Wing Commander IV & XP

[Paladin2000]

The only "official" Wing Commander story is the one from Chris Roberts. If he wrote a book about Wing Commander, I will read it. Otherwise it is like reading one of those Star Wars books and for no good reason, George Lucas decides to add a little bit of surprise twist to the story and the authors looked like bunch of 3rd class writers.

Thanks, but no thanks.

[ 02-14-2004, 11:30 AM: Message edited by: Paladin2000 ]

[Dreamer128]

Well, I do believe it is the 'official book'. Part of is it can be found in the Wing Commander IV manual. [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Paladin2000]

part of it may have been from the official manual, but the rest-- Pilgrims and stuff, IMHO pure crap.

Anyway, since Christ Roberts left Origin, the WC saga has been condemned to a slow death. Sad, sad, sad.

[andrewas]

Whats slow about it? Its dead. However, to go by the travesty that is Freelancer, perhaps its better this way.

[ 02-15-2004, 09:44 AM: Message edited by: andrewas ]

[Paladin2000]

Originally posted by andrewas: Whats slow about it? Its dead. However, to go by the travesty that is Freelancer, perhaps its better this way.

The game is "dead" but the *ahem* geek community at Wing Comander CIC is still quite active, it is somewhat fun to read the forums once in a while especially people are debating over the "actual" specifications of, say TCS Dragon or Tiger's Claw. [img]graemlins/laugh2.gif[/img]

I have played Freelancer to death on Single Player. Very entertaining for the first 1-2 months. I hope the sequel (if there are plans for it) will be more fun to play.

[Dreamer128]

Originally posted by Paladin2000: part of it may have been from the official manual, but the rest-- Pilgrims and stuff, IMHO pure crap. Anyway, since Christ Roberts left Origin, the WC saga has been condemned to a slow death. Sad, sad, sad.

ROFL. No, it's not a movie-rip off. It stays pretty close to the story. It's not great literature, but it makes a good read [img]smile.gif[/img]

Yeah, it's too bad Roberts left Origin. Digital Anvil was hardly a succes either. Starlancer was the dissapointment of the year. Not a bad game, but I was expecting more from him.

[Tancred]

I couldn't figure out why Starlancer was so completely different to Wing Commander: Prophecy. It felt like a complete step backwards, in terms of style, sophistication, game engine, mechanics of flight...

Freelancer definitely has the plot going for it, though I feel it 'peaks' in the middle of the game, in Britannia - the feeling of utter desperation during the frantic, daring escape from Britannic space, pursued by the Rheinlander navy, was fantastic, and easily my favourite episode of the game. After that, it got a bit weird... and felt rushed.

[ 02-15-2004, 07:42 PM: Message edited by: Tancred ]

[Paladin2000]

Originally posted by Dreamer128: ROFL. No, it's not a movie-rip off. It stays pretty close to the story. It's not great literature, but it makes a good read [img]smile.gif[/img] Yeah, it's too bad Roberts left Origin. Digital Anvil was hardly a succes either. Starlancer was the dissapointment of the year. Not a bad game, but I was expecting more from him.

I thought the movie was based on the book? If the movie was really based on the game, Rapiers wouldn't look like a bunch of junkyard WWII fighters without propellers. [img]graemlins/hehe.gif[/img]

I had great expectations when renting that movie and it was an utter dissappointing experience, waste of time and money.

Originally posted by Tancred: I couldn't figure out why Starlancer was so completely different to Wing Commander: Prophecy. It felt like a complete step backwards, in terms of style, sophistication, game engine, mechanics of flight... Freelancer definitely has the plot going for it, though I feel it 'peaks' in the middle of the game, in Britannia - the feeling of utter desperation during the frantic, daring escape from Britannic space, pursued by the Rheinlander navy, was fantastic, and easily my favourite episode of the game. After that, it got a bit weird... and felt rushed.

Chris Roberts got lucky with Wing Commander as it turned out to be a gem. Unfortunately he lost the franchise when he left Origin.

If Lucas (George) had lost his Star Wars franchise, I suspect that he wouldn't be able to produce anything better than SW.

It is the same as Chris Roberts, Richard Garriot (Lord British) and etc. They have became to rely too heavily on their successful franchise(s) that most of their creativity was spent on milking the cash cows. When the cow died, so did they... at least for Chris Roberts and Richard Garriot.

IIRC Wing Commander Prophecy was made after Christ Roberts left Origin. And Christ Roberts left Digital Anvil before the completion of Freelancer.

Of all the three, I think Freelancer was the best. Wing Commander Prophecy was okay, but the storyline kind of suck. And they killed Blair for that matter.

Starlancer was okay too but the missions were too long and without the mid-mission-autosave feature, replaying failed missions is like a huge pain in the butt... And I gave up in the process.

Freelancer has good mid-mission-autosave feature and its single player campaign is not too difficult to play (at least not for me). Plus the freelance thiny kind of fun to play until you acquired godlike VHFs (very heavy fighters) like the Eagle and Sabre.

Maybe something worthy will come along later on... One can only hope.

[ 02-15-2004, 09:59 PM: Message edited by: Paladin2000 ]