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</ul> </div> </div> </div> </div> </li> </ul> </nav> </header> <div id="container-site" class="clearfix"> <div id="content-news"> <section class="daily-content"> <header> <a href="/news/2025/02/26"> <time datetime="2025-02-26">2025.057 (February 26, 2025)</time> </a> </header> <article class="news-post" id="16827"> <h1> <a href="/news/2025/02/26/hawk-vs-panther-under-the-hood">Hawk vs. Panther: Under the Hood</a> <span class="permalink">  <a href="https://bsky.app/intent/compose?text=Hawk%20vs.%20Panther%3A%20Under%20the%20Hood%20https%3A%2F%2Fwcne.ws%2F16827"><img src="https://cdn.wcnews.com/design/images/buttons/bluesky_icon.svg" title="Share on Bluesky" alt="Share on Bluesky" width="20" height="20"></a> <a href="https://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.wcnews.com%2Fnews%2Fupdate%2F16827&t=Hawk%20vs.%20Panther%3A%20Under%20the%20Hood"><img src="https://cdn.wcnews.com/design/images/buttons/986944_facebook_icon.svg" title="Share on Facebook" alt="Share on Facebook" width="20" height="20"></a> <a href="https://twitter.com/home?status=Hawk%20vs.%20Panther%3A%20Under%20the%20Hood%20https%3A%2F%2Fwcne.ws%2F16827"><img src="https://cdn.wcnews.com/design/images/buttons/986958_twitter_icon.svg" title="Share on Twitter" alt="Share on Twitter" width="20" height="20"></a> </span> </h1> <P><A HREF="/chatzone/members/sharpshooter.4564/">Sharpshooter</A> is back with another smart analysis of a Wing Commander IV mechanic! <P>This time, they have tackled the Hawk vs. Panther morale mechanic which decides which winning cutscene you receive at the end of the game. Sharpshooter discovered that the morale for Panther is stored at 0x600 and the morale for Hawk is at 0xfe in your WSG (save) file. The character with the higher morale at the end of the game decides the final clip: if it's Panther, you are a flight instructor and if it's Hawk you're an Admiral. If the two values are tied then the game plays the flight instructor ending. <div class="gallery"> <A HREF="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/full/WC4HP-Admiral.png"><IMG SRC="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/WC4HP-Admiralt.jpg" WIDTH="300" HEIGHT="150" SRCSET="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/WC4HP-Admiralt_2x.jpg 2x" class="twittercard"></A> <A HREF="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/full/WC4HP-Instructor.png"><IMG SRC="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/WC4HP-Instructort.jpg" WIDTH="300" HEIGHT="150" SRCSET="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/WC4HP-Instructort_2x.jpg 2x" class="twittercard"></A> </div> <P>There are a grand total of nine FMV choices that impact Hawk or Panther's morale. Their morale level starts at 5 and goes up or down based only on these choices (and not how you treat them in flight.) Not all of the choices will be played in any one play through of the game and some of them can be ignored if so desired. The first two choices, one for each, happen in Series E (Orestes) and are skipped if you choose not to defect at the first opportunity. <P><B>SC. 1221 - Panther: something better to do than killing</B><br> Panther +1: Yeah ... You'd think...<br> Panther -1: She's dreaming...</P> <div class="gallery"> <A HREF="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/full/HVP_1221.png"><IMG SRC="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/HVP_1221t.jpg" WIDTH="300" HEIGHT="150" SRCSET="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/HVP_1221t_2x.jpg 2x"></A> </div> <P><B>SC. 1300 - Hawk: didn't you enjoy blasting cats?</B><br> Hawk +1: Gotta admit, I did.<br> Hawk -1: This guy's bloodthirsty.<br> This conversation is optional and the choice can be skipped.</P> <div class="gallery"> <A HREF="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/full/HVP_1300.png"><IMG SRC="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/HVP_1300t.jpg" WIDTH="300" HEIGHT="150" SRCSET="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/HVP_1300t_2x.jpg 2x" class="twittercard"></A> </div> <P>The next two choices, again one for each character, occur in Series F (Orestes/Pasqual).</P> <P><B>SC. 1740 - Panther/Catscratch: is Eisen making the right call?</B><br> Panther +1: Straighten this kid out.<br> Panther -1: Do I look like I have all the answers?</P> <div class="gallery"> <A HREF="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/full/HVP_1740.png"><IMG SRC="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/HVP_1740t.jpg" WIDTH="300" HEIGHT="150" SRCSET="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/HVP_1740t_2x.jpg 2x"></A> </div> <P><B>SC. 1760 - Hawk: I fought those animals in the war</B><br> Hawk +1: He's missing the point.<br> Hawk -1: Bitter guy.<br> This conversation is optional and the choice can be skipped.</P> <div class="gallery"> <A HREF="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/full/HVP_1760.png"><IMG SRC="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/HVP_1760t.jpg" WIDTH="300" HEIGHT="150" SRCSET="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/HVP_1760t_2x.jpg 2x"></A> </div> <P>The first 'Hawk/Panther' choice happens at the end of the Peleus series where you must decide whether the Intrepid will go to Circe (Panther) or Speradon (Hawk).</P> <P><B>SC. 2170 - Hawk/Panther: save innocents or get weapons</B><br> Panther +1/Hawk -1: Panther's right.<br> Panther -1/Hawk +1: Hawk's right.</P> <div class="gallery"> <A HREF="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/full/HVP_2170.png"><IMG SRC="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/HVP_2170t.jpg" WIDTH="300" HEIGHT="150" SRCSET="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/HVP_2170t_2x.jpg 2x"></A> </div> <P>If you side with Hawk you will have a second chance to impact his morale during the Speradon missions. If you side with Panther you will have a similar choice for her in Circe.</P> <P><B>SC. 2690 - Hawk: your friend's really pissing me off.</B><br> Hawk +1: Time to be a Captain.<br> Hawk -1: What a whiner.</P> <div class="gallery"> <A HREF="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/full/HVP_2690.png"><IMG SRC="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/HVP_2690t.jpg" WIDTH="300" HEIGHT="150" SRCSET="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/HVP_2690t_2x.jpg 2x"></A> </div> <P><B>SC. 2350 - Panther: your friend with the overactive glands</B><br> Panther +1: Tempting, but I can't let that happen.<br> Panther -1: Maniac's on his own.</P> <div class="gallery"> <A HREF="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/full/HVP_2350.png"><IMG SRC="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/HVP_2350t.jpg" WIDTH="300" HEIGHT="150" SRCSET="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/HVP_2350t_2x.jpg 2x"></A> </div> <P>The second Hawk/Panther choice happens at the end of either Circe or Speradon. It is the same in either series:</P> <P><B>SC. 2510 - Panther/Hawk: how long since Eisen left</B><br> Panther +1/Hawk -1: There's always hope.<br> Panther -1/Hawk +1: We die trying.</P> <div class="gallery"> <A HREF="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/full/HVP_2510.png"><IMG SRC="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/HVP_2510t.jpg" WIDTH="300" HEIGHT="150" SRCSET="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/HVP_2510t_2x.jpg 2x"></A> </div> <P>And then the final choice happens at the start of the Ella missions where you must decide whether or not to destroy the superbase.</P> <P><B>SC. 3230 - Panther/Hawk: should we use the Flash-Pak?</B><br> Panther +1/Hawk -1: Panther's right. We can't kill civilians.<br> Panther -1/Hawk +1: Hawk's right. This is war.</P> <div class="gallery"> <A HREF="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/full/HVP_3230.png"><IMG SRC="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/HVP_3230t.jpg" WIDTH="300" HEIGHT="150" SRCSET="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/HVP_3230t_2x.jpg 2x" class="twittercard"></A> </div> <P>The mechanic uses the same morale system which impacts wingmen in flight. If a character's morale dips too low, the game switches to a different AI profile for them which tend to be less aggressive and more likely to disobey orders. Each character has two sets of comm messages depending on their status. The in flight morale is binary and you can determine which profile is active by asking your wingman to report their status. The no damage responses for Hawk are "No problems here" (high) and "Don't worry about me" (low). For Panther, high morale is "Not a mark on me, Colonel!" and low morale is "I'm fine."</P> <P>Sharpshooter has gone on to break down some of the different paths you can take through the game and they're pretty interesting! There are a surprising amount of paths although it does turn out you can't get the admiral ending if you side with Panther for all three 'double' choices (or the instructor ending if you side with Hawk for them). You can read the <A HREF="/chatzone/threads/panther-and-hawks-morale-in-wc4-an-attempt-at-a-more-detailed-analysis.32193/">full thread here</A>. I was particularly interested in the 'match the novel' thread which does result in the flight instructor ending despite the fact that you go to Speradon instead of Circe. </P> <div id="comments-16827" class="container-comments"></div> <footer> <div class="outer"> <div class="author-avatar"> <img class="news-author-avatar" src="https://cdn.wcnews.com/design/avatars/5.png" alt="author avatar"/> </div> <div class="author-info"> <a href="mailto:news@wcnews.com">LOAF</a> </div> <div id="comment-count-16827" class="comment-bubble discuss-link" data-updateid="16827" data-threadid="32193"> Comment on this </div> </div></footer> </article></section> <section class="daily-content"> <header> <a href="/news/2025/02/25"> <time datetime="2025-02-25">2025.056 (February 25, 2025)</time> </a> </header> <article class="news-post" id="16838"> <h1> <a href="/news/2025/02/25/jerry-jerry">Jerry! Jerry!