Wing Commander: Privateer

Wing Commander: Privateer
Studio	Origin Systems
Publisher	Electronic Arts
Senior Developer	Chris Roberts , Erin Roberts
Erstveröffent- lichung	September 22, 1993
platform	PC ( DOS , Win )
genre	Space flight simulation
Game mode	Single player
control	joystick
medium	Floppy disk , CD-ROM , download
language	English
Age rating	USK

Wing Commander: Privateer from 1993 is a space trading simulation from Origin Systems for MS-DOS and Windows . Together with Privateer 2: The Darkening, it forms an offshoot of the Wing Commander series . Privateer takes over the film-like presentation of an optional main story from Wing Commander , but in contrast to this, the gameplay is more oriented towards David Brabens and Ian Bell's elite . The head of the series was Chris Roberts ' brother Erin , although the original concept of the first part was worked out by both of them.

action

The action takes place in the year 2669 in the Gemini sector, a border region between the "Terran Confederation", the Kilrathi Empire and other, as yet unexplored regions of the galaxy. The war against the Kilrathi has meanwhile shifted heavily to the inner regions of the Confederation, making the border sectors a dangerous terrain for all space pilots. The player slips into the role of a civilian pilot with the canonical name Grayson Burrows (name and callsign can, however, be assigned by the player; since Burrows is often referred to as "Privateer" in the CD-ROM language version, this could be his callsign). Burrows usually earns his living as a space trader and bounty hunter and although Wing Commander: Privateer has an accompanying, linearly structured background story, the program leaves the player largely free to design the course of the game. So he can interrupt the main mission at any time and turn to other tasks.

The intro of the game shows how Burrows unknowingly attacks an alien, hidden spaceship with a misdirected missile while fending off a pirate attack in an asteroid field. The spaceship remains undamaged, but picks up speed after the attack and subsequently attacks all spaceships that it encounters on its flight through the sector. The main plot takes its course when Burrows is hired on the planet New Detroit by a man named Sandoval, who gives him a strange artifact as a down payment. On his return, however, Burrows finds the man dead. While searching for more information about the artifact, Burrows comes across xenoarchaeologist Dr. Monkhouse. This reveals to him that the artifact comes from an old, technologically superior alien race called Steltek. The artifact is one half of an ancient map, the other half is in the possession of Dr. Monkhouse.

After deciphering the old maps, Burrows follows in the tracks of the aliens and finds a powerful weapon in an old spaceship, which Burrows takes possession of and installs on his spaceship. When he leaves the planet, however, he is pursued by the alien spaceship, which turns out to be a Steltek drone. Since the law enforcement officers of the Confederation have nothing to oppose the superior alien technology, Burrows is asked to destroy the drone. Burrows comes across a scout of the alien race, who in return for the position data of the old wreck activates Burrows Steltek weapon. With this new weapon, Burrows finally succeeds in destroying the drone.

Gameplay

Wing Commander: Privateer is primarily a space trading simulation in the style of Elite , but also has a main story that includes about 30 missions. The main storyline developed in this way is similar to the one in Wing Commander I and II and was also told using rendered cutscenes. The difference to the main series, however, is that the player in Privateer can devote himself to trading and accepting mercenary assignments at any time, in order to then re-enter the main story.

The game takes place in the Gemini sector, which contains several dozen planets. In addition to the transport of goods from one planet to another, the player can also accept mercenary orders, which are available in different degrees of difficulty and mission types. During patrol flights, for example, certain points in the room have to be flown over to ensure “law and order”. For exploratory missions, a special, more distant system has to be flown to and for bounty missions a certain person should be followed and "switched off". When the player arrives on the planet New Detroit, he sees a man there in the bar who gives him an order, which leads to further follow-up orders and thus drives the central plot of the game forward.

The NPCs are divided into different categories such as military, militia, traders, mercenaries, Kilrathi ( cat aliens ), Retros (sect members), pirates and others. If you have dealt with a member of the group in question before and have thus become an enemy of the group, the player will also be attacked if you meet other members of this faction by chance. The artificial intelligence when attacking and fleeing the fighting opponents was very impressive.

Through the profit from being a mercenary or trader, better and better ships and equipment can be acquired over time and the player can reach other systems and sectors relatively safely.

development

Although Chris Roberts worked on the original concept of the game with his brother Erin, he mainly focused on the development of Strike Commander , while Erin was in charge of the development of Privateer. Privateer should specifically combine the principle of the open world of Elite with the fighting and the game world of Wing Commander .

