The Best of Each...

[Dundradal]

What you thought was the best about each Wing Commander Game....

Here are mine.

Wing Commander: Branching! The sheer number of options you have is amazing. Provides for hours of endless enjoyment. Even today.


Wing Commander II: Torpedo runs. Capship combat really started to come into its own in WC II. Torps, AMGs, PTC all made for great action sequences while the player could stand back and watch the heavy ships slug it out.


Wing Commander III: I really enjoyed the capship combat in WC III as well. You noticed the ships moving more (as opposed to other games where it seems at times difficult to tell) and the turret fire really lit up the battlefield.


Wing Commander IV: Choices Colonel. Beyond mission performance, conversation choices affected the mission branching in a way not seen before. Circe or Speradon? Nuke Ella or move past it? It was great to influence the flow of combat.


Wing Commander Prophecy: Beautiful new ships with moving parts and very cool special features. Who didn't love it the first time they hit the booster in the Wasp? or fired the swarmer? It's too bad some of the other features had to be cut before shipping.


Wing Commander Secret Ops: Sheer number of enemies. Combat became huge! Missions with 50+ enemies were the norm. It certainly felt like you were fighting against an enemy with vastly superior numbers.


Super Wing Commander: SM 1.5 I love nailing the shipyards that produced the Sivars.


Academy: You can make your own missions, duh! I used to love making capship strike missions with heavy enemy CAP.


Armada: Multiplayer. 'nuff said.


Privateer: It's Privateer. Everything is great. The ability to explore Gemini is perhaps the greatest though. I loved visiting every port with goods to sell. Taking patrol missions. It was all great fun.


Privateer 2: Bounties. While they weren't much I thought it was a great addition. The govt paying you to keep the space lanes clean. Brilliant!


Just wanted to start a little more conversation in this place...

 

[Iceman16]

WC4: one of my favourite parts of this game was the missile choice you had, different missions give you different missile choices and they all acted differently, like the starburst and Coneburst (I loved launchin the Coneburst at the Black Lance Transport and watchin it go boom) and it even brought back the Mace, my all-time favourite missile.

 

[DaveO]

WC1 - A number of the most difficult missions are either in the primary campaign or the two expansions. Save the Ralari and the Gwenhyvar come to mind immediately.

WC2 - Between mission cinematics were increased from just talking to the pilots, and more of a story was established. Jazz, Hobbes, Spirit and Prince Thrakhath are a number of the stories were developed over the course of the main campaign and the two expansions.

WC3 - The most realistic from a combat perspective. Fighters break apart, capships leave charred debris, and enemy AI can be selected for the first time. First use of the full motion video that would be the norm for the remainder of the series. A number of story lines are drawn to a close here. Hobbes' story is put to bed after starting in WC1, and the romance begun in WC2 with Angel makes its tragic turn. I almost forgot to mention Ayer's Rock version 2 and the Kilrathi Dreadnought being in this game.

 

[Dundradal]

WC3 - The most realistic from a combat perspective. Fighters break apart, capships leave charred debris

That was a feature I loved! Seeing the charred remains of the capship you just nailed was very satisfying.

 

[Farbourne]

Haven't had the chance to play every WC game, but here's the ones I did play.

WC1: Two things for me. 1) Medals and promotions. You actually felt like you were earning things by flying well. 2) This was one of the first games where failing a mission, and even getting shot down, did not kill you and force you to re-fly. Having "losing" path options was brilliant.

WC2: Story. Actually having events that alter the plot instead of just color and mission objectives. (To be contrary, I hated the capship model of WC2. It has so much promise, but never quite worked the way they intended. I did like that the capships had some teeth, though).

WC3: Cinematics, that made the game feel so real, and the shear number of very different types of opponent fighters forcing you to always use different strategies depending on who you were fighting.

WC4: The AI. I swear I thought I was playing against human pilots half the time. Never seen such a good computer AI at handling a ship (so impressive it even beats out the beautiful cinematics and branching options and moralistic decisions).

WCP: The addictive playability. You could just keep jumping into your fighter hour after hour.

WCSO: Agree, the huge number of ships you faced was the coolest part.

WC Privateer: You could choose to be a pirate. Or a mercenary. Need I say more?

