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78-524: Set in the 27th century, the games tell the story of humanity's war against the Kilrathi, an alien species of large feline bipeds . The Kilrathi are native to the planet Kilrah with their society depicted as an empire. Physically they are bipeds who strongly resemble big cats: they have leonine manes, but also have markings which distinguish their clan of origin. The species is featured in every game, with later games revealing more complex characters than just

156-576: A Windows 95 DirectX port, free of charge. Peace has finally come to the Confederation, or so it seems. Still remaining vigilant, they commission the new megacarrier TCS Midway , which is soon needed when Kilrathi worlds are attacked by an enemy whose coming was foretold in ancient Kilrathi prophecies. The insectoid enemy, codenamed the Nephilim, soon begin attacking Confed space and the Midway

234-484: A blow to enemy morale, and it is up to the pilots of Tiger's Claw to ensure the success of the mission. The Secret Missions 2: Crusade was ported to the FM Towns. In 1994, a revamped version of the original Wing Commander , entitled Super Wing Commander (SWC), was released for the 3DO. It featured new graphics, full speech and included a Secret Missions 1.5 campaign (between the original campaigns 1 and 2) with

312-399: A clock speed of 16 MHz , with the option of adding an 80387 FPU , features one or two megabytes of RAM (with a possible maximum of 6 MB), one or two 3.5" floppy disk drives, a PCMCIA memory card slot and a single-speed CD-ROM drive. Its package includes a gamepad , a mouse and a microphone . The earlier, more distinctive models featuring a vertical CD-ROM tray on the front of

390-541: A conspiracy of war-mongers with members in the highest Confed circles are responsible for the attacks. Defecting to the Border Worlds, Blair must expose the conspiracy to help restore the peace in a galaxy still torn over the events of the Kilrathi-Terran War. The Price of Freedom retained the storytelling-style of its predecessor, using live-action cutscenes with an ensemble cast of actors. Many of

468-416: A custom Fujitsu graphics chip, enabling video modes ranging from 320×200 to 720×512 resolutions, with 16 to 32,768 simultaneous colors out of a possible 4096 to 16 million (depending on the video mode); most of these video modes have two memory pages , and it allows the use of up to 1024 sprites of 16×16 pixels each. It also has a built-in font ROM for the display of kanji characters. The system has

546-549: A faceless enemy. Later games would move on from the Kilrathi war setting, with Wing Commander IV: The Price of Freedom being about a conspiracy within the ranks and Wing Commander: Prophecy and Secret Ops telling the battles against a new enemy known as the Nephilim. The player represents the Terran Confederation, the primary human government in the Wing Commander series. The Terran Confederation

624-708: A few also to wetlands and mountainous terrain. Their activity patterns range from nocturnal and crepuscular to diurnal , depending on their preferred prey species. Reginald Innes Pocock divided the extant Felidae into three subfamilies: the Pantherinae , the Felinae and the Acinonychinae, differing from each other by the ossification of the hyoid apparatus and by the cutaneous sheaths which protect their claws. This concept has been revised following developments in molecular biology and techniques for

702-785: A follow-up to Thor's Hammer in which the Claw destroys the Kilrathi shipyards that constructed the Sivar . Super Wing Commander was ported to the Macintosh in 1995. Shortly after the Firekka campaign, the Tiger's Claw attempts to attack the Kilrathi headquarters in the Enigma sector, but is ambushed by new Kilrathi "Strakha" stealth fighters and is lost. No one but Blair sees these fighters, so they are dismissed as an excuse to cover his cowardice. He

780-502: A half of the body length, although with some exceptions, like the Lynx species and margay ( Leopardus wiedii ). Cat species vary greatly in body and skull sizes, and weights: Most cat species have a haploid number of 18 or 19. Central and South American cats have a haploid number of 18, possibly due to the combination of two smaller chromosomes into a larger one. Felidae have type IIx muscle fibers three times more powerful than