</a> <span class="permalink">  <a href="https://bsky.app/intent/compose?text=Jerry%21%20Jerry%21%20https%3A%2F%2Fwcne.ws%2F16838"><img src="https://cdn.wcnews.com/design/images/buttons/bluesky_icon.svg" title="Share on Bluesky" alt="Share on Bluesky" width="20" height="20"></a> <a href="https://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.wcnews.com%2Fnews%2Fupdate%2F16838&t=Jerry%21%20Jerry%21"><img src="https://cdn.wcnews.com/design/images/buttons/986944_facebook_icon.svg" title="Share on Facebook" alt="Share on Facebook" width="20" height="20"></a> <a href="https://twitter.com/home?status=Jerry%21%20Jerry%21%20https%3A%2F%2Fwcne.ws%2F16838"><img src="https://cdn.wcnews.com/design/images/buttons/986958_twitter_icon.svg" title="Share on Twitter" alt="Share on Twitter" width="20" height="20"></a> </span> </h1> <P>Early in Secret Missions 2, Shotglass informs Blair that he has seen a suspicious story about the Kilrathi withdrawing from the Deneb Sector on "Jerry Rivers on the Galaxy Network News". Who, exactly, is Jerry Rivers?</P> <div class="gallery"> <A HREF="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/full/jerryrivers-sm2-1.png"><IMG SRC="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/jerryrivers-sm2-1t.jpg" WIDTH="240" HEIGHT="150" SRCSET="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/jerryrivers-sm2-1t_2x.jpg 2x"></A> <A HREF="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/full/jerryrivers-sm2-2.png"><IMG SRC="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/jerryrivers-sm2-2t.jpg" WIDTH="240" HEIGHT="150" SRCSET="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/jerryrivers-sm2-2t_2x.jpg 2x"></A> </div> <P>From Blair's reaction ("that show will rot your brain") and the name alone, players at the time would infer that Jerry Rivers is Wing Commander's pastiche of a '90s tabloid television presenter inspired by Jerry Springer and Geraldo Rivera.</P> <div class="gallery"> <A HREF="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/full/jerryrivers-springer.png"><IMG SRC="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/jerryrivers-springert.jpg" WIDTH="164" HEIGHT="150" SRCSET="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/jerryrivers-springert_2x.jpg 2x"></A> <A HREF="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/full/jerryrivers-geraldo.png"><IMG SRC="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/jerryrivers-geraldot.jpg" WIDTH="212" HEIGHT="150" SRCSET="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/jerryrivers-geraldot_2x.jpg 2x"></A> </div> <P>But there's more to the story! Like many elements of Secret Missions 2, the mention of Jerry Rivers is intended to preface an appearance in Wing Commander II. Jerry Rivers was ultimately cut from the game but his intended story was pretty interesting! The idea was that Jerry Rivers would replace the 'Meanwhile…' clips from Wing Commander I which informed the player what was going on in the war beyond the Tiger's Claw. In Wing Commander II, players would click on a TV screen in the barracks which would play a different interview conducted by Jerry roughly once each series. The surviving <A HREF="/wcpedia/Wing_Commander_II_Script_Outline">Wing Commander II Script Outline</A> gives us a bit of an 'episode guide' showing what these news segments would be. Blair would talk about his conviction, Maniac would promote his TCSO show, Ralgha would provide his backstory about joining the Confederation and so on.</P> <blockquote> [JERRY RIVERS #1 - "Bluehair interview"]<br> [JERRY RIVERS #2 - "Starbase episode"]<br> [JERRY RIVERS #3 - "Maniac interview"]<br> [JERRY RIVERS #4 - "Angel Interview"]<br> [JERRY RIVERS #5 - "Prince Thrakhath interview"]<br> [JERRY RIVERS #6 - "Sickbay episode"]<br> [JERRY RIVERS #7 - "Hobbes interview"]<br> [JERRY RIVERS #8 - "Admiral Tolwyn interview"] <br> [JERRY RIVERS #9 - "The Invisibility Suit" episode]<br> [JERRY RIVERS #10 - "Admiral Tolwyn breaks Jerry's nose"] </blockquote> <P>The series would culminate with a series of shows in which Jerry Rivers would come into conflict with Admiral Tolwyn and then 'prove' that stealth fighters exist with a stunt described as involving an invisibility suit. In the finale, Tolwyn would punch him in the face! We get a little more detail on this from the <A HREF="/wcpedia/Wing_Commander_II_Art_List">Wing Commander II Art List</A>:</P> <blockquote> JERRY RIVERS<BR> In addition to his talking loops:<BR> <BR> Jerry Rivers in the "cloaking suit"---a dark shape outlined in a faint glowing blue light, set in a completely black background.<BR> <BR> Admiral Tolwyn breaking Jerry's nose with a single good punch<BR> <BR> We also need a small animation of Jerry talking on the television set, so the player will know when a Jerry Rivers episode is airing, as opposed to the Ultima 6 program filler. </blockquote> <P> </P> <blockquote> Concordia Rec Room: sitting room for three and Bluehair. This room will have the television set (as in the Peel Rec Room) and the computer console for saving games, as well as a very modern upright piano off to one side (which Jazz will play in various scenes.) If possible, please draw the television set so we can reuse the TV animation from Ultima 6. (Please refer to the CHARACTER POSITIONS chart.) </blockquote> <div class="gallery"> <A HREF="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/full/wc2_options_concordia.png"><IMG SRC="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/wc2_options_concordiat.jpg" WIDTH="240" HEIGHT="150" SRCSET="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/wc2_options_concordiat_2x.jpg 2x"></A> <A HREF="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/full/wc2_options_planet.png"><IMG SRC="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/wc2_options_planett.jpg" WIDTH="240" HEIGHT="150" SRCSET="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/wc2_options_planett_2x.jpg 2x"></A> <A HREF="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/full/wc2_options_ship.png"><IMG SRC="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/wc2_options_shipt.jpg" WIDTH="240" HEIGHT="150" SRCSET="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/wc2_options_shipt_2x.jpg 2x"></A> </div> <P>The idea was to design the game's two "options" screens with a screen you could click on to view the Jerry Rivers episodes. If there was no new episode, the TV would instead display channel animations reused from Ultima VI! Ultima VI's introduction would flip through a collection of six different TV channels that included a news report, a car driving down a road, a music video and more.</P> <div class="gallery"> <A HREF="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/full/u6intro-breather.png"><IMG SRC="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/u6intro-breathert.jpg" WIDTH="240" HEIGHT="150" SRCSET="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/u6intro-breathert_2x.jpg 2x"></A> <A HREF="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/full/u6intro-highway.png"><IMG SRC="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/u6intro-highwayt.jpg" WIDTH="240" HEIGHT="150" SRCSET="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/u6intro-highwayt_2x.jpg 2x"></A> <A HREF="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/full/u6intro-musicvideo.png"><IMG SRC="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/u6intro-musicvideot.jpg" WIDTH="240" HEIGHT="150" SRCSET="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/u6intro-musicvideot_2x.jpg 2x"></A> <A HREF="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/full/u6intro-news.png"><IMG SRC="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/u6intro-newst.jpg" WIDTH="240" HEIGHT="150" SRCSET="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/u6intro-newst_2x.jpg 2x"></A> <A HREF="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/full/u6intro-preacher.png"><IMG SRC="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/u6intro-preachert.jpg" WIDTH="240" HEIGHT="150" SRCSET="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/u6intro-preachert_2x.jpg 2x"></A> <A HREF="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/full/u6intro-razor.png"><IMG SRC="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/u6intro-razort.jpg" WIDTH="240" HEIGHT="150" SRCSET="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/u6intro-razort_2x.jpg 2x"></A> </div> <P>The news in the Ultima VI intro was already pretty modular; as part of its commitment to spectacular detail, it could already change between seven different news stories!</P> <div class="gallery"> <A HREF="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/full/u6intro-news-gender.png"><IMG SRC="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/u6intro-news-gendert.jpg" WIDTH="227" HEIGHT="150" SRCSET="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/u6intro-news-gendert_2x.jpg 2x"></A> <A HREF="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/full/u6intro-news-gun.png"><IMG SRC="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/u6intro-news-gunt.jpg" WIDTH="227" HEIGHT="150" SRCSET="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/u6intro-news-gunt_2x.jpg 2x"></A> <A HREF="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/full/u6intro-news-nuclear.png"><IMG SRC="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/u6intro-news-nucleart.jpg" WIDTH="227" HEIGHT="150" SRCSET="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/u6intro-news-nucleart_2x.jpg 2x"></A> <A HREF="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/full/u6intro-news-pc.png"><IMG SRC="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/u6intro-news-pct.jpg" WIDTH="227" HEIGHT="150" SRCSET="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/u6intro-news-pct_2x.jpg 2x"></A> <A HREF="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/full/u6intro-news-planecrash.png"><IMG SRC="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/u6intro-news-planecrasht.jpg" WIDTH="227" HEIGHT="150" SRCSET="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/u6intro-news-planecrasht_2x.jpg 2x"></A> <A HREF="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/full/u6intro-news-soviet.png"><IMG SRC="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/u6intro-news-soviett.jpg" WIDTH="227" HEIGHT="150" SRCSET="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/u6intro-news-soviett_2x.jpg 2x"></A> <A HREF="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/full/u6intro-news-stocks.png"><IMG SRC="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/u6intro-news-stockst.jpg" WIDTH="227" HEIGHT="150" SRCSET="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/u6intro-news-stockst_2x.jpg 2x"></A> </div> <div id="comments-16838" class="container-comments"></div> <footer> <div class="outer"> <div class="author-avatar"> <img class="news-author-avatar" src="https://cdn.wcnews.com/design/avatars/5.png" alt="author avatar"/> </div> <div class="author-info"> <a href="mailto:news@wcnews.com">LOAF</a> </div> <div