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Wing Commander (franchise)
Encyclopedia
Wing Commander is a video game media franchise
consisting of space combat simulation computer games from Origin Systems, Inc.
, an animated television series
, a feature film
, a collectible card game, a series of novels, and action figures. The franchise originated in 1990 with the release of Wing Commander, a groundbreaking space combat simulation computer game.
bipeds. They loosely resemble the Kzin
from Larry Niven
's Known Space
universe. The Kilrathi are native to the planet Kilrah with their society depicted as an empire. Physically they are bipeds who strongly resemble big cat
s: they have leonine manes, but also have markings which distinguish their clan of origin. The species is featured in every game, with later games revealing more complex characters than just a faceless enemy.
The player represents the Terran Confederation, the primary human government in the Wing Commander series. The Terran Confederation is an alliance of systems and regional governments which provide unified protection and economic growth. Launching from carrier ships, the player fulfills various missions in starfighters. The games were all notable for their storytelling through extensive cutscenes. Starting with Wing Commander III
, every game (excluding Secret Ops) contained cutscenes that incorporated live action filming, starring several major Hollywood actors, including John Rhys-Davies
, Mark Hamill
, Thomas F. Wilson
and Malcolm McDowell
, as well as Christopher Walken
, John Hurt
, and Clive Owen
in Privateer 2: The Darkening.
, was released for the Xbox Live Arcade
service on July 25, 2007.
Through the course of the Vega campaign, the player can gain numerous promotions and medals and fly in various squadrons, each featuring a different fighter. The game was notable for its innovative and seldom-repeated "campaign tree" structure, whereby the "path" you took on the way to the end would be determined by your performance on preceding missions. In-game cinematics in "newsreel" format reflected the success or failure of the player and the Claw. However, in an infamous design decision, game designer Chris Roberts included an incredibly hard mission along the "victory" track which required you to protect a captured Kilrathi destroyer from four Gratha heavy fighters. Though it is possible to win the mission, it is prohibitively difficult. Since that mission was a critical victory condition for that system, the player would almost always wind up on the losing path because of it; although the game gives one last chance to return to the winning path afterwards. Consistent victory in that mission (Kurosawa 2) is often taken as a mark of an excellent player in this game. Since the missions in the following Rostov sequence are relatively easy, that is to say-difficult but quite winnable, this is not particularly problematic for any player who has penetrated this far into the game.
Originally announced as Squadron, the name was changed to Wingleader shortly into development; however, trademark issues forced a name change to Wing Commander at the last moment. The development team's nickname for the otherwise-unnamed protagonist
was "Bluehair," due to his unusual shade of hair. In the Sega CD port which added voice acting, the player character was given the callsign of "HotShot" to allow him to be addressed by voice. Perhaps in a nod to this little in-joke, when the character was given an actual name in later installments, Origin chose "Blair", a shortened version of the old nickname.
Wing Commander was ported to the Amiga
, FM Towns
, SNES
, Mega-CD, Amiga CD32
, 3DO
, Mac OS
, and PlayStation Portable
systems, the most ports of any Wing Commander game.
In 1991, Wing Commander won the Origins Award
for Best Fantasy or Science Fiction Computer Game of 1990.
The Secret Missions was ported to the FM Towns, SNES, Sony PSP, and was included with Wing Commander on the 3DO and Macintosh
as part of Super Wing Commander.
Concerned, but massively outnumbered, the Confederation ships must retreat, but they soon learn from a Kilrathi defector that Firekka has been chosen as the place for a holy Kilrathi ceremony. The Confederation soon develops a plan to disrupt that ceremony to deliver a blow to enemy morale and it's up to the pilots of Tiger's Claw to ensure the success of the mission.
The Secret Missions 2: Crusade was ported to the FM Towns.
. Several of the ships created for were later reused in Armada
.
Super Wing Commander was ported to the Macintosh in 1995.
Shortly after the Firekka campaign, the Tiger's Claw attempts to attack the Kilrathi headquarters in the Enigma sector, but is ambushed by new Kilrathi "Strakha" stealth fighters and is lost. No one but Blair sees these fighters, so they are dismissed as an excuse to cover his cowardice. He is scapegoat
ed for the loss of the Claw, is demoted and transferred to a backwater space station.
Ten years later, he is called back into action when he is able to save the Confederation's flagship, the TCS Concordia. Meeting many old friends there, he continues the fight against the Kilrathi, finally culminating in the destruction of their sector HQ, thus clearing his name and uncovering a traitor on the Concordia's flight decks.
Wing Commander II was ported to the FM Towns. In 1992, it won the Origins Award for Best Fantasy or Science Fiction Computer Game of 1991.
In a last-ditch attempt to win the war, Confed has designed the TCS Behemoth, a doomsday weapon able to destroy an entire planet. It is Blair's mission to help end this war for good, by destroying the Kilrathi homeworld of Kilrah. Unfortunately the Behemoth is destroyed by Kilrathi forces. The enemy fighters seemed to know exactly about the weakpoints of the weapon. Later on Blair finds out that his old friend Hobbes, a Kilrathi defector, is a sleeper agent and the traitor responsible for the Confed's losses.
The last hope of winning the war for the Confederation is a secret weapon, the "Temblor Bomb", using the tectonic instability of Kilrah to destroy the planet. Blair is finally able to attack Kilrah, firing the bomb and destroying the Kilrathi homeworld. With the royal family of Kilrah killed and their homeworld lost, Melek, once attaché to the Kilrathi prince, surrenders before Blair.
