Wing Commander Academy

Bigt028

Bigt028

Rear Admiral
Ok, i just found the 13 episodes of Wing Commander Academy and they are great, including the three main voices, great animation and very good story telling.
So why did they stop? I wish I watched them when they aired.
Final question, is the pc game Wing Commander Acedemy good? I am looking for it, hope it works on XP.
 
I don’t think Academy the game is as good as the other games because it lacks any plot or characters. It’s still fun to play though. You make your own missions in it so they can be as hard or as easy as you want. Beating the gauntlet is probably one of the most difficult things in any WC game.

If you like really intense battles and can live without a story I would suggest getting Academy. I think you’ll be likely to find it for a cheaper price than the other games.
 
So why did they stop? I wish I watched them when they aired.
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Well that question has been answered a few times. The simple answer is that, NBC decided to pull the plug on their network channel for animated series and children programmes.
 
The full story why the WCA TV show was not continued has been discussed several times in the forums. But in a nutshell and as far as I can recall, the reason behind the cancellation lay in the networks' (USA? NBC?) decision to step out of animated shows altogether.

The WCA game is a nice gem, as it untypical as compared to the typical Wing Commander game structure. Depending on what you enjoy in the other games, thios may be good or bad - but take a look ate the material about the game in the CIC, and decide for yourself. To run it in XP, I guess you need to use DOSbox.
 
Don said:
Well that question has been answered a few times. The simple answer is that, NBC decided to pull the plug on their network channel for animated series and children programmes.
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Not quite.

It was USA Network (which has existed for a while now), not NBC, and they decided to not have a Saturday morning cartoon lineup at all, after the one season of WCA(tv) aired.
 
Wing Commander Academy ,won`t just play on WindowsXP.You need something
like DOSBOX to play it.Go to the Files Section and grab it.

in WCA (game) you are in an Academy simulator that you play your own missions.
You create them.No plot and it has nothing to do with the Academy episodes.
 
I've downloanded WCA and watched them. Well made cartoon for sure. The music is cool and storyline is great. :cool: Too bad it only lasted a season. :(
 
It's somewhat amazing that there was a channel willing to pay for Academy at all -- syndicated animated programming was in its death throws at the time, and had already died out on most networks the season before (which killed, among other things, Academy's immediate predecessor - 'Exo Squad').

Wing Commander Academy (game) is a 'simulator' for Wing Commander 2 -- you can make simple missions using most of the WC2 ships. It's not essential today, but it's a lot of fun to play around with. We tend to overlook its importance, but it's interesting in that it was a direct response to the fans in 1991. Demand for a mission builder was the big issue for a time, and Wing Commander Academy was developed at our request. It did a lot of nice things specifically for our group -- like correct Wing Commander II's lack of an engrossing manual.

It's also notable because it's an early 'budget' game... having an MSRP of 'only' $50.

No game of Wing Commander Academy (the show) was ever released -- but one was considered! PC Gamer devoted an issue to Origin in 1996, and an Academy crossover game was one of the projects that was talked about. In recent years we've found out that another EA game in development at the same time, 'Darklight Awakening', was almost retooled as an Academy release. It was a fast-paced space sim with more arcade elements... it would have made a neat project!
 
Thanks for the great input. I still may pick up the game, create some fun missions. I thought it would be similar to Star Trek StarFleet Academy, where you are actually at the academy flying training missions, becoming a good pilot, picking crews, meeting other cadets in training.
Now in other forums i have read about Starlancer and Freelancer, any thoughts on which one I should pick up?
 
WCA was fun, but you wont get much play out of it. It's more for a hard core wing commander enthusiast really...
the cartoon series was a good laugh too. I was surprised it was even made to be honest - but very glad it was :) was definitely catered to a younger market but had enough in it to be watchable for older age groups too.

Starlancer and Freelancer are both good games in their own right.
If you want a game more like Wing Commander, go for Starlancer. If you want one more like Privateer, go for Freelancer. I enjoyed them both. If I had to pick one... I'd probably say Freelancer as it had the better plot and has online servers where you can keep playing.
 
Thanks for the review. I hope both games are still available, i am still in a "Wing Commander" mode after watching the animated series and just replayed WC4, so I may go for Starlancer.
 
translation of Academy series

Hallo!!
I'm new one here, but i want to ask question: haw i can send to this site (www.wcnews.com) my translation text (on polish language) for the Wing Commander Academy Series first part "Red & Blue". I will be very greatfull for
any kind of help. My gg number is 9276139.

PS: Sorry for any mistakes in this text I'm not good in englisch.
Where i can download a full wersion of Wing Commander Academy?

Łukasz
 
To download a full version of WC:A just scroll down through the news discussion forum a bit. There should be a thread with all of the episodes.
 
Speaking of Academy episodes...
I am in the process of converting them to a DVD right now and while I was at it I noticed that the file for the episode "Word of Honor" does have some errors in it.
Most noticeable one is around 10 minutes into the file where there is a graphic distortion and a fairly loud bumpy sound. Reloaded the file and it had the same error on the same spot, so its already on the server side.
 
It isn't the file, the episode aired that way -- the premiere and all the re-airings that I taped all have that.
 
gwydion said:
WCA was fun, but you wont get much play out of it. It's more for a hard core wing commander enthusiast really...
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Or anybody that liked WC2 and wants to make their own missions.

gwydion said:
the cartoon series was a good laugh too. I was surprised it was even made to be honest - but very glad it was :) was definitely catered to a younger market but had enough in it to be watchable for older age groups too.
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As far as cartoons are concerned, it was geared to an older age group.
 
Yeah, I don't think your average cartoon series for kids has traitors getting sucked out the airlock by their masters.
 
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