[Episode 31] The Rise and Fall of Wing Commander

[Voodoo]

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On this stellar edition of the Immortal Machines Podcast, your intrepid spaceship jockeys Robert [Trebor], Eric [Ravenlock], Clayton [Voodoo] and J Arcane talk about one of the defining space combat saga to ever grace the hard drive of a PC, the one and only Wing Commander series. Covering Wing Commanders 1 thru Prophecy, you will get all the space combat commentary you can handle, along with our takes on the Wing Commander story line, the inclusion of full motion video, different story arcs, and what our thoughts are about the future of space combat games. But before we settle into the cockpits of our Rapier medium attack fighters and recount tales of taking on the Kilrathi fleet single handed, we have a very lively chat of what we’ve been playing on our PCs since the last podcast so worry not, there is still plenty of gaming gossip gestation.

So strap yourselves in and get ready to take a ride on The Rise and Fall of Wing Commander (http://www.immortalmachines.com/?p=250).

Links, links, and more links for your reading pleasure:
Wing Commander I (http://www.google.com/url?sa=D&q=http%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FWing_Comm ander_%2528video_game%2529)
Win (http://www.google.com/url?sa=D&q=http%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FWing_Comm ander_II%3A_Vengeance_of_the_Kilrathi)g Commander II (http://www.google.com/url?sa=D&q=http%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FWing_Comm ander_II%3A_Vengeance_of_the_Kilrathi)
Wing Commander III (http://www.google.com/url?sa=D&q=http%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FWing_Comm ander_III%3A_Heart_of_the_Tiger)
Wing Commander IV (http://www.google.com/url?sa=D&q=http%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FWing_Comm ander_IV%3A_The_Price_of_Freedom)
Wing Commander (V) Prophecy (http://www.google.com/url?sa=D&q=http%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FWing_Comm ander%3A_Prophecy)
Wing Commander Prophecy: Secret Ops (http://www.google.com/url?sa=D&q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wcnews.com%2Fbackground%2Fwcso. shtml)
SMod Tactical for Source (http://www.google.com/url?sa=D&q=http%3A%2F%2Fsmod-tactical.com%2F)
D-FEND Reloaded (http://www.google.com/url?sa=D&q=http%3A%2F%2Fdfendreloaded.sourceforge.net%2F)
P (http://www.google.com/url?sa=D&q=http%3A%2F%2Fpinnaclegameprofiler.com%2F)innacle Game Profiler (http://www.google.com/url?sa=D&q=http%3A%2F%2Fpinnaclegameprofiler.com%2F)

Hosted and Summarized by Robert [Trebor]
Participants are Eric [Ravenlock] and J Arcane
Produced by Clayton [Voodoo]

Direct Download (http://www.immortalmachines.com/public/podcast/The_Rise_and_Fall_of_Wing_Commander.mp3)
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[Rune_74]

I woudl die for another wing commander game....

What I would give for another freelancer as well...

[nabokovfan87]

Someone tell J Arcane I know how to fix his pc. The reason it wont allow you to sleep is because you have more then 4 gb of memory and you have to allocate the proper size to match your ram.

Here is what you need.... (make sure you read page 3 comments on the first link)

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/819-hibernate-enable-disable.html

Essentially the problem is that windows 7 by default doesn't allow for a large amount of ram to be saved and then loaded back when you come back from hibernation. That file is called hiberfil.sys and you need to enable it, delete it, and then re-enable it to make it the correct size.

After looking for the last 30 minutes and not finding it, just go off the comments in the above link, but that is what I did to fix mine.

[Ravenlock]

I originally wanted to stick with the space shooter theme of Episode 31, but as it turns out, there aren’t that many indie games out there right now that put you in the cockpit of a spaceship. What there’s a lot more of, though, is strategy games set in space, and the recently released Flotilla has been getting a whole lot of buzz for all the right reasons. Brendon Chung’s Homeworld-esque galactic adventure is leisurely paced but still contains moments of high tension, looks and sounds great, and comes at a very attractive price.

By happy coincidence, the XBLA version of Flotilla recently caught the attention of our own Mike Bellmore, and he gave it a favorable writeup (http://www.colonyofgamers.com/cogforums/showthread.php?t=16891) here on Colony of Gamers. We found that his observations also apply well to the PC version of the game, and if you’ve got $10 to spend and a hankering for a very re-playable strategy game wrapped in a truly silly (but enjoyable) plot, this is a fine place to invest that cash.

