Following the accomplishment of Wing Commander, Origin Program decided to develop a sequel. Wing Commander II: Vengeance of the Kilrathi, or merely Wing Commander II is every thing a fantastic sequel should really be. Released in 1991, about the year right after the release of the very first game, Wing Commander II had a number of improvements more than its predecessor.
Improvement on the game started in late 1990, below the operating title Wing Commander II: Cloak and Dagger. Whilst the name of Chris Roberts is credited as the designer, in reality, the project was directed by Siobhan Beeman. At the time Chris Roberts was a Director of New Technologies and was heavily involved in yet another game “Strike Commander”. Beeman produced a smart choice and gave up on making a cutting edge game, and as an alternative decided to strengthen upon the earlier game.
The story picks up proper right after the finish of the very first Wing Commander: Secret Missions two: Crusade. Whilst on the campaign in the Engima Sector, close to the Kilrathi sector HQ, TCS Tiger’s Claw is destroyed by new experimental Kilrathi stealth fighters. Due to the fact your flight information recorder is destroyed, your claims of Kilrathi stealth fighters are dismissed. To make matters worse, you are blamed for the destruction of the Tiger’s Claw, but due to insufficient proof, you are demoted to captain. Your superior, Admiral Tolwyn desires you to resign, but when you refuse you are transferred to InSystem Safety way behind enemy lines. Whilst the Kilrathi emperor is pleased that the Tiger’s Claw is destroyed, the Kilrathi empire nonetheless has complications with the ongoing rebellion. Ten years pass, and surprisingly Admiral Tolwyn’s flagship TCS Concordia shows up below heavy fire. You and your wingman handle to save the ship, and you are quickly reunited with your old pals and transferred to Concordia, but not everybody is satisfied to see you. In the course of the course of the story, you have to clear your name and quit the Kilrathi Empire.
The story was written by a freelancer Ellen Goun, right after the writer of the very first game, Jeff George went to operate on other projects. Goun joined Origin in the course of the improvement of Secret Missions two, and the very first pitch of the story was co-written with Beeman, about November 1990. The story is complete of twist, betrayals, and romance. The story tone is diverse than the very first game for the reason that Chris Roberts wanted a additional really serious and darker story.
The game plays similarly to the very first game, but there are modest adjustments to the gameplay. The AI is enhanced and will scale with your ability, to prevent the difficulty spikes that player previously complained about. There are new ships, to justify the 10-year gap in the story, and there are now heavy fighters and bombers. Due to “phase shielding”, you can no longer destroy capital ships with just your guns, and can only be destroyed with torpedoes. Torpedoes are only carried by heavy fighters and bombers, and all capital ships are now armed with hazardous flak cannons. There is also a new countermeasure: chaff pods. These will support you get rid of enemy missiles.
The mission branching is back, but in Wing Commander II it is a great deal additional simplified. Due to players not playing the losing branch, Origin decided that it is not worth it to design and style them. Alternatively, there is nonetheless technically the “losing branch”, but the losing missions are the identical as the winning ones, only tougher. Losing two missions in the row will outcome in an immediate game more than. One more intentional alter was removing the promotion and medal method, and as an alternative, you are promoted in the course of the course of the campaign. This performs properly with game, as in the course of the campaign you are attempting to clear your name. Also, your wingman can no longer die, and will only die in scripted events.
Wing Commander also adds a good gameplay function: ITTS. The ITTS method is out there in some ships, and it is a modest moving targeting reticle, that will support you with aiming to destroy the enemy more quickly.
Wing Commander II also brought additional technical upgrades, as the game utilizes an upgraded OriginFX engine. The largest improvement was the adding of digitized speech, and Wing Commander II was one particular of the very first examples of voice acting in the gaming market. The digitized voice was employed in a number of cutscenes and in-game flight. At the time this was groundbreaking, but this made a modest trouble for Origin, due to the game currently getting very big. Origin decided to release a separate Speech Accessory Pack, which was launched simultaneously with the base game. In later CD-ROM versions and releases, it came incorporated with the base game, along with the two Specific Operations mission packs. The voice acting is mainly decent, and it was completed by Origin employees members. The entire point worked properly, and it provides the game a good cinematic flavor to the game.
The game’s other important improvements are its graphics. Wing Commander II now characteristics additional detailed portraits, CGI, and additional story cutscenes. There is a lot additional detail in each the ships and cockpits. These specifics are ideal observed in modest cutscenes and short ship “fly-by shots”. All of this was accomplished due to Origin hiring talented 3D artists, some of whom worked on Autodesk 3D.
The game’s music and score are great, and even though Origin’s composer George “The Fatman” Sanger returned to compose the most important theme and other tracks, most of the music was completed by Dana Glover. The game characteristics a number of memorable tracks, most noticeably the “Prince Thrakhath’s theme”.
Wing Commander II, also had two expansion packs: Specific Operations 1 & two. The very first Specific Mission pack picks up right away right after the finish of the most important game and offers with a mutinous ConFed cruiser TCS Gettysburg. This provides the game a good excuse to let you fight against ConFed fighters. The second Specific Missions pack offers with the Society of Mandarins, a group of human traitors that help the Kilrathi empire. This mission pack characteristics a new experimental fighter, your old pal Maniac, and pilots below his command. Each packs function additional digitized speech and additional cutscenes.
The game was a massive accomplishment, each commercially and amongst the fans. Origin managed to develop the game that the fans wanted, and produced an virtually ideal sequel. There had been several characteristics reduce from the game like character customization, multiplayer and a level editor. The level editor will later be realized as Wing Commander Academy, a spin-off game that let you develop your levels with Wing Commander II ships.
In contrast to the very first game which featured several ports, Wing Commander II was only ported to FM Towns. This port was completed employing a Deluxe edition and characteristics each Specific Operations packs and a speech pack. This port also utilizes Redbook audio tracks on CD, as an alternative of Common MIDI music on the Computer.
A SNES port was announced in 1995 but was under no circumstances released. This port of the game was completed, tested, reviewed by magazines and shipped to Japan, only to be all of a sudden canceled. A final-minute choice was produced to cancel the game, for the reason that of the expectations of low returns on a SNES game at the finish of the system’s life cycle.
Wing Commander II is an great sequel and is nonetheless in a position to present an wonderful gaming practical experience. The game was a receiver of several game rewards and was featured on a number of best video game lists. The game is out there on GOG, and it performs completely on modern day systems. Give this one particular a attempt if you are searching for an great DOS space sim.
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