It is recommended to read Freedom Flight novel, which has more of Hobbes' story. However, I don’t recommend "Hobbes" stories in other works of this IP because I don’t think they have the same Hobbes.
I remember being SO EXCITED when this came out, since I loved the first one so much. I had a 386/33 with a Gravis Joystick and I was READY. I didn't have a CD-ROM at the time, though, so it came on about a million floppy disks. So many great memories. The cinematic quality of the cutscenes was really unprecedented for computer games at the time. Can't wait for your next video!
Although not perfect, WC2 lays out a good sci-fi war story pattern. Many of the characters have very good first half of arcs. I think the WC2 sequel story would have been fantastic if it could continue at this pace.
Enjoyed this trip down memory lane. When I was teenager I used to replay WC1 & 2 over and over again. What I wouldn't give to see these games re-made in the Freelancer engine.
About "the sci-fi last resort things", in original Macross anime, humanity is overwhelmed by sudden alien invasion, immediately starting to loose, trying to use repaired alien super ship, it's brokes down and then they trying to use ship's teleportation device and it's makes the whole situation so much worse. And this is only the begging of the series!
And then it culminates with... nah, I'm not gonna spoil that tragedy. Either way, Macross is one surprisingly gripping expanded storyline (at least, excluding II and Delta), and it really sucked that we got Robotech back in the day instead.
Great video. I never played Wing Commander 2 when I was a kid. After beating the first Wing Commander my parents were going to buy Wing Commander 2, but we saw X-Wing and decided to buy that instead. I never regretted the choice but after watching this video, I think it would have been a pretty fun game to play back in the day.
@1:20:00 or so, I've noticed you don't do a lot of rolling in these clips. From my recollection, the key to utilizing the wider-spread cannons was rolling to align with the wide axis of the targets.
This is for the algorithm gods! Good to see this project still going strong. Cant wait to see what the next title is going to be. Doing these large projects takes time. Other people who actually cover long formate projects like this take a fair amount of time. These projects aren't quick to make.
YAY! this came out. Glad to see it. The joystick to gamepad comparison was interesting Nice to see that either way works well enough. Sorry i wasn't able to fund the entire flight stick then.
First boxed PC game I owned, 4 floppy disks, ahh the nostalgia :) And yeah, didn't have a SoundBlaster so I played with farts for explosions and no music or dialogue xD Also played with keyboard input and the biggest hurdle was that you had to stop turning to shoot as keyboard wouldn't accept multiple keys pressed at the same time, the final bossfight was really annoying because of that. Also regarding flak I've found that rolling through the attack run seems to mitigate some of the damage. But since so many years have passed can't tell if it was true or just confirmation bias on my part.
Funny coincidence; the exact moment when I finally registered the meaning of a tiger named "Hobbes" was about thirty seconds before you put the "Calvin And-" character onscreen.
When I first played WC2, decades ago, I actually did not realize that there were story-related interludes behind one of the airlocks. I thought that the entire narrative was conveyed through the missions, pre-mission conversations, and in-mission cutscenes. That I still had no problems following the story and didn’t even notice that part of it was missing just reinforced how extraneous the airlock segments were. 20:50. Re: the Ferret. I was pleasantly surprised by how capable it was. Certainly, it was way better than the Hornet and Scimitar from the first game. For one thing, its “Gatling mass drivers” fired extremely rapidly and didn’t take long to recharge. It could pump out such a stream of projectiles that even heavy fighters like the Jalkehi could be easily downed with a well placed volley. In fact, I found the Ferret more deadly against Jalkehi than Sartha and Drakhri just because of how easily you could hit the heavier ship. Flying a Super Ferret against heavy fighters, in Special Operations, didn’t feel nearly as onerous as flying a Hornet against a Gratha, in Secret Missions. The Ferret was at least a glass cannon. Can’t take hits but can really dish out the damage. A later game using the same engine as WC2, Wing Commander Academy, allowed you to select any Terran ship from WC2 and fly it against increasingly powerful waves of enemies. One of my highest scores in that game was in a Ferret, surpassed only by my performance in a Broadsword. I think a large part of what made those ships so effective was the increased rate of fire of mass drivers.
Awesome to see another WC video from you. Great work once again! I grew up playing WC 1, 2 & Privateer on my 486 with keyboard and cheap gameport joysticks. I've always liked using joysticks for arcade flight games and mech sims, but I didn't always have / have a working one, so I played my share keyboard only too. Gamepads and thumbsticks just feel like wrong to me when it comes to flight and/or sim games (really felt this trying out Ace Combat) but for games like WC and Crimson Skies, I think it really does just come down to what the player is most comfortable with using. Definitely a classic WC thing to have such imprecise turning regardless of input method though!
Been looking forward to this one! I don't have much experience with Wing Commander 2, as I spent more time trying to get through the first game when I started playing the series. I'm encouraged it another shot after watching this retrospective. I'm glad your brought up the original screenplay when discussing the plot, as well as the reality of making a game story work when there are so many moving parts. I think it's an aspect of game development that's often overlooked when people complain about the linearity and restrictions of "cinematic" games. It certainly explains the messiness of Wing Commander 2's story, seeing how much has cut or changed.
I was soo happy too see this pop up. I love the idea of this series and you're doing a marvelous job. Can't wait for the next one. If you need to do a short one, there's always Wing Commander Academy.
They did charge for the voice pack but I recall some sound cards coming with it as part of the packed in software to try out the new product. It’s crazy to think of these days but before gamers were obsessed with crazy expensive GPUs, we had to beg our parents to buy us a sound card for the family PC. This changed a couple years later with the rise of the CD-ROM, as it was very common for the CD-ROM controller card to also be a sound card. Within a couple years every PC had one but in 92 it was a lot rarer
Oh hey! Huzzzah! I just had a thought the this video would finally be done and uploaded. Always a nice treat when long format content on youtube finally drops!
I owned and played this game all the way through when it first came out. I was in high school at the time. I threw out my old copy some years ago during a move, and just recently bought it back to put into my Big Box collection. I'm glad to have it again.
It was quite something to behold in 1991. Hearing digitized speech on my ancient 486SX was mindblowing at the time. Still surprised they managed to fit all that on a few floppy disks. Programmers these days with their bloated 100gb game installs could really learn a thing or two.
