Wing Commander and the Maturation of a Medium

[@ecmorgan69]

Gotta give them credit. They had a great cast in WC3 & 4.

[@randlebrowne2048]

Chris Roberts (creator of the Wing Commander series) has an even better cast for the spiritual successor, Squadron 42. That game is shaping up to be the "Oceans Eleven" of video gaming!

[@johnecoapollo7]

I don't think that Malcolm McDowell has ever delivered a half-assed performance in his career. That speech almost made me cheer for a moment.

[@feralhistorian]

He can be over the top sometimes, but never half-assed.

[@KnjazNazrath]

@@feralhistorian "Eight, eight, the burning eight..."

[@arugulatarsus]

This is the single greatest wing commander medium form analysis I've seen featuring a man in front of a boulder.

[@chriseash6497]

Feral Historian: “..visually it’s like Starship Troopers…” Me: “Isn’t that Johnny Rico from Starship Troopers?”

[@MAWSAFGJP-p5b]

The best line was in the bloopers at the end. Manic interrupts Hammil's character, and Mark walks off. Maniac watches him leave and says, "Hey, wasn't that the guy from Star Wars?"

[@wynfrithnichtwo8423]

Mark Hamil doing the Lord's work by stopping that vet from ordering a Zima, and instead got a good meal instead.

[@indianajim]

Well at least now I’ve learned Luke Skywalker, Biff Tannen and Johnny Ringo were in a movie…er, game…together.

[@DMSProduktions]

Rico.

[@blshouse]

And Gimli too, don't tell the elf!

[@EvenTheDogAgrees]

@@blshouse Not to mention, Shredder and Pennywise. Oh, and that chick from all those cowboy movies. You know, the ones with all that shooting... 😂

[@padawanmage71]

i was walking down the hall in my dorm when i heard this awesome STEREO midi music. I stopped by and watch a floormate play WC1 on his 386 with newly installed SoundBlaster card. I played a little and was hooked from then on. Sure, NOW the graphics were pixely, the sound might not sound so good to our several decades old ears, but back then? It was incredible. Oddly enough, i never finish WC1 but binged WC2 and when WC3 was coming up, i bought a $200 2x Cd-Rom drive just to be ready, as well as a SoundBlaster compatible sound card. When Mass Effect came out, i also wondered how far games had come from FMV to pure digital graphics...

[@thelordofcringe]

ME1 still looks striking, I was shocked by how good it's artstyle and weird film grain (even with the setting off) helped it hold up when I played it on steam years later. I reinstalled it again to compare to the new remastered version and despite the upscales and improved effects, the art style of the original is just so well done that it still holds up. It has the feel of being shot as a early 2000s war film, its fascinatingly well done.

[@padawanmage71]

@@thelordofcringe I haven't played the Remastered ME. Is it worth it? I remember getting a 360 just to play the original game on my 1080p tv. Is the Remaster now 4k?

[@thelordofcringe]

@padawanmage71 the remaster includes all 3 games in one, with all dlc but one dlc from me1. However, it's best feature is how easy it makes modding the thing. There's a mod that adds in the missing dlc, and also allows certain armors to be available and some cosmetics across games. There's also some restored cut content, and better tracking of your war assets throughout the trilogy for use in 3s ending. Its also been on sale a fair bit. I'd recommend it for sure, but I'm a huge me fan (but not andromeda).

[@henrikg1388]

Played all the Wing Commander games. Even have the movie on DVD. Oddly enough I had forgotten the "space Nazi" element of WC IV. I generally find these allusions quite tedious, but when you have moral choices as a protagonist, I guess they become less cartoonish. You channel is gold.👍

[@randlebrowne2048]

I can't wait to play the spiritual successor to the Wing Commander series (by the same creator) Squadron 42!

[@MIKE_THE_BRUMMIE]

I grew up watching my older brother play this series we all got really invested...such good times

[@Archeota]

Unrelated, John Henry Eden quotes Wing Commander "The price of freedom is eternal vigilance" bit in fallout 3.

[@Bluehawk2008]

They're both quoting Thomas Jefferson.

[@NefariousKoel]

Yep, Jefferson.

[@johnwalsh4857]

Interestingly after EA bought Oriigns they continued the wing commander line in side games like Privateer 2 which had live action stuff starring CHristopher walken, John Hurt, Mathilda May(the alien naked chick from Life force), Brian Blessed and Amanda Pays) never played it but read good reviews of it at the time. As said earlier too busy doing career stuff in the 90s was more into SSI and NES RPG stuff.

