Take Another Look at Wings of Saint Nazaire

Indie space sim Wings of St. Nazaire has been in development for a couple years, and while big name games like Elite Dangerous and Star Citizen have been capturing most of the attention during that time, Wing Commander fans would do well to take a closer look at WoSN. The game has a remarkably old-school feel while still being amped up by modern graphics. It's one of the best crosses between Wing Commander and X-Wing art styles. Both cockpit and ship are beautiful, but you have to see the dogfighting action and explosions in motion to really appreciate them. Check out this page for a bunch of slick animated gifs. Or even better, the game is available as a playable alpha now! If you needed any final convincing, long time WC community contributor Howard Day is a major part of the game's development team. Find out more here.

Wings is designed to be an easy-to-play but hard-to-master game - that means you can jump in, fly around, kick ass and have a ton of fun as a newbie but the game also offers core players enough gameplay depth to keep even the veterans of the genre interested. Good players, for example, will use the afterburner in very short bursts for super quick acceleration, they will use the correct weapons against the enemies they are facing and they will always be on top of their ship energy flow, making sure that the systems that need the most power in any given situation, get that power.

Star Citizen Reaches $60 Million!

Chris Roberts and the Cloud Imperium team have hit another incredible milestone. Their total crowdfunding total has now reached $60 million! October's $4 million haul, combined with an average of $2.5 million in each of the preceeding four months, helped push the game to today's mark. They're now 50% of the way past the point that earn them the Guinness Book achievement this year!

It's been a very busy couple of months for Roberts Space Industries. Both planetside MMO-style gameplay and intense first person shooting action have been recently revealed, plus the existing Arena Commander space combat simulator continues to see upgrades. A deep space long range fighter became available today, and they've committed to a stealthy boarding craft and passenger liner as future goals.

Wingnuts who've backed the game can form up in the game's CIC Organization or join the conversation at the CIC Forums.

The team is ecstatic that their efforts are being appreciated, and I think I speak for everyone on the team when we say it really feels like Star Citizen is starting to go from a series of modules to a single, coherent vision.

As always, thank you for your support. You are what’s making Star Citizen happen. I know it seems like we’ve shown a lot in the past few weeks, but I can promise you right here that there’s more to come! We won’t end 2014 without a few more surprises.

— Chris Roberts

Crusader: No Remorse Goes Free On Origin!

Electronic Arts' Origin service has announced its newest On The House game, Crusader: No Remorse! Crusader is an Origin Systems isometric shooter renowned for its rich setting, interactive environments and exciting action. After two games were released in the series, its lead designer, Tony Zurovec, left Origin to found Digital Anvil with Chris Roberts and now works on Star Citizen at Cloud Imperium Games Austin. The team that was left behind at OSI actually went on to develop Privateer 3, which was unfortunately cancelled before release.

There were quite a few Crusader crossovers and easter eggs in Wing Commander over the years. The series' World Economic Consortium appears in Secret Ops fiction, Star*Soldier included a movie poster for the canceled Crusader: No Mercy project and even more complex tie-ins were sprinkled around various Origin franchises. This makes the second Origin Systems classic to show up in the Origin service's high profile giveaway spot out of just eight titles that have appeared to date. It's great to see our favorites so well represented! If you want to learn more about Crusader, check out the Echo Sector fan site.

Catch up on a classic. Crusader: No Remorse is yours, On the House. The unforgettable tale of revenge in the future of 2196 is a favorite of PC gamers, and it's available right now, for free.

No pity. No mercy. No Remorse.

As a Silencer, one of the elite enforcers of the World Economic Consortium, you're supposed to be incorruptible. But if the system you serve is utterly corrupt, where does that leave you? You go over to the Resistance, the same pack you used to hunt down. Now, your former employers better watch their backs because you're coming after them with all the firepower at your command.

