Expansion Pack - Wing Commander II: Special Operations 1 & 2
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- Опубликовано: 2 авг 2024
- A longform review/analysis of Wing Commander II: Special Operations 1 and 2.
Patreon - / spacecadetrewind
Ko-fi - ko-fi.com/spacecadetrewind
0:00 Intro
0:06:39 Special Operations 1
0:25:14 Kobayashi Maru
0:34:24 Special Operations 2
0:53:47 Conclusion
1:02:22 Afterword
Wing commander 1&2 Strategy guide
AI behavior chart
Wing Commander CIC / WCNews.com
Ship stats and various information
Box art scans
Mobygames
Chris Roberts '400k' quote
Interview: Chris Roberts Charts A Course For Star Citizen - www.gameinformer.com/games/st...
Sorcerian ad
Source of original scan unknown, but I got it from the Giantbomb wiki - www.giantbomb.com/images/1300...
Sonic Adventure 2 footage recorded by Haxmega
Special thanks to Haidaraaaaa, Haxmega and Shady 
Игры
![MURDER DRONES Series Finale [TRAILER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/p6mhC5Iatns/mqdefault.jpg)
For what it’s worth, the original release of Wing Commander, as well as the secret missions, and WC2 and Secret Ops, came with TONS of supplementary materials explaining the Vega and Enigma sectors, ship blueprints, etc. so you were kind of expected to have known stuff about it by reading things that just didn’t really fit in the game itself. I imagine Saga includes PDFs or something on disc, but it seriously isn’t the same.
Still treasure my copy of Claw Marks - The Onboard Magazine of TCS Tiger's Claw (Vol.1 No.4)
@tristikov yeah~ it's a lost art, unfortunately. When it's done it's only in super special ultra legendary editions rather than standard. Hell, I bought an adventure game that came with a full ass NOVEL back in the day (the Xanth adventure game to be exact~)
I have CIB copies of Wing Commanders 1&2. I'd love to find the same for Privateer.
it's been 30 years, but I seem to remember I cheesed the mission by getting just to the point where I could get a lock, and cut my speed to 0. It took forever, but I just sat there outside the range of their guns and waited.
I completed Spec Ops 1 part on the 2 Fralthras. Blown the 2 Cat ships up.
Yes, it was nuts.
Go to the maximum distance that can do the torpedo lock.
Put the speed down to zero.
Complete the lock,
Power up the craft, begin your approach.
Now shift your ship to extreme left or right of the HUD, just before breaking lock.
The Anti Matter Guns will fire, move the opposite direction laterally to avoid.
Canonically, the AMGs are meant to target big ships, the turret and ROF are sort of slow.
It shows in the game.
Yes, I was called "NUTS" by my school buddies for doing that.
I dubbed the Torpedo used in-game "the mark 13" in reference to that dubious torpedo in WW2.
It is slow and can be shot down by flak cannons. One has to release it at close range to prevent getting shot down.
Thanks for saving me explaining this mess on my phone! Torpedo runs are an art; but it's messy art.
Hot damn, this is the shit I watch these videos for.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooooo **crackle**
That was the technique me and my friends worked out as well back in the day. Total PITA!
45:34. For whatever reason, I actually had good luck with the Mace. On one of the later missions, while fighting 6 enemy Sabres, I was able to thin out the crowd by firing the Mace and then detonating it with particle cannons. It looks like the AI on those Sabres was set to the lowest level, as they didn’t take any evasive action as the missile flew towards them. The subsequent explosion killed 3 of them and severely damaged the other 3. I found that you have to launch it at a relatively long range- something like 4000 km. Too close and you will actually be caught in the blast radius and damage yourself severely. Also, if you are close enough when launching it, the enemy has a chance to hit the Mace with its guns, killing you instantly. It’s still quite finicky but I was able to make it work more often than I expected. Sometimes, the AI is even dumb enough to run into the missile before you can detonate it.