858-523: A spiritual successor to Wing Commander called Star Citizen in 2012. Several novels based on the games have been released by Baen Books . They include novelisations of WCIII and WCIV as well as offering further depth into known Wing Commander events such as the defection of Ralgha nar Hhallas. Wing Commander Academy is a 13-episode animated series that originally aired on the USA Network between September 21 and December 21, 1996. The series

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936-488: A strategy game mode and several multiplayer options. The game was ported to the NEC PC9821 and FM Towns . This add-on for Armada added numerous new features such as a new "arcade"-mode with powerups, radar-obscuring asteroids, and several new multiplayer options, including IPX . Kilrathi Saga was a limited-edition reissue of the first three Wing Commander games ( Wing Commander , Wing Commander II: Vengeance of

1014-656: A traitor on the Concordia's flight decks, who was the mastermind behind the ambush and destruction of the Tiger's Claw . Wing Commander II was ported to the FM Towns . In 1992, it won the Origins Award for Best Fantasy or Science Fiction Computer Game of 1991 . Blair is transferred to the undercover Special Operations division, supporting Kilrathi colonies that are defecting from the Empire. But first he must solve

1092-481: Is a Japanese personal computer built by Fujitsu from 1989 to 1997. It started as a proprietary PC variant intended for multimedia applications and PC games , but later became more compatible with IBM PC compatibles . In 1993, the FM Towns Marty was released; it is a game console compatible with existing FM Towns games. The "FM" part of the name means "Fujitsu Micro" like their earlier products, while

1170-554: Is a list of models and the CPUs they contain from the factory: FMV Towns The FM Towns system is able to play regular audio CDs , and also supports the use of 8 PCM voices and 6 FM channels, using the Ricoh RF5c68 and Yamaha YM2612 sound chips, respectively. The system has ports in the front to accommodate karaoke , LEDs to indicate volume level, and software to add popular voice-altering effects such as echoes. Games on

1248-789: Is an alliance of systems and regional governments which provide unified protection and economic growth. Launching from carrier ships, the player fulfills various missions in space fighter aircraft. The games were all notable for their storytelling through extensive cutscenes . Starting with Wing Commander III , every game (excluding Secret Ops ) contained cutscenes that incorporated live action filming, starring several major Hollywood actors, including John Rhys-Davies , Mark Hamill , Thomas F. Wilson and Malcolm McDowell , as well as Christopher Walken , John Hurt , and Clive Owen in Privateer 2: The Darkening . The Wing Commander game series began in 1990 with Wing Commander . The newest addition to

1326-505: Is called in to stop their advance. As young hotshot pilot Lance Casey , the player must fight their organic ships to help destroy the wormhole they used to enter Kilrathi space, thereby halting the invasion, at least for a while. As did Wing Commander IV , Prophecy incorporated live-action cutscenes with actors. Prophecy was ported to the Game Boy Advance . The Nephilim return, this time much closer to Earth. Transferred to

1404-431: Is loaded from CD-ROM by default. A SCSI Centronics 50/SCSI-1/Full-Pitch port is provided for connecting external SCSI disk drives, and is the most common way to connect a hard drive to an FM Towns PC. Although internal drives are rare, there is a hidden compartment with a SCSI 50-pin connector where a hard drive may be connected, but the power supply module does not typically provide the required Molex connector to power

1482-471: Is scapegoated for the loss of the Claw , is demoted to captain and transferred to a backwater space station. Ten years later, he is called back into action when he is able to save the Confederation's flagship, the TCS Concordia . Meeting many old friends there, he continues the fight against the Kilrathi, finally culminating in the destruction of their sector HQ, thus clearing his name and uncovering

1560-529: Is set before and during the events of the first game and features many familiar ships and characters. The cast featured Mark Hamill , Tom Wilson , and Malcolm McDowell reprising their Wing Commander game roles. In 1999, Wing Commander hit the big screen with the film of the same name. It was directed by Chris Roberts , the creator of the game series, and stars Freddie Prinze, Jr. , Saffron Burrows , Matthew Lillard , Tchéky Karyo , Jürgen Prochnow , and David Warner . The film diverged significantly from