Video Puts A Positive Spin On Kilrathi Concept Ship

Trip Report: Citizen Con 2014

The CIC Staff is all back home after nearly a week in Southern California. While KrisV, AD & Dundradal held the fort online, LOAF, Frosty, ace and I kept busy in Los Angeles. We got a chance to check out the latest on Star Citizen at Citizen Con 2014 last Friday. Chris Roberts presented a status update on what Cloud Imperium Games and its affiliate studios have been up to, revealed new ships, gave a planetside demo and set forth the roadmap for the next year. The collage image pictured below includes the logos from thousands of different player organizations, including the CIC's group. On Sunday, there was also an open house at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. We saw functional mockups of the Mars rovers as well as the actual SMAP satellite in final testing before it launches in a couple months. The team was also happy to meet up with a couple of long time CIC visitors/contributors, Mark Thornton and Eddie Benowitz. We love meeting other diehard Wingnuts like us!

Chris Roberts to Discuss WC History at PAX Australia

Important heads-up for fans near Melbourne. The Australian edition of the Penny Arcade Expo includes a panel discussion with Chris Roberts. The session is at 3:30pm on Friday, October 31. Check out the full PAX Australia schedule here.

A Chat with Chris Roberts: The Original Wing Commander': A round table chat with Chris about everything from the early Mark Hamill days all the way through to the most successful crowd funded game of all time.

Wing Commander. Freelancer. Star Citizen. Chris Roberts is no stranger to the infinite blackness of space. But what is it that keeps drawing Roberts back? What is it like working with Mark Hamill to shoot full-motion video cutscenes? And just how did Star Citizen make $50 million without even being released? Find out as we join the veteran game designer to look to the stars.

Local Newspaper Highlights Wing Commander's Musical History

The Austin Civic Orchestra kicks off its season this weekend by embracing the Past & Present. Video game enthusiasts might be interested in the "present" portion of the show with locally composed music from the seminal Wing Commander series. It wouldn't hurt for you to hear some Beethoven either.

The "past" half of the show consists of Ludwig van Beethoven's "2nd Symphony." We're told he's a pretty talented guy, but if anything is going to get the kids to the symphony it's a video-game tie-in. In this case, ACO will play music from World of Warcraft and a Wing Commander Suite. You've likely heard of the former, but Wing Commander might not be as familiar.

The Wing Commander series developed by Origin put local game designer Chris Roberts on the map in the mid 90s. The spiritual successor to the outer-space dogfighting series, Star Citizen, is currently in development by Roberts with reports of funding over $50 million.

Wing Commander III and IV incorporated some of the most cutting edge technology of the time: CD-ROMs, live-action cutscenes (starring Mark Hammill and Malcolm McDowell no less), and the sweeping MIDI orchestration courtesy of local composer George Oldziey. The soundtrack to the game is a testament to the beauty that can be found in technical limitations with MIDI versions of the usual orchestra instruments. This gives the sounds an electronic timbre. It's like aural pixelation.

Chris Roberts' Crowdfunding Success Officially Recognized

New Chris Roberts Bio Covers Decades of Creativity

"The day Chris Roberts came in to pitch Wing Commander, was one I will never forget," Garriott tells me, "He had already mocked up the ship launch sequence: running down the launch bay, climbing into craft, closing the canopy and launching into space. It was obvious to all who saw it that this was a winning formula. It was obvious that Chris was a true visionary."

Roberts explains why his idea seemed so complete from the get-go: "Most of the time when you make games you have to tweak and polish, but on Wing Commander we'd done the tech demo, designed all the missions out on paper, and literally the game that shipped was the game that went in first time... The game that shipped was the game I wanted it to be in my head."

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Besides, Roberts says he's not in it for the money. 'Some' would be nice, but as he says: "I'm not going 'I need a desert island' or 'I need a Bugatti Veyron' or something. I do see a few comments occasionally on articles saying, 'He's putting it all towards his gold-plated Bugatti Veyron'. Not really. The whole point of a Veyron is to go fast, and they've gone out of their way to make sure it's got the lightest materials possible. You probably don't want to put gold on it."

But what makes me, personally, confident that Star Citizen will deliver is the fact that the man at the helm, the Mancunian by way of California, gets feedback like this from game development legend Richard Garriott: "Chris is a rare, truly brilliant game designer. I was always shocked to hear his first pitches for a new game. While myself and others would labor to reach a good idea, and then need large amounts of time to refine it, Chris would often show up with a game design far more clear and powerful than I have experienced with anyone else before or since. The clarity and power of his ideas means that Chris also attracts strong talents to be around him. This works as a virtuous feedback cycle, helping to keep his creations and his teams top notch."

