Prophecy Trailer Promises Awesome Cutscenes, Cool Characters, 4 Player Mode Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

John Rairdin was looking at old game trailers and reminded us about the wonderful little teaser for Prophecy on the Game Boy Advance. We reported on it back in December 2002, but that was years before YouTube was founded, so it was just a downloadable wmv file. Since most of you probably haven't seen it before, here it is again! Sure, it's not quite as pretty as the 3dfx version, but keep in mind this was running on a 16 MHz handheld with 256 kb of ram. Three CDs had to be compressed down to less than 32 megabytes - it was quite a technical achievement! You can find this clip, other Prophecy trailers and many more Wing Commander videos in the CIC Holovids section.

Watch Novelty Run of Unknown Enemy Mod Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Plywood Fiend has wrapped up another complete stream of a Wing Commander game. This time he played through the popular Secret Ops mod Unknown Enemy. If you haven't watched his previous material, he's spiced up the footage a bit with his own brand of humor. Check out the full UE playlist here. Having also completed a successful run through the original Wing Commander last month, he's doubled back around now and is picking up some of the losing track systems. You can find those additions here.
Port Hedland and Hubble's Star are done. (Saved both Drayman (Draymen?)... eventually.) The missions themselves are nothing new to anyone here most likely, but the peculiar humour and freakish intros are, like this one:

Japanese Super Wing Commander Sample With Subtitles Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

A lot of Wing Commander fans missed out on Super Wing Commander, so we like to highlight it from time to time to showcase its unique style. The game was a remake of the original Wing Commander with a modified Secret Missions campaign, but it was only released for the 3DO and Macintosh in 1994 and 1995 respectively. The art style is revamped and there's some considerable cross-pollination of 3D assets between SWC, the original Privateer and Armada. It also has full speech and was therefore among the first WC games to require a CD-ROM.

This particular stream is by the Japanese Youtube channel retronome. Japan is the only country to get an alternate language translation of the game, so this provides a neat glimpse at this port of a port. The main cutscene/briefing speech is still in English, but Japanese subtitles are included throughout. Small bits of spoken Japanese are included for the game flow narration. One final neat fact about the Japanese SWC is that there was also a neat promotion that resulted in some official Japanese SWC stickers. That's Paladin with the eye patch there!

Check Out Some Neat Wing Commander Stuff Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

I was organizing some things into a new cabinet recently and thought you might like to take a peek!

Here's a rundown of what's pictured, starting from the top left.
  • Top Row: Wing Commander novels, including three copies of the Junior Novelization and seven Pilgrim Stars
  • Second from Top: Super Nintendo versions of WC1 and The Secret Missions in US, UK PAL and Japanese Super Famicon configurations, random publications like the Starlog Movie magazine, printed copies of Star Soldier, Mike Winterbauer art magnet, 35 mm film trailer for WC4, binders with sets of Wing Commander CCGs, a mini bottle of Prophecy water, stack of WC audio albums
  • Third from Top: Wing Commander DVDs (1999 Fox release, 2013 Fox reprint and Anchor Bay reprint) and VHSes (WC Movie and WC3 Behind the Screens), WC Blu-rays, Academy animated series DVD, loose promo cards (from Nintendo Power and for the CCG), a handful of 3D printed models designed by Klavs and about a hundred copies of loose instruction manuals (mostly Claw Marks and the pamphlet for WC2)
  • Open Middle Row: flight suit from Wing Commander Prophecy in bubble wrap, two different types of collectible WC3 (big boxed Sam's Club and standalone film reel Premiere Edition), a laser pistol used in the filming in Wing Commander 4, WC jazz album by George Oldziey, large blue display mylar used by movie theaters in 1999, misc CCGs, art portfolio by Mike Winterbauer, autographed copy of WC4 signed by Tom Wilson, a photo of my first set of WC games, a couple of custom CIC items (license plate holder and TCS Eisen hat), Pilgrim Crosses
  • Third from Bottom: quite a few different floppy/CD releases of WC1 and WC2, including Amiga, Hit Squad, Famicon, Sega/Mega CD, Deluxe Editions, Secret Missions/Special Operations, etc
  • Second from Bottom: WC3, PSX/3DO Ports, Kilrathi Saga (including Asia/Pacific version with "null g bomblet" spiral manual), WC4 for PSX, DOS, Windows and Mac, Prophecy, Prophecy Gold
  • Bottom Row: Floppy/CD versions of Academy, Armada, Privateer and Privateer 2 (DOS and Deluxe), Mac and 3DO versions of Super Wing Commander, Official Guides for the aforementioned games, plus Confederation Handbook (with one signed by Chris McCubbin!)
I've still got a dozen storage tubs worth of magazine articles, action figures, clothes and the like in a closet, but this is the quick reference Wing Commander memorabilia that I wanted to have at my fingertips! I like admiring all the colorful collectibles here and hope you do too!

