In Memory Yet PlayStation'd

Here's a fascinating preservation project: MemCards.art aims to archive all of the tiny game-specific icons that would be saved on original PlayStation memory cards. Every original PlayStation game had a 16x16 pixel icon to represent what game a particular save came from… and of course that included Wing Commander III and Wing Commander IV on the platform. And their icons were animated! MemCards has preserved each in both the original format and as an enlarged version that's easier to study. What a cool amount of work for such a small piece of gaming logistics! If you're interested in learning more about the history and function of these icons, they have an excellent introduction.

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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 television... that all connect to Wing Commander somehow! This time around we've got two not-so-classic Disney live action films from the mid 1990s… that both feature Wing Commander appearances! You can find details on the shows included 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 are referenced by Wing Commander in some way. Tonight's film is It's a Wonderful Life (1946) and you can find details on why we're watching it in the announcement post here. The movie will start at 7 PM PST/10 PM EST but feel free to drop by and hang any time!

And don't forget our fifth Wing Commander Cartoon party is early tomorrow!

After Action Report: Back to the Future

Everyone loves Back to the Future! And the Wing Commander movie club is largely a subset of everyone. I was personally not sure how I would feel after it was so over-exposed in mid-2010s geek culture... but you can't help but smile when you're actually watching it. It's so beautifully structured and ceaselessly entertaining, the run time feels like nothing at all. I'd go so far as to say it's a better movie on its own than with the rest of the trilogy that was added later.

Now let's talk Wing Commander! Here's the very last shot of the movie where the Delorean switches to flight mode and shoots off into the future... and the Privateer animation that it inspired. Note that this was originally not a come on for Back to the Future but a final joke to end the movie. Crazy what it has since become!

We also have a full resolution clip available here for future car wheel historians.

And here's the great Biff comparison. Tom Wilson may be the best actor in the movie and he's the only one close to believable as both a high school student and a middle aged man. To say Wing Commander was lucky to get him for Maniac would be an understatement!

In fact, young Biff even looks a bit like Matthew Lillard's Maniac!

We should also note that Back to the Future shows up in tenth place on Chris Roberts' 1991 list of favored action/adventure films! By the time movie club is over we will likely have seen most of these.

As promised, we are going to do a brief survey of time travel in the Wing Commander universe! The most significant mention of time travel is from Privateer 2 and it relates to the game's spectacular Nuke 'em bomb.

Nuke'em

This is a smart bomb. If you use this beast, all small ships in a specific local vecinity will be destroyed, as well as causing a lot of damage to larger ships.

The Nuke 'em causes 14,000 points of damage to every ship within 500 kilometers of your ship, effectively destroying anything near you including both friends or foes.

Nuke 'em Bomb

Ah, the Nuke 'em bomb — the greatest toy in the Tri-System. Sure, they're expensive, but the amount of indiscriminate damage they do would make the sourest Original Humanist giggle (inwardly, of course).

These bombs have a blast radius extending out to about the first ring from the center of your radar in long-range Celestial TSM mode (about 500 klicks). When you drop a Nuke 'em, all ships within the ring will be affected — except your own — and most (if not all) will be wiped out. The closer a ship is to the center of the blast, the more likely it is to be completely destroyed.

Once released, the bomb takes 5 seconds to prime before it detonates.

Purchase Price: 4,000
Max. Damage (points): 14,000
Blast Radius (klicks): 500

Nuke 'em bombs blow up everything within their blast radius. This include friendlies, wingman and fair maidens in distress. This is not a good option for escort or rescue missions, unless you can get your pals out of range before you drop.

... and it turns out it keeps YOUR ship safe by shooting it several seconds forward in time! The information about the time travel aspect comes from the original UK version of the manual.

This horrible device emits a blastwave from the vicinity of your ship powerful enough to annihilate everything in close proximity but the most resilient dreadnoughts. The damage is worse near the epicentre, dissipating outward. The device carries a small synchronic temporal warp generator which at the point of detonation throws you marginally forward in time after the blast, giving you escape from the carnage. However, it does not extend this benefit to any cargo ships or wingmen you may have in tow, who will encounter a particularly terminal, and bad, day. The Campaign for Real Time considered this weapon to be a breach of most time laws and lobbied against its legality, until one day, quite by accident, a rogue Nuke 'em landed on their offices during an annual general meeting.

The manual was famously reworked by Origin's creative services department for the US release and they stripped the time travel mention right out!

