Wing Commander II: Special Operations 2 - Finished the game

Whew. I have now gone through all of the original Wing Commander games in all their glory. From here on, I played the actual games. Ah, freshman year of college.

Once again, Special Operations 2 continues the story left off by the previous game - Special Operations 1 in this case. At the end of Special Operations, even if you successfully completed the last mission on the winning path, you find out that all you've done was just play into the Kilrathi distraction for they have now gotten a foothold into Deneb sector. Special Operations 2 sees the Concordia (your carrier) heading into Deneb sector to help with its defense. In the first mission, you get to escort the prison ship carrying Jazz to its rendezvous with another prison ship that will take him to earth to be executed. Jazz was the traitor that framed you for the destruction of the Tiger's Claw and got you stuck on a backwater space station for ten years before you finally managed to get another chance to prove yourself and clear your name. So Jazz escapes, of course. The other plot point is that your former shipmate Maniac comes aboard the Concordia with his squadron of test pilots flying the new prototype fighter the Morningstar. Eventually, the society of Mandarin (the group of human - excuse me Terran - traitors working with the Kilrathi) steals a morningstar and you have to track them down to get it back before it gets into the hands of the Kilrathi.

Special Operations 2 really starts to feel like more of the same. The story is a bit better than the first Special Operations and its always nice to see Maniac. His appearance here means he has appeared in every Wing Commander game. The missions aren't particularly special - mostly the same sort of stuff and none of them feel very epic. It is nice when you get to fly the new Morningstar and pretty fun when you use its nuke. Still, there isn't a ton of challenge and I almost felt like I was going through the motions.

The most interesting part of Special Operations 2 is that it ends like the first Special Operations. That is, even when you've gone down the winning path, prevented the Kilrathi from getting a Morningstar, destroyed the rebel base, and killed Jazz, the final scene in the game is the Emporer and his grandson talking about how not getting the Morningstar and the destruction of the rebel base were minor setbacks. They were able to distract the Concordia long enough so that it could not help in the defense of the Deneb sector. The Kilrathi were able to destroy the sixth fleet and the Concordia is forced to retreat. This all makes some sense because through the whole of Wing Commander III the humans - excuse me, Terrans - are losing the war.

So, what now? Playing through Wing Commander III and IV again might be fun, but that would require switching CDs, which last I checked doesn't work in Classic mode of OS X. Wing Commander Prophecy is now the only major series game I haven't played. It was never released on the Mac, but I do have the Game Boy Advance version and that version is mostly true to the original, even if changed to fit the small screen, slower processor, and less storage space. I could also play other games in the Wing Commander universe that I have never played - most prominently Privateer. Or I could play the series that was the biggest competitor for Wing Commander in the space flight sim genre: X-Wing/TIE Fighter. Or I could just move on to something else. We'll see.

Wing Commander II: Special Operations - Finished the game

When I was young, I always thought that Special Operations was a much lamer name than Secret Missions. It was so much cooler to be undertaking secret missions than special operations. When I got older, I learned that Special Operations was the name of a unit. Now this unit certainly conducted special operations, but as a unit it became much cooler because obviously the missions the special operations unit undertakes are secret. Anyway...

Special Operations is kind of all over the place in its story. It takes place immediately after Wing Commander II ends, picking up right where that story left off. This is in contrast to Secret Missions 1 and 2 which are written so as to possibly take place in the middle of the Wing Commander campaign. Because you could install and play them no matter where you were in the main campaign, they were more or less written as side missions (though Secret Mission 2 was sort of meant to take place when the Tiger's Claw wasn't undertaking anything else.) Regardless of where it starts, there really isn't a coherent theme to the Special Operations story. You are to join Paladin's Special Operations unit. Before you can, you must deal with some renegade pilots. Once you finally get there, you start helping out some Kilrathi rebels, but there is an interlude where you encounter the Kilrathi prince Thrakkath and learn of the Kilrathi political machinations. Finally, you do end up saving the rebels. Wing Commander II's story wasn't great, but it was satisfactory for the game. Special Operations is all over the place and ultimately unsatisfying. It also ends by revealing that your victory was for naught as the Kilrathi attack you thwarted was just a diversion for the real Kilrathi attack on another sector. That attack succeeded. This is presumably where Special Operations 2 will start, so it is totally setting up for and urging you to get the next expansion pack.