It's funny how I never played WC3 at all back in the day, despite getting WC4 eventually and enjoying it very much, so I'm looking forward to that video.
Love these vids! I bought & played these games when they came out in the early 90s. Yes using a joy stick was the key to improve targeting. Like others I played WC1 only using a keyboard which was not ideal. I didn't have internet so there were no helpful tips or cheats - Just slogging through each level failing most of the time, but learning new strategies. So frustrating & hard yet exhilarating when successful. I vote for you doing a video for Wing Commander 3. It was the first game in that era (that I'm aware of) with video cut scenes & real actors. I was blown away at how cool that was at the time. All I wanted to do was play WC at every opportunity. Thanks for the videos!
You may not have been as skilled with the joystick immediately, but your movements were much more precise, even in that first mission footage. I was able to pick it out easily.
I was wondering just the other day when we'd see a sequel to the Wing Commander retrospective, and lo and behold, here it is! Thanks! your retrospectives are really informative and interesting! May I live to see a Strike Commander retrospective one day. :)
Man... you could not believe it... but yesterday I was thinking "is there a videogame of Wing Commander?"... and I didn't even said it loud... and today... this... man I start to freaking out...
Amazing work! My first WC was part 3 on the 3DO back in the mid nineties and it blew my mind haha. Hopefully I get to see your take but I’ll plant myself down for the duration for whatever is next haha
The series turned more into a movie as it went on and became a less satisfying space sim. I always preferred the approach that the first game took: you're just a regular pilot hearing the events of a war relayed to you as you work through a campaign that dynamically changes based on your performance. All the sequels were almost completely linear and scripted. I think WC2 was the last one where the space sim part was still satisfying. I don't think the torpedo runs were a terribly fun mechanic though. To this day, the ONLY other space sim I ever played with a campaign that dynamic was Colony Wars for the Playstation 1. I definitely recommend hunting that down if you're interested in the genre.
I played WC1 with a mouse for a while. I quickly saved up for a joystick because the game was so awesome. But, it was definitely fun and playable with a mouse. It's wild to me to see this game running so fluidly. I was running it on a system that was barely adequate. Even the cut scenes ran at like, 5fps lol. Even the cockpit had reduced detail for me; I think the animated hand on the flight stick only shows up if you had more than the minimum amount of RAM.
Regarding the next video, perhaps you can also mention Wing Commander Academy. It's a somewhat small WC game where you customize a mission and then play it as you fly and fight ships that were featured in WC1 and WC2.
I love wing commander 2, I hated the rapier when I first played it but I practiced in it a tonne on wing commander academy and got really good at it. Once you learn how to fly it you do surprisingly well
Actually as far as I know Stealth is actually outrageous difficult to pull off in space, because well, ships put off ALOT of heat, there isn't exactly alot of hiding places in space and a variety of other reasons I forget about. So it's not THAT weird people don't believe that a stealth ship is possible. That being said this is a game with alien tigers and a general disregard for newtonian physics so whatever.
T.16000M? Good choice. Wish the joystick had more HATs, though. Likely not an issue in these early titles, but later games will find more use, I'm sure. I remember when that thing was only $120, pre-pandemic. I'd recommend grabbing a powered USB hub and put your HOTAS through that. Speaking from experience, since the fighting and beat'em up games I play with my gamepad go nuts from the constant inputs from my rudder pedals and throttle. Get a hub with buttons that let you turn specific ports off and on. Does wonders, and is a heck of a lot more convenient than constantly unplugging USB devices from the PC.
Replete with Mass Effect style hubs where you can free roam the Tiger's Claw, you make choices that completely change the plot and...oh, character creation? At the very least selectable player characters with different backstories, personalities and game starts?
Agreed. Would love to try these out well polished in Steam/GOG and for increasingly modern systems. Bonus in case the literary side material get rereleases so to follow on the hype.
Liking & Commenting to big up this kind of thing. Keep it up, these are great & there's loads of these like 90s space shooters to work your way through. Here's some of the ones I loved back in the day, & are well due a reappraisal... X-wing Alliance, Descent Freespace series, I war series, Freelancer, Tachyon, X series - Man, I played WAY too many of these, how did I ever find time?
5:40 BBS systems you could dial into to get files and such were a thing at the time so you could get patches that way, but the voice pack probably would not have been a download due to the file size. Though it is hard to say. 1991 is right in the middle of the shareware boom, and bbs owners are not too picky about copyright infringement. Copyrighted software or ways to remove copy protection are pretty easy to find on them.
It was always sticks for me, although it didn't start off as a big money splurge. My first home computer was a C64 and the external ports on those would take the old Atari joysticks. So those of us with little extra income would pillage Atari console joysticks for use on C64 flight sims and other things such as Sid Meier's Pirates. Although those Atari sticks would degrade rather quickly with use, including the single orange button, eventually requiring more applied strength. We'd take off the rubber stick cover to reduce the resistance a bit to counteract it. After going over to DOS, though, being able to raid old Atari sets in closets was out of the question. Using keyboard just didn't feel right and was clunky after using a joystick so long. Had to cough up some cash at that point to get compatible hardware.
So I guess the world's greatest space game, Tie Fighter, is next on the release list?? Great video, played the heck out of WC1 as a kid but only tried WC2 at a friend's for brief one mission sortie. Was always shocked the Tigers Claw was destroyed at the beginning.
Been so long. I started with Keyboard in WC1. At some point, pretty sure during WC1, I got a Joystick. Tried mouse and hated it. However there was a guy in WCHQ a message board on Prodigy that swore by the mouse.
@@tetsatou2815 I've only ever needed a replacement twice over like, 2 decades, and I do a LOT of flight sims on the couch with my husband on laptop. Trusty little thing, beat the game above with it! i get the HOTAS love though, needed one for Star Wars Squadrons. Some games just call for it.
