Jdawg
Commodore
this is about wing commander saga a fan made game and my thoughts on it.
I have completed 17 or 18 out of the 55 mission I think, which puts me at about a quarter of the way through the game. this includes the prologue and the main campaign of the game. this review will obviously contain spoilers so you all have been warned. for full disclosure I have just beaten wc4 from gog on hard the day before starting this game, so my skills are pretty sharp. I will break down this review from negatives, to positives, to general thoughts and curiosities. oh and I have played all missions on normal unless specified as otherwise. so lets get the bad out the way first with....
NEGATIVES
1. broken missions- we all knew this was coming mission 5 of the darkest dawn campaign. yes the dreaded protect the bombers mission DUM DUM DUM lol. I have read several threads related to this mission and after playing it ten times, with 5 of those times just trying to observe where the break downs happen, I have concluded this mission is broken. Now this is not an impossible mission to beat, just bc its broken does nt mean its un beatable and I want to make that clear from the start. First off this had the makings of a good mission. it was different than the destroy or protect missions. it had greywolf (one of my fav characters) and the ISS pilots were well voiced and acted with good dialogue that made me chuckle a little. the breakdowns happen only at the nav pt where the enemy cap ships are. now I was not an idiot I knew my goal was to protect the bombers from the fighters and I did (this is not where the mission breaks down) 3 outta 5 real attempts at this mission I managed to keep both bombers alive from the enemy fighters. where the break down happens is the wingmen AI, they are in an agile ship and fly in a straight line right at the carriers ( yes I know you are suppose to draw the cap ships fire) and I try but they both got shot down. what makes this infuriating is that usually I found the wingmens AI too not be bad like a 6 or 7 outta 10. but on this mission its like it was intentionally dropped. bc in previous missions my wingmen would defend ships and shoot cap missiles well. Its like these pilots didnt put any power towards their shields even though they are on a bombing run, (which I find funny bc in the run the blockade mission your wing commander tells you to put power to your shields.) now do you want to know how I know this mission is broken, well on attempt 10 I dropped it down to very easy, got to that way pt took out the cat fighters with ease and the first bomber took out the first cap ship no problem without me even helping. after that I flew over to the second cap ship and started blasting away, I took out all its turrets one by one and guess what no bomber ever dropped the torpedo to finish it. ( I had both sabres still alive) I then proceeded to fly around the cap ship for 15 mins just to see if the sabre ever would fire the torpedo, it did not so I finally finished it off. So like I said broken mission.
2. broken mission pt 2- this is not a broken mission as what I think is poor mission design. I am talking about the mission to destroy the cap missiles an drop ship on I believe vega(sp). From the start of the prologue it is hammered into your head to follow the orders of your superiors and the Col. of the elite strike group tells you to save your missiles, so I did. well after playing the mission and I could be wrong I think its impossible to destroy all cap missiles without using your own missiles and still having enough afterburn left to complete the other mission objective. Remember the hellcat has no glide mode. Also it seems that the devs epected you to fail this part and cover for it with the dialogue that follows after about the planet defenses will destroy them In fact the elite squad acts like its no big deal, and even your CO barely mentions it (well until the funny as hell de-brefing). I could be wrong here but I would love to see somebody on at least normal shoot down all the missiles while using no missiles and still have enough afterburn to complete the nedt two way pts.
3. dialogue and voice acting- some things on my list are positives and negatives, this is one. some of the VO and script writing is brilliant some is god awful, but one part is so bad that I had to dedicate a negative for it. Its the mission where your escorting the refugees out the system and the cats are throwing everything at you. eventually its reveled that you have the president of the vega colony on one of the transport ships.the resulting dialogue and voice work might be some of the worst/funny dialogue I ever heard. after the transport ship revels that the president kins on one of the ships, one of the ISS pilots go on one of the worst acted and horribly scripted rants ever. the final cherry on the top is the ISS pilot calling the girl transport pilot a TURD yes a TURD LOL. I laughed so hard then the major demands to know what ship he is on and the transport pilot explains to him like he is a child that the cats are prob listening and she wont revel what ship he is on. its so damn bad that its makes it hilarious like the movie the room lol.