Wing Commander III was the first game in the series to use full motion video
as opposed to animated cutscenes, and texture-mapped 3D instead of sprite-based graphics. The game featured well-known actors such as Mark Hamill
as Christopher Blair, John Rhys-Davies
as James "Paladin" Taggart, Thomas F. Wilson
as Todd "Maniac" Marshall, Malcolm McDowell
as Admiral Geoffrey Tolwyn, Josh Lucas
as "Flash", and Ginger Lynn
as Chief Technician Rachel Coriolis.
Wing Commander III was ported to the PlayStation
, Macintosh and the 3DO.
Blair is soon recalled to active duty and sent to the Border Worlds to confirm Confed's determination. But he finds out that a conspiracy of war-mongers with members in the highest Confed circles are responsible for the attacks. Defecting to the Border Worlds, Blair must expose the conspiracy to help restore the peace in a galaxy still torn over the events of the Kilrathi-Terran War.
The Price of Freedom retained the storytelling-style of its predecessor, using live-action cutscenes with an ensemble cast of actors. Many of the actors from Wing Commander III returned to reprise their roles. The story's final sequence was innovative in that dialogue choices made by the player affected the outcome of the hearing. However, only three endings were possible, and two of the outcomes depended on the earlier choices made by the player.
Wing Commander IV was ported to the PlayStation and Mac OS. To owners of the original MS-DOS
version, Origin made available a Windows 95
DirectX
port, free of charge.
Peace has finally come to the Confederation, or so it seems. Still remaining vigilant, they commission the new megacarrier TCS Midway, which is soon needed when Kilrathi worlds are attacked by an enemy whose coming was foretold in ancient Kilrathi prophecies.
The insectoid enemy, codenamed the Nephilim, soon begin attacking Confed space and the Midway is called in to stop their advance. As young hotshot pilot Lance Casey, the player must fight their organic ships to help destroy the wormhole they used to enter Kilrathi space, thereby halting the invasion, at least for a while.
As did Wing Commander IV, Prophecy incorporated live-action cutscenes with actors.
Prophecy was ported to the Game Boy Advance
.
Secret Ops was an experiment in game distribution. It was at first only available as a free download. In regular intervals, new episodes were released, each featuring several new missions with the storyline told through in-game cutscenes. The game was later available in a collection together with Prophecy, and sold as Prophecy Gold.
This game featured a completely open-ended gameplay, with the player able to completely ignore the main storyline if they so desired.
The game is currently in the process of being remade by the Privateer Gemini Gold Project.
When the player's priceless Steltek Gun is stolen, he embarks on a quest that will bring him into conflict with the Luddite-like Church of Man and their shady leader, Mordecai Jones.
Armada featured both an action and a strategy game mode and several multiplayer options.
Armada was ported to the PC9821 and FM Towns.
This add-on for Armada added numerous new features such as a new "arcade"-mode with powerups, radar-obscuring asteroids, and several new multiplayer options, including IPX
.
processors of the time.
Kilrathi Saga also featured complete digital re-orchestrations of the original two soundtracks by George Oldziey. However the Saga did not include the Secret Missions and Special Operations packs for the first two games. The packs were instead made available for download on the Origin website. Due to the add-on packs not being on the CDs there is a bug that causes some music to not be played during animated sequences in the add-ons.
The game features live-action video scenes, directed by Steve Hilliker. The cast included Clive Owen
, Mathilda May
, John Hurt
, Christopher Walken
, Brian Blessed
and Amanda Pays
. Dani Behr
voiced the onboard computer, also named Dani. The game also featured David Warner
, and Jürgen Prochnow
, who later played Admiral Geoffrey Tolwyn and Commander Paul Gerald respectively in the Wing Commander feature film. The filming was done at Pinewood Studios in England
, famous as the location for all the James Bond
films.
One hundred years after the original story of Privateer, a cargo ship Canera is attacked during landing and crashes into Mendra City on planet Crius. One survivor, As Lev Arris, a man with no memory of who he is and no record of his existence prior to two weeks before the crash, must take on the life of a privateer in the Tri-System, re-discovering his past along the way.
Although The Darkening features no obvious connection with the "mainstream" Wing Commander series, there are several links that bind it to the larger universe. The game features references to a "Confederation", and one of the easter egg
derelicts is a Talon light fighter. Perhaps anticipating a future title connecting The Darkening with Wing Commander, the game's developers set the plot sufficiently far in the "future", in the year 2790.
and developer Gaia Industries revived the Wing Commander franchise with a downloadable release on Xbox Live Arcade called Wing Commander Arena. Dogfights take place in one of nine environments, and pilots are able to choose from 18 ships. There can be up to 16 players in a single match. The title was released on July 25, 2007.
between September 21 and December 21, 1996. The series is before and during the events of the first game and features many familiar ships and characters. The cast featured Mark Hamill, Tom Wilson, and Malcolm McDowell reprising their Wing Commander game roles.
, Saffron Burrows
, Matthew Lillard
, Tchéky Karyo
, Jürgen Prochnow
, and David Warner
. The film diverged significantly from the established Wing Commander universe, and was a critical and commercial failure.
was revolutionizing gaming centers the world over. The Collectible card game
(CCG) was based exclusively on the WC3 intellectual license and contains no characters found elsewhere.
The game supports two players, one as the Kilrathi Empire and one as the Terran Confederation (rules modifications may be made to allow teams of players instead). In the pre-game phase, players set out five "Nav Point" cards in an X pattern, with a Terran and Kilrathi carrier at either end (to form a hexagon). During gameplay, players may deploy fighters, and then deploy pilots and equipment upon those fighters. Every card has its own "Power Point" cost; players start with 30 Power Points and gain two each turn. The designers recommend pencil and paper for the keeping-track of Power Points. Finally, certain cards feature "Medals," which also feature as a resource, as some elite cards require the "tapping" of Medal-bearing cards to deploy.