Emits a blast wave from the vicinity of your ship powerful enough to annihilate all but the largest ships within close proximity. Damage is worst near the epicenter, dissipating outward. Includes a small Synchronic Temporal Warp generator which protects your ship from the blast.

... but it did make it into the players' guide (the little CD-sized booklet everyone forgets about). They drop the joke but actually add a little more lore about how the STWs work... while also clarifying that they aren't currently powerful enough to do more than this. Party poopers!

Nuke 'em

This horrible device emits a blast wave from the vicinity of your ship powerful enough to annihilate almost everything within close proximity. Damage is worst near the epicenter, dissipating outward.

A Nuke 'em device carries a small Synchronic Temporal Warp (STW) generator, which throws you marginally forward in time at the moment of detonation. You reappear in the same place after the blast, protected from the carnage of the explosion in the immediate past. STW generators are currently neither powerful nor sophisticated enough to protect any cargo ships or wingmen, however. Point your Nuke 'em away from your travelling companions, and make sure they are far enough away to survive.

Privateer 2 also has a second brief mention of time travel. The company database entry for Crius Net has a Douglas Adams-inspired story about how the company's 420 year old founder has recently purchased a "DEDFLASH space/time cruiser" which can look into the future and refuse to fly you somewhere you might be endangered or bored.

NAME: Crius Net
OWNER: Vrootle Pigfididrin
EMPLOYEES: 4712
LOCATION: Anticinedes Heights, Neo-Cabillus
BUSINESS: TeleCommunications
BACKGROUND: Starting out as a sandwich ordering service in the adolescent dawn of Crius' astonishing economic evolution, the Crius Net now connects all aspects of commerce, communication and entertainment across the planet. Its founder, Vrootle Pigfididrin recently made history after his fifth brain relocation transplant operation brought him up to the grand old age of 420 years. Speaking from his private penthouse complex at the Avalon Convalescence Dimension of Zib, Pigfididrin was quoted as saying "I feel like a new man, and a new woman too for that matter". Solicitors acting for his 212th wife Serefina Mucholusholise say that they intend to include Pigfididrin's new DEDFLASH space/time cruiser in their claim for alimony settlement. The revolutionary new craft has computational power so powerful that it sees into your planned journey's future and decides whether you are likely to enjoy it or not. If danger, trouble or boredom are detected, it simply refuses to take you. Pigfididrin is rumoured to have blown a small star system on acquiring the ship. <255>

Finally, we came close to having one more major appearance of time travel in the Wing Commander universe: the plot for Loose Cannon's Privateer 3: Retribution used a Steltek time machine as the story's McGuffin. General Drakas, a renegade Kilrathi, searches the galaxy for the machine so he can resurrect Kilrah… and of course it's up to your privateer to stop him. You can read the script for the sadly cancelled project here.

Text Me, Maybe?

Here's a neat piece of ephemera: it's a gaudy advertisement that ran in the October 2008 issue of play³, a German PlayStation magazine promoting phone downloads. This was back when you could add things like ringtones, themes, backgrounds, games and other content to your pre-smart phones by sending a text message to purchase or rent it. And in this case, if you look past all the pornography, you'll find that the people at HandySMS were offering Wing Commander ringtones, both the overture from the movie and the Cobalt 60 Prophecy song! Did anyone ever use this service? It would be great to find these files today!

Bearcat Joins the Formation

It turns out we didn't have to wait very long for CountvonSchnaps next awesome take on a classic Wing Commander ship design! They're back with the F-104 Bearcat fighter from Wing Commander IV, one of the game's most delightful secrets (you can only fly the Bearcat if you complete a particular optional mission in the Speradon series). As with the Count's previous ship reworks, it's pretty nice:

Wing Commander IV: F104 Bearcat (DeviantArt)

Another design made for Shoguneagle showcasing my take of the F104 Bearcat.

A heavy fighter design it was intended, and created, as a pure aerospace fighter and is, in contrast to many of the other Confederation designs not a multirole unit. It did not see any action during the Terran Kilrathi War but did see active combat service during the Union of Border worlds Calamity.

Armed with 4x light tachyon cannons and 4x2 hardpoints it packs a punch and in combination with its decent speed and excellent maneuverability it has potential as a dogfighter.

Think it turned out quite well :) Happy I got the chance to work on this one. But will see if I can get something done for Battletech.

