News Collection: On This Day in WC News

2023.078 (March 19, 2023)

New Artistic Rendering Gives Map a Vintage Look

Klavs has produced a new take on the venerable Wing Commander Movie universe map. About a year ago, he made an electrified version that really pops, and now he's got another novel recreation that looks like it was sketched on old paper. Both are based in the wonderful 275 megapixel corrected image photographed by LOAF and Thomas Hennessy and straightened by Jetlag. You can imagine this as some kind of Pilgrim artifact or even in-universe artistic interpretation.

2022.078 (March 19, 2022)

Star Wars Audio Boosted by Wing Commander Source Material

Enough time has passed that I think we can finally share this spoiler content in the news. A recent episode of The Book of Boba Fett features an AI-enhanced CGI-esque Mark Hamill along with similarly artificial spoken lines. Respeecher was the company involved with doing the voices, and Klavs has nifty WC tie-in anecdote to share. He had the opportunity to work with them in the past, and he made sure the team was aware of Hamill's Wing Commander performances to power their machine learning engine.

2021.078 (March 19, 2021)

XBox Game Pass Finally Gets Access to EA Play While WC Games Removed from Play Service

Electronic Arts and Microsoft have announced that Xbox Game Pass (PC and Ultimate) members finally have access to the EA Play catalog on PC. We reported last year that this would include the five Wing Commander games on the service, however, it appears that they've been removed from the EA Play subscription as part of yesterday's big update. The screenshots below show what the WC pages looked like before and after the removal. It was also announced last year that EA's Origin storefront would be going away, but that transition is still in progress and the Origin-branded store portal still carries the WC games for $4.

2020.079 (March 19, 2020)

Sega CD Speech Being Added to PC Wing Commander!

Destro has taken the wraps off an absolutely fantastic mod to add the voiceovers from the Sega CD version of Wing Commander back into the original! Lots of fans have talked about doing such a thing over the years, but it's simply mind blowing to see it in action here. If you're impatient, jump to the 2:00 mark to hear the speech in action. This isn't intended to just be a voice-enabled video of the game (that project already exists), rather, Destro is working on creating a patch that supplements the game to make this work as you play.

2019.078 (March 19, 2019)

Prepare for Intense Space Combat... Also Book Club

Episode 5 of All Wings Considered is less than two days away! This will be the team's most challenging episode to date as they take on the Special Operations 1 Finale. NINE Gothris escorting a Fralthra! LOAF is the ace pilot that beat Kurasawa 2 live on the air in his first try, so if anyone can do it, he can!

2018.078 (March 19, 2018)

Kilrathi Fleet Gets Large Scale LLOD Upgrades

A couple of monster models have made their way into the Last Line of Defense project. Using some newly discovered information, Deathsnake has scaled up his fearsome Rigakh cruiser. Fairly credible stats imply it's even larger than the Confederation class dreadnought! The Vega Sector Star Post design has also been added.

2017.078 (March 19, 2017)

BREAKING NEWS: Game Cover Kickstarter Re-Launches

How do you save the Ralari? You just keep trying! In exactly that spirit, SNES Wing Commander cover artist Mike Winterbauer has re-launched his Kickstarter project. Mr.

2016.079 (March 19, 2016)

High Poly Swap Project Turns to Prophecy

Having recently wrapped up the high resolution treatment for Secret Ops era ships, DefianceIndustries has now shifted his focus to increasing the poly count of Prophecy's fighter craft. The Vampire needs more work before it's ready to fly, but it's already looking much closer to the high resolution model from Prophecy's promotional art!I rescaled the RCS pods on the fuselage to get it closer to the high-res model and finished adding greebles to the hull and engine pods. I also made some tweaks (long overdue I might add) to Dark Sentinel's awesome F-110 Wasp model.

2015.078 (March 19, 2015)

WC4 Homeworld Mod Remastered!

The WC4 Mod for Homeworld has now been fully relaunched! L.I.F.

2014.078 (March 19, 2014)

Hellcat V Hull Plating Takes Shape

Whiplash's wooden Hellcat model has taken a big step forward in the realism department. The airframe shape was already spot on, but the texture so far has been a flat gray. Just like with a digital 3D model, adding small details like panel lines adds significantly to the polished feel of a ship. He used a printout of the game model to carefully etch in hull plates, access doors and recessed sections to produce the latest look.

Wing Commander Album Inches Closer to Target

The live orchestra Wing Commander Kickstarter project continues to get closer and closer to the magical $35,000 threshold. What's been especially striking about the last day is that more than $1,000 has been added by existing backers upgrading their pledges today. George has refined his 'stretch goals' explanation in order to make every dollar more worthwhile. Adding 15 more minutes of live orchestration if the campaign reaches $47,000 is still the plan, but if the total is somewhere between $35K and $47K, George will try to negotiate as much musician time as possible.