Fighters, with pilots and secondary armaments potentially attached, move among the nav points, fighting with each other and attacking the enemy carrier. During combat, either player may play "Maneuver" cards to fortify their fighters (assuming the targeted plane have a Maneuver statistic high enough) or "Battle Damage" cards to cripple their enemies; both have Power Point costs. Attacks are then resolved by comparison of the aggressor's Attack value with the defender's Defense value (with Support values from allied ships augmenting as appropriate). Each card lost results in the loss of one Power Point as well.
There are two ways to win: to destroy the enemy carrier (with the successful use of Torpedo cards) or to reduce the opponent's Power Point pool to zero.
Media franchise
A media franchise is an intellectual property involving the characters, setting and trademarks of an original work of media , such as a film, a work of literature, a television program or a video game. Generally, a whole series is made in a particular medium, along with merchandising and endorsements...
consisting of space combat simulation computer games from Origin Systems, Inc.
Origin Systems
Origin Systems, Inc. was a computer game developer based in Austin, Texas that was active from 1983 to 2004...
, an animated television series
Wing Commander Academy
Wing Commander Academy is an American animated television series created and produced by Universal Cartoon Studios, along with a team led by Larry Latham. The show was based on the Wing Commander franchise and loosely served as a prequel to Wing Commander. The show's premiere airdate was September...
, a feature film
Wing Commander (film)
Wing Commander is a science fiction film based on the same titled video game series, released in 1999. It was directed by Chris Roberts, the creator of the game series, and stars Freddie Prinze, Jr., Matthew Lillard, Saffron Burrows, Tchéky Karyo, Jürgen Prochnow, David Suchet and David Warner...
, a collectible card game, a series of novels, and action figures. The franchise originated in 1990 with the release of Wing Commander, a groundbreaking space combat simulation computer game.
Setting and gameplay
Set in the 27th century, the games tell the story of humanity's war against the Kilrathi, an alien species of large felineFelidae
Felidae is the biological family of the cats; a member of this family is called a felid. Felids are the strictest carnivores of the thirteen terrestrial families in the order Carnivora, although the three families of marine mammals comprising the superfamily pinnipedia are as carnivorous as the...
bipeds. They loosely resemble the Kzin
Kzin
The Kzinti are a fictional, very warlike and bloodthirsty race of cat-like aliens in Larry Niven's Known Space series....
from Larry Niven
Larry Niven
Laurence van Cott Niven / ˈlæri ˈnɪvən/ is an American science fiction author. His best-known work is Ringworld , which received Hugo, Locus, Ditmar, and Nebula awards. His work is primarily hard science fiction, using big science concepts and theoretical physics...
's Known Space
Known Space
Known Space is the fictional setting of some dozen science fiction novels and several collections of short stories written by author Larry Niven. It has also in part been used as a shared universe in the Man-Kzin Wars spin-off anthologies sub-series....
universe. The Kilrathi are native to the planet Kilrah with their society depicted as an empire. Physically they are bipeds who strongly resemble big cat
Cat
The cat , also known as the domestic cat or housecat to distinguish it from other felids and felines, is a small, usually furry, domesticated, carnivorous mammal that is valued by humans for its companionship and for its ability to hunt vermin and household pests...
s: they have leonine manes, but also have markings which distinguish their clan of origin. The species is featured in every game, with later games revealing more complex characters than just a faceless enemy.
The player represents the Terran Confederation, the primary human government in the Wing Commander series. The Terran Confederation is an alliance of systems and regional governments which provide unified protection and economic growth. Launching from carrier ships, the player fulfills various missions in starfighters. The games were all notable for their storytelling through extensive cutscenes. Starting with Wing Commander III
Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger
Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger is the third main game in Chris Roberts' Wing Commander science fiction space combat simulation video game series, developed and released by Origin Systems...
, every game (excluding Secret Ops) contained cutscenes that incorporated live action filming, starring several major Hollywood actors, including John Rhys-Davies
John Rhys-Davies
John Rhys-Davies is a Welsh actor and voice actor. He is perhaps best known for playing the charismatic Arab excavator Sallah in the Indiana Jones films and the dwarf Gimli in The Lord of the Rings trilogy...
, Mark Hamill
Mark Hamill
Mark Richard Hamill is an American actor, voice artist, producer, director, and writer, best known for his role as Luke Skywalker in the original trilogy of Star Wars. More recently, he has received acclaim for his voice work, in such roles as the Joker in Batman: The Animated Series, Firelord...
, Thomas F. Wilson
Thomas F. Wilson
Thomas F. Wilson is an American actor, writer, musician, painter, voice-over artist and stand-up comedian. He is best known for playing Biff Tannen in the Back to the Future trilogy and Coach Ben Fredricks on NBC's Freaks and Geeks.-Early life:Thomas Francis Wilson, Jr. was...
and Malcolm McDowell
Malcolm McDowell
Malcolm McDowell is an English actor with a career spanning over forty years.McDowell is principally known for his roles in the controversial films If...., O Lucky Man!, A Clockwork Orange and Caligula...
, as well as Christopher Walken
Christopher Walken
Christopher Walken is an American stage and screen actor. He has appeared in more than 100 movies and television shows, including Joe Dirt, Annie Hall, The Deer Hunter, The Prophecy trilogy, The Dogs of War, Sleepy Hollow, Brainstorm, The Dead Zone, A View to a Kill, At Close Range, King of New...
