Rollins is in the lift laughing about how we risk it all to rescue this one guy who can win the war for us and Vagabond decks him. He thinks he’ll never get out of the brig but I say I’ll have a word with the captain about it.

Maniacs in the bar and in his usual subtle manner, said he told me about trusting the cats and it was too bad Cobra had to die to get a  point across.

At the briefing, Eisen tells me that the reason we are in Freya is because we have discovered a jump point to Kilrah from here. The problem is that the Kilrathi own the system so I have to go and clear it out.

The game might not put me in one each time by default but I get the option of the Excalibur for every mission from here on out and its easily the best ship to be in even if I’m up against a load of cap ships like this mission.

Flint is clearing out her locker when I get back – she says it helps to clear her mind. She also thinks there might be something between us but it doesn’t go any further for now.

On the bridge, I attempt to talk Eisen into letting Vagabond out of the brig. I have the choice of hard or soft sell – the correct option is hard sell and he lets Vagabond out as long as I am personally responsible.

We’ve run into a snag with the jump point to Kilrah – its shielded. This means I have to go down to the planet below and take out the shield generating station.

The planet looks exactly the same as the last one – a dull grey. All the ships are the same also.

The shield generating station can actually be targeted unlike the turrets shooting at me. I head straight for it and it just takes a few shots.

When I land, Vagabond has been let out of the brig – he’s cheerful but unapolagetic and says he would do the same again.

Next mission is a simple protect the jump point one. The Kilrathi are jumping through it and we have to take them out. This is a simple gauntlet mission with wave after wave all at one point. As ever the Excalibur makes it easy.

At the bar I’m faced with a choice….

I head for Rachel first but tell her it would never work between us….

Flint looks pleased about this..

I then choose Flint and Rachel storms off in the background. This choice will affect the end of the game cutscene very slightly.

Paladin has sent us a prototype of the temblar and I have to go and test fire it on a suitable planet. I’m told it will require the ultimate in aim and timing.

When I go to check my loadout after the briefing, Rachel is not pleased and storms off refusing to do my loadouts from now on.

The planet mission is the usual sort of thing. Shooting the correct part of the planet definitely does not required aiming or timing. I just park up above it, wait for the bomb to lock and fire.

I’m shown afterburning out while the planet ignites behind me.

Judging by the asteroid field thats appeared it looks like it worked.

On the Victory I get a bit of a farewell chat with some of the pilots who can all see us winning the war now the bomb works.

Its not won yet though and I have more missions to fly. I’m having to clear out a load of capships again.

I’m handling my own missile selection from this point out.

Its one capship after another on this mission. I still stick with the Excalibur and it can even take down a cruiser pretty quickly. The main problem is keeping my wingman alive which requires a replay.

We now own the jump point in this system and need to hang onto it.

Its another mission taking out loads of capships. I foolishly pick Maniac first time out and he gets killed off so I pick a more reliable wingman instead for my second attempt.

With this mission complete we are now ready for the final attack on Kilrah.

Eisen meets me outside the briefing room. He says that although the temblar bomb still seems like a long shot, he thinks I’m the one pilot who can pull it off…

The plan is as follows. Confed has equipped my Excalibur with its first attempt at cloaking technology.

I have to fly into Kilrah space, land at a hidden refueling depot where the T-bomb will be loaded.

I then have to fly to Kilrah, navigate down a trench to the target at the far end.

Our timing for this may be just right as much of the Kilrathi fleet is currently being outfitted in the shipyards around the planet.

Paladin also has a few words for me and says he has left briefing notes at the refueling depots.

I get to choose up to 3 wingmen for this mission, but I know from experience that they will die off 1 by 1 if I do. I choose therefore to fly solo.

I make it to the jump point with no great drama and jump out of the system.

On the other side, however its one cap ship after another with 4 corvettes + a destroyer for me to take on single handed as well as waves of fighters.

The hidden depot looks to have been built into an asteroid. I land and refuel.

I get a quick word from Paladin before I launch again. I have to fly to another depot nearer Kilrah before the final attack.

The next mission is an exact copy of the first except some of the fighters are replaced by better models but they even appear in all the same places. I make it through with no trouble, land and the temblar bomb is loaded.

A quick word from paladin and its onto the last mission. This time when I take off I cloak and the world fades into black and white. I could fight my way through several points (all of which have destroyers) but the easier option by far is to be cloaked and just fly out of range until I reach Kilrah.

When I get to the final point, Hobbes and Thrakhath are both waiting for me.

I get myself right behind Hobbes before I uncloak. He it dead before he knows whats hit him.

Thrakhath is a different matter and gets off missile after missle at me. He’s near enough impossible to hit as well – I have to wait for him to fly straight at me to get any shots off.

I get him in the end though and that triggers my landing on Kilrah.

Kilrah looks a little different to everywhere else with a lava filled trench to fly down.

The graphics are really basic though if I’m honest. Pacific Strikes islands looked a lot better than this.

