What I'd like to announce is that in some spare time that I am stealing from my everyday life (work, family, etc...), I have started to build a game that recreates Wing Commander I as a 2D top down shoot 'em up game (I loved ASCII sector) but with sprites, animations, opengl particles etc.

When hopefully this project is finished, it must fulfil the following goals:

a. Exact recreation of the Wing Commander I. Same ships, guns, missions, characters, story, dialogues, music even colours.
b. Top down 2D gameplay, with animations, physics, lights, particles.
c. Multiplatform support. Windows, Linux and Debians and Mac OS (mobile phones and pads will be considered in the future).
d. Multiplayer support and 2 player support on the same PC. With VS mode in the simulator and cooperative mode in the main campaign.

A space pilot (Freddie Prinze Jr.) with an encoded message, his sidekick (Matthew Lillard) and their superior (Saffron Burrows) fight attacking aliens.

Texas is an epicenter for the computer and video game industry. It has the second-largest concentration of game companies in the U.S., with more than 155 development and publishing companies throughout the state providing around 4,000 full-time jobs, according to the Texas Film Commission in the Office of the Governor.

The academy will be industry driven – instead of a graduate degree, students will earn a post-baccalaureate certificate, which offers fewer restrictions than a traditional academic degree and will enable the program to remain relevant and responsive to industry trends.

"The Denius-Sams Gaming Academy will create the most-intense program of its kind, in which aspiring professionals enlist in an all-in adventure, rather than complete mere credit hours," said Roderick P. Hart, dean of the College of Communication. "The program will prepare students to become creative team leaders who will drive the creation of games in the future, and ensure the vitality of the gaming industry."

We also caught the series finale of The Office on Thursday night and assembled all 18 ingredients from Michael Scott's Pretzel Day super pretzel to celebrate. And we even got some good old fashion Texas shootin' in! Last, but not least, we were at the premiere of Star Trek Into Darkness Wednesday night. Check out this link and like the photo to help LOAF win a Star Trek prize pack!

Do you feel like it's the time to spread your wings? Strike Commander is an action-oriented modern-day jet fighter combat simulation from the creators of Wing Commander, for only $5.99.

Blair put the eight of us in line astern formation.

Single file, with one Sabre behind and slightly below the next, the carrier could only hit the leading ship, and the rest of us would be protected from the defensive fire while we went for torpedo lock.

The tactic would guarantee that most of us would make it to torpedo launch. It was inspired, except that Blair forgot about his own skin, like always. The leader of the formation would be absorb the brunt of the Kilrathi point defense, sparing the other ships, but sacrificing himself.

Not to be out done in the suicidal bravery department, I firewalled the throttle and broke formation. Couldn't let him have all the glory, could I?

Cuhna squalled at me, but quickly shut up as I bored in on the carrier. Dry launching everything I had, I threw it into a 960° slew/spin, firing intermittently at the carrier while we corkscrewed along its length. I heard wretching over the ICS, but I also felt the 'whump' from the turret as Cuhna also fired at the carrier whenever it flashed into view.

Good girl.

My torpedoes didn't have a chance at penetrating the carrier's shields without a lock, but the Kilrathi were concentrating on us anyway, throwing up everything they had to take us out. Hopefully, it was buying the others a smoother ride.

As I spun over the bow of the ship a flight of Jalkehi flashed past, launched forthwith to put an end to our monkeyshines. Blair would be close to launch now, but I had to keep the fighters off the strike team while they gained a lock.

I charged into the Jalkehi formation, fighting them for what seemed like hours. All the while Cuhna whumped away with her little turret. At some point, I noticed the whumping had stopped.

Then the sky lit up like a second sun.

-Maniac

The Wing Commander FPS project would have been built on the then-modern Quake engine and pitted Terran Confederation marines against space pirates and Kilrathi warriors in the Border Worlds. The plan was for it to stand out in the FPS market (and connect back to the initial IP) by featuring a more elaborate AI “wingman.” A very basic demo was done in-house by the Maverick Team (largely a reskinning of Quake, with some level design.) While the project was ultimately not funded by Electronic Arts, the multiplayer was enjoyed for some time in-house by the team!

Check out the pitch video here:

There are two reasons for the Sprite-based ship rendering in the game. The first is a desire to emulate the original Wing Commander games. In other words, straight-up nostalgia. The second is that it actually gives many advantages over normal 3d-polygons and textures: You can display as many ships as you'd ever want, You don't need LODs, You can very cheaply show complex lighting, glows, and shadows on every ship, They don't take much more memory than a normal set of textures and model ( the Copperhead 3d model would be 15MB in memory if it was a full 3d model, it's just 2 more at 17mb as a sprite set), The ships will look the same on every systems, and best of all, they feel like the ships from Wing Commander. I should be clear - the choice to do things this way was mine - the progammer agreed, as he also liked the way things looked when done as sprites. As AD noted - we're also doing modern multi-light source lighting on all the sprites. It's super neat to see a ship explode and light up all the floating junk in the scene that you'd just seen floating by the cockpit. It's very cool.