George Oldziey Composes Commercial

Need a great gift for a Wing Commander fan? Wing Commander composer George Oldziey has made a little commercial showing the range of CDs and vinyl records available in his online store. The community has helped George Oldziey fund two Wing Commander orchestral albums and an extremely cool jazz CD… and if you missed out on those campaigns, now is the perfect time to pick up the albums you've missed! They're a testament to the determination of this very special community… and pretty darned cool to listen to, too. You can find the video here on Vimeo.

Wing Commander Movie Night: It's a Wonderful Life

It's fair to say that everyone already loved Back to the Future, so it's no surprise that… everyone loved Back to the Future. It's an effortlessly entertaining movie that grabs your attention and keeps you entertained. It turns out that no amount of time as an unfortunate king of geek chic pop culture can dull its clean! Next week, we're having the first ever Wing Commander movie club holiday party and we're going to be playing a classic Christmas movie that happens to be referenced pretty directly in a Wing Commander novel. That's right, it's Frank Capra's classic about suicidal ideation, It's a Wonderful Life (1946)! You can join us this Friday via Discord to watch along.

COMBAT ALERT FOR MOVIE CLUB MEMBERS: Since this is our holiday party, please bring the name of a movie you particularly love for our first ever Secret Santa movie exchange. We'll collect all the suggestions and then randomly swap them out for another one… so everyone will get one movie recommendation to report back on! It can be any movie you love (or theoretically hate).

It's a Wonderful Life famously takes place in the fictional city of Bedford Falls, New York, whose fate is tied directly to the existence of the film's protagonist. The first Wing Commander movie continuity novel, Pilgrim Stars, references a Confederation Capital ship named the TCS Bedford Falls! Wing Commander might share its continuity with the film! In the book, the Kilrathi have deployed three battle groups to menace the Confederation as it deals with the mutiny on the Olympus. Tolwyn dispatches battle groups to counter them and we later hear that one of them is seemingly led by the Bedford Falls.

Commodore Richard Bellegarde bit his lower lip as he watched four squadrons of the Concordia’s fighters and a squadron of Broadsword bombers soar away from the ship, vectoring toward the Sivar-class dreadnought and three Fralthi-class cruisers at coordinates just two kilometers ahead. The Concordia had jumped into the Ymir system forty minutes ago to assist the CS Beacontree , a Bengal-class strike carrier that had been closest to the trouble zone. Tolwyn had sent the Beacontree to Ymir with orders to simply stall the Kilrathi until the Concordia and her battle group jumped in. Odd thing was, the Beacontree had arrived nearly twenty-four hours ago, and the Kilrathi had yet to make a move. They hovered between the third and fourth planets of the system, on the periphery of an asteroid belt. And they had remained there since their own arrival, over thirty-six hours ago.

“Now we blow them back to Sivar,” Tolwyn said, beating a fist into a palm. He stood, gave a cursory glance of the wide bridge, then joined Bellegarde near the viewport. “They ought to bloody well know the penalty for trespassing.”

“Either way, we’ll teach it to them,” Bellegarde added.

“Any news from Nephele?”

“Not since the last report. The Bedford Falls and the Tricaliber should be able to hold their own. But like these cats, the Kilrathi in that system are just sniffing around.”

“Here’s what I think, Richard. The emperor learned of the attack on Mylon. Of course he also lost a couple of destroyers out near K’n’Rek to theOlympus . So now he’s thinking that Pilgrims are responsible, since Mylon is Confederation territory. He sends out two battle groups to attack Ymir and Nephele, but then he realizes that if he starts these two battles, he’ll have to finish them. And I think he lacks the resources to do that. So he gets cold feet. Sends them in here anyway to gather what intelligence they can and deploy cloaked spy satellites. Now, if you mark my words, reports will come in from our fighters that the Kilrathi are in retreat, headed toward the jump point.” Tolwyn craned his neck and looked to the radar station. “Mr. Abrams?”

“Our fighters are still pursuing the battle group, sir. The Kilrathi have altered course. Looks they’re headed to the jump point.”

Bellegarde shook his head in mild astonishment. “When will you teach me that trick?”

“It’s no trick. Just think like a pack hunter. Now if our squadrons continue to pursue, they could be ambushed by one, perhaps two destroyers that broke off from the main battle group. Mr. Wilks? Give the order for recall.”

The comm officer nodded. “All fighters return to base, aye-aye, sir.”

“You see, Richard, despite the emperor’s cold feet, he wants us to know that he has these battle groups within jump range. Call it posturing, but it does humble the more keen strategist.”