>I was in 9th grade with this 1 and 2 came out. for reference, is ran smoothly on 365k RAM, a 16 ghz processor and EGA graphics (16 colors) I moved a pile of wood from a to b for 16 hours to buy 1. edited for typing while drinking
Brought back some Memories. And I think I can STILL see "holes" in your play. 1. First, you were not using the joystick "pivot" to align ships horizontally on the screen. This is important, you turn faster side to side than up down. 2. Because of this you weren't developing proper slides, which help hit the enemy is their SIDE Shields, this is killing Jakalthi 101, they have WEAK flanks. You want to "coast" by pointing AT them but flying 90 degrees to target. 3. I found a lot of the time using half the guns was better (most sustained fire, and you rarely hit with all of them anyway). Especialy the lasers. 4. I you CAN slide, Sabres are a LOT better. For one thing you CAN boost to a safe distance sometimes. 5. You were trying too hard to pull THROUGH the enemy ship. Better to keep the cursor ahead you miss less. 6. The one time you use all guns is with the stealth dudes. Oh, and the generic name for our hero is "Blair" (as in "blue hair").
Yeah I felt vindicated. When I was young I struggled a *LOT* on the Saber. I thought it was just me. It felt way easier to win the finale in a Broadsword than a Saber.
Grew up with these games. WC2 was a game out before HOTAS was really a thing so the way a lot of us played then were with a joystick and keyboard. Just having four way HAT stick on top was a big deal. Also comparison to X-Wing are great because I feel like those games really overshadowed the Wing Commander series but I always found WC to be better games overall
Not really, to me. I prefer to think the likes of X-Wing and especially TIE Fighter, FreeSpace 2, and maybe even Strike Commander have aged more phenomenally in modern systems and gaming perspectives and such, the same way System Shock 2 and Age of Empires II deservedly overshadowed their primitive predecessors.
The first time i used a flight stick was a year ago with t flight stick x on freespace 2 . I had to map alot of controls to voice commands as i found that easier than memorizing so many commands. It was a great experience the only downside is that freespace 2 has missions that require tight timing (Sathana) that really made the game frustrating.
@@michaelandreipalon359 I also didn't play any privateer. I played all the special missions in wc 1 and 2, as well as armanda, and WCIV: prophecy. But I do remember I don't like being treated as traitor. The story of WC II was very depressing for me. Losing shadow, spirit and so on of course did not help. I was looking for something like WC 1 where we fought valiantly and gloriously.
It would fit...Tanohaika Banzai, To preserve your honor and loyalty to the empire before death. If anything the Kilrathi would be Imperial Japan. It's more in trench warfare, not as often as you might think, where in a last ditch effort to sway a losing battle Spirit may as well do this. And odds are her thoughts were on her fiance.
Here I would like to talk about Hobbes’ character design. ===== SPOILER ===== Judging from the script of WC2 and the official companion novel Freedom Flight, I think Hobbes is in a sense a good and light version of Jazz. (And Jazz is a evil and dark version of Hobbes.) Hobbes' family attempted to evacuate from their home during a human retaliation attack, but came under friendly fire. This may be an important opportunity for him to be turned by the Ghorah Khar rebels and join the independence movement. Even before that, he was disappointed with the war that had been stuck in the quagmire for many years, and was dissatisfied with the dishonorable actions of the empire (so he saved Downtown).
So this character actually brings us to the question, how exactly is Hobbes different from Jazz? Is Hobbes as much of a despicable and shameful traitor in the eyes of the Imperial soldiers as Jazz is in the eyes of the humans? There's also a soldier mutiny incident in WC2 that further invites us to think about it. There are groups of humans who choose to defect to the Empire, while some of the Kilrathi choose to join the Confederation. So, the question slowly emerges, what is honor, loyalty and betrayal? How do people's ideas change under the weight of a long war? Although not perfect, WC2 lays out a good sci-fi war story pattern. Many of the characters have very good first half of arcs. I think the WC2 sequel story would have been fantastic if it could continue at this pace. But in WC3, the next work of this IP, the team has changed such a lot, from screenwriter to art design, and the story of Hobbes has been forcibly rewritten thus we have to face a different character named “Hobbes”. This is very disappointing to me.
good video but I have 3 technical notes tow of which you should find helpful especially if you plan on doing video's on the expansion, first on torpedo runs in the dos version to speed up the shield regeneration time for the broadsword you can tell the game to "skip frames" which speeds up the game by holding CTRL and pressing + or -, the range is 0-5 if you set it to 5 it will take 18 seconds to recharge you shields but don't try to do anything else until you set it back to 0. this is different than the frame rate which you can control by holding ALT and + or - because instead of changing the frame render interval it actually just never rendered the ones that are skipped. these keys were added in WC1 expansions and are in the second game and its expansion. Second your issue with the accuracy of the flight stick is mostly caused by a dos box setting in the GOG version I have the same flight stick and this is an issue with all GOG games and most flight stick. with that model in the dos box configuration where it says "joystick=auto" change it to "joystick=fcs" and several issues including accuracy, a much smaller dead zone, and centering drift, the downside being it wont work as well with the thumbstick on a gamepad unless you change it back. For every one else in WC1 and WC1 you shouldn't need to use the HOTAS software to use the stick it should just work unless you want to add more than the 4 buttons on the top of main joystick, for 3 you need it if you have the throttle expansion or again want to map more buttons, but by default the 4 buttons on the top, the hat and the built in throttle on the base of the joystick should work without mapping.
In gaming market the big problem of selling these games is that the “pool of audience” is “hidden” in the modern market (meaning nobody big spend money to risk it) and that tends to be “niche” (so the expense is balanced by a smaller audience, meaning even more risk). There is also a problem that games are “hybridising” more and more: so action games, even linear one, features vehicles gameplay (call of duty infinite warfare, that copied ace combat assault horizon gameplay for it’s flight missions) So a big game where a player only plays the space part can be perceived as a reduced experience.
1:31:23 - Now that we are this far in, can I just say, that smug as looking blonde guy background character they keep using to fill out the crowd? Everytime I see him he stands out to me a ton. XD
For whatever reason I just assumed that guy was Dallas, all the way up until I noticed in editing that he kept showing up after Dallas' death. The name just fits, y'know?
Are you putting any links in your comments? I've noticed that comments with links sometimes seem to get auto-deleted without warning. I'm not deliberately removing any comments and I don't see any in the "Held for review" tab.
