Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger Retrospective/Review
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- Опубліковано 26 чер 2024
- A wee reupload from Side Adventure: Here's a look at one of the few FMV games which wasn't shit, Wing Commander III Heart of the Tiger.
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00:00 Intro
01:24 Development
02:09 Presentation
06:25 Gameplay
10:54 Story & Campaign
16:02 Conclusion
16:47 Outro
#wingcommander #rowanjcoleman - Фільми й анімація
The original CD's had a "behind the scenes" featurette. Tom Wilson is absolutely hysterical. He kept making jokes during takes, cracking up the crew. Chris Roberts even "awarded" him a $3 bottle of wine for being such a delight to work with.
Always loved the Arrow and used it a LOT too, and Tom Wilson really impressed me as Todd Marshall - to the point that I've always been felt a bit sad that he didn't have more an acting career.
Zillions of years ago, I saw a short interview of Marshall (sci fi channel??) talking about how his nephew was TOTALLY IMPRESSED that he was playing Maniac from Wing Commander.
I played this game as a kid, the audio problems you speak of aren't a thing I experienced at all, it was flawless from that perspective, I would have to believe its a modern hardware compatibility issue if anything.
I came here to say the same thing. The original video was just as rubbish as now, but the audio was fine back then.
Same, I played and completed all Wing Commander games, and there were no audio or visual glitches.
been probably decades since I played this but yeah, audio was fine. Dunno if I've ever loaded up the GOG version though
I seem to remember the same BUT, it's been at least 25 years since I played it.
@@oneneoeno9824 He isn't wrong, the MPEG-2 Codec that the FMV's use is at a different volume. This game is broken, without adding several graphic mods, and audio mods. Especially Wingo Commander IV. Why are trolls always people with no PFP. You have to adjust the codec volume manually, with K-Lite codec pack, since the game can't do it on it's own.
Privateer got me into the Wing Commander universe and remains my favourite, but I really enjoyed the main line games back in the day. I'd enjoy a remake or return to this universe.
It's amazing that the Kilrathi look better in the game's FMV sequences than they do in the actual movie adaptation.
They were exceptionally good animatronics.
Disclaimer: I have never played Wing Commander and I know their lore is deep and cherished by many. I respect everyone's opinion on the matter.
That being said, I actually love the movie. I think it silly, fun, adventurous, DIVERSE, and shows a future that is imperfect but still going on. It doesn't show a world full of Americans but a universe full of different populations and cultures cohabitating the universe.
O.o really?
The games were always diverse, more so than the movie come to think of it. Almost every pilot came from a different country in the first game.
I know I probably said this in a comment on the original video (so it's more for the benefit of other people who read this) but a few years ago George Oldzey did an orchestral recording of several tracks from WC3, WC4 and Prophecy and they all sound great and the album can be bought on his website. It sounds so great that it's a damn shame that Hollywood didn't poach him like Michael Giacchino.
I found those recordings from your original comment and they are incredible.
The 3DO version was flawless, but you have to remember that these games were designed to be played on an analog TV 240p equivalent. There is a reason why you remember 8 bit Nintendo games looked better at the time, it was because they actually looked better on TVs than on emulators on modern digital displays.
My guess is that the stuttering is coming from buffering issues. The example shown in the video shows that they happen in cut scenes - so the CD-ROM buffer or cpu speed may be misconfigured (DOSBox?) for this game. That happened on original hardware as well when the CD-ROM was too slow (I remember playing Rebel Assault II with my double speed CD-ROM (300 kb/s) on my 486 and it stuttered at times as well)
Curious about your thoughts on Descent: Freespace and the sequel, Freespace 2. While they lack the FMV, they are probably the ultimate expression of the space fighter game of that era, and are some of my favourite games of all time.
