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Topic-icon My In-Depth Review of Wing Commander Saga

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9 years 7 months ago #9406 by Toa Kaita
Hello everyone! I've recently had the time to finish Wing Commander Saga, so I thought I would share my own in-depth review on the game.

To sum it up in just a few words: Wing Commander Saga deserves a place in the series canon.

I'll break the game down into a few parts:

-STORY
-LOOK/FEEL
-AUDIO
-GAMEPLAY
-OVERALL

*STORY* - 9/10

Despite being almost totally linear, this game has one of the most in-depth storylines I have ever seen.

For those that don't know what Wing Commander is, I'll make a long story short: Wing Commander was the kickstarter of the space flight simulator genre of video games, and it's been around for a very long time. The entirety of the original game series focuses on the interstellar war between the Terran Confederation, an alliance of planets and solar systems with Earth as its headquarters, and the vicious Kilrathi, aliens that resemble giant cats that can walk upright. Wing Commander Saga takes place during the time period of the third game, Heart of the Tiger, which focuses on the final days of the Kilrathi War.

Throughout Wing Commander Saga, you play as a rookie pilot, David "Sandman" Markham. In the game's Prologue Campaign, you are assigned to the TCS Wellington, an aging Confederation Carrier, and you also get to know the other characters that you will be flying with. The game does well in developing our main characters in the prologue through the use of highly-detailed text chapters in conjunction with dialogue presented throughout the missions that you fly. The result is different from what you would expect from a game of the modern age (most games nowadays exclusively use CGI cutscenes), but nevertheless effective at driving the story with their great detail.

Once the player starts the main campaign, the game's story is told almost exclusively though a mix of gameplay, CGI, and briefing/debriefing. In this main campaign, the player is reassigned to a new carrier, the TCS Hermes, but also meets his old wingmates from the Wellington; in a sense, this helps so that the player isn't lost from the start of the main game. The game's storyline is divided into 50 missions spread across a few chapters; while Saga lacks the decision-making aspect from other Wing Commander entries, it still excels in creating an involving and engaging story filled with many twists and turns that keeps making the player wonder, "What's going to happen next?"

The characters are fairly well-developed, and every time you climb in the cockpit of your starfighter you seem to learn a little more about what makes them tick. Every wingman and officer you interact with has a backstory to them, and there are also a few antagonists that have that same amount of depth. Even the character you play develops from a seasoned rookie into a pilot worthy of flying alongside Christopher Blair, and that really shines through as you progress throughout the game.

*LOOK/FEEL* - 10/10

Visually, Wing Commander Saga is stunning, as were its predecessor games at the time.

The game is filled with lush space environments that provide stunning detail. Nebulae, planets and stars are seamlessly integrated into the backgrounds, and are complete with vivid lighting effects. The 3D game models are extremely beautiful to look at in and of themselves. There are some weird bugs with shadows on some missions, but they are infrequent and don't detract from the game experience one bit.

I've also noticed that Saga took great care in modernizing and re-imagining ships from the first and second Wing Commander Games, and beautifully so. Modeling a ship strictly from the Wing Commander 2 game sprites and trying to integrate it into Wing Commander 3 as it was just wouldn't fit with the visual style. I applaud the parts of the 3D modelers and texturers of the game to re-imagine the older ships and getting them to fit in with the style.

The visual effects of the game, such as the explosions and the lasers, are also downright beautiful, and almost every visual effects element comes with its own interactive lighting making them look that much more pleasing to look at. Even the small engine exhausts from every ship seem to come with their own interactive lighting effects.

The Heads-Up Display of the player's starfighter takes many design elements from the original Wing Commander games and also does a very fine job of updating and re-imagining them. It also incorporates some new elements, all of which are seamlessly integrated and help compliment the player during gameplay. The HUD can also be toggled to be brighter or darker and has 3 different color schemes that can be selected in the player's options menu.

*AUDIO* - 8/10

The audio, for me, was like a bag of jelly-beans; most of which I liked, but with a few that I didn't.

