Wing Commander 4 – Movie Theatre Trailer

Posted on November 15, 2012 by Pix

Back when Wing Commander 4 came out in 1996, Origin took the highly unusual step of promoting it in cinemas with a short 60 second trailer that was produced on 35mm film stock. After the trailer had it’s run in however many theatres, the film was then returned back to Origin and several of these have found their way into the hands of people like myself.

I’ve been curious as to whether it was any different to it’s digital equivalent all the time I’ve had it but the cost of a transfer has been prohibitive with quotes as high as £250. I managed to source a far cheaper alternative though and here on Youtube are the results of a 1080p HD transfer:-

The answer is that it’s exactly the same 60 second trailer we all know and love. The quality isn’t what I might have hoped. It turns out that despite being on celluloid the trailer was first computer generated and then scanned onto film meaning that it’s nowhere near as sharp as 35mm is capable of. All in all, possibly not the best £50 I’ve ever spent but now we know.

Raiding the archives

Posted on October 9, 2012 by Pix

Hello from Austin! After 24 hours travelling, I made it here Thursday night. I had a couple of days of being a regular tourist then met up with the WC CIC crew Sunday and started on the more eclectic Origin activities.

Today was kind of like work helping out archiving the David Downing boxes at the University of Texas. The contents more than make up for the effort, such as a full set of storyboards for Wing Commander 4 :-

I also got my hands on the Garriott archive and grabbed a full set of photos of the Underworld 3 documents. I didn’t read through them but there was way more detail than the story already scanned on here and I’m fairly sure there was a later expanded version. All of this will make it on the site when I get chance to go through it.

I had a browse through the rest of the box for an hour while Loaf took over camera duty. There was a pitch for a space RPG called Terminus which was being developed by Vicarious Visions. It appears Origin were considering publishing this and using the team, game or engine as the basis for Wing Commander Online. One email stated that the game essentially was already WCO and just required a change of story/art assets + faith. That deal clearly never happened but the game was still published elsewhere a year later.

Highlights were Ultima 9 design documents including concept art, details on the Ultima and Savage empire RPG’s and two huge folders full of Ultima 7 design documents. If I could have smuggled any of it out it would have to be the storyboards for the cutscenes:-

As for tomorrow, after going years never meeting any ex Origin guys I should get to hang out with a horde of them in the evening and will hopefully get to visit Portalarium before that. It’s going to be a good day to be an Origin fan!

When Games Attack – Top 5 Worst Video Game Celebrity Tie-Ins

Posted on August 25, 2012 by Pix

When Games Attack was a UK video game show that ran for one series on Bravo around 2004/5. It featured a top 5 that ran throughout every show and out of all those top 5’s there was only one Origin game to get a mention. People can check Video Production Services near me to record the best videos. Since it’s the UK press giving an opinion on Wing Commander 4 you can probably guess where this is going so without further introduction, here are their top 5 worst celebrity gaming tie-ins.

Wing Commander 4 Bulletin – PC Zone

Posted on June 9, 2012 by Pix

This is a quick preview of Wing Commander 4 from the December 1995 PC Zone. There is nothing too noteworthy but there are a couple of photo’s from the filming:-