[@boobah5643]

_Privateer 2_ isn't a _Wing Commander_ game. It uses gameplay from the series, but unlike _Privateer,_ it has its own, unique setting.

[@peterjanssen5901]

@@boobah5643 It does take place in the Wing Commander universe. (Gemini sector) Unless you mean it doesn't use a military setting for it's gameplay and story mechanics. :)

[@DMSProduktions]

@@peterjanssen5901 He was talking about Privateer 2! Not the the original!

[@DMSProduktions]

@@boobah5643 Well it IS set in the Terran Confederation, but like 1000 years AFTER the Kilrathi & Nephilim wars!

[@TheNathanielDurand]

Not to mention Clive Owen as the protagonist/player. There were some particularly memorable lines of dialogue as well as not nearly well adjusted CGI environment/actor synching.

[@bigd4366]

I completely agree about WC4. It was always my favorite of the series, and the writing, directing, acting, and cinematography were so much better than in the much more expensive Hollywood adaptation. I still get a thrill at watching the scene where you can look through the length of your carrier's open flight deck and see the two supercarriers trading salvos in the background. I don't know why Hollywood has never stolen and adapted that shot for something else. I do have to disagree about the MIDI music, however, which was really good for its time (particularly the WC1 launch music). Both Privateers are on GoG if you're interested, along with all of the rest of the WC franchise. The first one is basically WC 1 but as a civilian captain who can ignore the main plot if desired. And I assume you're well aware of the Star Citizen/Squadron 42... development.

[@Orieni]

Scalzi is indeed a low bar. My family bought me Wing Commander while I was away for the Gulf War, and I had the manual in a map case which walked away on the return. When I was finally able to install the game, it required the manual to play. Sigh.

[@feralhistorian]

I'd forgotten about having to search the manual to start the game. Like a DOS-Era Origin Launcher, making every game start-up an irritation.

[@Orieni]

@@feralhistorian they did so love irritating the audience, hoping to thereby fight piracy. I am reminded of contemporary websites which deliberately make it worse, hoping you will pay a subscription to make it less painful.

[@boobah5643]

I remember that sort of copy protection; I just don't recall it in _Wing Commander._ Or any other Origin game, with the arguable exception of the _Ultima_ spell lists. On the other hand, I do recall the installer for _WC3_ (when the game was new) telling me my CD-ROM must be broken, because a 4x drive was clearly far faster than was possible.

[@EvenTheDogAgrees]

@@MAWSAFGJP-p5b Yeah, you already posted that as a top-level comment. What's your goal here? Spam it in every thread, no matter how off-topic?

[@MAWSAFGJP-p5b]

@EvenTheDogAgrees I posted it in the wrong place the first time. I thought I had deleted it. But please feel free to continue to be a dick to people you do not know.

[@coyotehavoc5118]

"Predator hunting fraggles" With that image locked in my head, today will be a good day.

[@willumbermarchant5510]

Wing Commander 4 blew my teenage mind

[@bombfog1]

Excellent. Also, I appreciate the longer video.

[@MM22966]

Worth noting are the excellent WC novels, particularly the ones by William R. Forstchen. One is a "prequel" to the whole franchise that is half spy thriller, half Pearl Harbor attack.

[@wcfan4644]

Are you talking about Action Stations? Yes, the first part of that book is great, but the best part for me is not the spy story, but the relevant story from the perspective of Kilrathi society. Also, the first book in the series, Freedom Flight, is my favorite overall. You can see the author's portrayal of the equality of personality among the various forces in it.

[@jjohnson3469]

The novels remain a guilty pleasure, End Run and the sequel to it with a false peace and the Freeholders and a lot of strontium-90 were the best of them.

[@elektro3000]

I thought this was going to be about the 1999 film. I had no idea there was a series of four PC games. Maybe some day I'll have the time to go back and play them.

[@foxdavion6865]

Mark Hamil in his 30s: Based guy taking jobs other actors laughed and said no at because they thought appearing in a video game would ruin their career. Also, doing Voice Acting gigs for cartoons. Was still type cast as Luke Skywalker so couldn't find work anywhere else :( Mark Hamil today in his 70s: flaming lefty making a clown of himself on social media.

