Random PC Game: Wing Commander III

This has quickly become my favorite video series on the site.

Why play the game when you can watch every FMV cut-scene stitched together on YouTube?

This makes me want to play some X3 Terran Conflict.

Whoa, I had no idea Ryan was in this game

How did they not call out Dr. Marvin Candle!

Too bad this game had to live in the shadow of Jane's Combat Simulations: AH-64D Longbow: Flash Point Korea.

We need a new space battle game. I love fps games and 3rd person action games but man, we need some more variety in today's games. I'd love to see a new Freespace, Wing Commander or X-Wing game or similar.

I never played the Wing Commander games but the game play reminds me of Colony Wars on the PS1.

God DAMN!! Bought this game in '97. It was already a "greatest hits" edition by then. This brought back so many memories.

Great job guys, was very entertaining.

The internet knows all.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0531777/

Adventures Of Brisco County Jr. was a cool TV show.

I'd love to see some Freespace. Never played it, but I've heard so many good things.

@Brackynews: How were you able to work the controls AND maintain the jaunty angle of your top hat, Mr. Fancy Pants !

Bracing myself with some whisky before watching this - fully expecting my teenage memories of this and WC 4 being the zenith of space sim games (bar Freespace - but that didn't have Mark Hamill AND John Rhy-Davies) to be thoroughly destroyed.

Giant Bomb is KILLING it. I kinda almost wish the game release schedule remained slow so we could keep getting these.

So much space racism!

Haha. They still have Outcast on their system from the last RPCG.

edit: Man, I forgot how many stars were in this. Skywalker, Gimli, Linderman. Sheesh!

edit edit: I feel terrible for recognizing Josh Lucas as the guy from Sweet Home Alabama.....

They should play Enemy Engaged: Comanche vs. Hokum next.

Pro-Tip you guys: If you ever do a classic Sierra adventure game, run it through ScummVM. And find ROMs for the MT-32 synthesizer (two incredibly small files). Just drop those into the default ScummVM folder and in the audio options, pick "MT-32 Emulation". All those games were written with the MT-32 in mind, and ScummVM emulates it pretty well. If you don't, I'm going to hate you so much.

A Mean Guns reference! Oh hell yeah!

Thanks guys, these have quickly become my favourite series of videos on this site. Being mostly a solely PC gamer throughout the 90's up until this generation of consoles I appreciate memories, hilarious criticism and knowledge bombs.

Keep these going!

Is there a burst of static every time the opening intro cuts for anyone else? Visual static, not audio.

An Ice Pirates reference? What the fuck?

I fucking love Maclom McDowell, I hope when someday my hair goes white I can pull of his look.

Wait a minute... that guy played the judge in Liar Liar.

Just remembered Privateer 2 had Clive owen and fucking dennis hopper in it.

@nate6858: Ha! Joke's on you, never flew with pants! No-fly zone!

@csl316: Freespace is an easy one to get. I certainly recommend anyone try it, especially the sequel. What's a lot harder to find but also good is Starlancer/Freelancer. Starlancer has the Chris Roberts pedigree, and Freelancer is the first space sim that ever proved (to me) mouse controls were viable. In some kooky way Freelancer is for space sims controls what Halo was to FPS controls... and both are Microsoft joints. They know how to make a market for their peripherals.

@Brackynews said:

@nate6858: Ha! Joke's on you, never flew with pants! No-fly zone!

@csl316: Freespace is an easy one to get. I certainly recommend anyone try it, especially the sequel. What's a lot harder to find but also good is Starlancer/Freelancer. Starlancer has the Chris Roberts pedigree, and Freelancer is the first space sim that ever proved (to me) mouse controls were viable. In some kooky way Freelancer is for space sims controls what Halo was to FPS controls... and both are Microsoft joints. They know how to make a market for their peripherals.

Yeah, I saw it on sale at GoG before, but for some reason got my fill watching youtube videos. I guess I was intimidated, thinking back to my time with Colony Wars

I loved this. Really, REALLY cool that the game has an ending for ejecting through every mission. Even has you floating around in your chair at the end, ready to be tractor beamed in!

love the BSG references

@csl316 said:

@Brackynews said:

@nate6858: Ha! Joke's on you, never flew with pants! No-fly zone!

@csl316: Freespace is an easy one to get. I certainly recommend anyone try it, especially the sequel. What's a lot harder to find but also good is Starlancer/Freelancer. Starlancer has the Chris Roberts pedigree, and Freelancer is the first space sim that ever proved (to me) mouse controls were viable. In some kooky way Freelancer is for space sims controls what Halo was to FPS controls... and both are Microsoft joints. They know how to make a market for their peripherals.

Yeah, I saw it on sale at GoG before, but for some reason got my fill watching youtube videos. I guess I was intimidated, thinking back to my time with Colony Wars

if they want starlancer or freelancer I will send them my copy

Freespace was indeed awesome. I can also vouch for it being a great game. Also, SOL: exodus is on steam for $10 and is extremely similar in gameplay, and is worth the price easily.

