News Collection: On This Day in WC News

2024.080 (March 20, 2024)

GOG Spring Sale Discounts Wing Commander Series by 71%

GOG.com is starting to rollout their annual Spring Sale, and Wing Commander has gotten a nice price cut across the board. In order to keep things interesting, rather than a straight 75% off each title, Prophecy, Armada and Privateer 2 are each marked down 65%. Happy Wing Commandering!

2023.079 (March 20, 2023)

Gemini Sector Frontier Expands With Discovery of Test Bed System

If you've been following LOAF's Wing Commander Privateer exploration lately, you've read about how the game's code refers to a Test Bed System that the Origin developers used while making the game. It's not linked from anywhere in the Gemini Sector, but it's still a "real" place that exists since it's pictured in the manual. To our knowledge, no players have managed to find it, until now! Rylex has accomplished an amazing feat by hex editing his way on over.

2022.079 (March 20, 2022)

Rapier: What Came Between?

We've recently seen Klavs model a couple of early (WC1&2) era Rapiers, but there are a handful of intermediate designs implied in between those. Based on popular designs cues from some of his previous designs, Klavs has filled in the game with hypothetical Rapiers that might have flown before the workhorse version we're familiar with on the Concordia. The results are below! And he's definitely not finished with the Rapier here...

2021.079 (March 20, 2021)

See How WC2 Concept Cockpits Stack Up

I went back and compared those Wing Commander 2 WIP cockpits we recovered with the final assets. Check out these Broadsword turrets which lose, among other things, the hand graphics! A set of three hard drives belonging to an unidentified Origin Systems employee was recovered by Joe Garrity of the Origin Museum and Dan Chisarick. The contents included installations of Wing Commander I and II and a copy of DeluxePaint with several Wing Commander II-related animation files saved.

2020.080 (March 20, 2020)

Play Wing Commander All Day

BastichB 64K is kicking off a new series, called DOS Days, and he's chosen Wing Commander to inaugurate the first episode. This review is nice because it seeks to set the stage for what 1990 was like from both a pop culture and PC gaming perspective. The author played Space Rogue, but was blown away by Origin's next space game, Wing Commander. He credits the missions, music and interpersonal interaction for making it all so enthralling.

2019.079 (March 20, 2019)

Cockpit Renders Tease WC4 Remaster

Among many other Wing Commander endeavors, Pedro is still grinding away in the background on his WC4 Fan Remake project. He reports that there might be some exciting breakthroughs regarding cockpits soon, and DefianceIndustries has stepped up to share some of the prototype views. There's still work to go, but these examples are pretty sweet! Who'd like to take this ship out for a spin?

2018.079 (March 20, 2018)

New WC Toolbox Expands WC2 Campaign Support

The WC Toolbox has gotten smarter with another new update. Version 4.2.0 beta 1 expands the program's understanding of Wing Commander 2's campaign and gameflow type data files.

2017.079 (March 20, 2017)

Laser Gun for Hire

Yesterday, we reported that Wing Commander SNES cover artist Mike Winterbauer has re-launched his Kickstarter project to create a printed art book of his work. The project is going great, already nearing the 50% funding mark in less than 24 hours... and today we can reveal that it turns out Mr. Winterbauer has been proud of his Wing Commander artwork for quite a while!

2016.080 (March 20, 2016)

Fan Runs WC3 On Pandora Handheld

ekianjo has posted a neat video of the Open Pandora gaming console/mini computer running Wing Commander 3. The device begins with DOSBox and the game plays quite smoothly despite the overhead CPU power needed for proper emulation. There's just some minor stuttering when a fighter explodes on screen, which is pretty amazing for such a lightweight (both physically and spec wise) device. To this day I still expect a big lag before movies load and your ship launches into space because of my years running WC3 on a 486!

2015.079 (March 20, 2015)

Seether Bombs Innocent Installation

Here's a funny/horrible story involving Robert Rusler, Seether from Wing Commander 4. Costar Robert Downey Jr. reports that the pair made a giant mess in a poor girl's trailer on the set of Weird Science. The unspeakable details are below.

2014.079 (March 20, 2014)

Music Album Hits Kickstarter Goal!

It's a great day for Wingnuts out there! George Oldziey's campaign to create a live reorchestration of the music from WC3, WC4 & Prophecy has met its minimum funding goal. This means that George can begin working the details to get this thing made! The project crossed $35,000 with about 500 backers early this morning, but there's still a little more time to go until the official end on Saturday morning.

Radio Rollins Appearing at California Convention

LeHah noticed that Courtney "Radio Rollins" Gaines will be appearing at Monsterpalooza in Burbank on March 28-30. In addition to playing the comm officer in Wing Commander 3, he's had numerous roles in films like Children of the Corn, Back to the Future and Memphis Belle. Be sure to check the convention schedule if you'd like to meet him - there can often be last minute changes and specific windows of availability. And if you happen to get an autograph or picture with him and your Wing Commander memorabilia, post or send it in!

2013.079 (March 20, 2013)

Space Sim First Look: Rogue System

Rogue System is an upcoming space sim from Texas based developer DCI. The game tries to blend in defining elements from major franchises like Elite and Wing Commander, while targeting hardcore combat sim fanatics with a taste for realism and control.