Transverse Saga Continues To Unfold; Game Evolved From WC Online Pitch

The launch of Piranha's Transverse space sim has been interesting, to say the least! There had been rumors for some months that the developer's next game would be a licensed Wing Commander title, so their countdown was being closely watched by some Wingnuts. When the game was revealed as a brand new property, it appeared that the speculation had been unfounded. However, PGI's creative director Bryan Ekman had this to say:

We do indeed currently hold the license of Wing Commander. We first contacted EA about the WC brand in the spring of 2012, long before the initial announcement of products like Star Citizen. We approached EA because we had a deep love for the space combat genre and Wing Commander was right there alongside MechWarrior as our most beloved franchises we grew up with. In short at the time we thought we were going to be the ones taking that big initial risk to try and bring space shooters back.

Over the course of the next 18 months a significant amount changed – Star Citizen was announced, and by Late 2013 we found ourselves in possession of an exclusive license to Wing Commander and assembling a small team to craft a new experience. We spent six months developing, designing, and working on a marketing video with help from outsourcing partners. As we approached our reveal date, there was a moment of pause when we started to reflect on the brand, and design concepts. We reached a pivotal moment when some of our best design ideas were being pushed to the side as they just didn’t fit within the constraints of a WC game.

We looked carefully at what our WCO product was, looked at other competing products, and decided that we needed to move away from the Wing Commander universe. It was a tough choice, as we have a deep love and respect for the brand.

It became clear that our very best and original game idea was contained within all of the concepts that were pushed aside for our WC product. The concept for Transverse was born from a single thought, and inspired by all those unused ideas. In the end we realized we should be making our best idea and in doing so we found a corner of the spacesim genre that would make us stand out. In doing so we would also be providing Star Citizen with the respect it deserves and what it represents to their customers.

Their game's art assets also match the story. Their reveal trailer includes Dralthi-style enemies and concept art with familiar commodities like Dart DF and "Javeline" HS missiles.

A few pieces to the puzzle are still missing. On the face of it, it would appear both admirable and shocking that the company has such faith in their concept that they would be willing to forego Wing Commander branding that had already been negotiated. It's a somewhat ironic situation coming just weeks after the exact opposite happened (a Hollywood proposal based around Wing Commander that lacked any rights to the name).

It's also not clear exactly how this 'Wing Commander license' might apply - the spectrum ranges from some sort of ownership of the brand to time-limited ability to create free to play MMOs on the PC. We can just confirm at this time that they've had some dealings with EA. For comparison, Destination Software licensed the ability to create Wing Commander games solely for the Game Boy Advance in the early 2000s, which actually resulted in an impressive Prophecy adaptation. It's also clear that EA still has a connection to the series, as they are currently giving away WC3 On The House. Additionally, Chris Roberts regains the film distribution rights to Wing Commander soon.

There's been quite a backlash towards Transverse from backers of MechWarrior Online. While the CIC would keep an open mind and judge any new Wing Commander game on its own merits, it at least is nice to have avoided some of the acrimony that's currently raging. Perhaps if PGI could redeem itself in front of its fans by faithfully executing on Transverse, a future Wing Commander game they make would get a much better reception from all quarters.

No matter where the next Wing Commander product comes from, we'll be here to report the news!

Piranha Games Announces Transverse

At 1 pm PDT, Piranha Games launched the site for their new online sci-fi game Transverse. Set in the 24th Century, where humans have moved beyond Sol system into the fringes of space, players work together, or at odds, to advance their lot in the universe. Many of the game's aspects are strikingly similar to Star Citizen, including a crowdfunding campaign with stretch goals to finance the operation.

Synthetic physical forms allow humans to pursue an existence in space and have opened the door to immortality.

This future is not without danger and the very substance of humanity will be tested in the distant regions of space known as the fringe. Out in the Fringe, factions of humanity race to explore space, claim resources, and create new technologies to tip the balance of power; with this race for new power, all of humanity is plagued by conflict with the remnants.

Out in the lawlessness of the Fringe humanity faces its greatest enemy: itself.