, John Hurt
John Hurt
John Vincent Hurt, CBE is an English actor, known for his leading roles as John Merrick in The Elephant Man, Winston Smith in Nineteen Eighty-Four, Mr. Braddock in The Hit, Stephen Ward in Scandal, Quentin Crisp in The Naked Civil Servant and An Englishman in New York...
, and Clive Owen
Clive Owen
Clive Owen is an English actor, who has worked on television, stage and film. He first gained recognition in the United Kingdom for portraying the lead in the ITV series Chancer from 1990 to 1991...
in Privateer 2: The Darkening.
Games
The Wing Commander game series began in 1990 with Wing Commander I. The newest addition to the series, Wing Commander ArenaWing Commander Arena
Wing Commander Arena is a space combat video game developed by independent software developer Gaia Industries for the Xbox 360's Xbox Live Arcade service. It is a spin-off of the popular Wing Commander series of games...
, was released for the Xbox Live Arcade
Xbox Live Arcade
Xbox Live Arcade is a type of video game download distribution available primarily in a section of the Xbox Live Marketplace, Microsoft's digital distribution network for the Xbox 360, that focuses on smaller downloadable games from both major publishers and independent game developers...
service on July 25, 2007.
Wing Commander (1990)
The player begins his tour of duty as a young officer on the carrier TCS Tiger's Claw. Through his heroic efforts, the Confederation is able to destroy the Kilrathi's sector headquarters and drive them from the Vega sector.Through the course of the Vega campaign, the player can gain numerous promotions and medals and fly in various squadrons, each featuring a different fighter. The game was notable for its innovative and seldom-repeated "campaign tree" structure, whereby the "path" you took on the way to the end would be determined by your performance on preceding missions. In-game cinematics in "newsreel" format reflected the success or failure of the player and the Claw. However, in an infamous design decision, game designer Chris Roberts included an incredibly hard mission along the "victory" track which required you to protect a captured Kilrathi destroyer from four Gratha heavy fighters. Though it is possible to win the mission, it is prohibitively difficult. Since that mission was a critical victory condition for that system, the player would almost always wind up on the losing path because of it; although the game gives one last chance to return to the winning path afterwards. Consistent victory in that mission (Kurosawa 2) is often taken as a mark of an excellent player in this game. Since the missions in the following Rostov sequence are relatively easy, that is to say-difficult but quite winnable, this is not particularly problematic for any player who has penetrated this far into the game.
Originally announced as Squadron, the name was changed to Wingleader shortly into development; however, trademark issues forced a name change to Wing Commander at the last moment. The development team's nickname for the otherwise-unnamed protagonist
Protagonist
A protagonist is the main character of a literary, theatrical, cinematic, or musical narrative, around whom the events of the narrative's plot revolve and with whom the audience is intended to most identify...
was "Bluehair," due to his unusual shade of hair. In the Sega CD port which added voice acting, the player character was given the callsign of "HotShot" to allow him to be addressed by voice. Perhaps in a nod to this little in-joke, when the character was given an actual name in later installments, Origin chose "Blair", a shortened version of the old nickname.
Wing Commander was ported to the Amiga
Amiga
The Amiga is a family of personal computers that was sold by Commodore in the 1980s and 1990s. The first model was launched in 1985 as a high-end home computer and became popular for its graphical, audio and multi-tasking abilities...
, FM Towns
FM Towns
The FM Towns system is a Japanese PC variant, built by Fujitsu from February 1989 to the summer of 1997. It started as a proprietary PC variant intended for multimedia applications and PC games, but later became more compatible with regular PCs...
, SNES
Super Nintendo Entertainment System
The Super Nintendo Entertainment System is a 16-bit video game console that was released by Nintendo in North America, Europe, Australasia , and South America between 1990 and 1993. In Japan and Southeast Asia, the system is called the , or SFC for short...
, Mega-CD, Amiga CD32
Amiga CD32
The Amiga CD32, styled "CD32" , was the first 32-bit CD-ROM based video game console released in western Europe, Australia, Canada and Brazil. It was first announced at the Science Museum in London, United Kingdom on 16 July 1993, and was released in September of the same year...
, 3DO
3DO Interactive Multiplayer
The 3DO Interactive Multiplayer is a video game console originally produced by Panasonic in 1993. Further renditions of the hardware were released in 1994 by Sanyo and Goldstar. The consoles were manufactured according to specifications created by The 3DO Company, and were originally designed by...
, Mac OS
Mac OS
Mac OS is a series of graphical user interface-based operating systems developed by Apple Inc. for their Macintosh line of computer systems. The Macintosh user experience is credited with popularizing the graphical user interface...
, and PlayStation Portable
PlayStation Portable
The is a handheld game console manufactured and marketed by Sony Corporation Development of the console was announced during E3 2003, and it was unveiled on , 2004, at a Sony press conference before E3 2004...
systems, the most ports of any Wing Commander game.
In 1991, Wing Commander won the Origins Award
Origins Award
The Origins Awards are American awards for outstanding work in the game industry. They are presented by the Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts and Design at the Origins Game Fair on an annual basis for the previous year, so the 1979 awards were given at the 1980 Origins.The Origins Award is commonly...
for Best Fantasy or Science Fiction Computer Game of 1990.
