Wing Commander IV: The Price of Freedom

aka: Wing Commander IV: Mekhir ha-Khofesh, Wing Commander IV: O Preço da Liberdade
Moby ID: 343
DOS Specs
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Christopher Blair, "Heart of the Tiger" had retired to a farming planet after the war, content with retirement, so he says... In the depths of space, a new menace has surfaced. Some unknown attackers are killing civilian ships. The tension between the Confederation and the Border Worlds is at an all time high, as both sides accuse the other of staging the attacks. Admiral Tolwyn has recalled Blair back to service, where he will make the most difficult choice of all... And contemplate action he had never dared before, in the name of justice...

Wing Commander IV: The Price of Freedom is a mix of interactive movie and space sim. The game has a dynamic mission tree, which means the player's behaviour will determine the next mission. The videos feature real actors, like Mark Hamill, Tom Wilson, John Rhys-Davies and Malcolm McDowell. Before the start of each mission, the space craft can be equipped with different weapons. Sometimes the mission objectives change during flight, and the player has to make decisions what he wants to do next, e.g. help out his friend or destroy an enemy fighter.

Spellings

  • Wing Commander IV: מחיר החופש - Hebrew spelling
  • 银河飞将4:自由的代价 - Simplified Chinese spelling

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Credits (DOS version)

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Reviews

Critics

Average score: 84% (based on 36 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.7 out of 5 (based on 81 ratings with 6 reviews)

Best in the series

The Good
It was a fantastic space simulator and has a fantastic choose your own adventure storyline where every choice can effect the outcome. It has the feeling of both a game and a movie, all welled into one. Much more than it's predecessor. It also has amazing music.

The Bad
Not a thing. It was fantastic.

The Bottom Line
A fast paced and action packed space simulator where you control a fighter wing and a ship's crew, every choice you make effects their lives.

DOS · by Brent Barker (1) · 2005

Better than most are willing to admit.

The Good
As most Wing Commander games, this one makes a technological quantum leap in comparison with it's predecessors. Better sound, graphics (notably the ground missions, which are no longer fought on dull deserts), fmv, faster gameplay, etc...

Better mission design with creative touches that range from good to great, such as tailing enemy ships, sneaking on an enemy base, detaining convoys, etc. completely overshadowing those of WC3.

And most notably of all: the story. WC4 has the best story in all the series, succesfully tackling the "what now?" question made evident after the end of WC3 without the need to resort to another typical bad-alien invasion. WC1 was the typical kill-the-little-green-men affair, WC2 used the same concept but darkened the whole game by adding more character development, and personal crisis to the mix, while WC3 simply was "dark" because the good guys were losing the fight. WC4 takes even more of the character development and personal crisis mantra and adds to that a story filled with conspiracies, political backstabbings, and shows us the fanatical minds of the so-called "heroes". Were do you draw the line between doing the right thing and fanatically following orders? The consequences to your actions become even more somber than in the previous installments, as there is no clear enemy to fight this time, and your opponents cease to be the bad aliens and become either opressed farmers, or unknowing soldiers.

Granted, it's no masterpiece of literary fiction, but it's still a great story and makes a great allegory, certainly raising the stakes when compared to other WC games, after all in which other WC game the final battle is waged not in space, but in a senate hearing?. WC4 was all about making a statement, and bringing a more mature and serious closure to the sci-fi series. The question behind every great struggle: We won...now what? is answered perfectly in this game. And it's that why it's the most memorable WC I've played.

The Bad
There are a lot of flaws in this game, but first of all let me clarify why so many bash this game. WC4 is the most ambitious, over-glorified, expensive and extensive WC ever. No other WC (and very few other games indeed) so proudly presents itself as the "Biggest, baddest interactive movie ever". And tough those last words once meant something good, the shameless exploitation of FMV has brought a karma to anything labeling itself as an interactive movie equal only to the leper or pox. WC4 would have certainly benefited from a more humble aproach, but the reason why most people hate this game is because "it's the most expensive game ever" and "it's on 6 stupid cds" etc.etc.etc. Reasons which are just as legitimate as saying "because!"

Having said that, let's now look at the REAL bad points in the game:

While there are some really good and imaginative missions, the game is filled with what seems to be filler material, the same crappy "patrol/ kill all baddies" missions that plagued WC3 (but somehow nobody ever mentions) are back with a vengueance, and of the 50+ missions, 15-20 are the good ones, tops.

The game balancing is all screwed up, sure we all know that Blair is the super-duper Heart of the Tiger and whatever, and he chooses his own ship, his weapons, wingmen, underwear, etc. But given WC4's ridiculously unimaginative weapons and ships they should have added some sort of restrictions concerning what you get to choose. There's no fun if you always go out with the Dragon stocked with nothing but IR missiles and with the same wingman over and over. Also I've heard complaints (see other reviews) that the game is too hard for newbies. Personally I had no problem playing trough the game, and found WC3's final missions way harder than anything in here, but who the hell am I, right?

