3 ms·

I was so hyped when this game came out; I remember waiting 5-10 minutes for each mission to start on my computer at the time (a 486 dx2? Or a Pentium? Hard to

by jbm 6y ago

I was so hyped when this game came out; I remember waiting 5-10 minutes for each mission to start on my computer at the time (a 486 dx2? Or a Pentium? Hard to remember). Clearing space to play it was a pain too. I missed some of the wc2 gameplay and was not a fan of how the story kept resetting the progress from the previous games ("humanity suddenly comes to an agreement and dismantles its full fleet", "ragtag peripheral colonies are the only ones who understood the enemy" etc...). The way Hobbes' character was retconned wasn't great - especially since they left out his final message (seriously wtf?) I still loved the game, enough so that I remembered all of that from years ago.

djur 6y ago
Yeah, WC3 did Hobbes dirty in a way that seriously trashed a lot of what WC2 seemed to be trying to do.
- jbm 6y ago
  The parts of that story involving Cobra are almost uncomfortable to discuss. It was an attempt to raise the stakes but I didn't like it at all. Even putting the weird "we should exterminate them all" Cobra character aside, the idea made no sense logically. The Kilrathi didn't activate Hobbes during WC 1's Secret Missions 2 (during their holiest rituals for Sivar) but suddenly decided to do so when they were basically about to win (and had no idea about the Temblor Bomb et al) It's part of a problem I have with a lot of fiction with sequels that has the heroes make significant character strides with implicit guarantees to the reader/viewer, only for those to be completely thrown away in the next volume / installment / etc.. In this case, Hobbes proves himself through Secret Missions 2 (when you fly the Kilrathi fighters) and then in WC2 (which seemed far more pivotal than the situation in WC3). Then for cheap drama and fake "serious" points, they flip the script in WC3 because your well-supported implicit understanding was only implicit and "it doesn't count". (I still loved the game)
  - djur 6y ago
    What happened to Angel seemed like cheap drama to me, too. With the added "benefit" of allowing another romance plotline for Blair. It overall just seemed like a less mature, more melodramatic story than the previous two games.
    - jbm 6y ago
      Yeah, I had completely forgotten the plot where the Captain of the Concordia and a former fighter pilot is sent on a commando mission (!). We never even find out why the Concordia was sunk (although I assume it was in some book). I think a lot of this stems from Roberts' not-so-secret desire to be a movie director; my guess was he was trying to streamline it to make things more "cinematic", but the end result was as you see. (The ill-received Wing Commander movie didn't cure him of this apparently) The more I think about it, the more I agree with you; WC really did peak with WC2 for me. I didn't buy WC4, and only bought Prophecy years afterwards on sale for 15$. Meanwhile, I actually bought WC2 on release (despite having more precarious finances), and both Secret Operations.

by jbm 6y ago

djur 6y ago

Yeah, WC3 did Hobbes dirty in a way that seriously trashed a lot of what WC2 seemed to be trying to do.

jbm 6y ago
The parts of that story involving Cobra are almost uncomfortable to discuss. It was an attempt to raise the stakes but I didn't like it at all. Even putting the weird "we should exterminate them all" Cobra character aside, the idea made no sense logically. The Kilrathi didn't activate Hobbes during WC 1's Secret Missions 2 (during their holiest rituals for Sivar) but suddenly decided to do so when they were basically about to win (and had no idea about the Temblor Bomb et al) It's part of a problem I have with a lot of fiction with sequels that has the heroes make significant character strides with implicit guarantees to the reader/viewer, only for those to be completely thrown away in the next volume / installment / etc.. In this case, Hobbes proves himself through Secret Missions 2 (when you fly the Kilrathi fighters) and then in WC2 (which seemed far more pivotal than the situation in WC3). Then for cheap drama and fake "serious" points, they flip the script in WC3 because your well-supported implicit understanding was only implicit and "it doesn't count". (I still loved the game)
- djur 6y ago
  What happened to Angel seemed like cheap drama to me, too. With the added "benefit" of allowing another romance plotline for Blair. It overall just seemed like a less mature, more melodramatic story than the previous two games.
  - jbm 6y ago
    Yeah, I had completely forgotten the plot where the Captain of the Concordia and a former fighter pilot is sent on a commando mission (!). We never even find out why the Concordia was sunk (although I assume it was in some book). I think a lot of this stems from Roberts' not-so-secret desire to be a movie director; my guess was he was trying to streamline it to make things more "cinematic", but the end result was as you see. (The ill-received Wing Commander movie didn't cure him of this apparently) The more I think about it, the more I agree with you; WC really did peak with WC2 for me. I didn't buy WC4, and only bought Prophecy years afterwards on sale for 15$. Meanwhile, I actually bought WC2 on release (despite having more precarious finances), and both Secret Operations.