The team has a video up that first shows off some rendered models and then switches to actual combat action around the 1:45 mark. If you have the Unity webplayer plugin, you can play the alpha right in your browser for free.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a Hellcat!

I decided to get right to the point and glue the wings to the fuselage. I could maybe have spent more time on shaping the details, but I'm at the stage where it is important to get a feel for the overall "look" of the model. I have a habit of sanding and polishing for days on end before I'm satisfied.. :) You need a bit of obsessive compulsiveness to be a good modeller.

Lots of work still to do, but the effort has been well worth it. I'm happy to say that thus far, it has turned out even better than I expected. I hope you'll agree!

Can it possibly be a mere coincidence that one the henchmen of Iron Man 3's villain is named J. Taggart? The name first shows up on a pair of dogtags as Tony Stark examines them in a lab and again reappears later in the film as Tony examines the man's military file.

The video below starts off using standard Sound Blaster music and switches to Roland MT-32 around 4:26. The difference is huge. More pre-recorded audio samples are available on YouTube. We have compiled a short list here.

The Dralthi swings in low behind us.

Coasting without power, Agatha is dying. The Kilrathi pumps round after round into us. Mass drivers again penetrate the cabin. Harris and Burke are further distributed about the cockpit. Red orbs cloud my faceplate, but to wipe them away would blind me completely.

The Dralthi must have run down his gun charge, for presently he drifts alongside us to admire his handiwork. He is close, but still prudently above the firing arc of the poweless portside turret.

Soon, his guns have recharged and he slides aft to finish us off. Agatha staggers again and again. Tears of frustration and anger shut my eyes.

Agatha's little world tears to shreds around me. She is dying. I will not leave her to die alone.

I had no idea I could yell so loudly. The scream of white-hot rage reverberates inside my helmet, deafening.

It stops.

Again, the bat wings have appeared on our left side.

He is very close. I can see his eyes.

-Excerpt from 'Broadsword Agatha'

The unfortunate thing is, this game was just not well designed for the flightstick pro. They still make you mess with multiple button combinations, which is actually harder than the standard 3do pad since the buttons are spread out even farther on the flight stick. They don't even bother to take a real advantage of the throttle wheel or the hat switch. And the analog stick itself doesn't offer much benefit as the movement is very stiff and two dimensional.

The game just seem overly designed for the regular 3do dpad, the auto aim they give you with the regular pad is also a big help. Kinda interesting to play but could be better.

Wing Commander 3 fares a bit better on this stick but not by much. Once again you still have to rely on ridiculous button combinations that were just much easier on the regular 3do pad with all the buttons close together.

Either way, hope you enjoy the vid.

As mentioned last time, I started construction on the wings this week. Here are a few pics detailing the process.

First I cut out the section flush with the fuselage. I then fit a horizontal section in the shape of the wing profile to give me a flat reference plane to build on. Previously I simply built the entire wing as a hollow box shape, but I think this approach will be easier and give better accuracy.

I cut out the hollows where the wing-mounted engine exhaust nozzles will be fitted later on. Next come the vertical stabilizers on the wingtips. You would think I would leave them for last, and only fit them once the rest of the wing is complete, but they actually help me determine the attatchment points for the final shape of the wing. As you can see here, I can now attach the wing surface directly to the top of the wingtip for a nice even finish.

There's some internal bracing to ensure the wings' surfaces don't flex too much. Balsa wood is very soft, after all. I glued all the external surface covers in place, and started the process of shaping them to the final finished look. You can see the wing engine ports quite nicely now.

Things are moving along nicely! Next time, there may just be something resembling a Hellcat to show you.

The Ferrets were great fun for joyriding, fast, light, and a kick in the ass to fly. Literally.

See, the designers saved every inch of space in that ship for power systems, engines and sensors. The pilot was nearly an afterthought, so there was less margin for the accelleration absorbers. The Ferret had more of what us pilot types called 'feel'. Especially when you went to afterburner.

