Now then....

I've played in the past many a space sim game - except nearly all the Wing Commander Series. I don't know why , they have just passed me by. So I will be partaking of them from this site (at the end of the month, when payday rolls around...;o)

My question is where do the Wing Commander games fit in the order of Merit of Space Sim games??

Most people agree Freespace 2 is the pinnacle, then there's Freespace 1 and of course the amazing Tie-Fighter and X-Wing games. Hell, I loved Elite to death back in the old days...then a bit below those is the X Frontier series and the Independance War Series.

I havent even mentioned FreeLancer, which I also loved....

So what can I look forward to fellow Goggers? Will I hit the heights of Freespace? Are there any I've missed? (my memory ain't what it used to be!)

You've missed Tachyon, Terminus and Battlecruiser.

I dun play Space Sims but my family had one called Space Colony and I played a game known as Freelancer

Ah - Tachyon!! never quite managed to finish that one, but it was pretty good...

What I should have doen is do a list - everyone likes lists...

1. Freespace 2
2. Freelancer
3. Tie Fighter
4. X-Wing
5. Freespace 1
6. Elite
7. Tachyon
8. I-War 1
9. I-War 2
10. X2

what number Wing commanders??

I'd say Freelancer goes beyond 10, it's a boring arcade game. The WC games would go right behind the X-wing/Tie Fighter Collectors edition. Privateer, WC4, WC3, WC2, WC1 would be my order.. or maybe WC Armada somewhere between WC3 and WC2.

Surely its possible to like both 'arcade' and 'sim' types ....I found the Freelancer story to be good, and the multiplayer excellent, so it stays where it is for me.

Cant wait to get the Wing Commanders going - gonna have to get the old joystick out of storage..;o)

You will need that for sure, it's a nightmare with a keyboard xD Tried WC3 last night...
Oh and if you can, get the mentioned X-wing/Tie Fighter Collectors. It has all the content from the X-wing collectors CD and the Tie-Fighter Collectors CD, all recreated using the X vs. Tie engine. It is a real treat. And makes a joystick mandatory :D

ifhgame.ru
Kinda Newtonian, like Terminus.

If it's not Newtonian, it's not a sim. I love Freespace and the games based on it but it's no sim.

Aye - got them....and managed to get running on windows 7 64 bit as well the other day...took some tweaking, but was do-able....

Wing Commander 1-2 were very good in 1991 or so, because they basically created the current mission-based 3D space combat opera genre as far as I can tell. Maybe there were some similar space combat games before, not quite sure.


I have a bit mixed feelings about Wing Commander 3-4, though. While they have their moments in gameplay and sometimes the story is half-good, Chris Roberts willingness to become a real movie director shows too clearly from these games. It seems almost as if the game inside was an afterthough to him. My understanding is that Chris did later move on to the "real movie industry", gaming industry was a mere stepping stone for him.

I also had a problem at least with Wing Commander 4 gameplay (I don't remember if it was the same with WC3). Sometimes it was infuriatingly hard in an unfair way. You'd play a hard mission dozen times not making any progress in it, then poof! suddenly you are able to complete the mission with a stroke of luck, just because the enemy ships decided to do something stupid like three of them crashing together and exploding. Wheee, while relieved, it didn't feel like a real achievement, after all I just got lucky.

E.g. the X-Wing and Tie Fighter Star Wars gameplay was much better, because while hard, you still felt all the time you were making some progress with each retry. Not so with WC4 (and maybe WC3) for the most part as far as I can remember.

Still, I guess Wing Commander 3-4 are an important chapter in PC gaming, and they are not that bad games overall.


Wing Commander: Prophecy (5) I liked, because it felt the movie part was toned down from two earlier WC games, and it was more concentrated on gameplay. Oh and it had 3D acceleration as well, so graphically it was considerably better too. Some might disagree, but I think I consider WC:P to be already quite close to Descent Freespace games in quality.

There is only one true space-sim, and it's name is Orbiter.

I keep bouncing off the atmosphere.

Played most of those in your list, though most only briefly. I always found that Wing Commander was the most accessibly (yeah, it is pretty arcadey) and so was always the one that I went back to. It definately felt like it had more substance and character and direction than most others.

You list Freelancer as #2, which was made by a studio founded by Chris Roberts, creator of Wing Commander, so take that for what it's worth. Every time I play Freelancer I am reminded of Wing Commander (especially Privateer 2), soooo... I would say that Wing Commander slots in around the top there somewhere... :)