(Joysticks) Hope you read comments lol. Really old games like this don't have HOTAS support, they didn't exist yet. It was played Right hand on stick and left hand on keyboard. Newer Sims like X-Wing vs Tie Fighter and Freespace do have HOTAS support BUT they pre-date USB and had PCI Slots. The Throttle plugged into the joystick then into the computer by one PCI cable. That means you have to use software to make it think two USBs are actually one joystick plugged into PCI (kinda a bitch) If you just plug in only the Joystick most games should recognize it without issue. You should be able to bind controls without needed any external software. I recommend getting Elite Dangerous (when on sale) It's a modern Space Sim and it recognizes everything. Plug and play no 3rd party software. Also, most people buy a $8 USB Hub, makes it easier to unplug/plug stuff as needed.
I'm thinking that getting these games to work and their ports, and adjusting to the jank are probably taking a good amount of production time. The onky thing that I can think of is that some of these channels are not writing full scripts, but instead outlines and just talking off the top of their heads. That can cause things to be missed since you can look at the script multiple times before recording.
The most time consuming bit of setup was getting that god-forsaken FM Towns OS to recognize a hard drive volume so I could install the game, but even that was only an afternoon and a half or so of work. Setting up the games and playing them accounts for a tiny fraction of the overall time spent, small enough to not really be worth caring about at all. The vast overwhelming majority is taken up by writing the script and then editing the the video. Talking off of a prompt is something I considered, but it would only work for a very different (much more casual, shorter, less polished) kind of video. It's just not possible to make a video like mine or those of the channels I highlighted without a script. The video editing I can chalk up to simple inexperience - I've only done it 3 times now, heh. As for the script, I've always been a "slow writer", and I'm not really sure what to do about that other than just write more often. That may end up being the trick: just keep doing it, and maybe keep to shorter videos until I get better enough at it that I can do longer ones in a reasonable timeframe. Sorry to lay all that on you. Hopefully it's at least interesting to get a bit of a look at the process.
Here I would like to talk about Hobbes’ character design. ===== SPOILER ===== Judging from the script of WC2 and the official companion novel Freedom Flight, I think Hobbes is in a sense a good and light version of Jazz. (And Jazz is a evil and dark version of Hobbes.) Hobbes' family attempted to evacuate from their home during a human retaliation attack, but came under friendly fire. This may be an important opportunity for him to be turned by the Ghorah Khar rebels and join the independence movement. Even before that, he was disappointed with the war that had been stuck in the quagmire for many years, and was dissatisfied with the dishonorable actions of the empire (so he saved Downtown). Not to mention the possible political conflict of interest between his family and the Emperor's sorry . As we can see from the novel, it is surprising that a family with such a noble pedigree would have to sorry suffer like that, and Hobbes, after years of serving as a ship's captain, has only one young retainer from his home world at his side that he can trust. These are inconsistent with his lineage. So this character actually brings us to the question, how exactly is Hobbes different from Jazz? Is Hobbes as much of a despicable and shameful traitor in the eyes of the Imperial soldiers as Jazz is in the eyes of the humans? There's also a soldier mutiny incident in WC2 that further invites us to think about it. There are groups of humans who choose to defect to the Empire, while some of the Kilrathi choose to join the Confederation. So, the question slowly emerges, what is honor, loyalty and betrayal? How do people's ideas change under the weight of a long war? Although not perfect, WC2 lays out a good sci-fi war story pattern. Many of the characters have very good first half of arcs. I think the WC2 sequel story would have been fantastic if it could continue at this pace. But in WC3, the next work of this IP, the team has changed such a lot, from screenwriter to art design, and the story of Hobbes has been forcibly rewritten thus we have to face a different character named “Hobbes”. This is very disappointing to me.
Wing Commander 2 came out a year after...I didn't expect that for a Chris Robert game....
"He had minimal involvement"
Ah that explain it.
Guy's the space flight combat sim Peter Molyneux, I'll give him that.
@@michaelandreipalon359 Peter at least released a game.
@@BenCarverGraphicsOh, yes, the first Fable. Really good game despite the occasional quirks.
Hobbs, the Kilrathy defector is named HOBBS! I just got that 40+ years later! If I ever play wing Commander again, my callsign is going to be Calvin.
It is recommended to read Freedom Flight novel, which has more of Hobbes' story.
However, I don’t recommend "Hobbes" stories in other works of this IP because I don’t think they have the same Hobbes.
Wow. It's been over 20 years and I NEVER made that connection. I was obsessed with Garfield at that age...
I remember being SO EXCITED when this came out, since I loved the first one so much. I had a 386/33 with a Gravis Joystick and I was READY. I didn't have a CD-ROM at the time, though, so it came on about a million floppy disks. So many great memories. The cinematic quality of the cutscenes was really unprecedented for computer games at the time. Can't wait for your next video!
Awesome that there's still people making videos about these old DOS games!
I wasn’t sure this day would come! Congratulations on the newest video. Can’t wait to sit down and watch it. WCII is an absolute favorite of mine.
Although not perfect, WC2 lays out a good sci-fi war story pattern. Many of the characters have very good first half of arcs. I think the WC2 sequel story would have been fantastic if it could continue at this pace.
I really like how you weave the gameplay and story analysis together over the course of the video. It's really engaging. Keep up the great work!
Enjoyed this trip down memory lane. When I was teenager I used to replay WC1 & 2 over and over again. What I wouldn't give to see these games re-made in the Freelancer engine.
Remastering is fine. Remaking would ruin the nuance.
Didn’t remember the swagger of Paladin’s outfit from back in the time I played the game. This rivals the Jake Sisko outfits of early DS9 😂.
About "the sci-fi last resort things", in original Macross anime, humanity is overwhelmed by sudden alien invasion, immediately starting to loose, trying to use repaired alien super ship, it's brokes down and then they trying to use ship's teleportation device and it's makes the whole situation so much worse. And this is only the begging of the series!
And then it culminates with... nah, I'm not gonna spoil that tragedy.
Either way, Macross is one surprisingly gripping expanded storyline (at least, excluding II and Delta), and it really sucked that we got Robotech back in the day instead.
Great video. I never played Wing Commander 2 when I was a kid. After beating the first Wing Commander my parents were going to buy Wing Commander 2, but we saw X-Wing and decided to buy that instead. I never regretted the choice but after watching this video, I think it would have been a pretty fun game to play back in the day.
Can agree that buying X-Wing instead is the better choice. Still, TIE Fighter beats it by many, many margins.