I have to make sure I stay below the top of the trench and just follow it down. Its very easy as it moves so slowly – there isn’t the sort of speed you felt flying the trench at the end of X-Wing.

10 minutes of trench later I reach the target area.

I park up above it and fire starting the end cutscene.

I just about escape the planet exploding but my ship is damaged in the shock wave. I’m tractored in by Thrakhaths underling. He says the Kilrathi are a beaten race and must not die out as a species. He surrenders to me and we get to see him signing a peace treaty with Tolwyn finally ending the war. I fly off to Earth with Flint and we disappear into the sunset.

Its a great ending and a suitable conclusion to the trilogy. The final mission wasn’t all it should have been but at least it was something new and definitely a challenge. The trench was the easy part though and an opportunity was missed. I was told in my final briefing that it would required the ultimate in navigational skills… It has felt sometimes that the briefings were done before the missions were created for real and in the end they couldn’t quite achieve what they wanted with them. I’ve enjoyed today a lot more anyway, mainly because I had the Excalibur and the missions were easier because of it – this game definitely gets more fun when you spend less time flying missions.

That finishes up 1994 and also completes a half century of Origin games. 1995 is looking a bit different with no Wing Commander (or even flight sim games) and no RPG’s whatsoever. 

Next: Abuse

I thought I was in for a short night last night but it took me longer to get through CD#3 than any of the previous ones leaving no time to write it up in the end. I only just managed to get it finished.

I bump into Rollins in the lift. He has intercepted a load of coded transmissions which he thinks look suspicious. Tolwyn is onboard now and his transmissions are supposed to be coded but Rollins thinks that these look different and it looks like Tolwyn is up to something.

Tolwyn is on the bridge. He congratulates me on my flying so far and points out that I should now realise that my transfer to the Victory wasn’t just chance.

At the next briefing things are back to normal and Eisen is back in charge. He points out that things will never be normal while the Admiral is onboard and that it takes a certain sort to be an Admiral.

The mission is to mine 4 of the 5 jump points in this system so we can head out with the Behemoth through the systems final point.

The mines are located on my hardpoints just like a missile. Mining the point consists of no more than firing 2 of these off. Its a particularly uninspired mission with the same 4 enemies to fight at each of the 4 jumps points.

Theres no one to talk to back at the ship – the next mission involves going after some fuel for the behemoth. We are going to disable some Kilrathi transports travelling through an asteroid field. I get some new ships to fight in this mission that are actually made from the asteroids themselves.

These ships have thin shields but being made of rock are well armoured. Their shape makes them easy targets however so they are no problem unless they attack in large numbers. Disabling the transports just seems to involve firing on them like anything else which is something of a cheat. Maniac sorts this out for me while I’m dealing with all the fighters.

When I land there is a cutscene showing a traitor sending details of the Behemoth to the Kilrathi but we don’t see who the traitor is.

Rachel is on the flight deck and I can’t help notice that she’s working on an Excalibur. I’m hoping this means I get to pick one for the next mission but there is no such luck.

Rachel has been ordered to smarten up her act by the Admiral himself but makes no mention of the Excalibur.

Vacquero is trying to sell tickets to the opening night of his cantina and reckons that with the Behemoth on our side the war is almost over.

At my next briefing, Tolwyn has assumed command of the ship and Eisen is nowhere to be seen.

We are going to test fire the Behemoth on a Kilrathi planet orbiting a quasar. The quasar will block all communication so it cannot alert the Kilrathi to our presence. Before we fire the Behemoth we need to clear out the fighters in this system.

This mission turns out to be pretty difficult with waves of Vaktoths to cope with and I need several attempts. It would help if I wasn’t stuck flying either Hellcats or Arrows. This is going to continue for the next few missions making them the hardest ones in the game.

I manage to clear out the Behemoths route in the end and head for the bar. Maniac thinks Tolwyn is about to steamroll another career (Eisens) and doesn’t believe that his own lack of promotion is down to flying style but that I poisoned Tolwyn against him.

Cobra is still working on that knife in the barracks and is seriously worked up about the chance to wipe out Kilrah with the Behemoth. She finally explains her obsession with destroying Kilrathi explaining how she was in a Kilrathi slave camp from the age of 10 until she escaped at 20. She had to spend 2 years undergoing psychiatric treatment but even then she can’t forget it all.

Tolwyn is hanging around on the bridge. I point out that his assumption of command hasn’t exactly helped ships morale – he says he is the natural choice to act as guardian angel for the Behemoth having been with the project since its inception 10 years ago.

Eisen, with nothing else to do is moping about on the observation deck. He is not happy at losing his ship.

The next mission briefing is short and to the point. Cover the Behemoth while its fired.

The scale of the Behemoth is brought into play here – those fighters at the rear of it are practically directly above it. The size of this ship is truly monumental – you would think you could destroy a planet or at least make it inhabitable just by crashing something this big into it.

I only have to kill a few ships before the Behemoth fires. Everything works and the planet boils away into space.

There are more ships to kill off after this before I can land but all in all, this is the easiest mission I’ve faced tonight.