[@EvenTheDogAgrees]

Yeah, it's embarrassing. Started following him on Twitter years ago, and he was just a nice guy, making random kid's days when they wanted a happy birthday from "Luke Skywalker". Or that time he retweeded that kid's wish to receive greetings from all over the world, so he could pin each one of them on a map. He was great back then. And then the US decided to elect Trump, simultaneously the left reached peak woke, and suddenly his enitre Twitter output became leftist nonsense.

[@zali13]

Well put! Those WC 3&4 cut scenes were better than thr entire Wing Commander movie. As horrifying as the Gorg lion monsters were, they're 10x better than the hairless freak "Kilrathi" from the movie.

[@Plaprad]

I read an interview with Chris Roberts shortly after the film came out where he talked about that. According to him, the Kilrathi were never meant to be seen in the film. The brief glances we got in the opening assault were going to be it. But, apparently, less than a month before opening day one of the studio execs wanted to see the "Evil Aliens" because they weren't scary unless you saw them. At some point it became a choice of "Film doesn't release" or "We have two weeks to add the Cats". As usual, you can blame an exec who had no clue.

[@wcfan4644]

And... The Kilrathi figures in WC1 and WC2 are several times better than those in WC3.

[@randlebrowne2048]

Chris Roberts has an even better alien race in his current project, a spiritual successor to the Wing Commander series, Squadron 42. The Vanduul are far more terrifying than the Kilrathi ever were! Andy Serkis (of Gollum fame) actually did mocap performance for one of the lead aliens.

[@wcfan4644]

@@randlebrowne2048 This may be the key point of the problem. Why must the enemy alien race hold "terrifying" as the most important keyword?

[@randlebrowne2048]

@@wcfan4644 You'd prefer "cute and cuddly"?

[@johnwalsh4857]

yah I do remembrer this is Epic storytelling one of the earliest epic multi part PC games with a engaging storyiline, not surprised that Origins published it. Origins had Epic storylines too with the Ultima series. As for epic engaging game storylines, also loved the Japanese NES console RPG games in the 90s, like Lufia fortress of doom, those blew me away.

[@AzraelThanatos]

Since Jim Henson was brought up in this, just for an interesting note, Wing Commander 3's costumes and characters did inspire chunks of Farscape...

[@stevemcallister4965]

Wow, the only WC entry I played was Privateer, more like Elite in being a game focused on an independent captain's quest for wealth and glory. Sounds like I should swing around and give the main entries a try.

[@feralhistorian]

And somehow I've never played any of the Privateer games.

[@ChefSpinney]

I would love to see a revival of the Wing Commander franchise, even it it's only modernizing the old games it terms of graphics and such. Hands down one of the best game series ever made, the Final Fantasy of their genre.

[@randlebrowne2048]

You'd probably be interested in the actual spiritual successor to the Wing Commander series (made by the same creator) Squadron 42. It's due out sometime in 2026; and, there is an awesome 1hr+ video showing the prologue level of the game. It's got so many big name actors in it (including Mark Hamil and John Reese-Davis) that it's been called the "Oceans Eleven" of sci-fi gaming!

[@EvenTheDogAgrees]

@@randlebrowne2048 That game has been in development for over a decade, and has managed to eat up its initial budget many times over, with still nothing to show for it. Heck, even the multiplayer part runs like a brick on top of the line hardware. I backed the original Kickstarter as a 30-something year old, and I'm seriously doubting I'll ever get to play the finished product.

[@randlebrowne2048]

@@EvenTheDogAgrees Nothing to show for it? They had an hour-long live gameplay demo on stage at their annual convention last October. The game is in polishing phase and is scheduled to release in 2026. As for the MMO, most of the performance issues are server related. There is currently a patch being tested to implement server meshing technology that is allowing far more players per server with far better performance as well.

[@EvenTheDogAgrees]

@@randlebrowne2048 Great, they got a gameplay video and the game "will release in 2026". Meanwhile, I backed the project back in 2013, on a campaign where the developer assured me they had enough money to make the game, but wanted a little extra to add some more stuff. Just needed an extra $2M to make it really great. They're currently sitting at $700M+ raised, and still no game. It was supposed to be released at the end of 2014, but let's add in the standard Kickstarter correction and assume a 2016-2017 release date as realistic. I don't know about you, but I can just about make out 2025 on the horizon, marching steadily towards us. They went way over budget, way over time, and even had to start selling expensive ingame ships, just to fund further development. And the parts of the game that we got so far are still an unplayable mess, whereas the main game we backed is still in development, and "trust me bro, it's gonna be out in less than 2 years, pinky swear". You think that's an acceptable state for the game to be in after 11 years of development?