Maniac's character is completely over-used. The reason he was so popular in WC3 was because he contrasted so much with Blair, and added a nice color to every sequence he was in. In here Maniac's portrayed as Blair's irreverent buddy, providing comedy relief, and being nothing short of a sidekick while, in order to spice up his character, taken on philosophical trips of epic proportions... essentially, nothing like the guy seen on WC3, or Prophecy, were he mercilessly is seen tormenting your character. I guess I should take this as an opportunity to mention that the story, as good as it is, still falls into the occasional cliché pitfalls, and there are many inconsistencies (ie. why in the hell does Maniac, or Blair, release Tolwyn???) which are just way too convenient.

Last but not least, it's not necesary to see the WC movie to see how bad Chris Roberts is at directing. Somebody should have told Chris that lingering for 10-20 seconds with each character after they have said their thing gives no dramatic effect at all (see Eisen's briefings for example). Thus he regularly kills potentially good cutscenes by making them boring, uninspired affairs. I'm not asking Kurosawa here, but you needn't go so far for comparisons, the average Babylon 5 episode would sufice when it comes to the camera work, etc. especially since this time they had real sets and all.

The Bottom Line
To finalize, yes, Wing Commander 4 is an over-bloated, expensive, and noisy game. But that alone is no reason to hate it. If you are willing to sit through it, you'll be rewarded with a magnificient story and some excellent, if not always imaginative, action gaming. Everyone praises WC3 because it did the interactive movie-thing first, but make no mistake, WC4 did it better. And it's a better game too.

DOS · by Zovni (10504) · 2001

Great production values, extremely low play value

The Good
The cinematics are great. In terms of style, writing, directing, and acting, they're probably still the high-water mark of computer movies. (that's really not a slight, this one truly is feature-film quality - better than the official movie by far) It's worth playing the game just to watch the film, especially Malcolm McDowell getting to chew the scenery with a glee he hasn't shown since A Clockwork Orange.

The Bad
The gameplay sucked. Period. Just about every mission was dull and generic - just swarms of bad guys all over you again and again. The difficulty level at "normal" is actually quite high, which would make it challenging, but you just can't care about the missions like you could in the old days. Even the new fighters were generally uninteresting. At least it didn't have 5-minute mission loads like its predecessor - I read entire books while playing that one.

The Bottom Line
If you have a chance to pick it up for cheap, snag it, set the difficulty to its lowest level, and spend a few days watching a sci-fi miniseries with brief pauses for carnage in-between. In that respect, it's still more entertaining than a large number of the sci-fi films at Blockbuster.

DOS · by WizardX (116) · 2000

[ View all 6 player reviews ]

Discussion

Subject By Date
How do I run this game in WinME?? Darkon Jan 22, 2008

Trivia

1001 Video Games

Wing Commander IV: The Price of Freedom appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

Cast

  • Now well-known actor Casper Van Dien ("Sleepy Hollow", "Starship Troopers") got his first non-TV role in a bit part for this game. Officially dubbed "Confed Pilot #3," he can be spotted during one of the early cinematics as Blair and Maniac first board their new carrier.
  • The non-speaking pilots on the roster are mostly Origin employees on the WC IV project. For example, Anthony "Yaeger" Sommers (QA Project Lead), Frank "Turbo" Roan (Lead Programmer), and more.

Extras

Creative Labs included a special DVD version of this game with their original DVD drives that included higher quality recompressed video.

Novelization

There is a novelization of the game published by Baen Books.

Production cost

As of June 2000, WC IV held the record for most expensive video game ever made. Dissatisfied with the blue-screened video of #3, Chris Roberts decided he wanted to build full-sized sets for the game. The end result was around $10 million dollars spent. By comparison, that's roughly what the original Star Wars movie cost. As of 2002, WC IV is the second most expensive game after Shenmue.

Removed content

One scene got cut out of the final game. The scene, which shows Wilford telling Blair to board a Black Lance Transport was never released in any official form, but can be found around the net. Be warned that since the scene was cut out at the last minute it is already encoded, meaning you'll need Xanmovie to play it, just like any other WC IV movie file (Xanmovie can be found on Origin's Crusader: No Regret).

Story issue

In a rare "script ignore" for the Wing Commander series, if 2nd Lt. Troy "Catscratch" Carter (played by Mark Dacascos, also of several movies including "Le Pacte des loups" (Brotherhood of the Wolf), survives his final mission, he absolutely disappears from the rest of the game. No mention is made of his fate at all and he is no longer available as a wingman. Lt. Velina Sosa, who is his love interest and is quite upset should he die, never mentions his mysterious disappearance from the ship. Also, his name disappears from the killboard. Normally, when a pilot is killed, "KIA" is written next to their name and their stats remain. But Catscratch, for all intents and purposes, is erased from existence if he actually survives the one mission he doesn't complete properly.

Windows 95 Patch

A Windows 95 patch is available that makes the game run smoother and look better when playing under Windows 95.

Information also contributed by Adam Baratz, Jason Musgrave, John Chaser, Kasey Chang, WizardX, and Zovni

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by robotriot.

PlayStation 3, PSP added by Lance Boyle. PS Vita added by Charly2.0. Windows added by 80. PlayStation added by Adam Baratz. Macintosh added by Terok Nor.

Additional contributors: Trixter, Olivier Masse, Unicorn Lynx, chirinea, Alaka, CaesarZX, Picard, FatherJack.

Game added November 1, 1999. Last modified March 19, 2024.