Glad you're continuing with this. I hope this video also does well, tho I hear the Algorithm doesn't like long breaks between videos.
@1:20:00 or so, I've noticed you don't do a lot of rolling in these clips. From my recollection, the key to utilizing the wider-spread cannons was rolling to align with the wide axis of the targets.
Hobbs is such a good friend. I hope he never turns his back on Blair.
WC2 Hobbes is indeed a good friend of Blair. WC2 Hobbes does NOT turn his back on Blair.
This is for the algorithm gods! Good to see this project still going strong. Cant wait to see what the next title is going to be. Doing these large projects takes time. Other people who actually cover long formate projects like this take a fair amount of time. These projects aren't quick to make.
As someone whose been watching Ross Scott since I was in highschool and am now in my mid 30's, I'm used to slow uploads, lol.
YAY! this came out. Glad to see it. The joystick to gamepad comparison was interesting Nice to see that either way works well enough. Sorry i wasn't able to fund the entire flight stick then.
Yeah, the 'Cant fire while turning' thing was something I ran into playing Earthsiege 2 as well.
Emblematic of gaming controls at the time I suppose.
First boxed PC game I owned, 4 floppy disks, ahh the nostalgia :) And yeah, didn't have a SoundBlaster so I played with farts for explosions and no music or dialogue xD Also played with keyboard input and the biggest hurdle was that you had to stop turning to shoot as keyboard wouldn't accept multiple keys pressed at the same time, the final bossfight was really annoying because of that.
Also regarding flak I've found that rolling through the attack run seems to mitigate some of the damage. But since so many years have passed can't tell if it was true or just confirmation bias on my part.
Funny coincidence; the exact moment when I finally registered the meaning of a tiger named "Hobbes" was about thirty seconds before you put the "Calvin And-" character onscreen.
When I first played WC2, decades ago, I actually did not realize that there were story-related interludes behind one of the airlocks. I thought that the entire narrative was conveyed through the missions, pre-mission conversations, and in-mission cutscenes. That I still had no problems following the story and didn’t even notice that part of it was missing just reinforced how extraneous the airlock segments were.
20:50. Re: the Ferret. I was pleasantly surprised by how capable it was. Certainly, it was way better than the Hornet and Scimitar from the first game. For one thing, its “Gatling mass drivers” fired extremely rapidly and didn’t take long to recharge. It could pump out such a stream of projectiles that even heavy fighters like the Jalkehi could be easily downed with a well placed volley. In fact, I found the Ferret more deadly against Jalkehi than Sartha and Drakhri just because of how easily you could hit the heavier ship. Flying a Super Ferret against heavy fighters, in Special Operations, didn’t feel nearly as onerous as flying a Hornet against a Gratha, in Secret Missions. The Ferret was at least a glass cannon. Can’t take hits but can really dish out the damage.
A later game using the same engine as WC2, Wing Commander Academy, allowed you to select any Terran ship from WC2 and fly it against increasingly powerful waves of enemies. One of my highest scores in that game was in a Ferret, surpassed only by my performance in a Broadsword. I think a large part of what made those ships so effective was the increased rate of fire of mass drivers.
Awesome to see another WC video from you. Great work once again!
I grew up playing WC 1, 2 & Privateer on my 486 with keyboard and cheap gameport joysticks. I've always liked using joysticks for arcade flight games and mech sims, but I didn't always have / have a working one, so I played my share keyboard only too. Gamepads and thumbsticks just feel like wrong to me when it comes to flight and/or sim games (really felt this trying out Ace Combat) but for games like WC and Crimson Skies, I think it really does just come down to what the player is most comfortable with using. Definitely a classic WC thing to have such imprecise turning regardless of input method though!
Lets gooooooo! Been waiting on this since episode 1 was a few weeks old.
Been looking forward to this one! I don't have much experience with Wing Commander 2, as I spent more time trying to get through the first game when I started playing the series. I'm encouraged it another shot after watching this retrospective.
I'm glad your brought up the original screenplay when discussing the plot, as well as the reality of making a game story work when there are so many moving parts. I think it's an aspect of game development that's often overlooked when people complain about the linearity and restrictions of "cinematic" games. It certainly explains the messiness of Wing Commander 2's story, seeing how much has cut or changed.
I was soo happy too see this pop up. I love the idea of this series and you're doing a marvelous job. Can't wait for the next one. If you need to do a short one, there's always Wing Commander Academy.
It's cocaine!
They did charge for the voice pack but I recall some sound cards coming with it as part of the packed in software to try out the new product. It’s crazy to think of these days but before gamers were obsessed with crazy expensive GPUs, we had to beg our parents to buy us a sound card for the family PC.
This changed a couple years later with the rise of the CD-ROM, as it was very common for the CD-ROM controller card to also be a sound card. Within a couple years every PC had one but in 92 it was a lot rarer
Oh hey! Huzzzah! I just had a thought the this video would finally be done and uploaded. Always a nice treat when long format content on youtube finally drops!
I owned and played this game all the way through when it first came out. I was in high school at the time. I threw out my old copy some years ago during a move, and just recently bought it back to put into my Big Box collection. I'm glad to have it again.
It was quite something to behold in 1991. Hearing digitized speech on my ancient 486SX was mindblowing at the time. Still surprised they managed to fit all that on a few floppy disks. Programmers these days with their bloated 100gb game installs could really learn a thing or two.
Only a few scenes come with speech. 🙂
Yes it was
@@wcfan4644true that didn’t make it any less impressive at the time. Also all comes had speech through the game
This is something else, again. Great stuff. I greedily hope for WC3 and WC4 documentaries of this quality.
Taking me right back to junior high. I loved this game.
We did it! I know it was hard work making this. But it was harder work waiting for it 😊
1:00:50 - Remember this for the WC3 retrospective.
Oh, definitely
It's funny how I never played WC3 at all back in the day, despite getting WC4 eventually and enjoying it very much, so I'm looking forward to that video.
@@bluespaceman7937 I had trouble running it so I had to play it on Playstation. Interestingly, the PS1 version has an extra scene in it.
Wellcome back, Wing commander!
We need something like this in a remake.
Said by the man himself. Peter Cullen.
