Russian Wing Commander Novels Surface (April 13, 2016)

[ChrisReid]

It's not every day we learn about new Wing Commander items, but AD recently uncovered what appear to be a pair of Russian WC novels. It's seems very possible that these are unauthorized translations, although they appear to have relatively high production values with hardcover bindings and custom art. Unlike some of the official books in other regions, these covers are a collage of actual Wing Commander scenes. However, despite the depictions of WC3/4, Google Translate suggests that these are the novelizations of Freedom Flight and End Run. If anyone has a lead on how to acquire these for closer inspection, let us know!




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Original update published on April 13, 2016

 

[bulch]

You are right - there are Freedom Flight & End Run translations.
Both books was published in 1997 by АСТ publisher, 11,000 copies of each book.
ISBN numbers can be found here - http://www.ozon.ru/context/detail/id/3145810/ and http://www.ozon.ru/context/detail/id/7015196/
It looks like both books still available on stock and can be acquired through the same links.

 

[bulch]

By the way, other 3 books has Russian fan translation too but never was published in paper.

 

[Bandit LOAF]

THANK YOU! Just ordered them from Ozon, will report on the experience when they arrive (which should be next week!)

All in all, it was under $30 to order both shipped to Santa Monica with the fast shipping. If any other Americans are puzzling through the Russian checkout process, you need to change 'Moscow' to 'Соединенные Штаты' on the shipping selection page (just paste it and the option for USA will come up.)

 

[Mindcrime]

Just when we thought we'd seen everything lol. Perhaps there is still a slight hope of snes Wc2 somewhere.

 

[bulch]

THANK YOU!

You are Welcome!
If You need something WC-related somehow associated with Russia I will try my best to help Comunity.

 

[AD]

You are Welcome!
If You need something WC-related somehow associated with Russia I will try my best to help Comunity.

We're always happy to report on anything we haven't seen as far as localized versions of Wing Commander products. I use "Командир эскадрильи" when looking for stuff related to the WC movie in Russian. I can't tell though whether they use another format for games and such as many of the games just use the english title, but all the movie DVDs and such seem to use this version with seems to translate more directly as "squadron leader".

One recent 'find' of mine is this funky VCD version

The part that's impossible for me to tell though is how 'official' any of these are as I've encountered many bootleg versions. Most of those used to have pretty terrible packaging but not anymore. And this next image seems to be a DVD cover but I can't tell if an actual physical Russian DVD was ever available or produced as most of the time I'm just seeing a lot of this stuff show up on sites hosting illegal downloads of the movie with a pretty low quality Russian Audio track added ontop of the existing Enlish audio.

 

[bulch]

As far as I know, there was official BlueRay release with official Russian track by 20th Century Fox.
Se here - http://rutracker.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4578330

About WC naming conventions in Russian gaming/movies community - all WC games always has Wing Commander written name and usually has Wing Commander spoken name with Командир Эскадрильи spoken fallback for game series newbies, but WC movies mostly named as Командир Эскадрильи for those who absolutely not aware of game series or to differentiate movie & game series because of great differences of movie & Games/books Universes.

 

[Bandit LOAF]

Just wanted to update folks: the books arrived yesterday on schedule and they are VERY cool! The chapter headings use appropriate screenshots from Wing Commander I and II (for Freedom Flight and End Run, respectively) and then they seem to have various appendixes that include material from the game manuals (like the ship and weapon guides from Claw Marks and Joan's Fighting Spacecraft!) Here's a picstitch I tweeted yesterday: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cghwpz-VIAEKfs-.jpg:large

bulch, if you are still following this thread I am very curious: do you know what other Wing Commander material was officially released in Russia? Were there Russian versions of the games, or the hint books?

 

[Dark Sentinel]

I had a Russian release of Prophecy Gold. Games themselves (Prophecy and Secret Ops, obviously) are in English, but the controls reference chart and official guide and stuff (as well as the box itself) are in Russian.