However, a more reliable use of the weapon (as demonstrated later in the video) is to simply launch it at capital ships. It’s even more effective than a torpedo because you don’t have to lock on. Just launch it like a Dumbfire missile and it will destroy anything it hits, shielded or not. And it doesn’t get shot down as easily as a torpedo. In the final mission, I fired it at Ayer’s Rock, at a distance of 7000+ km and managed to destroy the target with that single shot, despite all the flak flying around and the dogfight raging in the vicinity. Normally, torpedoes never make it past 1500 to 2000 km, so for the Mace to succeed from such a ludicrous range was astounding.
Or maybe it was just a fluke. I was so burned out on Wing Commander at that point that I never replayed the mission to see if I could replicate this feat.
I love your no BS documentary style of those classics.
Wing Commander holds a special place in my heart, ty for the video!
Hey! Dat’s me! Also, thank you for keeping up with “Puke Skywalker.” It’s so dumb, but I laugh out loud every time. The specificity of amount combined with your voice… 👌🏻
Also, I upped my Patreon specifically because you mentioned “it’s okay to downgrade until the next video” - nah, don’t feel pressured by when or how others produce, I’m not here to watch what THEY do.
Aaah yes, the start of the illustrious career of Jason 'Bear' Bondarevsky. A major character in most of the WC novels that were released during the 90s. :)
Baby, wake up, a new Space Cadet Rewind video just dropped!
ahhh yeessssss
I'm pretty sure the joystick issues which affects WC1, WC2 and Privateer is a problem related to dosbox or modern hardware. I do not remember the controls being so imprecise when I originally played it back in the day. The joystick in dosbox seems almost like playing with arrow keys only, you are either moving at full speed or not at all, and with a huge dead zone. Maybe someone with original hardware could confirm. The main problem I remember back then was cheap joysticks drifting and needing to be recalibrated often. I think the WC games are an excellent candidate for a remaster/remake just to make it work well on modern hardware, like what Beamdog did with the Baldur's Gate series.
Man, I hate that your last video hasn’t gotten as many views. The RUclips algo-God is a fickle one indeed. Keep it up though. It’s some of the best content I’ve found recently and I’ve heard that having a good backlog of videos is important for when the algorithm does decide to grace you.
It is indeed fickle. I discovered this channel only a month or two ago, and similar with another channel. Both are quite small still, but both exhibit very high standards of quality.
@@Xeno426 Hmm, what's this other channel?
@@michaelandreipalon359 "It's Matticus Finch" is the channel name.
Oh shit he did upload it quite quickly
Ouch! Poked myself in the eye on those pixels! XD
...and Minx proves the necessity of a competent art director. Of course we were all still learning this stuff, new art form and all.
Loving this series. I really like everything you're doing, but my favorite part was the end where you got into the question of: "how much story does a game need"
0:50 That is quite humorous coming from the Star Citizen guy lol.
12:30 Well, Hobbes being unhappy about this explains a whole lot about why he does what he does in WC3. I guess Mass Effect 2 WASN'T the first game to put plot relevant details into a paid DLC (or equivalent) that people might not have access to.
Except no because Hobbes is revealed to be a brainwashed sleeper agent in WC3.
All developments in WC2.. and WC3 for that matter are thus completely irrelevant because Chris Roberts couldn’t think of anything other than big cats evil.
I swear, Chris Roberts is like those folks who made Homeworld 2 and, I fear also, 3.
@@zephyr8072 Apparently the cutscene relaying that information was cut from the PC version of WC3 (which is what I played) for some reason lol.
WC3 story was written by a different team of writers, and the character called "Hobbes" in WC3 is basically a completely different character.
@@wcfan4644 All nuance with the Kilrathi is thrown out the window too.
Probably to justify the good guys blowing up their home world. It's not a war crime if they're _all_ evil!
As an aside you'd think that plotting to blow up Kilrah would be enough to make Hobbes turn traitor. He joined the humans to resist his oppressive government, not kill billions of Kilrathi civilians. That could totally be a plot or something.
