Wing Commander

[Tweed]

After eating shit hard in a fight against a few Dralthi near the beginning of the mission and losing half my guns, I still managed to complete the objective of destroying a Dorkir in a spectacular manner by ordering my wingman to attack it while somehow dodging the 8 other kilrathi in the area and then escaping through an asteroid field. But then I get back to the Tiger's Claw and the colonel just insults me and told me I flew like a retard. What a motherfucker. I deserve some praise.

Wait till you have to start taking down multiple Ralari with full Krant escorts with Jalthi backups. You're going to learn all about exploiting how WC spawns enemy wings. In fact, sports and capships will be the least of your worries in most cases.

 

[LarryTyphoid]

Finished WC1's base campaign. Great game. Didn't overstay its welcome, either. Having a flight stick made it a lot more fun in the end. In the meantime I've discovered other cool-looking space sims to play like Space Rogue and Descent. I might skip WC2 so I can check out those live-action cutscenes in 3 and 4. I'll play the expansions eventually too.

Wait till you have to start taking down multiple Ralari with full Krant escorts with Jalthi backups. You're going to learn all about exploiting how WC spawns enemy wings. In fact, sports and capships will be the least of your worries in most cases.

This wasn't a problem in the base game. A lot of the time I'd just pump the big ship with missiles to kill it fast as I can, then boost my way out of there, ignoring the escorts. In fact the final mission even encourages you to do that; I didn't take out a single ship on the final mission, only the star core.

 

[HeroMarine]

I'll play the expansions eventually too.

Yeah. Wing Commander's secret missions are solid and the story/cutscenes are pretty cool. If you liked the base game, you'll have a ton of fun with them.

 

[Tweed]

Finished WC1's base campaign. Great game. Didn't overstay its welcome, either. Having a flight stick made it a lot more fun in the end. In the meantime I've discovered other cool-looking space sims to play like Space Rogue and Descent. I might skip WC2 so I can check out those live-action cutscenes in 3 and 4. I'll play the expansions eventually too.

Wait till you have to start taking down multiple Ralari with full Krant escorts with Jalthi backups. You're going to learn all about exploiting how WC spawns enemy wings. In fact, sports and capships will be the least of your worries in most cases.

This wasn't a problem in the base game. A lot of the time I'd just pump the big ship with missiles to kill it fast as I can, then boost my way out of there, ignoring the escorts. In fact the final mission even encourages you to do that; I didn't take out a single ship on the final mission, only the star core.

The expansions are what I meant, get ready for a serious challenge.

 

[AndyS]

Finished WC1's base campaign. Great game. Didn't overstay its welcome, either. Having a flight stick made it a lot more fun in the end. In the meantime I've discovered other cool-looking space sims to play like Space Rogue and Descent.

Descent is more like an FPS in which you happen to be piloting a flying machine. It's a good game, although it's one that starts great and gradually trails off until you get to the end. Space Rogue is interesting. I believe it's one of Paul Neurath's first games.

 

[LarryTyphoid]

Damn, the expansions really are kicking my ass. It feels like luck whether or not my wingman actually does anything worthwhile in a fight. It takes forever to kill anything when all you've got are the laser guns.

 

[LarryTyphoid]

So I defended two ships full of marines against a shit ton of enemies, and it was a tough mission. I go back to the Tiger's Claw and Blair tells the colonel that the entire convoy was destroyed. The nav point at which the convoy was supposed to leave the system was full of mines, so apparently the retarded faggots flew into the mines and died without me noticing. I checked one of the ships' health and saw that it was more damaged than it was in the fight, but thought "lmao, surely this game isn't so shit that they're going to die to the fucking mines". I was wrong.

 

[GreyViper]

Yeah thats WC1 for you, fortunately, WC2 does not have such BS. Better fighters on the downside you couldn't fly any cat ships in that one, had to wait for Armada for that. WC2 seems the era where particle weapons started to become standard after being reverse engineered from cats. Hence it's a shame Morningstar never became an approved fighter for the Confed.

 

[LarryTyphoid]

I like how the story of the expansion is serious and dire, and so fits with the harsh difficulty. I played a little of WC2 and so I know some real shit goes down in the second expansion.