1638-785: Is the oldest known cat that occurred after the Eocene–Oligocene extinction event about 33.9  million years ago ; fossil remains were excavated in France and Mongolia's Hsanda Gol Formation . Fossil occurrences indicate that the Felidae arrived in North America around 18.5  million years ago . This is about 20   million years later than the Ursidae and the Nimravidae , and about 10 million years later than

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1716-609: Is the oldest known pantherine cat dated to the late Messinian to early Zanclean ages about 5.95 to 4.1 million years ago . A fossil skull was excavated in 2010 in Zanda County on the Tibetan Plateau . Panthera palaeosinensis from North China probably dates to the Late Miocene or Early Pliocene . The skull of the holotype is similar to that of a lion or leopard. Panthera zdanskyi dates to

1794-644: The Canidae . In the Early Miocene about 20 to 16.6 million years ago , Pseudaelurus lived in Africa. Its fossil jaws were also excavated in geological formations of Europe's Vallesian , Asia's Middle Miocene and North America's late Hemingfordian to late Barstovian epochs. In the Early or Middle Miocene, the saber-toothed Machairodontinae evolved in Africa and migrated northwards in

1872-761: The Feliformia . All members of the cat family have the following characteristics in common: The colour, length and density of their fur are very diverse. Fur colour covers the gamut from white to black, and fur patterns from distinctive small spots, and stripes to small blotches and rosettes . Most cat species are born with spotted fur, except the jaguarundi ( Herpailurus yagouaroundi ), Asian golden cat ( Catopuma temminckii ) and caracal ( Caracal caracal ). The spotted fur of lion ( Panthera leo ), cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus) and cougar ( Puma concolor ) cubs change to uniform fur during their ontogeny . Those living in cold environments have thick fur with long hair, like

1950-583: The Gelasian about 2.55 to 2.16 million years ago . Several fossil skulls and jawbones were excavated in northwestern China. Panthera gombaszoegensis is the earliest known pantherine cat that lived in Europe about 1.95 to 1.77 million years ago . Living felids fall into eight evolutionary lineages or species clades . Genotyping of the nuclear DNA of all 41 felid species revealed that hybridization between species occurred in

2028-537: The IBM PC clones (Fujitsu FMV) that many Japanese manufacturers - who previously were not players in the PC market - were building by the mid to late 1990s. To this day, Fujitsu is known for its laptop PCs globally, and FM Towns (and Marty) users have been relegated to a small community of aficionados. Several variants were built; the first system (FM TOWNS model1 and model2) is based on an Intel 80386DX processor running at

2106-772: The Late Miocene . With their large upper canines , they were adapted to prey on large-bodied megaherbivores . Miomachairodus is the oldest known member of this subfamily. Metailurus lived in Africa and Eurasia about 8 to 6 million years ago . Several Paramachaerodus skeletons were found in Spain. Homotherium appeared in Africa, Eurasia and North America around 3.5  million years ago , and Megantereon about 3  million years ago . Smilodon lived in North and South America from about 2.5  million years ago . This subfamily became extinct in

2184-607: The Late Pleistocene . Results of mitochondrial analysis indicate that the living Felidae species descended from a common ancestor , which originated in Asia in the Late Miocene epoch. They migrated to Africa, Europe and the Americas in the course of at least 10 migration waves during the past ~11 million years. Low sea levels and interglacial and glacial periods facilitated these migrations. Panthera blytheae

2262-485: The Privateer franchise between 1995 and 2003, by either developing a sequel ( Privateer 3 ) or an online game ( Privateer or Wing Commander Online ). Only one of these was formally announced. The March 1998 issue of Computer Games Strategy Plus featured a cover story on Privateer 3 . Origin confirmed that development of the game had been canceled shortly after the magazine was published. Wing Commander: Strike Team