Everything worked so its off to Kilrah as quick as possible to end this war. Hobbes has mixed feelings about what we are about to do but is taking it a lot better than I would in his position.

At the next briefing, we are heading straight to Kilrah via the nearest jump point.

I’m told this will be the most important mission I’ll ever fly and if it goes well will win us the war.

When I get to the Behemoth its already under attack from a wing of bombers. I afterburn in to get to them asap.

I’m too late though and it explodes into nothing.

When I’m back in the cockpit again, after the cutscene, all the ships have gone and Thrakhath has appeared. He taunts me about how I have failed my race and Angel….

He transmits Angels fate to me. This appears to be some sort of honourable ritual death among Kilrathi but I’d have preferred disintegration.

Thrakhath challenges me to a duel but the Victory is retreating to the jump point. I ignore the taunts and head back to the Victory.

We retreat back to the Alcor system the moment I land.

Tolwyn leaves the ship. He is not happy and insinuates that the Kilrathi knew exactly where and when to strike and that Eisen has a leaky ship. Eisen stands his ground and points out that at the time the Victory was Tolwyns ship.

Tolwyn clearly sees the war as lost and his final words are “Fight well, the struggle will only get harder”.

All in all its not been a good day. I head for the bar and hit the bottle hard. Rachel attempts to talk me round and I have the option of listening to her or getting drunk. Straight after I make this decision the Victory comes under attack and we have to scramble all fighters. Getting drunk is a very bad idea as this mission is tough enough as it is. If I’m drunk my controls go nuts making it near enough impossible to hit anything.

In fact I take a good few attempts at this mission as it is. I’m stuck in an arrow – the smallest ship in the game and yet have to take out loads of capships and wave after wave of Kilrathi. I get there in the end but there is no way I’m taking on these Sorthak at the end of the mission and I leave it to the Victory to look after itself.

Flint has a few consoling words when I land about how well I’m holding up but I’m still not in the mood to listen.

In the bar Rollins has picked up more coded transmissions and is going over them with Cobra. She is suggesting that he rigs ships internal sensors to pick up movements on the ship. She clearly doesn’t want him to tell me what its about when I approach the table but he trusts me enough to tell me whats going on. Whatever it is, Tolwyn is gone now so it was nothing to do with him. I order him to keep working on it.

I head for the observation deck and see a shuttle coming in carrying Paladin. He joins me and I’ve guessed somehow that he already knew about Angel. In fact he confesses he knew right back at the start of the game when we were looking at the Concordia. I’ve got the option of hitting him at this point but I don’t think it makes much difference to the plot. He says he was under orders but was also protecting me from myself. Before he goes he says that Angel may yet help us win this thing…

Paladin is as the next briefing which is a long one. He tells me how over the last decade work has preceded on a tectonic frequency weapon. The idea behind this is that if a bomb can generate the right resonant frequency it could trigger an explosion that would shake a planet apart.

This plan became more of a reality once Angel reached Kilrah. She planted several transmitting probes some at ground level and some in space which analyse the planet. These probes are all cloaked and send a signal back to us via a distance com sat.

It turns out that Kilrah is a pretty fragile place with the layers of the planet constantly shifting over each other. He speculates that it was this seismic activity that made the Kilrathi such an aggressive space-faring race. Since the entire Kilrathi hierarchy is centrally based here on Kilrah, destroying it would win us the war despite the large numbers of Kilrathi deployed elsewhere.

The weapon itself is called the Temblor bomb. The reason we aren’t using it now is that it doesn’t exist yet. We have the pieces but the chief scientist on the project is in a Kilrathi prison and we can’t put the pieces together without him. We are therefore going to attempt a rescue. Before that we have to clear our path so I have another routine patrol type mission.

After the mission, Vagabond is in the bar and it turns out his classified past is related to the guy we are rescuing. He used to work for Dr. Severin when he was performing munitions tests – there was some sort of accident where millions died. He thinks it was no accident and that Severin knew exactly what he was doing but Confed covered it up as it only happened on a remote backwater world.

I’m called to the flight deck where Cobra is not looking too good.

She caught Hobbes trying to send this communication so he was the traitor all along.

Hobbes has taken a ship and left – she wants me to go after him but Eisen says that would jeopardise the whole operation. I get the choice here but listen to Eisen in the end. If I fly the mission Vacquero will be dead by the time I get back.

Eisen is clearing out Cobras locker. Usually he would have to write to family at this point but we were the only family Cobra had. He has no idea was happened with Hobbes. There is a scene that was cut out of the game at this point for some reason. It was something along the lines of a holo-message from Hobbes about how he had been programmed and the phrase “Heart of the Tiger” had reverted him back to his true character. This scene offers a bit of explanation so it seems strange it was removed.

I get to conduct Cobra’s funeral. There are a whole load of these for each pilot on the Victory, most of whom become liable to die around this point in the game. They are pretty much the same scene with a different speech from Blair each time.

