WC3's Unauthorized Guide Archived by Pix Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Pix has expanded his Wing Commander archive with a scan of the relatively rare Wing Commander III: The Ultimate Strategy Guide. It's decidedly the fourth best guide book for WC3 after Origin's Official Guide, The Authorized Combat Guide to WC3 and the Japanese Guide to WC3 on Playstation. But while the other two English books are included freebies with the game on GOG, the Ultimate Strategy Guide is lesser known and harder to find. It's certainly a very interesting artifact in its own way. Hopefully more fans can check it out now!

I recently realised I'd missed it out so if the other 3 guides weren't enough for you, there is now a scan of the Wing Commander 3 Ultimate Strategy Guide in the disorganised list that I call a downloads page.

WC1 Style Shooter Tested in Unity Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Howard Day's cockpit test last week quickly turned into something much more. He's maintained the retro visual style plus added extra Hornets and Dralthi to contend with. The result looks like a really awesome Wing Commander shooter! The fun ship designs may look familiar as they are inspired by Arne from Android Arts. Click into each of the thumbnails below for an animated gif of the engine in action!
Hey, folks. Playing with some ideas in Unity. if I can get it working well, I'll release it to the community to make your own campaigns and games.

I'd much rather make a system that's simple to read and create with, lightweight, and easily used to make new stuff. You should be able to 1-1 remake the original, but some things... I would recommend against? Faster projectiles, multiplayer options, etc. Anyhow, I dunno. I'm definitely just screwing around at this point, we're a long way away from even my base goal. :D

New Poll: Favorite Faction Fun Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

We have a new poll today that asks which of the famous major faction logos is your favorite. We threw in the Church of Man's eyeball sigil for good measure too. There are a few more obscure ones out there, but we think one of these five will be the winner. DefianceIndustries also made these pretty graphics for us a while back, so it's a great opportunity to get some more use out of them!
The old poll asked about your favorite feature in our streaming web show All Wings Considered. The portions where LOAF streams gameplay came out on top, which is good, because there's been lots of exciting cockpit action in the mix lately! The Cargo Bay where we show off newly acquired collectibles of the week has a lot of fans, and people also like the Afterburner Slideshow where the team shows off a variety of neat pictures to address Q&A topics or share other significant subjects of interest. You can check out all 17 episodes online here!

All Wings Considered - Episode 17 - LIVE! Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

The latest episode of ALL WINGS CONSIDERED is live now! All Wings Considered is the CIC's first ever streaming variety show which features news, conversation and gameplay relating to our favorite series. This week's Nav Points include:

  • Privateer and conversation! Chat live while we earn an Orion.
  • Did Colonel Blair really take a vacation to the same beach he found the Concordia at?
  • Zathras, yes. Zathras.
  • Your first look at the 3D printed Pewter Planet!
  • Privateer 2 ship of the week: the Icarus

Missed the stream? The replay will be available below once it has been processed by YouTube. You can subscribe to the AWC channel for future notifications here.

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LOAF

Wing Commander Tested on FM Towns Marty Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Re.Enthused has posted a video of getting Wing Commander going on the FM Towns Marty. The Marty was a console variant of the Japanese PC variant FM Towns. The two shared limited cross-compatibility, so it's really interesting to see that it runs! It requires the optional keyboard just to get past the initial screen where players input their name and callsign, but everything seems to load. Speed and smoothness definitely take a big hit and most sound seems broken, but it's still pretty neat. If you're not as familiar with this version, it's also fascinating to see the minor differences. Overall graphics are pretty similar, but the load screen displays "Start Secret Missions 2" alongside the normal prompts for Vega Campaign, Continue and Secret Mission 1. On PC, SM2 has its own separate executable. Overall, I'd say this is a successful experiment!

Arena Not Appearing on Xbox One Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

It's E3 week, so that means the news has been full of gaming announcements. There's lots of new AAA games and cutting edge hardware that grab the most headlines, but a minor note in the Microsoft lineup caught our attention. The latest batch of Xbox/Xbox 360 backwards compatibility updates for Xbox One will be the last. This means that Wing Commander Arena won't be making the jump to the current generation of consoles. It was always a long shot, but with more than 600 games ported over in the past several years, there were some really awesome obscure titles included that gave us some hope. There would have been some nice advantages such as enhanced team/party chat, built-in screenshot/video capture and just an overall commitment to sustained longevity on the platform. As it is, it's already quite impressive that the game is still fully supported on Xbox Live after nearly twelve years. In fact, it was only just released in Japan earlier this year!
Ostensibly, the reason for discontinuing the Xbox 360 focus is so that the team can focus on ensuring the entire current gen catalog works on the next generation of systems. Although perhaps even less likely than showing up the Xbox One, it's not impossible that Arena could eventually show up there. Just a few years ago, Microsoft was firmly against compatibliity between generations - and things have drastically improved since then. And stranger things have happened!
You can still buy Wing Commander Arena here!

Modern Cockpit Created with Retro Style Update ID Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Howard Day took a break from his day job to show off an interesting new illustrating technique. The result is a remarkable pixel art reproduction of the Hornet cockpit. We've seen later WC designs imported to the earlier engines as well as plenty of upgrades that take the original designs to the next level, but this is something in between. It would be interesting to imagine a retro pixel space sim that looks more like the original Wing Commanders at a higher resolution. It could be something like this!
Well, I bet DanFessler never thought I'd try his Index Painting technique in #3DSMax... to my complete delight it works wonderfully! Here it is working well on an upgraded 2x scale WC Hornet cockpit. Near perfect pixel art, no tweaking!

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