Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger Retrospective/Review

A wee reupload from Side Adventure: Here's a look at one of the few FMV games which wasn't shit, Wing Commander III Heart of the Tiger.

Special thanks to all Patrons and Members!

00:00 Intro
01:24 Development
02:09 Presentation
06:25 Gameplay
10:54 Story & Campaign
16:02 Conclusion
16:47 Outro

#wingcommander #rowanjcoleman

[jarman]

The 3DO version was flawless, but you have to remember that these games were designed to be played on an analog TV 240p equivalent. There is a reason why you remember 8 bit Nintendo games looked better at the time, it was because they actually looked better on TVs than on emulators on modern digital displays.

[Zennk]

I played this game as a kid, the audio problems you speak of aren't a thing I experienced at all, it was flawless from that perspective, I would have to believe its a modern hardware compatibility issue if anything.

[ChrisRowe]

I played this endlessly throughout the 90s and never had any technical issues. It was a flawless game. And it looked amazing, you just have to remember the monitors were 640x480 so nothing looked as pixelated as they do now on much higher res displays. Also you absolutely have to have a joystick for it. This came out in the golden age of joystick gaming when it was almost a given anyone planning to game would get a joystick for their PC. Also to avoid being upside down you need to roll by holding down a button on your joystick while turning.

[awesomedayz]

Disclaimer: I have never played Wing Commander and I know their lore is deep and cherished by many. I respect everyone's opinion on the matter.

That being said, I actually love the movie. I think it silly, fun, adventurous, DIVERSE, and shows a future that is imperfect but still going on. It doesn't show a world full of Americans but a universe full of different populations and cultures cohabitating the universe.

[Josep_Hernandez_Lujan]

The Command & Conquer games also got the FMV thing right. Kane is so iconic

[FiliusFidelis]

Always loved the Arrow and used it a LOT too, and Tom Wilson really impressed me as Todd Marshall - to the point that I've always been felt a bit sad that he didn't have more an acting career.

[IM-xsuv]

Privateer got me into the Wing Commander universe and remains my favourite, but I really enjoyed the main line games back in the day. I'd enjoy a remake or return to this universe.

[richardlawson]

The original CD's had a "behind the scenes" featurette. Tom Wilson is absolutely hysterical. He kept making jokes during takes, cracking up the crew. Chris Roberts even "awarded" him a $3 bottle of wine for being such a delight to work with.

[GuardianOfRlyeh]

My guess is that the stuttering is coming from buffering issues. The example shown in the video shows that they happen in cut scenes - so the CD-ROM buffer or cpu speed may be misconfigured (DOSBox?) for this game. That happened on original hardware as well when the CD-ROM was too slow (I remember playing Rebel Assault II with my double speed CD-ROM (300 kb/s) on my 486 and it stuttered at times as well)

[TheJovian]

I know I probably said this in a comment on the original video (so it's more for the benefit of other people who read this) but a few years ago George Oldzey did an orchestral recording of several tracks from WC3, WC4 and Prophecy and they all sound great and the album can be bought on his website. It sounds so great that it's a damn shame that Hollywood didn't poach him like Michael Giacchino.

[Jay-lnco]

It's amazing that the Kilrathi look better in the game's FMV sequences than they do in the actual movie adaptation.

[CaptRicoSakara]

I still have Wing Command III! Disk, booklet and all. I just haven't played the game in YEARS. And I STILL have yet to beat the game properly. Still love the cuts scenes, regardless of the quality. Might replay the game someday after seeing this retrospective. As for the game itself, it's a good RPG game, and the ship designs were kinda neat for the time. The Arrow always had this A-Wing feel to it, so it was a heavy favorite.

[OPMDK]

The Wing Commander FMV series were phenomenal and choosing your own adventure through your interactions were revolutionary for the time and still a high bar for story telling games even today one could argue.
Remaking the series from the onset of the war in the first game would be absolutely amazing so long as Disney didn’t have a hand in writing it!

[jimia]

Awesome video. This, and the starfleet and klingon academy games, share a special place in my heart. Looking forward to IV.

[mr.pavone]

Ok, you avoided the joke about Luke protecting the planet killer BUT you missed the joke about the giant kitty-man nicknamed "Hobbes."

[FeeriiEekii]

I wonder if it's possible to get remasters of Wing Commander III and IV. Would be cool if they managed to get the original filmed scenes and get everything up to, or close to todays standard

[jasonblalock]

I played this on OG hardware, and I can vouch, your experience was almost completely normal. The fuzzy artifacting and audio pops were all part of the experience, sadly. Just a side effect of pushing hardware to its limits, at the time. Although I never had that problem with the mouse cursor, which might be a DOSBox goof.

Otherwise, I think WC3 and 4 worked as well as they did because Chris Roberts had always treated the series as "interactive movies." Like, the usage of cutscenes in WC2 is basically identical to later games - just with sprites rather than FMV. So the move to CD didn't change the formula. And yeah, along with that, the games have always had plotting that feels like a TV series. It's totally deliberate.

(That's also how its branching mission system works. Each star system is a self-contained plot arc or episode, and the player bounces through a tree of these episodes/systems based on on their performance. It's a clever way of making game progress dynamic.)

[Bearmauls]

Curious about your thoughts on Descent: Freespace and the sequel, Freespace 2. While they lack the FMV, they are probably the ultimate expression of the space fighter game of that era, and are some of my favourite games of all time.

[rockybeats]

After experiencing the Kilrathi in this game I was sooo disapointed with how they were handled in the movie.

[hamiltmb]

I bought this game day one and was lucky enough to have a 3dfx voodoo graphics card. In all the years since, I've never had the same experience as the fluid playthrough I had to start. None of the ports or the GOG version live up to the original. The video on the original CD Roms was great when watching on my old CRT computer monitor. None of the audio issues you have, and none of the poor video quality. Those original glide drivers and having a good sound blaster card made absolutely all the difference. This was groundbreaking at the time and I was in awe playing it. There were strategy guides sold which covered all the branching mission paths. It's really still incredible.