WC Standoff: (Yes, I know it's not an "official" WC game). The fact that it exists. Seriously, the fact that a fan-made project could be so amazing, and feel like such a different game than the engine it was modded from, is almost unbelievable.

 

[Mjr. Whoopass]

(Chronological 'Wing Commander Time-Line' order)
WC1: The feeling that you were a real military pilot is what I liked the most about this game. I liked the assignments to different fighter squadrons (which contributed to the military feel). I also liked the feeling of being just another pilot for the first few missions as opposed to every mission requiring you to single handedly save humanity. This had my favorite music of all the games.

WC Standoff: Yep, it's a mod, not a commercially released game, but it's really fun. I think it's balance of all the things I like about Wing Commander is what I like best. I still haven't played Prophecy and Secret Ops all the way through, but I don't want to startup those when I have the option of replaying the fun Standoff missions. When Ep. 5 comes out, there's little hope I'll choose to play Prophecy/Secret Ops instead.

WC Privateer: I just started playing the Gemini Gold Mod and haven't played the original, but what I like so far is the freedom to immerse yourself however you choose within the Wing Commander Universe.

WC3: The pilot interactions is what comes first in my mind as a favorite. It was neat to have so many diverse personalities to fly with and hear their different types of stories and interactive radio chatter. I also liked the wide variety of well designed fighters on both the Confed and Kilrathi sides.

WC4: The story and it's "Choose Your Own Adventrue" style was very immersive and my favorite thing about this game. For instance, I remember feeling pressured to choose whether I wanted to defect or stay with Confed and being afraid one of those decisions might be the wrong one.

WCP: I liked the mystery of dealing with a new and undiscovered foe. It was scary to fly on missions where you didn't know what your enemy was or who you were going to run into and neither did Confed command.

WC Unknown Enemy: Another Mod.. There were a lot of things I liked about this game, it's hard to choose what I thought was best. I think I will choose the in depth fiction that went with the game. I was more inspired to play through this than Prophecy but not quite as much as Standoff.

WCSO: I've only played the first mission of this and decided to try and play through WCP first. The graphics and game engine seem to have been improved and that's what I liked the best.

 

[DaveO]

WC4 - As Dundradal said, a plethora of choices. Stick with Confed or defect? Circe or Speradon? Mace missile or some of the others(like Coneburst)? Bearcat or stick with the standard fighters? Trainer or Admiral Tolwyn's successor?

WCP - Having just finished the missions, I think the best part is the graphics. Using Glide and the graphics enhancement really makes Prophecy shine. The second best part is how you have to keep your eyes open when fighting the bugs. Mantas will try to use their Gorgon cannons if you're not watching out, and Stingrays can merge into those dangerous Plasma shooting clusters. Mission branching is icing on the cake.

WCP:SO - The various Confed weapon enhancements stand out the most for me. Most if not all of the ships you fly get cannon changes that make them a force to be reckoned with. With all the missions you'll fly along with the bugs you will fight, it will be hard NOT to exceed your Prophecy kill score.

 

[frostytheplebe]

I have to disagree with you on your assessment of WC3. Don't get me wrong, its an awesome game, but I was extremely disappointed by the capship fighting in that game. The bomber having afterburners ruined it. I love flying in on a cap ship with flak blasting all around me, you just didnt feel it as much in WC3.

 

[Captain Obvious]

I have to disagree with you on your assessment of WC3. Don't get me wrong, its an awesome game, but I was extremely disappointed by the capship fighting in that game. The bomber having afterburners ruined it. I love flying in on a cap ship with flak blasting all around me, you just didnt feel it as much in WC3.

I agree with you completely. In WC2 you had to grit your teeth and and pray sometimes and your torps got shot down way more often. It was extremely satisfying to take out a cap ship in WC2 because they were just so powerful and dangerous. The laser turrets just weren't as scary as the flack guns either. What seriously ruined it for me in WC3 is the fact that they made it so normal guns could penetrate phase shields. Killing carriers in an Arrow just never felt right to me.

Anyway:

WC1: The one game that really felt like it put you in the middle of the war. Earning medals and promotions was a lot of fun and something that I really missed in the other games.

WC2: The story of treason and retribution. It was the first game I played with such an expansive plot that was so well written.

WC3: The innovations such as polygon graphics and full-motion video set the standard for the games that followed.