id="comment-count-16838" class="comment-bubble discuss-link" data-updateid="16838" data-threadid="32219"> Comment on this </div> </div></footer> </article></section> <section class="daily-content"> <header> <a href="/news/2025/02/24"> <time datetime="2025-02-24">2025.055 (February 24, 2025)</time> </a> </header> <article class="news-post" id="16835"> <h1> <a href="/news/2025/02/24/wing-commander-movie-night-alien">Wing Commander Movie Night: Alien</a> <span class="permalink">  <a href="https://bsky.app/intent/compose?text=Wing%20Commander%20Movie%20Night%3A%20Alien%20https%3A%2F%2Fwcne.ws%2F16835"><img src="https://cdn.wcnews.com/design/images/buttons/bluesky_icon.svg" title="Share on Bluesky" alt="Share on Bluesky" width="20" height="20"></a> <a href="https://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.wcnews.com%2Fnews%2Fupdate%2F16835&t=Wing%20Commander%20Movie%20Night%3A%20Alien"><img src="https://cdn.wcnews.com/design/images/buttons/986944_facebook_icon.svg" title="Share on Facebook" alt="Share on Facebook" width="20" height="20"></a> <a href="https://twitter.com/home?status=Wing%20Commander%20Movie%20Night%3A%20Alien%20https%3A%2F%2Fwcne.ws%2F16835"><img src="https://cdn.wcnews.com/design/images/buttons/986958_twitter_icon.svg" title="Share on Twitter" alt="Share on Twitter" width="20" height="20"></a> </span> </h1> <div class="gallery"> <A HREF="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/full/alienposter.jpg"><IMG SRC="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/alienpostert.jpg" WIDTH="165" HEIGHT="250" SRCSET="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/alienpostert_2x.jpg 2x" CLASS="align-right" class="twittercard" CLASS="align-right" class="twittercard"></A> </div> <P>The Wing Commander movie club has sailed the Atlantic with the Titanic and now it's time to get back home… to space! This week's movie is a true classic with some deep ties to Wing Commander: Alien. You can join us <A HREF="https://discord.com/invite/vwKE8Tc">this Friday via Discord</A> to watch along.</P> <div class="lazyframe" data-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/jQ5lPt9edzQ" data-vendor="youtube"></div> <P>Alien needs no introduction, but just in case: Ridley Scott's 1979 sci-fi/horror film is about a group of interstellar truckers who must battle a relentless monster in close quarters aboard their starship. From the gritty, realistic environs of the Nostromo to the biomechanical alien itself, the spectacular film earned a level of respect that far outstripped the standards of its genres. Countless aspects of Alien are deeply rooted in most any science fiction film made since.</P> <P>Wing Commander is, of course, no exception. From the chairs in the spacecraft in the original games through to the characters of the movie itself (with a little creative crossover along the way) Wing Commander has plenty of debts to the film. Here's Chris Roberts writing about how Alien's Ripley should inform Angel in his original treatment for the Wing Commander movie:</P> <blockquote> The audience should empathize with Blair and Maniac's character growth, get to know and like Angel, admire Paladin's sure will under fire, worry about Linders' impact on his men's morale, etc. I also want to work on developing a stronger female lead (probably Angel) for the picture than the outline currently indicates. Think Sigourney Weaver in Alien. </blockquote> <P>If that sounds familiar it's because Sigourney Weaver has been inspiring Angel's treatment since Wing Commander II. That game's internal character descriptions giver her the shorthand of "Sigourney Weaver mixed with Demi Moore," a definite nod to the Ripley character. </P> <div class="gallery"> <A HREF="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/full/Wing_Commander_III_Strategy_Guide_0279.jpg"><IMG SRC="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/Wing_Commander_III_Strategy_Guide_0279t.jpg" WIDTH="109" HEIGHT="150" SRCSET="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/Wing_Commander_III_Strategy_Guide_0279t_2x.jpg 2x" class="twittercard"></A> <A HREF="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/full/alien_angel.png"><IMG SRC="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/alien_angelt.jpg" WIDTH="240" HEIGHT="150" SRCSET="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/alien_angelt_2x.jpg 2x" class="twittercard"></A> </div> <P>We also share at least one actual actor! Alien's John Hurt had another star turn as Joe the Bartender in Privateer 2: The Darkening.</P> <div class="gallery"> <A HREF="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/full/p2_joe_alien.png"><IMG SRC="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/p2_joe_alient.jpg" WIDTH="267" HEIGHT="150" SRCSET="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/p2_joe_alient_2x.jpg 2x"></A> </div> <P>When it came time to do the lore-filled Booth screens for the game, the designers included some nods to Hurt's legendary Alien character, giving him the same family name!</P> <div class="gallery"> <A HREF="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/full/p2_joe_kane.png"><IMG SRC="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/p2_joe_kanet.jpg" WIDTH="267" HEIGHT="200" SRCSET="https:/newestshots/thumb/p2_joe_kanet_2x.jpg 2x" class="twittercard"></A> </div> <P>There was an important behind the screens connection with the movie, too: Chris Roberts had initially hired the great Ron Cobb to develop the vehicle concepts for the film. Cobb was the production designer who concepted much of the intricate detail of the Nostromo for Alien and you can see the influence in what he turned out for Wing Commander. Unfortunately producer Todd Moyer was not a fan and Cobb's work went mostly unused:</P> <div class="gallery"> <A HREF="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/full/roncobb_wcmovie1.jpg"><IMG SRC="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/roncobb_wcmovie1t.jpg" WIDTH="202" HEIGHT="150"></A> <A HREF="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/full/roncobb_wcmovie4.jpg"><IMG SRC="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/roncobb_wcmovie4t.jpg" WIDTH="232" HEIGHT="150"></A> <A HREF="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/full/roncobb_wcmovie6.jpg"><IMG SRC="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/roncobb_wcmovie6t.jpg" WIDTH="219" HEIGHT="150"></A> <A HREF="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/full/roncobb_wcmovie3.jpg"><IMG SRC="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/roncobb_wcmovie3t.jpg" WIDTH="144" HEIGHT="150"></A> <A HREF="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/full/roncobb_wcmovie4.jpg"><IMG SRC="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/roncobb_wcmovie5t.jpg" WIDTH="200" HEIGHT="150"></A> <A HREF="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/full/roncobb_wcmovie2.jpg"><IMG SRC="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/roncobb_wcmovie2t.jpg" WIDTH="219" HEIGHT="150"></A> </div> <P>… of course great artists steal and the Wing Commander II team had already stolen from Ron Cobb's Alien designs back in 1991! The ejection seat seen in rear views in the game is taken directly from his concept art for the Nostromo:</P> <div class="gallery"> <A HREF="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/full/alien_chair1.png"><IMG SRC="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/alien_chair1t.jpg" WIDTH="240" HEIGHT="150"></A> <A HREF="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/full/alien_chair2.png"><IMG SRC="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/alien_chair2t.jpg" WIDTH="363" HEIGHT="150"></A> <A HREF="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/full/alien_chair3.png"><IMG SRC="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/alien_chair3t.jpg" WIDTH="248" HEIGHT="150"></A> </div> <P><B>Where can I find a copy of the movie for the watch party?</B></P> <P>Alien is currently available for rent or purchase on all the standard services. If you would like a physical copy, the movie was released on BluRay in 2011 and remains in print around the world. If you are not able to locate a copy please stop by <A HREF="https://discord.com/invite/vwKE8Tc">the Discord</A> and ping a CIC staff member before Friday's showing. We will be watching the original theatrical cut, not the later extended version.</P> <P><B>How do we watch the movie together?</B></P> <P>It's pretty low tech! Simply join the <A HREF="https://discord.gg/vwKE8Tc">Wing Commander CIC Discord</A> on Friday and we will be chatting (in text) along with the film in the main channel. Everyone who wants to join in should bring their own copy and we will count down to play them together at 10 PM EST. Everyone is welcome and we encourage you to join in the conversation; sharing your thoughts helps make the experience better for everyone!</P> <div id="comments-16835" class="container-comments"></div> <footer> <div class="outer"> <div class="author-avatar"> <img class="news-author-avatar" src="https://cdn.wcnews.com/design/avatars/5.png" alt="author avatar"/> </div> <div class="author-info"> <a href="mailto:news@wcnews.com">LOAF</a> </div> <div id="comment-count-16835" class="comment-bubble discuss-link" data-updateid="16835" data-threadid="32218"> Comment on this </div> </div></footer> </article></section> <section class="daily-content"> <header> <a href="/news/2025/02/23"> <time datetime="2025-02-23">2025.054 (February 23, 2025)</time> </a> </header> <article class="news-post" id="16820"> <h1> <a href="/news/2025/02/23/unusual-thrakhath-line-draws-scrutiny">Unusual Thrakhath Line Draws Scrutiny</a> <span class="permalink">  <a href="https://bsky.app/intent/compose?text=Unusual%20Thrakhath%20Line%20Draws%20Scrutiny%20https%3A%2F%2Fwcne.ws%2F16820"><img src="https://cdn.wcnews.com/design/images/buttons/bluesky_icon.svg" title="Share on Bluesky" alt="Share on Bluesky" width="20" height="20"></a> <a href="https://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.wcnews.com%2Fnews%2Fupdate%2F16820&t=Unusual%20Thrakhath%20Line%20Draws%20Scrutiny"><img src="https://cdn.wcnews.com/design/images/buttons/986944_facebook_icon.svg" title="Share on Facebook" alt="Share on Facebook" width="20" height="20"></a> <a href="https://twitter.com/home?status=Unusual%20Thrakhath%20Line%20Draws%20Scrutiny%20https%3A%2F%2Fwcne.ws%2F16820"><img src="https://cdn.wcnews.com/design/images/buttons/986958_twitter_icon.svg" title="Share on Twitter" alt="Share on Twitter" width="20" height="20"></a> </span> </h1> <P>Here's