Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger

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.

Four words to start this off: I love this game! I had been waiting a looooong time for the video game industry to create a mostly-live-action interactive video game of good quality and high-calibre acting, directing, and production design. Kudos must go out to director Chris Roberts and his talented team of actors, set production crew, and video game production crew. They did something that had never been done before. They not only created a fully realized, highly entertaining live-action video game. The also did it with a style, flair, and acting performances normally seen only in top-notch Hollywood films. Mark Hamill (of "Star Wars" fame) doesn't simply step into the lead role of Colonel Christopher "Maverick" Blair. He allows it to completely envelope him. It was also great fun to see renowned British actors John Rhys-Davies (of "Indiana Jones" and "The Lord Of The Rings" fame) and Malcolm McDowell (of "A Clockwork Orange", "Time After Time" and "Star Trek: Generations" fame) both hamming it up in their respective roles as General James "Paladin" Taggart and Admiral Geoffrey Tolwyn. It was also cool to see Thomas F. Wilson (who played Biff Tannen in the "Back To The Future" trilogy) playing one of the good guys for a change, even though his character, Lt. Todd "Maniac" Marshall, and Col. Blair are rivals, and only sometimes friends with each other. This game is great fun, and highly recommended!!!

This "game" actually made a better movie than a game. Some of the combat sequences tend to be a touch repetative, but the wonderful feel of being in "a movie" is really, really quite nice. The mission tree allows for multiple endings, so there's the chance that you'll be the dog of the movie instead of the hero. Odd that Chris Roberts would tap adult movie actress Ginger Allen for such a prominant role... but I'll give credit where credit is due, she did a wonderful job acting. If you want to see how multimedia games SHOULD be done, find a copy of Wing Commander III

This game is a fine example of how one is supposed to use the new media. The story really grabs you tight and the only thing you want is more.

Mankind is fighting a losing war for survival in a galactic war against the evil catlike race Kilrathi. The game begins at the carrier "Tiger's Claw" and evolves quickly to an engrossing story about humanity's finest hour.

I surely can recommend this game!