WC4: The writing and the production value. Seriously one of the most epic space operas I have ever witnessed.

WC Prophecy: Fun new flight model.

WCSO: Well... it's free!

 

[Sharpshooter]

Wing Commander 1 : Agreed, the branching paths in the original game are awesome. Also, being able to fly a Kilrathi fighter in SM2! Oh, and Jotunheim 3 from SM1, for being so epic (possibly more so than SM1's final mission, where you can just destroy the Sivar and run away). And that SM2 mission where you can take out an entire Kilrathi convoy with a Hornet.

Wing Commander 2 : Introduced turrets on flyable ships. What makes the turrets so neat is the fact that you can control them. Bombing runs were usually pretty neat, except for the Fralthra's AMGs, which are IMO the flat-out worst thing in all of Wing Commander! Sure, there are things you can do to increase the probability of avoiding the AMG shots, but luck stills plays a very big part, and I've yet to meet someone who can beat any mission involving an "AMG" Fralthra every time (unlike, say, Kurasawa 2) [/rant].
Also, I loved flying the Broadsword, the Crossbow, and the Morningstar.

Wing Commander 3 : Moving around the Victory, being able to choose between several ships, configuring the ship's loadout, shooting down Skipper missiles, playing the planetary missions, dueling Hobbes, rescuing Flint, fighting the Dreadnought.

Wing Commander 4 : Everything except for the cockpits (or lack of cockpits, rather). Every mission was thoroughly enjoyable and there are plenty of really neat things - the alternate weapons, the Bearcat, the Dragon, the Leech missiles/cannon, the Peleus system, the Coneburst missiles, the Mace, Outrun Ella... Plus, Pliers is one of my favorite WC characters.

Wing Commander Secret Ops : Has some of the most epic battles in all of Wing Commander, in my opinion.

Wing Commander Unknown Enemy : The missions against the Kilrathi, the first mission against the Nephilim, flying the Asteroid Fighter, dogfighting against two Devil Rays in a lousy fighter, and playing the final mission (for obvious reasons).

Wing Commander Standoff : Like WC4, I love nearly everything in this one. My favorite parts include the creepy atmosphere in Back Route to Sirius, and the Snakeir, Clearing the Path, Hakaga and Skinning Cats (both versions) battles. My main (and only?) problem with Standoff is that while the branching paths were a good idea, some of them seem to suffer from severe imbalance, especially in Episode 1 : In the very first mission, fly straight to the Jump Point instead of going through Nav 1. Then try to win the nightmarish missions that come next on Ace difficulty on higher. Surviving isn't that hard, but saving your allies is. Painful, huh? It's harder than any Snakeir or Hakaga mission.

 

[Captain Obvious]

Arrrrgggghhh the AMG Fralthras. Infuriating. Ghorah Khar 2-D is the hardest mission in any Wing Commander game in my personal opinion. And it's the only one in the main series that I've never beaten.

No matter what I try I either get toasted or run out of torpedoes. 2-E usually takes me a million tries too.

 

[Sharpshooter]

Well, yeah. The fight against the four Gothris is mostly skill, but the fight against the two Fralthra is mostly luck. It's especially obvious with your wingmen's behavior : sometimes they'll manage to miraculously destroy one (or very rarely, both) Fralthra, and sometimes they'll just eject without doing anything significant.

 

[Sharpshooter]

Hmm. I've just found something interesting. It's possible to move around a bit without losing the torpedo lock, so you can dodge the AMG shots by afterburnering toward the Fralthra for a very short time (basically, just hit Tab and release it immediately) (the Fralthra must *not* be right in the center of the screen, obviously). If you do it right, you won't lose the torpedo lock. You have to be very quick and very accurate, though, so it's very difficult. Still, it's something to think about. Also, if there are two Fralthras left, it might be better to have them line up before each attack run.

 

[MaHeSw]

I have only played WCP fully and only parts of the others but the thing I liked about them all was the cutscenes between the missions. Where you actually talked with the other pilots on the ship.
This made them so much more than just anonymus Wingmans that ended up as cannonfodder during your missions.
In WC I could at least take it personally when one of my Wingmen died, I mean, I had just "talked" with the guy just before we started on the mission.
I don't know how many times I tried to save "Dallas" in WCP before I realised that he WAS supposed to die at that moment.