Wing Commander article

Originally posted by Phillip Tanaka
I find that the game does sometimes freeze for one or two seconds when you shoot down a target, or you enter into an area with enemies.
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My point isn't about the controller, it's what you just said here! :/
 
Ah right, okay. Yeah, well obviously it's something I've noticed. It's not something that particularly bothers me though. In terms of looking for HOTT on PC, I'd be very nervous about putting it on, as I've tried other old games (Future Shock being a prime example) and they either don't work or bugger up my computer.

And by the way, I have a fairly large collection of magazines. If you like I could go through them for reviews and such. I know there's at least a couple of old ones (dating back to Wing Commander on the Nintendo I think) and there may be more.
 
You really should try. WC3 is one of the easier games to get running on a new computer, I'm sure. Oh, and I'm sure others would want you to go through your magazines too. :)

For anyone who cares, I typed up the whole articles:
Hyper>>, Issue 25, December 1995

Previews: Wing Commander 4

It took three monster games, three spin-offs and more mission disks than we can remember, but we finally got those Kilrathi beat. So what's a space fighter jock to do with his new found spare time?

In the case of Christopher Blair (your character in the games, played with animated flair by the man of a thousand expressions, Mark Hamill) it's back to farm boy status. Your life is a simple one and that's the way you like it. Not even the temptation of a womp rat shoot in Beggar's Canyon could draw you from your hard-earned existence of uncomplicated peace... or so you thought.

Origin had to spoil the party by giving another $10 million [remember, this is an Australian magazine] to Wing Commander producer Chris Roberts, so it's back to the cockpit for you, my boy. It seems a bunch of trouble makers are stirring up some grief for the peace loving citizens of Earth and civil war has broken out. The Confederation vs the Borderworlds are the teams and guess whose help the Confed needs?

Wing Commander 4 features quite a few evolutionary enhancements to the game engine that's remained basically unchanged since the beginning. The most obvious is the shedding of the cockpit graphics, in favour of a full screen view with cool looking and highly functional HUD graphics. The full screen option has always been there in the Wing games, with its selection being the first thing most serious pilots do at the start of a mission. It seems the Origin team had a look at the way people play their games. It also seems they had a look up in the night sky and realised space is pitch black, instead of the irritating navy blue of Wing 3.

Aside from these subtle changes, the graphics remain mostly unchanged. Explosions are better, but that's about it. We're not complaining though, Wing 3 was the best looking space combat sim ever, Wing 4 better still.

New ships to fly and new ones to destroy are naturally included. The preview copy we played revealed improved dogfighting AI. They'll pull some serious manoeuvres now, instead of making predictable and repetitive head-on attacks. We're yet to see the sort of missions Wing 4 will have us flying, but cool mission design is a solid feature of the Wing series, so we're pretty confident.

Truckloads of interactive movie bits should please fans of this sort of thing. Wing 3 used computer-generated backdrops for Mark, Malcolm and co to do their stuff against, whereas Wing 4 has twice the budget, so it has real sets. Big time drama and a gritty storyline make for some entertaining viewing between dogfights.

Start getting exited [sic] now kids, and we'll tell you the full story next issue.
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Yeah, I know he/she/they got it a bit wrong with the game engine and no-cockpit option bits.

PSX-Pro, Issue #5, April 1996

Review: Wing Commander III
Can the much converted Wing Commander III succeed on the PlayStation?

The Wing Commander series suffers from an annoying trait that has followed it throughout its life span. Basically, the games have been nothing short of superb on the PC, but all attempts to convert them to other formats have failed in quite miserable fashion.

Despite this, EA remains unperturbed, and is having another go. This time it's the turn of the PlayStation, with the third game in the series (the fourth is already out on the PC, with a PSX release pencilled in for the third quarter of this year), subtitled The Heart of the Tiger. Does it work any better this time around? Well, in all honesty, no. Despite my hopes - the PC versions rank highly on my list of all-time favourite games - WCIII does not compare favourably at all when put alongside other PSX releases.