[@johnwalsh4857]

Yah played Wing commander on my IBM PC 640K from the same company which made the now forgotten Ultima RPG series which I played a lot in the 80s. and early 90s, which was a massive hit at the time. Played until WIng Commander 2 then life intervened and things got busy for me. but excellent storylines as I can recall at the time, the movie , watched it once, in 2000 as a VHS rental, underwhelmed by it at the time may have to watch it again.

[@feralhistorian]

The movie, while mostly lackluster, has some interesting elements. I'm sure it'll be covered here eventually.

[@boobah5643]

The USA original _Wing Commander Academy_ was far more _Wing Commander_ than the movie which turned Bluehair into some sort of weird, magic Chosen One. Although it's a little weird to have it set before the first game while clearly using _The Heart of the Tiger_ and _The Price of Freedom_ as the basis for the character designs.

[@feralhistorian]

@@boobah5643 I haven't seen that movie since it was new, but I do recall it being more a reimagining of the story than a chapter in it. One of these days I'll rewatch it.

[@boobah5643]

@feralhistorian Oh, it's very much a reimagining; the problem is that the setting is pretty unremarkable. The most noteworthy thing in it is the tailless, furry-eared Kzinti that they're fighting. Which leads to the point that the human drama is the point of the story; it's mundane people in extraordinary circumstances. Instead, the movie invented the Pilgrims, a group of people looked down on by most. In exchange for prejudice, they get extra points in vaguely defined space magic that the protagonist cashes in to save the day during the film's climax. The movie doesn't feel like the same world, much less the same story. It doesn't help at all that the film's visual designs have nothing in common with the source material.

[@cynbartek9324]

Is that Malcom McDowell and Mark Hamill at 00:57 and further? --- YES!! You've just confirmed it a few seconds after I typed the question. My cats like the cats, but would fight to the death to protect me (or at least one would; the other isn't too bright). "There's not much room for subtlety or gradations in morality. Either we win or we die." 02:55 Mark Hamill thinking, this ain't no Chewbacca. Then Mark gets blasted by its bad breath. :-p I've seen this game for sale at the mall, in passing. Or one of them; the title anyway. "The price of freedom is eternal vigilance." Wow is that ever true. More so than I'd known. Hello, butterfly (10:15). McDowell is just as good in this role as Peter Cushing was as Tarkin. Tolwyn became the villain? "Characters can die because of the choices you made." I'll stick to watching butterflies.

[@cynbartek9324]

"In my bones, I wish to kill you!" 02:59. Should go on to say "Because you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup." (I had to come back for this)

[@erikhasenauer3584]

I remember playing wing commander 4 on my playstation and it was awesome.

[@Atrahasis7]

What funny about the speech at 09:50 is that hes right. I played them in reverse order with WC Prophecy cause i was too young to play 3 and 4. Funny how these old sci fi games sometimes stuck gold in writing which seems harder today. Bosch monologues in Freespace also paint a great villain\almost hero. I feel like ME stole a lot more from Freespace but in a more jankier way.

[@Wfalen]

What wonders me, is how on earth did Chris Roberts manage to screw up the actual Wing Commander movie when just the cutscenes he himself directed in III and IV had better writing and acting.

[@FusionArmorX]

I've wondered that myself, and the answer I came up with was... It wasn't just that Roberts had good writing and amazing actors to play the scenes out, but also how the games delivered on those aspects. The games weren't movies, but featured those elements as part of the game experience. It was probably his own peak of a philosophy that had movie and game blend into a cohesive experience, and in some ways still better than how modern games pull it off. Take the game part out of this formula, and you're left with the film bits. Doesn't sound so bad on paper, except what made those film bits special was the game they were attached to. Without the attached game, Wing Commander as a story is nothing that hasn't been done before. So, the movie's biggest failing is that only Wing Commander fans could really appreciate it, because outsiders would only see yet another series of WW2 allegories but in space.

