Just bought WC 1 and 2 on GoG.com, and I have to say they're still fun after all these years!

I never got to play any of the Wing Commander games, so these are unknowns for me. Beat WC1 yesterday, starging on WC2. I really can't wait to try 3! Hopefully by then they'll have 4 up on there too.

Wish I'd gotten to try these in their heyday! I can clearly see why they're so dear to folks!

Phew, I saw your thread title and I thought this was going to be about the horrid movie with Freddy Prinze Jr.

I only played WC 3 and 4 but I enjoyed both of them immensely. Space combat done right!

I can't remember what number it was, but I really liked Wing Commander: Prophecy. I think they had moved away from the fixed bitmap models and on to actual 3D models at that point, and it just looked and moved so much better.

Don't forget about Standoff.



WCS

The big three space sim franchises for me during the 90's were Freespace, X-Wing/Tie Fighter and Wing Commander. The only good capital space ship sim I've played is "Klingon Academy". I surely do miss that genre.

Standoff is an awesome user mod... great graphics too!

As for WC1/2... I present a challenge to you that us really hardcore oldschoolers took back in the day when they first came out:

Never let your wingman break and attack with the sole objective of getting every single kill possible (and in WC 1, don't let the Ralari die >:) )

This means you must do it in WC 1, Secret Missions 1 and 2

then

WC 2, Secret Ops 1 and 2

Good luck! Oh, those Dralthi missions in Secret Ops 2... Hard as hell! Fun stuff though. I still play them.

WC 3 is super awesome, in fact, I just built a pure DOS machine with an AWE 32 and an oldschool dos joystick to play through it again on a CRT (w/ a fresnel lens for ghetto 3D).

Back in the 90's when I was choosing what next-gen console to get,I bought a playstation just to play this game.

I had no idea there was a console version of Wing Commander 3.

Yup, there is. In fact, there is a 3DO version of it that is... "special." They changed a lot in it but it looks interesting at least. The PC version is better gameplay wise.

I agree Prophecy looked and played the best. Unfortunately, it had the worst story, worst actors (only Wilson is there regularly, Hamill makes an extended cameo), and overall worst "feel" when you weren't in the cockpit blasting away.



The Jedi Master

Yeah, I don't remember the acting at all, which probably says something about it.

I didn't play the earlier ones, but only saw them at friend's houses. The graphics, while more colorful than vector stuff, just didn't move right to me. Even though X-Wing had simpler looking ships, I liked the gameplay a lot better than the first WCs, and to me Prophecy fixed that.

God, I still remember that mission....

Yeah, I beat WC1 a few days ago, sure as hell didn't save that ship. But I lived with it, and I liked that I could continue the campaign having not succeeded in that mission. on WC2 now.

One time, in a fit of frustration, I resorted to cheating like a #%&*$# during the Ralari mission. I used the hotkey that blew up enemy ships and managed to save the Ralari.

I smugly escorted the Ralari back to the Tiger's Claw and...

...

...

...received the mission failure briefing.

Honestly, I don't think it's possible to save the Ralari.

Well, you can save it but only if you skip the asteroids/minefield in-between (I forget which) and manually nav around the earlier waypoints on full burner (110000 clicks I believe) to the Ralari. It's kinda cheating but... kinda not.

What!? Curse that autopilot feature! Curse it!