The Command & Conquer games also got the FMV thing right. Kane is so iconic
I still have Wing Command III! Disk, booklet and all. I just haven't played the game in YEARS. And I STILL have yet to beat the game properly. Still love the cuts scenes, regardless of the quality. Might replay the game someday after seeing this retrospective. As for the game itself, it's a good RPG game, and the ship designs were kinda neat for the time. The Arrow always had this A-Wing feel to it, so it was a heavy favorite.
If the game is 27 years old and a year older than you are, then you sound much more mature than a 20-something.
For narration, that's a good thing!
I wonder if it's possible to get remasters of Wing Commander III and IV. Would be cool if they managed to get the original filmed scenes and get everything up to, or close to todays standard
Maybe after we finally get Squadron 42.
Eeeeeeeee! Wing Commander is my favorite game series of all time. Thank you for this.
Awesome video. This, and the starfleet and klingon academy games, share a special place in my heart. Looking forward to IV.
The title was so small on my phone 📱... I thought it said Wine Commander 😂😂😂😂 sounded interesting 🤔😂
The Wing Commander FMV series were phenomenal and choosing your own adventure through your interactions were revolutionary for the time and still a high bar for story telling games even today one could argue.
Remaking the series from the onset of the war in the first game would be absolutely amazing so long as Disney didn’t have a hand in writing it!
I loved this game, along with Rebel Assault 1 and 2. Wing Commander is awesome.
yes rebel assault!
With a movie, and a good animated t.v. show I am truly surprised at how multi media this IP was.
Ooh I didn't know there was an animated series.
damn right. This game is among the chosen few PSOne titles worthy of praise and cult status, right up with the Colony Wars trilogy and Armored Core Trilogy and future console sequels.
You find some episodes here on UA-cam
I played this endlessly throughout the 90s and never had any technical issues. It was a flawless game. And it looked amazing, you just have to remember the monitors were 640x480 so nothing looked as pixelated as they do now on much higher res displays. Also you absolutely have to have a joystick for it. This came out in the golden age of joystick gaming when it was almost a given anyone planning to game would get a joystick for their PC. Also to avoid being upside down you need to roll by holding down a button on your joystick while turning.
Got my first joystick (for PC after C64), because my dad was so annoyed by the sound of my mouse hitting the table in rapid succesion. This was due to the fact that I was playing X-Wing. You had to constantly move to mouse in the direction you wanted to go and when reaching the end of the mousepad or table - lift it up, move it back to it's original position, set it down and then continue the movement. If you wanted to avoid getting those agile Tie-Fighters on your six, you had to do that really fast. The fact that these mouses had those mechanical, heavy tracking-ball inside them added to noise.
I love playing these 2 games on my PS1 copies of the game which means the controller has some great hotkeys designed for it using button combinations. Wing Commander 4 has an even better plot, especially the ending, which is a sequence that I ironically wanted to happen in Mass Effect.
And now retrospective of the Wing Commander movie... thank you! ;) Btw. I always thought that the games had better cast than the movie :)
Don't subject him to the movie, that's torture.
George O's soundtrack was awesome and is available remastered using a full orchestra. He put a kickstart for it a few years back. If you're interested, you can google for his dedicated website where it's offered.
Ok, you avoided the joke about Luke protecting the planet killer BUT you missed the joke about the giant kitty-man nicknamed "Hobbes."
...
I've been playing this game for maybe 25 years?
I always thought it was a reference to a philosopher.
Hobbes. Good gods. HOBBES. I GET IT NOW.
I loved both Wing Commander III and IV. I remember how crazy the system requirements seemed when III came out. No one I knew had a system that could run it at first. There was definitely some jankiness with some of the video, but that was just kind of common with games like that at the time. I still feel a little nostalgic thinking about inserting my boot disk to start the game, and then working my way through all the CD-Roms as I played the campaign. It was kind of an event when you advanced to the next disk. I still have my copies of both games. I even have my old boot disks in their boxes. I think I might even still have the strategy guides as well. I really miss this series.