December 1991 issue of Computer Games Strategy Plus's review of Wing Commander II (plus Speech Accessory Pack.) At first glance, this is a usual contemporary review of the game... but there's a twist: the screenshot of Prince Thrakhath. Does anything seem unusual about it? </P> <div class="gallery"> <A HREF="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/full/ComputerGamesStrategyPlus13December1991_0000.jpg"><IMG SRC="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/ComputerGamesStrategyPlus13December1991_0000t.jpg" WIDTH="117" HEIGHT="150" SRCSET="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/ComputerGamesStrategyPlus13December1991_0000t_2x.jpg 2x"></A> <A HREF="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/full/ComputerGamesStrategyPlus13December1991_0027.jpg"><IMG SRC="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/ComputerGamesStrategyPlus13December1991_0027t.jpg" WIDTH="117" HEIGHT="150" SRCSET="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/ComputerGamesStrategyPlus13December1991_0027t_2x.jpg 2x"></A> <A HREF="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/full/ComputerGamesStrategyPlus13December1991_0028.jpg"><IMG SRC="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/ComputerGamesStrategyPlus13December1991_0028t.jpg" WIDTH="117" HEIGHT="150" SRCSET="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/ComputerGamesStrategyPlus13December1991_0028t_2x.jpg 2x"></A> </div> <P>First of all, the screenshot is using the earlier painted background seen in the CES demo. Here's how the two compare:</P> <div class="gallery"> <A HREF="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/full/wc2_demo_Background.png"><IMG SRC="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/wc2_demo_Backgroundt.jpg" WIDTH="240" HEIGHT="150" SRCSET="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/wc2_demo_Backgroundt_2x.jpg 2x"></A> <A HREF="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/full/wc2_final_background.png"><IMG SRC="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/wc2_final_backgroundt.jpg" WIDTH="240" HEIGHT="150" SRCSET="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/wc2_final_backgroundt_2x.jpg 2x"></A> </div> <P>But what's particularly odd is the line: "My ships have destroyed the Tiger's Claw, Emperor." That doesn't match the demo ("The pride of the Terran Navy, the Tiger's Claw, has been destroyed and soon my stealth fighters will demolish the rest of the human fleet.") or the final version of the scene ("The Terran carrier, Tiger's Claw, tried to attack us here at K'Tithrak Mang. But my stealth fighters destroyed it!"). This is either a bullshot or a build of the game that existed somewhere between the initial set of marketing shots (which use a different font) and the final release. The same screenshot appears elsewhere so it's likely a case of Origin providing the imagery and not the reviewer capturing it themself... but there's a thread to follow here!</P> <blockquote> Wing Commander 2 Vengeance of the Kilrathi and the Speech Accessory Pack<br> By Marcus L Rowland<br> <br> Produced by Chris Roberts<br> Published by Origin<br> UK distributor Mindscape<br> Systems IBM PC<br> PC graphics EGA. VGA. MCGA<br> <br> Supports Roland, Adlib and Sound Blaster sound boards; joystick, mouse and keyboard<br> <br> Wing Commander 2 is the long awaited sequel to Wing Commander and its two secret mission disks. For anyone who has been on Mars for the past two years, WC is a huge space fighter combat game, based on a long war between the Terran Confeder ation and the Kilrathi Empire, with the outcome of each combat deter mining the next step of a complex cinematic plot. WC2 improves the improves the graphics considerably, and gets rid of a lot of bugs, but unfortunately there are several prices to be paid for the improvements.<br> <br> The game begins 10 years after Wing Commander ends. The TCS Tigers Claw has been destroyed in a surprise attack by Kilrathi stealth fighters. Only our hero has seen the stealth fighters, since the Kilrathi de stroyed the production facility to stop it falling into rebel hands, and he's generally considered to be the coward who let the Kilrathi destroy the car rier. Now the stealth fighters are starting to appear again, and proving that they exist is a major goal in the game.<br> <br> For new players the game begins with a long cinematic sequence ex plaining this background, making effective use of speech synthesis (Sound Blaster only) and 256-colour low-resolution VGA/MCGA graphics, but spoiled by sluggish ani- mation (on my 16MHz 386). Characters have slow lip movements that are horribly unconvincing, and move at a stately pace, with little jerks as the screen updates. I've seen much faster animation in other programs, and this aspect is extremely disap pointing.<br> <br> The introduction leads to entry of name and call sign, with an option to load characters from the earlier game.<br> <br> This option wouldn't work when I tried it. Next comes a view of a utili tarian chamber containing a computer, airlock entrance, and two other doors, a replacement for the barracks in Wing Commander. There's no mirror to check your me dals, and no access to a flight trainer.<br> <br> Loading Options<br> <br> The computer can save and load up to eight missions, showing the number of missions flown and the number of kills for each saved game. A nice feature is an option to add a note describing saved games, but this is unfortunately limited to thirty or so letters in a peculiarly unreadable typeface. The current game is saved automatically after each mission, with saved games giving an option to go back to earlier stages.<br> <br> Plot continuity deals with the character's life and other events, and is much more diverse than the ship's bar in Wing Commander. So far I’ve seen a murder, a secret intelligence debriefing, a poker game, and en counters in barracks and bars. An implausible number of survivors from the Tiger’s Claw appear. These sequences aren’t interactive. So far none of them have used speech syn thesis, even with the accessory pack added. All are infuriatingly slow.<br> <br> The missions door leads to com bat missions. Typically these begin with a briefing, but it isn’t always the formal briefing seen in Wing Com mander; sometimes it's just a casual conversation on the flight deck. Sometimes the ‘briefing’ continues after take-off, adding more narrative sequences such as conversations with bases and wingmen.<br> <br> Combat is fast and furious, and I’d guess that most of Origin’s pro gramming expertise has gone into making it smooth and flicker-free, and improving detailing at all ranges. The flight behaviour of craft remains as implausible as ever, they can make impossibly sharp manoeuvres, shed speed instantly, and stay inclose con tact with the enemy when they should really be flashing apart at 2000kps.<br> <br> All the combat graphics are en hanced; all the new craft have bigger cockpit canopies, giving a greatly im proved view of the action, and the controls look much more real, some times confusingly so. Missiles and energy weapons are more detailed, again a little implausibly; I wouldn’t expect to be able to see a missile zipping by at 1500kps, let alone count the rivets on it. With the speech acces sory added wingmen reply to their orders, and the Kilrathi snarl their threats and battle cries. There isn’t any noticeable speed penalty with speech, and intercom video (a fre quent cause of problems in Wing Commander) doesn’t seem to slow the game at all. Controls are un changed, with extra features added as needed.<br> <br> In the Soup<br> <br> Military hardware has changed considerably in ten years. The only familiar Terran fighter is an upgraded Rapier; particle cannon replace neu tron guns for added range, and chaff pods improve missile defence. This isn’t the sweet killer it was, since the Kilrathi have souped up their own craft considerably. Three other fight ers and a bomber are available at different stages.<br> <br> The Ferret is a small light patrol fighter, intended for anti-piracy and anti-smuggling operations, armed with two mass drivers. It has a huge bubble canopy, and omits some of the instruments found in other ships. This is roughly equivalent to a fast basic trainer - a lot of fun to fly, but a death trap if the big bad guys are en countered.<br> <br> The Epee is a little larger and slower, and adds missiles and an im proved tracking system that makes deflection shooting easier. Armour is worse than the Ferret.<br> <br> The Sabre is the largest fighter, carrying four guns, eight missiles, a rear turret, and chaff pods. I’ve yet to try one, so I can’t say how they be have, but the specification looks good; loads of armour, improved tracking, and reasonable manoeuvra bility and speed.<br> <br> The Broadsword is a huge jump-capable bomber with three turrets, torpedoes, missiles, and lots of guns. It’s a pig to fly in combat, with rotten manoeuvrability and speed, but it’s the only craft that can take out capital ships, since both sides now use phase shields that block normal fighter wea pons completely.<br> <br> The advertising for this game makes frequent references to the tur rets; when they’re used the ship flies under automatic pilot, avoiding colli sions. 1 didn’t like this feature at all; without the complexities of flying the ship, taking pot-shots from a turret soon becomes very boring. There also seems to be a bug which makes all the turrets fire continuously if you press the joystick button while the game is paused. I’d be happier if the turrets were fully automated, with ‘ friend or foe’ systems to aim them, or used some sort of split screen aiming (little TV sets in the cockpit?) to tell the pilot when to press the button. I’ll be interested to see how well the Broad sword fares against a capital ship, but so far I haven’t encountered one. The turrets would be most useful on the run-up to a shipping strike, which is the one moment when you don’t want to go onto autopilot, so 1 have grave doubts about their usefulness.<br> <br> There are some new ways to damage your fighter, the deadliest being loss of radar; when that happens you suddenly realize how hard it is to cover a 360-degree 3D field of view by eye alone.<br> <br> One major bug of Wing Commander is even worse in the new game; joystick control of afterburners is implemented very poorly, even on the 33MHz machine 1 tried when pre viewing the game, and rarely works if there’s more than one enemy fighter in a combat.