2340-458: The snow leopard ( Panthera uncia ) and the Pallas's cat ( Otocolobus manul ). Those living in tropical and hot climate zones have short fur. Several species exhibit melanism with all-black individuals, cougars are notable for lacking melanism but leucism and albinism are present in cougars along with many other felids. In the great majority of cat species, the tail is between a third and

2418-469: The "Towns" part is derived from the code name the system was assigned while in development, "Townes". This refers to Charles Townes , one of the winners of the 1964 Nobel Prize in Physics , following a custom of Fujitsu at the time to code name PC products after Nobel Prize winners. The e in "Townes" was dropped when the system went into production to make it clearer that the term was to be pronounced like

Wing Commander (franchise) - Misplaced Pages Continue

2496-560: The 1980s, at one point reaching 70% of the 16/32-bit computer market, but the early models had limited graphics (640×400 with 16 of 4096 colors) and sounds (4-operator/3 voice monaural FM sounds + 3 channel SSG sounds). Just as Commodore saw an opening for the Amiga in some global markets against the IBM PC, a computer with improved graphics and sound was considered to overcome the PC-9801 in

2574-525: The Behemoth is destroyed by Kilrathi forces. The enemy fighters seemed to know exactly about the weakpoints of the weapon. Later on Blair finds out that his old friend Hobbes, a Kilrathi defector, is a sleeper agent and the traitor responsible for the Confed's losses. The last hope of winning the war for the Confederation is a secret weapon, the "Temblor Bomb", using the tectonic instability of Kilrah to destroy

2652-514: The CD-ROM drive to be accessed is contained in a system ROM ; this, coupled with Fujitsu's decision to charge only a minimal license fee for the inclusion of a bare-bones Towns OS on game CD-ROMs, allows game developers to make games bootable directly from CD-ROM without the need for a boot floppy or hard disk. Various Linux and BSD distributions have also been ported to the FM Towns system, including Debian and Gentoo . The FM Towns features

2730-560: The Concordia is destroyed. Colonel Christopher Blair (the player from the first games, now with a set name), is transferred to the TCS Victory , an old ship from the first days of the war. In a last-ditch attempt to win the war, Confed has designed the TCS Behemoth , a doomsday weapon able to destroy an entire planet. It is Blair's mission to help end this war for good, by destroying the Kilrathi homeworld of Kilrah. Unfortunately

2808-489: The FM Towns regularly use Red Book Audio CD music tracks, especially if they are designed specifically for the Fujitsu system. Games ported from the PC-9801, for instance, might have used only PCM/FM music. This was a novelty and innovation far ahead of other PCs of the time made possible by the standard CD-ROM drive found in every FM Towns computer. The Ricoh RF5c68 is an eight-channel sound chip developed by Ricoh . It

2886-615: The Kilrathi , and Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger ). Origin repaired some of the game's known bugs and adjusted the speed to run on the early Pentium processors of the time. At the time of its release only 20,000 copies were published. Kilrathi Saga also featured complete digital re-orchestrations of the original two soundtracks by George Oldziey, but the Saga did not include the Secret Missions and Special Operations packs of

2964-589: The Kilrathi Empire and one as the Terran Confederation (rules modifications may be made to allow teams of players instead). In the pre-game phase, players set out five "Nav Point" cards in an X pattern, with a Terran and Kilrathi carrier at either end (to form a hexagon). During gameplay, players may deploy fighters, and then deploy pilots and equipment upon those fighters. Every card has its own "Power Point" cost; players start with 30 Power Points and gain two each turn. The designers recommend pencil and paper for

3042-467: The Kilrathi deep into their own territory and destroy their new super weapon, the dreadnaught Sivar . The Secret Missions was ported to the FM Towns , SNES , Sony PSP (as part of the EA Replay bundle), and was included with Wing Commander on the 3DO and Macintosh as part of Super Wing Commander . When the Confederation is just celebrating a new alliance with the bird-like native species of