Check Out WC4 Cinematic Trailer With Full AI/Neutral Net Treatment Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

There's been a lot of talk in the news lately about the enhanced footage that ODVS has made for Wing Commander 3, 4 and Prophecy, but we've also heard from some folks who haven't downloaded the large (but not too large) file packs with the remastered clips. For all those folks, he's released this dazzling sample: the WC4 cinematic trailer. It's just gorgeous - even with YouTube's compression factored in! Owen made an entirely new set of clips for the CIC's recent birthday, and all the download links are available below.
If anyone fancies a moment of pure nostalgia, in the run up to this party, I also re-created the original WC4 Cinematic Trailer with footage from the V5.0 remaster. So again, HAPPY BIRTHDAY WING COMMANDER CIC and HAPPY 30th BIRTHDAY WING COMMANDER FRANCHISE! Here's to many more decades of fun times with this vibrant community :D

Extensive Interview Covers All Aspects of WC4 Fan Remake Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Youtube and Twitch streamers ValiantClan have hosted a big interview with part of the WC4 Fan Remake team, ODVS and DefianceIndustries. The conversation spans a full hour, so it covers a lot of interesting topics! They start out casually talking about the Wing Commander series and then get into the details associated with the remake project. There's plenty of technical discussion mixed with fun anecdotes from the Wing Commander series, so it's a good listen. Check it out below!
To celebrate the 30th anniversary of Wing Commander we invited the developers of the Wing Commander IV - Remake Project. We had a nice little chat about their project, the franchise, Star Citizen and Star Trek. The project is a fan attempt to allow owners of Wing Commander IV: The Price of Freedom to enjoy a more modern experience by loading the files from the original game into a new engine, complete with specially created, high definition assets.

Unauthorized Russian Privateer 2 Surfaces Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

quasardeep shared a neat photo of an incredibly elaborate Russian bootleg of Privateer 2. It has a color manual, printed disc and fully translated instructions. As there was no official Russian version, this was the only way for them to be able to play decades ago. It sounds like they've since acquired an officially boxed copy, but this is a fun and priceless artifact in its own way. You can now get P2 and the rest of the WC games at GOG for $5.99 or less.
I was a big fan in the 90s. Discs with Wing Commander were not sold at all. With great difficulty I was able to buy this pirate disc. But considering the Wing Commander legacy, I was eventually able to buy the official box.

New Privateeer 2 Enhancement Test Compares Beta Tape Footage Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

ODVS got a lot of feedback on his first attempt at remastering the Privateer 2 video footage. A frequent request was that he use the higher quality footage sourced from Privateer 2 director Steve Hilliker's 25th Anniversary video released in May. There's no doubt that this content, derived from Beta SP tapes, is much nicer than the original CD-ROM footage, but there are certain tradeoffs inherent with using an analogue source for the AI/neural net processing. This new example video shows off all three side-by-side. The version enhanced from the CD has more crisp detail while the Beta remaster segments have better frame rate and color. It's a little hard to say which is better overall as it depends somewhat on the specific scene in question. Let ODVS know wha you think at the CIC Forums!
Because people on the CIC forums kept asking, I did an experiment remastering Steve Hilliker's footage from his Beta SP Master Tapes.

While it has an undeniably better frame rate (I don't need to interpolate up from 12fps) and colour depth, this really highlights my concerns about attempting to remaster footage from analogue sources. Sources like VHS/Beta tapes soften the edges around objects, and the AI routines maintain that softness during upscale - so we lose a lot of image definition.

Ideally, it's best to work from a source that was digitally captured or scanned directly from film.

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