So mean to Ginger Lynn, Vinny.

Did they just barnstorm a space station flying upside down?

OMFG YES!! I FUCKING LOVE YOU MOTHERFUCKERS!!

From what little I knew of Wing Commander, I certainly wasn't expecting halfway-decent FMV with some actual reputable actors and a highly branching storyline.

There really seems to be a correlation between porn stars and videogame FMV actors though, this is the third time they've encountered one in the last few months that I can think of.

I would love to see more special guests on Random PC game.

@phonicpod said:

Just remembered Privateer 2 had Clive owen and fucking dennis hopper in it.

And look how far the presentation in space games has come!

Kill me.

@cavemantom said:

@phonicpod said:

Just remembered Privateer 2 had Clive owen and fucking dennis hopper in it.

And look how far the presentation in space games has come!

Kill me.

That's from a 10$ dlc pack that is made to lead in the upcoming X Rebirth game.

Besides the Wing Commander of today is Mass Effect, just trade space combat for third person action.

Apparently the ginger red head played the pedophile character in L.A. Noire.

Watching this makes me really want to play this :) and also to go back and dig out my copy of Colony Wars for the PS1. That was another great space-sim.

Snidavella in the house!!!!

Also, a ship called the Concordia is destroyed...? Is this 18 year old game too soon?

I've said it before: Mark Hamil was great in Big Red One.

Consistently one of the best features on the site

I dont know why but I always love the snotty green screen comments from the GB staff. Green screen snobs lol!

@Milkman said:

These guys are name dropping fucking Herman's Head but they almost don't recognize the guy from Lost.

For what it's worth I was the one who said Herman's Head in chat when they asked.

@timmbot said:

Please do Privateer!

Privateer was such a bug riddled piece of shit game, part 2 as well and because it's like a free roaming do whatever you want game it took forever to even accomplish anything. Wing commander 3 and 4 are some of the GREATEST videogames of all time, big star power, great music and atmosphere. Wing Commander 4 takes me back to my childhood, spent hours upon hours with Origin support trying to get the game to run on my shitty pc, 4x nec cartridge loading cd rom drives, and wing commander 5 (prophecy) was epic, and one of the first ventures into DLC to expand the gameplay experience. I seriously miss the hell out of this franchise, the space sim is dead. And Wing commander Armada and privateer were the note we ended on minus those shitty MS knockoff's.

and holy hell with the interlaced video on prophecy lol.

@Draxyle said:

From what little I knew of Wing Commander, I certainly wasn't expecting halfway-decent FMV with some actual reputable actors and a highly branching storyline.

"Highly branching" is maybe giving it a little too much credit. If you fail too many missions, it zips you straight to the "bad" story path, which you then can't recover from no matter what you do. So not counting the two endings we saw in this video (the funeral ending and the Earth-is-conquered ending), there are only two additional endings, and those are basically identical, the only difference being which girl you hook up with.

Wing Commander IV, on the other hand, branches like a motherfucker. That game is about a civil war, and at one point you actually have to choose whether or not to defect. The decisions in WC4 actually have consequences, unlike in this game where your decisions only affect whether or not the Captain bitches you out for being rude to the crew.

For those interested in a Wing Commander game, WC4 is the one to play. Also the PS1 version of WC4 is for sale on Playstation Network, though I don't know if that was a good port or not...

EDIT: Oh yeah, and Womack from The Rock is in it. That makes WC4 inherently superior right there.

I haven't even watched this yet, but i gasped at the posting. i know i will enjoy this very much

I kind of like that they were really excited to play this game, but this is the first one they actually gave up on. It's not exactly the game's fault, seeing as they were playing with mouse controls, but still, it's a little funny.

@NakAttack said:

@csl316 said:

@Brackynews said:

@nate6858: Ha! Joke's on you, never flew with pants! No-fly zone!

@csl316: Freespace is an easy one to get. I certainly recommend anyone try it, especially the sequel. What's a lot harder to find but also good is Starlancer/Freelancer. Starlancer has the Chris Roberts pedigree, and Freelancer is the first space sim that ever proved (to me) mouse controls were viable. In some kooky way Freelancer is for space sims controls what Halo was to FPS controls... and both are Microsoft joints. They know how to make a market for their peripherals.

Yeah, I saw it on sale at GoG before, but for some reason got my fill watching youtube videos. I guess I was intimidated, thinking back to my time with Colony Wars

if they want starlancer or freelancer I will send them my copy

I have both games in my CD binder. Freelancer was the better of the two, and as @csl316 points out, it was really well done with the mouse controls.

I normally fall back on GOG games because they're really easy to get running (well, most times). When I have a little bit more time on my hands at home, I'll pull out some of the rarer games, but for right now people seem to be happy with the populist stuff.