3120-598: The Sega CD port which added voice acting, the player character was given the callsign of "HotShot" to allow him to be addressed by voice. In 1991, Wing Commander won the Origins Award for Best Fantasy or Science Fiction Computer Game of 1990. A new Kilrathi secret weapon destroys the Terran colony of Goddard. In retribution, the Confederation plans a daring raid, Operation Thor's Hammer . Tiger's Claw must follow

3198-504: The Terran Confederation history), a cargo ship Canera is attacked during landing and crashes into Mendra City on planet Crius in the year 2790 of the Tri-System calendar (the calendar appears to be longer than a Terran year with months that are about 40 days each). One survivor, As Lev Arris, a man with no memory of who he is and no record of his existence prior to two weeks before the crash, awakens from his cryo-sleep and must take on

Wing Commander (franchise) - Misplaced Pages Continue

3276-717: The Towns OS API ( TBIOS ) for handling several graphic modes, sprites, sounds, a mouse, gamepads, and CD-audio. The FM Towns is capable of booting its graphical Towns OS straight from CD in 1989 - two years before Amiga CDTV booted its GUI-based AmigaOS 1.3 from internal CD drive and the CD-bootable System 7 was released for the Macintosh in 1991, and five years before the El Torito specification standardized boot-CDs on IBM PC compatibles in 1994. To boot

3354-424: The ability to overlay different video modes; for example, the 320×200 video mode with 32,768 colors can be overlaid with a 640×480 mode using 16 colors, which allows games to combine high-color graphics with high-resolution kanji text. It uses 640 KB of video RAM , including 512 KB VRAM and 128 KB sprite RAM . Sprite layer: Up to two graphical layers can be overlaid, whether it is two bitmap layers, or

3432-501: The actors from Wing Commander III returned to reprise their roles. The story's final sequence was innovative in that dialogue choices made by the player affected the outcome of the hearing. However, only three endings were possible, and two of the outcomes depended on the earlier choices made by the player. Wing Commander IV was ported to the PlayStation and Mac OS. To owners of the original MS-DOS version, Origin made available

3510-591: The analysis of morphological data. Today, the living Felidae are divided into two subfamilies: the Pantherinae and Felinae, with the Acinonychinae subsumed into the latter. Pantherinae includes five Panthera and two Neofelis species , while Felinae includes the other 34 species in 12 genera . The first cats emerged during the Oligocene about 25 million years ago , with the appearance of Proailurus and Pseudaelurus . The latter species complex

3588-405: The case (model1, model2, 1F, 2F, 1H, 2H, 10F and 20F) were often referred to as the "Gray" Towns, and were the ones most directly associated with the "FM Towns" brand. Most featured 3 memory expansion slots and used 72-pin non-parity SIMMs with a required timing of 100 ns or less and a recommended timing of 60ns. Hard drives are not standard equipment, and are not required for most uses. The OS

3666-433: The course of evolution within the majority of the eight lineages. Modelling of felid coat pattern transformations revealed that nearly all patterns evolved from small spots. Traditionally, five subfamilies had been distinguished within the Felidae based on phenotypical features: the Pantherinae , the Felinae , the Acinonychinae, and the extinct Machairodontinae and Proailurinae . Acinonychinae used to only contain

3744-445: The cruiser TCS Cerberus , Casey and his wingmates must repel the invasion once again. Secret Ops was an experiment in game distribution. It was at first only available as a free download. In regular intervals, new episodes were released, each featuring several new missions with the storyline told through in-game cutscenes. The game was later available in a collection together with Prophecy , and sold as Prophecy Gold . A game where

3822-564: The drive. The video output is 15 kHz RGB (though some programs used a 31 kHz mode) using the same DB15 connector and pinouts as the PC-9801. The operating system used is Windows 3.0/3.1/95 and a graphical OS called Towns OS, based on MS-DOS and the Phar Lap DOS extender (RUN386.EXE). Most games for the system were written in protected mode Assembly and C using the Phar Lap DOS extender. These games usually utilize