The first thing that hits you when you play WCIII is the incredible depth of the storyline. An enormous amount of thought has gone into creating a saga that even manages to run the Star Wars series close.

Your character, Christopher Blair (Mark Hamill), has been reposted to the TCS Victory following the destruction of the Tiger's Claw [sic] at the conclusion of WCII.

Once again he finds himself embroiled in the desperate battle to save the Confederation from defeat in the long, drawn out war against the feline foe, the Kilrathi.

As usual for the games in this series, things start off fairly quietly, but it starts to heat up when your ship jumps into an unexpectedly hostile sector. The story twists and turns as you progress (in different directions depending on how successful you are), and throws up surprises right through to the final battle.

This game cost an absolute fortune to make. We're talking about film-sized budgets here, none of this pay a programmer 150 quid a week [this is a British magazine] and tell him to get the job done in three months nonsense. Millions of dollars went into this project, and it shows. On the presentation side, at least.

Much of the money probably went on hiring the cast. You'd be struggling to find any Oscar material here admittedly, but the actors are a cut above the usual software company tea boys we're accustomed to seeing in the now-standard FMV intro sequences.

Mark Hamill, Malcolm McDowell, the fat bloke out of Indiana Jones, and Biff from Back to the Future add a real air of professionalism to the proceedings, and the quality of the script allows their talents to shine through.

Unfortunately, despite all the game's presentational plus points, you can't disguise the fact that it doesn't play very well. The in-game graphics are a credit to the artists, but the coders of this version should be shot.

Imagine the situation - you're hot on the heels of a Kilrathi fighter, and you've worn down his shields and caused loads of structural damage to his craft. You're lining him up for the final killer shot when all of a sudden your ship stops moving completely. For no reason. This generally lasts only a few seconds, but that's plenty long enough for you to lose your target. Not only is this annoying in the extreme, it also makes the game a lot more difficult than it should be and ensures each mission lasts far longer than is really necessary.

It's a real shame, because some of the tasks you're set are great fun (there's nothing quite like the feeling when your last missile strikes home and a massive capital ship explodes in an enormous fireball), but for me they're ruined completely by this fairly major flaw.

Maybe I've been spoilt by the PC version, and I suppose I shouldn't really let that cloud my judgement on this, but when you know for a fact that the grass in this case is so much greener on the other side of the fence, it's difficult not to feel a little deflated.

Summary: Being wildly positive, Wing Commander III is an excellent game with a great storyline and a varied number of exciting missions. All that of course is perfectly true - if you can put up with the incredibly irritating flaw that I've pointed out in the main review. I can't, and therefore it would be unfair of me to give this game anything other than a distinctly average score.

Graphics: 8
Gameplay: 7
Lastability: 8
Overall: 7
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The magazine also has section on a "Blast from the past: Top 100 shoot'em-ups of all time". It only goes into detail for the Top 10, but Wing Commander gets a mention as one of the 90 (non-ordered) runner-ups.
 
Originally posted by Wedge009
For anyone who cares, I typed up the whole articles:
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Hmm, that's not the article I'm looking for :p. Well, if you do have any other Hypers from 1995/1996, I'd really appreciate it if you checked for that interview... same goes for you, Phillip, naturally ;).
 
By the way, I read in a Gamecube magazine an interview with a Chris Roberts, who worked for Acclaim and was working on Burnout. Think it's the same guy?
 
Doesn't sound like him to me.

Originally posted by Quarto
Well, if you do have any other Hypers from 1995/1996, I'd really appreciate it if you checked for that interview...
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As I said, I don't buy magazines, that's all the WC stuff in the magazines I do have, I'm sure.
 
Originally posted by Phillip Tanaka
By the way, I read in a Gamecube magazine an interview with a Chris Roberts, who worked for Acclaim and was working on Burnout. Think it's the same guy?
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Nope.
 
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