Wing Commander Saga, New Freeware Game Out

[Deuce Traveler]

This has good reviews so far, and I can't wait to get into the Wing Commander Universe once more. I read somewhere that there are 50 new missions.

Wing Commander Saga

Press Release:
At long last, the day has finally arrived! It has been ten years to the day that the Wing Commander Saga project was officially founded. Through this time, Saga has evolved through a host of iterations, with sometimes frustrating twists and turns and several brick walls. However, we believe that Wing Commander Saga would not be what it is today without the lessons we have learned from each one of those experiences, and we are very excited to finally share the results with you.

On many occasions, we have referred to Wing Commander Saga: The Darkest Dawn as a labor of love. That is truly what it has been for us. Many years ago, Chris Roberts and his team at Origin ignited our imaginations with their innovative, blockbuster Wing Commander series. Our hope has always been that with Wing Commander Saga, we could recapture that excitement and magic to some degree and share it with all of you. Our ten year development process has certainly taught us even more respect for just how innovative and brilliant Chris Roberts and his team are. Our development of Wing Commander Saga: The Darkest Dawn is meant as an homage to them and what they achieved, and we would like to thank them and EA, who holds the intellectual property for Wing Commander. We would also like to thank all the sites who have generously offered to provide mirrors for Saga.

If Wing Commander Saga: The Darkest Dawn is your introduction to the Wing Commander universe, you owe it to yourself to try the source material that inspired us. Several of the original Wing Commander games are available at gog.com, so make sure to show your support for the actual creators of Wing Commander by going and purchasing some copies! You won't regret it. Especially make sure to pick up a copy of Wing Commander III, since the story of Wing Commander Saga: The Darkest Dawn was written to coincide with the events of that game.

Today we are only launching the PC vesion. The Linux and Mac versions will be available soon. We just need to port the launcher to OSX and Linux and run some tests.

For help troubleshooting known issues click here to visit our forums. We'd also love to hear your thoughts about the game, so feel free to join us there!

So, without further ado, we are pleased to present you with Wing Commander Saga: The Darkest Dawn. It's humanity's most desperate hour, a desperate struggle for survival against impossible odds, and you've got a front row seat.

 

[GreenLantern]

Just curious if anyone has tried the game. If so, any thoughts?

Hopefully, this fan effort will push EA to restart the official Wing Commander franchise.

 

[Deuce Traveler]

I tried to run it, but my poor, antiquated laptop couldn't handle the engine and crashed. 1GB of ram and no video card equals fail. I will be back home to my 8GB ram rig next month and hope to try it then.

I did see the starting cut scene and was able to click around the flight deck of the carrier you start off on.

The cut scene was very good for a fan mod and set up the idea that you just stepped into a danger zone. The interface also seemed pretty smooth. The gameplay... oh yeah, I didn't get to that since my system crashed.

I was reading the reviews on rpgcodex and most people that played it said that they enjoyed the game, but some later missions start getting hard to win at without a joystick. Maybe others here can say more.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I just tried out the Prologue so far, which is basically a tutorial as I understand it.

So, this is absolutely no verdict on the final quality of the game, just some observations and random thoughts on what I saw so far:

I find their color choices for the game's UI questionable, and the ships seem a little too simple still for what we're accustomed from other games. on the other hand - what other Scpace COmbat games are there these days anyway?

Tutorials are usually boring, but I think this one may be extra boring. The first tutorial mission teaches you the auto-pilot. By letting you fly to 3 different nav points. Very tedious and I also question the teaching factor here. It seems better to let someone steer to one nav point, have him do something there , and then ask him to fly to the next, just to let the player see if he still remembers or still has to follow the instructions.

But then, I am just an armchair game designer and no space flight instructor...

 

[Falkus]

I'm about eight, ten missions into the main campaign; and so far, I've been having a great time. The game's fun and, in my gut, it feels like a Wing Commander game should feel.

It's also got impressive voice acting for a fan game; not top quality stuff, but definitely a few cuts above what you usually get when they try it.

 

[GreenLantern]

Hmmm.. I may just have to download it and give it a try... plus you can't argue with the price!

 

[Deuce Traveler]

I am now done with the first four missions. So far I am loving the game and I do feel like it qualifies as a Wing Commander campaign. The voice acting isn't to WC3 levels, but would be right there with WC2. I have died twice, but because of my own mistakes as I got tunnel vision trying to take down a target which resulted in me ignoring some missile firing threats behind me.

If you are familiar with the Wing Commander weaponry and their ranges, you should do fine. If you don't know the difference between a Pilum FF and a Javelin HS missile than you're going to have problems. Same with the types of enemies that pop up on radar. I haven't found the game too challenging yet. The longbow still handles like a slug, just like in the original series.

 

[MarkB]

What's the user interface like? Whilst I wouldn't mind going back to some old-school flight sim action, I don't think I even still have the joystick I used to use for the X-Wing series, and I'm much more accustomed to mouse-and-keyboard interfaces these days. Is it playable that way?