Wing Commander™ 1+2

These are definitely classics but it's hard to get as excited about the gameplay after more advanced space combat engines were released. I think one of my fondest memories was of blowing up a Kilrathi carrier you were supposed to scout with a Hornet in one of the secret missions packs and then getting a mix of praise and being cussed out for not following orders on returning to home base. This was considerably cooler than X-Wing's approach which was to simply to rename the ironically named "Invincible," "Invincible 2," "Invincible 3" etc... when you blew it up on missions you weren't really supposed to.

I can remember playing Wing Commander 1, 20 or so years ago. One of the early missions requires you to escort some freighter. I wasn't really taking the mission too seriously; it didn't seem like Kilrathi was much of a threat to the freighter. I moved in real close to an enemy ship just as it launched a missile at the vessel I was protecting. I had never seen visuals so detailed at that time. The missile dropped right out of the enemy ship, blasting exhaust behind it as it rocketed towards the freighter. The freighter lost all shields and a good bit of its hull on impact. That was when things got real. I'm looking forward to experiencing the Wing Commander 1 story again, and all of the other WC games after it.

Wing Commander has been missing in action as of late except for the extremely mediocre Xbox Live Arcade game. At one time however it was one of the most popular PC gaming franchises. Wing Commander 2 was the first game I ever played with such an engrossing and cinematic story and has continued to be one of my favorite games of all time. It stands along with Wing Commander 1 with fantastic arcade gameplay, great artwork, sound that defined the generation and a sci-fi universe as rich as any movie or TV series. In my opinion the 2D graphics of the original games stand up better than the early 3D work of the later titles though all of the Wing Commander games are absolute classics the first two remain my favorites. Unfortunately GOG left out the incredible expansion packs. Hopefully those will be available someday but their absence is no reason to skip out on this deal.

This is it. This is the game that made me who I am. This is the game that made Creative Labs what it is (I'm sorry about that). A perfect blend of storytelling and gameplay, Wing Commander offered innovative features such as a STORY, fully branched mission paths, SOUND, MUSIC and being generally awesome to the max.

I can remember buying a $500 1x CD-ROM reader just so I could play this game and I played the heck out of it. Wing Commander 2 is still in my top 10 list even after 20 years