A longform review/analysis of Wing Commander II: Special Operations 1 and 2.
Patreon – https://www.patreon.com/spacecadetrewind/
Ko-fi – https://ko-fi.com/spacecadetrewind
0:00 Intro
0:06:39 Special Operations 1
0:25:14 Kobayashi Maru
0:34:24 Special Operations 2
0:53:47 Conclusion
1:02:22 Afterword
Wing commander 1&2 Strategy guide
AI behavior chart
Wing Commander CIC / WCNews.com
Ship stats and various information
Box art scans
Mobygames
Chris Roberts ‘400k’ quote
Interview: Chris Roberts Charts A Course For Star Citizen – https://www.gameinformer.com/games/star_citizen/b/pc/archive/2013/03/13/interview-chris-roberts-charts-a-course-for-star-citizen.aspx
Sorcerian ad
Source of original scan unknown, but I got it from the Giantbomb wiki – https://www.giantbomb.com/images/1300-3218754
Sonic Adventure 2 footage recorded by Haxmega
Special thanks to Haidaraaaaa, Haxmega and Shady
source
I finished all wc 1 2 secret and spec 1 2 with keyboard only. 🙁
Stick beats pad for these games every time. I don't know if I would have gotten through this series or Starlancer without my flight stick, honestly.
Not knowing about Vega and Kiltathi. Did you read the Claw Marks? Yeah, doesn't apply to these, but the base game docs, especially the WC1 ones did a great job of setting the scene and getting a feel for things.
Yeeees!! Hey sry about the views and stuff on the WC2 video. But they really are incredible. Thank you so much
Have to admit, I laughed at every scene where you blew up in super-sonic-speed there is just something inherently funny about it.
those short cut radio keys were present and worked in the original first dos game but they were missing from the documentation and they are not buggy in any of the dos games. All of the bugs you mentioned are exclusive to WC saga not the dos version.
I remember Special Operations 1. It took me a week to manage the last mission.
Kindly put Wing Commander : Privateer on your list 😁
There's an Ayer's Rock on Earth, though it's more appropriately called Uluru now.
But it's old name was pronounced like 'airs rock', no idea if the space version shares the pronunciation or not
Chris Roberts trying to not rip off customers is a wild notion these days.
Regarding the joystick or gamepad discussion, I would like to note that Wing Commander 1, 2 and their expansions support 2 button joysticks. Button 1 fires the guns, and button 2 is used for throttle, roll, afterburner, and missile fire. All that through combination with other buttons ( except for afterburner, which uses double tapping ). All other actions require the keyboard. I don't think that most joysticks in 1990 were actually much better than a good gamepad's analog stick.
Would it be cool to have a nice HOTAS ( or, even better, HOSAS ) setup? Yes, but mostly for… sentimental reasons. To let yourself carried further away by the illusion of the game. But my trusty 8bitdo Pro 2 together with Joystick Gremlin, vJoy, and HidHIde can do a decent job too.
I don't know if X-wing or Wing Commander 3 poise a greater challenge for my gamepad, at least as far as button mappings are concerned. But for Wing 1 and 2, I am OK.
The DOS version also lets you manually shift nav. In fact it's a slick trick to avoid encounters entirely in some missions like one of those heavy Wolfpack RNG missile fests 🙂
Dammit, youtube actually tried to hide this from me, showed it to me for a brief moment and then poofed it off my recommends page as it was loading, WTF.
Thanks so much for this! I always wanted to play these but could never get them running right for Windows
Man, I hate that your last video hasn’t gotten as many views. The YouTube algo-God is a fickle one indeed. Keep it up though. It’s some of the best content I’ve found recently and I’ve heard that having a good backlog of videos is important for when the algorithm does decide to grace you.
Hell yeah, so soon after subscribing as well! Also, what's your opinion on space cadet pinball?
Loving your work! keep it up!
Hell jeah! I was waiting for this one haha
I wait for Strike Commander with anticipation.
Wing Commander holds such fond memories for me. From begging my parents to get a wound card so I could hear the voices in WC2. To building my first PC so I could have the horse power to run Wing Commander 3. Even ditching several days of college to play Wing commander Prophecy.
For what it’s worth, the original release of Wing Commander, as well as the secret missions, and WC2 and Secret Ops, came with TONS of supplementary materials explaining the Vega and Enigma sectors, ship blueprints, etc. so you were kind of expected to have known stuff about it by reading things that just didn’t really fit in the game itself. I imagine Saga includes PDFs or something on disc, but it seriously isn’t the same.
Remember trying to play this on my buds PC. Got maybe a frame a second.
While I love this "fast follow", please don't just rush to get stuff out faster. These are of such high quality, they are worth the weight!
Expansion packs also acted as marketing of the base game. Someone seeing another get the expansion entices them to wonder what about the base game is so good that they would spend more cash.
I can’t believe we got a new one so quickly. I just finished the last one!
Ouch! Poked myself in the eye on those pixels! XD
…and Minx proves the necessity of a competent art director. Of course we were all still learning this stuff, new art form and all.
I played Wing Commander 1&2 so long ago that I'd forgotten the plot entirely. I'm pretty sure I never played the Spec Ops expansion for 2! After watching this retrospective, I probably didn't miss too much (I'm sure I would've enjoyed it plenty back in the day though).
A weird, fun 1980s 3D space game that almost nobody mentions: Starglider 2. Definitely check it out!