We are still waiting on a suitable Amiga AGA emulator with robust recording features before tackling such games.
Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger
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Screenshot |
Player's Review
Playstation version of Wing Commander III - Heart of the Tiger. One of the first games to use known actors in full motion video providing all the story segments of the game. The original pc version was released in 1994 and the Playstation port in 1996.
"Wing Commander is a space combat simulator intercut with live action cutscenes. Gameplay involves completing missions and destroying enemy craft, Wing commander III dispensed with the issuing of medals after such missions and relied more on cutscenes to drive the story along making much more use of CD technology. As the man giving the orders, Blair often gets to choose what ship he will fly, what missiles it will carry, and what wingman (wingmen) he will take with him. As in Wing Commander, some wingmen can be killed permanently in combat. Blair's own call sign remained customizable.
The protagonist of the previous two games is officially assigned a name, Colonel Christopher Blair. Thrakhath nar Kiranka, Crown Prince of the hostile Kilrathi Empire, presides over the execution by disintegration of a group of Terran Confederation prisoners of war. One, however, is left alive: Blair's lover Colonel Jeannette "Angel" Devereaux, due to her status among the Kilrathi as a respected warrior. On the planet Vespus, Blair and Brigadier General James "Paladin" Taggart inspect the downed wreckage of the TCS Concordia. The carrier is a total loss.
It is the year 2669, and the Terran-Kilrathi War has been going for over thirty years, with no signs of stopping. Blair, by orders of Admiral Geoffrey Tolwyn, is transferred as Wing Commander to the TCS Victory, a Ranger-class carrier twice as old as Blair. Her captain, William Eisen, has been with her for many years, and is proud of his ship. There are a few old faces, Colonel Ralgha nar "Hobbes" Hhallas, and Major Todd "Maniac" Marshall, but all the other pilots and staff are people Blair has never met."
I play the game on the default Ace difficulty. For the most part it is not to bad, but it is by no means easy thanks to the poor control in this version of the game. It has a kind of Acceleration going on so if you hold a direction for more than a second or two, you overshoot where you want to aim. The adds to the difficulty and drags the game out as fights take longer than they should especially on missions that through 40+ enemies at you. In the second half of the game matters are made worse when the enemy gets heavily boosted shields and armour. Every button on the pad has multiple functions via combinations and can be a real pain to move through them while in combat. It is made worse when the enemy is swerving all over the place when you line up your shot making them very difficult to hit.
Some missions have carriers, cruisers and dreadnoughts. These seem to be very tame and not much of a threat at all. I just get behind them and shoot them to death. Missiles seem to do little or no damage strangely. Killing them does seem to cause the enemy to loose morale as the fighters somehow become easier to take down. If you get to close you do usually end up just exploding though. This brings me to the the wingmen. For the most part they are mostly useless but occasionally they do get a sudden skill boost and start tearing it up. Normally I will take out large ships first while wing man deals with fighters. If i leave the big ships till the end, the wing man will often do a suicide run for no reason at all and fly into the centre of the ship and die. This is a big problem Flash and Maniac as they will not listen to 'Form on my Wing' or go home commands.
There are certainly some missions I could have handled better. I don't mess around finding optimal power or weapons. I usually just take the default ship and loadout suggested to me. Once the Excalibur is made available at the end of the game though, I take it when I can as its Aim Assist make the game so much easier, it suddenly becomes more fun to play! During the game you will get some decisions to make during cuts cenes. Some of these result in bring down or raising the moral of your wingmen (Fighting skill). I don't always choose the best one. Blair can be a bitch! It can also have the knock on effect of changing who is available and who lives and dies. Towards the end of the game you get to choose a love interest. I take the opportunity to have a go on Ginger Lynn at this point. The final mission could have gone better I think. I send the Wingmen home in an effort to save them as other wise they just ...die. No last communication I just notice they are gone. It is probably scripted for them to die. I think I could have used the cloak function earlier but not really sure to what advantage,
Of the three main versions, PC, 3D0 and Playstation, I think the PS1 versions comes off quite poorly mostly due to control system. The cockpits in the pc and 3d0 version really adds to the game and I think the textures are overall better there as well. The console versions also don't feature the land based missions and have instead been replaced with some fmv sequences that do not appear in the pc version. The FMV seems to be slightly higher quality in the console versions as well. I think the 3D0 probably has the best version of this game with the right controls.
