Wing Commander™ 1+2

If you’re truly interested in retro gaming and space sims, this is a must. The first two have certainly aged, but they are true classics. Wing commander I was state of the art during its initial release. There was nothing else like it on the market at the time. In Wing Commander I the story is interesting and sets the stage for the entire series. However, it is not as fleshed out as Wing Commander II or the later installments of the series. WC2 is a true epic. It refines the engine of WC1 and tells a dynamic and engaging story. The story branches available in WC1 are impressive, but WC2 improves upon it and not many games were able to match it until recently. My personal favorites in the core series (WC1-WC5) are WC 2 and WC 4. WC 1 is a classic, but WC2 takes all of the elements of WC1, refines it, and the result is one of the greatest gaming experiences of the 1990’s. Turn off the lights, grab a flight stick, and lose yourself in this sci-fi epic.

First of all. This game is an awesome deal. I have heard some people complain about the lack of expansions and such. But you would be hard pressed to find the hard copies for this much. Why? Partly because sellers on Amazon want to milk you of your cash. But also because it is generally well accepted that this is a landmark franchise. Story, music, graphics...the overall experience...all of it is A+. I cannot recommend these games enough. They have haunted me through my entire childhood, and adult years. These game is the epitome of the word classic and needs to be on your shelf if you are any kind of self respecting retro-gamer.

The holy grail of classic PC action games. The series that made sound cards, VGA cards, and extra memory desirable. And the only game that satisfied players' Star Wars cravings until X-Wing arrived. Nothing from that era comes close to Wing Commander. Wing Commander is an arcade space shooter layered with many sim features and an epic storyline. Huge, branching campaign takes you from fighting simple scouting patrols all the way through capital ships, ace fighters, and even a station or two. Large roster of pilots to fly alongside, each with their own distinct styles. Extensive dialogue scenes between each mission, minor and major cutscenes throughout. Wing Commander was the first series to seriously draw comparison with movies. Everything about this series is a product of its time. The sound effects are simple, yet abundant. The music is beautiful when played through an old Roland MIDI card or FM synthesis. In-flight ship models are blocky at short range, character animation is usually restricted to faces, and the graphics are full of pixels and unrealistic colors. But they all pushed the limits of what computers could do when the games came out. Like few others, Wing Commander holds together as a complete artistic vision that elevates its outdated technology. After a mission or two, you'll forget to pay attention to its age. Will people still enjoy the gameplay? Wing Commander is not as diverse as a modern game, but it's as deep and polished as an arcade sim should be. Shields and armor are sturdy enough to survive a few hits, though flying straight is a quick way to perish. Missiles and collisions are dangerous. Afterburners offer extreme speed until fuel runs out. Most fighters carry two banks of guns that can be toggled on or off. All systems can take partial or complete damage during a mission, potentially leaving you with no radar, cracked displays, destroyed weapons, reduced speed, broken turning, you name it. The view of your pock-marked fighter cockpit on the landing deck is especially satisfying after enduring such odds. Dynamic music, some of the best of its day, adjusts to every aspect of battle. There are unique tunes for free flight, engagement, dogfighting, missile threats, tailing an enemy, torpedo runs, critical damage, victory, and defeat. If you enjoyed Freespace, this series is where it all began. Difficulty can be high in places. The player is usually outnumbered and outgunned. Ejecting can be used in moderation to bypass some missions, but not all. Certain missions grind the player's ship down by attrition or mount a heavy attack on a friendly ship. Stealth fighters and light fighters are deadly in swarms. In Wing Commander 2, capital ships are impervious to all weapons except torpedoes, which are in extremely short supply. If one misses, is shot down, or is destroyed prior to launch, you might be unable to complete that mission successfully. The Wing Commander universe is large, rich, and colorful. The storyline fits in plenty of cliches, but it's always interesting. Missions are memorable despite their almost total reliance on traveling to generic waypoints to fight enemy waves. Mission briefings and related cutscenes, differences between player ships, and well-chosen enemy distributions all help each sortie stand out. The campaign branches, which means losing certain missions, or ejecting to bypass the toughest, will give the player a different set of missions and a less optimal storyline. The one major flaw with the game engine is the sprite animation used for enemy ships. It's good sprite animation, probably the best you'll find from that era. But the sprites can't show every possible position of a ship. This leads to sudden transitions between ship facings, making it difficult to predict an enemy's exact heading. The game is balanced to allow for frequent missed shots. Nevertheless, the inaccurate ship representation is always present and often frustrating. Close flybys turn ships into blobs of massive pixels, breaking the illusion of depth, but this only hurts gameplay when trying to navigate close to large capital ships, a rare occurrence. Get it for the history, play it for the timeless arcade action and space opera.

Dosbox settings: fullscreen=true fulldouble=false fullresolution=800x600 windowresolution=960x600 output=ddraw autolock=true sensitivity=100 waitonerror=true priority=higher,normal mapperfile=mapper-0.74-2.map usescancodes=true language= machine=vgaonly captures=capture memsize=16 frameskip=0 aspect=false scaler=none core=simple (or dynamic) cputype=486_slow cycles=max limit 3800 cycleup=1000 cycledown=1000 Other setting should be left as default. If anyone has problems with cursor moving to the edge of the screen, try disconnect any usb devices such as joysticks or printers, NOT keyboard and mouse ^^ Change the resolution to your liking.