2013.078 (March 19, 2013)

Lengthy Chris Roberts Audio Interview Covers Wide Range of Topics

Space Game Junkie has posted an extensive audio interview with Chris Roberts. During the nearly one and a half hours of discussion the group cover various topics ranging from Chris' earliest games to his time in the movie industry and onto Star Citizen and Squadron 42.The interview is well worth any Wingnut's time. Some of the highlights include some insights into the earliest concepts for Wing Commander (then called Squadron).

2012.079 (March 19, 2012)

WC4 CD to DVD Patch Upgrades Movies

While the world waits and wonders what GOG will do after releasing WC3, there's something current owners of WC4 can do to jazz up their game. Fans with the CD version of The Price of Freedom can take advantage of an awesome patch (700 k exe) that allows both DOS and Windows editions to play the special DVD version's high quality movies. Popsicle Pete perfected the execution of this upgrade based on technology originally developed by gulikoza. It's easy to install, and all the files you need are the patch and VOB video download packs below.

2011.078 (March 19, 2011)

Privateer 2 Savegame Editor Updated

Lin Kuei Ominae has released a new version of his Privateer 2 savegame editor. The latest version adds a number of new features as you can see below. Download the latest version of the savegame editor here.Lin Kuei also outlined what he sees in store for future versions of the editor mentioning that he's also working on a Privateer 2 File browser/manager that will be included in the savegame editor.

2010.078 (March 19, 2010)

Help Translate the Tome of Sivar

WCX was inspired by the Standoff Easter Egg to attempt a translation of the Tome of Sivar. Although Prophecy provides a paraphrase of its own, it's no surprise that the glyphs depicted produce something wacky. WCX has also found some weird variations and differences between what's actually carved in stone and what's in Origin's decoder key. What do you think?

2009.078 (March 19, 2009)

DOSBox Walkthrough: Remapping Joystick Buttons

Right now, DOSBox is the most popular solution for running classic Wing Commander games on modern hardware and operating systems. The PC emulator speed limits Wing Commander 1, allows Privateer and Armada to execute in Windows and adds support for USB joysticks and gamepads to the older games, among other things. The system will automatically assign functions such as main guns to one of the buttons on your controller, but it's also possible to customize this layout. Forums member Catnip has posted instructions for remapping functions such as afterburner or missile launch: Yes, you could use an external program such as Xpadder or Pinnacle Game Profiler.

Making the Game: Mission E4b

E4b is the losing alternative to the T'lan Meth 4a strike -- a sad mission, in comparison. Whoever wrote these mission notes, though, sure loved using 'hose' as a verb; I count eight uses...These updates are thanks to John "Captain Johnny" Guentzel, who provided several CD image archives of material used by the Wing Commander Prophecy development team!

2008.079 (March 19, 2008)

Wingnuts Tactically Retreat

Crius.net pilots evacuate to the Corsair System this week while they regroup and conduct some under cover recon in Dralthis recovered from the Ras Nik'hra. The Tiger's Claw has also taken on some new pilots - Jazz and Doomsday just joined the crew. WC fans are planning to complete the Secret Missions 2 together this month and move on to Wing Commander 2 in April.

Learn The Moves Of A True Master

At the CIC we still get lots of questions about Wing Commander Arena, and one of the more common ones is how to get the tricky Ring Game achievement - Hot Dog. The Ring Game is activated by the blue tabs around the perimeter of the Firekkan bearpit station. There are different games on each side that are mirror images of each other. Navigating the rings seems nearly impossible at first, but it can be easy once you get a hang of the aerobatic fighter maneuvers.

2007.078 (March 19, 2007)

Our Own Tooner

NinjaLA has begun work in earnest on a very impressive project: a Wing Commander comic! The art is very impressive -- it looks as though it were straight out of the original Claw Marks manual. So far he's published seven full pages -- and more are expected soon.

Over the Radar

Howard Day has posted a set of renders showing off the radar options in his upcoming Wing Commander Pioneer project. He gives the order as: Sentry S, Sentry SJ, Sentry Aura, IRIS MK.1, IRIS MK.2, IRIS MK.

2006.078 (March 19, 2006)

Sosa's Sad Story Makes A Stellar Video

It's been a while since AD's last music video, but this one was worth the wait. The story begins with Catscratch's funeral in Wing Commander 4. Subsequent scenes flash back to his relationship with Sosa and then the ensuing sorrow after his death. Voices and sound effects from the original movies are balanced well "In the Round" by the Cardigans.

WC Saga Continues Pre-release Grind

There hasn't been much news about WC Saga's actual project status lately, so Starman has provided some details on what the team's been up to this year. The Prologue demo length, story/script flow and in-game video sequences have been the main focus of attention. Hopefully we'll see more specifics soon.We’ve completed two more simulator missions that will be released as part of the prologue release package.

