Wing Commander Prophecy is the fifth installment in
the long-running
Wing Commander series.
Prophecy
continues the Wing Commander tradition (since
Wing
Commander III) of providing
full motion videos between
missions to advance the storyline.
Wing Commander and
Wing Commander II have both been very big on
cinematics as a way to help immerse the player in the
game, and Wing Commander creator
Chris Roberts
continually pushed for a greater and greater cinematic
component to his space flight combat game.
However, after the pinnacle of Wing Commander's game
cinematics in
Wing Commander IV,
Chris Roberts left
Origin Systems to pursue a career directing motion
pictures (his first motion picture, by the way, was
Wing Commander). The next installment in the series,
Wing Commander Prophecy includes many of the elements
of Wing Commander's full motion video past, however to
a somewhat small extent, and with some important
changes.
Characters, Plot, Setting
The greatest change is that of the player's character,
Christopher Blair. Throughout the central Wing
Commander games, Blair was the persona which the
player had during the between mission cinematics. In
Wing Commander Prophecy, the player's role is that of
Lance Casey, a brand new pilot (an attempt to get
back to the new feeling of the original Wing
Commander).
Prophecy is not the first departure from 'old Blue
Hair'. The various 'in-between' Wing Commander games
either have no main character (such as Wing Commander
Armada, or Wing Commander Academy]), or a completely
different character ('Brown Hair' of
Privateer, or
Lev Arris of
Privateer II: The Darkening).
Casey does possess some connection to previous Wing
Commander history, which fans will appreciate; he is
the son of '
Iceman', one of the older, more
experienced pilots of the
TCS Tiger's Claw from the
original
Wing Commander. He is young, brash, lives
in his dead father's shadow, is apt to get into
interesting situations (in space and on the carrier),
and has something to prove.
The overall story of Wing Commander Prophecy begins several years after the end of the
Kilrathi war, and the subsequent events of
Wing Commander IV. The
Terran Confederation has constructed a new supercarrier of enormous proportions (the TCS
Midway), and Lance Casey, fresh out of the flight academy, has been assigned to it. The Midway proceeds to uncover a new threat emerging from the ruins of the Kilrathi home system, a dark and terrible threat that has been foretold in Kilrathi legend.
It turns out this dark and terrible threat is a new species from another dimension/universe/reality called the
Nephilim. They are an insectoid, creepy species who want to disect
Humanity, and then destroy us all. They're pretty bad guys, but not entirely believable (like the Kilrathi ever were). They have a wonderful aesthetic to them, being designed by the legendary Syd Mead (of
Blade Runner,
Star Trek The Motion Picture,
Tron and
Aliens fame, among other things).
The Midway must fight off this new species, which initially only threatens the border regions of the Confederation, but are entering our plane of reality in large numbers. The game captures the feeling of the TCS Midway trying to beat back the barbarian hordes, against almost impossible odds.
The Actors
There is some small amount of
star power present in Wing Commander Prophecy. The biggest star is, of course,
Mark Hamill, who reprises his role as
Christopher Blair. However, in Prophecy he is a major character, though no longer the character that the player controls. In fact, there are several missions in the game which allow the player to fly with Blair, which is interesting after playing four games
AS Blair.
Another big star in Prophecy is
Ginger Lynn Allen, who reprises her role from
Wing Commander III as Chief Tech Rachel Coriolis. Ginger Lynn Allen is noted primarily for her extensive contributions to the adult film industry.
Tom Wilson reprises his role as
Maniac, the crazy jerk who was such a pain to fly with in previous Wing Commanders. Tom Wilson is famous for his role as
Bif Tannen in the
Back to the Future trilogy. In Prophecy, he has finally gotten his own squadron, and goes out of his way to make Lance Casey's life miserable.
Gameplay
One of the most remarkable game play changes is, in
accordance with Prophecy's defocusing on the movie
aspects of the game, is the lack of path choices
during the full motion video scenes. The course of
the game is still as interactive as the other Wing
Commander games, however in Prophecy, the player
determines the course of the game entirely in the
cockpit of his space craft.