Some Timestamps for navigating the video. I will list each system as a section at the point of the jump sequence:-
00:12:48 Start of game Orsini System
01:06:57 Tamoya System
01:37:12 Locanda System (CD2)
02:16:58 Blackmane System
03:05:40 Ariel System
03:57:35 Caliban System
04:53:20 Torgo System (CD3)
05:58:33 Loki System
06:52:10 Alcor System
08:29:45 Freya System (CD4)
09:21:32 Hyperion System
09:43:18 Kilrah System
"Wing Commander is a space combat simulator intercut with live action cutscenes. Gameplay involves completing missions and destroying enemy craft, Wing commander III dispensed with the issuing of medals after such missions and relied more on cutscenes to drive the story along making much more use of CD technology. As the man giving the orders, Blair often gets to choose what ship he will fly, what missiles it will carry, and what wingman (wingmen) he will take with him. As in Wing Commander, some wingmen can be killed permanently in combat. Blair's own call sign remained customizable.
The protagonist of the previous two games is officially assigned a name, Colonel Christopher Blair. Thrakhath nar Kiranka, Crown Prince of the hostile Kilrathi Empire, presides over the execution by disintegration of a group of Terran Confederation prisoners of war. One, however, is left alive: Blair's lover Colonel Jeannette "Angel" Devereaux, due to her status among the Kilrathi as a respected warrior. On the planet Vespus, Blair and Brigadier General James "Paladin" Taggart inspect the downed wreckage of the TCS Concordia. The carrier is a total loss.
It is the year 2669, and the Terran-Kilrathi War has been going for over thirty years, with no signs of stopping. Blair, by orders of Admiral Geoffrey Tolwyn, is transferred as Wing Commander to the TCS Victory, a Ranger-class carrier twice as old as Blair. Her captain, William Eisen, has been with her for many years, and is proud of his ship. There are a few old faces, Colonel Ralgha nar "Hobbes" Hhallas, and Major Todd "Maniac" Marshall, but all the other pilots and staff are people Blair has never met."
I play the game on the default Ace difficulty. For the most part it is not to bad, but it is by no means easy thanks to the poor control in this version of the game. It has a kind of Acceleration going on so if you hold a direction for more than a second or two, you overshoot where you want to aim. The adds to the difficulty and drags the game out as fights take longer than they should especially on missions that through 40+ enemies at you. In the second half of the game matters are made worse when the enemy gets heavily boosted shields and armour. Every button on the pad has multiple functions via combinations and can be a real pain to move through them while in combat. It is made worse when the enemy is swerving all over the place when you line up your shot making them very difficult to hit.
Some missions have carriers, cruisers and dreadnoughts. These seem to be very tame and not much of a threat at all. I just get behind them and shoot them to death. Missiles seem to do little or no damage strangely. Killing them does seem to cause the enemy to loose morale as the fighters somehow become easier to take down. If you get to close you do usually end up just exploding though. This brings me to the the wingmen. For the most part they are mostly useless but occasionally they do get a sudden skill boost and start tearing it up. Normally I will take out large ships first while wing man deals with fighters. If i leave the big ships till the end, the wing man will often do a suicide run for no reason at all and fly into the centre of the ship and die. This is a big problem Flash and Maniac as they will not listen to 'Form on my Wing' or go home commands.
There are certainly some missions I could have handled better. I don't mess around finding optimal power or weapons. I usually just take the default ship and loadout suggested to me. Once the Excalibur is made available at the end of the game though, I take it when I can as its Aim Assist make the game so much easier, it suddenly becomes more fun to play! During the game you will get some decisions to make during cuts cenes. Some of these result in bring down or raising the moral of your wingmen (Fighting skill). I don't always choose the best one. Blair can be a bitch! It can also have the knock on effect of changing who is available and who lives and dies. Towards the end of the game you get to choose a love interest. I take the opportunity to have a go on Ginger Lynn at this point. The final mission could have gone better I think. I send the Wingmen home in an effort to save them as other wise they just ...die. No last communication I just notice they are gone. It is probably scripted for them to die. I think I could have used the cloak function earlier but not really sure to what advantage,
Of the three main versions, PC, 3D0 and Playstation, I think the PS1 versions comes off quite poorly mostly due to control system. The cockpits in the pc and 3d0 version really adds to the game and I think the textures are overall better there as well. The console versions also don't feature the land based missions and have instead been replaced with some fmv sequences that do not appear in the pc version. The FMV seems to be slightly higher quality in the console versions as well. I think the 3D0 probably has the best version of this game with the right controls.
Some Timestamps for navigating the video. I will list each system as a section at the point of the jump sequence:-
00:12:48 Start of game Orsini System
01:06:57 Tamoya System
01:37:12 Locanda System (CD2)
02:16:58 Blackmane System
03:05:40 Ariel System
03:57:35 Caliban System
04:53:20 Torgo System (CD3)
05:58:33 Loki System
06:52:10 Alcor System
08:29:45 Freya System (CD4)
09:21:32 Hyperion System
09:43:18 Kilrah System
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