Wing Commander Demo (August 25, 2011)

[Bandit LOAF]

Today, we would probably call this a trailer--but in 1990, it was a world-shaking event. The Wing Commander I demo walks through footage of both the gameplay and the gameflow... and back then it was showing people something they'd never seen before. Today it remains a fascinating artifact--check out all the minor differences between the demo and the (like that Hornet VDU!). Download the demo here (part 1) and here (part 2). You can also find a video of the demo on YouTube.

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Original update published on August 25, 2011

 

[Quarto]

Whoa! The missile shot at 00:50, where you're taken out of the cockpit... somebody remind me, was that actually an option in WC1? I don't seem to recall it. And it's a pretty great feature.

 

[Dondragmer]

Whoa! The missile shot at 00:50, where you're taken out of the cockpit... somebody remind me, was that actually an option in WC1? I don't seem to recall it. And it's a pretty great feature.

Yes, you press F8 and get a message saying "Missile Camera Enabled". Fire a missile and the camera follows it. Press F8 again to switch the missile camera off.

The demo is a remarkable achievement in in-engine cinematics. It's a bit sad, really, that both the WC1 and WC2 demos have such sequences, each more complex than what shipped in the game. Yes, the rendered scenes in WC2 have greater detail than the WC2 trailer - but they're shorter and less fluid. Oh, and I want that Hornet that has 162 units of front shields after it rams a Salthi.

 

[Quarto]

Ah... right, there was indeed an enableable missile camera. I guess it was there all throughout the series... and I guess I always totally ignored it, because I didn't much appreciate being taken out of the cockpit. How ironic - the reason this feature caught my attention now is because we do something similar in an air combat game I'm working on at the moment, and I thought it was kinda innovative, because I hadn't seen it in other games of this kind. As it turns out...

As for that Hornet... it seems he somehow managed to nudge the Salthi with his tail, look at his rear shields.

About having more in-engine cinematics in the game... well, you do have the fly-bys after every navpoint. I don't know how much else you could really incorporate - both games tried not to disrupt the player's combat experience too much. In WC2, I would say that in-engine scenes show up at every opportunity where they are appropriate.