All of my comments on the improved difficulty levels of Wing Commander II go out the window in the final mission of Special Operations. Not only must you defeat a wing of four of the toughest Kilrathi fighters, but you must also take down two capital ships: two Fralthra that have antimatter guns and know how to aim them. You are in a Saber so being hit by one bolt of antimatter does serious damage while a second will kill you. So, if you don't get torn to shreds by the fighters and (given the AI's unfortunate tendency to try to shoot through you) your wingmen, you will likely get killed by the capital ships. I can't recall the number of times I must have tried this mission. I finally went to the internet for help. FAQs and Guides didn't help any. Going to message boards, I find this is considered possibly the hardest mission in all of the Wing Commander series (the mission where you need to protect the Ralari in Wing Commander 1 being its only competitor.) I also found a sort of cheat - a glitch that will allow you to lock onto the capital ship much further than usual and with this I was finally able to complete the mission. Even knowing that exploit, it still took me a half dozen tries.

Wing Commander II: Vengeance of the Kilrathi - Finished the Game

So Wing Commander II differs from the first game by having a cohesive story throughout, rather than just being a series of missions linked by a common theme. It isn't a great story. The hero is branded a traitor, or at least a coward by being framed for the destruction of the Tiger's Claw, his original carrier. The story is then that of his redemption by finally getting to fly pertinent missions again, reestablishing his reputation, clearing his name, and finding the real traitor. It all comes out as a tad cliche, but the plot would work for an action movie and this game is basically all about action. The Wing Commander III story wasn't that memorable either and, of the Wing Commander games I've played, only Wing Commander IV has one that stuck with me at all.

I last complained about how Spirit's voice actor in Super Wing Commander was just absolutely awful and killed the character. Well, Wing Commander II had a speech pack add-on and the version I am playing includes it. You fly with Spirit as your wingman and I am happy to report that her voice actor here is much better. She still has a Japanese accent, but it is believable here and her delivery seems much more natural. There isn't a lot of voice work in Wing Commander II, but it is all competent which is a far cry from that in Super Wing Commander.

Wing Commander II's difficulty is much more forgiving than its predecessor's. It isn't a cakewalk by any stretch of the imagination, but each mission feels beatable. The biggest difficulty seems to be in getting through a mission without your wingmate ejecting. Maybe I'm just not protecting them as well as I should.

Anyway, Wing Commander II got the Wing Commander formula right, and the subsequent games just improved on the implementation of this formula with Wing Commander IV being the apex (granted I have not played Wing Commander Prophecy, but I have heard things). I really enjoyed playing through it and am glad I did. At least now I finally know why Jazz was such a bastard.

Wing Commander II: Vengeance of the Kilrathi - Destroyed supply depot in Novaya Kiev

Wing Commander II is an obvious step in the evolution of the series. It didn't yet feature the full 3D spaceship models or FMV of Wing Commander III, but it did get it a good chunk of the way there. The combat engine is improved from the first one allowing for more interesting manuevers and intelligent behavior. In general, the artificial intelligence of both your wingmen and the enemy is improved. Capital ships now can't be taken down by small fighters, but require dedicated torpedo ships. The gameplay just feels smoothers. And the story...

The story now takes center stage as it will in all subsequent Wing Commander games. Instead of sort of learning what is going on by talking to the bartender and wingmates at the bar, there is a guaranteed story scene in between each mission where you learn something that genuinely moves the plot along or fleshes out a character. Even the typical talk, mission briefing, mission, debriefing sequence is improved. The mission briefings are more detailed than go here, do this, and have genuine dramatic moments to them. Story elements can actually occur during the missions - with you receiving transmissions or new things happening to affect the plot and change the mission requirements. And the debriefings have more personality than just whether you succeeded or not and how many ships you and your wingman shot down. Really, with this game they refined to game down to what they wanted it to be - a fun arcadey flight sim with an interesting story as your reward for completing the mission. And you can still see different areas and have different missions based on you success or failure in the missions.