I liked the "episodic" feel of the story. I felt like playing a 1990s sci-fi series like Deep Space 9 or Space Above and Beyond
Adored this game! How many stories give you the chance to hang out with luke skywalker, a space lion and a porn actress?
* *Mic drop* *
I remember getting this when it came out. It was like 8 CD roms lol. Every time you wanted to go somewhere it asked you to load a new CD rom... thats my biggest memory about it lol changing the cd all the time and it would take like 3 minutes to load. The cast and quality of the sets and creatures was truly special though. It was a AAA game of the time.
Did you buy it at a compusa?
You definitely should check out Descent: Freespace and Freespace 2. It’s been upgraded to modern standards by fans and has one of the best sci-fi stories of any game.
I only played Wing Commander *Prophecy* as a Kid and LOVED it!
I played this on OG hardware, and I can vouch, your experience was almost completely normal. The fuzzy artifacting and audio pops were all part of the experience, sadly. Just a side effect of pushing hardware to its limits, at the time. Although I never had that problem with the mouse cursor, which might be a DOSBox goof.
Otherwise, I think WC3 and 4 worked as well as they did because Chris Roberts had always treated the series as "interactive movies." Like, the usage of cutscenes in WC2 is basically identical to later games - just with sprites rather than FMV. So the move to CD didn't change the formula. And yeah, along with that, the games have always had plotting that feels like a TV series. It's totally deliberate.
(That's also how its branching mission system works. Each star system is a self-contained plot arc or episode, and the player bounces through a tree of these episodes/systems based on on their performance. It's a clever way of making game progress dynamic.)
It was fantastic in the day. One of those games I completed first go around, (that's not a brag) but didn't replay it, too much going on back then. I have it from GOG and will be playing it again some time.
Your assessment of this game is everything I remember it to be. even though I haven't played it in over 20 years. I always found the arrow to be too fragile, you're correct on the Hellcat it's just the best general purpose fighter in the game. the Thunderbolt your correct as a tank. the Longbow same thing couldn't turn to save its life
Heh! Just 20 years!? 😲(late*)January '95 here.
*Firstmover was different back then. Well in Denmark it was...Still have my box and 4 CD-ROMs though 🙂
OG Wing Commander player as well, and I remember the canopy views played a large part in my choice as well. The most open view (because the only view choice was from within the cockpit) may have been the Arrow, but to fragile and weak, and the heavier ships had massive obstructions crossing in front of your face.
@@dallesamllhals9161 Yea, I was gonna say I thot they were available on Playstation in these massive 4 cd box sets. Played 1&2 on a 486 computer, but I think 3&4 on a Playstation.
@@8Biit ..I played III AND IV onna' 486!!?? 😲
Aah, Ginger Lynn. I remember buying this on release and being totally obsessed. I was a huge Privateer fan so it was a no brainer to get it. :)
She actually showed up on the fan forums years later and answered lots of questions about this game and Prophecy. :)
@@PetersonZF That's awesome 😃
I loved playing this game when it came out. Thanks for the trip down memory lane. I also played the first two, so when three came out it was mind blowing for me and my friends.
Great video as per usual, thanks Rowan!
2:45 oh you're so young. It was this game that made me go buy a new computer to play it in the 90s.
I am surprised you didn’t mention the option of getting drunk before one of the missions and the having to deal with simulated drunk controls.
Or the hidden Star Wars joke cut scene after the credits.
Don't forget to also review Wing Commander: Phophosy too. That came out after Wing Commander 4: The Price of Freedom. 😃
Gotta love the auto slide, raining fire sideways cruising through a cap ships hanger
You are the best- I have watched all your shows u review an played all your games
Given what the resolution of our screens was back then it looked brilliant.
640x480 BAD? Grrrh! Bloody FIRSTMOVER 😂
I remember the game had very prohibitive specs requirements when it came out (Pentium cpu, CDRom, soundcard) when very basic 286/386/486 PCs were still the norm. Most gamers I knew played Tie Fighter instead.