4. Communication?- where I think the devs missed something important is communication, while I understand you are not the wing commander 9/10 times. you should still be allowed to ask for assistance (hell your wingmen ask for it all the time), it might have helped the two broken missions too if it was in there to ask for help. actually the two times I was the wing commander this game truly shined the brightest, it was awesome directing my wingman to attack my target or defend the base. I think the devs missed out on a golden ticket right there in my opinion.
now onto the..
POSITIVES
1. the prologue- I might be in the minority here but I love the prologue I think it set up the story great I loved the pace it went. from basic training to taking on pirates instead of the cats instantly, all of it was great to me. plus the final mission was just epic. thinking all is lost then seeing two confed ships enter and blast the cats to hell. to me its was just a perfect hit the right notes and know when to move on.
2. Voice acting. script- yes this was a negative but it can also be a positive. I really like greywolf as a character and the actor who portrayed him did awesome. I personally like the VA who does sandman, even though he talks he has a gordon freeman thing about him (gordon freeman is from half life) even though sandman talks he doesnt say a lot and I think that helps the player slip into his helmet so to speak. Now my biggest props to the devs and the actors go to the WOMEN. In most games the actors that portray women and children are down right horrible, (shenmue anyone lol). So far three of my fav Voice actors and characters have all been women. The first being sandman's girlfriend/fuckbuddy from the prologue lol. She didnt have much to do but I liked the actress and when the cats were closing in on her to make the kill you could hear the fear in her voice. In my opinion the writers and devs should have kept her alive a little longer it would have made her death have more impact. Second the girl com officer on your carrier the hermes is awesome I really like her too. finally the COl. from the the elite squad that helps you destroy the drop ship on vega. I loved the banter/flirting between her and the major aka your wing leader lol. I dont know if the devs used their Gfs/wives to voice act or what but sofar they all ben great.
3. graphics- Like I said I just came off of wc4 which still holds up well, but to m the ship designs and back ground blows that game out of the water. one of the things I love is watching cap ships go boom and having the blast radius. one of the things that bothered me about wc4 is the mission where you have to drop the bomb inside the cap ship vesuvius,and you take no damage. I love that this game has a blast radius. I also love that this game has a hull damage display so you actually know how close to death you are.
4. control- once again coming from wc4 where I had to fight tooth and nail to get my 360 controller to work, this game was great. easy to bind controls and set up deadzone and sensitivity. for a pt of reference I beat wc4 with a 100 kills with less than 15 percent coming from lasers. now in saga I have 63 kills so far and about 60 percent have been from lasers. just saying.
5. atmosphere- the atmosphere of this game is great so bleak and depression, even at wc3 darkest it was never this dark a publisher would never greenlight this depressing of a game. I love the atmosphere so much
6. devs knew thier strength- what I mean by this is they knew how logistically to tell a great story, they knew they didnt need to have you wondering around the ship talking to poorly animated pilots. I mean the briefings are bad enough having to look at the major give the mission, who im 95 percent sure is the great great great great great grandson of ken and barbie lol. they knew to keep that to a minimum and let the story fold out in battle.
7. SCOPE- this is my fav aspect of the game. this game captured the feeling of a war. in wc3 it never felt big it always felt small. In this game you as sandman feel just like a small peon in the great war effort of confed vs the cats. You dont have just one wingman you have wingmen. you dont just have one capship you have capships. I just love it most triple A games cant give you that feeling. in fact the last time I felt like just a peon was in medal of honor, when you are storming the beaches of Normandy.
GENERAL THOUGHTS AND CURIOSITIES
1. those fuckers came out of no where- (by the way that was a quote from 40 yr old virgin)lol. On the mission where your escorting the pres out of the vega system at one nav pt random cap missiles have already been fired at you, even though you see no bombers or cap ships. how did the cats know you were going to be right there do they have technology that knows where your going to be and if so why does confed not have these capabilities. do yo know how easy and great it would be if your cap ships could fire torpedos from two nav pts away at a target. I really wanna know about this.
2. kilrathi- this has nothing to do with the game itself just something im curious about. what type of race are these things. I mean from a character stand pt. On one hand they all about honor loyalty and never betraying their race and clan, basically the ultimate warrior, in fact they hate spies. on the other hand they use spies and often sneak and cowardly attack, its like they talk out both sides of the mouth. can any wing commander experts explain these things to me.
closing comment.