[@dereksherwood3794]

He was a new director, which means he had training wheels in the form of producers over him that told him what he could and could not do. They clearly forced a teen heartthrob cast and YA crap story that the suits hoped would appeal to a broader YA audience instead of just gamers. Being a new director that wanted to play the Hollywood game, he went along with it. As with all design by committee out of touch know it all executive produced products: it flopped freakin hard. Outstanding musical score though, the composer at least knocked that outta the park. 🤷‍♂️

[@Plaprad]

Many reasons. It was his first time directing a movie, the studio kept making changes, things kept getting removed, the studio wanted it to be less a war story and more a young adult adventure, etc... Basically, smaller things I've always blamed on his lack of experience. Everything else was studio meddling. If you ever have the chance, read the novel. It's closer to the original script and is a lot better. It feels more like a good re-imagining of the first game and less like the cheap Sci-Fi Channel movie of the week adaption the film became.

[@wcfan4644]

The question here is, is the writing of WC3 and WC4 really good enough? WC3 and WC4, especially the latter, have very good story backgrounds. One is that the war is about to end and both sides are exhausted; the other is the internal conflicts after a total war, as we all know. But how do the stories of the two works develop based on these two backgrounds? The story of WC3 almost ignored the background left by WC2, especially the instability within the empire caused by years of war, and (almost) crudely vulgarized some characters through rewriting (Potential spoiler) It's hard to imagine a Star Trek scriptwriter rewriting Worf as an extreme Klingon conservative, claiming that the original Worf was a spy who infiltrated the Federation after being implanted with a emotion chip to hide his true personality, thus "ALL Klingons are BAD"-- But that's what WC3 script does. WC4, this story does not give enough description of the social and ethnic ecology and interest conflicts under that state. On the contrary, what you see is almost a secret space gang formed by a small number of senior Confederation officials doing bad things everywhere, and finally being caught by the protagonist.

[@EvenTheDogAgrees]

@@wcfan4644 Nah, man, Hobbes' story in WC3 was tragic. He may not have agreed with the actions of his own race, and acttively worked with the humans to oppose their plans. But when the humans decided that genocide would be a good way to end the war... I mean, what would you do, were you in his shoes?

[@Shamino1]

Wing Commander 3: Heart of the Tiger, was my second video game ever. Right after Commander Keen. I loaded up 7 CD Roms through Windows 95 and this game made my standards for video-games absurdly high. Though, not wait-14-years-and-700-million-dollars-for-a-spiritual-sequel high... Oh Chris Roberts, you used Car Salesman, what happened?

[@MM22966]

10:00 "Mark, just use your 'Darth Vader is your father' face." 😄

[@TidesOfWar1983]

Wing Commander is one of my favortie franchises, but I never thought about how important IV was to video game storytelling. Too poor to have a PC, I played III and IV on my Playstation but it wasn't too different. Except the console version didn't have a cockpit overlay thus killing immersion! >:(

[@Mak10z]

it isn't out yet, but Wing commander's spiritual successor 'Squadron 42' is supposed to be following the same kind of branching narrative like the wing commander games. its been in development for close to 11 years now, and has a massive star studded cast. Mark Hamill, Gary Oldman, Gillian Anderson, Mark Strong, among many many others. its still a little bit out, but they say its getting close to release. I for one cant wait to play it. here is the latest trailer for it. kzbin.info/www/bejne/f3XXm62Cr9hqjJo

[@Shamino1]

See you in 2036 after Chris Roberts and his wife have purchased yet another yacht or another $2.1 million dollar hydraulic office door with your money.

[@chrisgenson2278]

"the Predator hunting Fraggles" - I lost it! Not even a mention of the movie though? (not that it was good or anything)

[@feralhistorian]

The movie is probably worth its own short commentary. Eventually.

[@nickmitsialis]

@@feralhistorian "Predator Hunting Fraggles"? Did I miss some sort of bizarre fan made film?

[@dzeclectic2327]

I never played the game, but I own and hold as my guilty pleasure, Wing Commander staring Freddy Prinz jr. 😂

[@stickiedmin6508]

I don't believe in (so called) 'guilty pleasures.' If you enjoy it, that's all that needs to be said. You like what you like. Anyone who tries to tell you that you're somehow wrong, or that you should feel _guilty_ for being entertained, needs a poke in the eye.

[@dzeclectic2327]

@@stickiedmin6508 I agree but it is a terrible movie.

[@stickiedmin6508]

@@dzeclectic2327 Every one of us has a soft spot for at least _one_ terrible movie, let's be honest. I used to get teased for loving 'terrible' movies like The Last Starfighter and The Adventures Of Buckaroo Banzai Across The Eighth Dimension for instance. I think it's safe to say that history has proven I was right to stick to my guns. Hang in there long enough and the world will eventually come to agree with you. 😉

[@funghazi]

Great video, Wing Commander could use more love.

