"Killing evil space cats has to be fun, doesn't it?"

Although not a perfect game, this is definitely worth taking the time to play and any Amiga fanatic will be happy with this

Storyline - To be fairly basic, the Terran Federation (Humans) are at war with the Kilrathi (Evil Space Cats) aliens. It's fairly relevant to the game to be honest, due to choices made in the game, you control the direction the story takes, whether it be in favour of humans (yay) or in favour of the Kilrathi (boo). You learn more and more about the story through the game with 3D cut scenes, it's pretty engrossing. Excellent storyline though. You find out the majority of the details in the game from the barman, which is very entertaining hearing about his personal experiences from his 'flying days', very entertaining. You also get the chance to talk to several other pilots in the Terran Federation throughout the game, during mission briefings and at the bar (where the bar tender is also found) and find out a lot more about the history of the war and what things were like back in the 'old days', which is a nice touch and adds a lot more depth to the story of this game.

Graphics - A bit blocky at times, but what would you expect from one of the first fully 3D games. They are relatively smooth though and it all looks nice. You get 2 different sets of graphics; there is the dog fight graphics, these are the main ones that the majority of the game will be in so get used to them. They are very smooth and the cockpits are all nicely detailed and look great, the weapons all look different and are nice and smooth. The explosions do exactly what they say on the tin, they are bright orange load but very cool and satisfying to know you've done it. One great aspect of the graphics is the HUD (Heads Up Display) system that was integrated into the cockpit view, to add more realism, which is a great highlight. Every gun has a different look about it which is cool but they all disperse exactly the same and every explosion is also identical, which could have been better really and let's the game down. Using missiles could have been pretty cool as well, unfortunately, though they do get the job done, every single missile looks and travels exactly the same, regardless of its power and size. You won't be completely blown away by the graphics but you won't be disappointed either by them. The other set of graphics is the 'bar room' view, where you can just talk to other characters and interact with people really, the faces here are all very well animated and look good really, not much to say on this matter.

Gameplay - Without a doubt the highlight of this game, the dogfights require a lot of tactics and skilful maneuvering to win successfully without being destroyed yourself of losing any of your wing-men to the enemy. You have to know when to use your missiles and when to just use your basic lasers on your ship. You also have the chance to eject from your ship, which is excellent in a major fight if you're about to go down and need to 'escape' from it. The missions generally range from going to a few way points and heading through a few asteroid fields and surviving to escorting fuel transports deep through enemy territory, there is enough variety to keep you entertained in terms of what you do in missions. There is also a very cool medal and ribbon system, for example, getting 25 confirmed kills will add a new ribbon to your uniform and ejecting and surviving will give you a new medal, you can check up on all your medals and ribbons, which is great really. Doing consistently well throughout missions will positively affect the storyline as you will see good cut scenes of humans kicking some ass. perform poorly, i.e. keep ejecting during missions and you will see cut scenes of the humans being killed and beaten by the Kilrathi, so it's somewhat non-linear but the missions are always the same order regardless of how well you do, which is slightly disappointing but nothing TOO major. There is also a rather nifty save feature in this game so you can easily just carry on next time from where you last left off and carry on with the story. There is a good variety of ships and weapons to use though throughout the game so you get at least a small level of variety from this game.

Sound - Fairly disappointing for such an otherwise great game, there is literally no voices at all throughout this game; just music and sound effects, which is slightly disappointing for such a potentially classic game and lets it down slightly. However, the sound effects are generally pretty solid; the guns all sound good but different, your ships all have different sounds but there isn't THAT much variety, every explosion is identical, every missile sounds identical, which could really have been improved. The music is pretty much the only sound in this game you are likely to enjoy and even then, there are only around 15 different musical tracks so you'll eventually find yourself tiring of it, muting it and putting your own CDs on over the top - I know I did.

Difficulty - Imagine running face first into a brick wall, it's possibly harder then that in fact. I enjoy a game with a good challenge, but getting game over 13 times consecutively on the first mission of a game doesn't tell me it's a challenge; it tells me you either have to learn unbelievably fast or you'll just grow bored and probably not play it again in all honesty. Luckily, after the first few missions, you'll soon grow into the swing or how hard this game is and it only really gets harder as you go along and the enemy start using nigh impossible to kill ships against you, which was possibly why I stopped playing this game, it was just too hard to do.

Replayibility - If you like space dog fighting with nearly impossible odds, you will find yourself drawn to this game over and over again like a moth to a flame. But really, you will probably play through this game a maximum of twice; once to see Mankind win against the Aliens and once to see Mankind get their ass handed to them by the Aliens, nothing much else to really do in this game after a couple of completions. There is also no chance to choose what sort of ship you fly in or option to customise what missiles and bombs are on your ship, so the lack of variety and also a lack of any sort of multi player will stop you from coming back to this.

All in all, this game is by no means a classic or anything truly brilliant, it's a good solid space shooter and it will certainly kill a lot of time as you will certainly want to complete it when you start playing, even if it's just to see Mankind lose against an army of alien space cats

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 06/11/08

Game Release: Wing Commander (EU, 1992)