It’s time to extract Severin from the Kilrathi prison. Paladin stresses that this will be the most important mission I’ll ever fly. We are actually going to fly down to the planet, remove the defenses and then a shuttle will land to rescue the doctor.

I’m getting an Excalibur for this mission, and not before time.

I’ve no wingman for this mission but the darkets I run into are so easy to wipe out in this ship I don’t need one. After killing these off, I fly down to the planet.

This is something new to Wing Commander, a ground mission. The flight dynamics are exactly the same as in space – gravity has no effect at all. In terms of graphics, its actually simpler than Strike Commander with no textures on the ground. Despite this you still needed a monster of a PC to run these missions in SVGA.

The Kilrathi use different ships to defend on planets and I’m faced with a squad of about 8 of these to take on by myself. The Excalibur on full guns can take one out in a couple of hits – I just need to make sure I get on its tail first so I still have enough gun energy to do this and all my shots hit.

I autopilot to the next nav point and its surrounded by tanks. These don’t move but do fire back. I can’t target them so I’m stuck with aiming manually. They only take a few hits but it hurts so I have to retreat and recharge my shields at one point.

With the defenses gone, the marines move in and rescue Severin. Vagabond turns up uninvited, runs straight up to Severin, decks him and says “Long time no see”. He’s grabbed by the marines but tells them to take it easy as hes done what he came to do.

Rollins tells me that Vagabond has landed himself in the brig thanks to this little stunt, which is hardly surprising. Paladin heads straight off with Severin to work on the bomb and we jump to Freya in the meanwhile.

There is another cutscene on Kilrah. The emperor wants to know why the humans risked rescuing the 1 prisoner and what his specialist area of knowledge was. He is told that this was not fully explored as his breadth of experience was vast but that it is irrelevant as the Kilrathi have amassed a huge armada greater than any in their history and are getting ready to attack Earth. The emperor reminds the Prince that “it is when an enemy is near vanquished that he is most dangerous”.

That ends CD #3. In hindsight, attempting to finish this game in 4 nights was a bad idea as I must have spent nearly 4 hours on this CD alone not including writing it up here. There isn’t that long left now + I’ve got the Excalibur so I should be able to finish up tonight/tomorrow and move onto the next game this weekend.

I complained yesterday that not much happened in the story. That definitely hasn’t been the case today where we’ve had murder, betrayal and planets exploding. The cutscenes have been excellent and really driven things along nicely – its taken this long for things to get going but it was worth the wait. These cutscenes are a lot better than the Wing Commander movie ever was, even with the static cameras.

In terms of gameplay, the missions have been difficult but I’m not seeing much new. We are having to take on insane numbers of enemy each time and sometimes even having to face off destroyers in Arrows. The planet mission offered something different but this in effect played exactly the same as being in space. The only real novelty was shooting a few ground targets but I’ve seen all this before (and done better) in the Strike games.

WC3 is really relying on the graphics, plot and cinematics. I could level the same criticism to some extent at the rest of the series but I think the dogfighting was somehow more fun in the earlier games and there was nothing to compete with it at the time. Where WC3 comes into its own is where cap-ships are concerned. The individual turrets + the fact you can damage cap-ships with lasers this time around offer strategic possibilities that were simply not in WC2. The ships also have a sense of scale rather than simply being another sprite floating in space. It would have been nice to be involved in some large battles with loads of capships at once but I expect this would have stretched a 1994 PC beyond breaking point.

Overall, the gameplay is quite basic and the novelty has worn off by this point. If I didn’t have the cutscenes to urge me on I’d be getting bored in all truth. It doesn’t help that this is the umpteenth time I’ve played this game of course, but I think the basic problem is that there isn’t enough variety. Its also not helping that this game has exactly the same formula as the 6 games in the main Wing Commander series + the 4 games in the Strike series before it.

I can still play this now and enjoy it but it’s had its day. It relied far too much on being the latest thing and has dated because of it. System Shock pushed the technology but combined it with original gameplay and is as much fun as ever because of it. WC3 hasn’t quite pulled this off and is merely an update/variant of what I’ve already seen 10 times before. WC3 is still well worth a go but playing through it now I’d be tempted to advise dropping the difficulty level right down, zipping through the missions, and just enjoying the movies.

CD 2 starts off with Radio Rollins and a few lackeys listening to a news broadcast about more Kilrathi incursions. He is still talking down any chances of us winning and I give him a bit of a lecture about spreading insubordination among the crew.

I’ve got a new scene in my locker for CD2 where I remincess about some holiday with Angel.

The first mission for tonight is to defend the Blackmane base.

This base is huge but has no offensive weapons whatsoever.

I fight off several waves before a squad of bombers with an ace called Bloodmist attack. My wingman takes him out before I get the chance.

After landing Rachel sees some sign that something is wrong. She tells me about a guy she knew who went mission in a Kilrathi ambush and she doesn’t know if he made it or not. In return I talk about Angel and the nightmares I’ve been having.

Maniac sees all this and gets jealous. I’m less than sympathetic about this.

The next mission is transporting supply ships to Blachmane with food.

