LividLiquid
Rear Admiral
(Really long rant coming up.)
(SPOILER ALERT!)
I, like others here, have been playing Wing Commander games since 1990. I was only seven. Crashed into the Tiger's Claw every time I tried to land for the first two months because I was too retarded to ask for permission to land. (What else could I do? I didn't read very well then.)
Since then, we've enjoyed many Wing Commander games. They were all great. They were all a part of me. A part of all of us. Kind of Zen, really. I never feel quite as relaxed as when I'm chasing down a Sabre in my Morningstar, as I did not ten minutes ago, or pounding away at a Moray with my Dragonflies. Running that first Diamond patrol in Enyo. Making that run from Troy to Pender's Star, to Junction, to New Constantinople with three loads of cargo missions for almost 30,000 credits.
These are the images, moods, adventures, and experiences that I have grown up on. Were my life without Wing Commander, I would not be the man I am today. None of us would be. That might not be a big deal to you. But it sure as hell is to me.
My two brothers, the other day, were playing Freespace 2. I told them that Wing Commander was far superior in almost every way. They challenged it, naturally, so I threw in Prophecy and they both installed it on their respective machines and played for half-an-hour.
These were the replies I got.
"Horrible acting." "Listen to the way that Maestro guy talks. I want to punch him in the face." "That Stiletto chick is the worst actress I've ever seen." "This game is campy and retarded, but it doesn't acknowledge it. It's accidentally lame." "Freespace is way better." "What good's a story when it sucks ass?"
I looked, for the first time, at Prohecy. Objectively. It wasn't good.
Initially, I loved the game. Loved it ever since. Still love it dearly. But I looked at it from the point of view of somebody that's never played a Wing Commander game before. Never run brilliance from Pentonville. Never watched the Behemoth as it met it's fate. Never witnessed the end of the Kilrathi war. Never routed the cats from Vega sector. Never argued with another fellow-junkie about why the Deneb Sector disappeared from the Prophecy map.
It was lame. It was a really bad game. It flew well, but the story sucked.
Before you flame me, listen for a second.
Everything I liked about the story of Prophecy draws it's roots into earlier games. Hawk's death. Blair's abduction. The way that Prophecy reminded me so much of the first WC it was scary.
This is why WC's fanbase shrank, not grew, with Prohecy. It was too inside. How many people would have known that the TCS Devereaux was an homage to a good friend to all of us. Well... we would. Us. The CIC community. Hundreds more, I'm sure, but that doesn't allow for a bigger fanbase.
It's a sad catch 22, really. I want the games to be inside. I want to be rewarded for following for elleven years. I want Blair to talk about Bossman. About the Tiger's claw. I want him to comment on the poster in the barracks of Caernarvon. I want things like that. But if the game is too-full of things like that, and not enough substance, or good acting... it's doomed to retain it's fanbase.
I'm getting depressed just thinking about it. What do you guys think?
(SPOILER ALERT!)
I, like others here, have been playing Wing Commander games since 1990. I was only seven. Crashed into the Tiger's Claw every time I tried to land for the first two months because I was too retarded to ask for permission to land. (What else could I do? I didn't read very well then.)
Since then, we've enjoyed many Wing Commander games. They were all great. They were all a part of me. A part of all of us. Kind of Zen, really. I never feel quite as relaxed as when I'm chasing down a Sabre in my Morningstar, as I did not ten minutes ago, or pounding away at a Moray with my Dragonflies. Running that first Diamond patrol in Enyo. Making that run from Troy to Pender's Star, to Junction, to New Constantinople with three loads of cargo missions for almost 30,000 credits.
These are the images, moods, adventures, and experiences that I have grown up on. Were my life without Wing Commander, I would not be the man I am today. None of us would be. That might not be a big deal to you. But it sure as hell is to me.
My two brothers, the other day, were playing Freespace 2. I told them that Wing Commander was far superior in almost every way. They challenged it, naturally, so I threw in Prophecy and they both installed it on their respective machines and played for half-an-hour.
These were the replies I got.
"Horrible acting." "Listen to the way that Maestro guy talks. I want to punch him in the face." "That Stiletto chick is the worst actress I've ever seen." "This game is campy and retarded, but it doesn't acknowledge it. It's accidentally lame." "Freespace is way better." "What good's a story when it sucks ass?"
I looked, for the first time, at Prohecy. Objectively. It wasn't good.
Initially, I loved the game. Loved it ever since. Still love it dearly. But I looked at it from the point of view of somebody that's never played a Wing Commander game before. Never run brilliance from Pentonville. Never watched the Behemoth as it met it's fate. Never witnessed the end of the Kilrathi war. Never routed the cats from Vega sector. Never argued with another fellow-junkie about why the Deneb Sector disappeared from the Prophecy map.
It was lame. It was a really bad game. It flew well, but the story sucked.
Before you flame me, listen for a second.
Everything I liked about the story of Prophecy draws it's roots into earlier games. Hawk's death. Blair's abduction. The way that Prophecy reminded me so much of the first WC it was scary.
This is why WC's fanbase shrank, not grew, with Prohecy. It was too inside. How many people would have known that the TCS Devereaux was an homage to a good friend to all of us. Well... we would. Us. The CIC community. Hundreds more, I'm sure, but that doesn't allow for a bigger fanbase.
It's a sad catch 22, really. I want the games to be inside. I want to be rewarded for following for elleven years. I want Blair to talk about Bossman. About the Tiger's claw. I want him to comment on the poster in the barracks of Caernarvon. I want things like that. But if the game is too-full of things like that, and not enough substance, or good acting... it's doomed to retain it's fanbase.
I'm getting depressed just thinking about it. What do you guys think?
), it would be a fresh start. I know what you are saying right now: it's been done in P2. Well, that was a mistake. They pushed it too far, it looked a paralell universe. All the familiar signs would be there. Let me dream...