So far im 25 percent in and I freaking adore this game. you can tell its was made out of pure love. is there some problems sure, but it continues a beloved saga that we havent heard from in yrs and its FREE FREE FREE. I love this game and cant wait to give my full review but so far 9/10
I have completed 17 or 18 out of the 55 mission I think, which puts me at about a quarter of the way through the game. this includes the prologue and the main campaign of the game. this review will obviously contain spoilers so you all have been warned. for full disclosure I have just beaten wc4 from gog on hard the day before starting this game, so my skills are pretty sharp. I will break down this review from negatives, to positives, to general thoughts and curiosities. oh and I have played all missions on normal unless specified as otherwise. so lets get the bad out the way first with....
NEGATIVES
1. broken missions- we all knew this was coming mission 5 of the darkest dawn campaign. yes the dreaded protect the bombers mission DUM DUM DUM lol. I have read several threads related to this mission and after playing it ten times, with 5 of those times just trying to observe where the break downs happen, I have concluded this mission is broken. Now this is not an impossible mission to beat, just bc its broken does nt mean its un beatable and I want to make that clear from the start. First off this had the makings of a good mission. it was different than the destroy or protect missions. it had greywolf (one of my fav characters) and the ISS pilots were well voiced and acted with good dialogue that made me chuckle a little. the breakdowns happen only at the nav pt where the enemy cap ships are. now I was not an idiot I knew my goal was to protect the bombers from the fighters and I did (this is not where the mission breaks down) 3 outta 5 real attempts at this mission I managed to keep both bombers alive from the enemy fighters. where the break down happens is the wingmen AI, they are in an agile ship and fly in a straight line right at the carriers ( yes I know you are suppose to draw the cap ships fire) and I try but they both got shot down. what makes this infuriating is that usually I found the wingmens AI too not be bad like a 6 or 7 outta 10. but on this mission its like it was intentionally dropped. bc in previous missions my wingmen would defend ships and shoot cap missiles well. Its like these pilots didnt put any power towards their shields even though they are on a bombing run, (which I find funny bc in the run the blockade mission your wing commander tells you to put power to your shields.) now do you want to know how I know this mission is broken, well on attempt 10 I dropped it down to very easy, got to that way pt took out the cat fighters with ease and the first bomber took out the first cap ship no problem without me even helping. after that I flew over to the second cap ship and started blasting away, I took out all its turrets one by one and guess what no bomber ever dropped the torpedo to finish it. ( I had both sabres still alive) I then proceeded to fly around the cap ship for 15 mins just to see if the sabre ever would fire the torpedo, it did not so I finally finished it off. So like I said broken mission.
2. broken mission pt 2- this is not a broken mission as what I think is poor mission design. I am talking about the mission to destroy the cap missiles an drop ship on I believe vega(sp). From the start of the prologue it is hammered into your head to follow the orders of your superiors and the Col. of the elite strike group tells you to save your missiles, so I did. well after playing the mission and I could be wrong I think its impossible to destroy all cap missiles without using your own missiles and still having enough afterburn left to complete the other mission objective. Remember the hellcat has no glide mode. Also it seems that the devs epected you to fail this part and cover for it with the dialogue that follows after about the planet defenses will destroy them In fact the elite squad acts like its no big deal, and even your CO barely mentions it (well until the funny as hell de-brefing). I could be wrong here but I would love to see somebody on at least normal shoot down all the missiles while using no missiles and still have enough afterburn to complete the nedt two way pts.
3. dialogue and voice acting- some things on my list are positives and negatives, this is one. some of the VO and script writing is brilliant some is god awful, but one part is so bad that I had to dedicate a negative for it. Its the mission where your escorting the refugees out the system and the cats are throwing everything at you. eventually its reveled that you have the president of the vega colony on one of the transport ships.the resulting dialogue and voice work might be some of the worst/funny dialogue I ever heard. after the transport ship revels that the president kins on one of the ships, one of the ISS pilots go on one of the worst acted and horribly scripted rants ever. the final cherry on the top is the ISS pilot calling the girl transport pilot a TURD yes a TURD LOL. I laughed so hard then the major demands to know what ship he is on and the transport pilot explains to him like he is a child that the cats are prob listening and she wont revel what ship he is on. its so damn bad that its makes it hilarious like the movie the room lol.
4. Communication?- where I think the devs missed something important is communication, while I understand you are not the wing commander 9/10 times. you should still be allowed to ask for assistance (hell your wingmen ask for it all the time), it might have helped the two broken missions too if it was in there to ask for help. actually the two times I was the wing commander this game truly shined the brightest, it was awesome directing my wingman to attack my target or defend the base. I think the devs missed out on a golden ticket right there in my opinion.
now onto the..