3900-400: The enemy carrier (with the successful use of Torpedo cards) or to reduce the opponent's Power Point pool to zero. Felidae Felidae ( / ˈ f ɛ l ɪ d iː / ) is the family of mammals in the order Carnivora colloquially referred to as cats . A member of this family is also called a felid ( / ˈ f iː l ɪ d / ). The 41 extant Felidae species exhibit

3978-529: The established Wing Commander universe, and was a critical and commercial failure. The Wing Commander: Collectible card game was an effort to combine the franchise's rising fortunes with the rising interest in card games, as Magic: The Gathering was revolutionizing gaming centers the world over. The collectible card game (CCG) was based exclusively on the WC3 intellectual license and contains no characters found elsewhere. The game supports two players, one as

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4056-682: The first two games. The packs were instead made available for download on the Origin website. Due to the add-on packs not being on the CDs there is a bug that causes some music to not be played during animated sequences in the add-ons. Privateer 2 was launched in late 1996 by Erin Roberts. The game features live-action video scenes, directed by Steve Hilliker. The cast included Clive Owen , Mathilda May , Jürgen Prochnow , John Hurt , Christopher Walken , Brian Blessed and Amanda Pays . Dani Behr voiced

4134-445: The following cladogram: Sunda clouded leopard (N. diardi) Clouded leopard ( N. nebulosa ) Tiger (P. tigris) Snow leopard (P. uncia) Jaguar (P. onca) Lion ( P. leo ) Leopard ( P. pardus ) Serval (L. serval) African golden cat ( C. aurata ) Caracal ( C. caracal ) Andean mountain cat ( L. jacobita ) FM Towns The FM Towns ( Japanese : エフエムタウンズ , Hepburn : Efu Emu Taunzu )

4212-866: The genus Acinonyx but this genus is now within the Felinae subfamily. The following cladogram based on Piras et al. (2013) depicts the phylogeny of basal living and extinct groups. † Proailurus bourbonnensis † Proailurus lemanensis † Proailurus major † Pseudaelurus quadridentatus † Pseudaelurus cuspidatus † Pseudaelurus guangheesis † Machairodontinae [REDACTED] † Hyperailurictis intrepidus † Hyperailurictis marshi † Hyperailurictis stouti † Hyperailurictis validus † Hyperailurictis skinneri † Sivaelurus chinjiensis † Styriofelis turnauensis † Styriofelis romieviensis Felinae [REDACTED] † Miopanthera lorteti † Miopanthera pamiri Pantherinae [REDACTED] The phylogenetic relationships of living felids are shown in

4290-597: The greatest diversity in fur patterns of all terrestrial carnivores. Cats have retractile claws , slender muscular bodies and strong flexible forelimbs. Their teeth and facial muscles allow for a powerful bite. They are all obligate carnivores , and most are solitary predators ambushing or stalking their prey. Wild cats occur in Africa , Europe , Asia and the Americas . Some wild cat species are adapted to forest and savanna habitats , some to arid environments, and

4368-523: The home-use field in Japan. With many multimedia innovations for its time, the FM Towns was that system, though for a number of reasons it never broke far beyond the boundaries of its niche market status. Eventually, the FM Towns lost much of its uniqueness by adding a DOS/V (PC clone plus DOS with native Japanese language support) compatibility mode switch, until Fujitsu finally discontinued making FM Towns specific hardware and software and moved to focus on

4446-431: The keeping-track of Power Points. Finally, certain cards feature "Medals", which also feature as a resource, as some elite cards require the "tapping" of Medal-bearing cards to deploy. Fighters, with pilots and secondary armaments potentially attached, move among the nav points, fighting with each other and attacking the enemy carrier. During combat, either player may play "Maneuver" cards to fortify their fighters (assuming

4524-413: The life of a privateer in the Tri-System, re-discovering his past along the way. Publisher Electronic Arts and developer Gaia Industries revived the Wing Commander franchise with a downloadable release on Xbox Live Arcade called Wing Commander Arena . Dogfights take place in one of nine environments, and pilots are able to choose from 18 ships. There can be up to 16 players in a single match. The title