The Secret Missions (1990 expansion)
A new Kilrathi secret weapon destroys the Terran colony of Goddard. In retribution, the Confederation plans a daring raid, Operation Thor's Hammer. Tiger's Claw must follow the Kilrathi deep into their own territory and destroy their new super weapon, the dreadnaught Sivar.The Secret Missions was ported to the FM Towns, SNES, Sony PSP, and was included with Wing Commander on the 3DO and Macintosh
Macintosh
The Macintosh , or Mac, is a series of several lines of personal computers designed, developed, and marketed by Apple Inc. The first Macintosh was introduced by Apple's then-chairman Steve Jobs on January 24, 1984; it was the first commercially successful personal computer to feature a mouse and a...
as part of Super Wing Commander.
The Secret Missions 2: Crusade (1991 expansion)
When the Confederation is just celebrating a new alliance with the bird-like native species of the planet Firekka, they learn that entire fleets of Kilrathi ships are leaving from other sectors and heading towards the Firekka system.Concerned, but massively outnumbered, the Confederation ships must retreat, but they soon learn from a Kilrathi defector that Firekka has been chosen as the place for a holy Kilrathi ceremony. The Confederation soon develops a plan to disrupt that ceremony to deliver a blow to enemy morale and it's up to the pilots of Tiger's Claw to ensure the success of the mission.
The Secret Missions 2: Crusade was ported to the FM Towns.
Super Wing Commander (1994)
In 1994, a revamped version of the original Wing Commander, entitled Super Wing Commander (SWC), was released for the 3DO. It featured new graphics, full speech and included a Secret Missions 1.5 campaign (between the original campaigns 1 and 2) with a follow up to Thor's Hammer in which the Claw destroys the Kilrathi shipyards that constructed the Sivar. Because of the full speech the player character is named "Armstrong", even though the same year's Wing Commander III would see the character named "Christopher Blair". Super Wing Commander reuses several 3D models from Wing Commander II and PrivateerWing Commander: Privateer
Wing Commander: Privateer is an adventure space flight simulation computer game released by Origin Systems in 1993. Privateer and its storyline is part of the Wing Commander series...
. Several of the ships created for were later reused in Armada
Wing Commander: Armada
Wing Commander: Armada is a computer game set in the universe of Chris Roberts Wing Commander franchise. Created by Origin Systems and distributed by Electronic Arts in 1994, Armada was the first, official game of the Wing Commander series to feature multiplayer mode...
.
Super Wing Commander was ported to the Macintosh in 1995.
Wing Commander II: Vengeance of the Kilrathi (1991)
Scapegoat
Scapegoating is the practice of singling out any party for unmerited negative treatment or blame. Scapegoating may be conducted by individuals against individuals , individuals against groups , groups against individuals , and groups against groups Scapegoating is the practice of singling out any...
ed for the loss of the Claw, is demoted and transferred to a backwater space station.
Ten years later, he is called back into action when he is able to save the Confederation's flagship, the TCS Concordia. Meeting many old friends there, he continues the fight against the Kilrathi, finally culminating in the destruction of their sector HQ, thus clearing his name and uncovering a traitor on the Concordia's flight decks.
Wing Commander II was ported to the FM Towns. In 1992, it won the Origins Award for Best Fantasy or Science Fiction Computer Game of 1991.
Special Operations 1 (1991 expansion)
Blair is transferred to the undercover Special Operations division, supporting Kilrathi colonies that are defecting from the Empire. But first he must solve the problem of a mutiny on a Confed cruiser.Special Operations 2 (1992 expansion)
Jazz, the traitor from Wing Commander II, has fled imprisonment and the Mandarin (the society of traitors) are also able to steal some of the Confederation's newest top-secret fighters. Blair must hunt them down and face Jazz in one final showdown.Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger (1994)
The war is going badly for the Confederation. Battles are lost on all fronts and the Concordia is destroyed. Colonel Christopher Blair (the player from the first games, now with a set name), is transferred to the TCS Victory, an old ship from the first days of the war.In a last-ditch attempt to win the war, Confed has designed the TCS Behemoth, a doomsday weapon able to destroy an entire planet. It is Blair's mission to help end this war for good, by destroying the Kilrathi homeworld of Kilrah. Unfortunately the Behemoth is destroyed by Kilrathi forces. The enemy fighters seemed to know exactly about the weakpoints of the weapon. Later on Blair finds out that his old friend Hobbes, a Kilrathi defector, is a sleeper agent and the traitor responsible for the Confed's losses.
The last hope of winning the war for the Confederation is a secret weapon, the "Temblor Bomb", using the tectonic instability of Kilrah to destroy the planet. Blair is finally able to attack Kilrah, firing the bomb and destroying the Kilrathi homeworld. With the royal family of Kilrah killed and their homeworld lost, Melek, once attaché to the Kilrathi prince, surrenders before Blair.
Wing Commander III was the first game in the series to use full motion video
Full motion video
Full motion video based games are video games that rely upon pre-recorded TV-quality movie or animation rather than sprites, vectors, or 3D models to display action in the game. In the early 1990s a diverse set of games utilized this format...
as opposed to animated cutscenes, and texture-mapped 3D instead of sprite-based graphics. The game featured well-known actors such as Mark Hamill
Mark Hamill
Mark Richard Hamill is an American actor, voice artist, producer, director, and writer, best known for his role as Luke Skywalker in the original trilogy of Star Wars. More recently, he has received acclaim for his voice work, in such roles as the Joker in Batman: The Animated Series, Firelord...
as Christopher Blair, John Rhys-Davies
John Rhys-Davies
John Rhys-Davies is a Welsh actor and voice actor. He is perhaps best known for playing the charismatic Arab excavator Sallah in the Indiana Jones films and the dwarf Gimli in The Lord of the Rings trilogy...