I'm kind of bothered that they used the "partner who is retiring in a month gets killed" cliche, but I guess I can't expect too much from my video games. Fortunately, the Simpsons brilliantly parodied this cliche. (Remember when The Simpsons was good?)

Wing Commander The Secret Missions 2: Crusade - Finished the missions

This post mosty contains two things that I meant to write in the previous post (or before that), but forgot to, but I guess it applies to all posts related to the original Wing Commander.

Secret Mission 2 is the first new Wing Commander content I have played. Super Wing Commander contained the same story and missions from Wing Commander and the first Secret Missions but then added a new story of tracking down and destroying the shipyards that created the Sivar instead of including Secret Missions 2 content. I really can't say why they did this and the internet provides no insight. Maybe they didn't want to do hi-res drawing/models of the bird-like Firekka. Whatever the reason, I think I prefer Secret Missions 2 to the extra missions in Super Wing Commander. They provide more of a change of pace (more escort, defense, and reconnaissance rather than all out attack) and set up the story for Wing Commander II better. More of a deal is made of the defecting Kilrathi named Ralgha nar Hhallas. Doomsday and Jazz are introduced better and the character portrait for Jazz makes him look decidedly evil which sets up better for his betrayal in Wing Commander II (When Max told me he was the traitor, I found it hard to believe as Jazz in Super Wing Commander seemed so inoffensive.

One reason why I didn't enjoy the original Wing Commander and Secret Missions as much as I could, besides their sometimes extreme difficulty, was that the awful voice acting in Super Wing Commander completely spoiled some of the characters and story for me. My friend Max redubbed the ship the TCS Morphine after hearing some of characters talk. Shotglass, Iceman, and Colonel Halcyon especially sound like they're on some super-downers and talk... so.... damn.... slow. Spirit is probably the worst of all because she sounds like they asked some American to affect a Japanese accent for her and it sounds so damn wrong and even borderline racist (Research revealed a woman named Christina Sauer did the voice.) Every time I read the dialogue that was given to the voice actors in Super Wing Commander, I can't help but hearing it in the awful voices and awful delivery and just die a bit inside. By not having actually heard any of the dialogue in Secret Mission 2, I can actually sort of appreciate it. It's refreshing.

Secret Missions 2 is also a lot less difficult than the first Secret Missions. There are still missions that I needed to try multiple times, but I always feel like I can get past it with skill, rather than luck. In fact, in Secret Missions, there are some missions where I feel I need good luck in order to get through it while in Secret Missions 2, it is more the case that when I fail I feel that it was bad luck. I actually would have thought that having to fly more patrol/escort missions would make the game harder since defending ships, especially transports, can be a pain, but the missions were all quite doable. One of the big innovations in Secret Missions 2 was that you get to fly a Kilrathi ship. The big let-down for me is that it was a Dralthi. Even upon first playing the game at Max's house, I thought they were the worse ships. Their shields and armor may be better than Salthi ships, but they are much less maneuverable and their pancake-like shape makes them a much bigger target. When Max told me you got to fly one in Secret Missions 2 I answered, "Why a Dralthi?" Anyway, despite still not liking them as a ship, it is a fun gimmick. The missions you fly in them can be difficult, but they are all doable. Definitely taking on two Rapiers (and three Dralthi) in a Dralthi was probably the hardest one, though it still didn't feel as hard as the mission from the first Secret Missions where you take on five of them in a Raptor.

One thing I have yet to mission is that, in my replaying of the Wing Commander series, I am finally playing them right. Well, I guess the most right way to play them would be with some sort of joystick, especially a flightstick-type one. But it seems you definitely want a more analog peripheral and my friend Max used the mouse so that is what I am finally using. When I first got Super Wing Commander, it ran very slowly on my Macintosh LC III and using the mouse just caused a lot of jumpiness. Plus, I probably still only had a one-button mouse at the time. So I used the keyboard so I could at least ensure that each keypress was a fine-grained movement. When I finally upgraded to a PowerPC, Super Wing Commander played fine but I was used to the keyboard so I kept at it. And I did the same thing for Wing Commander III and Wing Commander IV. Plus probably that whole one-button mouse thing. So now I finally am using the mouse to move my ship around the screen and while it isn't necessarily easier than the keyboard, it definitely feels more organic. Plus, it's a lot easier to plug a mouse into my laptop and play than a keyboard.