[@randlebrowne2048]

I'm looking forward to playing it's spiritual successor (made by the same creator) Squadron 42.

[@charlescrocco7896]

Wing Commander IV’s Black Lance reminds me of Fallout’s Enclave. Perhaps the people at Interplay enjoyed the WC games.

[@FusionArmorX]

I'm curious to know what your thoughts are on the Wing Commander movie!

[@nickmitsialis]

Personally I thought it was not TOO bad, though it played havoc with the 'canon', and the low budget didn't do it any favor--and neither did letting Chris Roberts direct it. Personally I would have liked if it 'jumped off' from the Wing Commander Academy cartoon from the 90s. Young fresh faced Maniac, Maverick (and maybe Archer-cool callsign for a pilot named 'Bowman'). I also thought, in the 'right' hands, WC would have been a great replacement for BSG-reboot. A LOT of the 'issues' the storylines hit on (peace activism; collaboration; treason; espionage; desertion; collateral damage; sacrificing soldiers and civvies etc), would have made more sense in a galactic war affecting Billions, rather than a rag tag fleet with a few tens of thousands.

[@johnwalsh4857]

the end of the war storylines reminds of Gundam Z, you had the one year war in the first Gundam series , then the Earth Military became the bad guys as they became fascist militaristic in order to become strong enough to prevent a future war with the spacers. in that one the hero sides with the spacers and his former enemies in the first series the remnants of the Zeon empire.

[@johnniesstorytime7837]

I’m glad someone else brought up Gundam and Zeta Gundam as a comparison. I agree.

[@blshouse]

I know you're trying to be funny. But the first Wing Commander game was ground-breaking and amazing compared to everything that came before it.

[@Gruntvc]

Wait, you mean to tell me Metal Gear Solid 1998 PS1 didn't pioneer mature cinematic storytelling in video games!? Neat. Wish they'd remaster the Wing Commander games along with: Syndicate, the Strike series, and Theme Hospital. Oh, EA owns them all. Crap. They did do a good remaster for Command and Conquer 1 and Red Alert 1 recently. So, ya never know.

[@feralhistorian]

There is a modding project to remaster Wing Commander IV that looks promising. Whether it ever gets done is an open question, but I'd give a run.

[@Gruntvc]

@Feral Historian, "Whether it ever gets done." Sounds like Star Citizen. Backers are still waiting on that one. In the time since that kickstarter happened, No Man's Sky crashed and burned at release only to later redeem itself. You never know with fan projects. Plus the dreaded Cease and desist order can fall on them. That just happened to a fan Jurassic Park game where would've gotten to shoot dinos with Muldoon's shotgun. Given how popular a lot of indie games have gotten, a spiritual successor might be the way to go. EA cannot be trusted. Heck, at least one Wing Commander did get ported to PS1. Maybe that one could be remastered. A small, but growing number of classics are being made available to play on PS4/PS5.

[@boobah5643]

@@Gruntvc Played _The Price of Freedom_ on PlayStation (whichever generation it was on.) Buggy; used an alternate control scheme, and was no longer able to choose my responses over the radio. And the default response to whether or not you wanted to abandon the corrupt Confederacy was 'no,' which eventually gets you a cutscene death.

[@johnwalsh4857]

hahaha wizards thank you very much for honoring the request.

[@det.bullock4461]

Annoyingly enough Wing Commander II had tried to put in some nuance to the conflict: in that game several Kilrathi world defected to the federation because they had enough of the feudal system that ran the Kilrathi society and one particular defector was your squadmate, but 3 did away with the Kilrathi citizens of the Federation and turned that one defector into a sleeper agent. Coincidentally Chris Roberts apparently had much less of a hand in the plot and gameplay of 2 and 4 (in the latter he mostly directed the cutscenes, which also resulted in better mission design than the 3 other games even if it was still not quite as elaborate as TIE fighter in terms of story integration and combat scenarios. During 2 he was working on Strike Commander whose engine would be used for WC3). WC4 remains the best in the series even if at the time it got slagged by the gaming press for being yet another FMV title.

