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Wing Commander 3 Reaches Ten Year Milestone

Posted by Zonk on from the oh-dear-we're-getting-old dept.

An Anonymous Reader writes "The Wing Commander CIC is reporting on the tenth birthday of the classic PC game, Wing Commander 3. "Much like Wing Commander 2 with the sound card and Wing Commander Prophecy with the 3d accelerator, Wing Commander 3 encouraged a legion of PC gamers to go out and buy a CD-ROM drive for hundreds of dollars. In little over four years we went from a handful of floppy disks to a stack of CDs. Once computers had their CD-ROM installed, systems with only 8 megabytes of RAM sufferred 5+ minute load times before the missions. Still, we happily waited for one of the most incredible gaming experiences ever." Though the game obviously looks dated by today's standards, it's held up remarkably well as a vehicle of adventure and storytelling. It's amazing that it's already been ten years."

3 of 104 comments (clear)

  1. Oh, the horrible acting... by eviltypeguy · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Oh, the horrible acting...

    But, it had John Rhys Davies, that makes it good right?

    Oh, and Mark Hamil too!

    But, the worst line from an actor in this game:

    "Disintegrate me, so I may join my comrades..."

    *dies laughing*

  2. Actually it was Windows 95 by Qrlx · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'm pretty sure it was Windows 95, and the 20-some-odd floppies required to do a clean install, that had people buying CD-ROM drives. The fact that the floppies were guaranteed to fail on disk 6, 7, or 8 after you used them a few times didn't hurt either ;)

    I mean, I'm sure there are a few people out there who bought a CD-ROM drive just to play Wing Commander III, this is the same small yet profitable sliver of the market which buys GeForce 6800s to play DOOM III. But for the mass market, it was Windows 95 that led the consumer, grumbling, to the realm of the 2x Mitsumi.

  3. Re:Hobbes! by Slider451 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I, too, was shocked and disappointed when Hobbes turned. He was always my favorite wingman.

    Looks like Origin is responsible for producing more than a few IT pros. Between tweaking bootdisks, soundcards, and CD-ROM drives for the WC series, and 10-base-2 and early 10-base-T cards (NetwareLite, anyone?) for Doom deathmatches, I was all set to start my IT career in 1994.

    Thanks Origin and id!

    --
    Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.