But hey, again, no nuance.
I wait for Strike Commander with anticipation.
I remember Special Operations 1. It took me a week to manage the last mission.
Kindly put Wing Commander : Privateer on your list 😁
I watch the Wing Commander videos to vicariously play the original two games
As a big fan of the 3D entries in the series, I found it impossible for my brain to connect with 1 and 2 and Privateer
❤❤❤❤
For me, a Star Wars: TIE Fighter (and possibly even X-Wing and X-Wing Alliance; I just don't replay those much) and FreeSpace 2+certain mods flyer, even I can't easily stomach anything Wing Commander anymore, though other games like Red Baron and Strike Commander do succeed a bit.
@@michaelandreipalon359
Wing commander was my gateway into these sorts of flight sims with WC1 WAAAAY back in the day. I havent played them in ages but i wouldnt complain about them because games were like that back then (and the fact i absolutely hate modern gayming).
I also started playing X-wing after that, although xwing bothered me because it stopped before hoth, tie fighter took place between the end of ANH and up to Endor, but never actually allowing you to play at endor.
@@pilotamurorei Yeah, I can agree that games like Squadrons failed in their hype, though that's mostly because of story and music expectations.
Didn't mind the lack of Hoth and Endor, since the simple feel of the early X-Wing games is quite refreshing. Believe me, the latter wasn't executed quite well in X-Wing Alliance, for I still prefer the Rogue Squadron II take. If only that game will get a legal polished PC release...
I can’t believe we got a new one so quickly. I just finished the last one!
We're gonna get spoiled with another new video so quickly!
And here I was thinking today was going to suck, but with this being uploaded I guess I was wrong.
The DOS version also lets you manually shift nav. In fact it's a slick trick to avoid encounters entirely in some missions like one of those heavy Wolfpack RNG missile fests :)
I had forgotten about these expansions. I also kept combining the story scenes with the main game.
I played Wing Commander 1&2 so long ago that I'd forgotten the plot entirely. I'm pretty sure I never played the Spec Ops expansion for 2! After watching this retrospective, I probably didn't miss too much (I'm sure I would've enjoyed it plenty back in the day though).
I feel like I need to go back and watch the other videos just to…fully the in the next chapter of this masterpiece.
Remember trying to play this on my buds PC. Got maybe a frame a second.
Wonderful video, I really enjoyed my time with this video. I appreciate the inclusion of the Maniac after credits bit there too. I like that they didn't shy away from just leaving Maniac hanging out there stranded in that busted Morningstar.
As far as the precision of the joysticks go, at the time you just didn't really notice. That's what you had and it was accurate enough. I have some gameport joysticks with gameport to USB adapters and you really can see how limited the resolution was in windows before you calibrate them. That said I'm not convinced it's that huge an issue. Just like how high performance mice now have a massive DPI to choose from, in many situations you don't really take advantage of the extra resolution. And I think the lower framerates are more of the issue than the resolution because I can controls something modern very well with those old gameport joysticks with a USB adapter once you've calibrated them to the joystick's range of motion.
Not that I want to go back to that limited resolution either, because the higher resolution means you have more headroom if you can take advantage of it, and you can use that extra resolution to do things like on the fly adjustments of sensitivity of the joysticks for precision shots and such. Not having to worry about sticks wearing out with hall sensors is nice too and that tech is steadily making it's way into ministicks.
Now as far as if these games would have worked just as good with a gamepad with ministicks at the time, well, they didn't really existst. The first mass-market analog ministick was the N64 controller in 1996 and that type of joystick didn't quite come in the format we're used to until the original Dualshock in 1997. At the time in 1991 your typical options for using the 15-pin midi/gameport plug on your soundcard were analog joysticks with two buttons. You did start to see more advanced offerings from Thrusmaster and CH Products and there are sites on the dates but off the top of my head I'm not exactly sure of the dates of releases and what would be available in 1991.These two-button analog joysticks are what all the sprite-based Wing Commanders were designed for which is why you have that weird control scheme where button 2 is a modifier button. (It's pretty annoying in Privateer as when you use the joystick you can't use the keyboard to roll.) As for gamepad options there were a few niche offeringslike from ASCII but the common type of gamepad you would see, was the Gravis Gamepad with it's d-pad and four buttons That was about the standard you'd see for gamepads at the time with the two-buttton analog sticks still being considered the standard for a while.
