DOS

Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger

Trivia

Wing Commander III was named #54 overall among the “150 Best Games of All Time” by Computer Gaming World Magazine (15th Anniversary Issue--November 1996).

Contributed by PCGamer77 (3025) on May 02, 2008.

Wing Commander III was ranked # 48 in the 50 Best Games of All Time list published by PC Gamer Magazine in its April 2005 issue.

Contributed by PCGamer77 (3025) on Mar 19, 2005.

Unlike most games, there's actually an entire branch in the story that leads to a so-called failure ending aka The (Last) Battle of Earth. Failure on some plot-critical missions will lead the storyline into the Proxima system, where confederation forces fight a losing battle; retreating to Sol in an unwinnable scenario. Obviously since the activation of the dialog/videos for this branch require LOSING, it's probably a minority of players (or people who download from fansites) who have seen all this, flown the missions and most would probably just restore from a saved game.

Besides the standard manual, the game came with a booklet called Victory Streak - Your personalized guide to the TCS Victory, which gives new recruits all kinds of background info. In the back of the Victory Streak there's a section with HoloVid reviews, one review is for the HoloVid Hail SHODAN:

Hail SHODAN radiates with cyberpunk action and the good looks of Clint Mason. After streetwise hacker James Finn (Mason) accepts the challenge to punch deck into Citadel research station, he unknowingly removes the logic systems behind the station's artificial intelligence. Finn finds himself trapped in a steel jungle with nothing but his good looks and a few electro-magnetic grenades. The furious pace of this game-based HoloVid will send you reeling through the aisles... the ending will astonish you. (2.24 hours) ***

SPOILER WARNING!

This game has an interesting example of how bugs can critically hinder gameflow. As most people know, once you've defeated Hobbes and Thrakhath the game is pretty much over, since the trench run is a piece of cake. This wasn't intended to be so, since the cloaking device is supposed to function only once. However a bug exists that resets the cloak once you enter Kilrah. In reality you should have been going through the trench while avoiding endless swarms of fighters, which is a reaaaally difficult thing to do (go ahead, try and uncloak yourself to see what I mean).

Of a somewhat less importance but equally exemplary is the pretty un-dramatic finale for both Hobbes and Thrakhath. In reality both of them send you a final message when you blow them up, however you can't hear them while playing normally. You've got to pause the game just as they blow up, and for some weird reason they'll play just asfter the explosion sfx dies out.

Wing Commander III was voted #30 overall in PCGamer Magazine's Readers All-Time Top 50 Games Poll (April 2000 issue).

Contributed by PCGamer77 (3025) on Jan 22, 2001.

There's a novelization of the game published by Baen Books.

Charlton Heston was initially aproached by Origin to portray the role of admiral Tolwyn, however several monetary drawbacks (such as spending nearly $15,000 on the purchase & processing of 16 mm film only to discover later that videotape served their digitizing needs better) made Heston's fee of $100,000 less than attractive. Could you imagine if "Moses" had actually been on WC? :D

There's three separate "good" endings, depending on your choice of who to befriend. Did you choose Rachel, Flint, or neither?

Besides its standard release, a special edition, and a "premiere" edition of the game were made available. While the game itself is the same on all of the releases several extras were added. The Premiere edition contained all the items found in the original release (manual, etc...) plus:

and a full color "Warbirds" sheet, a fold-out reference sheet with pictures and stats of several kilrathi and confed ships. (the one that came with the original game was black and white).

This premire release was also shipped overseas in several foreign releases, though most of these (i.e. the european release) didn't include neither the novel (because of translation issues) nor the color warbirds sheet (they came with the regular b&w one instead (because EA fell behind schedule on the printing of said sheets and if it had waited for the printing of the color ones they would have missed their foreign release dates).

The "special edition" was a special release only available trough a select few retail outlets (like Sam's club) this version includes all the original documentation, etc, plus the T-shirt, the film canister packaging, and a "behind the scenes cd" which is not the one included on the premiere edition, it's actually the VHS tape documentary encoded as an avi file.

Contributed by Zovni (9138) on Oct 18, 2000.

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Several FMV scenes were cut from the final release of the game, including several newscasts from anchorwoman Barbara Miles (the one that appears in the opening sequence), 3 rendered action sequences, and most importantly of all the so called "Hobbes explanation" a scene in which Hobbes leaves Blair a holographic message explaining his betrayal. (The omission of which leaves a very frustrating game experience behind, since the player spends the rest of the game trying to figure out why he defected. --Editor)

This scene appears on the 3DO version of the game but was left out of the PC release because of lack of space (no one has ever explained why they removed such a critical scene and left others which were of absolutely no importance), however all these scenes appeared later on other sources (the behind the scenes interactive cd, etc...) and are all available for download on several sites around the 'net.

Also removed from the game was a scene which supposedly played in the final strech of the game (when you reached the first secret asteroid base) and only if some key wingmen were with you at this point. In the scene Blair adressed his wingmen and prepared them for the final fight. It is unknown if this scene was filmed or not, but it does appear on the master script included on the Behind the scenes cd.

Contributed by Zovni (9138) on Oct 17, 2000.

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SPOILER WARNING

According to the strategy guide towards the end VacQuero will meet with an untimely end. Given this info I made sure to take him as my wingman and send him back to the Victory at the first available opportunity. In my run of the game completed in 1997, Vacquero is still alive at the end of the game. Apparently this is not supposed to be possible.

Contributed by Richard Carrington (4) on Aug 18, 2000.

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Roughly shot FMV test sequences were hidden on the 3DO systems "Super Wing Commander", a remake of the very first game. These scenes depicted the drive room and a silent clip of an actress (different from the one who actually appeared in the game) speaking to the camera.

Contributed by Vance (97) on Jun 21, 2000.

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At the time, it was the most expensive video game ever made, at approximately $3 million. It was dethroned by its still-reigning sequel, WC IV.

Contributed by WizardX (118) on Jun 08, 2000.

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The phrase "Atomic Batteries to Power, Turbines to Speed'" listed at the bottom of the pre-flight checklist displayed before each flight is a reference to the old, campy Batman TV show from the 60's. Everytime the Dynamic Duo would get in the Batmobile in the Batcave, Robin would say this line (after buckling up like a good passenger, of course).

Contributed by Ray Soderlund (3504) on Apr 05, 2000.

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While the manual and test program clearly state you need a double-speed drive to play the game, over 90% of the video sequences play just fine with a single-speed drive.

Contributed by Trixter (8865) on Feb 06, 2000.

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