Can't wait to go through this banger, much love
Love these vids! I bought & played these games when they came out in the early 90s. Yes using a joy stick was the key to improve targeting. Like others I played WC1 only using a keyboard which was not ideal. I didn't have internet so there were no helpful tips or cheats - Just slogging through each level failing most of the time, but learning new strategies. So frustrating & hard yet exhilarating when successful.
I vote for you doing a video for Wing Commander 3. It was the first game in that era (that I'm aware of) with video cut scenes & real actors. I was blown away at how cool that was at the time. All I wanted to do was play WC at every opportunity. Thanks for the videos!
Late to the party, but happy to see you upload a new video! Thank you for your hard work.
You may not have been as skilled with the joystick immediately, but your movements were much more precise, even in that first mission footage.
I was able to pick it out easily.
I was wondering just the other day when we'd see a sequel to the Wing Commander retrospective, and lo and behold, here it is! Thanks! your retrospectives are really informative and interesting!
May I live to see a Strike Commander retrospective one day. :)
Man... you could not believe it... but yesterday I was thinking "is there a videogame of Wing Commander?"... and I didn't even said it loud... and today... this... man I start to freaking out...
Amazing work! My first WC was part 3 on the 3DO back in the mid nineties and it blew my mind haha. Hopefully I get to see your take but I’ll plant myself down for the duration for whatever is next haha
I absolutely love your stuff. You've got a great sense of humor.
Enjoyable and well thought out, as I've come to expect from your work. Good job.
Looking forward to seeing which game wins the poll for next retrospective.
The series turned more into a movie as it went on and became a less satisfying space sim. I always preferred the approach that the first game took: you're just a regular pilot hearing the events of a war relayed to you as you work through a campaign that dynamically changes based on your performance. All the sequels were almost completely linear and scripted. I think WC2 was the last one where the space sim part was still satisfying. I don't think the torpedo runs were a terribly fun mechanic though.
To this day, the ONLY other space sim I ever played with a campaign that dynamic was Colony Wars for the Playstation 1. I definitely recommend hunting that down if you're interested in the genre.
I played WC1 with a mouse for a while. I quickly saved up for a joystick because the game was so awesome. But, it was definitely fun and playable with a mouse.
It's wild to me to see this game running so fluidly. I was running it on a system that was barely adequate. Even the cut scenes ran at like, 5fps lol. Even the cockpit had reduced detail for me; I think the animated hand on the flight stick only shows up if you had more than the minimum amount of RAM.
I hope one day you do Strike Commander. Such an awesome game too.
Wonder if he'll say if the game's a noticeably marked improvement over the older WC games?
Regarding the next video, perhaps you can also mention Wing Commander Academy. It's a somewhat small WC game where you customize a mission and then play it as you fly and fight ships that were featured in WC1 and WC2.
I love wing commander 2, I hated the rapier when I first played it but I practiced in it a tonne on wing commander academy and got really good at it. Once you learn how to fly it you do surprisingly well
My only experience with Wing Commander was the SNES version then WC 3 for PS1 but i still love it to this day
This is my favorite series on UA-cam
Incidentally, if you have the desire to fiddle with the WC Armada game for schmitts and giggles... I have the CD lying around here somewhere...
Finally! Welcome back!
Actually as far as I know Stealth is actually outrageous difficult to pull off in space, because well, ships put off ALOT of heat, there isn't exactly alot of hiding places in space and a variety of other reasons I forget about. So it's not THAT weird people don't believe that a stealth ship is possible.
That being said this is a game with alien tigers and a general disregard for newtonian physics so whatever.
I need to replay this series again. They don't make them like this anymore.
T.16000M? Good choice. Wish the joystick had more HATs, though. Likely not an issue in these early titles, but later games will find more use, I'm sure. I remember when that thing was only $120, pre-pandemic.
I'd recommend grabbing a powered USB hub and put your HOTAS through that. Speaking from experience, since the fighting and beat'em up games I play with my gamepad go nuts from the constant inputs from my rudder pedals and throttle.
Get a hub with buttons that let you turn specific ports off and on. Does wonders, and is a heck of a lot more convenient than constantly unplugging USB devices from the PC.
I wish WC 1, 2, and 3 would get remasters
Replete with Mass Effect style hubs where you can free roam the Tiger's Claw, you make choices that completely change the plot and...oh, character creation? At the very least selectable player characters with different backstories, personalities and game starts?
Agreed. Would love to try these out well polished in Steam/GOG and for increasingly modern systems. Bonus in case the literary side material get rereleases so to follow on the hype.
@@tsstevenstsThat's a remake, and a way too ambitious one at that.
Liking & Commenting to big up this kind of thing. Keep it up, these are great & there's loads of these like 90s space shooters to work your way through.
Here's some of the ones I loved back in the day, & are well due a reappraisal...
X-wing Alliance, Descent Freespace series, I war series, Freelancer, Tachyon, X series - Man, I played WAY too many of these, how did I ever find time?
Fantastic work, this was epic.
5:40 BBS systems you could dial into to get files and such were a thing at the time so you could get patches that way, but the voice pack probably would not have been a download due to the file size. Though it is hard to say. 1991 is right in the middle of the shareware boom, and bbs owners are not too picky about copyright infringement. Copyrighted software or ways to remove copy protection are pretty easy to find on them.
Automatons do walk among us so I wouldn't be surprised.
It was always sticks for me, although it didn't start off as a big money splurge. My first home computer was a C64 and the external ports on those would take the old Atari joysticks. So those of us with little extra income would pillage Atari console joysticks for use on C64 flight sims and other things such as Sid Meier's Pirates. Although those Atari sticks would degrade rather quickly with use, including the single orange button, eventually requiring more applied strength. We'd take off the rubber stick cover to reduce the resistance a bit to counteract it. After going over to DOS, though, being able to raid old Atari sets in closets was out of the question. Using keyboard just didn't feel right and was clunky after using a joystick so long. Had to cough up some cash at that point to get compatible hardware.
So I guess the world's greatest space game, Tie Fighter, is next on the release list?? Great video, played the heck out of WC1 as a kid but only tried WC2 at a friend's for brief one mission sortie. Was always shocked the Tigers Claw was destroyed at the beginning.
Love TIE Fighter too, but even I think that honorific is debatable, since FreeSpace 2 is a thing.