Wing Commander Luminaries Light Up Both Coasts

Teams from Roberts Space Industries have traveled to conventions in both the northwest and southeast United States this weekend to promote Star Citizen. Up first in Seattle, Mark Abent, Chad Zamzow and WC creator Chris Roberts will be participating in the Intel panel at the Penny Arcade Expo on Friday at 2:00 pm followed by a get-together at the Logitech booth thereafter. Over in Atlanta, Dave Haddock, Alex Mayberry, long time WC documentation creator David Ladyman and CIC founder Ben Lesnick will be representing at DragonCon. They will be participating in a wide range of tournaments, panels and Q&As sessions throughout the weekend. Check the complete schedule here and be sure to say 'hi' if you run into them!

Twitch Stream Explorers Original Wing Commander

Whistler reports that BadNewsBaron is in the process of broadcasting a play-through of Wing Commander 1. The Baron is known for live streaming Star Citizen footage on Twitch, and he's turning back the clock a bit to see where Chris Roberts got started in space sims. If you're not familiar with Twitch, it take a concept like YouTube a step further by integrating live video, real time viewer interaction and a heavy emphasis on video game content. It's become very popular on the Playstation 4 and XBox One, but PC users also have many options, including built-in support for broadcasting games from EA's Origin platform. Wing Commander fans have embraced this concept before on multiple YouTube channels, but the primary difference here is the interactive element. When the pilot can't figure out how to land on the Tiger's Claw, viewers in the chat room direct him to request clearance and fly to the front landing deck. The introduction is embedded below (mobile browsers may have to follow the hyperlink if the vid doesn't render), and past clips are available here. He typically streams on weekday mornings and afternoons, US central time, but the content schedule can vary.

Origin Veteran Tony Zurovec Joins Star Citizen

Joystiq reports that Origin veteran Tony Zurovec has joined the Austin branch of CIG, where he will take charge of the persistent universe (press release). He recently sat down for a video interview with Chris Roberts (embedded below). A few years ago, Good Old Games published the transcript of an extensive Q&A session with Zurovec. While that interview focused on Crusader, it also provided some great insights into what it was like working on game development at Origin in the mid '90s. Check it out here.

Star Citizen’s prodigious scope has led to a modular development strategy whereupon groups of skilled developers across the world have been assembled to concentrate on different sections of the game. In his new job Zurovec will be directing design, engineering, and art in the Austin studio that will be focusing a lot of its efforts on Star Citizen’s persistent universe. He’ll also have responsibilities involving management of some of CIG’s contract studios. He’ll join a growing list of studio heads reporting directly to Roberts, who will continue to lead and oversee all aspects of Star Citizen’s creation, a complex endeavor that’s expanded to include more than 250 employees and contractors.

Arena Commander Released!

Arena Commander is published in the Star Citizen universe by Original Systems. You can read more about Original Systems here. It's a fun read that echoes the real life history of Chris Robert's time at Origin. This week's release has also shipped with a Wing Commander-esque in-fiction manual available here. For further info on how to use the mouse controls don't forget to check out the how-two vids below that feature the voice of our very own LOAF!

Happy Birthday Chris Roberts!

The CIC would like to wish another happy birthday to Wing Commander creator Chris Roberts! In honor of the day, PC Gamer has reposted a nifty interview with the man himself. In his "How I Game" Q&A, Mr. Roberts talks about his customized PC, games that he plays and his thought process behind gaming. There's also more pictures of his Cloud Imperium office, which is ringed with priceless Wing Commander posters and artifacts! I think more than a few of you will find those more tantalizing than his RAM chips... Check out the full article here.

What are you playing right now?

"I like to escape into different worlds. That drives the games I make. It’s about immersion into another world." I wish I had a bit more time to play. Since Star Citizen went full throttle, I haven’t had much time. Non-PC games, I was playing a bit of The Last Of Us, which is pretty awesome, even though it’s on the PS3 hardware. It’s pretty amazing how much they’ve pushed out of it. On the PC, Company of Heroes 2. I liked the original a lot. I haven’t had a chance to play very deep into it, though. And I just downloaded XCOM, the one that was out a little while ago. I’ve been playing and checking that out. But I haven’t had a chance to get too deep into games, because the problem is, when I get into a game, I want to finish it. [laughs] That leads to a week, two weeks of being up to four or five in the morning. That’s not too good when you’ve got deadlines.

