Wing Commander™ 4: The Price of Freedom

A legend of a game at a great price.

Let me just say WOW, not only is this a truly awesome classic, but they truly enhanced it. On the original the movies where at average FMV qualti, wich means it's way worse then VHS. Yet in this version (not a dosbox game) I can enjoy DVD quality movies in fullscreen at 16:9 ratio, no more borderlines. Thats Epic in itself. I just hope they'll do the same with Privateer 2 :)

This simulator has an amazing cast and story! Truly one of my favourite games I played as a teen.

While the game runs ok, the sound is a mess cutscenes volume really low and gameplay sound high. On another note why are you using dosbox to run this. It has a windows version and also there is the DVD quality video out there, If you want someone to pay for this you should have the best quality available, needs some work.

Wing Commander was the reason i upgraded to VGA, WC II - 80486 DX2-66, WC III - AMD K6-2 300Mhz. WC III is the first in the series where 3D combat is smooth not jerky like in the previous games up to Privateer. Also WC III is the first one in the series to use SVGA graphics. But here what happened? we're back to VGA? I'm a little disappointed 'coz it's low res and horribly pixelated, not the way i remembered it. Since we're on the topic of VGA, lets talk about gameplay. The in-game options; not all options are saved. For example, there are 2 check boxes for VGA and SVGA, checking SVGA does nothing. When you come back to Options, both boxes are empty. On the carrier though, Lexington, the option box for SVGA remains checked so i guess it proves that SVGA gameplay is non-existent or omitted. Flight control is a little or moderately worse than WC III. Where WC III is playable with mouse and/or keyboard, WC IV is barely playable with either; keyboard is slow and lack fine control ofcourse but at least it's stable. Mouse movement is rough and grainy making it impossible to have fine control in aiming. Just when you think you got it nailed, the crosshairs jumps about. So i'm left with keyboard as the only viable controller. Difficulty spikes: I don't remember what level i used to play on but on WC 1 & 2 it was Medium on WC III it was Veteran. Here i tried Ace on the first mission and Rookie on the 2nd. Cinematic FMV cutscenes are way better than III and V in its scale and stellar cast which is the main reason i bought this game - a reference standard. Audio volume is very uneven; barely audible in FMV and too loud in gameplay. No it's not the best; it's on par with III & V in overall score, especially in FMV wow factor, the difference here is the large cast of stars and extras and the huge sets. Prophecy has the smoothest mouse control making it more fun and exhilirating in combat. IV has epic FMV (5*) and branching story line but 3* for gameplay, overall 4*.