-Maniac

• 2 Original Controller Ports for Each Platform (6 Total)
• Includes 1 Wireless Bluetooth Controller
• 5 Cartridge Ports for NES, SNES, Genesis, GBA and Famicom
• HDMI Output with upconversion on HDTVs
• PAL and NTSC Cartridge Compatibility

Love playing retro games from the NES and SNES-era, but are sick of having all those consoles clutter up your living room? Or maybe your new-fangled HDTV is struggling to deal with the decades-old machines? Hyperkin has you covered, announcing the RetroN 5 retro-gaming console. The console can play games designed for the NES, SNES, Sega Genesis, Game Boy Advance and Famicom (Japanese NES). It can play games from both PAL and NTSC regions, and supports HDMI output with up to 720p resolution.

Just as the GBA supported Game Boy Color and Game Boy games, and the Genesis supported Sega Mega Drive games, so to will the RetroN 5. Super Famicom (Japanese SNES) games will also work in the SNES slot. This means the console can play games from nine different systems. The Famicom slot is the latest addition to Hyperkin's line of RetroN consoles, with the company stating that "we found that we could incorporate one more cartridge slot without hindering our current developmental cycle."

Six controller slots line the sides of the console, supporting controllers from the NES, SNES and Genesis. As well as being able to use any controller for any system (for example, you can use a SNES controller to play Genesis games), the RetroN 5 comes with its own unique wireless controller. The new controller has a Microswitch Directional Pad instead of a traditional directional pad.

This weekend nearly 30 classic from the Electronic Arts collection make their way to GOG.com with a solid flat-rate 60% discount. A line-up of timeless games arriving at such speed deserves to be called nothing short of a Classic EA Convoy! You'll find memorable stand-alone titles here, as well as all-time favorite series. Games from many genres to suit all tastes and temperaments. Whether you are an adventurous soul, a keen manager, or a daunting pilot, you'll find an excellent match for yourself on our promo page. But before you go there, let's take a quick look at some of the brilliant games we offer you today, shall we?

Boosting Gaming Session for Wing Commander Arena

Session starts on Sunday, 05 May 2013 at 20:00 for 1 hour

Intended achievements for this session: Wing Commander Arena TCS Tiger's Claw The TCS Tiger's Claw achievement in Wing Commander Arena worth 20 pointsCompete in a 16 player Capital Ship game

We are going to go for this again. Hopefully this is a better time than last attempt.

StarDrive sets a new benchmark for the ‘4X Space Strategy’ genre. Starting with a single planet and a small number of space-worthy vessels, you must venture forth into the galaxy, conquer new worlds, build new colonies and defend your very existence against those who would take what is yours. How you play is your decision. Use diplomacy or brute force. Trade, spy and research your way to galactic domination. Make friends, or create mortal enemies…

Hello WC fans, I posted almost a year ago that this project was under way. I am pleased to update that we are now looking for playtesters.

Privateer embodied what I feel was the best of what was emerging as a genre in video games - self-guided experiences with the freedom to adventure through your own story. The boardgame we are developing is inspired by that sense of adventure, and open-ended story.

MOJAVE, Calif. – Today, Virgin Galactic, the world’s first commercial spaceline owned by Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Group and Abu Dhabi’s aabar Investments PJS, completed the first rocket-powered flight of its space vehicle, SpaceShipTwo (SS2). The test, conducted by teams from Scaled Composites (Scaled) and Virgin Galactic, officially marks Virgin Galactic’s entrance into the final phase of vehicle testing prior to commercial service from Spaceport America in New Mexico.

“The first powered flight of Virgin Spaceship Enterprise was without any doubt, our single most important flight test to date,” said Virgin Galactic Founder Sir Richard Branson, who was on the ground in Mojave to witness the occasion. “For the first time, we were able to prove the key components of the system, fully integrated and in flight. Today’s supersonic success opens the way for a rapid expansion of the spaceship’s powered flight envelope, with a very realistic goal of full space flight by the year’s end. We saw history in the making today and I couldn’t be more proud of everyone involved.”

Hi guys, I've been using the Wing Commander Universe for many years as a fun sketchpad to help me hone my 3d production and animation skills, and the community has been very kind to me. Now I'm delving into the realm of character animation and storytelling, and, as always, the best inspiration comes from the wonderful universe that Chris Roberts created.

In the coming months, I'll be working on a series of short animated films retelling some events aboard the TCS Tiger's Claw from Wing Commander I. I thought I'd start with this teaser image and go on from there. I hope you guys enjoy this stuff, because I know I do!

Cheers,

-Klavs

These 24 ships should work in the metaverse since no mods were installed during the design and mods were deactivated in the main menu. Please read the readme.txt for further informations and how to install. These ships will also work in regular games.

Requirements: GalCiv2 Dark Avatar 1.6 (i don't know if it will work on older versions too), Collectors Edition Structures if you don't have the latest patch.