Great show :) Cant wait for 3-5 ^^
Been so long. I started with Keyboard in WC1. At some point, pretty sure during WC1, I got a Joystick. Tried mouse and hated it. However there was a guy in WCHQ a message board on Prodigy that swore by the mouse.
It's funny you mention the joysticks. I used a Logitech Extreme 3D for most of my life, still love it.
Logitech Xtreme 3D will outlive the sun.
@@tetsatou2815 I've only ever needed a replacement twice over like, 2 decades, and I do a LOT of flight sims on the couch with my husband on laptop. Trusty little thing, beat the game above with it!
i get the HOTAS love though, needed one for Star Wars Squadrons. Some games just call for it.
Great to see you made more videos
Damn I can't wait for eventual Freespace videos that is gonna be epic .
I never did play any of the mainline Wing Commander games, but 12 year old me bought a joystick for Privateer.
>I was in 9th grade with this 1 and 2 came out. for reference, is ran smoothly on 365k RAM, a 16 ghz processor and EGA graphics (16 colors) I moved a pile of wood from a to b for 16 hours to buy 1.
edited for typing while drinking
Excited to watch this!
Brought back some Memories. And I think I can STILL see "holes" in your play.
1. First, you were not using the joystick "pivot" to align ships horizontally on the screen. This is important, you turn faster side to side than up down.
2. Because of this you weren't developing proper slides, which help hit the enemy is their SIDE Shields, this is killing Jakalthi 101, they have WEAK flanks. You want to "coast" by pointing AT them but flying 90 degrees to target.
3. I found a lot of the time using half the guns was better (most sustained fire, and you rarely hit with all of them anyway). Especialy the lasers.
4. I you CAN slide, Sabres are a LOT better. For one thing you CAN boost to a safe distance sometimes.
5. You were trying too hard to pull THROUGH the enemy ship. Better to keep the cursor ahead you miss less.
6. The one time you use all guns is with the stealth dudes.
Oh, and the generic name for our hero is "Blair" (as in "blue hair").
Seriously lol Majuular is a legit wizard
Loved 2. I found this the most difficult combat of the whole franchise. 😅
Yeah I felt vindicated. When I was young I struggled a *LOT* on the Saber. I thought it was just me. It felt way easier to win the finale in a Broadsword than a Saber.
Grew up with these games. WC2 was a game out before HOTAS was really a thing so the way a lot of us played then were with a joystick and keyboard. Just having four way HAT stick on top was a big deal.
Also comparison to X-Wing are great because I feel like those games really overshadowed the Wing Commander series but I always found WC to be better games overall
Not really, to me. I prefer to think the likes of X-Wing and especially TIE Fighter, FreeSpace 2, and maybe even Strike Commander have aged more phenomenally in modern systems and gaming perspectives and such, the same way System Shock 2 and Age of Empires II deservedly overshadowed their primitive predecessors.
Waiting for the WC III appearance of Mark "The Best Joker" Hamil
The first time i used a flight stick was a year ago with t flight stick x on freespace 2 . I had to map alot of controls to voice commands as i found that easier than memorizing so many commands. It was a great experience the only downside is that freespace 2 has missions that require tight timing (Sathana) that really made the game frustrating.
Great video, i love it!
I can't wait to hear about freespace
:)
After all the wing commander, strike commander will be good too. I played that game through as well, although it isn't space. :P
Hmm, how do you rank it among the Wing Commander games, may I ask?
@@michaelandreipalon359 You mean WC II in the whole WC series? I haven't played WC III and IV. So I'm not a good one to tell.
@@michaelandreipalon359 I also didn't play any privateer. I played all the special missions in wc 1 and 2, as well as armanda, and WCIV: prophecy.
But I do remember I don't like being treated as traitor. The story of WC II was very depressing for me. Losing shadow, spirit and so on of course did not help.
I was looking for something like WC 1 where we fought valiantly and gloriously.
RE: The death of Spirit all I can say is , "Can I get a "BANZAI!!"
It would fit...Tanohaika Banzai, To preserve your honor and loyalty to the empire before death. If anything the Kilrathi would be Imperial Japan. It's more in trench warfare, not as often as you might think, where in a last ditch effort to sway a losing battle Spirit may as well do this. And odds are her thoughts were on her fiance.
I played with a mouse....then and now. Playing with a squirrelly control system against squirrelly enemies will put hair on your chest.
Here I would like to talk about Hobbes’ character design.
===== SPOILER =====
Judging from the script of WC2 and the official companion novel Freedom Flight, I think Hobbes is in a sense a good and light version of Jazz. (And Jazz is a evil and dark version of Hobbes.)
Hobbes' family attempted to evacuate from their home during a human retaliation attack, but came under friendly fire. This may be an important opportunity for him to be turned by the Ghorah Khar rebels and join the independence movement. Even before that, he was disappointed with the war that had been stuck in the quagmire for many years, and was dissatisfied with the dishonorable actions of the empire (so he saved Downtown).
So this character actually brings us to the question, how exactly is Hobbes different from Jazz? Is Hobbes as much of a despicable and shameful traitor in the eyes of the Imperial soldiers as Jazz is in the eyes of the humans?
There's also a soldier mutiny incident in WC2 that further invites us to think about it. There are groups of humans who choose to defect to the Empire, while some of the Kilrathi choose to join the Confederation.
So, the question slowly emerges, what is honor, loyalty and betrayal? How do people's ideas change under the weight of a long war?
Although not perfect, WC2 lays out a good sci-fi war story pattern. Many of the characters have very good first half of arcs. I think the WC2 sequel story would have been fantastic if it could continue at this pace.
But in WC3, the next work of this IP, the team has changed such a lot, from screenwriter to art design, and the story of Hobbes has been forcibly rewritten thus we have to face a different character named “Hobbes”. This is very disappointing to me.
Ha, the game is from ‘92 and your partner is a tiger… named Hobbes.
Cleaver girl.
