A few thoughts, having just finished the game. This is the first time I've played it. While I have been a gamer since the 80's I missed Wing Commander except for a few tries at Privateer at a friend's house, so keep in mind I have no nostalgia to fall back on.

The story is ok. The twists in the plot I saw from miles away. The very beginning in one case. That being said, the way in which they were acted out via the combat & choice system did surprise me. While I saw the one big turn coming I failed to see it coming as violently as it did. I did not make the choice I did until seconds before pushing the button. (Sorry for the vague references. I don't want to give away much for those who haven't played it.)

I didn't fall in love with any of the characters, but I enjoyed M.H. as Col. Blair. Unfortuantely, he did not completely enthrall me. Not sure that's his fault. The Blair character isn't a bad one. By now it's cliche, but not bad. I think he and the rest of the bunch suffer from boring film making. Film as a medium isn't used as well as it is in real movies to tell us the story or develop the characters. Mark has a very casual way of acting that I have always enjoyed. None of his co-pilots did much for me. I enjoyed Pliers and Sosa the most. Maniac was unbelievable. Dekker was ok, but never seemed like a bad ass marine. Tolwyn was also ok. The worst was Seether. I would have prefered anything over him as the anti-Blair. It wasn't the actor. Well, maybe some. Mostly, the character is just that bland, unexplained evil with eye shadow. He is unnecessary as well.

I would have liked the grind of being a pilot to have gone on a little bit longer before things erupted. Not for the extra play but just to see more crew interactions. To see how the personalities develop as the crew is pushed into some very hard territory. When I finished a mission and didn't see a blue dot on the map, I got disappointed. To be honest I played through the game just for the story. Yes, I know it's not the crew of Mass Effect 2, but you can't blame a guy for wanting to see more. That's why I played on rookie. The graphics are rather outdated, but aren't so bad that the gameplay can't be enjoyable. I say, if you want space combat, play Freespace Open. I found the combat options available (except for certain plot weapons and the MIPS) to be comparable to Freespace. Much of it is identical.

I think had I played it when it came out, I would have been floored by the interactive story and space combat. I can see where simple decisions used to branch both story and gameplay has influenced much game drama since. To be honest, the mechanics and the feeling that your choices have brutal, irreversible consequences in WC4 are superior to many modern games that try to do the same thing. I played it once, so I can't comment on what happens if I had done things differently. Many of us feel that modern game dramas baby the player. Very little one does is catastrophic due to the high levels of populist story-telling in video games. Not so much populism as the need to have the player keep going. The story must recover from any choice.

It's a good game. If you haven't played it before, you probably won't call it 'great'. I played it with the mouse and keyboard.

Given my comments about the story, I'd like to open it up to posters adding ideas for scenes they would have enjoyed seeing. Off the top of my head.

-More Sosa and Catscratch.
-Pliers barking at other crew members.
-Dekker in action.
-Why couldn't that scientist survive?

I appreciate your comments. It's hard to remember what it was like playing the game for the first time since it's been so long. What I can say is that back in the day there was just nothing like it. THe cinematic scope of the game was unparalled (the game was the most expensive ever when it was produced - 14 million dollar budget... peanuts these days but impressive for the time). WC4 really pushed storytelling into the missions more than any instalment in the series before it. So I'm glad it has held up, but I can see how the advancements in the industry have benefited from it's pioneering way back when.

Regarding Mark Hamil, I think the idea was that they needed someone kind of in the middle so that the player felt like Blair's choices were really their choices. Having too much character would make it less effective in that regard.

I'm curious if you replayed the game much. Did you retry the various game paths to see different outcomes?

[spoiler] Did you try defecting early as well as later? What about things like the choices of going to Spearadon or Circe? Or to take out the Ella starbase? Did you Save Catscratch? or let him die?[/spoiler]

I would have liked the grind of being a pilot to have gone on a little bit longer before things erupted. Not for the extra play but just to see more crew interactions. To see how the personalities develop as the crew is pushed into some very hard territory. When I finished a mission and didn't see a blue dot on the map, I got disappointed. To be honest I played through the game just for the story. Yes, I know it's not the crew of Mass Effect 2, but you can't blame a guy for wanting to see more. That's why I played on rookie. The graphics are rather outdated, but aren't so bad that the gameplay can't be enjoyable. I say, if you want space combat, play Freespace Open. I found the combat options available (except for certain plot weapons and the MIPS) to be comparable to Freespace. Much of it is identical.

