| Wing Commander | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Developer | Origin Systems |
| Publisher | Origin Systems |
| Director | Chris Roberts |
| Producers | Chris Roberts Warren Spector |
| Designer | Chris Roberts |
| Writer | Jeff George |
| Composers | George Alistair Sanger David Govett |
| Series | Wing Commander |
| Platform | |
| Release | |
| Genre | Space flight simulation |
| Mode | Single-player |
Wing Commander is the first game inChris Roberts'space flight simulationWing Commander franchise byOrigin Systems. The game was first released forMS-DOS on September 26, 1990, and was later ported to theAmiga,CD32 (256-color),Sega CD and theSuper Nintendo Entertainment System, and re-released for the PC asWing Commander I in 1994. Anenhanced remakeSuper Wing Commander was made for the3DO in 1994, and later ported to theMacintosh.
Two expansion packs for the game were released:Wing Commander: The Secret Missions in November 1990 andWing Commander: The Secret Missions 2: Crusade in March 1991.[3]
The game was considered a major step forward for space dogfight games, featuring graphics, audio, and a story campaign that invited comparison to theStar Wars films. Set in the year 2654 and characterized by Chris Roberts as "World War II in space", it features a multinational cast of pilots from the "Terran Confederation" flying missions against the predatory, aggressiveKilrathi, afeline warrior race (heavily inspired by theKzinti ofLarry Niven'sKnown Space universe).[4]
Wing Commander is aspace flight simulation game, with the player piloting a ship, completing missions, and engaging enemy ships of various capabilities. As the title suggests, there will generally be an AI-controlledwingman which the player can give orders to. Missions will generally include multiple objectives, but the game can proceed even if objectives are failed as long as the protagonist survives. The game features a branching, open-ended story where overall performance affects the campaign: succeeding at objectives results in medals, promotions in rank, and progressing to missions with better ships; failing at objectives leads to more difficult missions and piloting inferior ships. The mission tree is designed so players on the "losing" path could work their way back to the "winning" path, and conversely players on the "winning" path could fail subsequent missions to fall into the "losing" path. In addition, the wingmen can be killed permanently in combat, and thus be gone for the rest of the campaign.[5]
The twoSecret Missions expansion packs do not have a branching, open-ended story, and the player must successfully complete the core missions to win the game.
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The player takes the role of a nameless pilot (later referred to asChristopher Blair in sequels) aboard the TCSTiger's Claw, aBengal-class Strike Carrier. The player names the pilot and chooses hiscall sign. The pilot, known in-production to Origin personnel as "Bluehair" after his most notable feature, quickly rises through the ranks of the flight wing. The campaign will split to various different planets and scenarios depending on the player's performance. If the player performs overall well, they eventually lead a strike on the Kilrathi High Command starbase in the Venice system and force the Kilrathi to retreat. If the player fails too many objectives, missions become increasingly defensive in nature. Human refugees abandon the sector, and eventually theClaw is forced to retreat as well. Of the two endings, the "winning" path is consideredcanon by the game's two expansion packs as well as the sequelWing Commander II: Vengeance of the Kilrathi.
In the add-on's plot, theTiger's Claw, on maneuvers in the Goddard System, receives an abortive distress call from Goddard colony. When theClaw arrives, though, nothing is left but wreckage and corpses; a quarter of a million colonists have been killed. Confed realizes that this is the work of a new Kilrathi weapon, the "Graviton weapon", which is able to increase the power ofgravity by over a hundred times. Clever work by theClaw's crew and pilots allows them to capture a Kilrathicourier ship, which reveals that this weapon is mounted on an entirely new class of ship; CNC codenames it theSivar-class dreadnought, after the Kilrathi god of war. Bluehair leads the strike against theSivar and destroys it in the Vigrid system; for unexplained reasons, ships of that class and armament are never seen again.
In the add-on's plot, theTiger's Claw is in the Firekka System, whose native intelligent lifeforms – the bird-like Firekkans – are negotiating to join the Terran Confederation. Tensions are high, and will only get higher. There is an unusual Kilrathi presence in the area, including their upgradedDralthi II and ships that have never been seen before: theHhriss-class heavy fighter and theSnakeir-class heavy carrier. This presence develops into a massive battle group, and though the Firekkans sign the Articles of the Confederation, the outnumbered Terrans have no choice but to retreat. Adding to the mess, a Kilrathi lord, Ralghanar Hhallas, defects, bringing hisFralthi-class cruiser, theRas Nik'hra, and word of a rebellion against the Empire on the Kilrathi colony of Ghorah Khar.
Finally, almost overlooked in all the chaos, Major Kien "Bossman" Chen is lost while flying on Jeannette Devereaux's wing; the nearby TCSAustin transfers over two pilots, Lieutenants Zachary "Jazz" Colson and Etienne "Doomsday" Montclair. All this happens in the first six missions of the game. The Kilrathi presence in the Firekka sector is eventually explained by an all-channels transmission from the Crown Prince of the Kilrathi Empire, Thrakhathnar Kiranka: Firekka has been chosen as the site of this year's Rite of Sivar, a religious festival that involves live sacrifices. Seeing the chance to strike a heady blow to Kilrathi morale, the Confederation assigns its Firekka-sector resources the task of disrupting the ceremony.
