Wing Commander Saga

Munshine · Post by **Munshine** » Sat Mar 24, 2012 6:34 pm

As you may know Wing Commander Saga was released after 10 years on this 22th March. It's an homage from Wing Commander fans to the series and was developed with the Freespace 2 engine.

And it's a completely free standalone ! Did someone have the time to play it ?

Didn't tried myself atm but I'm impressed by this huge effort.

ijon · Post by **ijon** » Sun Mar 25, 2012 12:32 pm

yea. didn't play yet (this needs a dedicated night of total isolation) but its on schedule. a must?
ohh these days... and evochron is such a nice flashback. (:

Nubarus · Post by **Nubarus** » Sun Mar 25, 2012 3:52 pm

I played all the WC games in the past and this Saga is absolutely brilliant. A must play for any WC fan.

Nubarus · Post by **Nubarus** » Mon Mar 26, 2012 8:33 pm

I guess WC games are too old for this crowd.

Marcellus · Post by **Marcellus** » Mon Mar 26, 2012 9:43 pm

Nah man, WC games are never too old, I'm proud to have played them all against the kilrathi and the humans in WC4. Perhaps one day the series might get another revival, it was rumored that Chris Roberts would be happy to return to his franchise again.

Post by **Marvin** » Mon Mar 26, 2012 10:18 pm

It seemed like you had to register with the website to download the game mod. Not difficult, probably ... but ... maybe some other time.

MiaZ · Post by **MiaZ** » Tue Mar 27, 2012 6:38 am

There are links to mirrors and also torrent.
I am a bit of a wing commander fan. This seems good, can see a lot of work must have been put into it.
It still feels like Freespace to me through. : ( as in, where is that "sheldon Slide"?

SeeJay · Post by **SeeJay** » Tue Mar 27, 2012 6:52 am

It looks sweet, but are you flying in cockpit view or just commanding your squads?

MiaZ · Post by **MiaZ** » Tue Mar 27, 2012 8:01 am

First person view though there is no cockpit just the Hud.

ijon · Post by **ijon** » Tue Mar 27, 2012 10:12 am

its a stand alone freespace mod. so that feeling feels right i guess.

MiaZ · Post by **MiaZ** » Tue Mar 27, 2012 11:33 am

Yeah I know.
There is nothing wrong with the Freespace feel. I liked Freespace.
Just that, I would love to be able to do the "Shelton Slide" as well though. : )

Its good to be shooting at the Kilrathi again. : )
All the music and briefings and comms have that wingcommander feel.
Good free game for sure.

Definitely worth a look, even if your not a wing commander fan.
Actually I think I am enjoying this more than the default Freeapace2 campaign.

[Edited on 3-27-2012 by MiaZ]

Munshine · Post by **Munshine** » Tue Mar 27, 2012 1:19 pm

I have played Wing Commander Saga Prelude a few years ago which is now the tutorial, combat was already good. But there was some text playing instead of scenes between missions.

Are there some interactive cinematics like in Wing Commander 3, are there some dialogues in the Wing Commander 2 way before a briefing in the full game ?

Nubarus · Post by **Nubarus** » Tue Mar 27, 2012 3:01 pm

Full animations and speech in the full version.

As for sliding, have you checked the key controls?

There are keys already there to toggle sliding and you can assign other ones or move em to your stick/hotas instead.

MiaZ · Post by **MiaZ** » Tue Mar 27, 2012 4:27 pm

From post: 133880, Topic: tid=9123, author=Nubarus wrote:Full animations and speech in the full version.

As for sliding, have you checked the key controls?

There are keys already there to toggle sliding and you can assign other ones or move em to your stick/hotas instead.

oh! And I looked there at control config. hmm guess i didnt look hard enough.
Well that's good to know, ill check again : ) thx

Nubarus · Post by **Nubarus** » Tue Mar 27, 2012 6:54 pm

In game Options ---> Control Config ---> Ship and you can see and assign them.

Nubarus · Post by **Nubarus** » Thu Mar 29, 2012 3:43 pm

Note: Only the Arrow and the Excalibur are able to drift.

Nubarus · Post by **Nubarus** » Sat Mar 31, 2012 11:12 pm

No idea how far in the campaign I am but I love this game, especially the 2 planet missions where a blast!!

I also used the drifting in a mission where I had to escort a medical evacuation ship and we got a corvette on intercept cource, I used the drifting to blast it's side turrets off and the anti ship missile launcher, very nice feature on the light Arrow, makes it a hell of a fighter with the drift option, I can only imagine how badarse it must be when I get to fly the Excalibur.