“Elite, [which was] built quite a while earlier, was one of the very first [games] that did that, and the idea was to take the Wing Commander sort of action and the universe and then allow people to do what they want to do, whether they're a space trader or a pirate or a bounty hunter or whatever it would be. "

"Elite, which was developed quite a while ago, was one of the first games to do that, and the idea was to take the action and universe from Wing Commander and let people do whatever they wanted to. regardless of whether you would rather be a space trader, bounty hunter or whatever. "

- Chris Roberts : in: The History of Wing Commander: Part One

When the game was first published, it was only available on disk. The so-called Speech Pack with voice output had to be purchased separately. A CD-ROM version published in 1994 finally contained the speech pack and the expansion Righteous Fire in addition to the base game .

reception

The game was very successful at the time and impressed not only with its brilliant graphics, but above all with the player's freedom of action. It was published for PC (floppy disk, CD-ROM, approx. 11 MB ). A Speechpack (language extension) and the extension Righteous Fire appeared later .

Rating mirror

• PC Games 11/93: 92%

• PC Player 11/93: 90%

• PC Player 8/94: 90% (CD-ROM version)

• Power Play 11/93: 81%

• Power Play 9/94: 82% (CD-ROM version)

• PC format 11/93: 79%

Righteous Fire (add-on)

Extension logo

Wing Commander: Privateer Righteous Fire is the official expansion for Wing Commander: Privateer from 1993.

Righteous Fire adds a new storyline to the base game. This begins with the fact that the Steltek cannon, which the player had laboriously acquired towards the end of the main game, was stolen from the player's ship. An adventure begins for the protagonist in which he takes on the head of the Church of Man , a religious group that demonizes modern technology and is also referred to as "retro". In addition to a relatively short storyline, the expansion adds comparatively little new content to the game. The player can still buy some new upgrades for his ship; the game universe was hardly expanded except for a new planet and a new faction. This was sometimes clearly criticized in the specialist press.

Rating mirror

• PC Games 5/94: 80%

• PC Player 4/94: 90%

• PC zone 05/94: 80%

Remake

There is a completely free remake of the game under the title Privateer - Gemini Gold , which runs on Windows , MacOS and Linux . The remake is based on the Vega Strike engine .

Web links

• Archived Origin website for the Wing Commander series (March 30, 1997) ( Memento of March 30, 1997 on the Internet Archive )
• Wing Commander: Privateer at MobyGames (English)
• Wing Commander News . Extensive archive for the Wing Commander series.
• Classic Gaming - Privateer website with comprehensive information
• German-speaking forum with current news reports, an extensive database and download area for all things Wing Commander

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Volker Weitz: Privateer . (Article scan) In: Power Play . No. 01/1993, January 1993, pp. 8-10.
2. ↑ WCPedia Grayson Burrows
3. ↑ Dennis Scimeca: Back On The Flight Deck: An Interview With Wing Commander's Chris Roberts ( English ) In: G4TV . NBC Universal . August 12, 2011. Retrieved March 29, 2012.
4. ↑ Dennis Scimeca: The History of Wing Commander: Part One ( English ) In: G4TV . NBC Universal . August 10, 2011. Retrieved March 29, 2012.
5. ^ Origin Classics: Privateer . www.origin.ea.com. March 30, 1997. Archived from the original on March 30, 1997. Retrieved March 9, 2011.
6. ↑ ^{a b c} PC Games Database: Wing Commander Privateer - Press Review . Retrieved April 2, 2012
7. ↑ Boris Schneider : Privateer . (Article scan) In: PC Player . No. 11/1993, November 1993, pp. 46-50.
8. ↑ Jörg Langer : Privateer . (Article scan) In: PC Player . No. 08/1994, August 1994, p. 84.
9. ^ Richard Longhurst: Privateer . (Article scan) In: PC format . No. 26, pp. 58-59.
10. ↑ ^{a b} Chris Anderson: Privateer: Righteous Fire . (Article scan) In: PC Zone . .
11. ↑ ^{a b} Boris Schneider : Righteous Fire . (Article scan) In: PC Player . No. 04/1994, April 1994.
12. ↑ PC Games Database: Wing Commander Privateer: Righteous Fire - Press Review . Retrieved April 2, 2012
13. ^ Wing Commander . www.origin.ea.com. March 30, 1997. Archived from the original on March 30, 1997. Retrieved July 30, 2011.