Fantastic!
good video but I have 3 technical notes tow of which you should find helpful especially if you plan on doing video's on the expansion, first on torpedo runs in the dos version to speed up the shield regeneration time for the broadsword you can tell the game to "skip frames" which speeds up the game by holding CTRL and pressing + or -, the range is 0-5 if you set it to 5 it will take 18 seconds to recharge you shields but don't try to do anything else until you set it back to 0. this is different than the frame rate which you can control by holding ALT and + or - because instead of changing the frame render interval it actually just never rendered the ones that are skipped. these keys were added in WC1 expansions and are in the second game and its expansion. Second your issue with the accuracy of the flight stick is mostly caused by a dos box setting in the GOG version I have the same flight stick and this is an issue with all GOG games and most flight stick. with that model in the dos box configuration where it says "joystick=auto" change it to "joystick=fcs" and several issues including accuracy, a much smaller dead zone, and centering drift, the downside being it wont work as well with the thumbstick on a gamepad unless you change it back. For every one else in WC1 and WC1 you shouldn't need to use the HOTAS software to use the stick it should just work unless you want to add more than the 4 buttons on the top of main joystick, for 3 you need it if you have the throttle expansion or again want to map more buttons, but by default the 4 buttons on the top, the hat and the built in throttle on the base of the joystick should work without mapping.
Are you going to do a Wing Commander 3 and 4 videos as well?
Provided I get that far, yes!
Can't wait for Privateer!
My biggest regret is we don't get to fly with any of the 3 magnificent facial hair donning pilots at 1:59:38
In gaming market the big problem of selling these games is that the “pool of audience” is “hidden” in the modern market (meaning nobody big spend money to risk it) and that tends to be “niche” (so the expense is balanced by a smaller audience, meaning even more risk).
There is also a problem that games are “hybridising” more and more: so action games, even linear one, features vehicles gameplay (call of duty infinite warfare, that copied ace combat assault horizon gameplay for it’s flight missions)
So a big game where a player only plays the space part can be perceived as a reduced experience.
1:31:23 - Now that we are this far in, can I just say, that smug as looking blonde guy background character they keep using to fill out the crowd? Everytime I see him he stands out to me a ton. XD
Guess he should become memetic because of it.
For whatever reason I just assumed that guy was Dallas, all the way up until I noticed in editing that he kept showing up after Dallas' death. The name just fits, y'know?
1:28:40 Was... was that a dig at Sierra?
Awesome!!!
Here I would like to talk about Hobbes’ character design. (Sorry, not sure why my comments are automatically removed.)
Are you putting any links in your comments? I've noticed that comments with links sometimes seem to get auto-deleted without warning. I'm not deliberately removing any comments and I don't see any in the "Held for review" tab.
I probably blame the occasional Server 404 error. Apparently, those activate if you said something... quite offensive even when you didn't intend any.
(Joysticks) Hope you read comments lol.
Really old games like this don't have HOTAS support, they didn't exist yet.
It was played Right hand on stick and left hand on keyboard.
Newer Sims like X-Wing vs Tie Fighter and Freespace do have HOTAS support BUT they pre-date USB and had PCI Slots.
The Throttle plugged into the joystick then into the computer by one PCI cable.
That means you have to use software to make it think two USBs are actually one joystick plugged into PCI (kinda a bitch)
If you just plug in only the Joystick most games should recognize it without issue. You should be able to bind controls without needed any external software.
I recommend getting Elite Dangerous (when on sale)
It's a modern Space Sim and it recognizes everything. Plug and play no 3rd party software.
Also, most people buy a $8 USB Hub, makes it easier to unplug/plug stuff as needed.
I'm thinking that getting these games to work and their ports, and adjusting to the jank are probably taking a good amount of production time. The onky thing that I can think of is that some of these channels are not writing full scripts, but instead outlines and just talking off the top of their heads. That can cause things to be missed since you can look at the script multiple times before recording.
The most time consuming bit of setup was getting that god-forsaken FM Towns OS to recognize a hard drive volume so I could install the game, but even that was only an afternoon and a half or so of work. Setting up the games and playing them accounts for a tiny fraction of the overall time spent, small enough to not really be worth caring about at all.
The vast overwhelming majority is taken up by writing the script and then editing the the video. Talking off of a prompt is something I considered, but it would only work for a very different (much more casual, shorter, less polished) kind of video. It's just not possible to make a video like mine or those of the channels I highlighted without a script.
The video editing I can chalk up to simple inexperience - I've only done it 3 times now, heh. As for the script, I've always been a "slow writer", and I'm not really sure what to do about that other than just write more often.
That may end up being the trick: just keep doing it, and maybe keep to shorter videos until I get better enough at it that I can do longer ones in a reasonable timeframe.
Sorry to lay all that on you. Hopefully it's at least interesting to get a bit of a look at the process.
Can I expect Wing Commander III anytime soon? 😀
ah hell yeah, WC2
Here I would like to talk about Hobbes’ character design.
===== SPOILER =====
Judging from the script of WC2 and the official companion novel Freedom Flight, I think Hobbes is in a sense a good and light version of Jazz. (And Jazz is a evil and dark version of Hobbes.)
Hobbes' family attempted to evacuate from their home during a human retaliation attack, but came under friendly fire. This may be an important opportunity for him to be turned by the Ghorah Khar rebels and join the independence movement. Even before that, he was disappointed with the war that had been stuck in the quagmire for many years, and was dissatisfied with the dishonorable actions of the empire (so he saved Downtown). Not to mention the possible political conflict of interest between his family and the Emperor's sorry . As we can see from the novel, it is surprising that a family with such a noble pedigree would have to sorry suffer like that, and Hobbes, after years of serving as a ship's captain, has only one young retainer from his home world at his side that he can trust. These are inconsistent with his lineage.
So this character actually brings us to the question, how exactly is Hobbes different from Jazz? Is Hobbes as much of a despicable and shameful traitor in the eyes of the Imperial soldiers as Jazz is in the eyes of the humans?
There's also a soldier mutiny incident in WC2 that further invites us to think about it. There are groups of humans who choose to defect to the Empire, while some of the Kilrathi choose to join the Confederation.
So, the question slowly emerges, what is honor, loyalty and betrayal? How do people's ideas change under the weight of a long war?
Although not perfect, WC2 lays out a good sci-fi war story pattern. Many of the characters have very good first half of arcs. I think the WC2 sequel story would have been fantastic if it could continue at this pace.
But in WC3, the next work of this IP, the team has changed such a lot, from screenwriter to art design, and the story of Hobbes has been forcibly rewritten thus we have to face a different character named “Hobbes”. This is very disappointing to me.