       |
|||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||
 |
|||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||
| |
|||||||||||||
 From Mar 96 issue |
Wing Commander IV
If Origin's scriptwriters had to live or
die in Tinseltown on the strength of their words, they'd be
pushing up daisies before they could say: "Gimme another
chance, boss. I promise I won't let you down." It's no
secret that Origin (or is it just Chris Roberts?) want to make
movies, so why don't they, as those nice basketball players on
the Nike adverts used to say, just do it? They've got nothing to
lose except their money, dignity and credibility. Ah, maybe
that's it. Maybe it's a pride thing. Even though they want us all
to think that we really are Playing A Movie[TM], they don't want
us to judge the movie like a movie because it's really a game,
and so can't possibly be compared to Star Wars or Blade Runner or
Alien or any of the other spaced-out films it so obviously
plunders for its weak-willed plot and feeble dialogue. Or is it
because they don't want us to judge the game like a game because
it's more like a movie really, albeit not a proper one? Oh, the
contradictions are immense. Is it a game that's a movie as well,
or a movie that's also a game?
The chances are that people are going to be kind to Wing IV because they don't know which bit to be nasty to first.
Whichever, the chances are that people are going to be kind to Wing Commander IV because they don't know which bit to be nasty to first. Say it's a film (Reader's voice: It's a film.), and you'd compare it to every planet-busting galaxy-saving epic since Plan 9 From Outer Space, and you'd find it nestling somewhere between Buck Rogers In The 25th Century and Battlestar Galactica. Stop! I know what you're going to say. Yes, the quality of the video is absolutely superlative in SVGA (even though it is interlaced) BUT WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU WENT TO THE CINEMA AND EXPECTED ANYTHING LESS THAN PICTURE-PERFECT 24 FRAMES A SECOND? So what if it's on your PC, if it's trying to be a film, if it's selling itself as a film, it had better bloody look like one or I'll want my money back (which I do, incidentally, but for an entirely different reason).
Technically it's a film in as much as
people move on your monitor as smoothly as they might on your TV
screen, but whether you'd sit through two hours of
interaction-free Hamill and McDowell and co battling with a
piss-poor script, dull direction and distinct lack of drama is
another matter entirely. One for Barry Norman, we think, which is
why we've levered the molten-faced old codger off his chair and
asked him to sit through a special session with us. Ahh, but
having said all that, the first thing you see when you run the
game is the bizarre train-shunting sequence that heralds the
arrival of the Dolby Surround Sound logo, so it must be a proper
film after all. Just as a matter of interest, how many of you
have your Dolby Prologic Surround Sound Decoders plugged into
your PC as well as your hi-fi and TV? Really? Six of you? As many
as that...
So say it's a game. (Editor's voice: Just don't, OK?) Would you say it's reasonable to wait for 15 minutes before you actually get to do anything (and even then it's only to choose one of two options)? No, you probably wouldn't. Nor would you expect a 3D space combat game to judder and jerk as sound samples were loaded in the middle of a fight, but that's what happens on a humble P90.
It no longer takes a month of Bank Holiday Mondays to load a mission, it's down to a more reasonable long weekend, which is very welcome.
Hey, but let's say something nice. Origin have genuinely tried to address the criticisms levelled so savagely in Gary Whitta's denigrating 95% review of Wing Commander III. It no longer takes a month of Bank Holiday Mondays to load a mission, it's down to a more reasonable long weekend, which is very welcome. There's also more (or should that be 'some'?) variety in the mission, as the game designers frantically try to copy what LucasArts' folks have been up to for the last couple of years. So instead of the usual fly-there-and-shoot-things rigmarole, you get more complicated briefings and even ad-hoc instructions in the middle of a mission. Verily it is the spice of life.
And then you get to go down onto a planet. In a way this is good, because it's something you've wanted to do since Wing Commander (the first) but was such a crushing disappointment in Wing III. So full marks, then, to the spangly textured landscape (even if it is thuddingly slow on the aforementioned P90), but no marks (that's 'nul point' to notre continental readers) to the asinine game designer who decided the best reason for you to go down on this first planet is to take photographs of it. Excuse me, but what century are we supposed to be suspension-of-disbelieving in? Twenty-third? Fourth? Fifth? Doesn't matter. We've got technology NOW that can satellite spy from the stratosphere on poxy little buildings in the middle of the desert, so why does the Strategic Readiness Agency (chief officer Admiral Tolwyn, played by Malcolm McDowell) think it's a good idea to send The World's Most Famous Pilot[TM] (Christopher Blair, played by Mark Hamill and you) on a snap-shooting mission instead of a sharp-shooting one? Answers on a postcard to Gaping Holes in the Gameplay Department, Origin, Austin, Texas.
Considering the vast amounts of money and programming talent
thrown at Wing IV, such criticisms do seem a mite churlish in the
grander scheme of things. There aren't many games that give you
such a gloriously SVGA thrill, and the combat definitely has been
improved since the
fly-straight-at-each-other-and-hope-your-shields-last-out days of
the first couple of Wing Commanders. It's still not as refined or
as exciting as TIE Fighter, but you're swept along by the gung-ho
heroism that pits you, an ex-farmer and movie star, against an
unknown enemy (which isn't the Kilrathi). It's big, it's
exciting, and it's got guns, missiles and explosions galore.
Escapism at its best.
So if the game's okay, why do I want my money back? Because in May 1994, Origin head honcho Richard Garriott promised the world (and said to me) on the set of Wing Commander III that "At the very least, the next time we shoot footage for a game, we will be writing the script intending it for linear as well as interactive usage. In the future we'll be releasing the movie and the game at the same time." The future's here, dear Richard, but your film isn't.
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Developer: Origin
Format: Six CD-ROMS
Minimum System: 486DX2, 8Mb RAM, VGA
Recommended: P120, 16Mb RAM, SVGA
Sound Support: All major cards
Release Date: Out now
Either '£60 for a second-rate sci-fi movie' or '£60 for the same game I bought last year'. You decide.
66%