Now I have finally finished all the content in the first game of the series and it is time to move on to the true missing link that never came out in any form for the the Mac: Wing Commander II: Vengeance of the Kilrathi.

Wing Commander The Secret Missions - Destroyed the Sivar

Did I complain about the difficulty yet? Yes, I did but it's worth doing again. These Secret Missions are even more difficult than some of the later levels of the regular Wing Commmander missions. Just when I think I'm doing alright, my wingman will die, or I'll catch sudden fire from enemy ships and die, or an enemy ship will turn how I don't expect so we will collide and I will die. And if that doesn't happen, then the game will freeze up and this always happens when landing on the carrier, so it is always after I have survived a long ordeal in the mission and think I've succeeded. Oh DosBox, when will you finally get to version 1.0?

I have to admit that the insane difficulty and length of time it took to complete The Secret Missions has made my enthusiasm wane a bit. Since I have basically already done these missions in Super Wing Commander, it hardly felt woth the effort. The cut scenes that show in these games are better than those in Super Wing Commander and I now have bragging rights that I've beaten the harder versions. Still, I am very much looking forward to Secret Missions 2 where I will be experiencing missions I have never seen before.

Oh well, the dreadnought super-weapon that destroyed Goddard colony is gone. Long live the Confederation!

Update: I wrote this stuff about game control in the post on Secret Misssions 2 that I really meant to put here.

Wing Commader - Finished the game

You know what really makes this series? Besides the cinematics that show how you are doing, of course. The dogfighting. Getting a bead on an enemy ship, taking the right angle, shooting ahead of him so your shot gets there, firing the afterburners, and turning at just the right time to avoid a collision. One on one can be difficult enough, especially against a big gunship like a Gratha or Jalthi. But when there are two or three or even four other ships besides you and you can really only focus on one at a time, it's becomes a tense, teeth-clenched, white-knuckled moment. And I love it.

I don't necessarily love how much more difficult the original game is to the Super Wing Commander update that I played. Oh sure, that game made it too easy. I could complete nearly all of the missions solo. So I do appreciate that this game gives me a challenge, and I really don't mind redoing several missions over and over again. And if I were more willing to let my wingmate die or fail a mission, I would only redo the hardest missions once or twice. If you really want the best outcome - destroying the frigate or defending the ship with your wingman alive, it takes luck and skill. Well, except for the mission where you need to defend the Ralari. That mission is just impossible without cheating.

So, I managed to blow up the starbase that is the heart of the command for the Vega sector. I managed to do it without even any serious damage to my ship (even some armor damage). On the way, I destroyed a Fralthi and her escort of Krants. I destroyed the squadrons of Gratha, Salthi, and Jalthi before taking out the starbase. Okay, it helped that Hunter stuck around until the Jalthi squadron. Then I get back to the Tiger's Claw and Colonel Halcyon claims there is a ceremony for me above deck. And yet I don't even get the Terran Confederation Medal of Honor. Oh well, I'll have to be content with my three bronze stars, one silver star, and two gold stars.

On to the secret missions...

Wing Commander - Finished First Mission in Dakota

Wing Commander holds many fond memories for. It takes me back to 8th grade and my friend Max. He had a high end 386 at his house and he introduced me to Wing Commander.

I was never much into flight simulators before then, and I'm still not, but there is something about Wing Commander that pulled me in. Wing Commander obviously took inspiration from Star Wars - specifically the idea of world war II in space. It presents an epic story of a conflict between humans and an alien race, taking place on the equivalent of an aircraft carrier. Wing Commander was crafted like a movie. Before each mission you can shoot the breeze with your fellow pilots, then the colonel gives a briefing and you are off flying in space. After the mission, you are debriefed, possibly given a medal or promotion or reassigned to another squadron on the ship. But what was really neat about the story is that your actions directly affected it. Successfully defeat a wing of fighters or defend the transport ship and your carrier would move into one system. Fail to destroy the enemy capital ship or have your escort get blown up and your carrier would move into another. This branching storyline even led to affecting the results of the war in the rest of the sector, and every so often you would see scenes of marines successfully (or unsuccessfully) storming an enemy base or a group of brave scientists thwarting (or being killed by) an enemy sneak attack.