as James "Paladin" Taggart, Thomas F. Wilson
Thomas F. Wilson
Thomas F. Wilson is an American actor, writer, musician, painter, voice-over artist and stand-up comedian. He is best known for playing Biff Tannen in the Back to the Future trilogy and Coach Ben Fredricks on NBC's Freaks and Geeks.-Early life:Thomas Francis Wilson, Jr. was...
as Todd "Maniac" Marshall, Malcolm McDowell
Malcolm McDowell
Malcolm McDowell is an English actor with a career spanning over forty years.McDowell is principally known for his roles in the controversial films If...., O Lucky Man!, A Clockwork Orange and Caligula...
as Admiral Geoffrey Tolwyn, Josh Lucas
Josh Lucas
Josh Lucas is an American actor. He has appeared in many films, including Glory Road, A Beautiful Mind, and Poseidon.-Early life:...
as "Flash", and Ginger Lynn
Ginger Lynn
Ginger Lynn is an American pornographic actress, prominent in 1980s videos. She also had occasional roles in low-budget B-movies. AVN has ranked her at #7 in a list of the 50 greatest porn stars of all time...
as Chief Technician Rachel Coriolis.
Wing Commander III was ported to the PlayStation
PlayStation
The is a 32-bit fifth-generation video game console first released by Sony Computer Entertainment in Japan on December 3, .The PlayStation was the first of the PlayStation series of consoles and handheld game devices. The PlayStation 2 was the console's successor in 2000...
, Macintosh and the 3DO.
Wing Commander IV: The Price of Freedom (1996)
The war with the Kilrathi is over, but not all is well within in the Confederation. Skirmishes in the Border Worlds destroy ships regularly. Both Confed and the Union of Border Worlds assign blame to each other and the skirmishes threaten to lead to all-out war.Blair is soon recalled to active duty and sent to the Border Worlds to confirm Confed's determination. But he finds out that a conspiracy of war-mongers with members in the highest Confed circles are responsible for the attacks. Defecting to the Border Worlds, Blair must expose the conspiracy to help restore the peace in a galaxy still torn over the events of the Kilrathi-Terran War.
The Price of Freedom retained the storytelling-style of its predecessor, using live-action cutscenes with an ensemble cast of actors. Many of the actors from Wing Commander III returned to reprise their roles. The story's final sequence was innovative in that dialogue choices made by the player affected the outcome of the hearing. However, only three endings were possible, and two of the outcomes depended on the earlier choices made by the player.
Wing Commander IV was ported to the PlayStation and Mac OS. To owners of the original MS-DOS
MS-DOS
MS-DOS is an operating system for x86-based personal computers. It was the most commonly used member of the DOS family of operating systems, and was the main operating system for IBM PC compatible personal computers during the 1980s to the mid 1990s, until it was gradually superseded by operating...
version, Origin made available a Windows 95
Windows 95
Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented graphical user interface-based operating system. It was released on August 24, 1995 by Microsoft, and was a significant progression from the company's previous Windows products...
DirectX
DirectX
Microsoft DirectX is a collection of application programming interfaces for handling tasks related to multimedia, especially game programming and video, on Microsoft platforms. Originally, the names of these APIs all began with Direct, such as Direct3D, DirectDraw, DirectMusic, DirectPlay,...
port, free of charge.
Wing Commander: Prophecy (1997)
The insectoid enemy, codenamed the Nephilim, soon begin attacking Confed space and the Midway is called in to stop their advance. As young hotshot pilot Lance Casey, the player must fight their organic ships to help destroy the wormhole they used to enter Kilrathi space, thereby halting the invasion, at least for a while.
As did Wing Commander IV, Prophecy incorporated live-action cutscenes with actors.
Prophecy was ported to the Game Boy Advance
Game Boy Advance
The is a 32-bit handheld video game console developed, manufactured, and marketed by Nintendo. It is the successor to the Game Boy Color. It was released in Japan on March 21, 2001; in North America on June 11, 2001; in Australia and Europe on June 22, 2001; and in the People's Republic of China...
.
Wing Commander: Secret Ops (1998)
The Nephilim return, this time much closer to Earth. Transferred to the cruiser TCS Cerberus, Casey and his wingmates must repel the invasion once again.Secret Ops was an experiment in game distribution. It was at first only available as a free download. In regular intervals, new episodes were released, each featuring several new missions with the storyline told through in-game cutscenes. The game was later available in a collection together with Prophecy, and sold as Prophecy Gold.
Wing Commander Academy (1993)
A game where the player could build his own missions using ships from Wing Commander II.Wing Commander: Privateer (1993)
Set in the border regions of Confederation space, the player takes control of a privateer (in Wing Commander, a "privateer" is a mercenary spacer) who may profit by trading, performing various missions, or pirating. Meanwhile, an ancient alien spaceship has been awakened and is on the loose, attacking ships at random, and the player-controlled privateer may be the Confederation's only hope in defeating it.This game featured a completely open-ended gameplay, with the player able to completely ignore the main storyline if they so desired.
The game is currently in the process of being remade by the Privateer Gemini Gold Project.
Righteous Fire (1994 expansion)
When the player's priceless Steltek Gun is stolen, he embarks on a quest that will bring him into conflict with the Luddite-like Church of Man and their shady leader, Mordecai Jones.
Wing Commander Armada (1994)
Armada was ported to the PC9821 and FM Towns.