So, I can't say I'm surprised that the thumbstick performs well enough for these original games. :D That said I'll always prefer the immersive joystick. :) Personally I reall like the two-joystick method for these games with the "omni-throttle" setup where the left joystick is angled so it feels like a throttle. It works very well for a lot of games that are not hard flight sims like space sims and mech piloting games.
I randomly stumbled onto your first video yesterday and i stayed long enough to see you released a new video today. Your doing very well i hope you keep it up.
those short cut radio keys were present and worked in the original first dos game but they were missing from the documentation and they are not buggy in any of the dos games. All of the bugs you mentioned are exclusive to WC saga not the dos version.
I can see why the special operations got its own separate video now. I'm impressed by how much they improved compared to the first games secret missions. I wasn't going into this expecting multiple wingmates, fighting confederate ships, and flying a starship with an AOE weapon. Not all of those were implemented perfectly, but I'll take it and the increased mission variety over "fight hordes of the strongest enemies in weak ships".
As for your comment on story, something I've grown to appreciate is how games handle their plots, regardless of how interesting or engaging it is. XCOM: Enemy Unknown's premise is simply "aliens are invading! Defend the Earth against them!" but the game knows which moments are important enough to give a big cutscene and when to step back and let the player create their own stories, whether they be missions that went horribly wrong or how they cleverly got out of a bad situation with everyone coming home alive. Similarly, the recent Hitman games always provide story context for why you're assassinating your targets, and there is an impressive amount of background dialogue that adds much to the setting, but it doesn't get in the players way and quickly gets to the point of letting players kill terrible people in creative ways. Neither games plot is a masterpiece, but I appreciate them for knowing when to step in to have a cutscene or other big story moment, and when to step back and let the player focus on the game.
One thing is for certain, I sure have a big soft spot for the XCOM reboot duology and the Hitman: World of Assassination package, so this basic yet still well managed plot stuff must be one reason why they ended up good games for me and others.
Love your channel - can't wait for the rest of the WC series! And all the other games out there!
Yeeees!! Hey sry about the views and stuff on the WC2 video. But they really are incredible. Thank you so much
Just binged all of your videos in one day. Thanks for putting in so much time and effort to talk about these classics!
Happy days! all hail the new video
Wow this came way sooner than expected, thank you!
While I love this "fast follow", please don't just rush to get stuff out faster. These are of such high quality, they are worth the weight!
After finishing the main game, the special operations were nice to have even if the story is wack and the gameplay not as good as the main game. Always love it when a game studio just makes more game no strings attached.
In regards to your last video not getting as many views as your other ones I believe the reason why is because the very day you uploaded RUclips had a huge glitch that shadowbanned almost all newly posted comments on videos all across youtube. That killed analytics for most videos posted that day unfortunately.
PS. Nice sonic adventures 2 reference wasn't expecting that in a video about wing commander lol.
How and why I didn't hear about that glitch in any news or something close?
Wing Commander holds such fond memories for me. From begging my parents to get a wound card so I could hear the voices in WC2. To building my first PC so I could have the horse power to run Wing Commander 3. Even ditching several days of college to play Wing commander Prophecy.
Yay, I needed something to watch this evening.
Love your series, thank you for making us relive this bit of history!
Have to admit, I laughed at every scene where you blew up in super-sonic-speed there is just something inherently funny about it.
I am stuck on the final spec ops 1 mission and have been for 15 or so replays currently. Nice to see someone else suffered with it too!
Hell jeah! I was waiting for this one haha
I love Wing Commander despite all it's flaws. I hope you do Strike Commander some day too.