<br> <br> A nice feature is a ‘replay mission’ option, used if your character is killed or ejects. This lets you bypass the funeral or reprimand that would nor mally follow, and go suaight back to the start of the mission after the briefing.<br> <br> Overall I’m very impressed with the combat sections of this game, but disappointed by the narrative pas sages. Origin says that these sequences were created using Autodesk Animator; I’ve run Autodesk on my computer, and the results were much faster, even with higher resolution. <br> There are long delays while the computer seems to meditate before loading the next sequence; this is most notable if a pilot is killed, be cause there’s an interminable pause before the cockpit interior is shown. Somewhere this part of the pro gramming has gone badly wrong. Even so, the faults can be lived with, and shouldn’t disguise the fact that the core of this game is an extremely playable simulation. The snag is that many PCs will be unable to run it.<br> <br> Wing Commander 2 is extraor dinarily big, even compared with its predecessor. In all 1 loaded 19 720k disks and spent several hours tinker ing with CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files before everything worked properly. Take a careful look at the sidebar text and the game box before you buy; everything shown is the minimum needed, and the game performs much better with more memory and faster processors.<br> <br> Well Spoken<br> <br> The speech accessory pack is a must, if you have the right hardware; it’s excellent, and seems to impose no penalties apart from disk space. Some of the accents are unbelievable, espe cially those of the Kilrathi. As yet there aren’t versions of this pack for other speech products, such as Covox cards. Special operations packs are mentioned in the documentation but not yet available. There is no indica tion of size, however. I’ve got 10-15Mb of hard disk space with a ‘reserved for Special Operations’ file on it.<br> <br> After this I think that I’ll probably leave Strike Commander until 1 get a new computer; a Cray should be about right....<br> <br> Installation Notes<br> <br> MSDOS 5 is recommended because MSDOS 4 consumes too much RAM. Hard disk requirements: 12Mb with files com- pres.sed to minimize space. 15Mb with files expanded to minimize delays, add 5Mb for speech synthesis (Sound Blaster only). Add-on missions may eventually need more megabytes. There is no copy protection.<br> <br> Installation takes at least an hour for the game. Speech instal lation takes about 15 minutes. De-fragmenting the hard disk is strongly recommended after either installation. For unknown reasoas the game seemed to work much better with VGA memor>' upgraded to 512k. </blockquote> <div id="comments-16820" class="container-comments"></div> <footer> <div class="outer"> <div class="author-avatar"> <img class="news-author-avatar" src="https://cdn.wcnews.com/design/avatars/5.png" alt="author avatar"/> </div> <div class="author-info"> <a href="mailto:news@wcnews.com">LOAF</a> </div> <div id="comment-count-16820" class="comment-bubble discuss-link" data-updateid="16820" data-threadid="32217"> Comment on this </div> </div></footer> </article></section> <section class="daily-content"> <header> <a href="/news/2025/02/22"> <time datetime="2025-02-22">2025.053 (February 22, 2025)</time> </a> </header> <article class="news-post" id="16834"> <h1> <a href="/news/2025/02/22/annual-fan-vote-under-way">Annual Fan Vote Under Way</a> <span class="permalink">  <a href="https://bsky.app/intent/compose?text=Annual%20Fan%20Vote%20Under%20Way%20https%3A%2F%2Fwcne.ws%2F16834"><img src="https://cdn.wcnews.com/design/images/buttons/bluesky_icon.svg" title="Share on Bluesky" alt="Share on Bluesky" width="20" height="20"></a> <a href="https://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.wcnews.com%2Fnews%2Fupdate%2F16834&t=Annual%20Fan%20Vote%20Under%20Way"><img src="https://cdn.wcnews.com/design/images/buttons/986944_facebook_icon.svg" title="Share on Facebook" alt="Share on Facebook" width="20" height="20"></a> <a href="https://twitter.com/home?status=Annual%20Fan%20Vote%20Under%20Way%20https%3A%2F%2Fwcne.ws%2F16834"><img src="https://cdn.wcnews.com/design/images/buttons/986958_twitter_icon.svg" title="Share on Twitter" alt="Share on Twitter" width="20" height="20"></a> </span> </h1> <div class="gallery"> <A HREF="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/full/flatuniverse118x.jpg"><IMG SRC="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/flatuniverse118xt.jpg" WIDTH="249" HEIGHT="150" SRCSET="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/flatuniverse118xt_2x.jpg 2x" CLASS="align-right"></A> </div> This is a reminder that there's still a little time left to get your vote in for the annual Fan Project of the Year tally as well as our new poll that asks about the best undertakings of all time. The nominees and voting buttons are below! <blockquote> <UL> <LH>Fan Project of the Year 2024</LH> <LI><A HREF="/news/search?body=confederation_engine">Confederation</A> - This past year brought numerous widescreen art updates for this enhancement mod to WC1 by AllTinker. We also got previews of new features, including some highly anticipated <A href="/news/2024/12/12/alltinker-trailer-slower-guy">slowdown improvements</a>. <LI><A HREF="/news/search?body=10609">Mac's Lore/Art</a> - Mac delivered both a treasure of slick wallpapers and multiple lore videos jam packed with Wing Commander knowledge in 2024. <LI><A HREF="/news/search?body=Originator">Originator</a> - Originator is a phenomenal hacking and extraction tool that significantly streamlines the process of analyzing Wing Commander assets. AllTinker released more than half of a dozen updates to the program this past year that added support/features for everything from the mainline WC games to P2 to Arena. <LI><A HREF="/news/search?body=countvonschnaps">Sketches by CountVonSchnaps</A> - The Count produced a ton of wonderful new artwork in 2024, including pictures of the Arrow, Rapier, Excalibur, Kamrani, Hellcat, Thunderbolt and Longbow. <LI><a href="/news/2024/05/15/new-enhancement-patch-upgrades-wc3-resolution-and-video">WC3 Enhancement Patch</a> - Mash released an amazing patch last year that upgrades the gameplay resolution of WC3 to high definition and also supports incorporation of ODVS' high res videos. <LI><A HREF="/news/search?body=wcrespace">WC4 Remastered</a> - The WC Respace team continues its steady march towards a modern WC4 remaster with multiple articles highlighting the game's new music, ground missions, beautiful ships and more. <LI><A HREF="/news/search?body=Day/WCUnity">Wing Leader</a> - Howard started off the year by releasing the Wing Leader assets publicly on the project's <A href="https://github.com/Howard-Day/WCUnity">Github</A> page. He then proceeded to add new content for the Scimitar, Strakha, Talon, Salt, Krant, Grikath, Dorkir, Lumbari and more. The game also got new features like enhanced damage effects, explosions, cloaking and Kilrathi translations. <LI><A HREF="/news/search?body=Wing%20Loader">Wing Loader</A> - Not to be confused with Wing Leader, Wing <B>Loader</b> added updates this year to support seamless side-by-side support with Mash's enhancement patch. Other updates support new customization menus, tweaks for the WC1 voice mod and many bug fixes. </UL> </blockquote> <div class="poll" data-pollid="301"></div> <blockquote> <UL> <LH>Hall of Fame</LH> <LI><A href="/news/2007/12/10/goodbye-eagle-one">Eagle-1</a> IRC Operator - Eagle fostered the earliest popular real time chat room based on Wing Commander in the mid '90s. The community that began there kickstarted many friendships that endure 30 years later. <LI><A href="https://hcl.solsector.net">HCl's Mods</a> - HCl was the original legendary Wing Commander modder. Many of his incredible discoveries are tools formed the backbone of the projects of the early 2000s, and you can still see their successors in play to this day. <LI><A href="/news/2024/05/13">Klavs' Art</A> - Klavs personified the artistic talent of the Wing Commander community. He wasn't just one of the most prolific modelers and artists of the last 20 years, he also worked tirelessly to package up and release his assets broadly so that so many other undertakings could benefit from his creations. <LI>Terran Confederate Underground - Long before the Wing Commander CIC, the TCU website was a comprehensive resource for downloadable files, game walkthroughs, ship stats and more. It included story summaries for the games, bios for the characters and other elements. Unfortunately, no archive of the site exists to this day! <LI><A href="https://web.archive.org/web/20020525063825/http://wc-aces.com/">WC Aces Club</a> Community - The Aces Club was ostensibly based around a series of ongoing play-by-mail fan fiction stories, but it was a lot more than that. At its peak, the club had many hundreds of active users and spread across dozens of websites. Each major campaign was a force unto itself unified by common fan lore, message boards and community. </UL> </blockquote> <div class="poll" data-pollid="302"></div> <div id="comments-16834" class="container-comments"></div> <footer> <div class="outer"> <div class="author-avatar"> <img class="news-author-avatar" src="https://cdn.wcnews.com/design/avatars/70.gif" alt="author avatar"/> </div> <div class="author-info"> <a href="mailto:news@wcnews.com">ChrisReid</a> </div> <div id="comment-count-16834" class="comment-bubble discuss-link" data-updateid="16834" data-threadid="32214"> Comment on this </div> </div></footer> </article></section> <section class="daily-content"> <header> <a href="/news/2025/02/21"> <time datetime="2025-02-21">2025.052 (February 21, 2025)</time> </a> </header> <article class="news-post" id="16831"> <h1> <a href="/news/2025/02/21/reminder-wingnut-movie-night-tonight">Reminder: #Wingnut Movie Night Tonight!