[Tolwyn]

Hi there!

as some of you might be aware, a set of unused Wing Commander 4 models for was released a few weeks ago. The set included the Avenger, Banshee, Vindicator, Durango, Bearcat, Lance, marine shuttle and a prototype of the Stormfire gun. The files are four years old, so some models are not up to our usual standards.

I've decided to make something special to showcase these models. In my "seldom" free time I have created a loose remake of eight missions from Wing Commander 4. The demo package features the original voice-overs of Mark Hamil, Jason Bernard, and the other classic WC4 actors who were highlighted in these missions. Briefing sequences are also included. You can grab the package here.

To install the WC 4 demo, unrar the file into the Prologue folder. Then, from within the game, go to the campaign select screen, select Wing Commander 4 Demo, and then start the campaign by hitting the continue button.

- Tolwyn

Download (70MB)

Features

- 8 new ships: Bearcat, Dragon, Banshee, Avenger, Vindicator, Durango-class, Assault Shuttle, Tallahassee-class
- 8 missions (Masa 2/3, Silenos 1A/1B/2A/2B/3A/3B)
- 4 new soundtracks
- new weapons (Stormfire, Tachyon)
- original voice overs from Wing Commander 4
- movie clips from Wing Commander 4

Screenshots

[Shade]

Oh, neat. Definitely gonna check this out

[Alan Bolte]

Holy expletive Batman! If this is what you can pump out in your free time, I can't wait to see what Saga has in store. Downloading now.

[Tolwyn]

Holy expletive Batman! If this is what you can pump out in your free time, I can't wait to see what Saga has in store. Downloading now.

It is merely a test of mission/campaign branching, ingame cutscenes and improved autopilot scripts.

[Cobra]

In the words of the great MacHall artists...

I think the expletive is appropriate. Holy ****.

[Alan Bolte]

I'm trying to figure out why this isn't A) getting more attention or B) highlighted. The latter would help the former, surely. The five missions I've played were certainly fun, with no apparent bugs, and I think I'll go try the other branch now.

[Tolwyn]

The five missions I've played were certainly fun, with no apparent bugs, and I think I'll go try the other branch now.

Out of curiosity: which branch did you choose? There are three branches actually. The campaign branches in the 2nd and, if you play the second branch, in the 5th mission.

[Alan Bolte]

First time through I took the A missions. I've now taken the B missions, and then played the last mission over again in simulator. Obvoiusly, I didn't get to see what video might have come after the one I played in simulator, but I wasn't going to play through all 5 missions again just yet. After playing Standoff it felt weird - but kinda cool - to make a choice as to which branch to follow instead of having to go home with my torpedoes intact to get the alternate path. Also, it's weird that the capships blow up instead of drifting dead in space, especially when the cutscenes show the burnt-out hulk. If you wanted to change that, I see two obvious ways. One, simply replace the debris pieces with a single model. Two, massively up the hull hit points and change the missions to disable targets, setting the ship to go neutral when that happens.

Of course, the whole setup with the torpedoes is different. The laser turrets are so good at picking them off that the number of bombers and torps per bomber hardly seems sufficient for the AI for these converted missions, while us smart guys primarily have to worry about getting caught in the explosion of our torps. The ships aren't invincible against AI bombers, after all, neither ship would perish in 5B otherwise, but it's certainly less to worry about than I'm used to. Don't know what to tell you as far as that goes. Overall, though, it doesn't matter, because it's still a lot of fun.

[Tolwyn]

- the ai performance depends largely on the ai difficulty setting. Enemy fighters will blow my ass out of the sky on hard and very hard difficulty levels.
- regarding the debris: I am not going to disclosure what we are currently doing in that particular direction. Let's just say that the final result will look very cool.

Don't forget that these missions were created as an autopilot test. They are neither polished nor 100% exact reproductions of the original missions.

[Vidmaster]

those recreated missions are so cool, I love them. Make me want to play the originals again or, even better, have every mission from WC3 + 4 recreated. Heck, and from WC1 and 2    I could live without choosing your wingman and interactive conversations, if I would get to play all of them with better graphics again. 

thanks for the nice missions, tolwyn. Still dying for the WC Saga full release, keep up the good work.     

[aRaven]

nice!

but what i really wanna have is wc1 oder wc2 remade...the ships are much more beautiful imo and have curves^^....do these next please!!

[Tolwyn]

Wing Commander 2 ships (Rapier, Ferret, Sabre and Confederation-class just to mention a few) will be featured in the full release of the Saga

[Vidmaster]

hey, it crashed and during a cutscene.

At he point where Blair starts to argue with the Captain about the term "subhumans" and then "seether ? is that the pilot ---------------------------------ccccrrrrrrraaaaaaaassssssssshhhhhhhhh.
Not ctd, the whole game just freezed.

EDIT: Now it worked. Hm. Strange

And by the way, did you compress the cutscenes ? The WC3 ones of the autopilot techdemo looked a little bit better.

[Tolwyn]

Well - due to lack of time (and to keep the download size as low as possible), I did not convert DVD movies but used those from the CD version instead. For the WC3 demo I recorded movies from the PSX version.

The CTD you described: I doubt I will be able to reproduce it and since the game worked on the second attempt...

[Vidmaster]

yeah, thats clear . No idea what happend. But I repeat it, it was NO ctd, it just stopped doing anything.

I own the PSX version of WC4, but I always felt it was inferior. The graphics were worse and a lot of cutscenes and even missions were missing. Now from your post, I guess the cutscenes of the PS versions are more detailed. Never noticed that before (I play them on a large plasma TV, so of course they look crappy).

[Tolwyn]

WC4 movie quality is as follows:

CD version -> PSOne version -> DVD version

Ground missions were either missing (Panther mission branch) or converted into space dog fight.

[Alan Bolte]

Oh, hey, I wasn't talking about the fighters, those were a pain and a half, could be dangerous even on easy. Do you mean the bombers are as smart as I am on Very Hard? I guess I've never survived long enough to notice, though I would think on easy or very easy Maniac would be able to take out one of the cruisers by himself with the fighters gone, and I'm not seeing that happen on easy. Should I check out very easy?

[Tolwyn]

Maniac has orders to guard you, so he will attack the cruiser player has targeted. He will fire his torpedos in 2 out of 3-4 cases. For the bombers to work properly though, they must have some distance, before they engage, otherwise they won't be able to maintain target lock.

[Tahna Los]

Does this also include the WC flyby animation addon you put in a while ago?  The link for that in the WCS forum is broken.

[Tolwyn]

no, it does not. You can still download it through our website though (makes a mental note to fix the link in the thread). And, as you can see, this small campaign here is also utilizing fly by animations.