 

[Tweed]

Yeah thats WC1 for you, fortunately, WC2 does not have such BS. Better fighters on the downside you couldn't fly any cat ships in that one, had to wait for Armada for that. WC2 seems the era where particle weapons started to become standard after being reverse engineered from cats. Hence it's a shame Morningstar never became an approved fighter for the Confed.

No, you get the fly the Pancake in second WC1 expansion, it is not a good time.

 

[DesolationStone]

Yeah. Wing Commander's secret missions are solid and the story/cutscenes are pretty cool. If you liked the base game, you'll have a ton of fun with them.

It's funny because literally the expansion packs were made with desperation: WC1 was so expensive that even with the hundreds of thousand of copies sold Origin needed to produce and sell some add-on

 

[mediocrepoet]

Yeah. Wing Commander's secret missions are solid and the story/cutscenes are pretty cool. If you liked the base game, you'll have a ton of fun with them.

It's funny because literally the expansion packs were made with desperation: WC1 was so expensive that even with the hundreds of thousand of copies sold Origin needed to produce and sell some add-on

Roberts has been training for Star Citizen for his entire career.

 

[LarryTyphoid]

Just discovered afterburner drifting. Game is now several times more fun.

 

[LarryTyphoid]

Finished the first expansion. Damn fun, even more fun than the base campaign. It got way easier near the end when I got the Rapier and discovered afterburner drifting. Two of my wingmen ended up dying, though.

 

[Jack Of Owls]

I remember renting the Wing Commander port for the SNES when it came out. Wow, that was not fun.

 

[gurugeorge]

I remember enjoying WC3 but I never played any of the others. You're in for a treat with Descent though. I cut my gaming teeth on that, played it to absolute death. It's responsible for my inability, to this very day, to play games where I can't reverse the y-axis (arrow/mouse forward=nose down )

 

[FuckLiefeldGiveMeChew]

I love Wing Commander: 2 is one of my favorites and all of the main series is great. I beat 2 and 4, although I think I was on the bad version of the good ending path of 2 due to the bug with Spirit. I loved the ending of 4: switching from an exciting action game to a serious political debate was an interesting choice and a satisfying conclusion to the stories of Blair and Tolwyn. Maniac was a great character and the wars were exciting and complex.

 

[LarryTyphoid]

Holy FUCK, the second expansion is impossible. There's one mission where you have to fight through like 6 waves of dralthis and jalthis, often led by the drakhai who have a shit ton more health. I can get through most of the waves just fine but at the last nav point you have to destroy a snakeir defended by like 5 grathas or jalthis, one of the heavy ships, and they will rape you hard. This is AFTER you already had to take out another capital ship defended by 2 waves at the previous nav point, which was hard enough, and Hunter usually retreats at this point so you can't even rely on him to take out the capital ship while you deal with the escorts, which was my usual strategy. And it's at this point where the game's framerate problems become really apparent. As you take out more ships, the framerate increases, and so the game's speed increases, so it's always a pain in the fucking ass to take out the last ship. My last attempt ended with me leaving one ship alive (so as to avoid the second wave of enemies) as I dealt with the snakeir, but as I was shooting the snakeir the ship I left behind immediately penetrated my rear shields and killed me and instantly. It's really easy to die like this to the last enemy left in a wave, because the game's speed is higher and you can't react as quickly. This is WITH DOSBox capped at 3000 cycles, by the way. I tried ejecting to skip this mission but I got put on the losing path after beating the next mission anyway, so apparently I need to properly beat this one to get enough points to pass.

 

[Tweed]

I was playing the Kilrathi Saga version which has its own pros and cons, but I finally gave up on Crusade as simply being not worth the trouble.

 

[Norfleet]

I remember enjoying WC3 but I never played any of the others. You're in for a treat with Descent though. I cut my gaming teeth on that, played it to absolute death. It's responsible for my inability, to this very day, to play games where I can't reverse the y-axis (arrow/mouse forward=nose down )

That's how it's SUPPOSED to be and every pilot in the world agrees.