TheDralthi medium fighters from theRas Nik'hra are put to work on reconnaissance missions (conveniently, the ConfederationScimitar medium fighter is retired at the beginning of the expansion pack, opening a space in the database of Confederation fighters for theDralthi), and Terran troops begin landing in secret. Between these, the Firekkans' warrior spirit and some of the Confederation's best pilots and tacticians, the Sivar ceremony is utterly wrecked and the Kilrathi forced to retreat, though they take a number of important Firekkans with them as hostages. At the end ofCrusade, Jeannette Devereaux is detailed off to the TCSAustin, where she will serve as Wing Commander.
Interested in the other half of the crusade,Mercedes Lackey andEllen Guon penned the firstWing Commander novel,Wing Commander: Freedom Flight. It tells the Firekkan side of the story, from several points of view: Ralghanar Hhallas, Ian "Hunter" St. John, James "Paladin" Taggart, and K'kai, a Firekkan flock leader.[6]
Super Wing Commander was a drastic new look at the events of the originalWing Commander. That mission led the Tiger's Claw to track down and destroy the shipyards responsible for creating the Sivar Dreadnought. Additional background elements about stealth fighters and Admiral Tolwyn were added to improve the continuity withWing Commander II.[7]
Next Generation reviewed the 3DO version of the game, rating it four stars out of five, and stated that "Super Wing Commander succeeds at being what it was intended to be - a straightforward space simulator with an arcade spin".[8]
Wing Commander was originally titledSquadron[9] and later renamedWingleader.[10] During development forWing Commander, theEMM386memory manager the game used would give an exception when the user exited the game. It would print out a message similar to"EMM386 Memory manager error..." with additional information. Before the team could isolate and fix the error and they considered a work-around, one of the game's programmers,Ken Demarest, hex-edited the memory manager so it displayed a different message. Instead of the error message, it printed"Thank you for playing Wing Commander".[11]This workaround was removed before shipping the game, once the problem was fixed.[12]
Wing Commander shipped in 1990 for PC/DOS as the initial platform[13] and came with an instruction booklet styled as a shipboard magazine,Claw Marks.[14] It provided tactical suggestions, statistics on fighters and weapons both Kilrathi and Terran, capsule biographies of notable pilots on both sides of the line, and general shipboard news (such as the discontinuation of the popular comic stripHornet's Nest, due to the recent death of its artist, Lt. Larry "Tooner" Dibbles). Notable contributors to theClaw Marks magazine include CaptainAaron Allston, MajorWarren Spector, and Col.Chris Roberts.[15] The game also shipped with a set of blueprints for the game's four playable fighters, the Hornet, Scimitar, Rapier, and Raptor.[16]
In November 1990,[3] anadd-on campaign, namedWing Commander: The Secret Missions, was released, adding new missions, new ships, a new storyline, and an increase in difficulty. Unlike the original game,The Secret Missions does not feature a branching mission tree; every player plays the same missions in the same order. However, if the player does not fulfill the mission requirements at any system, he immediately plays the two losing "retreat" missions that are not on the winning path.The Secret Missions was also released for the Super NES as a stand-alone cartridge.[citation needed]
The second expansion pack forWing Commander,Wing Commander: The Secret Missions 2: Crusade adds a new narrative, new ships, more difficult missions, and two new wingmen. It was released in March 1991.[3]
Wing Commander wasported to theSuper NES[17] andAmiga in 1992, to theAmiga CD32 in 1993,[18] and to theSega CD system in 1994.[19] ASega Mega Drive version intended to use a customASIC graphics chip on the cartridge was planned but never released.[20][21]
In 1994,Wing Commander was retroactively renamedWing Commander I in a bundled re-release together withWing Commander II, in preparation for the release ofWing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger. The rebundledremakes do not contain and do not support theSecret Missions addons.[citation needed]
In 1996Wing Commander was ported to Windows 95 in a bundled re-release together withWing Commander II, andWing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger known asWing Commander: The Kilrathi Saga. All three games were ported to Windows 95 and theSecret Missions Addons whilst not shipped on the CDs could be downloaded from Origin's website.[citation needed]
Super Wing Commander; released on March 23, 1994, for3DO andMacintosh; was a drastic new look at the events of the originalWing Commander game with enhanced graphics and full speech. The game also contained both Secret Missions and a special third campaign[22] was also created between them (called "Secret Mission 1.5" by fans).[7]
Chris Crawford said ofWing Commander that it "raised the bar for the whole industry", as the game was five times more expensive to create than most of its contemporaries. Because the game was highly successful, other publishers had to match its production value in order to compete. This forced a large portion of the video game industry to become more conservative, as larger budgets required greater sales to be profitable and the possibility of large losses dictated a decrease in the chance of that outcome, an aspect of classic risk-and-return dynamics. Crawford opined thatWing Commander in particular affected the marketing and economics of computer games and reestablished the "action game" as the most lucrative type of computer game.[23]
