Wing Commander ®: Privateer ™

I'm a huge Wing Commander fan and have been since the 1990's! I love the movie and most of the games. But, this... Privateer... if I could give it 6 stars, I would. I love the fact that you could follow the game and storyline, but you can actually go off and do your own thing. My favorite thing to do is buy the Galaxy ship with its huge cargo hold and then go around and blow up merchants for their cargo. I guess that makes me a pirate. But, the game is phenomenal for both older and younger players alike. And for this price, it's a steal!! I'll probably buy 2 or 3 extra copies just so I can gift it to my friends and family. I love the game and I remember playing it when I was younger on an MS-DOS computer. To this day, I've never actually beat the game. So, I still have stuff to do and follow the storyline. But in the meantime, I'll upgrade my ship and just find cargo while traveling from system to system. And guess what... if you buy all 4 quadrants for 5,000 credits, it's cheaper than buying each quadrant for 2,000 credits. And despite being a fan of this game for 20+ years, I still haven't been to all all the NAV points and all the systems. Can you imagine??? Thank you GOG and Origin Systems (most importantly, Origin) for bringing this game to us on Windows 10! If you're not sure if this game is for you, just ask me... look me up and send me questions. I'm happy to help in any way I can. In fact, I can't believe this game is 20+ years old and there hasn't been anything in the last 20 years that matches this gameplay and fun-ability (is that even a word?). You're free to space travel to all the systems and all the bases and do whatever you want. What more can you ask for??? BTW, I don't know why the Wing Commander movie has such low reviews. The plot is great, albeit the graphics could've been better. I'll still give the movie 5/5 stars! Thanks, Origin and GOG!!

This game as an open world spacesim is a bit barebones compared to more modern titles. You start by doing smalltime sidemissions and cargo hauling inside your starting solar system to buy a few weapons and a FTL drive, then you work your way up to buy a new ship, there are three models: a cargo hauler (that does only that, so not really good for story missions), a heavy fighter and an in-between model. The sidemissions are procedural and are usually straightforward (patrol that, haul cargo there, etc) and fun, though I'd have appreciated if cargo haul sidemissions let you stop at space stations along the way, but can getting ship and upgrades can get grindy at times. There is a faction system that while simple keeps things interesting, killed too many pirates? They will hate you and attack you even when they would normally leave you alone, but feds, hunters and militia will be more friendly. Story missions aren't varied but the story itself is interesting enough and the protagonist's snarking made me chuckle a few times. The expansion adds more story and new upgrades, though only the in-between model supports all of them, probably to compensate the relative lack of weapons with the possibility of giving it stronger shields. The game uses the Wing Commander 1 engine so expect it to look good while being impractical for any gameplay outside simple dogfighting, with asteroids that materialize right in front of you unless you go really slow (which is NOT GOOD if you get attacked and you will) or use a few counterintuitive exploits, the fact that many bases for the story missions are inside 'roid fields gets annoying really fast; luckly landing is easier than WC1, just get close enough and you will land automatically, and most enemy capital ships are gone so the perspective problems of the engine rarely are an issue. NOTE FOR NON NATIVE ENGLISH SPEAKERS: this version has a speech pack, that means no subtitles, not a problem for me but can be problematic for many.

Privateer has a great premise. You play a space pilot with the complete freedom to explore the universe and do whatever you want. You can assume the role of a ruthless pirate, or a bounty hunter, or a simple merchant who avoids combat and hauls goods from planet to planet. You accept only those missions that interest you, reject the ones that don't, and generally act as your own boss. Sounds terrific, right? In theory. Alas, in practice the "freedom" that Privateer offers is very limited. Yes, you're free to explore a vast universe - but most of the destinations you visit look the same, feature the same handful of locations (bar, shipyard), and are populated by the same boring stock characters. Who knew that 500 identical bartenders are scattered throughout the galaxy, talking boring nonsense on countless worlds? Your career choices are limited, too. No matter what, you're going to end up engaging in lots of space combat (this is a space combat simulator, after all). While there is some attempt to vary your missions, you pretty much always end up in a fight - so is there variety, really? I guess the merchant has a different gameplay experience, but who wants to play a space trucker? It doesn't help that the game is very tough. Your starting spaceship is garbage, and easily destroyed. You need to purchase many, many upgrades (new guns, new engine parts, new shields, a jump drive, etc.) and they're hard to afford, unless you go on dozens of missions and save up your meager pay. As others have observed, the gameplay is very "grindy." I don't want to complain too much, because I do like some aspects of the game. It's very satisfying to purchase major upgrades for your ship, and starting kicking enemy butt with your new toys. But, for my taste, the game is simply too hard and paced too slowly to be 100% enjoyable. It's great, but only if you have the patience and inclination to undertake dozens of nearly identical missions and climb the ladder very, very slowly.

Of all the Wing Commander games I've played up to this point, this is easily my favorite. For context, I've played WC 1 - 3 prior to this one along with all of the expansions available. Yes the engine in WC3 was superior to this one, but this game represents the pinnacle of the old engine used in WC1, WC2 and Academy. No more do you have to worry about DOSBox running too fast or slow in the missions due to your CPU settings. General MIDI music also means that pretty much everyone should have access to the best music available. Everything from a technical standpoint is great with this game. Now let's talk about the gameplay. It's VERY open ended. The beginning of the game can be rough, but once you get your feet under you and figure out what cargo to run, you can get a better ship in no time. It took me about 8 hours of playing before I upgraded to a Centurion. Speaking of which, you can go straight to whatever ship you want. You don't have to buy a slug boat if you don't want to, unlike the main WC games where you were stuck flying a ship that you hated depending upon the mission. Heck, you could even ignore the main story if you want, but I don't know why you'd want to. It's actually pretty good. I'd even say that the majority of missions are pretty well balanced or even easy if you will. The final missions of the main game and the expansion pack can be tough, but I never felt the need to turn on invincibility. If I was going to lobby a complaint against the game, it would be that there are long stretches of you just flying through asteroid belts as you can't auto-pilot through them. Also, getting hit on the rear of your ship can be a death sentence even if you're fully upgraded. Having said that, these are minor complaints. If you like space sims, you'll love this one especially if you ever felt like playing a Han Solo type character.

Now that this game has the Righteous Fire Add on! A pilot can do anything in the Gemini Sector! The Voices sound better than my CD Version of the game! There are no beeps or radio static sounds in the Dialog. The Privateer Play Testers Guide is a great guide to the locations and economy of the Gemini sector in both Privateer and the Righteous Fire Add-On. The artworks files are inspiring, I haven't figured out what to do with them, when I'm not playing Privateer! The Fixer Missions work, I've been through all but one of the Tayla missions. I did have to use the Graphic Mode Setup provided by GOG and shut off the Scaling Engine, so that I could read the Mission descriptions on the Mission machine and at the Guild Offices. Other than that there's been no problem with this game. Thanks to all the team at GOG for providing a solution to this minor problem. All of my old save games have worked with this game. That means I don't have to redo any parts of the story I don't want to and I can fly all my favorite ships and ship layouts! I recommend this game to anyone who likes a Space Adventure Game! WELCOME TO GEMINI!