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Wing Commander III

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Re: Wing Commander III

#161

Post by Andrew_nenakhov »

swivelmaster wrote: post #97
Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need to create everything with modern AAA standards. Games like FTL show that you can achieve a lot with much less effort. You just need to be bolder. And i think being bolder is the hard part: games these days are more timid in their aprroach to than they were in early 90s, like always trying to stick to a working formula. Mashups of different genres like SC2 are somehow nonexistent.

If you think that, you're not looking hard enough. There are countless incredible (and bold) indie games doing really interesting and unusual things. Off the top of my head: - Outer Wilds (an entire solar system is a puzzle stuck in a time loop) - Hades (a roguelike where dying progresses the story) - Slay the Spire (a hybrid deckbuilder/roguelike where different runs can produce drastically different gameplay and bu…

Of this list, I've seen ads of most on Steam and checked the reviews. That's not what I'm talking about. Most of your list is still one genre, maybe with some new mechanics (not so new in Hades, for example, I've seen shades of this in 1992's Ragnarok).

What I was talking about are games like Star Control 2 and Dune 1, where they boldly mixed completely different genres and, in SC2 case, added a very deep lore and managed to feed it to you at the right pace, not overwhelming you with information, and giving it in entertaining way.

For example, I would love some nice space RPG with FTL-like space combat. But they just don't mix genres that way these days.

Re: Wing Commander III

#162

Post by philsnow »

swivelmaster wrote: post #151
philsnow wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Star Control 2 shipped with a text file containing a story where Fred Ford and Paul Reiche disappeared for 9 months to hole up in a cabin in Alaska building out the game (including planet surface exploration and hundreds of pages of alien dialogue), in isolation from their publisher, who had to hire a private investigator to find them. I have no idea if there's any truth to it, but it sounded like my idea of heaven f…

By pure coincidence, after playing Star Control 2 when I was about 8, my family moved to Novato, CA - home to Toys for Bob - when I was a bit older. I ended up getting a temp contract job there on the Madagascar game when I was 19. Paul and Fred were great to work with and as far as I know TfB is still a great place to work. I doubt that Paul and Fred would have actually disappeared to write the game, but the story i…

It makes me happy to hear that, thank you for your reply.

Re: Wing Commander III

#163

Post by jbm »

djur wrote: post #116
jbm wrote: post #8

I was so hyped when this game came out; I remember waiting 5-10 minutes for each mission to start on my computer at the time (a 486 dx2? Or a Pentium? Hard to remember). Clearing space to play it was a pain too. I missed some of the wc2 gameplay and was not a fan of how the story kept resetting the progress from the previous games ("humanity suddenly comes to an agreement and dismantles its full fleet", "ragtag perip…

Yeah, WC3 did Hobbes dirty in a way that seriously trashed a lot of what WC2 seemed to be trying to do.

The parts of that story involving Cobra are almost uncomfortable to discuss. It was an attempt to raise the stakes but I didn't like it at all.

Even putting the weird "we should exterminate them all" Cobra character aside, the idea made no sense logically. The Kilrathi didn't activate Hobbes during WC 1's Secret Missions 2 (during their holiest rituals for Sivar) but suddenly decided to do so when they were basically about to win (and had no idea about the Temblor Bomb et al)

It's part of a problem I have with a lot of fiction with sequels that has the heroes make significant character strides with implicit guarantees to the reader/viewer, only for those to be completely thrown away in the next volume / installment / etc..

In this case, Hobbes proves himself through Secret Missions 2 (when you fly the Kilrathi fighters) and then in WC2 (which seemed far more pivotal than the situation in WC3). Then for cheap drama and fake "serious" points, they flip the script in WC3 because your well-supported implicit understanding was only implicit and "it doesn't count".

(I still loved the game)

Re: Wing Commander III

#164

Post by hinkley »

bigmattystyles wrote: post #102
hinkley wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One evening we are watching some reality show where they show up at your house and fix things, and this one episode they introduce the owner. Owner, nothing, that’s Ginger Lynn. They never did name her. The whole episode she was just “the owner”. I had nobody to share this realization with, as you can imagine. So she is still out there somewhere, living her best life from the sounds of it.

Good for her - honestly the way we treat porn stars (all sex workers really) as a society is so awful. I would bet most, including the pious and self-righteous, what have you, are at once consumers but then have no qualms shaming them.

I try to treat every employee I meet as a human who is just trying to do their best. Some people sound genuinely surprised when I respond "you too" to their "have a nice day" which sometimes makes me happy, other times makes me sad.

I won't draw cause and effect here, but I didn't really Become the Change in this regard until after I encountered Violet Blue's writing, who for a time was practically a spokesperson in the area you're talking about.

Re: Wing Commander III

#165

Post by djur »

jbm wrote: post #163
djur wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, WC3 did Hobbes dirty in a way that seriously trashed a lot of what WC2 seemed to be trying to do.

The parts of that story involving Cobra are almost uncomfortable to discuss. It was an attempt to raise the stakes but I didn't like it at all. Even putting the weird "we should exterminate them all" Cobra character aside, the idea made no sense logically. The Kilrathi didn't activate Hobbes during WC 1's Secret Missions 2 (during their holiest rituals for Sivar ) but suddenly decided to do so when they were basicall…

What happened to Angel seemed like cheap drama to me, too. With the added "benefit" of allowing another romance plotline for Blair. It overall just seemed like a less mature, more melodramatic story than the previous two games.

Re: Wing Commander III

#166

Post by jbm »

djur wrote: post #165
jbm wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The parts of that story involving Cobra are almost uncomfortable to discuss. It was an attempt to raise the stakes but I didn't like it at all. Even putting the weird "we should exterminate them all" Cobra character aside, the idea made no sense logically. The Kilrathi didn't activate Hobbes during WC 1's Secret Missions 2 (during their holiest rituals for Sivar ) but suddenly decided to do so when they were basicall…

What happened to Angel seemed like cheap drama to me, too. With the added "benefit" of allowing another romance plotline for Blair. It overall just seemed like a less mature, more melodramatic story than the previous two games.

Yeah, I had completely forgotten the plot where the Captain of the Concordia and a former fighter pilot is sent on a commando mission (!). We never even find out why the Concordia was sunk (although I assume it was in some book).

I think a lot of this stems from Roberts' not-so-secret desire to be a movie director; my guess was he was trying to streamline it to make things more "cinematic", but the end result was as you see. (The ill-received Wing Commander movie didn't cure him of this apparently)

The more I think about it, the more I agree with you; WC really did peak with WC2 for me. I didn't buy WC4, and only bought Prophecy years afterwards on sale for 15$. Meanwhile, I actually bought WC2 on release (despite having more precarious finances), and both Secret Operations.

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