As a kid, I did play through Wing Commander 2, but I never got to play the secret missions. However, I had tonnes of fun playing around with the Morning Star in Wing Commander Academy. I doubt you will need to cover WCA by itself, as it's basically a mission editor for the WC2 engine, but it has a few ships not found in WC2 or the Special Operations.
I think a shortish video covering Academy and Armada together might work someday. We'll have to see.
Regarding the joystick or gamepad discussion, I would like to note that Wing Commander 1, 2 and their expansions support 2 button joysticks. Button 1 fires the guns, and button 2 is used for throttle, roll, afterburner, and missile fire. All that through combination with other buttons ( except for afterburner, which uses double tapping ). All other actions require the keyboard. I don't think that most joysticks in 1990 were actually much better than a good gamepad's analog stick.
Would it be cool to have a nice HOTAS ( or, even better, HOSAS ) setup? Yes, but mostly for... sentimental reasons. To let yourself carried further away by the illusion of the game. But my trusty 8bitdo Pro 2 together with Joystick Gremlin, vJoy, and HidHIde can do a decent job too.
I don't know if X-wing or Wing Commander 3 poise a greater challenge for my gamepad, at least as far as button mappings are concerned. But for Wing 1 and 2, I am OK.
Dammit, youtube actually tried to hide this from me, showed it to me for a brief moment and then poofed it off my recommends page as it was loading, WTF.
Keep going dude!
More Wing Commander? Aww yeah!
A weird, fun 1980s 3D space game that almost nobody mentions: Starglider 2. Definitely check it out!
I'll add it to the list of games to cover in my next video, thanks! Looks like the original game fits the definition as well.
@@spacecadetrewind Awesome! Thanks for another terrific video!
Thanks for bringing some good news today. I was feeling down hearing the passing of Klavs. Glad to see some nice content still being created.
Ah, this. First heard this news from Mac's Lore.
Ooohhh holy cow!
The RUclips algorithm has its arcane ways, but one thing that I keep hearing is it doesn't like long breaks between videos. Perhaps it matters less if you already have a pretty big channel with plenty of subscribers because you already have good reach, but it can really slow down the growth of a channel.
That said, I hope it doesn't discourage you. Your videos are of good quality and your previous video still got views that are a multiple of your subscriber base. All in all good considering the age of your channel and the fact space sim retrospectives have got to be pretty niche. If you enjoy making these, keep at it. I'm sure as you go you'll also learn how to streamline their production to get them out more quickly. You mentioned Grim Beard, I think in your previous video. Keep in mind he started out about a decade ago with roughly 10 minute videos and it took him a long time to reach the point of making 1 hour plus videos at a consistent pace. In a way you jumped straight at the deep end, but made it stick.
back in the 90s, they had wing commander novels released and the one that i read had Bear as the protagonist of the story.
Not knowing about Vega and Kiltathi. Did you read the Claw Marks? Yeah, doesn't apply to these, but the base game docs, especially the WC1 ones did a great job of setting the scene and getting a feel for things.
Loving your work! keep it up!
Expansion packs also acted as marketing of the base game. Someone seeing another get the expansion entices them to wonder what about the base game is so good that they would spend more cash.
Just use the mace as dumb fire missile for direct hits, no need to detonate it. I used it on the Ayer's rock.
Ah, we are so back!
There's just something about expansion packs, standalone or not, that feels quite more charming than just the mere mention of "DLCs". Quite easy to understand why the likes of Half-Life: Blue Shift, Homeworld: Cataclysm/Emergence, Final Doom: The Plutonia Experiment, Duke Nukem 3D: Atomic/Megaton Edition, Warcraft II: Beyond the Dark Portal and Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne, StarCraft: Brood War, the Collector's CD-ROM Edition of TIE Fighter (yes, I know the backlash against it for keeping the Enemies of the Empire exclusive only to it; doesn't matter nowadays though), and Halo 3: ODST are still well remembered in their own right despite the occasional flaws.