I’m in a Thunderbolt for this mission and get ambushed by a wing of Strakha at the second nav point. They have booby trapped a transport to blow up when I get near it. These strakha are so small its easiest to resort to my rear turret. The turret also fires automatically if I’m not in it myself so I can just fly away from them trying not to get hit and wait for them to be taken out by it.

Flint is realising that these missions are just as important as those in her own system. If I’d grounded her I’d get the option to reinstate her at this point.

Mission 3 in this system is another babysitting transports, this time carrying weapons.

I get to fly against another new Kilrathi fighter. These have rear turrets but are really quite easy to hit and less challenging than some of the ships I’ve already flown against.

I get a special congratulatory welcome back after this mission.

Then its off on an offensive mission into the ariel system.

Cobra is happy to finally be on the offensive.

Vagabond on the other hand doesn’t trust Confed to send us after non-civilian targets. He’s worried about nothing as far as I’m concerned.

Even Rollins is cheering up and thinks we may have a chance after all.

Our first mission here is to take out a fleet of ships. I get to fly the final ship of the game for this mission – the Longbow bomber.

The longbow is very similar to the broadsword from WC2 in that its big and slow but with a lot of firepower.

There are numberous capital ships to take on in this mission. Something I haven’t mentioned yet is how each capital ship leaves a husk behind after you destroy it.

At the end of the mission is a carrier ship. They may be big but these are actually one of the easier ships to take out if you know how.

If you approach from the back of the ship you can fly straight into it’s docking bays and blow it up from the inside out. I can just sit here firing with impunity – admittedly my shields take a hit when it blows up but its nothing significant.

Vacquero is worried about being on attack for the first time ever. I tell him that the boundaries are just lines on a map and don’t mean anything which seems to cheer him up a bit.

Hobbes is glad that we are flying these offensive missions but confesses that he would prefer combat up close and personal rather than in fighters.

For the next mission, I have to take out a Kilrathi convoy travelling through a nebula.

Travelling through a nebula means that I can hardly see anything – otherwise everything else is the same. This is by far the hardest mission so far requiring a couple of replays before I manage it. I have to take on 6 capships including 2 destroyers and a whole load of fighters. Its not helped by my wingman ejecting halfway through. I make it in the end in what is something of a war of atrition.

Flint is at the bar and starts talking about the history and ancient wars and how its good to know that not all wars last forever.

At the briefing I find out that the Kilrathi are onto us and we need to retreat for the jump point. I have to cover the Victory.

 

A carrier is waiting for us at the jump point but the jump point has also vanished. Navigation find us a new one and we have a quick change of course.

We safely make it out of system and jump to Caliban.

Thrakhath is not happy about our escape or the fact that I was guarding the Victory. He decides its time to use the traitor whoever that is and orders the message sent.

Hobbes and Cobra are arguing on the flight deck. Cobra thinks Hobbes must have known about the Kilrathi being able to cloak jump points. I stick up for Cobra in order to keep her morale up.

I’m ordered to report to the bridge where Thrakhaths message has arrived.

He talks about having read the bible and how it talks of a time where there will be famine and nashing of teeth and that it has arrived.

Maniac is not impressed. He also says not to be emboldened by the prescense of the Heart of the Tiger (me) and that he will deal with me personally. The message does not appear to amount to much – Hobbes thinks it is an attempt at pyshological warfare.

On the observation deck, Maniac is not impressed about now having to fly in an asteroid field straight after leaving a nebula. I point out its just as hard for the Kilrathi but he seems to think they have some sort of cat sense…..

Flash is worried about the Kilrathi being able to hide jump points. I’m told in my next debriefing that they only cloaked the point using nebula gases and that intel thinks they could only do this in the one system.

Despite what Maniac said the next few missions are still in a nebula. We know from Thrakhaths message that the Kilrathi are onto us so we send out our destroyers to take out the incoming cap ships.

Our destroyers are seriously lethal. The easiest way to win this mission is just to fly near to one and let it take everything out for me.

Flint has received a communication from her father who thinks that we can use the conditions to our advantage and throw them back at the enemy.

We think the Kilrathi are onto our jump point so for the next mission we have to kill them off before they can leave the Nebula. There are a load of capships on this mission again but no destroyers to help me out this time.

There is no one to talk to at all on the ship after completing that mission so I head out for the final nebula mission where I have to escort the Victory out of the system. I have to face wave after wave of fighters on this one and I’m only flying a hellcat. After my wingman has gone and a wing of 4 Vaktoths warp in I take the cowardly option and go and hide behind the Victory. The carrier has a lot of guns and makes cat chunks out of the Kilrathi.

When I land, Admiral Tolwyn himself comes aboard.

Flint has been studying my history and knows that I’ve had run ins with Tolwyn in the past and we don’t exactly get on.

The next briefing is given by Tolwyn himself and I get to learn what hes doing here.

The confederation has developed a super weapon called the Behemoth which is capable of destroying a planet. Unfortunately its not quite ready yet and it has soft spots + no laser turrets. We are being forced to deploy it now as Confed has been losing the war for the last year and the Kilrathi will be on Earth in 6 months unless things change. This is the confederations last ditch effort to win the war outright.