4602-486: The muscle fibers of human athletes. The family Felidae is part of the Feliformia , a suborder that diverged probably about 50.6 to 35 million years ago into several families. The Felidae and the Asiatic linsangs are considered a sister group , which split about 35.2 to 31.9 million years ago . The earliest cats probably appeared about 35 to 28.5 million years ago . Proailurus

4680-651: The onboard computer, also named Dani. The game also featured David Warner , and Jürgen Prochnow , who later played Admiral Geoffrey Tolwyn and Commander Paul Gerald, respectively, in the Wing Commander feature film. The filming was done at Pinewood Studios in England. Set in a remote region of the Wing Commander universe in the Tri-System Confederation (a three system government that has almost three thousand-year history of its own parallel to

4758-438: The otherwise-unnamed protagonist was "Bluehair", due to his unusual shade of hair. Perhaps in a nod to this in-joke, when the character was given an actual name in later installments, Origin chose "Blair", a shortened version of the old nickname. Wing Commander was ported to the Amiga , FM Towns , SNES , Mega-CD , Amiga CD32 , 3DO , Mac OS , and PlayStation Portable systems, the most ports of any Wing Commander game. In

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4836-437: The planet Firekka, they learn that entire fleets of Kilrathi ships are leaving from other sectors and heading towards the Firekka system. Concerned, but massively outnumbered, the Confederation ships must retreat, but they soon learn from a Kilrathi defector that Firekka has been chosen as the place for a holy Kilrathi ceremony. The Confederation soon develops a plan to disrupt that ceremony in an act of terrorism meant to deliver

4914-735: The planet. Blair is finally able to attack Kilrah, firing the bomb and destroying the Kilrathi homeworld. With the royal family of Kilrah killed and their homeworld lost, Melek, once attaché to the Kilrathi prince, surrenders before Blair. Wing Commander III was the first game in the series to use full motion video as opposed to animated cutscenes, and texture-mapped 3D instead of sprite-based graphics. The game features well-known actors such as Mark Hamill as Christopher Blair, John Rhys-Davies as James "Paladin" Taggart, Thomas F. Wilson as Todd "Maniac" Marshall, Malcolm McDowell as Admiral Geoffrey Tolwyn, Josh Lucas as "Flash", and Ginger Lynn as Chief Technician Rachel Coriolis. Wing Commander III

4992-407: The player could build their own missions using ships from Wing Commander II . Set in the border regions of Confederation space, the player takes control of a privateer (in Wing Commander , a "privateer" is a mercenary spacer) who may profit by trading, performing various missions, or pirating. Meanwhile, an ancient alien spaceship has been awakened and is on the loose, attacking ships at random, and

5070-435: The player took on the way to the end would be determined by the player's performance on preceding missions. In-game cinematics in "newsreel" format reflected the success or failure of the player and the Claw . Originally announced as Squadron , the name was changed to Wingleader shortly into development; however, trademark issues forced a name change to Wing Commander at the last moment. The development team's nickname for

5148-452: The player's heroic efforts, the Confederation is able to destroy the Kilrathi's sector headquarters and drive them from the Vega sector. Through the course of the Vega campaign, the player can gain numerous promotions and medals and fly in various squadrons, each featuring a different fighter. The game was notable for its innovative and seldom-repeated "campaign tree" structure, whereby the "path"

5226-514: The player-controlled privateer may be the Confederation's only hope in defeating it. This game featured completely open-ended gameplay, with the player able to completely ignore the main storyline if they so desired. When the player's priceless Steltek Gun is stolen, he embarks on a quest that will bring him into conflict with the Luddite-like Church of Man and their shady leader, Mordecai Jones. Armada featured both an action and

5304-531: The problem of a mutiny on a Confed cruiser. Jazz, the traitor from Wing Commander II , has fled imprisonment and the Mandarin (the society of traitors) are also able to steal some of the Confederation's newest top-secret fighters. Blair must hunt them down and face Jazz in one final showdown. The war is going very badly for the Confederation, far worse than what the public (or the player) generally knows. Battles are lost on all fronts, casualties are mounting, and

