Star Citizen will employ the best aspects of Roberts' previous work-like intense ship-to-ship combat, open-world exploration, and a dynamic economy-while taking advantage of high-end PC gaming hardware. The "visual and technical prototype," as Roberts described it, was quietly built over the past 12 months by a small team, consisting of some of his previous developer compatriots from Wing Commander and Freelancer, along with some new blood. As a gamer, I'd thoroughly enjoyed much of Roberts' work, so I was was optimistic about the early tech demo. If you were a PC gamer back in the early 1990's, there's a pretty good chance that you're familiar with the Wing Commander series. This past Monday, Roberts dropped in to give us a first-look at Star Citizen, and talk about his return to creating epic space sims. Other elements (arrows and such) are taken from the SWC manual.Just one short month ago, we reported that Chris Roberts, the creative mind behind titles such as Wing Commander, Privateer, and Freelancer, was working on a new game. As you can see we're using original Scimitar line art positioned in different ways - that's because several games (including Super Wing Commander!) reuse the classic 'Scim as the example fighter for these articles. and Wing Commander Arena relies even more on 'special' maneuvers which are somewhat akin to those found in a fighting game.
(ahh! I'm hitting myself for not including a Super Wing Commander shot right now.) CONCEPT: These pages were planned early on, as a maneuvers page was integral to Claw Marks. I think this section was especially well accepted by casual fans, since it's neat to see the talking heads again. I wanted live actors and drawings and talking heads coexisting and for the booklet to act like there was absolutely no problem with them all appearing together. Beyond that - I'm a Wing Commander fan and not a graphic artist, so one sort of tribute I wanted to include was to seamlessly (which is to say while ignoring the elephant in the room) include multiple Wing Commander styles in the manual. "Ja'targk clan" - This clan was introduced in the Super Wing Commander version of Claw Marks, where Khajja the Fang's full name was listed for the first time. His picture is the Wing Commander II 'Drakhai/ace' VDU. His clan is new, my parallel to the Super Wing Commander manual - it's taken from one of the otherwise unmentioned systems on the Wing Commander Universe map. but the other two are only mentioned after they show up (because WC2 had no Claw Marks-style manual) and then only briefly. Three of them play a major role in the plot (Thrakhath, Khasra and Jazz). "Ranger" - Originally Mike "Ranger" Unknown from the Super Wing Commander introduction "Kur 'Human-Killer' nar Tr'k H'hra" - I chose to do a bio on Kur because I always wanted to know more about the Kilrathi aces in Wing Commander II. Sorta contradicts Blair's death, too, if they're the same character. This is actually addressing a real book, since the conceit of that latter guide is that now-octogenerian LaFong has written his memoirs and you're reading them. Armstrong and LaFong were alternate names for Blair, used in Super Wing Commander and the Wing Commander I & II Ultimate Strategy Guide respectively. "Armstrong and LaFong" - I love this joke and I get the feeling everyone else hates it.
I'll point out how I try to explain this later. I basically had to choose between having some familiar second-tier faces who were really really old for some reason or making up entirely new characters, and I went with the former. Because of his already-awkward Super Wing Commander/SegaCD bio, Doomsday would be 81 in 2701. The bio refers to his main character point (which he lost in False Colors - no one noticed that) and touches on a bit of a problem. "Etienne 'Doomsday' Montclair - Doomsday was introduced way back in Secret Missions 2 (that's his actual picture from Wing Commander II). VII, *did* have the rack - so is the Drakhri a pre-WC1 ship? Also, over-cockpit missiles (sans rack) are seen in Wing Commander Academy. Super Wing Commander is a remake of Wing Commander I with additional events/new cutcenes added (an additional side plot and Missions concerning an early Kilrathi prototype cloaked fighter), and a new and different additional campaign: Secret Missions 1.5 involving the destruction of the shipyards where the Sivar was built.īehind the scenes "missile rack" - The unspoken sentiment being that the Super Wing Commander Dralthi, which used the same 3D model as the Dralthi Mk.
Super Wing Commander contains the memoirs of Jason Armstrong a pilot of the TCS Tiger's Claw (who flew in missions alongside the war's top twenty aces including Christopher Blair, Carl T.