I appreciate the part on the sound designers to try to re-use the audio effects from the previous Wing Commander video games and to try to invoke a sense of nostalgia in its players. However, there were times that I felt re-imagined sound effects may have provided a richer experience; case in point, the sound quality of the neutron gun and the launching of a missile both still sound like they belong in the '90s era of PC gaming. To their credit, I'm sure the sound designers tried their best to try to remaster the sounds to make them fit better with the game, because quite frankly...

The rest of the audio of Wing Commander Saga is absolutely dead-on. Explosion sound effects, interface sound effects, alarms and errors and all the other miniscule elements like switching from target to target all sound like they belong in this game.

My two absolute favorite sound aspects of the game, however, come from the music and the voice acting.

I'll start with the music. The score was tackled by several artists, each of which contributed a sizable chunk of music to the game. Each piece of music is a work of art, and the composers for this game should be proud of their work. I admittedly shed a tear when I heard musical themes from Wing Commander 3 being played by live orchestral instruments. The re-imagined music from Wing Commander 3, combined with the original, new themes provided by the composers, does a wonderful job of solidifying the Wing Commander experience. I think Oldziey himself would be proud, too.

Now for the voice overs. Every character in this game had a voice actor behind them, and every voice actor that provided for this game made it seem like a big-budget game like Mass Effect or Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. The voice cast of Saga is by and large one of the best I've ever seen in a video game. To my absolute delight, I saw that I had previously worked with two of the voice actors from Saga on one of my own projects (specifically Robert Benjamin and Ashley Kalfas) and speaking from my experience with working from them, I cannot praise their amazing talent enough. All in all, I would say every voice actor delivered and enriched the experience of the game. To the voice cast: a job well done.

*GAMEPLAY* - 9/10

While I was playing this game, I felt that Chris Roberts himself would enjoy it.

I'll start off with the pre-mission aspects. Each mission in this game comes with a high-quality pre-rendered CGI cutscene that gives you an overview of your mission objectives, and it's all done in a Wing Commander 3 fashion, utilizing wireframe models and with your superior giving you a small speech about what to expect while in the cockpit. For at least half of the game, you won't be able to choose your own secondary weapon loadout. Some newcomers might find this a little distressing; I found it as an opportunity to learn how each secondary weapon worked, and I even got used to flying with a default loadout.

The same went with a lack of choice regarding the player's fighter. Again, newcomers would probably find this a bit unwelcome, but the player also has to keep in mind that in this game, which is for the most part story-driven, they are part of a squadron. Once every few chapters, the player's fighter and squadron will change, along with their wingmates and flight instructor.

Now onto the missions themselves. As the saying goes, "no plan survives contact with the enemy." Once you get in the cockpit, no matter what you've heard in your mission briefing, anything can happen throughout the mission, and the game just keeps the player guessing. Almost every mission has some sort of plot twist in it. As in real warfare, you have to stay on your toes in order to get through alive and in one piece.

The missions are actually rather lengthy, each taking in between 10 minutes to a half hour to complete. I was rather pleased by their length, as well as the abundance of levels in the campaign. Nowadays, a lot of games seem to be focused more on quality of the graphics and gameplay, throwing engaging storytelling to the wind, and Wing Commander Saga does a rather fine job of employing the best of both worlds.

Controls. There's a lot of these to remember in Saga. But there were a lot in the original Wing Commander games too, and each button you pressed did something different for your starfighter, whether it was adjusting power, talking to your wingmen, or firing your weapons. The good thing is that most of them are easy to remember, and during the prologue campaign missions, you are given the opportunity to go over them with your squadron leader. As was the case in the original Wing Commander games, you have a wide myraid of controls at your disposal. You can adjust how much power goes to your shields, engines, or primary weapon recharge rate. You have the ability to afterburn at will. You can switch what primary or secondary weapons you wish to use on the fly. In addition, once a navigation point is clear of hostiles, you can automatically set your ship to fly to the next one. It's almost exactly like the original games. There is one aspect the original games had that Saga does not have, however: the ability to command your wingmates to do something is nearly absent except in a few instances throughout the game, and from my understanding, taunting the enemy is not available either. But again, as I stated before, the player must keep in mind that they are part of a squadron and must listen to their wing leader when they give orders. It's actually kind of interesting and fun to play as the subordinate in the game rather than the man in charge.

