Wing Commander™ 4: The Price of Freedom

In the old times i just played WC1, WC2 and I jumped to WC Prophecy (WC5) I should say i liked very much WC3 even nowadays, but my final feelings with WCIV are really mixed... WCIII has a very interesting plot, WCIV also has an interesting plot, maybe better, but sometimes is cheesy ok, but better. Mark Hamill is more "fitted" even if older, and the game gives you the oportunity to fight in the "weak" side that initially makes it very interesting. But the game has several flaws, big flaws i should say... the gameplay seems really not-tested sometimes, in normal to higher difficulty i found it really frustrating, missiles are a pain, and even knowing how to evade them or use the decoys, the game sometimes kill you in very stupid ways, with super fast missiles that you dont know where come from or just hitting something... the worst thing is in the moment you choose a difficulty lower than "normal" it becomes SUPER boring easy game... so we jump from frustration to boredoom... WC3 was totally superior on this, and i remember WC Prophecy was very well done on this too. but in this one, im not so sure, as Ii dont have it so fresh in my memory as i played Prophecy when it was released. Also the mission design is really annoying, from really hard tasks like some ground/planet missions, become nearly impossible, to destroy the vesuvius that i found it SUPER easy, and it´s one of the last and more important missions (maybe because i took th right decisions and i have that "sticky mine" to put it inside the capital ship) And it´s not only about not adjusted difficulty, but i found many missions lack interest, or be really imaginative. There are many new things to do, but doesnt really work fine... And about the difficult again, In fact the game is really difficult when you fly the borderworld fighters, but in the moment you get the Dragon is even easier than flying the excalibur on WC3 much easier i should say. I liked the options the game gives you for the plot, maybe in this level WC4 it´s a better game than WC3, but in the gameplay and space combat, i probably find it as one of the worst chapters of the saga. (well but even not being super, i liked it... with it´s flaws but i liked it, the only game i really dislike in WC saga is the first Privateer, and Privateer 2 is the only WC i still not played) And for last impression, i found "PANTHER" really more attractive than Ginger Lynn or the other girl in WC3, and at the end, Hamill doesnt "attack" her... FAIL!!!!! :P Well now i think i will move to try to play IWAR that i bought here too :)

Screw Star Wars and Batman TAS. This is Mark Hamill's best role!

I remember being blown away by the original. All the lead up, the talk of the big budget (at the time), the superstar cast, and the great game got me hooked from day one. Since the franchise died out, not only was it hard to find a playable anitquated model of the game, I was left wanting more from the Wing Commander Universe. So for $6, I bought this game, and not only did I get the game, I got everything that originally didn't come with it, including the Wing Commander Bible. Where GOG got this is beyond me, but if you're a fan of the franchise, I'm not kidding you, you need to buy this right now. This is everything you ever wanted to know about Wing Commander and more. Whatever you thought you knew, pales in comparison to what this package offers you. I'll go on record to say this is the best $6 I've ever spent, and GOG has earned a customer for life. Unreal job, boys, and keep up the good work. Why are you still reading? Buy this NOW!

I never actually played Wing Commander as a kid. I was an X-Wing person myself. Having played WC IV after X-Wing and Freespace 2, I have to start with the bad. The actual game part of the game is a bit lacking. Joystick calibration wasn't perfect for me, and the button to recalibrate wasn't working. As a result, I had an especially hard time with aiming at a distance of more than about 500 klicks, which is a problem, as the game makes it very clear that you have to do this by killing/severely damaging you if you ram a target. Rookie mode is too easy, and Veteran (The next level up) is quite hard. Thankfully, the story more than carries this game through to the very end. I was very happy that that invulnerability option was right there, because I wanted to see this story thru no matter how bad I was at the game. I did not regret this decision. Even being invincible, the game still has an air of challenge to it. (I compare it to Lego Star Wars and having infinite lives. It helps) The story is plausible, intriguing, has quite a few plot twists, and the ending is one of the greatest I've ever seen in any game. One of the things we learned from the '90s was that FMV games suck as both movies and games. This game makes a better movie than some movies I've watched, and a better game than most for its time. The main characters are all easy to relate to, and have memorable actors portraying them. Even the actors who I've never heard of do a pretty good job convincing me that I'm on board those ships. The cutscenes are a bit quiet, but that's not a problem most of the time. Just turn up the speakers for them. The game being kind of difficult and bland doesn't take much away from a game with a story this excellent. For only $6, you can get this. It's well worth your money.

Greatly improved cutscenes over WC III if you play the DVD version. The storyline is much improved and more coherent as well. Unfortunately, the difficulty of this game is just so insane with one hit missile kills. It can work to your advantage against the enemy, but you have to worry about conserving your missiles when they don't. Too often I had to resort to using invulnerability due to this aspect and just some really poor mission design overall. It's a good game worth playing, but the frustration will have you reaching for the invulnerable button way too often just so you can advance the story. More of a 3.5 out of 5, but I couldn't bring myself to give it 4 stars due to how frustrating it could be at times. Just a hint for someone who has issues with mapping buttons on your joystick. Use the program AntiMicroX. I used it to map counter-measure deployment, lock on nearest target, pause and other such functions and it works perfectly. Actually it works way better than the crappy Thrustmaster profile software that came with my joystick. I can't see any reason why you'd play the DOS version of the game if you have that program available.