</a> <span class="permalink">  <a href="https://bsky.app/intent/compose?text=Reminder%3A%20%23Wingnut%20Movie%20Night%20Tonight%21%20https%3A%2F%2Fwcne.ws%2F16831"><img src="https://cdn.wcnews.com/design/images/buttons/bluesky_icon.svg" title="Share on Bluesky" alt="Share on Bluesky" width="20" height="20"></a> <a href="https://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.wcnews.com%2Fnews%2Fupdate%2F16831&t=Reminder%3A%20%23Wingnut%20Movie%20Night%20Tonight%21"><img src="https://cdn.wcnews.com/design/images/buttons/986944_facebook_icon.svg" title="Share on Facebook" alt="Share on Facebook" width="20" height="20"></a> <a href="https://twitter.com/home?status=Reminder%3A%20%23Wingnut%20Movie%20Night%20Tonight%21%20https%3A%2F%2Fwcne.ws%2F16831"><img src="https://cdn.wcnews.com/design/images/buttons/986958_twitter_icon.svg" title="Share on Twitter" alt="Share on Twitter" width="20" height="20"></a> </span> </h1> <P>This is a reminder that we have another fun #Wingnut movie night planned on <A HREF="https://discord.gg/vwKE8Tc">Discord</A> this evening! The ongoing theme will be movies that inspired Wing Commander in some way. Tonight's film is Titanic (1997) which provided Wing Commander's incredible production designer, Peter Lamont! You can find details on that as well as how to watch along with us in <A HREF="/news/2025/02/03/wing-commander-movie-night-battle-of-britain">the announcement post here</A>. The movie will start about 6 PM PST/9 PM EST but feel free to drop by and hang any time!</P> <P><B>PLEASE NOTE</B> that the movie will start an hour earlier than previous weeks. This is temporary to account for Titanic's longer run time.</P> <div class="gallery"> <A HREF="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/full/titnicposter.png"><IMG SRC="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/titnicpostert.jpg" WIDTH="171" HEIGHT="250" SRCSET="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/titnicpostert_2x.jpg 2x"></A> </div> <div id="comments-16831" class="container-comments"></div> <footer> <div class="outer"> <div class="author-avatar"> <img class="news-author-avatar" src="https://cdn.wcnews.com/design/avatars/5.png" alt="author avatar"/> </div> <div class="author-info"> <a href="mailto:news@wcnews.com">LOAF</a> </div> <div id="comment-count-16831" class="comment-bubble discuss-link" data-updateid="16831" data-threadid="32215"> Comment on this </div> </div></footer> </article> <article class="news-post" id="16832"> <h1> <a href="/news/2025/02/21/after-action-report-judge-dredd">After Action Report: Judge Dredd</a> <span class="permalink">  <a href="https://bsky.app/intent/compose?text=After%20Action%20Report%3A%20Judge%20Dredd%20https%3A%2F%2Fwcne.ws%2F16832"><img src="https://cdn.wcnews.com/design/images/buttons/bluesky_icon.svg" title="Share on Bluesky" alt="Share on Bluesky" width="20" height="20"></a> <a href="https://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.wcnews.com%2Fnews%2Fupdate%2F16832&t=After%20Action%20Report%3A%20Judge%20Dredd"><img src="https://cdn.wcnews.com/design/images/buttons/986944_facebook_icon.svg" title="Share on Facebook" alt="Share on Facebook" width="20" height="20"></a> <a href="https://twitter.com/home?status=After%20Action%20Report%3A%20Judge%20Dredd%20https%3A%2F%2Fwcne.ws%2F16832"><img src="https://cdn.wcnews.com/design/images/buttons/986958_twitter_icon.svg" title="Share on Twitter" alt="Share on Twitter" width="20" height="20"></a> </span> </h1> <P>Greetings WingNuts,</P> <P>I'm sad to report that we didn't think much of Judge Dredd! It's such a weird mess of a movie... the cool British sci-fi world and the world class SFX just weren't enough to balance out a confusing, disengaged plot and some actors... chief among them the bizarre choice of Sylvester Stallone and Rob Schneider as the leads. The setup is too offputting and doesn't spend enough time engaging you... you just don't ever feel like rooting for anyone. Incredible props, visual effects and sets, though! The happiest surprise of the night was the discovery of the after credits song, the bespoke "Dredd Song" provided by... The Cure?! What was going on with this movie?</P> <P>... but we DID find our Wing Commander tank pretty readily! The police vehicles show up throughout the film but are especially visible during the opening riot scene and then at the very end of the film when everything has been resolved.</P> <div class="gallery"> <A HREF="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/full/dredd-tank1.png"><IMG SRC="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/dredd-tank1t.jpg" WIDTH="350" HEIGHT="150" SRCSET="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/dredd-tank1t_2x.jpg 2x" class="twittercard"></A> <A HREF="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/full/dredd-tank2.png"><IMG SRC="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/dredd-tank2t.jpg" WIDTH="350" HEIGHT="150" SRCSET="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/dredd-tank2t_2x.jpg 2x" class="twittercard"></A> <A HREF="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/full/dredd-tank3.png"><IMG SRC="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/dredd-tank3t.jpg" WIDTH="350" HEIGHT="150" SRCSET="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/dredd-tank3t_2x.jpg 2x" class="twittercard"></A> </div> <P>In addition to the two that were turned into a tanker and a repair truck on Wing Commander there seem to be at least two Judge Dredd Saracens extant today: one spent a decade at a Planet Hollywood in North Carolina and is now in private hands and another is privately owned in the United Kingdom. I wanted to learn a little more: how many Saracens were used in the film? Luckily, there's a surprisingly comprehensive Making of Judge Dredd book which confirmed that there were four and talked a little it about the process of adapting them:</P> <blockquote> To provide a final touch of authenticity, four armored vehicles were adapted for use on the film's back lot. After looking at seeral makes, the designers plumped for the Saracen, a six-wheeled British Army vehicle. Before the Rover deal was even considered, this was how all vehicles in Mega-City were going to be made and David Allday spent a considerable amount of time going around Britain looking for the right ones for the job. "Because of the way the country unloads a lot of military hardware at the moment, you can actually procure this stuff extremely cheaply and in large numbers," he says. "The other useful thing about military vehicles is that they're extremely sturdily built, it's very easy to weld things to them and create a completely different look."<br> <br> A hood and a bumper was added to cover up the front of the Saracens and they were given bigger wheels and mudguards to make them look even more imposing. An engineer was brought in to fix the bits that weren't working (some of the vehicles had been sitting abandoned in a field for six years!) and the Art Department added the finishing touches. "I'd been looking at a lot of aerospace hardware, bits of engines and things like that we'd found in various places. I found these - I think they're caled afterburners - from a jet plane and we stuck them on the side, four of them on each one and the whole thing looked awesome." <br> <br> With that, the fleet of road-going vehicles were completed and ready to go on set with no problems - almost.<br> <br> "We had a few moments with them," Dave admits, "but I would ay that they were superbly engineered and the way they performed was perfect. When one considers the amount of things that can go wrong with this sort of thing in terms of what happened on set. We had a lot of last-minute panics, particularly with the Land Rovers filling up with ehaust and that sort of thing. There were a lot of little adaptations that had to be done at breakneck speed. But, basically, on set they performed beautifully." </blockquote> <P>While most literature refers to the Saracens used in Judge Dredd and Wing Commander as standard FV603s, the Making of Book shows one before the conversion which seems to be the FV606/611 ambulance model:</P> <div class="gallery"> <A HREF="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/full/dredd-ambulance.png"><IMG SRC="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/dredd-ambulancet.jpg" WIDTH="209" HEIGHT="150" SRCSET="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/dredd-ambulancet_2x.jpg 2x"></A> </div> <P>Further research even revealed that we've already seen a Saracen during this movie series: one played a German armored car in Squadron 633:</P> <div class="gallery"> <A HREF="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/full/dredd-633squadron.png"><IMG SRC="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/dredd-633squadront.jpg" WIDTH="353" HEIGHT="150" SRCSET="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/dredd-633squadront_2x.jpg 2x"></A> </div> <P> Of course, the Saracens weren't the only thing from Judge Dredd that Wing Commander reused: Jurgen Prochnow played Judge Griffin... and the gravitas he added was nowhere near enough to save the film.</P> </P> <div class="gallery"> <A HREF="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/full/dredd-prochnow.png"><IMG SRC="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/dredd-prochnowt.jpg" WIDTH="350" HEIGHT="150" SRCSET="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/dredd-prochnowt_2x.jpg 2x" class="twittercard"></A> </div> <P>There's even ANOTHER Privateer 2 connection... one of the CIS taunts in the game is quoting Dredd's tagline: "I am the law" when the NPC pilot scores a kill.</P> <div class="gallery"> <A HREF="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/full/dredd-CIS.png"><IMG SRC="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/dredd-CISt.jpg" WIDTH="150" HEIGHT="150" SRCSET="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/dredd-CISt_2x.jpg 2x"></A> </div> <div class="gallery"> <audio controls="controls"> <source src="https://download.wcnews.com/holovids/p2/comms/SPEECH.BIG-M2D.fat-snd0.wav" type='audio/wav'> Your browser cannot play this file. Click <a href="https://download.wcnews.com/holovids/p2/comms/SPEECH.BIG-M2D.fat-snd0.wav">here</a> to download the track. </audio> </div> <div class="gallery"> <A HREF="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/full/sully-dredd.jpg"><IMG SRC="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/sully-dreddt.jpg" WIDTH="113" HEIGHT="150" SRCSET="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/sully-dreddt_2x.jpg 2x"></A> </div> <P><I>Sully is the law.