POSITIVES
1. the prologue- I might be in the minority here but I love the prologue I think it set up the story great I loved the pace it went. from basic training to taking on pirates instead of the cats instantly, all of it was great to me. plus the final mission was just epic. thinking all is lost then seeing two confed ships enter and blast the cats to hell. to me its was just a perfect hit the right notes and know when to move on.
2. Voice acting. script- yes this was a negative but it can also be a positive. I really like greywolf as a character and the actor who portrayed him did awesome. I personally like the VA who does sandman, even though he talks he has a gordon freeman thing about him (gordon freeman is from half life) even though sandman talks he doesnt say a lot and I think that helps the player slip into his helmet so to speak. Now my biggest props to the devs and the actors go to the WOMEN. In most games the actors that portray women and children are down right horrible, (shenmue anyone lol). So far three of my fav Voice actors and characters have all been women. The first being sandman's girlfriend/fuckbuddy from the prologue lol. She didnt have much to do but I liked the actress and when the cats were closing in on her to make the kill you could hear the fear in her voice. In my opinion the writers and devs should have kept her alive a little longer it would have made her death have more impact. Second the girl com officer on your carrier the hermes is awesome I really like her too. finally the COl. from the the elite squad that helps you destroy the drop ship on vega. I loved the banter/flirting between her and the major aka your wing leader lol. I dont know if the devs used their Gfs/wives to voice act or what but sofar they all ben great.
3. graphics- Like I said I just came off of wc4 which still holds up well, but to m the ship designs and back ground blows that game out of the water. one of the things I love is watching cap ships go boom and having the blast radius. one of the things that bothered me about wc4 is the mission where you have to drop the bomb inside the cap ship vesuvius,and you take no damage. I love that this game has a blast radius. I also love that this game has a hull damage display so you actually know how close to death you are.
4. control- once again coming from wc4 where I had to fight tooth and nail to get my 360 controller to work, this game was great. easy to bind controls and set up deadzone and sensitivity. for a pt of reference I beat wc4 with a 100 kills with less than 15 percent coming from lasers. now in saga I have 63 kills so far and about 60 percent have been from lasers. just saying.
5. atmosphere- the atmosphere of this game is great so bleak and depression, even at wc3 darkest it was never this dark a publisher would never greenlight this depressing of a game. I love the atmosphere so much
6. devs knew thier strength- what I mean by this is they knew how logistically to tell a great story, they knew they didnt need to have you wondering around the ship talking to poorly animated pilots. I mean the briefings are bad enough having to look at the major give the mission, who im 95 percent sure is the great great great great great grandson of ken and barbie lol. they knew to keep that to a minimum and let the story fold out in battle.
7. SCOPE- this is my fav aspect of the game. this game captured the feeling of a war. in wc3 it never felt big it always felt small. In this game you as sandman feel just like a small peon in the great war effort of confed vs the cats. You dont have just one wingman you have wingmen. you dont just have one capship you have capships. I just love it most triple A games cant give you that feeling. in fact the last time I felt like just a peon was in medal of honor, when you are storming the beaches of Normandy.
GENERAL THOUGHTS AND CURIOSITIES
1. those fuckers came out of no where- (by the way that was a quote from 40 yr old virgin)lol. On the mission where your escorting the pres out of the vega system at one nav pt random cap missiles have already been fired at you, even though you see no bombers or cap ships. how did the cats know you were going to be right there do they have technology that knows where your going to be and if so why does confed not have these capabilities. do yo know how easy and great it would be if your cap ships could fire torpedos from two nav pts away at a target. I really wanna know about this.
2. kilrathi- this has nothing to do with the game itself just something im curious about. what type of race are these things. I mean from a character stand pt. On one hand they all about honor loyalty and never betraying their race and clan, basically the ultimate warrior, in fact they hate spies. on the other hand they use spies and often sneak and cowardly attack, its like they talk out both sides of the mouth. can any wing commander experts explain these things to me.
closing comment.
So far im 25 percent in and I freaking adore this game. you can tell its was made out of pure love. is there some problems sure, but it continues a beloved saga that we havent heard from in yrs and its FREE FREE FREE. I love this game and cant wait to give my full review but so far 9/10