5382-411: The series, Wing Commander Arena , was released for the Xbox Live Arcade service on July 25, 2007. The player begins his tour of duty as a young space fighter pilot on the carrier the TCS Tiger's Claw . The player can set this character's name and callsign in the first games in the franchise. As of Wing Commander 3 , the protagonist is given the canonical name Christopher "Maverick" Blair . Through

5460-409: The sprite layer with a bitmap background layer. The latter is useful for action games , though the sprite function is not as advanced as that of rival 32-bit computer, the Sharp X68000 . When the sprite layer is used, it is rendered to VRAM layer 1 on top, with the bitmap background as VRAM layer 0 below. When two bitmap layers are used, then both are rendered to VRAM layers 0 and 1. The following

5538-414: The system from CD-ROM , the FM TOWNS has a "hidden C:" ROM drive in which a minimum MS-DOS system, CD-ROM driver and MSCDEX.EXE are installed. This minimal DOS system runs first, and the DOS system reads and executes the Towns OS IPL stored in CD-ROM after that. The Towns OS CD-ROM has an IPL, MS-DOS system ( IO.SYS ) , DOS extender, and Towns API (TBIOS). A minimal DOS system that allows

5616-410: The targeted craft has a high enough Maneuver statistic) or "Battle Damage" cards to cripple their enemies; both have Power Point costs. Attacks are then resolved by comparison of the aggressor's Attack value with the defender's Defense value (with Support values from allied ships augmenting as appropriate). Each card lost results in the loss of one Power Point as well. There are two ways to win: to destroy

5694-520: The word "towns" rather than the potential "tow-nes". Fujitsu decided to release a new home computer after the FM-7 was technologically overcome by NEC 's PC-8801 . During the life of the FM-7, Fujitsu learnt that software sales drove hardware sales, and in order to acquire usable software quickly, the new computer was to be based on Fujitsu's "FMR50" system architecture. The FMR50 system, released at 1986,

5772-507: Was a planned sequel to Wing Commander: Secret Ops which focused on multiplayer gameplay. The title was officially announced in an EAUK promotional publication but was canceled early in development. After Origin Systems was bought over by Electronic Arts, Roberts lost the rights to the Wing Commander franchise. Although there was an attempt to revive it, Roberts said the publisher "doesn't care about that world." This encouraged him to create

5850-586: Was ancestral to two main lines of felids: the cats in the extant subfamilies and a group of extinct "saber-tooth" felids of the subfamily Machairodontinae , which range from the type genus Machairodus of the late Miocene to Smilodon of the Pleistocene. The "false saber-toothed cats", the Barbourofelidae and Nimravidae , are not true cats but are closely related. Together with the Felidae, Viverridae , hyenas and mongooses , they constitute

5928-570: Was another x86 /DOS-based computer similar to NEC's popular PC-9801 . The FMR50 computers were sold with moderate success in Japanese offices, particularly in Japanese government offices. There were hundreds of software packages available for the FMR, including Lotus 1-2-3 , WordStar , Multiplan , and dBASE III . With this basis of compatibility, the more multimedia-friendly FM Towns was created. NEC's PC-9801 computers were widespread and dominated in

6006-553: Was ported to the PlayStation , Macintosh and the 3DO. The war with the Kilrathi is over, but not all is well within the Confederation. Skirmishes in the Border Worlds destroy ships regularly. Both Confed and the Union of Border Worlds assign blame to each other and the skirmishes threaten to lead to all-out war. Blair is soon recalled to active duty and sent to the Border Worlds to confirm Confed's determination. But he finds out that

6084-480: Was released on July 25, 2007. It is set chronologically after Wing Commander Prophecy Gold, and background information is included in the digital Star*Soldier manual. Around 1993, Warren Spector developed a pitch for a science fiction game called Alien Commander , which would be set in the Wing Commander universe. A concept document was produced, however the project was scrapped in favour of proceeding with System Shock . Origin aborted several attempts to continue

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