More Rambling

Yes, you can skip this and I won't be insulted =)

You see, I couldn't figure out how to change directories for the longest time. I didn't even know what a directory was. On an Amiga 500, you put the floppy in, the game loaded, and you played… This PC stuff was totally out of this world. DOS was almost as friendly as Unix back then.

So what did I do? Well, I played on disks. I only played a few times, since I lost patience with the game, and I returned it several times with a big fuss about defective disks. I'm pretty amazed that store ever sold me anything again.

the explosion effects just rock

Off into the sunset

In the meantime, I was reading the manual like crazy. It was so deep and intricate. It described great characters like Ian "Hunter" St. John and spaceships like the awesome looking Terran Tiger's Claw carrier and Kilrathi Ralari destroyer. Ship loadout, armor, shields, fighter complement and all sorts of other nifty statistics. The designs were awesome, with windows shown on the Ralari, and before I even got that far in the game, I'd imagine myself being able to fly by and see the crew… I was dreaming, yes, but still, when you consider all the expectations I'd built up for the game by reading the manual and just imagining what it would be like to actually play it, I think you'd be pretty amazed at how happy I was with the final product (which had no hope of living up to expectations.)

Ship Selection

Bigass green beam

The first Wing Commander was so simple and action based. I think that was my greatest joy in it - the simplicity. You'd come out of a mission and gleefully talk to your copilots about how everything is going, check the killboard, and not have to worry about traitors, world destroying devices or anything else that popped up in later games. Wing Commander II had better action, WC3 had a more epic and yet personal storyline, and Wing Commander IV is easily the best movie and plot I've seen in my life. There were times I got annoyed with playing missions and just wanted to watch the videos! Prophecy introduces a new race, amazing graphics, possibly the coolest capital ship ever conceived, and better gameplay… but somehow didn't hold me like the previous ones.

So as you can see, anything space related had a lot to live up to. I found even X-Wing: Alliance to be subpar…