Prophecy also introduces a new engine, the
Vision
Engine. The previous two Wing Commander games had
both used the same engine, which by the late 1990s was
beginning to show its age. The Vision Engine allows
for many new effects, such as missile trails, more
complex 3-D models, and lighting effects. Prophecy
was also the first Wing Commander game to support 3-D
accelleration via 3Dfx standards.
there is a wide variety of mission types, and mission
objectives. It sometimes seems that many of the
missions are simply
combat air patrols, like in the
earlier Wing Commanders, which consists simply of
hitting all the nav points and wiping out the enemies.
However, Prophecy always tries to have a surprise in
every mission, something to make that mission unique
and memorable.
There are a number of unique, specialized missions
that advance the story, and are a great deal of fun
for the player. For instance, Prophecy has redefined
the traditional sense of scale for capital ships,
making them much larger than before. Where
previously, the player's single fighter might be
enough to take down a cruiser or destroyer, now it
takes an entire flight of fighters flying cover for
another flight of attack craft. The attack craft may
target individual components of the enemy capital
ship, such as shield generators, engines, bridge,
sensors, etc. Fighter cover may assist in suppressing
the gun turrets and missile launchers of the enemy
capital ship while also keeping track of other enemy
craft. The result of these new dynamics introduced
allow the player to play several missions that are
somewhat alike, but in different roles each time.
Full Cast and Crew for Wing Commander:
Prophecy (1997)
Directed by
Adam Foshko
Cast (in credits order)
Steven Petrarca .... 2nd Lt.
Lance R.
Casey
Thomas F. Wilson .... Major Todd '
Maniac'
Marshall
Lauren Sinclair .... Commander Patricia Drake, CAG
Neill Barry .... 2nd Lt. Max 'Maestro' Garrett
Chris Mulkey .... Col. Jacob 'Hawk' Manley
Heather Stephens .... 1st Lt. Jean 'Stiletto'
Talvert
Adam Lazarre-White .... Lt. Terrence 'Zero' O'Hearn
Mindy Hester .... Lieutenant Commander Aurora
Finley
Peter Jason .... Captain Daniel Wilford
Joel Stoffer .... 2nd Lt. Jack 'Dallas' Slayton
Seth Walther .... 1st Lieutenant Liam Anderson
Brad Greenquist .... Major Karl 'Spyder' Bowen
Jeremy Roberts (I) .... Colonel John 'Gash' Dekker
Ginger Lynn Allen .... Chief Technician Rachel
Coriolis
Mark Hamill .... Commodore
Christopher Blair
rest of cast listed alphabetically
Timothy 'TJ' James Driscoll .... Cadet pulled out
of meteor shower (uncredited)
Produced by
Mark Day (III) .... producer
David Downing (II) .... producer
Original music by
George Oldziey
Film Editing by
Jay Mahavier
Production Design by
Anthony R. Stabley
Costume Design by
Karen Mann (I)
Art Department
Syd Mead ....
conceptual artist
There is also a
bevy of new ships and weapons
available for use in Prophecy.
Fighter Craft
Piranha
Panther
Tigershark
Vampire
Wasp
Attack Craft
Devastator
Shrike
Guns
Fighter Turret
Ion Cannon
Laser Cannon
Mass Driver
Charging Mass Driver
Particle Cannon
Plasma Cannon
Stormfire MK II
Tachyon Gun
Missiles
Dragonfly Rocket Pod
Dumbfire
Enhanced Light Torpedo
Enhanced Long Range HARM
Enhanced Long Range Image Recognition
Enhanced Torpedo
Friend or Foe Missile
Mine
HARM
Heat Seeker
Image Recognition
Light Torpedo
Long Range HARM
Long Range Image Recognition
Swarmer Pod
Targeting Disk
Torpedo
Tracker MIRV
Turreted Image Recognition
Note: While Prophecy was originally released for the PC, it is currently being ported to the Game Boy Advance, using the Blue Roses 3-D engine. Few details are known at present (will update later).
Sources
Wing Commander Combat Information Center, http://www.wcnews.com
Internet Movie Database, http://www.imdb.com