From that limited reference it's not clear what kind of ships the Bedford Falls and the Tricaliber are, but the fact that they will 'hold their own' seems to imply that, only considering Wing Commander movie ship designs, they're intended to be Concordia supercruisers or Bengal carriers. Though we know from the movie's beloved TOWLYN scene that there are some other Confederation capship types out there (though they seem to be lower in the order of battle)!

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

It's a Wonderful Life is available for rent or purchase on the standard streaming services. It is currently streaming on Amazon Prime in the United States, though you must be careful to select the correct version as they also offer an abridged cut and a colorized edit. If you would like a physical copy, the movie was released on UHD Blu-ray in 2019 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!

How can I help pick future movie club movies?

The movie club movies are voted on each week by the Wing Commander Discord. The poll is typically posted 24 hours before each week's screening and the next movie is announced at the end. The choices for the poll come from a master pool of Wing Commander-related movies. If you would like to suggest a film for inclusion in that pool you can post it to this thread.

Wing Commander Cartoon Party V: Disney Family Fun Day!

Can you believe it has been an entire month since we learned about nuclear warfare and the rise of the Neo Sapien empire? I certainly can't, but it's time for another Wing Commander cartoon marathon this Saturday, December 20th! This time we're going to be checking off two Disney movies that actually feature Wing Commander games in them! Unfortunately, they're two mid-90s live action Disney movies rather than classic cartoons or beloved franchise. But load up the station wagon with all the kids for a completely family friendly Wing Commander movie club cartoon marathon (that features no cartoons). We're watching:

Man of the House (1995): It's Jonathan Taylor Thomas versus Chevy Chase in a classic tale of stepson versus stepdad that… also ends up involving the Boy Scouts and the mafia, maybe? Whoever wins, we lose! This one takes some odd turns but it spends most of its run time failing to be Home Improvement. Watch for a pretty significant cameo from WING COMMANDER ACADEMY (the game not the show or the actual academy).

RocketMan (1997): What happens if a regular goofball (Harland Williams) has to get sent on a mission to Mars for some reason? It turns out it's not really as funny or entertaining as you would think! But there's a pretty great appearance of WING COMMANDER IV: THE PRICE OF FREEDOM buried in there.

So JOIN US on Saturday, December 20th at noon Eastern when we'll enjoy them all together! We recommend pajamas and cereal to accompany the chat.

We've also uploaded a zip of both together locally that you can grab in advance. You can get that here. Both movies are available for purchase or rent digitally and have been released on Blu-ray. Man of the House is currently streaming on Disney+ in the United States.

How do we watch the shows together?

It's pretty low tech! Simply join the Wing Commander CIC Discord on Saturday and we will be chatting (in text) along with the shows in the main channel. Everyone who wants to join in should download their own copies from the CIC and we will count down to play them one at a time together starting with the short at noon EST on Saturday. Everyone is welcome and we encourage you to join in the conversation; sharing your thoughts helps make the experience better for everyone!

Will there be custom certificates made for the attendees this time?

Yes.

You don't have ANY cartoons this time, why haven't you changed the name?

Shut up.

I love these events but want to do better long term planning. Do you have any others coming up?

We do! Here's the upcoming schedule. And if you have any idea for a future lineup, please feel free to suggest it on the forums!

• Marathon 6 - I'd Rather Be Playing Wing Commander - January 17
• Marathon 7 - The Worst Parts of a Lot of Things - February 14

Who Needs Graphics?

Here's a quick look at something most people don't think about: Wing Commander III's low graphics mode! That's right, if you set everything to low quality (even in SVGA as here) then you end up with a game that looks a lot more like X-Wing than Wing Commander! It's kind of a fun alternative to the textured version and the capital ships in particular look wonderful.

... and here's a quick comparison of Wing Commander Prophecy's three original graphics modes: 3dfx, Direct3D and software. Upgrading to a Voodoo card was certainly worth the money even for a broke high school student in 1997! I know the recent fan-led graphics update is spectacular but I'll always have a candle burning for that original look...

One of Those Really Secret Missions

One of my strange passions is finding vintage magazines that comission their own artwork for article headers. And today we've got a good one! This is a review of Wing Commander: The Secret Missions for the SNES from Brazil's Ação Games (issue #46, November 1993). Doesn't your heart lift up just a little seeing those low poly Kilrathi ships and those giant, IP-denied block letters for the title?