I wish I received an 'ultra thanks' from someone. it sounds fantastic
So I played this back in the day. The problem was that after I failed teh first mission and saw that the game carried on I believed that teh gameplay sections didn't matter (which was good for me because I couldn't have completed the missions even i knew that i had to). Because of this I was extremely disappointed and annoyed with the story ending with earth destroyed and everything being sad.
It was years before i learned how badly i had misunderstood the game :)
I remember this thing when it came out and loved seeing Hamill and Wilson in more roles than Luke and Biff. I think I remember the pops and fizzes in the audio, but back then dunt remember caring. This was HOT back then!!!
I grew up playing Wing Commander: Prophecy, which was Blairs swansong (and death). Never did play 3 or 4 though.
Going by the combat mechanics and the varied cutscenes if you cock things up, i feel the Colony Wars franchise could be considered a spiritual successor to these games. OK, they didn't have the famous actors and FMV but they did feature some great pre-rendered cutscenes and music
As kid I played Wing Commander: Armada and it had the same problem of crashing before leaving the carrier. Having to go autopilot to avoid crashing seems to be a recurring problem. (This was back in the 90s with a right of the shelf cd I might even still have in a box somewhere)
On my 1990s dedicated Soundblaster soundcard this game sounded great
In Larry Niven's Ringworld you have the Kzin which I think was the inspiration for the story.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man-Kzin_Wars
I played it back in the day. I had the upside down bug back then too, you had a lot of crashing, stuttering. I still might have the CDs.
I loved this game back in junior high. It's been forever, but I don't recall any sound jank or control issues back then with a joystick. The video was pixelated, to be sure, but everything from that era was. I knew they had some star power cast, didn't realize Josh Lucas was Flash until watching this.
You know what? That vid vagy pretty funny. I mean FUNNY funny. I got used to quality videos from you, but your dry humor is something of a gem. Would you make more game reviews for the main channel?
Star trek games needs similar reviews.
I watched you side adventure channel as well, but I skipped most video.
The scam always reminded me a lot of the 90s cartoon exosquad. It's absolutely worth a watch if you haven't seen it
As a fellow Scot, when talking about the stealth fighter at around 10:00, I really felt every bit of your irritation lol. Hilarious 😂
Great review
Tip #1) Play retro games like this on a CRT monitor or high end CRT TV. ;) Looks amazing.
Some of my fav games of all time here!
I played Wing Commander 1 & 2 back in the day but never got to play 3 or 4. But in university I was introduced to Privateer 2 The Darkening which I loved. Also had video cut scenes with Clive Owen playing your main character and Matilda May voicing your ship computer. I have many fond memories playing this. Think Elite in the Wing Commander universe, I believe.
I got to play WCIII because I played and really enjoyed WC: Privateer (1, not 2). Privateer is also why I played so much Freelancer back in the day.
I like the touch that if you don't choose the mechanic as your love interest, she'll stop doing you ship load outs.
Even though the romance subplot makes both Rachel and Flint come across as really unprofessional when they each refuse to work with Blair if he rejects them. #awkward
16:05 -- RE: If It Ain't Broke....; Weirdest thing of all about the "Wing Commander" IP as a Franchise is how the characters *must* appear in all subsequent media.
Chris Blair, "Paladin" Taggart, Admiral Tolwyn, "Maniac" Marshall, "Angel", the "Iceman", .to name a few, all appear in the film (1999) as well.
And yet, one of the clear conclusions about Wing Commander III is that the storyline is arguably better than the film, so whatever the restrictions and limitations of production costs the execution is pretty damned good and thus the value impressively high.
I played that back in the day was a lot of fun and I love Biff!
This was a great game! I played it when it was new and it was so amazing! And the sound was always that way. I loved this game so much
The story is basically a blend between Star Wars and the pacific theatre of WW2. The ending is both the trench run from Star Wars and basically nuking Japan at once.