2012.080 (March 20, 2012)

Audience Award for Matthew Lillard

TheWrap reports that Wing Commander star Matthew Lillard has won an audience award at this year's SXSW for his directorial debut. Fat Kid Rules The World won in the category "narrative spotlight". Watch the trailer here. Matthew Lillard's "Fat Kid Rules the World" and Joe Berlinger's Paul Simon documentary "Under African Skies" are among the additional audience award winners at the South by Southwest Film Conference and Festival, which announced the top films in seven categories on Saturday.

2011.079 (March 20, 2011)

Academy Actress Ascending

Many of us are familiar with the talent that voiced Blair, Maniac, and Tolwyn in the animated TV series Wing Commander Academy since they were the same actors that portrayed the Characters in the live-action footage from Wing Commanders 3, 4, and Prophecy. Not as many of us are as familiar with the voices behind the other main characters in the series. If you head on over to www.danadelany.

2010.079 (March 20, 2010)

Radio Contact Re-Established

It's been more than ten years since we launched our very first InfoBurst -- an interview with CIC founders Christopher Reid and Ben Lesnick. Originally a RealAudio show, the CIC InfoBurst later returned as a free internet radio station. Tune in 24/7 to listen to random tracks from our music archive. Special shows that include the 1998/1999 telephone interviews with Chris Roberts, George Oldziey and Chris McCubbin have been archived in MP3 format.

2009.079 (March 20, 2009)

EA Expands On XBLA

Electronic Arts has significantly bolstered their XBox Live Marketplace presence with the recent release of NHL 3 on 3 and EA Hasbro Family Game Night. The latter is a new 'channel' that includes Scrabble, Connect 4, Battleship, Yahtzee and other classic games available for separate purchase. EA's previous Live Arcade releases were limited to Boom Boom Rocket and Wing Commander Arena. This is potentially good news for WC fans as more EA Arcade titles improve the chances of getting a physical retail release of Arena similar to XBox Live Arcade Unplugged.

Making the Game: Mission E5

Cut mission! E5 was a 'dead end' mission in the style of Proxima/Sol from the Wing Commander III. Some nice dialogue from Maniac and Stiletto -- did that make it into the game somewhere? (At the risk of disagreeing with Ben Potter, I loved the lose-lose missions in previous games...

2008.080 (March 20, 2008)

Final Details Applied To Pioneer Bengal

Howard Day has finished the final texture map for his Bengal class carrier, and it's come in at a trim 2048x2048 resolution. That's just a quarter of what his initial projections were for all the detail included. This should improve handling of the ship in WC Pioneer. Here's a shot of the basically complete mesh and wearing the final map.

Fan Fiction Leaves You Hanging

Forums member Plywood Fiend has published the first chapter of the second book in his "Front Lines" series. The first book was posted in full to the Forums over the course of two years. You can find all 38 chapters here. The new book is titled "Hangman's Noose.

2007.079 (March 20, 2007)

Ascii Sector Comes To Life

Chris Knudsen has made progress with Privateer Ascii Sector, and he's released a new video to show everything off in motion. The 6 meg wmv file reveals the game's new artificial intelligence with an intense dogfight between the player, a bounty hunter and a Kilrathi. What looks like a blob of yellow and red asterisks is actually a triumphant explosion. It might be hard to make sense of the symbols in the screenshots, but the neat ship icons take on a life of their own in the new clip.

Blast Into EA's Past

Gamasutra has put together a thorough article on the history of Electronic Arts. It begins with the events surrounding the company's 1982 founding and covers many major milestones that contributed to its growth over the last 25 years. Page 4 gets into the acquisitions of studios such as Maxis, Origin and Westwood that bolstered the EA lineup in the mid nineties. Wing Commander is mentioned there and also cited as a major 3DO title when the company's original founder partnered with EA to launch the system.

2006.079 (March 20, 2006)

Galactic Civilizations Mod Turns To WC Ships

Last week's preliminary Wing Commander makeover for Galactic Civilizations 2 has mostly come together, and an installation and help guide is now in the works for the conversion package. The retail game itself has recently gotten quite a bit of free publicity thanks to fallout from some forum drama. The company behind GalCiv2 seems to have a solid corporate philosophy and a good product on its hands, so hopefully this helps broaden the install base for the Wing Commander mod. With the basics beginning to get wrapped up, ColonelFireball has begun looking into adding familiar Wing Commander ships.

Prepare For Academy Week

We're planning a few neat Academy related features later on in the week, so now would be a perfect time to brush up on your knowledge. We have several resources to help with this. Our main WCA section has a copy of the series press kit and an episode guide. There are also a number of ways to view the series depending on whether you watch them in order of airdate, timeline, or production.

2005.079 (March 20, 2005)

Sheffield Never Looked So Good

It seems that Cyberion is continuing to regularly construct high quality models, and next up is the TCS Sheffield. This particular model seems destined for the Wing Commander Universe mod. Here are a couple of work-in-progress shots next to a couple from the finished version for comparison purposes. That's possibly the best looking Sheffield we've seen yet.

