: Zero
Opera House / SAMMY
Includes bonus Discovery Channel DVD
4 997766 200606

Zero Pilot: Daisanji Sekai Taisen 1946 (2008)
ゼロパイロット・第三次世界大戦 1946
Zero Pilot: World War II 1946
Marionette / Global A
4 542082 000494

Collectors should also note that there's some cool Zero Pilot merchandise out there. The first game had a poster as a preorder bonus and the second two actually had toy planes that were made as part of the Japanese 'Wing Club' series! One is an A6M Zero and the other is a Supermarine Spitfire.

New Wing Commander CDs/Vinyl Submitted for Production

Greetings all. Just to let you know all the media for production of both the CD's and vinyl are submitted and are in the process of being produced. The CD's should arrive at my home in about 10 days. The vinyl will take a bit longer. In the mean time I'm going to make both the artwork and audio files for the vinyl available to you for download very soon. That way you can use the artwork with your own playlists and listen to the tracks in sequence without stopping with only a second in between tracks.

Stay tuned. That will happen very soon!

George

Wing Commander Movie Night: Monte Carlo or Bust

We've got an unusual one this week: the 1969 comedy Monte Carlo or Bust! (aka Those Daring Young Men in their Jaunty Jalopies). Monte Carlo or Bust! is the sequel to the 1965 film Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines. It's a comedy racing movie set in the 1920s at the Monte Carlo Rally which stars Tony Curtis; it seems to be generally well regarded but no one on the team has seen it! You can join us this Friday via Discord to watch along.

The Wing Commander connection is equally mysterious and something we're going to have to explore as we watch. The quote that added it to our roster is from Chris Roberts' original treatment for the Wing Commander movie. Here he describes the film's climax–which seems to have become the 'broadside' scene–as being "literally Monte Carlo or Bust". Can we figure out what that means when we watch the movie?

As the Tiger's Claw slips behind a nearby planet, a plan is formulated to distract the Kilrathi flagship with an all out suicide-run by the fighters. Then the Confed carrier will maneuver into position for a full broadside firing solution. The Tiger's Claw only has enough power and ammunition for one pass. It's literally 'Monte Carlo or bust' ...

Where can I find a copy of the movie for the watch party?

Monte Carlo or Bust! is available for download from the Internet Archive. It is also available for rent or purchase on all the standard services. Note that it is called "Those Daring Young Men in their Jaunty Jalopies" in some regions. If you would like a physical copy, the movie was released on BluRay in 2011 and remains in print around the world. It is currently available as part of a double feature with Houdini, another Tony Curtis film. If you are not able to locate a copy please stop by the Discord and ping a CIC staff member before Friday's showing.

How do we watch the movie together?

It's pretty low tech! Simply join the Wing Commander CIC Discord on Friday and we will be chatting (in text) along with the film in the main channel. Everyone who wants to join in should bring their own copy and we will count down to play them together at 10 PM EST. Everyone is welcome and we encourage you to join in the conversation; sharing your thoughts helps make the experience better for everyone!

New Fan Made Privateer Environments Available to Experiment With

Feel free to use any of model however you want to

• Hangar
• Commodity Exchange, Commodities and Flight Sim Pod
• Planetary Habitats

Reminder: #Wingnut Cartoon Party TODAY!

This is a reminder that we have another fun #Wingnut event happening on Discord this morning! Join us at noon EST/9 AM PST for a fun filled morning of cartoons... specifically, the infamous "Warrior King" crossover that tied together Street Fighter, Savage Dragon, Mortal Kombat: Defenders of the Realm and Wing Commander Academy. How did it happen? Why did it happen? You'll learn that and more as we run the cycle together... so get ready to see just how dedicated the Warrior King is to his precious Orb! You can find details on that as well as how to watch along with us in the announcement post here. Be sure to download the episodes so they're ready to play with the group!

Reminder: #Wingnut Movie Night Tonight!

This is a reminder that we have another fun #Wingnut movie night planned on Discord this evening! The ongoing theme will be movies that inspired Wing Commander in some way. Tonight's film is Battlestar Galactica (1978) which inspired… a LOT of the first two Wing Commander games. You can find details on that as well as how to watch along with us in the announcement post here. The movie will start about 7 PM PST/10 PM EST but feel free to drop by and hang any time!

After Action Report: The Last Starfighter

Greetings WingNuts,

The Wing Commander movie club is back from Rylos and we're happy to report that it's still pretty nice! The Last Starfighter is a movie that deserves its cult classic status and if anything a modern viewing finds a more balanced and enjoyable film than it once seemed. It's easy to say that all of the cuts back to the robot duplicate on Earth are getting in the way of what you want to see… but in reality they did a pretty good job of making you appreciate the space action. A movie that's all fighter pilots shooting things wouldn't have come together like this!

For the Wing Commander connections, we have to start with the Gunstar which obviously inspired Glen Johnson's design of the Raptor. The recent 4k restoration of Last Starfighter is stunning and it is full of incredibly clear shots of the computer generated Gunstar. We've picked a few favorites here and have included an appendix of others for future reference at the end of the update!

Here's a sample of Raptor art from the original Wing Commander, from the initial concept diagrams to the blueprints and then the computer generated in-game sprite and hand painted side view. The Raptor is a fighter rarely seen in Wing Commander beyond the original game and a couple of cameos in Fleet Action and False Colors. We've got an update detailing the entire history coming up soon, so stay tuned!

It's here that we meet an old friend: Ron Cobb! We've already seen Cobb's work on Alien which Wing Commander has mined multiple times and we've seen his unused work for the Wing Commander movie. Cobb did an extensive amount of work on The Last Starfighter, including developing the Gunstars themselves. Here's some of his process on that ship from his website… imagine seeing these sorts of revisions for his Wing Commander art!