Proving Grounds (1994 expansion)
This add-on for Armada added numerous new features such as a new "arcade"-mode with powerups, radar-obscuring asteroids, and several new multiplayer options, including IPX
IPX
Internetwork Packet Exchange is the OSI-model Network layer protocol in the IPX/SPX protocol stack.The IPX/SPXM protocol stack is supported by Novell's NetWare network operating system. Because of Netware's popularity through the late 1980s into the mid 1990s, IPX became a popular internetworking...
.
The Kilrathi Saga (1996 recompilation)
Kilrathi Saga was a limited-edition reissue of the first three Wing Commander games (Wing Commander, Wing Commander II: Vengeance of the Kilrathi, and Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger). Origin repaired some of the game's known bugs and adjusted the speed to run on the early PentiumPentium compatible processor
A Pentium compatible processor is a 32-bit processor computer chip which supports the instructions in the IA-32 instruction set that were implemented by the Intel P5 Pentium processor family...
processors of the time.
Kilrathi Saga also featured complete digital re-orchestrations of the original two soundtracks by George Oldziey. However the Saga did not include the Secret Missions and Special Operations packs for the first two games. The packs were instead made available for download on the Origin website. Due to the add-on packs not being on the CDs there is a bug that causes some music to not be played during animated sequences in the add-ons.
Privateer 2: The Darkening (1996)
A big-budget game was dubbed Privateer 2 and launched in late 1996 by Erin Roberts.The game features live-action video scenes, directed by Steve Hilliker. The cast included Clive Owen
Clive Owen
Clive Owen is an English actor, who has worked on television, stage and film. He first gained recognition in the United Kingdom for portraying the lead in the ITV series Chancer from 1990 to 1991...
, Mathilda May
Mathilda May
Mathilda May is a French film actress.-Early life:May was born in Paris. Her father is playwright Victor Haïm, who is of Greek and Turkish descent. Her mother is Swedish ballet teacher and choreographer Margareta Hanson...
, John Hurt
John Hurt
John Vincent Hurt, CBE is an English actor, known for his leading roles as John Merrick in The Elephant Man, Winston Smith in Nineteen Eighty-Four, Mr. Braddock in The Hit, Stephen Ward in Scandal, Quentin Crisp in The Naked Civil Servant and An Englishman in New York...
, Christopher Walken
Christopher Walken
Christopher Walken is an American stage and screen actor. He has appeared in more than 100 movies and television shows, including Joe Dirt, Annie Hall, The Deer Hunter, The Prophecy trilogy, The Dogs of War, Sleepy Hollow, Brainstorm, The Dead Zone, A View to a Kill, At Close Range, King of New...
, Brian Blessed
Brian Blessed
Brian Blessed is an English actor, known for his sonorous voice and "hearty, king-sized portrayals".-Early life:The son of William Blessed, a socialist miner, and Hilda Wall, Blessed was born in the town of Goldthorpe, West Riding of Yorkshire, England...
and Amanda Pays
Amanda Pays
-Personal life:Pays was born in London, England, the daughter of Joan , an actress, and Howard Reginald Pays, a talent agent and former actor. She is the niece of former child actress Mandy Miller, after whom she is named. Her first marriage, from 1984 to 1987, was to Peter Kohn, production manager...
. Dani Behr
Dani Behr
Dani Behr is an English singer, actress and television presenter.-Early life:Behr was born in Mill Hill London, of South African Jewish descent. Her father is a partner in London estate agents Behr & Butchoff...
voiced the onboard computer, also named Dani. The game also featured David Warner
David Warner (actor)
David Warner is an English actor who is known for playing both romantic leads and sinister or villainous characters, both in film and animation...
, and Jürgen Prochnow
Jürgen Prochnow
Jürgen Prochnow is a German actor. His most well-known roles internationally have been as the sympathetic submarine captain in Das Boot , Duke Leto Atreides I in Dune , the minor, but important role of Neo-Stalinist dictator General Ivan Radek in Air Force One and the villain Maxwell Dent in...
, who later played Admiral Geoffrey Tolwyn and Commander Paul Gerald respectively in the Wing Commander feature film. The filming was done at Pinewood Studios in England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, famous as the location for all the James Bond
James Bond
James Bond, code name 007, is a fictional character created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short story collections. There have been a six other authors who wrote authorised Bond novels or novelizations after Fleming's death in 1964: Kingsley Amis,...
films.
Plot
One hundred years after the original story of Privateer, a cargo ship Canera is attacked during landing and crashes into Mendra City on planet Crius. One survivor, As Lev Arris, a man with no memory of who he is and no record of his existence prior to two weeks before the crash, must take on the life of a privateer in the Tri-System, re-discovering his past along the way.
Connection
Although The Darkening features no obvious connection with the "mainstream" Wing Commander series, there are several links that bind it to the larger universe. The game features references to a "Confederation", and one of the easter egg
Easter egg
Easter eggs are special eggs that are often given to celebrate Easter or springtime.The oldest tradition is to use dyed or painted chicken eggs, but a modern custom is to substitute chocolate eggs, or plastic eggs filled with confectionery such as jelly beans...
derelicts is a Talon light fighter. Perhaps anticipating a future title connecting The Darkening with Wing Commander, the game's developers set the plot sufficiently far in the "future", in the year 2790.
Wing Commander Arena (2007)
Publisher Electronic ArtsElectronic Arts
Electronic Arts, Inc. is a major American developer, marketer, publisher and distributor of video games. Founded and incorporated on May 28, 1982 by Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer games industry and was notable for promoting the designers and programmers...
and developer Gaia Industries revived the Wing Commander franchise with a downloadable release on Xbox Live Arcade called Wing Commander Arena. Dogfights take place in one of nine environments, and pilots are able to choose from 18 ships. There can be up to 16 players in a single match. The title was released on July 25, 2007.