2:16: Good taste in expansions here. Did not expect Extraction Point either.
4:02: Still a marked complaint that deserves a re-remaster of the original trilogy.
Gameplay is king, sure, but there are times when even the presentation and the nuance should still be paramount. Cases in point, X-Wing is better off played on the Collector's CD-ROM Edition while the Halo: Master Chief Collection's Combat Evolved Anniversary and 2 Anniversary are better off played the Classic graphics, sounds, music, etc. at most.
Those justifiable edits really should be taken heed by GOG. Wonder if there's an Homeworld Remastered Collection Players Patch-esque movement going on for the original WC games?
That "bugged" Strakha sure knows how to use their stealth tech well. Know when to fold, a true ace pilot.
Good thing you fight traitor craft based on your side in these expansions. Loved TIE Fighter because I get to fight Rebel, pirate, and rogue Imperial craft unlike in the other X-Wing games at most.
Funny. I don't remember much friendly fire in the X-Wing and FreeSpace games. Doubt it's because the allied A.I. is nerfed either.
If Maverick being a hypocrite on protocol is funny, you should see how players do X-Wing's Keyan Farlander, TIE Fighter's Maarek Stele, XW Alliance's Ace Azzameen, FreeSpaces 1/Port+Silent Threat: Reborn and 2 Alpha 1 on their completionist runs. Wingmen just don't have enough tallies because we hate killsteals, heheh.
17:41: Problematic in TIE Fighter. Am pretty sure the concourse is only for Star Destroyers, not the occasional Frigates and Modified Frigates in which you're stationed.
I was also surprised by Special Operations 1's shortness fakeout. Oh, hey, I see Warren Spector at 19:29. Guy did well for System Shock, Thief, and Deus Ex.
20:58: Understandable.
TCS Kirsk? Different spelling, sure, but the Ruskie Navy is so gonna groan more if they hear this.
21:49: HUNT DOWN FREE MAN featuring Moint Pan is better.
Would be curious on how you'll feel with the covert ops of FreeSpace 2's Special Operations Command missions, and the concept of Galactic Terran Intelligence in Silent Threat: Reborn.
Typical Kilrathi and their coups. What's this, Giganos Empire and Grand Admiral Demetrius Zaarin all over again?
I'd rather fly a B-Wing than a Sabre. Hell, would rather want to curbstomp capital ships as Maarek Stele rather than do an overrated Maverick! (At least the surprisingly easy-ish Redemption scenario of Star Wars: X-Wing now has more justifiable competition.)
26:44: So? Even just one Soulsborne for me is a gem compared to all of Wing Commander... am more into Dark Souls, however, and Bloodborne needs a PC port.
Jaysus, WC is a series that oozes too much ambition that easily alienates hyped up newcomers and disillusions nostalgic veterans. Good I never grew up too much on them.
Your torp run experiment in SO1's final mission brings into mind why TIE Fighter onwards ended up using a 3D framework for its CMD and ditched X-Wing's trivial targeting reticle and its 2D targeted ship framework because it was that good. Anyways, thank gosh for the creation of Gouraud shading.
34:32: Reminds me of some cartoon multi-parters or commerical break returns.
Should have gone the Ace Combat 3 or Wing Commander I route when it came to the trolley problem.
36:55: No. NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!! (Huh, so his reddened eyes aren't actually a funny edit. Yikes!)
41:22: A bawmb!
42:03: This game needed more secondary and bonus objectives a la TIE Fighter and FreeSpace. Also, the Romantic Plot Tumor trope needs to be exterminated! (You know, it's a good thing romance wasn't a main plot point in the X-Wing games. Sure, Keyan Farlander had an affection with one of Mon Mothma's aides, but even then, that fact only appears in the Farlander Papers and Official Strategy Guide. Maarek Stele is thankfully fine as a single man, by the way. Not sure with Ace Azzameen.)
Of course, the titular minx is a goshdarn spy. Oh, great, ready the Concordia bomb debris cleanup peeps, AGAIN.