The movie's EPK included a great segment showing how the CG in the movie worked which includes a look at Cobb's development of the Gunstar from sketch to model:

The inside of the Gunstar should be familiar to Wing Commander fans, too! Just compare Alex's UI to the one in the Wing Commander movie… or even the famous hand on the joystick, prevalent in both!

And here's the famous death blossom, the last ditch attack that has the Gunstar firing lasers and missiles in every direction. Wing Commander references this with the Raptor's unique minelayer which drops an explosive behind the ship!

Ron Cobb also designed the movie's other big vehicle, the tonally distinct Starcar. And guess what: the Starcar stops by New Detroit in Privateer, complete with the same takeoff animation!

Wing Commander is also clearly saluting the most distinct aspect of The Last Starfighter with the Squadron TrainSim. Look at the similar cabinet art!

Cobb even designed the helmets which it looks like Super Wing Commander in particular referenced!

... and the logo worn on the helmet and shoulder (and seen on the sides of the Gunstars) is a pretty close match for the Origin Jump Point Terran Confederation sigil!

Briefings often look similar although this one designed by Cobb certainly reminds us of the Concordia in Wing Commander III…

... but the lineup of pilots has a connection to Wing Commander III: in both cases once you've noticed that they're just standing in front of a lineup of ordinary desk chairs you can't unsee it!

The launch tube, which was actually inspired by Battlestar Galactica in Wing Commander, is pretty similar.

... and the reverse angle is right out of Super Wing Commander's version! Or vice versa.

The enemy minefield is similar to the mines seen in the early Wing Commanders. And visually close to the ones created by Alan Gutierrez for the Wing Commander TCTG!

Finally, there's the font itself. The Last Starfighter game is decorated with STOP, a sci-fi looking font first created in 1970. STOP was also the basis for Wing Commander's original distinct logo!

Gunstar Annex

Keep in mind that these renderings are a lot more detail than the Wing Commander I artists would've had in 1990! At best they might have had a copy of the photobook or the blueprints included in one of the FASA guides. A blurry home video capture wouldn't have looked like these!

Things That Go Bump in the USA Action Extreme Team

We've added something to the archive that we once tried to forget! When we started preserving Wing Commander Academy way back in 1997 using RealMedia encodings one of the first things we did was cut out all the commercials… and the 'bumpers' that advertised the show. These are the commercials that ran in between segments of the show letting you know it was coming up, starting, going in and out of commercials and so on. They're peak 1990s goofy, mixing Academy clips with children in crazy outfits and things like basketballs. But while they seemed cringeworthy once upon a time now they're a pretty fascinating part of history. One especially interesting thing, though, is that they use the original 2D logo for the show that was dropped (inset)!

We've collected nine so far and expect to find more as more old VHS tapes are digiized and published online. Our 'holy grails' are the show's original teaser (showing the logo on a starfield) and two 'making of' featurettes that would occasionally run during other shows in the Action Extreme Team lineup. Someday! You can find the entire collection to date with transcripts and other notes on the WCPedia here.

Bock Intro

Up Next

Show Intro

Commercial A Intro

Commercial A Outro

Commercial B Intro

Commercial B Outro

Show Outro

Lineup Commercial

GOG Updates Classics (Slightly)

The team at GOG recently announced that Wing Commander I & II and Privateer 2 would be joining their GOG Preservation Program. Now they've issued updated versions of both releases which gives us a look at what this actually means!

The answer seems to be 'not a lot, but not nothing'. The patch notes are reprinted below. All of the "verified" and "validated" items just mean they checked to see if the game still loads, so those aren't particularly interesting (or even accurate in the case of Privateer 2, which suffers from a crippling slowdown issues in space). But there are a couple of gems in here, including the addition of the French version of Privateer 2 the re-enabling of Wing Commander I's transfer utilities and Wing Commander II's installer options.

Privateer 2: The Darkening:

Added French localization.
Validated stability.
Verified compatibility with Windows 10 and 11.
Verified Cloud Saves support.

Wing Commander I:

Added a DOSBox menu option to transfer pilot data to Secret Missions 1 and 2, enriching the campaign experience.
Made DOSBox config adjustments to improve overall performance.
Validated stability.
Verified compatibility with Windows 10 and 11.
Verified Cloud Saves support.

Wing Commander II: Vengeance of the Kilrathi

Introduced a DOSBox menu option for in-game sound and graphical configuration. Adjusted conventional memory size based on community suggestions for better system performance.
Validated stability.
Verified compatibility with Windows 10 and 11.
Verified Cloud Saves support.

Originator Updated and Updated… and Updated!

Version 0.3.07 (2025-03-28)

• Improved XTRE support (WC3/4); 1hash-clash name tables are processed properly now.
• Privateer 2 palette logic improved. Hopefully all palettes are now resolving properly.
• Strike Commander palette logic improved (midgame cutscenes still require further work).
• Many improvements to IFF parser, handling even more edge cases and weird quirks in various games.
• Numerous other bugfixes.

Version 0.3.07a (2025-03-30)

• Fixed a couple of things for Wing Commander Armada; a few incorrect palettes and STARS.SHP being incorrectly detected as an OriginFX container.
• Fixed a silly mistake in the OriginFX detection heuristic; I'm hoping this hasn't had any knock-on effects, let me know!

Version 0.3.07b (2025-03-31)

• Added support EU region 3DO images, and added support for 3DO images stored in ISO format with full 2536-byte sectors - this made a JP region dump I had readable. Tested with SWC EU/JP and WC3 FR.
• Changing the default names of disc image files for games with multiple CDs was broken; now fixed.