 

[gurugeorge]

I remember enjoying WC3 but I never played any of the others. You're in for a treat with Descent though. I cut my gaming teeth on that, played it to absolute death. It's responsible for my inability, to this very day, to play games where I can't reverse the y-axis (arrow/mouse forward=nose down )

That's how it's SUPPOSED to be and every pilot in the world agrees.

Yeah, it's two different sensibilities when confronted with a screen and a mouse - the normal way for most people I think is that they have a sense of "painting" (as it were) directly on the screen (and through that, projecting onto the 3-d world), so arrow/mouse forward = up. The way from flight sims and games like Descent is that you have a sense that you're an object in the 3-d world that tilts forward and backward (e.g. the nose of your vehicle, your head).

It's a huge strain for me to learn to play "normal" y-axis, it just feels wrong. The only time I did get used to it was in Freelancer, which was such a fun game I forced myself, because it didn't have the option to reverse and there was no way to fudge it. But like an elastic band, once I was done with that game I snapped back to reverse-y

 

[gerey]

I always thought of "reverse" y-axis as playing with an action figure. Pull the head backwards to make the figure look up, push the head forward to make the figure look down. It's somewhat irritating that so many games default to "normal" y-axis and I have to change it.

 

[gurugeorge]

I always thought of "reverse" y-axis as playing with an action figure. Pull the head backwards to make the figure look up, push the head forward to make the figure look down. It's somewhat irritating that so many games default to "normal" y-axis and I have to change it.

I've found a fair number of Asian games (e.g. some of the MMOs, etc.) locked out for me because they don't have the reverse-y option. I mean, if they were that great, like Freelancer, I'd make the effort, but seeing as they're only curiosities ...

 

[ValeVelKal]

Holy FUCK, the second expansion is impossible. There's one mission where you have to fight through like 6 waves of dralthis and jalthis, often led by the drakhai who have a shit ton more health. I can get through most of the waves just fine but at the last nav point you have to destroy a snakeir defended by like 5 grathas or jalthis, one of the heavy ships, and they will rape you hard. This is AFTER you already had to take out another capital ship defended by 2 waves at the previous nav point, which was hard enough, and Hunter usually retreats at this point so you can't even rely on him to take out the capital ship while you deal with the escorts, which was my usual strategy. And it's at this point where the game's framerate problems become really apparent. As you take out more ships, the framerate increases, and so the game's speed increases, so it's always a pain in the fucking ass to take out the last ship. My last attempt ended with me leaving one ship alive (so as to avoid the second wave of enemies) as I dealt with the snakeir, but as I was shooting the snakeir the ship I left behind immediately penetrated my rear shields and killed me and instantly. It's really easy to die like this to the last enemy left in a wave, because the game's speed is higher and you can't react as quickly. This is WITH DOSBox capped at 3000 cycles, by the way. I tried ejecting to skip this mission but I got put on the losing path after beating the next mission anyway, so apparently I need to properly beat this one to get enough points to pass.

Yeah, I don't think you can win the second expansion without heavy cheese, and I say that as someone who ironmaned WC1 and SM1.
The second expansion of WC2 is also really harder than the rest, but not impossible-hard.

 

[LarryTyphoid]

Yeah, I don't think you can win the second expansion without heavy cheese, and I say that as someone who ironmaned WC1 and SM1.

I think I've gotten past the hardest part now, and I didn't need to cheese anything, so it is possible. I've got like 3 missions left, and from what I've read, the mission I was talking about earlier is by far the hardest. By sheer luck I managed to keep Hunter alive long enough to take out the Snakeir at the last nav point while evading the shitload of enemy fire. My fuel was just about completely depleted when I got back to the Tiger's Claw... only to find a group of 3 Drathir Mark 2s and 1 Drakhai. Thankfully, they spent most of their time attacking the Tiger's Claw itself and not my completely scuffed ship, so I was able to take them out despite running on fumes. Considering the fact that my fuel was so low, I either got extremely lucky and landed back on the Tiger's Claw with the absolute last of my fuel, or the Raptor has the unique ability to continue accelerating when the afterburner fuel has been depleted (unlike other ships which cannot move at all upon running out of fuel, forcing an ejection). I beat the next mission with relative ease and cleared that system on the successful path. I would not want to do this again and I recommend anyone else to just skip Crusade unless you want to be a real hardcore nigga.