I just checked and was apparently already subbed to Side Adventure (previously, Side Quest?)! Now I want to know what I've missed, besides this! 😉
😎🤘☮
"Fookin invisible coots" 😂😂😂 Fantastic name.
This series needs some love and be redone
There's also a fan game released in 2012 that covers another angle of the events here
One thing I remember WC3 for, it was the first time I got something with a PDF manual.
Everything before that had come with a real manual in the box.
Cool, I forgot about the Wing Commander series, did they stop making them? Thanks for making such great videos, since your on the topic of Wing Commander are you gonna take a look at the 1999 movie? I remember people would only pay for a ticket just to see the trailer for SW The Phantom Menace and then leave, lol, kinda funny.
I agree do the Wing Commander 1999 movie, please and thank you. They were only missing the 2 girls and the dog and it would have been Scooby-Doo in space, lol. Keep making great videos.
@@handyMan65 Oh ya never thought of that, that's pretty funny, I also remember in the movie Mark Hamill voiced the computer on the fighter ship that Freddy Prince flew.
After experiencing the Kilrathi in this game I was sooo disapointed with how they were handled in the movie.
Now I need to revisit this. Loved the game as a kid and have replayed it since. The audio problems were not present in the original release btw. Other than that I can agree with most of your conclusions. Especially about the planetside mission. When WC3 came out I honestly feel the technology wasn't quite ready for that gameplay. Sometimes WC3 feels like a prototype for WC4. Which in my not so humble opinion is the best game in the series. Except for the spin off WC: Privateer. Nothing beats WC: Privateer.
Some strange this game always brings up nostalgic memories os Space Above and Beyond.
That being said, I hope you look into a fan campaign created from mod makers using the Freespace 2 Open source code. After ten years, they created a wonderful game....of course it had none of the off duty interactions that the game had but the mission structure and the voice acting (EDIT: AND THE SCORE) really were top notch
The Freespace Wing Commander mod really was the pinnacle of space combat for that time. Unfortunately, it also ruined modern space combat games for me. When I played the mod, I was using a force feedback stick and it was bliss. Since FF sticks are not a thing anymore outside of ridiculously expensiv harcore sim setups, I haven't been able to recreate that feeling.
@@Wonzling0815 Well that makes me sad...but at least you thought VERY HIGHLY of the WC mod. I tell ya, I love watching other folks play those campaigns, that I will no way no how EVER be able install in my 'rig'.
Here's a tip for the sound put one of your ears closer to the sound speaker 👍
Here is a tip for you too: If you actually played the GOG or even DISC versions of III and IV, you would know there are a shit ton of audio issues with the the game. So stop speaking out of your ass.
I understand that the last installment of this franchise has the humans build a large planet destroying squirt bottle and they point it at the Killrathee and say loudly and firmly “NO!!! NO!!!”
I think that a LOT of this game's success was just thanks to it's FORMAT, rather than it being any kind of 'good' game! In the early days of the 'CD-ROM' era all of the early adopters who invested a fortune on the hardware were DESPERATE for ANY software that justified the technology! When you finally got your first CD-R drive you didn't want the only benefit to be that you could get the same games, but now it's on 1 CD instead of a DOZEN Floppies!
We wanted CD-R games featuring Bad Actors performing scenes of Choppy, Low Resolution FMV. Not just the addition of 'Red Book' music, and more spoken dialogue in our old point & click adventure games!
@1:37: hercules monitor for live debugging
I played it after it was released. At the time, it had amazing graphics and sound. FMV’s were great and…… it had Mark Hamill!!! :) (used controller)
I always enjoyed Ginger Lynn's performances. 😉
VHS here...though.
@dallesamllhals9161 Yeah, it definitely goes back to the VHS days. She always seemed smart and in charge of her career, and I definitely respected her for that. 😎🤘☮️
@@CybershamanX SURE! BUT, i mostly masturbated back then.........sry' 2023? 😞
I probably said the same thing two years ago but:
Why is this game never on lists like "Greatest videogame betrayal/twist"??
