Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger

At the time this game came out, it was pretty cutting-edge. It combined a filmed storyline with a space simulator. It was leaps above Wing Commander 1 and 2, old VGA games. Plus it was one of the first games to take advantage of the real life video technology offered by the CD-ROM's arrival. Now-a-days it wouldn't seem so great, but back then it was phenomenal, especially for die-hard Wing Commander (WC) fans. WC 4 and Prophecy both use the basic game play setup developed in WC 3, largely due to its success. Another popular feature is the ability to choose different paths through the game, along with different difficulty levels. All around a great game.

I got Wing Commander III from my dad for my birthday. I had never even heard of it, but I saw that Mark Hamill was in it and that got me interested. The cool graphics, the live-action cut scenes, and the entire fun of space simulation soon had me hooked. Afterwards I have purchased Wing Commander IV and Wing Commander Prophecy and hope to get Wing Commander: Secret Ops soon. Overall, this game is very fun and addictive.

Just (re)watched the cinematics on YouTube. I remember the epicness of playing this game on the hardware of the day back then. Just an amazing experience, as were the Tex Murphy games. Unless you were there, you could never understand how vast the improvements were, which started here. Live video acting? ACTUAL audio? This was so far beyond anything before it, it's not even funny.

I just threw out all of my old software in a "purge", but when I saw this CDROM, it just kind of ignited a fire in me to search these out on YouTube. I thank the individuals who made these so that we can revisit the best of times!

Wing Commander III is one of the few games that effectively mixes full motion video and real gameplay. The computer drawn sets don't look that great but are far better than the computer animation of the previous games. Over all the live action portions of the game are pretty great for $4-8 million. The gameplay itself is also far better than the previous games and since the HUD is uncluttered I consider it slightly better than WC IV in that regard (the HUD in IV has a huge gunsight). Even though I played it with the graphics turned down on my old 486 I consider it one of my favorite games.

I have to admit, I was blown away by Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger! I am not usually a big fan of space-sims, I mean I've played some Freespace here and there but never really got into it. But then I played this and oooooh boy was it good. I've put this review in three catagories:Plot,Gameplay and Acting.

Plot: The Earth Confederation has been waging a 10-year war with the tiger creatures, the Kilrathi. But now they face the reality of losing the war and with it losing Earth and humanity itself. You play Colonel Blair(Mark Hamill) a fighter pilot whose made a reputation for himself through his various missions aboard the "Tiger-Claw". Blair has been re-assigned to be a pilot for the TCS Victory in the war. On the ship, he meets various pilots,captains,etc. Through his missions, Blair finds himself in becoming a major importance in winning the war. There are many plot-twists here and there that'll suprise you as they come. Overall a very well thought out plot. Rating: 4.5/5

Gameplay: The space combat in the game is very fun,entertaining, and challenging. One half of the game has you out in space,flying missions and having a Kiltathi in your crosshairs. The other half has you walking around the TCS Victory, having conversations with the various people on board which are usually about the war, their feelings or on their past. In these conversations, you usually have two choices of what to say(this affects your morale with the person your talking to). This ends up being really fun and it makes you care about your wingmen(unlike in other games). The space combat is fun, fast paced, and man ALIVE is it hard in most of the missions. This is the best part of the game/movie of course. Rating: 5/5

Acting: Mark Hamill does an awesome job of playing Colonel Christopher Blair with his smart-aleck lines while talking to the people on the ship to his taunts while in the cockpit(Example:"Say goodnight kitty!").I like him in this role better then as Luke Skywalker from Star Wars(I know I surprised myself). Then theres various other actors(most who don't really have any acting career). From the great Malcolm McDowell as Admiral Towlwyn(he played the bad guy in Star Trek:Generations), John Rhys-Davies as Paladin(hes playing Gimli in the LOTR movies right now), Tom Wilson(Biff from Back to the Future)as Maniac, a up-beat pilot whos a fan favorite. To Francois Chau as the lovable card shark of a pilot Vagabond and Jason Bernard as Captian Eisen in one of his last movie roles. The acting is superior to any "real" sci-fi film and the script is well written. Rating: 5/5

This is one of the best video games/movies ever and any person who enjoys a awesome space sim with a great plot and sweet actors(MARK HAMILL!!!) should try to find this game now and buy it. You wont be disappointed by its sheer greatness.