The Kilrathi are attacking before he even finishes the briefing and we have to scramble all fighters to protect the Behemoth.

This being a scramble mission I’m stuck flying an arrow and there are a ludicrous number of enemy fighters – we must take out 40-50 in all on this mission. There are loads of wingmen though so I get a lot of help. At the end of the mission I autopilot to the Behemoth.

This thing is big. I have to afterburn away for a minute just to get the whole thing in a screenshot.

Tolwyn is on the comm when I come in to land and says we have confirmed the Victory was the correct choice for this assignment.

On the landing deck Rachel is looking over the specs for the Behemoth and points out that the shields on it are really thin. Protecting something that big is not going to be easy.

Thats the end of CD2. I don’t think the variety of missions was as good today and they have started to become a bit routine. The idea of the nebula was good but while it was talked up in the plot it didn’t actually affect anything. It was done much better in WC4 where it had a real influence on gameplay. The plot was fairly minimal also until Thrakhath & Tolwyn turned up. It feels like its just about to kick off again at this point though and push towards the big climax.

The missions have continued to get harder. I’m getting some strange joystick behaviour which isn’t helping – its specific to WC3 whatever it is but I’m finding that the joystick doesn’t always work correctly at the extremes and gets stuck in one direction until I move it back. In a game like WC3 you spend most of the time with your joystick right over at one side trying to turn towards the enemy so its making life difficult when it happens. I didn’t have this problem when I played it the first time so it must be something to do with running it in Dosbox.

As I recall this was the longest of the 4 CD’s with CD #3 tommorow being particularly short as it has all the pilot death scenes on that disk. I’ll be doing my best to avoid seeing any of those – the easy way is to pick people I know are pivotal to the plot at the end of the game. I also remember things getting very easy once I get the Excalibur when I won’t even need to bother aiming. I’m sure it can’t be many more missions before it arrives.

I start my tour of the ship by talking to Hobbes. He seems a bit reluctant to fly actually and is kind of shy for a 7 foot cat.

I pop in the lift and run into “Radio” Rollins. He is the ships communication officer and resident doom merchant. He advises me to check in with him for the straight dope around here.

Plenty of the coversations have choices I can make which I’m told affect ships morale. How much difference they really make to my wingmen I have no idea but its nice to have a bit of interactivity here. Its only ever a single choice of 2 options and it doesn’t have knock on effects to other cutscenes on the whole.

Next stop is the ships bar. Cobra is lounging at the bar and objects to Hobbes walking in and storms out.

That only leaves me and Vagabond. This guy always wants to cheat people out of their money at cards and has some sort of Shady past which Confed have wiped off his bio.

I head for the locker room. Cobra has vanished and I can only reminess about Angel with a holo-message she left me.

Next stop – the bridge. Maniac (played by the guy who was Biff in Back to the Future) is attempting to impress one of the women up here with tales of his escapades. His character in WC3 really has changed a lot from the last game and is now just the same as Biff. In fact Maniacs character changes in every Wing Commander game. He doesn’t get on well with Blair in WC3 and definitely resents his rank. He didn’t even bother to turn up for my welcome ceremony.

Last stop is the observation deck. Flint is waiting here but I don’t get time to introduce myself before I’m called to a briefing at the bridge.

Each mission has its own video telling me the objectives. This first mission is just a 3 nav point patrol.

I then get to brief the rest of the pilots and at the end can choose my wingman. For this first mission I only get Hobbes to choose from.

Back outside I meet chief tech Rachel Corealis played by porn star Ginger Lynn Allen. I remember seeing an interview with Mark Hammill where he was asked about this where he said something along the lines that she had a dodgy past but had manged to reform and carve out a respectable career. Of course she reverted back to doing porn again shortly afterwards so I guess it didn’t work out. Her character here speaks in nothing but innuendo so its probably not that far from her usual role. With lines like these, it was either back to porn films or hope that the carry on films started up again. Rachel advises me that for this first mission she has picked my weapon loadout but in the future I’ll be able to alter this and even choose my ship.

There is a cutscene showing me getting into my hellcat.

And then I’m off. This doesn’t half load a lot faster than it did in 1994 and I’m flying in seconds rather than minutes.

I can take off manually if I like or autopilot out of the hanger.

The 3D models are basic but really don’t look bad. 3D games in 1994 just didn’t run in SVGA – the likes of System Shock that I’ve just played didn’t have SVGA support until the CD version came out in 95 and even then no one had a PC that could actually run it.

I was still stuck with VGA on my 486. Because of the compromises that had to be made for SVGA performance this actually looks worse than Wing Commander Armada did which was a bit of a disappointment. The models are nice enough but there is a lack of colour presumably due to the 256 colour pallette.

My first encounter is with a couple of darkets. I order Hobbes to break and take on the other one. Its fairly tricky to get laser hits in WC3 – I tend to use missiles a lot more than in the previous games.

