~Wing Commander ]I[

Reviewed obtained via NetMail.

Hardware used:  486DX2/66 with VLB ATI Graphics Ultra Pro graphics.
                Gravis UltraSound sound card
                Gravis Analog Pro Joystick
                12 megs RAM.
                Toshiba 3401b 2.2X speed CD-ROM drive


Overview - This is the next step in Wing Commander Games, and 
like always, it's a huge step above the previous game.  A lot of 
the game requires at least some knowledge of the previous games.  
There's quite a bit of history in the "Victory Streak" magazine 
(basically an orientation guide to the TCS Victory, the carrier 
you serve on), but not enough to truly understand everything 
behind what is going on.  The game boasts some pretty impressive 
stats.  4 CDs, SVGA support, support for most available sound 
cards, famous actors like Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker from Star 
Wars), Malcolm McDowell (Dr. Soran from Star Trek: Generations, 
and many other roles), John Rhys-Davies (Elliot Ness' 
semi-partner in the fairly new series "The Untouchables", if I'm 
not mistaken.  He's also been in many other things), and Jason 
Bernard (the boss from Herman's Head), and various other people 
that may or may not make you say "I KNOW I've seen him/her 
before, but where?", such as Maniac (Tom Wilson) and Radio 
(Courtney Gains.  His name sounds familiar, too.  Guys named 
Courtney stand out in memory :).  Despite my dislike of Tandy 
Corp, I bought the game at Computer City, since it was $46.97, 
the lowest price I found.  Along with its impressive stats, this 
requires a pretty impressive system.  It claims to require a 
minimum of a 486/50 with 8 megs of RAM to run acceptably at all, 
and that's in VGA mode.  Combat is pretty choppy in SVGA mode on 
my system, though to me, it's bearable, unless I'm fighting a 
large detailed ship, when I can easily switch down to VGA mode 
with a hotkey. 


Overall Impression - If you liked Wing Commander and Wing 
Commander II, you'll absolutely love this game, that is, if you 
have the patients and the system to run it. (see my "cons" for 
more specifics) 


~Pros:

Amazing graphics.  Although the movie sequences were a bit of a 
disappointment (see Cons), the graphics are all very good, and 
there   are a lot of them. 

Excellent music and sound.  The main music is the same as the 
main   music from the first two games, obviously for some 
familiarity.  I   really expected a bit more music in the game, 
but it's used   effectively, so it really doesn't seem lacking.  
The voice quality is   pretty darn good, and the sound effects 
are very good. 

It's just plain fun and extremely addictive.  You'll find 
yourself   saying, "alright, just ONE more mission and I'll 
quit, and get some   real work done," but of course, it'll 
happen after that mission, and   after the mission after, and so 
on. :) 

The story is well developed.  The combination of that and the 
quality   of the actors used makes this a rather engrossing 
game.  You'll feel   like it's really happening.  Part of this 
is no doubt due to the story   developed in the first two games 
and the "Victory Streak", which   includes a history of the 
whole Terran-Kilrathi war, now 40 years old. 

The non-flight scenes are somewhat interactive.  You can walk 
around   the TCS Victory and talk to the crew members, learning 
more about the   game, and setting up your own personality 
towards the crew (you can   choose responses.  Usually one will 
go along with them, and one will   make them feel bad or give 
'em reason to dislike you...  So far, I   haven't determined 
whether or not these affect the rest of the game or   not.  Some 
of them definitely do, like when/if Flash challenges you to   a 
Simulator Duel.  That affects whether you duel and whether he 
stays   as a fighter or continues being a test pilot). 

You can pick your own wingman!  You can choose anyone who is 
available   on the TCS Victory at the time and that you have 
talked to before.   The only exception is the first mission.  
The whole intro is based on   the fact that you want to fly with 
Hobbes on the first mission, so he   is the only choice, no 
matter what. 


~Cons:

Wing Commander III is anything BUT bug free.  Save often!  It 
locks up   for me once each mission for the first three or four 
missions, and   then starts locking up less often as the game 
goes on. This is true no   matter how many times I restart the 
game (I have restarted it, and   sure enough, it started locking 
up for each mission for the first   three or four).  Before I 
got it to run stably enough to run at least   one mission, I had 
a heck of a time setting up my configuration to get   it to run 
at ALL, and then I was getting divide errors frequently.   Right 
before that, I was getting divide errors when trying to load the 
game, and I never DID figure out why.  I fixed it by deleting my 
setup   and re-installing.  As I said, if you're patient, this 
game is worth   it.  If you can't handle frequent lockups, keep 
away from this game.   On the bright side, I only ran into ONE 
other bug, so far.  I entered   one pre-brief, talked to the 
captain, was shown the map and told the   mission, dismissed, 
shown the map, told the mission, and dismissed.   In other 
words, it went through the pre-briefing twice in a row. 

The SVGA Movie sequences are an absolute joke.  Apparently 
Origin   thinks the S in SVGA is "Standard" or "Simple".  
Everything on the   box and in the docs implies that all SVGA 
things are 640x480x256.   When you install the game, it tells 
you that the movies run in a   "special" SVGA resolution.  
Nowhere can I find what this resolution   is, but it's not much 
higher than 320x200, and significantly lower   than many of 
standard VGA's X-modes.  When I loaded it up the first   time, I 
actually exited and checked the install setup to see why it   
was running the movies in VGA.  As it turns out, that's their   
"special" SVGA resolution.  The battle and room screens are in   
640x480, though the docs and box mislead you into thinking 
everything   is. 

Some of the digitized graphics (i.e. movie graphics) are really 
poorly   done, especially when there is a lot of movement on the 
screen.  It's   not bad, but extremely noticeable.  It seems 
most prevalent when   digitized characters are moving and 
exposing part of the background   scene that was covered by them 
in previous frames. 

The documents, while serving as a nice story teller, aren't all 
that   great..  Especially the contents.  When reading through 
the manuals, I   remember seeing something about the in-flight 
options menu.  When I   wanted to look for it specifically, I 
couldn't find it in the play   guide, installation guide, OR the 
Victory Streak.  Also, there are   invulnerability and no-crash 
modes.  I found nothing in the docs to   say whether or not 
these affect the progression of the game or not   (e.g. X-Wing 
has the options, too, but you can't use them and   proceed).  
There are also various other things listed on screens in   the 
game that appear to be totally undocumented. 

Some of the fonts used are annoying.  "U" looks like it could be 
"LI",   and when it asks for CD 3, it looks like it wants CD 5. 


For those of you who want a numerical rating, number in () shows
weight of rating.

`Graphics         97%   (2) 
`Sound Effects    98%   (2) 
`Music            99%   (2) 
`Ease of control  96%   (3) 
`Fun!             98%   (4) 
`Stability        60%   (1) 
`Replay- ability  94%   (3)

`Overall          94.7%

Despite the extreme instability, which may or may not affect 
you, and the various other problems, this is definitely an 
excellent game, and if you like Wing Commander, and have a 
powerful DX(2)/50 or better, I highly recommend this games.  
Since the computer game industry moves so fast, I won't claim 
that this game is years ahead of the competition, but it's 
undoubtedly months ahead of the competition. 


Review obtained via NetMail.