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Wing Commander III

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Re: Wing Commander III

#51

Post by leoc »

sandworm101 wrote: post #3

Owned it. It was campy fun even then but WCII and WC:Privateer were far and away the better games. III was one of many attempts at a game-movie crossover that never really worked imho. Privateer is the basis of EVE online, Star Citizen and countless other modern titles. In terms of influence it is up there with SimCity and Civilization. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wing_Commander:_Privateer

> Privateer is the basis of EVE online, Star Citizen and countless other modern titles. In terms of influence it is up there with SimCity and Civilization.

Surely Elite and Elite II deserve more of the credit there?

Re: Wing Commander III

#52

Post by mrexroad »

afavour wrote: post #36
allenu wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's a lot going on here. Some of it is just general maturity and experience. Things that were novel when you were a child wear off when you're older. Those achievements that you aimed for as a child (having 'perfect' gameplay) may seem less meaningful when you're an adult, especially in the context of other real world achievements. The loss of "novelty", to me, one of the most challenging things about agi…

Seconding this. I think the game that most set my world alight as a kid was Star Control II. It was a wonderfully realised world of spaceships, alien races, battles and a sprawling story line. It blew my mind. But if I was presented with a game of similar magnitude today I'd have a pretty muted reaction. (I also probably wouldn't have time to play it!). I feel the same way about many things, like (to keep on the spac…

I dunno... The Mandalorian has achieved everything that the prequels and episodes 7-9 were unable to; it did exactly the things folks said were impossible.

While I've been a fan of Discovery for the most part, and it occasionally shows glimpses of promise, it's largely not "Star Trek." The story telling is simply just not rooted same soul that Trek has been built upon. I'm okay with change, but not so much with creating flashy spectacles at the expense of meaningful story telling.

Re: Wing Commander III

#53

Post by aidenn0 »

The author points here (and I think in older posts) to the change of setting for the reason that Strike Commander failed.

That's definitely part of it, but the game was essentially unplayable without QEMM386 (a commercial expanded-memory manager of the time). With the MS EMM386, you would regularly get crashes to the dos prompt (I think the typical error included a .OVL file in the output).

Prior to the knowledge of QEMM being needed to play it, it just had the reputation of "buggy as hell" which had to be contributory to its poor sales (I think a WC branded game that was equally buggy would have probably sold much better, but the bugs were the nail-in-the-coffin)

Re: Wing Commander III

#54

Post by IG_Semmelweiss »

It must be Origin retrogames quarter on HN!

We had an article about what made Ultima IX (or was it VIII?) a complete disaster and it was exactly from this same web domain.

I read the entirety of the WCIII article then ,since the ultima article linked to it.

I think the article is well sourced, and for sure i learned a thing or two, but more importantly, it made me think on how valuable sources of information (domains) get lost in the process unless the right HN user is posting it.

Re: Wing Commander III

#56

Post by aidenn0 »

poisonborz wrote: post #42

I really miss actual movie cutscenes. Good graphics and cheaper mocap, and the general notion that we see the same characters led game studios believe they were a better option. I still think actual actors are hundred percent better at delivering a story. We don't need to uphold this belief that in-game scenes were "real", in the way that an actual movie cutscene would hurt the "magic" - it would actually make it muc…

I remember a major debate about in-engine cut-scenes when Interstate-76 used them, which came out not too many years after WC3.

Of course the final fantasy series used in-engine cutscenes up through the sixth installment.

Re: Wing Commander III

#57

Post by pgt »

aidenn0 wrote: post #53

The author points here (and I think in older posts) to the change of setting for the reason that Strike Commander failed. That's definitely part of it, but the game was essentially unplayable without QEMM386 (a commercial expanded-memory manager of the time). With the MS EMM386, you would regularly get crashes to the dos prompt (I think the typical error included a .OVL file in the output). Prior to the knowledge of…

I loved the setting of Strike Commander! It had a far more complex game mechanic, especially for an 8 year-old: you had to budget to buy your missiles as a mercenary, outfit your craft and then go out on complex missions with waypoints and bombings.

Wing Commander was simpler: shoot to kill.

Re: Wing Commander III

#58

Post by m12k »

cgriswald wrote: post #6

I've lost something. When I was a kid, buying a new game was nearly impossible; If I was lucky, I'd get one for a birthday present or a Christmas gift. Occasionally a cool friend would lend me a copy of something. For a very short time, I lived about a mile away from a video game rental store and I'd sometimes be able to convince an adult I was responsible enough to return the game and spend my own money renting a ga…

You should give Hades a try. It's built from the ground up to be replayed - in fact that's woven into the story in a very compelling way.

Re: Wing Commander III

#59

Post by wyldfire »

afavour wrote: post #36
allenu wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's a lot going on here. Some of it is just general maturity and experience. Things that were novel when you were a child wear off when you're older. Those achievements that you aimed for as a child (having 'perfect' gameplay) may seem less meaningful when you're an adult, especially in the context of other real world achievements. The loss of "novelty", to me, one of the most challenging things about agi…

Seconding this. I think the game that most set my world alight as a kid was Star Control II. It was a wonderfully realised world of spaceships, alien races, battles and a sprawling story line. It blew my mind. But if I was presented with a game of similar magnitude today I'd have a pretty muted reaction. (I also probably wouldn't have time to play it!). I feel the same way about many things, like (to keep on the spac…

The story/campaign for SCII was great, but it also came with a local multiplayer arcade mode! It was an awesome time.

Re: Wing Commander III

#60

Post by ricardo81 »

cgriswald wrote: post #6

I've lost something. When I was a kid, buying a new game was nearly impossible; If I was lucky, I'd get one for a birthday present or a Christmas gift. Occasionally a cool friend would lend me a copy of something. For a very short time, I lived about a mile away from a video game rental store and I'd sometimes be able to convince an adult I was responsible enough to return the game and spend my own money renting a ga…

I'd hazard a guess your WC goals would've been seeing how many variations of the storyline there were. If memory serves there were 4, you doing great, OK, not so great or terrible and the war story would depend on how you do. Suppose you could include 5 in being blown up.

There were a range of medals you could get, too. Think I had to complete it several times over before I was sure how many there were!

I played 100s of games on the Amstrad CPC and Amiga in late 80s/early 90s. Think for me the magnus opus of gaming was the possibility of being able to play people online. The level of competition is high and it almost feels like work, so I stick to turn based games like Civ - but still fond of all the nostalgic game titles.

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