Privateer 3
Origin aborted several attempts to continue the Privateer franchise between 1995 and 2003, by either developing a sequel (Privateer 3) or an online game (Privateer or Wing Commander Online). Only one of these was formally announced. The March 1998 issue of Computer Games Strategy Plus featured a cover story on Privateer 3. Origin announced that development of the game had been canceled shortly after the magazine was published.Strike Team
Wing Commander: Strike Team was a planned sequel to Wing Commander: Secret Ops which focused on multiplayer gameplay. The title was officially announced in an EAUK promotional publication but was canceled early in development.Wing Commander VI & VII
Wing Commander: Prophecy was advertised as the beginning of a new trilogy with renowned actors on the back of its package, but no such sequels were ever released.Novels
Several novels based on the games have been released by Baen Books. They include novelisations of WC3 and WC4 as well as offering further depth into known Wing Commander events such as the defection of Ralgha nar Hhallas.Television series
Wing Commander Academy was a thirteen-episode animated series that originally aired on the USA NetworkUSA Network
USA Network is an American cable television channel launched in 1971. Once a minor player in basic cable, the network has steadily gained popularity because of breakout hits like Monk, Psych, Burn Notice, Royal Pains, Covert Affairs, White Collar, Monday Night RAW, Suits, and reruns of the various...
between September 21 and December 21, 1996. The series is before and during the events of the first game and features many familiar ships and characters. The cast featured Mark Hamill, Tom Wilson, and Malcolm McDowell reprising their Wing Commander game roles.
Film
In 1999, Wing Commander hit the big screen with the film of the same name. It was directed by Chris Roberts, the creator of the game series, and stars Freddie Prinze, Jr.Freddie Prinze, Jr.
Freddie James Prinze, Jr. is an American actor. He rose to fame during the late 1990s and early 2000s, after starring in several Hollywood films aimed at teenage audiences, I Know What You Did Last Summer and its sequel, I Still Know What You Did Last Summer , as well as She's All That , Summer...
, Saffron Burrows
Saffron Burrows
Saffron Dominique Burrows is an English actress and former fashion model, who starred as Det. Serena Stevens on Law & Order: Criminal Intent and Lorraine Weller on Boston Legal.-Early life:...
, Matthew Lillard
Matthew Lillard
Matthew Lyn Lillard is an American actor and producer. He is best known for his roles as Stu Macher in Scream, Stevo in SLC Punk , and Shaggy Rogers in the Scooby-Doo film series and the Animated reboot series.-Early life:Lillard was born in Lansing, Michigan, and grew up in Tustin, California...
, Tchéky Karyo
Tchéky Karyo
-Early life:Karyo was born in Istanbul to a Greek mother and Sephardic-Jewish father and raised in Paris, France. He studied drama at the Cyrano Theatre and later became a member of the Daniel Sorano Company, playing many classical roles.-Career:...
, Jürgen Prochnow
Jürgen Prochnow
Jürgen Prochnow is a German actor. His most well-known roles internationally have been as the sympathetic submarine captain in Das Boot , Duke Leto Atreides I in Dune , the minor, but important role of Neo-Stalinist dictator General Ivan Radek in Air Force One and the villain Maxwell Dent in...
, and David Warner
David Warner (actor)
David Warner is an English actor who is known for playing both romantic leads and sinister or villainous characters, both in film and animation...
. The film diverged significantly from the established Wing Commander universe, and was a critical and commercial failure.
Collectible card game
The Wing Commander: Collectible card game was an effort to combine the franchise's rising fortunes with the rising interest in card games, as Magic: The GatheringMagic: The Gathering
Magic: The Gathering , also known as Magic, is the first collectible trading card game created by mathematics professor Richard Garfield and introduced in 1993 by Wizards of the Coast. Magic continues to thrive, with approximately twelve million players as of 2011...
was revolutionizing gaming centers the world over. The Collectible card game
Collectible card game
thumb|Players and their decksA collectible card game , also called a trading card game or customizable card game, is a game played using specially designed sets of playing cards...
(CCG) was based exclusively on the WC3 intellectual license and contains no characters found elsewhere.
The game supports two players, one as the Kilrathi Empire and one as the Terran Confederation (rules modifications may be made to allow teams of players instead). In the pre-game phase, players set out five "Nav Point" cards in an X pattern, with a Terran and Kilrathi carrier at either end (to form a hexagon). During gameplay, players may deploy fighters, and then deploy pilots and equipment upon those fighters. Every card has its own "Power Point" cost; players start with 30 Power Points and gain two each turn. The designers recommend pencil and paper for the keeping-track of Power Points. Finally, certain cards feature "Medals," which also feature as a resource, as some elite cards require the "tapping" of Medal-bearing cards to deploy.
Fighters, with pilots and secondary armaments potentially attached, move among the nav points, fighting with each other and attacking the enemy carrier. During combat, either player may play "Maneuver" cards to fortify their fighters (assuming the targeted plane have a Maneuver statistic high enough) or "Battle Damage" cards to cripple their enemies; both have Power Point costs. Attacks are then resolved by comparison of the aggressor's Attack value with the defender's Defense value (with Support values from allied ships augmenting as appropriate). Each card lost results in the loss of one Power Point as well.
There are two ways to win: to destroy the enemy carrier (with the successful use of Torpedo cards) or to reduce the opponent's Power Point pool to zero.