The trick is to use the afterburners a lot to get close up – you can then get a guaranteed kill or hit with the lasers every time.

This first mission is a piece of cake and I autopilot back to the victory and get clearance to land.

I get a sequence with me landing…

… and a brief word from Rachel depending on how I did.

Thats the formula for the game – not much will change from here on in although the missions will be getting a lot harder. Despite the SVGA gloss and all the FMV this is basically the exact same formula as all the previous Wing Commanders and Strike games. Its very much true to its roots which is fine by me. We still have the unnecessary taking off and landing scenes, I can still see my joystick waggling around in the cockpit, my instruments blow up if I take damage, I still get the same dying words from nearly every Kilrathi, etc..

I walk round the ship again to seek out any new cutscenes. I meet Vaquero in the bar. This guy is another pilot and also a guitar player (although he only knows 4 chords as far as I can tell). He dreams of finishing the war and opening up a cantina where people can come and play his 200 year old guitar.

Cobra is in the locker room sharpening her knife. She spends most of the game sharpening her knife as I recall. She is not happy that I’ve flown with Hobbes and refuses to fly with him. She really doesn’t like Kilrathi.

Mission 2 is another patrol, this time with the added possibility of running into a cap-ship.

I decide to change my default ship on this basis to a Thunderbolt which is a sort of fighter/bomber compromise and carries 1 torpedo.

Its more darkets – the extra firepower makes it a little easier to take them out.

The cap ship turns out to be a transport. I could easily take this down with lasers but I use my torpedo instead – it only takes a single hit.

Another mission completed I head for the bar. Rachel is looking at the specs for Confeds latest fighter, the Excalibur. She has heard a rumour that Confed will be testing this on the Victory.

Mission 3 is escorting a medical ship to a jump point.

I’m given an Arrow for this mission which is the smallest and fastest Confed fighter.

Despite being in the smallest ship we run into a Kilrathi Corvette. These are small but pack a bit of a punch having 5 laser turrets. You can actually shoot the turrets off though and leave it a sitting duck. This was never possible before a true 3D engine and adds a lot more interest to cap ship battles than in WC2.

I take a bit of damage taking out the corvette but we complete the mission and the transport jumps out.

I get to meet Flint again. She is a bit put out that I haven’t been choosing her as a wingman (not that I’ve had the option yet) so I’ll be choosing her next time.

The next mission is another escort mission but with a twist. The twist is a new Kilrathi weapon called a skipper which is a cloaked missile that skips in and out of cloak in order to maintain a lock.

My choice of pilots is almost complete now with the one glaring gap still to fill.

I head off with Flint – before we get to the missiles we have a few Kilrathi to deal with. They are Dralthi this time which are a bit larger and slower than darkets and possibly some of the weakest ships in the game because of it.

We deal with them and head for the next nav point. I ignore everything else in order to track down the skipper. I have to afterburn to it and shoot it down before it cloaks again.

Mission complete we jump to the Tomayo system which is allegedly Kilrathi free and we have the job of babysitting the new Excalibur while it goes through test flights.

The test pilot calls himself Flash and lives up to it in both flying style and attitude.

Maniac and Flint are not too impressed and want to know when he will start pulling his weight. I promise that one way or another we will find out what hes made of.

Captain Eisen isn’t too taken with Flash either. The conversation is cut off when the Kilrathi attack and we have to scramble all fighters.

There is a new takeoff scene especially for this sort of mission which is more or less the same as the old one except with some bits speeded up and more people running around.

While I’m taking off, one of our pilots who I haven’t met yet is killed.

We have to fight off several waves of Kilrathi including Paktahn bombers which have a nasty rear turret but are big and easy to hit.

We destroy them all and Radar tells me that Flash sat out the fight in the barracks.

I head straight up there and have a go at him. He’s less than apologetic saying “his talents won’t be wasted on our petty little skirmishes”

Back in the bar Rachel offers to get the Excalibur ready for the next mission behind Flash’s back. Sounds like a good idea to me….

The next mission is a particularly tough one as it turns out and the Excalibur will come in handy. The Kilrathi are attacking a planet and we have to attempt to break through their fighters and take out the troop transports approaching it.

True to her word, Rachel has the Excalibur ready to go.

This is a difficult mission even in the Excalibur. I get to face up against some Vaktoth heavy fighters which are the toughest fighters in the game. They have a rear turret like the Longbow but are quite fast and thin making them really hard to hit. The best tactic with these is to team up on one fighter with your wingman although this isn’t strictly neccessary in the Excalibur. The Excalibur not only tells me where to aim (as do all the fighters in WC3) but it even aims for me. All I have to do is time it so that I only fire when the enemy is either very near or moving in a straight line so I can guarantee a hit.

I’ve taken a few hits by the time we make it to the transports but they are sitting ducks.

Flash meets me on landing and is not happy about me risking Confeds state of the art machinery. He challenges me to a duel to prove who is the better pilot. I accept on condition that if I win he puts in for a transfer to combat pilot on the Victory.