</I></P> <div id="comments-16832" class="container-comments"></div> <footer> <div class="outer"> <div class="author-avatar"> <img class="news-author-avatar" src="https://cdn.wcnews.com/design/avatars/5.png" alt="author avatar"/> </div> <div class="author-info"> <a href="mailto:news@wcnews.com">LOAF</a> </div> <div id="comment-count-16832" class="comment-bubble discuss-link" data-updateid="16832" data-threadid="32213"> Comment on this </div> </div></footer> </article></section> <section class="daily-content"> <header> <a href="/news/2025/02/20"> <time datetime="2025-02-20">2025.051 (February 20, 2025)</time> </a> </header> <article class="news-post" id="16833"> <h1> <a href="/news/2025/02/20/goodbye-peter-jason">Goodbye Peter Jason</a> <span class="permalink">  <a href="https://bsky.app/intent/compose?text=Goodbye%20Peter%20Jason%20https%3A%2F%2Fwcne.ws%2F16833"><img src="https://cdn.wcnews.com/design/images/buttons/bluesky_icon.svg" title="Share on Bluesky" alt="Share on Bluesky" width="20" height="20"></a> <a href="https://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.wcnews.com%2Fnews%2Fupdate%2F16833&t=Goodbye%20Peter%20Jason"><img src="https://cdn.wcnews.com/design/images/buttons/986944_facebook_icon.svg" title="Share on Facebook" alt="Share on Facebook" width="20" height="20"></a> <a href="https://twitter.com/home?status=Goodbye%20Peter%20Jason%20https%3A%2F%2Fwcne.ws%2F16833"><img src="https://cdn.wcnews.com/design/images/buttons/986958_twitter_icon.svg" title="Share on Twitter" alt="Share on Twitter" width="20" height="20"></a> </span> </h1> <p>There's sad news today: the Wing Commander universe has lost another commander. We've learned that prolific character actor Peter Jason has passed away. Wing Commander fans best know him as Daniel (Eugene) Wilford, a Terran Confederation Captain and a Border Worlds Vice Admiral. Jason's Wilford first appeared in Wing Commander IV where he played the Border Worlds admiral giving orders to Colonel Blair and the Intrepid. Much like Ricardo Montalbán in Star Trek II, Jason never actually shared a set with the rest of the cast: his orders arrived via viewscreen. In Wing Commander Prophecy, Jason stepped in following Jason Bernard's untimely passing and played the Wilford character as the captain of the Confederation's new Midway megacarrier. There he worked more directly with the cast, giving briefings and either praising or chewing out the player based on their gameplay. </p><div class="gallery"> <A HREF="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/full/wilford-rip-1.png"><IMG SRC="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/wilford-rip-1t.jpg" WIDTH="300" HEIGHT="150" SRCSET="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/wilford-rip-1t_2x.jpg 2x"></A> </div> To call Mr. Jason in-demand would be an understatement; he was credited in more than 180 roles during his 57 year career. He frequently worked with legendary genre director John Carpenter in films like Prince of Darkness and They Live. His tremendous body of work included him in everything from romcoms to alien invasions. Some of his more familiar films included Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, Alien Nation, Mortal Kombat, Congo and a personal favorite, Starflight: The Plane That Couldn't Land. His television work included everything from Roseanne to Quantum Leap, with a particularly notable recurring role on Deadwood. He also lent his talent to other video games including Fallout 2 and the Gears of War franchise. <div class="gallery"> <A HREF="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/full/wilford-rip-2.png"><IMG SRC="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/wilford-rip-2t.jpg" WIDTH="300" HEIGHT="150" SRCSET="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/thumb/wilford-rip-2t_2x.jpg 2x"></A> </div> Wing Commander fans were always happy to follow Wilford and his Midway into battle; today, we offer our sincere condolences to Mr. Jason's family and friends. <div id="comments-16833" class="container-comments"></div> <footer> <div class="outer"> <div class="author-avatar"> <img class="news-author-avatar" src="https://cdn.wcnews.com/design/avatars/5.png" alt="author avatar"/> </div> <div class="author-info"> <a href="mailto:news@wcnews.com">LOAF</a> </div> <div id="comment-count-16833" class="comment-bubble discuss-link" data-updateid="16833" data-threadid="32211"> Comment on this </div> </div></footer> </article></section> <section class="daily-content"> <header> <a href="/news/2025/02/19"> <time datetime="2025-02-19">2025.050 (February 19, 2025)</time> </a> </header> <article class="news-post" id="16819"> <h1> <a href="/news/2025/02/19/mr-smith-goes-to-vega-sector">Mr. Smith Goes to Vega Sector</a> <span class="permalink">  <a href="https://bsky.app/intent/compose?text=Mr.%20Smith%20Goes%20to%20Vega%20Sector%20https%3A%2F%2Fwcne.ws%2F16819"><img src="https://cdn.wcnews.com/design/images/buttons/bluesky_icon.svg" title="Share on Bluesky" alt="Share on Bluesky" width="20" height="20"></a> <a href="https://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.wcnews.com%2Fnews%2Fupdate%2F16819&t=Mr.%20Smith%20Goes%20to%20Vega%20Sector"><img src="https://cdn.wcnews.com/design/images/buttons/986944_facebook_icon.svg" title="Share on Facebook" alt="Share on Facebook" width="20" height="20"></a> <a href="https://twitter.com/home?status=Mr.%20Smith%20Goes%20to%20Vega%20Sector%20https%3A%2F%2Fwcne.ws%2F16819"><img src="https://cdn.wcnews.com/design/images/buttons/986958_twitter_icon.svg" title="Share on Twitter" alt="Share on Twitter" width="20" height="20"></a> </span> </h1> <P>Here's a great listen: the <A HREF="https://theretrohour.com/deus-ex-system-shock-origin-systems-harvey-smith-tells-all-the-retro-hour-ep466/">The Retro Hour podcast</A> has posted an in-depth interview with game development legend Harvey Smith. He's best known as the lead designed for the Deus Ex series and more recent titles from Arkane... but like many in the industry, he got his start at Origin Systems! He tells great stories about his time in the military in the early 1990s and then how he joined Origin (first as a member of the softball team before actually being hired!). And there's one fantastic story about QA'ing Super Wing Commander and running into stealth fighters!</P> <blockquote> I'll tell you a 3DO story though that you might like. You know one of the games in [Super Wing Commander] and that it was all the... it was the Secret Missions packaged with Wing I and II I think, and it was like a good bundle if you were a Wing Commander fan, right. And this was like while Chris Roberts and his team were working on Wing III, so they called us to the cafeteria one day shuttered the the windows. And they showed us on a big TV on a cart Wing III. And it was just simply a tech demo of the dog fighting against Kilrathi ships but it had 3D models flying around with a lighting model so that the as the ships banked and turned the lighting would play across the facets. And that's nothing now, but I tell you everyone in the room was stunned at the time. And so, like, you know we went from these 2D sprites that flipped I don't remember how many positions they had, but, like you could see the ships flipping right because they only had like, you know, eight facings or whatever. <br> <br> But anyway we we would sit there and play these missions and write them up and try to reproduce the bugs. Like, oh we're having a crash, make it crash tell us exactly what the three steps to make it crash are. And then the programmer can find it very easily. But the missions some of them are about the Kilrathi developing, the Kilrathi are of course lion aliens like like from the novel The Man Kzin Wars or something, but the part of the plot is about the Kilrathi developing cloaking technology. And I remember we were playing this mission one time. And one of the kilrathi ships went invisible. And I was chasing it and you could only see when they fired their weapons. You could see the brights, that it had the what we would now call B effects on them, for the blasters moving through space. You could, you could see those and the afterburners, the jets, when they came on. You could see those but otherwise the ship was invisible and I remember dogfighting and chasing one and one of the, one of the producers was standing around and he looked over and he was like "what the hell are you doing? What's going on?" And I was just like I'm just playing the game, you know, I'm trying to get this one thing to reproduce and he was just stunned and he called his programmer friend over and they were freaking out and and and finally the programmer was like what is it you think is happening right now? And I was like well I'm chasing this Kilrathi ship and it cloaked and blah blah blah because the game's about cloaking. And he was like "no it's just not drawing the ship. How are you guys playing this game if it doesn't draw the enemy ships?" And QA you get super good at games, right. You memorize the the the floor plan of everything, right, and so I was like I'm just dogfighting this invisible ship but I can see when the afterburners turn on and when the, the blasters fire.<br> <br> And the programmer... this is like a, a life lesson moment, like you you know if you could look back over your life and you could track the like how many times did something happen that was, like, lit your brain up right. And he said you know every action sphere in Wing Commander is allowed a certain number of ships, a certain amount of art, and so you fly from one action sphere to another there may be another ship fighting you there but it you're not allowed to have all three in the first action sphere you can maybe only have two plus your own ship and whatever and so what has happened here is we've exceeded the amount of art that we can have in this action sphere. So it's literally just not drawing the ship and the reason the blasters and the afterburners come on is those are shared between all the ships and I remember just my brain just going like as a non engineer my brain just going wow that explains a lot that's what's going on here. And what had happened was there was an assert somewhere in the code where like if you ever exceed the memory in an action sphere assert, you know, crash and then give this little report so somebody can go figure out what's going on. And a programmer assigned with the bug for it being you know crashing had just turned that assert off and so which is not a very responsible way to fix that bug, but like what it meant was like, we were fighting these invisible ships in in, in Wing Commander 3DO and the programmers were delighted. And so, uh, I love that yeah but it because it was about cloaking and because process was not as organized like modern QA people are geniuses the the sort of process they have for checklists and making sure on 27 languages everything works and on multiple platforms and all you know but any any case that's that's my Wing Commander 3DO story. </blockquote> <div class="lazyframe" data-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/NRcYyfDvQ1Q" data-vendor="youtube"></div> <P>You can listen to the entire podcast <A HREF="https://theretrohour.com/deus-ex-system-shock-origin-systems-harvey-smith-tells-all-the-retro-hour-ep466/">here</A> or through any popular provider (it's episode 466.)