Why do you game?

I like to escape into different worlds. That drives the games I make. It’s about immersion into another world. I’m not really playing a game to rack up a high score or even for competitive stuff, although sometimes competition—like doing StarCraft competitively—is kind of fun. But it’s the immersion for me. I like to get lost in a world. I like to go and do things that you wouldn’t do in your normal life. You can see that in Star Citizen. Flying a spaceship out in the outer frontier of the galaxy is not something you’re going to do in your real life. Fighting dragons or demons and all that kind of stuff. For me, it’s an escape and an immersion into another world.

Dan Gheesling's Let's Play of WC1

It's not just centaurianmudpig that has been posting Wing Commander video walkthroughs to YouTube. AD has come across another series of WC1 long play vids, from Dan Gheesling. Gheesling won the tenth season of Big Brother back in 2008, and has since made additional appearances in seasons 11 and 14. Most recently, he has been involved in the Star Citizen community, helping out with the Next Great Starship competition. The format is a little different from the usual video walkthrough, in that the creator has superimposed video of himself over the gameplay footage. One video is embedded below, but you can also find Dan's Wing Commander playlist here. Each episode has a run length of some 10 to 25 minutes.

Starship Comparison Adds More Space Sim Ships

The massive sci fi ship size comparison collage has been tweaked a bit since it originally made the rounds late last year. Wing Commander ships have been repositioned, and space sim cousins such as Star Citizen and Space: Above and Beyond have been added to the melee. DirkLoechel, the creator of this work, visited the CIC Forums to talk about the size discrepancy of the Kilrathi Hvar'kann dreadnought. In order to scale the ship more along the lines of its in-game presence, he took the 22,000 meter figure and imagined it actually meant feet, and then he converted feet back into meters. This makes some sense within the context of Wing Commander 3 by itself, although Prophecy was the first game to actually feature a spaceflight engine with capships and fighters to scale. We also know that the Victory Streak stat was not a typgraphical error due to length confirmations in False Colors novel and Star*Soldier manual, but at least the mystery here is solved! The updated 13 megabyte image is available here.

Hello. I made this chart.

Wing Commander, specifically Wing Commander 2 and 3, are games I remember extremely fondly. Not only were they pleasantly challenging without making you insane (like seriously oldschool games - anyone here even heared of Psygnosis' Obliterator?), they also had a greatly scripted and executed story, an original, somewhat trashy feel (especially WC3!), and were just plain fun to play. Too bad that kind of game seems not to pass the producer test anymore.

The assortment was indeed to show most main ships - completist me. ^^ I'm quite happy I remembered most of them by name.

Gamespot Ponders the Return of the Space Sim

We take an early look at Star Citizen and Elite: Dangerous, two excellent space sims that show the genre didn't die when the 90s ended: it just went into stasis.

Sega CD Memory Cart Unlocks Extra Save Slots

The Sega CD port of Wing Commander I stays very close to the original, but there are some interesting differences too. Check out this story from 2010 to see them compared. The Sega Wiki has more details on the external memory card:

The Sega CD Backup RAM Cart is a utility that holds 16 times more game information memory than the internal RAM memory of the Sega CD (with its storage size being 1 Mbit total), which is useful for long-playing games and for not having to start over at the beginning every time the player(s) starts a game. It retailed for $60 U. S. upon initial release.

Before initial use, the Cart has to be formatted, although this is instantaneous with just a press of a button on the Genesis controller during the menu screen, no waiting or any further actions would need to be taken by the user after that. The unit could be formatted again if the user wished, but any game information stored on the Cart would be erased.

The unit plugs into the Sega Genesis cartridge slot (as it resembles a Genesis cart) before the power of the Genesis and the Sega CD is turned on in order for it to be able to start saving game information.

At the absolute maximum, the Cart can hold memory of up to 10 games, as opposed to the Sega CD's capacity of only four. However, some games require multiple save slots, taking up more room on the Cart than others.

The Cart doesn't have many other functions or actions to be taken other than storing game information and formatting the unit. On the onscreen menu, data from the Cart can be viewed, erased, and/or copied to the internal Sega CD memory, or vice versa.