Crossbones died? A waste, I actually expected more.
Ace Combat did weapons akin to the Mace better. With that in mind, I wished the Morningstar was like a proto-Missile Boat.
49:50: Bet they WERE planned to be quickly mass-produced Morningstars, not unlike how TIE Fighter had pirates led by one Ali Tarrak get mass-produced TIE Defenders in Battle 9 - "New Threats" of the game.
50:20: Kriffing FINALLLY!!! Dumbfiring in this series works even for once!
Oh, yes, end it with a sequel hook that will tend lead to a third game. Really hope it doesn't change so much certain camps in the fandom suddenly won't cry "they jumped the shark so hard" later on... what, I've already experienced that with Turok 3, Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus, and Halo: Infinite.
All in all, WC2 and its expansions suffer the same premise as "we wanted Alien: Engineers, NOT Prometheus and Alien: Covenant". For shame, for shame...
Also, the game does feel like Homeworld 2. As an avid lore fan of HW1 and Cataclysm/Emergence (plus the prequel Deserts of Kharak), that game sure was appropriately called by MandaloreGaming as another Rise of Skywalker. *We know how that movie went critically.*
1:03:12: Strange thing, the winning vote, but dang, how is TIE Fighter tied with the X-Wing expansions?!
Say, do Star Control I+II count?
Thanks!
I allow people to vote for multiple games if they want, in order to prevent situations where eg. the X-Wing expansions and Tie Fighter might have otherwise cannibalized each other's votes. So most of the Tie Fighter voters probably also voted for the expacs along with some who only voted for the expacs due to them being chronologically next.
Star Control doesn't count because of the way I'm defining space sims: "Any game that primarily gives you free control of a space ship in 3D". That last part is the sticking point.
@@spacecadetrewind You're welcome, and sorry if my comments can occasionally sound harsh on the games spotlighted by you and the commenters. The flaws of brutal honesty, that.
I possibly attribute some of that to the viewers being curious from other channels like Mac's Lore and Corey's Datapad.
Ah, I see. Actually forgot that the Star Control games are actually 2D until later.
Just discovered your channel and I love your work! Looking forward to the next video ❤
Wow that was quick :)
Thanks so much for this! I always wanted to play these but could never get them running right for Windows
The tryst with Minx being set during the main story would make more sense too, rather than Blair being a two-timing sleazebag and Angel just being cool with it.
*"Baffling".* That single word neatly explains this overrated hunk of a flight sim series and its storyline. I don't even think the likes of Battlestar Galactica 2003, Babylon 5 Season 5, and Mass Effect 3 are this baffling.
I had these as a kid but never got to them but thus use to be my fav game and crusader....about to buy this on gog noe
Manually editing the .wav files to reduce the volume of sound effects is just kind of hilarious to me.
Stick beats pad for these games every time. I don't know if I would have gotten through this series or Starlancer without my flight stick, honestly.
Hell yeah
Regarding the joystick debate, honestly, it depends what you're comparing it to.
- If you have a cheap joystick and a cheap controller, the joystick wins. The analogue stick-ness of a joystick is the absolute priority of its design, so even a cheap joystick will do that right, even if it's buttons are a little jank.
- If you have keyboard & mouse vs anything that does analogue input, the analogue input wins. If it's a game where you can walk around, WSAD is solid standin for movement and free mouse look is hands down better than anything a stick (any stick) can do...but if you're flying around, the sticks win. WSAD or arrow keys or whatever isn't precise enough, and the mouse...well, you've got 2 choices - define an arbitrary zero point and expect the player to know how to make the mouse go to that point when they want to fly straight, effectively using cursor position as the X/Y inputs, or run it like the free look camera in a walk-around game (anything that uses WSAD for movement, shooters, soulsborne, walking sim, whatever) in which case oh boy are you gonna be flailing around with that mouse during dogfights!