Eisen lets me know I’m taking a big risk and advises I kick the little twerps ass.

This is easier said than done. Flash  just afterburns constantly making him near enough impossible to hit. The easiest approach is to get right on his tail and just fire off missiles as quickly as possible. He can’t evade enough of them and its a guaranteed victory.

I win the fight and we have ourselves a new pilot. Maniac doesn’t look like he wanted me to win.

There is a brief cutscene going back to the Kilrathi on an improbably large capship. They are going to pull out of the system as it has no use to them any more but do not want to surrender it (they don’t even have a word for surrender in Kilrathi!). Instead they are going to render it useless to us as well which sounds ominous.

Back on the Victory, Flash is quite apologetic and wants to prove himself to me now in combat if I’ll let him fly on my wing.

In the barracks Cobra is still sharpening that knife and is concerned about the Kilrathi using bio-weapons.

Flint is still staring at the stars. She lets me know this is her home system and I get a little back story about how her father was a pilot and taught her and her brother how to fly here. Her brother dies in the war. She puts in a request to fly these missions as she doesn’t want to be left on the sideline.

I put her on my wing again. The first mision is to take out more Kilrathi capships including some in an asteroid field.

In all the previous Wing Commanders an asteroid field was a truly dangerous place to be. This is not the case in WC3 and you would barely know when you are in one. There is no way that you could render enough asteroids in true 3D to recreate the old fields. Its a bit of a shame actually as it might have been fun – it may have been impossible to fly either though.

I fly against some of the cloaking fighters. These are incredibly weak and only need a couple of hits to destroy but they do tend to attack in swarms and if you are in a slow ship can be cloaked by the time you have turned to face them.

We have to take out a destroyer. These things are just bristling with turrets.

By the time I get there Flint has done most of the work. The trick to killing these is to make sure to concentrate all fire in one area of the ship. I seem to remember its possible to part just off the back of it in a blind spot also but its a risky tactic.

To complete the mission there is a wing of darkets led by an ace called Fireclaw. He’s as fond of afterburners as Flash was but the darkets can’t take many hits and between me and Flint he isn’t any real trouble.

In the bar Vagabond gives me more rumours about the Kilrathi using bio-weapons and refers to a system where it has already happened and the whole place is now in quarantine.

Hobbes doesn’t understand the Kilrathi leaving the system either and says that Kilrathi are at their most dangerous when they are unpredictable.

All this is sounding ominous and its no surprise when the next briefing I’m informed that the Kilrathi are pulling out of the system and launching bio weapons at the planet. I can’t let a single one of these missiles slip through or we will be condemning thousands of civilians to a slow death.

This mission is similar to the skipping missile one except I have to take out numerous warheads this time + the missiles don’t cloak. I ignore the fighters and just concentrate on the missiles. Maniac manages to kill off most of the fighters and between us we take out the destroyer which launched the missiles in the first place.

That seemed like a very brief mission and sure enough when I get back to the victory I’m told that Flint has gone renegade and asked if I want to fetch her back.  It seems I was right not to trust her after all.

I agree and head out to find her. The game loads a new mission at this point which is a bit clunky but no big deal. I still have any damage I sustained but my guns and power systems have reset. When I autopilot to Flints location she is in the thick of it with a half dozen fighters + a cruiser in the area.

She manages to take out the cruiser on her own and I just concentrate on fighters.

Flint is flying a Longbow bomber for this mission which I’m looking forward to trying out myself when I get the chance. We don’t run into any more opposition. I’m sure I’ve flown this mission in the past and had to kill off a couple of capships before finding Flint but I’m not sorry that it was a bit easier this time around.

I land and Flint thanks me for the rescue and then waits for me to ground her. I decide to let her off as we need pilots + it has to be good for morale.

We leave the system and head for Blackmane. That marks the end of CD1 so I’ll call it a night at that and have a go at CD2 tommorow.

I’m enjoying my return to Wing Commander. The gameplay isn’t tactical or sophisticated but its always fun and challenging enough to keep me going. The movie sections stand the test of time extremely well. There is a strange bit at the end of all of them where the film keeps going and nothing is really happening, like they forgot to cut. Its nothing major but I’m left sitting there waiting for something to happen. Maybe it would be worse still if the cutscene ended abruptly the moment people were done speaking.

The combat sections are a bit more basic than the movie parts  if I’m honest but they are more varied than I remembered. No two missions have been the same yet which is always a problem in this sort of game. Its every bit a worthy successor to WC2 and its really surprising just how faithful it is to the earlier games. Near enough every element of WC2 is reproduced here along with enough new stuff to keep it fresh.

The difficulty level is a little higher than I thought although I think I’ve only had to replay 2 missions once tonight so I’m not exactly struggling. The numbers of enemies in some of these missions was surprisingly high and I didn’t remember facing cruisers and destroyers so early in the game. It doesn’t appear to be leaving itself anywhere to go with new enemies later in the game so I’ll see if it can keep up the variety tommorow night when I tackle CD#2.