I did forget to mention Mariko "Spirit" Tanaka from WC1/2
**** me, now I remember how incredibly angry I was when she died.
Ah, now this reminds me of something if I can find it that should be appropriate to this thread...
There we go. A review of Wing Commander when it came out:
http://www.atarimagazines.com/compute/issue126/50_Wing_Commander.phpIt's always stuck in my mind, I'd highly recommend anyone to read it. Read it again just now and still enjoy it. You can stop when it gets to "In Wing Commander, it's the year 2654." It's the opening part that's important here.
EDIT: Ah, what the heck. Copy! Paste!
"GROUNDBREAKING 3-D GRAPHICS COMBINED WITH REALISTIC CHARACTERS MAKE THIS A HEAVY FAVORITE FOR BEST GAME OF THE YEAR
I was terrified. It's still hard to admit, but I almost lost my wingman, and it would've been my fault.
Things just happened so quickly. it was just a routine mission, if there is such a thing. We knew that the Kilrathi had been dropping into the Vega system through one of the jump points in the area, so Spirit and I were out making the rounds, checking the possibles. Then - boom! - out of nowhere, we found ourselves in a swarm of Dralthi-class medium fighters. I gave the order to break, and Spirit kicked in the burners and headed into a group that was coming in low. I lit 'em up, too, and headed straight into two fighters dead ahead.
We traded laser blasts during a head-to-head pass. Then I took a chance and guessed that one of them would break straight up. I got lucky and slid neatly onto his tail. Playing the afterburners just right, I managed to stay behind him until his shields wore down, and I sliced right through his ion drive. Such a pretty explosion. A similar blast off to the right told me that Spirit was doing her thing, too.
Meanwhile, a loudmouthed furball had come around behind me and was heating up my sheilds with his lasers and heating up the comlink with a steady stream of insults. I had had it up to here with his "monkey boy" comments, so I honked the stick back into my lap for a quick look and activated a heat-seeker. We fought to a stalemate for several minutes as both our shields got weaker and weaker. Then the fleabag made a mistake; he got predictable. I anticipated his move and cut in behind him. Dead meat. They don't call me Catskinner for nothing!
Two blasts took his shields down to nothing, but some fancy flying kept me from finishing him off. That's when the first call for help came in from Spirit. She had been my wingman on my very first combat mission; we were compadres. I knew she was rock-steady but quiet - if she called for help, she really needed it. But just one more shot would finish off this arrogant cat-head in front of me. I really wanted him. I missed with another shot, and Spirit called for help again. Another shot was lining up nicely, but it would take a couple of seconds - time Spirit might not have. And I owed her, big time. So I gritted my teeth, whipped my fighter around, and headed off to help her, burners blazing.
She was really in a heap of trouble by the time I got there - no shields, no guns, and two Kilrathi on the hunt. I caught the first one by surprise and splattered him with a missile, but the other was lining Spirit up for the kill. I fired my laser at him till it overheated. His shields were down, but I couldn't finish him. I was desperate and could only think of one thing to do. My shields were strong, and his were down; so I lined him up in my sights, hit the burners, and flew right through him. The crash knocked my shields totally out, but my ship held together. His didn't.
Spirit and I managed to beat feet back to the Tiger's Claw, but I was badly shaken. I had almost let my wingman get killed because I let a fight get personal. I vowed not to let that happen again.
Right there. That's when you know a game has got you. When you start to think about the game characters as real people. When you start to get an emotional attachment to them. Wing Commander's characters get to you better than those in any other game I've seen."