- If you have a good controller - one that actually has precise analogue inputs - then it's as good as most joysticks. The full stick will feel better to someone who's an old hand at flight sims, but that's more because they're used to the feel of a full sized stick in their hands - the core mechanics at the base of that stick doing the reading will fit into a thumbstick these days, that's not a problem.
----
If you are playing a very advanced flight simulator, like the games that are literally just flight simulator packages ported from an actual flight simulator to a home computer (yes, this happens), then having a proper stick will be better. Indeed, having a proper sim-cockpit with the 5 bajillion buttons and displays will be better, because that's what the software was originally designed to interface with. But at that point you are investing considerably more into your simulation station than anyone who's planning to play Wing Commander or TIE Fighter or Freespace or any of the other venerable classics would ever consider reasonable. And you're probably actually a pilot building yourself an at-home practice setup for the actual plane you actually fly.
it's easier to hit a precise value with a bigger stick. my fave was the force feedback pro, due to one feature it had. it has a hand detector, the motors turn off if you hold it in a way it doesn't detect the hand and it uses optical sensors for the position, so if you want to momentarily not have centering on the stick you can just lift couple of fingers and you don't need as much deadzone as such because the center isn't based on some double springs but rather on the motors and position so it goes to exact center.
controlling roll was also more natural with twisting the stick than having it mapped to a second thumbstick or something.
wc1/2 were made basically for quickshot level of joysticks though. they kinda sucked, but you get no advantage in wc1/2 with a proper ch flightstick over a crappy quickshot the engine is just kinda like that, tuned for keyboard.
keyboard and mouse or a controller is nice for playing hours on end, I think that has something to do with the death of proper sized sticks.
Chalk up another for the maniac!
53:29 You're welcome, true fans of the game.
Chris Roberts trying to not rip off customers is a wild notion these days.
There's an Ayer's Rock on Earth, though it's more appropriately called Uluru now.
But it's old name was pronounced like 'airs rock', no idea if the space version shares the pronunciation or not
It's funny, the topic came up when I was talking to my mother, and she insisted it was pronounced 'airs', but all the documentary footage I could find said 'EYE-ers', which is why I went with it. Perhaps I should've listened to her. :)
Hell yeah, so soon after subscribing as well! Also, what's your opinion on space cadet pinball?
It's fine, but I never spent much time with any of the Windows pack-in games. Not even Solitaire.
Minx looks like she was modelled after Linda Hamilton
Why are there always space debris floating past the windows of the ship during the cutscenes, even though they're out in deep space? Did we just fill 100% of the galaxy with space junk? (I know it's to convey a sense of motion, because having stars whisking past is kind of unrealistic, although I don't know if a fully space junk-saturated galaxy is any more realistic)
LETS GOOOOOOO
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OOOO
I never played the Special Operations, though, the plot point of the mutiny did come up in the books set in the Wing Commander series. The pilot Bear, becomes the main character in several of the books. Really neat how the games and books all weave together
Quite a pain, WC's expanded universe. For some reason, at least Star Wars Legends' expanded lore is quite easy for me to digest.
@@michaelandreipalon359 there were only 6 books, if I remember correctly, and 2 of them were just games 3 & 4 novelization
Old school DLC😃
I finished all wc 1 2 secret and spec 1 2 with keyboard only. :(
I have a feeling that the joystick purists are the same kind of people who argue with the utmost conviction that using a keyboard and mouse in Elite Dangerous is stupid, as clearly joystick is the far superior control device, because "YoU wOuLdN't UsE a MoUsE aNd a KeYbOaRd tO fLy A rEaL sPaCe sHiP".
Would love to see their opinions on players like LPhoenix.
basically everyone played elite frontier/ffe with a mouse and the original elite with keyboard only(keyboard is necessary due to amount of control buttons you have to have, negated on ffe by the mouse).
Fucking nit picking... or really more of a fun fact then nit picking but,
A Bogey is an unidentified aircraft radar signature.
A Bandit is Hostile.
Fun fact, more like. This is helpful and not as aggressive as it sounds.
I didn't know that... and now I do, thanks.