2005.078 (March 19, 2005)

Get Your Tickets Booked

It seems like flights are really cheap right now, making this the perfect time to book for Dragon*Con. Several of us already have tickets, which is a couple of months earlier than usual for us but I was able to save about $400 on my tickets alone. In case you've forgotten, Dragon*Con is "America's largest, multi-media, popular arts convention—focusing on science fiction and fantasy, gaming, comics, literature, art, music, and film", and is where we hold our annual Wing Commander get-together. We've also been able to meet various WC celebrities each year.

Kuiper? LOAF Just Mer Her!

Antman and team have been working on a new space sim project. They are attempting to recreate elements of the original space sim Allegiance with a greater emphasis on capital ships. Allegiance was almost an mmo game, and Kuiper will also support large numbers of multiplayer ships. You can find more pictures and gameplay videos here.

2004.079 (March 19, 2004)

R-Type III Launches for the GBA

The famous side-scrolling shooter R-Type III has been released for the Game Boy Advance in the US. This is the first game developed by Raylight since they made Prophecy Advance last year. I wasn't much into the R-Type games when they were new, so I'll be excited to pick this one up later today. It's great simple fun.

EA Closing Earth & Beyond

This didn't come as a huge surprise, but Electronic Arts has announced that it will be shutting down Earth and Beyond this fall. E&B began as a Westwood Studios massively multiplayer space sim in the late 1990s. It was further along in development in 2000, so EA chose to cancel Privateer Online to avoid having two similar massively multiplayer games launching together. With Westwood shut down and Origin closing next month, the remnants of both developers will be in California at the central EA headquarters.

2002.078 (March 19, 2002)

WCA Art 20: Holo Tank

This is just like the other holo-tank art posted a few months back... with one key difference! It's on instead of off! God, I'm such a geek for owning this...

There's a Vampire Where?!

In the absence of any real news (how often does CNN admit that?) here's a list I made up of Wing Commander references at PNRFilms.com. If you find any others, e-mail me here.

2001.078 (March 19, 2001)

Space Combat 2000

WC Fan has updated the Prophecy executable, allowing it to be run in Windows 2000. Quite an accomplishment -- you can download it here -- unzip into your Prophecy directory.

Trivia 3 Week 21

If this week's trivia were a day in 2681, it'd be the day Kevin at TCIA sent Paladin a copy of Top Secret Report on Unidentified Military Threat #TGIA!Welcome to Game Three, Week Twenty-One Trivia. We play each week. Every Monday two main questions and one bonus question are posted to alt.

Fire-Proof

Here's the cover art for Peter Telep's second Night Angel Nine Book, Playing With Fire. The first was pretty good -- like reading ER. You can pre-order a copy at Amazon -- to be released in May.

2000.079 (March 19, 2000)

Wing Commander Classic Feature at Gamespot Again

A number of people have noticed Gamespot is rerunning the old historical feature on Wing Commander that they first released about a year ago. The Trivia game is long since over, but it's a neat feature. You can find the intro here. Here's a picture of the grand prize that Hadrian won last year.

Wing Commander Soundtrack on the Radio

Trashcan let us know that the Wing Commander movie soundtrack is being played at the end of the radio show "De Tijgers van de Zaterdag Avond" (The Tigers of the Saturday Evening) in the Netherlands. It starts at 8:00 pm and ends at 10:00 pm (when the track begins to play). So if you live in Het Gooi, you can hear a little Wing Commander treat on 105.5 FM at 10:00 pm.

Word from the Front

LOAF's getting better at home right now, but it'll be a good week at least before he's somewhat mobile. I'm sure everyone's positive wishes have helped.

Firing Squad Chris Roberts Article

Technically it's a Starlancer preview, but the article begins with lots of talk about Chris Roberts. We don't really knows what he's done for Starlancer, but everyone sure likes to mention he founded the company that's making it. You can find the article here.

Some Mixed Alloy Reviews

ATFW is reporting about two Alloy Gaming reviews for some of DA's games, Starlancer and Freelancer. Various Wing Commander references and the usual hype.You’ll be able to fly in huge areas (space is, by virtue, vast) covered with huge space stations, giant warships (by giant warships, I mean more than a mile long, with your tiny ship relative in size)And, as we all know, that was something Wing Commander Prophecy featured back in 1997.

CIS Bulletin

Hermes CIS are looking for anyone who can offer information concerning the whereabouts of one Neil 'Chipolata' Cook, who is chief suspect in the Deeson Prose murder. He is also implicated in the rape of Aldi Bestwork, and the grotesque torture of Hizza Sistant, who has undergone incredible suffering at the hands of this brutish invidivual. He is a balding individual of medium height, distingueshed by his grating laugh and simian features. One witness has described him as 'resembling a baboon'.

1999.078 (March 19, 1999)

20,000 Dollars

At least thats how much the CIC's very own Chris Reid would have if he had a dollar for every post he has made to alt.games.wing-commander. What's more is this target was reached on Chris' birthday (March 17), so belated happy birthday to Chris "Chris Reid" Reid!

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