The problem with this is that was most of Wing Commander 3. At the time they were trying to do something different and have the story really take the forefront. The production values for this game were insane for the time. Unfortunately, that's part of the reason they had to cave and sell to EA like so many great, small studio PC developers at the time.

Uh, Wing Commander 3 and 4 would never have happened without EA's financial backing. Origin was bought by EA between WC1 and 2.

Good point. Didn't think of that, but it makes sense in retrospect. He does a good job of playing it both ways without being completely bland. Yes, I did see some alternate branches when I felt like the choice I made didn't come out as expected. I defected the first chance I got.There I saw the change coming some scenes prior but was surprised it came at that moment. And hesistated in choosing. That caught me off guard and felt very 'real'.

I saw Catscratch die, but I replayed it and saved him. I took out Ella starbase, if that's the one I'm thinking of. IIRC, I went to Circe, if that's where civilians are being attacked.

In addition, I saw a lot of alternate minor choices with Maniac and Pliers.

There seemed to me to be at least three types of Col Blair one could be:
- Insensitive hard ass who will let civilians and friends die to win.
- Suspicious good guy who plays by the book.
- Individualist who won't compromise his belief in humanity.

I went, when I could, with the last one. Not sure about this, but I suppose you could play an erratic character.

How different of a story do you get if you choose different paths?

I thought Origin was the publisher of the WC games up until the development of WC4. Wing Commander 3 was listed as being published by Origin Systems on Wikipedia, but the sale of their company was in 1992. I guess I was completely wrong. It seems I've been full of unintentional misinformation lately. Thank you for clearing that up. I guess we can thank EA for WC2, 3 and 4, on top of Ultima 7.

Actually Ultima 7: The Black Gate was done and published by Origin it was Serpents Isle that was published after the EA buyout.

Black gate release date: April 16, 1992
EA buyout of Origin: September 1992
Serpent Isle: March 25, 1993

If I recall Richard Garriott and/or Warren Spector had said in a few interviews that Ultima 7 was one of the reasons why they sold out to EA since they were having trouble keeping up the the rising costs of discs since more and more games were requiring more and more floppies, this was of course before CD rom would become standered.

SPOILERS: Branching is interesting in WC4, There isn't as much of a "losing" path as WC3 or 1 even but there's a number of ways to get a game over even if you don't specifically die.

Failing your mission objectives early in the game has Tolwyn send you back to the farm. Ejecting from your fighter on certain missions gets you captured by the enemy and therefore a game over... maybe even an execution. If you don't defect at the second opportunity you are also essentially on an unwinnable missions.

Actual endings, there's basically only two... three I guess if you count unsuccessfuly countering Tolwyn in the final trial.. The various choices throughout the game do hava consequences but as far as the ending goes I guess it helps your perception of it but not specifically affect the cinematics. When you are actually filming I guess too much control would have made the budget baloon out of control.

Things like helping the pilot in the bar at the start make the mission to take out the Jammer ship in Peleus easier. Failing the early camera missions makes the extraction missions harder... ditto tracking the early pirates to their base.

Dialogue choices do affect morale of the pilots. You will notice this more on the harder difficulties as the wingman AI is better. Reacting negatively lowers pilot morale and they therefore fly worse.

With the options for the Ella Star base, Circe or Spearadon, or ... at least one other, the effects of siding with either Hawk Or Panther directly affect the ending you receive. Siding with Hawk the majority of the time will give you the "you become exactly the evil you were fighting" ending with Blair heading up the Black lance forces. SIding with Panther more often gives you the Flight Instructor ending.

Siding with Hawk and going to spearadon means that you can get an extra fighter to fly - the bearcat. Possibly a few different missile options too.

Saving Catscratch is interesting. You can ignore his call and keep going with your mission. You can try and save him but fail and continue, or you can succeed and save him at the expense of your mission objectives. There's a few difference in the cinematic of how people react, but it becomes obvious that the game just stops using his character in cinematics afterwards to save on filming everything twice (with or without him)...

Defecting at the second opportunity lets you fly missions with Seether and you get to see him be more obviously evil. But there's a couple of great conversations on this path. However you miss a bunch of the early Borderworlds missions ( Vagabond is already dead and you are left wondering if maybe you were responsible for shooting him down.)

There actually is a lot of chatter with Dekker on some of the marine missions, but it's easy to miss when you are busy fighting. It would have been neat to see the ship-boarding combat but the choice is understandable considering the player character is a pilot.

Interesting to see you say you wanted more of the grind at the beginning... An early version of the script had Blair flying a few missions from a ground base on Tatooi... I mean Nephele.

