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Wing Commander Developer: Origin Systems Publisher: Origin Systems Year: 1990 One of the defining games of the last decade was Wing Commander, which was released in 1990. And it remained highly influential throughout the next ten years. Published by Origin Systems, Wing Commander was the first game released by Origin in many years that managed to draw some attention away from its Ultima line of role-playing games. In fact, together with Ultima, Wing Commander helped establish Origin as one of the premier game developers and publishers of the '90s - and it immortalized Chris Roberts as one of the most influential game designers of all time. Wing Commander was billed as a space combat simulation, but it was much, much more than that - it was an epic. It featured a memorable, diverse cast of characters who would live or die, depending on how well you fought alongside them in the game's classic deep-space dogfights. It featured a branching campaign that could take two completely separate courses, depending on your success or failure in your missions. You truly felt as if your actions determined how the game played out - and yet the game seemed so cinematic the entire time that having such influence over the plot was exhilarating for many players.
Furthermore, Wing Commander was one of the first games that featured retail budget-priced, supplemental expansion packs that added new content and story to the game. The two Secret Missions campaigns required that you owned the original game, and they introduced new starships, characters, and a new story to Wing Commander - and they lived up to the game's name. These commercial expansions showed publishers that gamers would gladly purchase additional content for a good game, as they would prefer to buy an expansion pack a few months after the original game than wait many more months for a full sequel.
Of course, anyone who played through Wing Commander wanted a sequel as well, and Chris Roberts and company produced plenty of them, most of which were met with critical acclaim. While some of the subsequent Wing Commander stories were arguably even more interesting and more involving than the original's stories, the first Wing Commander - between its then-dazzling 256-color graphics, its incredible sound, and its fast gameplay - always remained the most noteworthy accomplishment in Chris Roberts' career. That's because it did so many things that no games before it ever dared to do. Its animated story sequences were unparalleled in their graphical quality and in their power to convey such drama with hand-drawn, animated bitmaps and subtitles. Wing Commander single-handedly made a lot of gamers go out and buy better computer hardware, including the fastest 386 processors available and the latest sound cards by Creative Labs and Roland. Wing Commander was certainly a technical feat, but it's all the more impressive when you account for its innovations on the retail market, thanks to its expansion packs and for its innovations as a computer narrative because of its epic story.
Fans of Wing Commander may even recall the distinctive manual that came with the game, which was written and presented as a journal for the pilots and crew aboard the Tiger's Claw, the space cruiser on which the game took place. Wing Commander's game design was completely revolutionary, and so it's really no surprise that many game designers still seek to achieve that same singular balance of technology and creativity.
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