The AI is well polished and smart. The aim on the enemy fighters and capital ships is near perfect every time, and they will not hesitate to use their missiles on you if they get a clear shot, nor will they hesitate to use their torpedoes on friendly capital ships. As I've said before, this game will keep the player guessing. If you're going toe-to-toe with an enemy fighter, odds are his wingman is creeping up on you. If you're going toe-to-toe with a capital ship, it will unload every turret it can on you. And if you encounter an enemy ace, he will most definitely give you a run for your money, and it will take all your skill to bring him down.

Naturally, every enemy you encounter will require a different strategy to defeat. Enemy bombers are tough and powerful, yet slow. Enemy scouts are fast yet lightly armored. Enemy tank fighters...well, don't even think about taking them on by yourself.

*OVERALL* - 9/10

I loved almost every aspect of this game. It was very well built and very well polished, and is a wonderful tribute to the Wing Commander franchise. If you ask me, this game should be brought into the Wing Commander Universe as official canon. It's just that good. The people that helped build it should be proud of all their hard work.

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9 years 7 months ago #9407 by Luke
Welcome on board Toa Kaita :)

Wow... to read a review like this more than 2 years after release is just amazing!

The most WCS Team members are gone, sometimes you see one of them here and there. But i will point the team members i can reach to your post.

In the name of the WCS producers: Thank you very much for this very well written (and giant) review. :arrow:

I loved almost every aspect of this game. It was very well built and very well polished, and is a wonderful tribute to the Wing Commander franchise. If you ask me, this game should be brought into the Wing Commander Universe as official canon. It's just that good. The people that helped build it should be proud of all their hard work.


Fully agree. And... for me WCS:TDD IS part of the Wing Commander canon. That's my point of view. ^^

A bit off topic:
[spoiler:2pf5f7py]It seems you have the same feelings like me after i played WCS. These points was one of the causes, why i started to learn how the technical things behind WCS are working. I wrote several tools for WCS and my biggest project is now WCS+, the original WCS engine but with several little improvements. It is mainly the platform for our German translation project, but later it will be contained in the "WCS Plus Pack", an addon for the original english WCS.

Btw, the HUD is not only available as monocolor HUD, have a look here , these are multicolor HUD's. We can discuss this further in the "Tech Support" forum here if you wish, to keep your thread clear from such tech things. ;) [/spoiler:2pf5f7py]

Tools: Setup ZIP Check & UnZip ...and more
HowTo's: Joystick: configure throttle and rudder ...and more
Projects: WCS+ ...and more

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9 years 7 months ago #9408 by X3N0-Life-Form
Replied by X3N0-Life-Form on topic My In-Depth Review of Wing Commander Saga
Great Read. It's nice to see that people still take time to write a review over two years after release :)

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9 years 7 months ago #9417 by Thor
As one of the beta testers and contributor to the game manual, I appreciate the time and effort you put into your review of the game. Your review is fair, objective and shows you have spent time with the original Wing Commander series as you compare with WC Saga. It took a lot of volunteer effort by many people to get this game to the level it is, and I commend all of those who spent chunks of their life trying to fill the Wing Commander void. I also commend the players who have taken up the call to arms and have flown the game through from beginning to end, I’m sure there were times you thought there was no way you were going to make it all the way through the game.

System Hardware:
MB: GigaByte GA-X58a-UD3R w Intel X58 Chipset
CPU: Intel Core I7-980x Extreme Edition 3.33GHz
GPU: ATI Radeon HD 5770 1Gb GDDR5 16X PCIe
RAM:12GB DDR3/1333MHz Corsair Triple Channel
Sound: Creative Labs X-FI XtremeGamer 24-BIT PCI

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