Space Sim First Look: X3 Reunion Announced

Ruadrim noticed that Egosoft has announced the cancellation of X2: The Return. Elements from the game will be used in an all new sequel, X3 Reunion. The cancelled expansion was due out soon, but the new work will take most of this year. The X Beyond the Frontier series has been known for sharp graphics and decent Privateer-style space exploration, trading and combat.

2004.080 (March 20, 2004)

HotT Finally Found Kilrathi Saga

His latest picture is pretty nuts, but HotT's so happy to have found a Kilrathi Saga, I'll share his story. This is sent in celebration of something that happened to me some time ago. I was able to obtain the Kilrathi Saga. Yes, you heard me right!

Electronic Arts Returning to M Rated Games

GameSpot just reported about one of EA's upcoming adaptation of the classic Godfather series. When it comes out, it will be their first Mature Rated game in nearly three years. For some time now EA has made a point of censoring some of its popular franchises to achieve a Teen rating. However, Kilrathi Saga, Wing Commander 4 and Privateer 2 all received M ratings from the ESRB.

2003.079 (March 20, 2003)

Blast From the Past, Part 3

Up today we have the magazine PC Format from Brittain. This is a review of Wing Commander 4 from Issue 55 in April 1996. The planetary expeditions are another new feature of Wing 4, and build upon the Kilrah suicide mission of Wing Commander 3. But while the texture-mapped land-scapes are initially impressive, in SVGA mode they slow the game to such a jerky chug that it becomes almost impossible to dogfight with any real success.

Prophecy Gets a Gamespace

One of the larger gaming websites out there, Gamespot, finally got a Gamespace for Prophecy. They've converted the original trailer to mpg and made it available for download here. You can find the actual Gamespace here. It's about time.

World at War

It's a relatively historic day. Things might get turned upside down in the world this week, so hopefully our troops can get their mission done quickly with minimal casualties on both sides.

Jumpgate Episode 2: Attack of the Conflux Released

A number of sites are reporting that Jumpgate Episode 2 has been released. You might recall that there were some Jumpgate ties to Wing Commander. It's the Privateer style massively multiplayer game with a much more newtonian flight style than WC. You can find out more about the game and sign up for a free trial here.

WCPolaroids: Maestro (5/12)

With so many other faces nearby, you can see how really white Maestro is..

2002.079 (March 20, 2002)

Do You, Ah, Lego?

PopsiclePete confirms the old adage that people with Legos are the coolest people in the world. He's found wonderful galleries of Lego-made space carriers at Brickshelf. Check 'em out here and here. They're probably not Wing Commander ship...

Not Much Of A Reference

An article at Gamespot mentions Wing Commander. FOR NO REASON! And Delance reported it! Who's the real winner here?

2001.079 (March 20, 2001)

Send in the OBJs

HellcatV reports that Lensflare 99 has created an .obj to Vegastrike format converter -- meaning that the fan-made game can now display any ship in 3ds (or even Homeworld) format! This shot of the Midway displays the game's new power (the scale is off, pending a shrinking converter) -- a downloadable .exe should be posted by mid-next week.

http://www.EA.Com/doomed

Saw an interesting article over at Lum the Mad -- apparently the current rumor is that EA.Com plans to lay off 200 people... no word as to whether or not this affects Origin, which is apparently part of the EA.Com venture.

Movie Teaser

Sawq asks that we post about a movie trailer he's apparently been working on -- download Wing Commander: Sniper's War here (12 megs). He promises that more information is forthcoming...

2000.080 (March 20, 2000)

Privateer Online Mention at Desslock's RPG News

Last Friday's Desslock's Allegiance Rambling includes a minor Privateer Online mention:It's definitely the first of its kind, but it seems to be aiming to create Warbirds style multiplayer arenas rather than an expansive and dynamic gaming world (unlike Freelancer and Origin's Privateer Online), which is a bit disappointing.

Starlancer Preview at CGO

Someone at CGO must have thought 'six Starlancer previews just isn't enough', because they've just put up their 7th. And, against all odds, this one actually talks about the game, instead of going on and on about Wing Commander. A little snippet: Graphically, this is a good looking game, but not spectacular. It should, though, run on a lot more systems than some of the later Wing Commander beasts, at least.

Help us! Plead The Inhabitants of Hades

Tony Countdown is on the scene. Disaster has struck on Hades. A contamination of the water supply, supposedly linked to Military testing, has given rise to immense shortages of all foodstuffs. Thousands have died already of hunger, and this figure could rise considerably if assistance is not forthcoming.

1999.079 (March 20, 1999)

The Cross I Bear

Here's some rather cool news. The Pilgrim Cross replicas, complete with expanding knife, stand and chain, will be available starting May 5th. Local knife stores should stock them, and if they don't go make sure they order 'em now. The price will be about $43.

I Shall Toy With My Prey...

First of all, let me apologize for not updating sooner... I've been busy with school & work, and sort of sick. That said, my local Babbages got in the Wing Commander Movie figures on Wednesday, and held some for me. On a whole, they're very nice.