</P> <div id="comments-16819" class="container-comments"></div> <footer> <div class="outer"> <div class="author-avatar"> <img class="news-author-avatar" src="https://cdn.wcnews.com/design/avatars/5.png" alt="author avatar"/> </div> <div class="author-info"> <a href="mailto:news@wcnews.com">LOAF</a> </div> <div id="comment-count-16819" class="comment-bubble discuss-link" data-updateid="16819" data-threadid="32210"> Comment on this </div> </div></footer> </article></section> <section class="daily-content"> <header> <a href="/news/2025/02/18"> <time datetime="2025-02-18">2025.049 (February 18, 2025)</time> </a> </header> <article class="news-post" id="16828"> <h1> <a href="/news/2025/02/18/gog-sale-squeezes-wing-commander-prices-even-lower">GOG Sale Squeezes Wing Commander Prices Even Lower</a> <span class="permalink">  <a href="https://bsky.app/intent/compose?text=GOG%20Sale%20Squeezes%20Wing%20Commander%20Prices%20Even%20Lower%20https%3A%2F%2Fwcne.ws%2F16828"><img src="https://cdn.wcnews.com/design/images/buttons/bluesky_icon.svg" title="Share on Bluesky" alt="Share on Bluesky" width="20" height="20"></a> <a href="https://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.wcnews.com%2Fnews%2Fupdate%2F16828&t=GOG%20Sale%20Squeezes%20Wing%20Commander%20Prices%20Even%20Lower"><img src="https://cdn.wcnews.com/design/images/buttons/986944_facebook_icon.svg" title="Share on Facebook" alt="Share on Facebook" width="20" height="20"></a> <a href="https://twitter.com/home?status=GOG%20Sale%20Squeezes%20Wing%20Commander%20Prices%20Even%20Lower%20https%3A%2F%2Fwcne.ws%2F16828"><img src="https://cdn.wcnews.com/design/images/buttons/986958_twitter_icon.svg" title="Share on Twitter" alt="Share on Twitter" width="20" height="20"></a> </span> </h1> GOG has another new sale going this week in honor of Valentine's Day. Their <a href="https://www.gog.com/en/promo/2025_love_at_first_pixel">Love at First Pixel</A> deal marks the Wing Commander series down by 60%, which is actually 1% more than the recent Lunar New Year discount. Each package is $2.39 rather than $2.45. And there's one outlier: Privateer 2 is a whole 75% off. That's just $1.49! <div class="gallery"> <A HREF="https://www.gog.com/game/wing_commander_1_2/?pp=f38cfe2e2facbcc742bad63f91ad55637300cb45"><IMG SRC="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/full/gog-wc12-button.jpg" WIDTH="200" HEIGHT="120"></A> <A HREF="https://www.gog.com/game/wing_commander_3_heart_of_the_tiger/?pp=f38cfe2e2facbcc742bad63f91ad55637300cb45"><IMG SRC="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/full/gog-wc3-button.jpg" WIDTH="200" HEIGHT="120"></A> <A HREF="https://www.gog.com/game/wing_commander_4_the_price_of_freedom/?pp=f38cfe2e2facbcc742bad63f91ad55637300cb45"><IMG SRC="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/full/gog-wc4-button.jpg" WIDTH="200" HEIGHT="120"></A> <A HREF="https://www.gog.com/game/wing_commander_5_prophecy/?pp=f38cfe2e2facbcc742bad63f91ad55637300cb45"><IMG SRC="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/full/gog-wcp-button.jpg" WIDTH="200" HEIGHT="120"></A> <A HREF="https://www.gog.com/game/wing_commander_privateer/?pp=f38cfe2e2facbcc742bad63f91ad55637300cb45"><IMG SRC="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/full/gog-priv-button.jpg" WIDTH="200" HEIGHT="120"></A> <A HREF="https://www.gog.com/game/privateer_2_the_darkening/?pp=f38cfe2e2facbcc742bad63f91ad55637300cb45"><IMG SRC="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/full/gog-p2-button.jpg" WIDTH="200" HEIGHT="120"></A> <A HREF="https://www.gog.com/game/wing_commander_academy/?pp=f38cfe2e2facbcc742bad63f91ad55637300cb45"><IMG SRC="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/full/gog-wca-button.jpg" WIDTH="200" HEIGHT="120"></A> <A HREF="https://www.gog.com/game/wing_commander_armada/?pp=f38cfe2e2facbcc742bad63f91ad55637300cb45"><IMG SRC="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/full/gog-armada-button.jpg" WIDTH="200" HEIGHT="120"></A> <A HREF="https://www.gog.com/game/strike_commander/?pp=f38cfe2e2facbcc742bad63f91ad55637300cb45"><IMG SRC="https://cdn.wcnews.com/newestshots/full/gog-strike-commander-button.jpg" WIDTH="200" HEIGHT="120"></A> </div> <div id="comments-16828" class="container-comments"></div> <footer> <div class="outer"> <div class="author-avatar"> <img class="news-author-avatar" src="https://cdn.wcnews.com/design/avatars/70.gif" alt="author avatar"/> </div> <div class="author-info"> <a href="mailto:news@wcnews.com">ChrisReid</a> </div> <div id="comment-count-16828" class="comment-bubble discuss-link" data-updateid="16828" data-threadid="0"> Comment on this </div> </div></footer> </article></section><div id="archive-links">All news for February 2025 can be found <a href="/news/2025/02">here</a>.<BR/>Older news can be found in the <a href="/news">archive</a>.</div>   </div> <div id="m_right">  <section id="search"> <a href="/news/search"><h1>Search News</h1></a> <form class="content" action="/news/search" method="POST"> <input id="search_keywords" type="text" name="keywords" placeholder="Search..."><input id="search_button" type="submit" value="🔍"/> <div id="search_advanced"><a href="/news/search" title="Advanced search">advanced</a></div> </form> </section> <section id="social"> <a href="/contact.shtml"><h1>Follow or Contact Us</h1></a> <div class="content"> <a href="https://discord.gg/vwKE8Tc"> <img src="https://cdn.wcnews.com/design/images/buttons/4180408_discord_squircle_icon.svg" height="32" width="32" alt="Discord" title="Discord chat with staff and fans"> </a> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@WingCommanderCIC"> <img src="https://cdn.wcnews.com/design/images/buttons/986962_youtube_icon.svg" height="32" width="32" alt="YouTube" title="Follow us on YouTube"> </a> <a href="https://www.twitter.com/wccic"> <img src="https://cdn.wcnews.com/design/images/buttons/986958_twitter_icon.svg" height="32" width="32" alt="Twitter" title="Follow us on Twitter"> </a> <a href="https://www.facebook.com/WingCommanderCIC"> <img src="https://cdn.wcnews.com/design/images/buttons/986944_facebook_icon.svg" height="32" width="32" alt="Facebook" title="Follow us on Facebook"> </a>  <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/wcnews.com"> <img src="https://cdn.wcnews.com/design/images/buttons/bluesky_icon.svg" height="32" width="32" alt="Bluesky" title="Follow us on Bluesky"> <a href="/contact.shtml"> <img src="https://cdn.wcnews.com/design/images/buttons/2569496_email_icon_s.svg" height="32" width="32" alt="E-mail" title="Contact the staff & FAQ"> </a>   </div> </section>  <section id="awc"> <a href="/all-wings-considered"><h1>All Wings Considered</h1></a> <div class="content"> <span class="awcheader">Episode 37 - Back to Gemini!</span> <div class="lazyframe" data-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/y2ovPhScxdg" data-vendor="youtube"></div>  <span class="awcfooter"><a href="/all-wings-considered">Archived video streams</a></span> </div> </section> <section> <a href="/chatzone"><h1>Forums: Recent Posts</h1></a> <ul class="content" id="recent-threads"> <li> </li> <li> </li> <li> </li> <li> </li> <li> </li> <li> </li> <li> </li> <li> </li> <li> </li> <li> </li> <li> </li> <li> </li> </ul> </section> <section> <a href="/polls"><h1>Current Poll</h1></a> <div id="column-poll" class="content"> <div id="poll-frontpage" class="poll" data-pollid="frontpage">  <br/>  <br/>  <br/>  <br/>  <br/>  <br/>  <br/>  <br/>  <br/>  <br/>  <br/>  <br/>  <br/>  <br/>  <br/>  <br/> </div> </div> </section> <section id="where-to-buy"> <h1>Where to Buy</h1> <ul class="content" id="where-to-buy"> <li id="buy-wc1-2"><a href="http://www.gog.com/game/wing_commander_1_2/?pp=f38cfe2e2facbcc742bad63f91ad55637300cb45">Wing Commander 1-2</a></li> <li id="buy-wc3"><a href="https://www.gog.com/game/wing_commander_3_heart_of_the_tiger/?pp=f38cfe2e2facbcc742bad63f91ad55637300cb45">Wing Commander 3</a></li> <li id="buy-wc4"><a href="https://www.gog.com/game/wing_commander_4_the_price_of_freedom/?pp=f38cfe2e2facbcc742bad63f91ad55637300cb45">Wing Commander 4</a></li> <li id="buy-prophecygold"><a href="https://www.gog.com/game/wing_commander_5_prophecy/?pp=f38cfe2e2facbcc742bad63f91ad55637300cb45">Prophecy & Secret Ops</a></li> <li id="buy-privateer"><a href="https://www.gog.com/game/wing_commander_privateer/?pp=f38cfe2e2facbcc742bad63f91ad55637300cb45">Privateer</a></li> <li id="buy-p2"><a href="http://www.gog.com/game/privateer_2_the_darkening?pp=f38cfe2e2facbcc742bad63f91ad55637300cb45">Privateer 2: The Darkening</a></li> <li id="buy-armada"><a href="https://www.gog.com/game/wing_commander_armada/?pp=f38cfe2e2facbcc742bad63f91ad55637300cb45">Wing Commander Armada</a></li> <li id="buy-academy"><a href="https://www.gog.com/game/wing_commander_academy/?pp=f38cfe2e2facbcc742bad63f91ad55637300cb45">Wing Commander Academy</a></li> <li id="buy-arena"><a href="https://marketplace.xbox.com/en-US/Product/Wing-Commander-Arena/66acd000-77fe-1000-9115-d80258410868">Wing Commander Arena</a></li>   <li id="buy-moviebluray"><a href="/news/2017/10/15/wing-commander-available-via-movies-anywhere">Movie Streaming</a></li> <li id="buy-academydvd"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B005GYXO30/wingcommander-20">Animated Series</a></li> <li id="buy-novels"><a href="/news/2018/07/03/end-run-ebook-released">Baen Wing Commander Catalog</a></li> </ul> </section> <section id="wcpedia"> <a href="/wcpedia"><h1>WCPedia: Recent Contributions</h1></a> <ul class="content" id="recent-wcpedia-edits"> <li> </li> <li> </li> <li> </li> <li> </li> <li> </li> <li> </li> <li> </li> <li> </li> <li> </li> <li> </li> </ul> </section> <section id="masthead"> <a href="/contact.shtml"><h1>Site Staff</h1></a> <div class="content"> <ul> <li><a href="/direct/l.shtml#benlesnick">Ben Lesnick</a></li> <li><a href="/direct/r.shtml#christopherreid">Christopher Reid</a></li> <li><a href="/direct/a.shtml#barriealmond">Barrie Almond</a></li> <li><a href="/direct/s.shtml#brandonstrevell">Brandon Strevell</a></li> <li><a href="/chatzone/members/.723/">Aaron Dunbar</a></li> <li><a href="/chatzone/members/.33/">Jason McHale</a></li> </ul> </div> </section>  </div> </div> <footer id="main-footer"> Copyright 1998 — 2025 The Wing Commander CIC. 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