I spent a third of the game defending Hobbes and him turning was an incredible shock.
I still remember the choice between "Revenge or discretion" and I couldnt get into space fast enough. In fact I broke the game. I killed Hobbes in space (He got better) and it messed up the fact I got a teammate killed.
the journeyman project games were pretty cool too
Played when it was fresh. I stuck to the heavy unless you needed to kill capital ships. Then time to roll with the bomber. The issue is kilrathi use fast light ships, but weak ships. So getting a solid hit with heavy weaponry tended to be better than dumping endless rounds into a ship that still out maneuvered you. Capital ship hunting with a light fighter was near useless,
I kinda miss the FMV cutscenes. I especially liked the ones for Dune 2000 and Emperor Battle for Dune
Best advice I can give anyone who wants to play this classic, is try and get hold of the Kilrathi Saga version and play in compatibility mode. It's vastly superior to the DOSbox version from GOG in terms of sound.
Loved this game as a kid/teen should have been the next Star Wars
I was on the “other side” of Origin’s worlds, the fantasy series Ultima. I’ve always been very familiar with the Win Commander series, but never played it as a kid. Ironically someone of the technical issues you mentioned at the beginning with stuttering was a regular occurrence for some games if your computer couldn’t handle loading data fast enough. Sometimes simply if your CD-ROM wasn’t up to the task (if developers left material on the disc). Obviously modern computers are exponentially more powerful, so I imagine it’s something else. Sorry I can’t be more help. Thanks for reviewing something I missed out on. Hopefully your play through of the fourth installment was a little ore seamless.
I loved the Crusader games back then. Crusader No Remorse and Crusader No Regret. They were Origin titles too. Still play them today occasionally.
I played wing Commander 3 on the 3DO when it came out, and yes I just dated myself. But it was an amazing game for the time
Wing Commander wasn’t a series I happened to buy so for me the gold standard of space sim/fmv has to be Klingon Academy.
Also liked Tachyon The Fringe, no fmv but it did have Bruce Campbell so it didn’t lack for a performance!
Dude! You should play and review Descent: Freespace, the Great War and its sequel Freespace 2. Awesome flight simulator games from my childhood!
To be fair, I liked that Hobbes became a traitor. It is one thing that he choose the terran side i a war for domninance and colonies. But when th ehumans showed up with a planet killer to vlow up the Kilrathy homeworld with a few Billion civilians the situation changes. I can feel with anyone who doesn't want to become the last of his kind.
For the sudden capitulation of the Kilrathy: Somewhere in the 2nd half there is a cutscene where the monarch of the Kilrathy gives the order to call as many ships as possible back to the homeworld to refitt and repair. This is their planned final offensive to reach the earth since the terrans are on the defence and outnumbered everywhere. So when the homeworld goes boom, they loose most of their Military.
I wish they did a remake/remaster of these games!
I enjoyed Wing Commander and Privateer series a lot.
You'll really like WC4 as well. Another solid one. Do you plan on playing Wing Commander: Prophecy?
I like that games allowed you to play right away and didn't force you into lengthy and unskippable tutorials.
Graphics, including the FMV, were awesome for that time period. But yeah, they didn't age well.
Today we have been used to playing in 4kp60 for over half a decade, and now the movie world is clearly lagging behind. 24fps, motion blur, lens flares, compression artefacts and aspect ratio optimised for smartphones.
There is a Playstation 1 Version of WC3 and 4. I loved the games
One of the most underrated sci-fi properties of all time, it’s like a mix of Battlestar Galactica and Pirates of the Caribbean… great space swashbuckling
spent 200 dollars for my first CD-ROM drive and another 200 to upgrade my ram from 4 MEG to 8 on my 486dx2 computer to play WC3... Still worth it :)
Thank you for this
Just… thank you
This reminds me of Deadly Tide 😊, you ever play that one?
I missed out on these games unfortunately, played the first one on SNES and I played a little bit of Privateer.