Raynor · Post by **Raynor** » Sun Apr 01, 2012 11:36 pm

I'm impressed at the quality of the voice acting considering this is not a commercial project. I haven't played it but i watched videos on youtube, it looks pretty good. I DID earn my space wings playing Wing Commander (i mean by that that the first space sim i ever played was WC, the very first one) but unfortunately i don't know how much i'd enjoy a non free form space sim anymore. I considered playing the Privateer remake a few years back but i couldn't see the point when i could just reinstall Freelancer instead. With only 4 ships to offer, Privateer, even remade, hasn't aged well but since Chris Roberts created its spiritual sequel, Freelancer(well he set the seeds for it but hmm, wasn't there for its birth), then who needs Privateer?

I gotta say, the last wing commander i played was the second (well not counting Privateer). All this badly digitized live actors FMV in the mid 90's was too hard to bear (remember when they used to think this was the future of gaming? ::shudders:: ).

[Edited on 4-1-2012 by Raynor]

Nubarus · Post by **Nubarus** » Mon Apr 02, 2012 9:09 am

Wing Commander 3 and 4 where the best ones and the "badly digitized" live acting was adding a lot to the story in both games. The same goes for Privateer 2 btw, very well done with the story.

Wing Commander 5 was a giant leap forward graphics wise and the story was still good but not as good as Wing Commander 3 and 4.
The Spec Ops add-on didn't have any actors in the story, sadly, but the game was still fun to play.

It seems you missed out on the best Wing Commander games out of the series Raynor, as well as Privateer 2.

The very first space game I played was Star Raiders on my Atari 800XL, followed by Elite if I recall correct. Unless Behind Jaggi Lines counts as a space sim but you only launched and landed in space, the actual missions where on planet to rescue stranded space pilots.

Star Raiders "Cockpit" lol

At least Behind Jaggi Lines had an actual cockpit

Nubarus · Post by **Nubarus** » Mon Apr 02, 2012 9:15 am

I found the Wing Commander 4 cinamatic trailer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvPQHdVG1lc

Munshine · Post by **Munshine** » Mon Apr 02, 2012 9:45 am

Still haven't played it and don't know if I really want to as I 'm too much in the Evochron trip now.

Freelancer had many cons: Flight model (highways (of hell ) between systems come on it's space) on trails, combat a bit too arcadey, background and characters were too generic. But when you started the main quest or free roam as you wanted, upgrading your ship, talking to characters it was a fun game.

Wing Commander Saga looks pretty good and better than Sol Exodus.

But I must admit that a story-driven only space sim would be too restrictive and repetitive for me as well. Even if the story is good. You know the usual trip: listening to story, going to briefing, playing mission, succeeding mission and repeat or failing mission and retrying and hearing same wingmen's or foe's dialogues .
Maybe because I've played too much Wing Commander 1, 2 and 3 or X-Wing again and again .

MiaZ · Post by **MiaZ** » Mon Apr 02, 2012 11:22 am

Interesting that this come out when it did.
I had just finished a play though all my old WingCommander games.
About 3 weeks ago I went on a nostalgia trip going through all my old space games.

I did have a little trouble getting 1 though 4 to run on my win7, but all was ok with xp for me except the Spec ops (the OpenGL patch would not work on that with xp for me.)

1 and 5 stand out as my favorites of the series. Number Five (Prophecy) looks pretty good too with the OpenGL patch.
Never enjoyed 2 as much as the first and with 3 and 4 the combat seems a bit twitchy though I did enjoy the movie story aspect in them.

-
This standalone Freespace mod is pretty good imo and came out just at the right time for me after my play through all the old originals a few weeks ago.

Nubarus · Post by **Nubarus** » Wed Apr 04, 2012 1:11 am

One thing I really love is the battle groups instead of a single carrier that is the base of opperations, this way it feels you are part of something bigger.

Raynor · Post by **Raynor** » Fri Apr 06, 2012 7:58 pm

From post: 134247, Topic: tid=9123, author=Nubarus wrote:The same goes for Privateer 2 btw, very well done with the story.

Most people I've ever known who played both the first and second said that the second was a huge disappointment so i never really bothered. And now it's too late to make up my own opinion. (sure i could play it but i'm shallow enough that i can't play a game that's ten years old or more UNLESS nostalgia is involved)

sundalo · Post by **sundalo** » Fri Apr 06, 2012 11:18 pm

Privateer 2 story was not bad, Clive Owen and Chris Walken being the best characters, but the gameplay just didn't have that immersion and size that the original privateer had with the established universe.