My main gripe I guess is that the game goes out of it's way to make playing with your weapon loadout and changing your wingmen around inconvenient. You can just skip it and go to the defaults the whole time. I prefered how WC3 made you pick a wingman every time out of a line-up (unless it was a scramble) and then you had a strong visual cue (rachel) to remind you that you could change ships or loadouts if you wanted.

Also the selection of player ships was pretty limited when flying for Confed... Only the Hellcat and Longbow.

END OF SPOILERS

Thanks for all that detail!

The oddest game over, which I hit in several different places, is the carrier under attack one. At first I didn't understand that I'd failed a mission objective and this was the way in which the game killed you (by killing your carrier). I thought it was a random event that could happen when you return to your carrier. And I'd somehow failed respond. So for a few missions after I first experienced it, I expected to see it again. Once I did, I realized what was going on.

I agree about the weapon loadout and wingmen. At first I gave my selections some thought, but after a while, yeah, I too just went with the default. Changing wingmen seemed to have very little impact on gameplay. I was playing rookie, so that certainly had something to do with it. Basically every time I encountered the enemy I ordered everyone to 'break off and attack.'

I think more of a grind at the beginning would have allowed for more story & character development and a feeling for the situation in the border worlds. I'd love to see the branching story part of WC4 done in the voice over style of Freespace. Cut out the cost of film but keep the depth. Freespace manages to tell a wonderful story via the briefings, but it has nowhere near the choices nor the narrative available in WC4.

Thanks again for filling me in on what I missed.

Did you click continue or replay when you died or lost your carrier? Clicking continue will often give you a sort of end-game cinematic, like Tolwyn's fleet attacking... Rookie is super easy... All AI is dumbed down, hit boxes seem larger and it takes less hits etc etc.. Ace I beleive is the default difficulty which is a reasonable challeng but your wingmen aren't much help
As you increase dificulty enemy AI goes up but so does wingman AI. Your wingmen are better at keeping themselves alive. Some people actually found the higher difficulties easier because their Winmen were more useful. However missiles are a bit overpowered in WC4 so being insta-killed can get frustrating. I think if we ever see another WC title it will go the "talking heads" route of WC1 and 2... not litterally but in that the cutscenes would be rendered in-engine mass-effect-like. There would be way more opportunity for subtle changes to the conversations. WC1 was amazing in this respect... the story was pretty basic but little things you did in your mission would change the course of the game and alter dialogue and such. With film that just wasn't financially viable.

They were already taking steps in that direction wiith Prophecy and Secret Ops, putting much more story into the pilot inflight dialogue. It was a proof of concept in a way where Prophecy had to prove it could be successful with a fraction of WC4s budget

Originally given away for free, Secret Ops was pretty amazing, but it opted for no FMV whatsoever and what cutscenes there were were done in 3D using the game engine (so no people in them...) The story was all from within the cockpit and with various emails/ texts that could be read between missions.

Ooo, I'll have to reload an old save and check out continue.

I began the game with the default difficulty setting. After a number of missions I ran into one that killed me a few times and I felt my enthusiasm waning so I dialed it back. Like I said, I was in it to see the story and wasn't looking for a challenge.

Funny part was, because of the rookie setting, I killed Seether in two seconds. Pretty much as soon as he finished talking he flew right in front of me and leveled off showing his arse. Pulled the trigger and boom.

Playing through it now, and enjoying it as much as back in the day.

The gameplay is a bit less enjoyable now that I have experienced FreeSpace 2, but the cinematics keep me going. It's really something unique. I remember back in the day a lot of games used cinematics, but almost always they were horrible. Then along came Wing Commander 3 and 4 and Privateer 2 with a cast that would put many a Hollywood blockbuster to shame.

Making the player grow close to characters is a hard job. Games that use voice-overs more often than not fail horribly in my opinion (in those cases I'd rather have pure text). I thought Mass Effect did it well but even that doesn't come close to these cutscenes in my opinion.

I love Mass Effect but my biggest issue with its cutscenes is the facial animation (or lack of it). Shepards facial expression never really changes ever... or at least not enought. I don't think anybody has topped Half-Life 2 in that regard yet. LA Noire was pretty good but it struck a wierd balance where the faces were almost pasted-on, looking like those videos of fruit with lips ontop... Wing commander 1 was actually pretty amazing in it's day with all the dialogue matching the animations phonetically. They actually had the game match the lip movements to the pronounciations... But they got lazy with the expansions and basically have them mouthing the same thing over and over. Also funny, no matter what you entered for a name or callsign the characters would mouth 'dipstick' or something like that.