[@Muz040769]

I think the great nievity in most sci-fi is that humanity might expand into the universe and then encounter peer or near-peer civilisations. The odds of encountering another civilisation within 10,000 of reaching industrialisation seem comically low. More likely the gap would be millions, 10's or 100's of millions or even billions of years different.

[@BodhiSurfer1991]

just picked them all up again on gog, i wonder what larry niven has to say about the kilrathi

[@patrickmullane30]

Wizards is a beautiful turd. ❤at 14 I loved it at 62 I I’ve it in a completely different way.

[@DMSProduktions]

GREAT analysis! Tolwyn was indeed a 100% Space Nazi! Horrorshow droog!

[@nickmitsialis]

I could not understand the 'vets cast adrift' at the end of the Man/Kat war; a sizeable chunk of the human race was killed off and many planets/colonies/holdings were turned into rubble (irradiated and otherwise); I would have said Great Britain or the Soviet Union would have been a better model: "austerity and hard work to rebuild, coupled with politics";

[@thelordofcringe]

You can see it happening for the last 50 years in real life. The urbanite westerner has been spared the devastation of the proxy wars between the west and the russo-chicoms. The rural westerners and periphery states of south America and Eastern europe have gradually suffered more and more. Those from the urban west who fight in the proxy wars are hated and despised by a urban populace who is so forward thinking and progressive that they overwhelmingly want it to be illegal to defend yourself, let alone be a "killer" veteran. Decades of collapsing veteran services and refusal to do anything but pull a rug over the scandals and ignore them. Look at europe, too. During a war to conquer the buffer state between the EU and Russia, spineless urbanites like the Germans have delayed and thwarted military aid as much as possible, because they'd rather their enemies win than be responsible for harming their enemies. In wing commander, its the exact same thing.

[@nickmitsialis]

@@thelordofcringe Again, the Terran/Kat war was not a proxy war--it was a battle to death akin to the USSR v Nazi Germany (though which side was which might be open to debate-the sheer size of the Kat forces makes it hard to make a REAL comparison)===the post war clean up should have kept Confed busy and population on short rations for decades.

[@Plaprad]

@@nickmitsialis That's if there's anything to rebuild. With the extensive use of nukes/bioweapons/superweapons in the end stages of the war, there were a lot a planets that were no longer habitable. The ones that were suddenly found themselves over capacity with people looking for work after being discharged. That left a massive number just floating around trying to find a new life.

[@nickmitsialis]

@@Plaprad SOME planets got the hazmat suit treatment but not all of 'em. Most just got enslaved and executed.

[@nickthx1138]

And lets not forget martin candle from lost

[@RecklessFables]

Biff from Back to the Future was great in 4!

[@wcfan4644]

Well, actually Maniac in WC4 is not Biff. I think WC4 Maniac is one of the characters in WC4 that is well developed.

[@Durungham]

Sir, please. I bow. Never stop, you, you cognitive berserker.

[@rem_qi]

so I figured out that you could play through the game by ejecting through each mission and still play out the entire story.

[@sahilhossian8212]

Lore of Wing Commander and the Maturation of a Medium momentum 100

[@williamvorkosigan5151]

I enjoyed Wing Commander III but never got WC IV. I thought that Freelancer was excellent, perhaps despite rather than because of Dread Pirate Roberts. He replayed his inability to complete anything with his Star Citizen Alpha. I loved Mass Effect 1 and 2. Replaying them several times. Although loved, I hated Mass Effect 3 so much I never returned to 1 and 2.

[@cursedmonkey1033]

Did you know there was a fifth game? Mark Hamil wasn't in it but I remember it being decent.

[@nickmitsialis]

You mean "Prophecy"? Hamill was in it, but not very much.

[@jacobnobles8453]

Do you edit these yourself?

[@feralhistorian]

Yes.

[@elbarto6668]

Nice

[@peterjanssen5901]

And in a dreadful way Tolwynn was right when the Nephilim arrive. And Fraggles should be wiped out. Sorry, as Tolwynn said: "Even if that means...he...discarding certain elements" ;P

[@kfeltenberger]

I think I would pay to see Predator hunting Fraggles…sort of like Kermit with PTSD hunting Ewoks…

[@GeoFry3]

Wing Commander was a direct rip-off of the "Man Kzin Wars" book series by Larry Niven. Interesting enough, Halo was also rip-off of that same that same iniverse.

[@---nu4ed]

Ear-grating midi soundtrack? Disliked, unsubscribed, reported, uninstalled KZbin. Good day, sir!