The flying in Wing Commander appealed to me because it was fast, intense, and boiled down to the basics of what was needed to fly an attack craft. Basically, it took a very arcade approach to the flying. Still, the communication with your wingman, ordering him to break and attack, retreat, attack your target or whatever worked well to enhance a "you are there" feel of putting you in a war story. The fact that you could taunt and be taunted by enemy ships was a nice touch as well. The physics were always a little off. It was much more like you were flying in a gravity-less atmosphere than in space, but it worked fine and when you were dogfighting an enemy ship, maneuvering to get a good shot on him while avoiding his shots, you didn't notice it.

When I visited Max's house, I would only occasionally get a chance to fly. Most of the time was spent watching him fly and giving suggestions. The game was pretty difficult and I remember seeing him in the less successful systems, often flying desperate attempts to defend the carrier.

Having a Mac, I was disappointed that I could not get the game for my computer since it was so enthralling for me. Fortunately, an enhanced version of the game was released for the 3DO system and for whatever reason that version also got aport to the Mac. Super Wing Commander came on a CD, giving it better graphics and sound than the original, voices for all the characters, and included the first expansion Secret Missions and a new set of missions exclusive to it. It also ran at a speed approximating molasses on my LC III. But I didn't care because it was still the Wing Commander I loved. Despite the stuttering sound, the characters whose voice acting made them sound like they were on morphine, and game that played like, as my friend Max said when he saw, "a chess match" as you had plenty of time to plan your next move in between frames of animation, I loved it. I played through it again when I got a PowerPC that could actually run the game at an acceptable rate. I went on to play Wing Commander 3 and Wing Commander IV since they were released for the Mac and loved them.

A few days ago, I was reading about the new Wing Commander game set to be released for Xbox Live Arcade in a week or so and that gave me the itch. I had never played Wing Commander II before or its expansions. And, while Super Wing Commander had the same plot of the first game and its expansion, the second set of missions was different from the PC expansion. Not to mention that it was much easier - your ships had more missiles and the wingman AI was better. Thus, I decided that I had to play Wing Commander I and II and their associated Secret Missions and Special Operations.

I'm enjoying it just as I used to. For a PC game released in 1990, it is quite impressive. Sure the standard VGA graphics, especially the ship bitmaps don't look great now, but it is still a ton of fun. It is also a lot harder than Super Wing Commander, which makes it interesting. While I have made it further on the positive mission path (haven't failed any missions yet) than I remember my friend Max making it, some of the missions took a few tries. In Super Wing Commander I rarely had to redo a mission unless my wingman died.

And that brings me to the last mission I played. Knight and I were tasked with protecting two Drayman class transports. It was a brutally hard mission. A wing of Salthis and then a wing of Krants came after the first transport. Knight and I fought valiantly and I took a ton of damage, but we managed to see the Drayman off safely to its jump point. Then came the rendezvous with the next Drayman, this one carrying precious vaccines to help with the outbreak of a disease on a nearby human colony. Three Jalthi, the Kilrathi's heaviest fighters, came after it. I managed to lure one off and was dogfighting with it. Just as I finish it off, Knight radio's in that he's in trouble. I spin my ship around and fire on the afterburners to get back to him, but I'm too late. One of the Jalthi's finishes him off and he doesn't eject in time. Filled with rage, I pump the last of my missiles into one Jalthi and tear into the other from the rear with my guns. When I get back to the carrier, during the debriefing the Colonel laments Knight's passing and comments that it seems he just couldn't handle it out there. Bullshit! I retort that Knight gave all he could, including his life, to ensure that the transport made it in safely. But in the back of my head, I can't help but blame myself for his death. I had my Jalthi damaged. It was still a threat but not a great one and I knew Knight was tackling with two of them. I should have turned around quicker to help him, but instead I went for the kill. The extra 30 seconds it took to finish off the Jalthi are the time the other two needed to lay into Knight. A good man died, and I feel responsible.

That's why I love this game. No way am I reloading. I'm going to have to go through the game with that on my hands.