Wing Commander™ 1+2

(Wing Commander is famously "cinematic", but I'm going to just talk gameplay) WC1 is a game that works that really shouldn't. It is insanely frustruating. You will die. A lot. And for the longest time you won't know what you're doing wrong. That should make for an awful game, and I was within minutes of demanding my money back. But if you perserve you start to realise - your craft can't take much damage, and the game world has strict rules that it will applly even if it's unfair. So unless you know what to avoid, every now and again enough opponents shoot you from outside your field of vision at the same time, and you'll suddenly die. Once you unpick the way the game works, it's a blast. You learn to work with the game's rules and you can destroy hordes of enemy craft. But still, WC1 can be very frustating. Your wingman might die through no fault of yours, or you'll dodge into another starcraft you couldn't reasonably have seen; and if you die it takes ages to get back into the action. Also considering how easy it is to die, they really should've had checkpoints. But the tension - wow. At the end of a few missions my hands were shaking - because while you can fail through no fault of your own, you will earn every success. It's a rush that explains why this game has such a cult following. WC2 fixes some of the issues in WC1. Two big improvements - your wingmen can't die in-game, and there's a "try again" button when you fail. They also mix up the formula enough with the addition of tailguns that you have to update your strategies, it's not just more of the same. So if you're thinking of buying this, my advice is this: - it will be frustrating, but that's part of it. You'll get better, and there's a reason this is a cult classic. Check forums for tips. - get a non-fancy joystick. They're quite cheap now, and it's basically impossible without it. - if WC1 is driving you spare, skip to WC2. But the story is better if you play them in order.

In short, I really liked the first and I consider the second hot garbage. Since I have to score both in one, I give it a 4/5 to be fair to the first game. Otherwise I would give WC1 a score of 4-5 stars (based on when it was released) and WC2 a 2 stars. WC1. The game is of course the known semi branching campaign of you playing as a pilot of the confederation against the Kilrathi cat like aliens. Most of the game is the actual flying and battles, while a small part is talking to your colleagues and attending the mission briefings. The actual fighting part is well done. One thing to remember, afterburner is your friend. It's totally worth playing for both the story and the actual gameplay. If you have a soft spot for the era's graphics and sound, even better. I used a joystick to play (Logitech Extreme 3D Pro), but you can play it completely with keyboard or keyboard and mouse too. The game is obviously not perfect, but it is really good for what it is and when it was released. The framerate can drop at times during intense actions, but that was always the case even back in the day. Completed it recently for my Twitch stream and I am glad I did. I played, and lost, the first expansion pack of WC1. Good fun, but fake branching. WC2. Different vibes from the first game. Slightly different setting at first, but soon you change to more familiar ground. The framerate is much improved with the game being much smoother, but also feeling like much faster. You can, as I did, reduce the dosbox cycles to say 6000, which will improve things. Main issues which made me rage quit around the 9th or so mission. Both friendly and enemy crafts keep ramming you. Friendly also keep getting in front of you when you are shooting the enemy. RUIN the game. Enemy crafts obey different laws of physic as they can fly away and shoot at you and zip around at impossible speeds. Horrible. HORRIBLE. I tolerated for ~9 missions, but no more.

I've played and completed both games with their two expansions. For me it was more a work that an enjoyment. I'll explain why: First, the good, you will have tons of hours of gaming with a nice history and you can lose misions without losing the game. That's pretty cool and that's the reason why I purchased it. Now, you need a joystick (I've tried with a gamepad too, but is more difficult that playing with a joystick). Now the bad: Buggy behavior playing with gamepad/joystick + xPadder (I'm very good using xPadder, it's not my problem): like you cannot use two simultaneous keys (ie, rotate/pitch), from time to time some key get stuck and the cinematics runs too fast. To save a game, you have to right click the computer (do not try to left click, because for some strange motive in my pc the game consider it a double click and goes right away to the load screen, which is pretty similar). The graphics are BMP based, the pixels becames huge when you're close to a ship and you cannot know what's happening. When you have to destroy a capital ship with a torpedo you must attack it from behind, however, since dated graphics, it's very difficult knowing its heading when you're far or close. Also, it's very easy losing the track of your heading, since you only have minimal visual references (maybe a planet). WC1 + SO1 have a CPU clock dependancy, so when you have 4 or more ships in the screen it goes to 5 FPS or similar. it's very difficult aim weapons with that. And maybe this isn't something related to the game, but my bad, but when you have your enemy targeted and locked with an IR or HS missile, sometimes the missile just don't want to fire (and you have no damaged missiles / you're at a good distance and speed).

To be honest, if you aren't willing to put up with the ancient gameplay quirks that come from 2D sprites representing 3D objects in space that you're supposed to be aiming at while travelling and turning at a speed dependent on how many objects are in your view range (getting down to a pitiful fraction of the full speed in many encounters), the first game might need to be passed over. But parts of its presentation are impressive even today, and the storytelling of the series is a great focus from the start. There are several possible branching paths for the story and the missions to go depending on how good or bad you do, with cutscenes and chats among the pilots for it all. This game is incredibly hard if you want to stay on the "best" path, but quite fun if you can look past its age. The second game improves on the first in almost every way except story branches, and makes the gameplay much smoother, so it's easier to start with. Way more (good) cutscenes and story. Still stupid hard though, if not harder. If you want to taste the beginnings of the genre, it's still ready for you, but less dedicated gamers will probably enjoy the third game or later classics like Tie-Fighter and Freespace 2 infinitely more.

Wing Commander 1 is arguable the game that started PC gaming. Sure, there were PC games before WC1, but those were poor ports from other platforms. This was as far as I know the first PC exclusive that made non-PC gamers green of envy. And fortunately for them, the game was later ported to other platforms as well with varying results (I actually like the Amiga version of WC1 more than the PC version). It's also the first game I ever played with a branching story depending on how you play the game. If you succeed with a mission or if you failed have an impact on the story, which is pretty darn cool. It is very unfortunate that the extra WC1 Secret Missions aren't included, though.