Of course, nobody’s asking you to buy it sight unseen, and we’d encourage you to give the demo a try (http://www.blendogames.com/flotilla/) and decide for yourself whether this voyage to the stars is one you want to take.

After, of course, you listen to the Episode 31 Indiecast (http://www.immortalmachines.com/?p=255).

Hosted and Summarized by Eric [Ravenlock]
Participants are Robert [Trebor], and Producer Clayton [Voodoo]


Direct Download (http://www.immortalmachines.com/public/podcast/Flotilla.mp3)

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[Ravenlock]

I mention Gravity Bone in the Indiecast - it's at the Blendo Games main page (http://www.blendogames.com/) (2nd section down) if you'd like to try it out as well. Flotilla is also now available on Steam (http://store.steampowered.com/app/55000/), at 10% off, as well.

[Doogie2K]

When you were racking your brains for what came out in 1997, I was screaming in my head, "Quake II! Quake II! Quake II!" It came out about a week after WC: Prophecy (11/30 for Prophecy, 12/9 for Quake II), so the hype train for that was probably riding an already-fragile WC right off the rails.

Surprised you guys didn't bring up X-Wing Alliance -- which came out a few months before Freespace 2 -- when talking about the last great space combat sims, because I really enjoyed that one, because it expanded your vehicle repertoire considerably (I <3 TIE Defenders), added some physics effects (you could take out an entire flight of TIE Fighters with one well-placed concussion missile) and it had a decent storyline, too, at least up until the part where you became Lando Calrissian at the Battle of Endor. The whole back-and-forth between working for your family and working for the Rebels, and the tension that created...I liked it. It's just stupid that you got to fly the Millennium Falcon for the last three missions of the game (which I never did finish).

If any traditional space combat sim is going to make it in the 21st century, it's going to be a streamlined Star Wars game, optimized for the gamepad (and thus the console as well as the PC). Anything else -- that doesn't have a name brand and can't be played on the console -- is probably doomed to the realm of the niche, as you say. Then again, we can always hope that a (say) 2012 X-Wing game could have the same effect in revitalizing and repopularizing the space combat sim that Street Fighter IV has for fighting games and Telltale's episodic stuff has for adventure games over the last couple of years.

[Ravenlock]

We actually get around to talking about X-Wing Alliance a bit in the retro segment of the show we recorded late last week, so don't worry, that's coming, though we didn't talk about it a whole lot more than you did right there. ;)

Agree about your last paragraph. I hadn't considered the fighting game revival (and the accompanying huge popularity of Street Fighter controllers, of all things), but certainly it's not impossible that the same thing could happen to flight combat games, if the right alchemy of accessibility and popular appeal came along.

[Voodoo]

“And so it begins” are the famous words that begin the five seasons of Babylon 5 back in 1994. But for those of us PC gamers, who fell in love with the story, the characters, the mythos, and the technology, we never got any love from the PC game development community and thus, no Babylon 5 PC games ever made it to our hard drives. However thanks to a certain game called FreeSpace 2 going open source and the FreeSpace 2 Source Code Project, the total conversion mod, The Babylon Project, became a reality. This space combat simulator lets you ride fire in an EA (Earth Alliance) Starfury in over a dozen different campaigns, some of which are based on actual Babylon 5 episodes and others are from the creative minds of developers that are huge fans of B5.

So join Robert [Trebor], Eric [Ravenlock], and Clayton [Voodoo] in the Cobra Bays as we mount our SA-23E Mitchell-Hyundyne Starfurys and prepare to launch to, The Babylon Project (http://www.immortalmachines.com/?p=270).

Direct Download (http://www.immortalmachines.com/public/podcast/The_Babylon_Project.mp3)

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[nabokovfan87]

Someone tell J Arcane I know how to fix his pc. The reason it wont allow you to sleep is because you have more then 4 gb of memory and you have to allocate the proper size to match your ram.

Here is what you need.... (make sure you read page 3 comments on the first link)

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/819-hibernate-enable-disable.html

Essentially the problem is that windows 7 by default doesn't allow for a large amount of ram to be saved and then loaded back when you come back from hibernation. That file is called hiberfil.sys and you need to enable it, delete it, and then re-enable it to make it the correct size.

After looking for the last 30 minutes and not finding it, just go off the comments in the above link, but that is what I did to fix mine.

Next time you all get together can someone tell J Arcane to check the thread and fix his hibernation issue.