In 2006Electronic Arts ported the Super NES version ofWing Commander to thePlayStation Portable as part ofEA Replay, released in the United States on November 14.[24] In August 2011, after many years of unavailability, theWing Commander PC version was re-released into thedigital distribution ongog.com.[25] The long lostsource code ofWing Commander was given to thefan-community in that year in August by a former developer for the purpose oflong-time preservation.[26]
| Publication | Score |
|---|---|
| Computer Gaming World | 4.5/5[27] |
| Dragon | 6/5[28] |
| Electronic Gaming Monthly | 8/10, 8/10, 7/10, 8/10 (3DO)[29] |
| 3DO Magazine | 4/5 (3DO)[37] |
| Publication | Award |
|---|---|
| Computer Gaming World | 1991 Game of the Year[30] |
| Computer Gaming World | Hall of Fame[31] |
| Computer Gaming World | #7 Best PC Game of All Time[32] |
| Computer Gaming World | 15 Best Ways to Die[33] |
| Time | 100 Best Video Games of All Time[34] |
| PC Format | 50 Best Computer Games of All Time[35] |
| PC Gamer US | #23 Best Game of All Time[36] |
Wing Commander became a best seller and resulted in the development of competing space combat games, such asLucasArts'X-Wing.[38] It was very well received by critics.Dragon gaveWing Commander six stars, out of a five-star system,[28] theSecret Missions Expansion Disk receiving five stars.[39]Computer Gaming World in 1990 described the game as a "stellar warfare adventure in every sense of the word", praising its graphics, story, and music.[40] The magazine describedThe Secret Missions expansion as "more of the same", albeit more difficult, but the second as improving computer pilots' intelligence.[41] In a 1992 survey of science fiction games, the magazine gave the title five of five stars, stating that "the richness of the entire package makes this a 'must-have'".[42] A 1994 survey of strategic space games set in the year 2000 and later gave the game four-plus stars out of five.[27] Its readers gaveWing Commander a score of 10.91, the highest rating in the history of the magazine until 1992, when it was superseded by the sequelWing Commander II; that year the magazine addedWing Commander to its Hall of Fame for games that readers highly rated over time.[43][31]
GamePro gave the Sega CD version a positive review, commenting that "a great story line with cinematic animation anddigitized speech gives this game the feel of a big screenspace opera".[44] They regarded theSuper Wing Commander remake for the 3DO to be "a tedious disappointment", citing missions that are "either too short or too repetitive", dramatic slowdown which interferes with the gameplay, poorly animated character faces, and low quality voice tracks.[45]
Jim Trunzo reviewedWing Commander inWhite Wolf #26 (April/May, 1991), rating it a 5 out of 5 and stated that "Wing Commander brings back all the excitement and danger of the space combat scenes of the Star Wars trilogy (from which it appears to have borrowed liberally). It succeeds on every conceivable level and this review has only skimmed the surface of the features included in the program."[46]
In 1991,Wing Commander wonComputer Gaming World's Overall Game of the Year award.[30] In 1996 the magazine ranked it as the seventh best PC video game of all time,[32] also listing the game'sGame Over funeral cutscene among the 15 best ways to die in computer gaming.[33] In 2011,Maximum PC included it on the list 16 classic games that need to be remade today, stating: "Chris Roberts and Origin really nailed thespace opera with this series, which blended fast action and a fairly engaging (if hokey) story. Way ahead of its time".[47] In 2012,Time namedWing Commander one of the 100 greatest video games of all time, remembering its "unprecedented detail" of graphics and calling it "a revelation in 1990 for PC space-sim buffs looking for a little lessStar Trek and a little moreStar Wars from the genre".[34]
In 1991,PC Format placedWing Commander on its list of the 50 best computer games of all time. The editors praised its "superb graphics, atmospheric storyline and [the] sheer hectic pace of the dogfighting".[35] In 1994,PC Gamer US named the game's CD-ROM release the 23rd best computer game ever. The editors wrote: "IfWing Commander were just a dog-fighting arcade game, it would still be great. But it's a lot more than that, as it combines animated sequences, voice acting, and a great story to create the first example of that now-overused phrase, 'Interactive Cinema'".[36] In 1995,Flux magazine rated the pc version 20th on its "Top 100 Video Games."[48] In 1996,GamesMaster ranked the 3DO version 5th on their "The Gamesmaster 3DO Top 10."[49]
In 1991 it won theOrigins Award forBest Fantasy or Science Fiction Computer Game of 1990.[50]
By February 1995,Wing Commander had sold 290,000 copies.[3]
{{cite magazine}}:Cite magazine requires|magazine= (help)Retro download specialist Good Old Games has added a couple of vintage EA classics to its library: Wing Commander 1+2 and Dungeon Keeper 2.
Thanks to an extremely kind donation from an anonymous former EA/Origin developer, the source code to the PC version of Wing Commander I is now preserved in our offline archive! Because of our agreement with Electronic Arts, we're not allowed to post recovered source code for download--but rest easy knowing that the C files that started it all are being kept safe for future reference. Our offline archive contains material that has been preserved but which can't be posted, including other source code and budget data from several of the games.
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