Wing Commander 3 'Played as Intended' (October 27, 2021)

[ChrisReid]

Reaperman4711 has posted a video of him playing Wing Commander 3 on "period hardware." To me, that sounds positively ancient and even older than "vintage hardware." With that being said, there's a certain nostalgic joy to watching the game running on a nearly thirty year old beige box. On one hand, it's mind blowing how easy it is in 2021 to do a one-click GOG Galaxy install on your M1 Mac and launch the game with no effort. That frictionless experience is critical for bringing new blood into the Wing Commander community today. But there's a sense of accomplishment that goes along with getting your sound card IRQ settings set and firing up the game from a DOS prompt. And watching someone else who's done that work is the next best thing - enjoy!

Here is Wing Commander 3 gameplay, from an old MSDOS computer. There are some "immersive" ship-wandering cutscene conversations, followed by two early missions (2&3). Use the chapters or links below to skip around.

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Original update published on October 27, 2021