Wing Commander 1 & 2 Introduction Sequences
To celebrate the launch of Wing Commander and Wing Commander 2 on Good Old Games today, I went and dug up a handful of YouTube clips of the introductory sequences for both games…plus the add-on missions for Wing Commander 2:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFb_q2Q5iiI]
The Wing Commander 1 Intro Cinematic
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2koDpQhk47Y]
The Wing Commander 2 Intro Cinematic
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPvR13-dpt0]
The Wing Commander 2 Special Operations 1 Intro Cinematic
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRbBUkeTc5Q]
The Wing Commander 2 Special Operations 2 Intro Cinematic
And just for fun, here’s the scene that plays if your character gets killed in action in Wing Commander:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdbDxnkigKk]
Wing Commander 1...your funeral.
More videos coming later!
Wing Commanders 1 & 2 are a lot like Star Controls 1 & 2.
The first game gave you the basic framework, with great gameplay and a lot of promise. The sequel added lots of narrative “meat” and made the franchise epic.
As for the third games, well…
Wing Commander 3 was a bit of step back in term of gameplay (more straightforward, less variety in mission objectives and all), but it was still a good game.
And Wing Commander 4 brought all back with a vengeance and much much more (clearly taking notes from the X-Wing series).
I honestly don’t see how see how could anyone say with a straight face that the WC series went down the drain after WC2… It anything it remained much the same, just replacing hand drawn characters with actors.
Not disagreeing with you at all.
Oh my bad then, I thought you were saying WC3 was akin to Star Control 3 (which was poorly received by fans)
I enjoy all the WC games — but the switch to video did take away some of the suspense. You can’t kill off a wing man early if they feature in a late-game cut scene.
It seems like a small thing, but losing a wing man during a particularly difficult mission made for some interesting choices.
Actually I seem to remember that most of the wingmen in WC3 could die in missions (though admitedly it was only in the later parts of the game), while in WC2 they never did unless it was plot related.
As a matter of fact, I’m pretty sure that WC2 is the most linear episode of the series in term of missions trees and consequences since losing or winning usually had little consequences.
WC3 was actually much more like WC1 in that respect with some slight variations depending on how well you did, and even a losing path. Prophecy had a pretty strong mission tree as well as I recall. WC4 had one as well, but it was mostly related to choices during cutscenes rather than consequences of how well you fought (though you could ended being sent back to Tatooine if you sucked too much at the beginning).
I didn’t play the Wing Commander series a lot, but I do remember those funeral sequences fondly. 🙂