I've had the PC version of The Price Of Freedom for ages and played it through and through... heck I still play it alot. I recently got a hold of the PSOne version on my PS3 and noticed there are alot of omissions! I was totally surprised! I mean there are NO surface missions! The Circe missions are totally gone! Lots and lots of conversations are gone! Most of the game is present, but these omissions are totally unforgivable! They should call it The Price Of Freedom Edited. The game is still decent don't get me wrong, but this kind of cutting corners infuriates me!
Wing Commander 4 Playstation One Omissions
- Thread starter HurriKane
- Start date
Bandit LOAF
Long Live the Confederation!
That's right--a great deal of material had to be cut to fit the game onto four CDs for the Playstation port.
J "Phantom" D
2nd Lieutenant
Welcome to the 1990's.
Seriously though, huge cuts were required to make this game work on the PS1 hardware, and additionally to fit it onto 4 discs (remember that the PC version is 6 discs). It wasn't cutting corners (as that implies laziness on the part of the creators), but a practical necessity to make the game work on hardware that wasn't quite what it is today. Back in the day consoles lagged behind computer gaming in several areas, namely storage space. Because consoles didn't have a hard drive, and couldn't insteall data files to such a drive, what the console was capable of was limited to what it could pull off the CD/cartridge and stream/store in a small rotating memory so that gameplay was smooth.
Regardless, the creators managed to make the game work incredibly well on a console, and especially since the standard controller for the PS1 was so not what was needed to play a WC game properly.
They did a great job on both this and WC3 considering the hardware limitations they were put up against.
AD
Finder of things, Doer of stuff
I agree for the most part. For example ground missions just weren't possible on the PS1. That's why we got alternate cutscenes in WC3. But I really don't get the argument for 4 disks for WC4 instead of 6. Was it really that prohibitively more expensive to produce 6 PS1 disks than 4 PC ones? Besides which console games (at least more recently) have a cost premium over the PC versions... Here it's at least a 10 dollar markup on 360 and PS3 games over the equivalent PC boxed version, and that mostly has to do with Sony and MS licensing fees.
On top of this, what they did do with WC4 - while improving to stereo dolby sound on all videos - was lower the actual resolution of the videos themselves over WC3 psx to make up the disk space! That's why WC4 PSX is noticably worse in the video quality department compared to WC3.
However, I really do like that they attempted to make the game more playable with analog controler support and a simplified control scheme whereas WC3 PSX just tries to cram everything in control-wise.
Farbourne
Rear Admiral
I remember that at the time WC4 was released for PSX, its reviews were surprisingly (at least to me) poor, especially when compared to the PC version reviews. I just did a quick search, and the disparity between reviews of the two versions on sites such as IGN, Gamespot, and Gamefaqs still exists (although not as sever as I remember at the time)...the PC version is simply more popular.
I'm not sure how much of that is due to the fact that the PC version was inherently a better game, how much is due to the fact that the WC 3/4 engine didn't translate particularly well to a game controller, and how much of it is simply that console gamers at the time expected significantly different things from their games than PC sim game enthusiasts...
I'm not sure how much of that is due to the fact that the PC version was inherently a better game, how much is due to the fact that the WC 3/4 engine didn't translate particularly well to a game controller, and how much of it is simply that console gamers at the time expected significantly different things from their games than PC sim game enthusiasts...
TopGun
Vampire Ace
But you do get some things in the PS1 version of WC III that aren't in the PC version.
For example Hobbes sending a comms to Blair to explain why he did what he did and I think some of the TNC Infrobursts are different
ChrisReid
Super Soaker Collector / Administrator
I can't recall one. Even four disc games were very rare. There were probably only 5-10 games that had more than two discs. Six might have been cost prohibitive, and they would have had to be creative in the case. At that time PS1 games were sold in cd-size racks, and something with more than four discs might have also required a special case that could not be merchandized alongside normal games.
Bandit LOAF
Long Live the Confederation!
The original plan wasn't exactly to port Wing Commander V/Prophecy but instead to develop it internally at the same time as the PC game. The ports of Wing Commander III and IV weren't done in-house at Origin--WC3 was done by an EA team on the west coast and IV was done by Lion (they were an Austin-based company that had worked with Origin in the past, so there was more collaboration there). It was felt that WC3 and 4 PSX were seen as afterthoughts and that the market was heading towards a place where console games would be your main seller... so that WC5 should be a headliner.
There were initially separate PC and Playstation groups working together on the game... but they were consolidated after a number of veterans left to join the newly formed Digital Anvil. Actually, many of the people who ended up running the project got their start on the Playstation version... since they weren't hired away by Chris.
IIRC, it really would have been prohibitively expensive. The margins on the ports were razor thin (that's what killed WC2 SNES--the numbers said that even though it was finished and ready, it couldn't make up the duplication costs). Two more CDs would be a fifty percent increase in pressing costs... plus it would have needed a six-CD jewel case, which was something they'd have to make specially for the game.
I don't know if this is an increased licensing fee (licensing fees have always been a way of life for console games) so much as it was an industry-wide choice when the current generation consoles launched a few years back. Development costs were skyrocketing but price battles had reduced MRSP on games from $80 to $50 (against inflation!)... and so they made the decision to charge more at a time when people might be willing to pay it.
(Companies still put out budget and reduced price Xbox/PS3 games, so it's not some crazy licensing cost like Nintendo held everyone to back in the day. Companies also still put out $50 Xbox/PS3 games on occasion, usually 'kids' games... that's the price point for LEGO STar Wars III, launching today!)
HUh! Great catch!
t.c.cgi
Vice Admiral
Didn't Sony also cap the price of PS1/2 games at around $40? I would imagine they were trying to minimize overhead so they would actually make something off the sale.
Bandit LOAF
Long Live the Confederation!
Yes, that's right, they did. They couldn't actually force anyone to sell games for $40... but they released their own titles for that price which basically forced everyone else to follow. I don't recall what Wing Commander IV actually cost when it came out, but I know it was so little that I could buy it at the time... when I was an unemployed high school student with no access to a Playstation. (A good friend ended up quite unexpectedly lending me his Playstation to play through it, which was really an incredible kindness.)
I seem to recall that your pressing options for Playstation games were limited, too--you had to use one of Sony's partner factories instead of just any CD plant.
Perhaps that is the reason, why the PSX-CDs were all black on the bottom side. I always wondered, why they chose this. Perhaps to be "cool"?
Bandit LOAF
Long Live the Confederation!
Pretty much! A lot of people believed it was a copy protection mechanism at the time, but it wasn't... it was just a way for Sony to 'brand' the Playstation, since specially colored CDs weren't widely available at the time (you can get any number of colors at your local Microcenter now).
AD
Finder of things, Doer of stuff
True, and I seem to remember PS1 disks also being considerably more durable than regular cds (they work even when scratched extensively...) kind of the way Blurays are more durable than regular DVDs.
ExcalPilot1
1st Lieutenant
I have never played the PC version of WC4, as I don't have a PC, I only have a Playstation. So my question is, when you get the choice to defect to the Border Worlds or to stay with Confed, can you stay with Confed on the PC version? Because on the PS version, the Lexington just gets blown up if you destroy the Intrepid.
