Wing Commander Prophecy Posters

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I went shopping for a frame for my certificate at the weekend. While I was out I found a shop selling them in all sizes unbelievably cheaply, so I thought I might as well buy several and geek out the games room a bit (not that it needed it). The biggest frame I bought was for a nifty Wing Commander Prophecy poster, done in the style of a movie promo with the credits at the bottom. These were only ever available at trade shows and to the developers so they aren’t all that common. Some similar posters were also produced in larger quantities in Germany which don’t have the credits. I didn’t actually have enough wall space in my games room for this so it’s hanging in the hall outside, mercifully hiding some of the wallpaper:-

Wing Commander Prophecy - Movie Style Poster

I’ve also got this developer version of the map poster that came with Prophecy. A decent photo proved impossible but the poster is exactly the same as the regular version as far as I can tell. The only difference is that unlike the ones in the box, it’s not been folded. I only have the room for so many giant Wing Commander posters on the wall so this one is going back to being rolled up for now:-

Wing Commander Prophecy - Developer Universe Map Poster

PC Format Origin Collector's Series

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This is a 32 page pullout from the September 1994 PC Format. It’s the first entry in their collector’s series which featured companies like Microprose, Lucasarts & Gremlin. Since it’s on here, it goes without saying that this first volume is entirely on Origin:-

PC Format Collector's Series - Origin

It includes a brief history of the company, interviews with Richard Garriott and Chris Roberts, previews of coming games (with Warren Spector interviews) and a look back at the Ultima and Wing Commander series. There is so much misinformation in the Ultima history that it beggars belief but there is plenty of good content in here otherwise. According to the Ultima 8 article, at this time Garriott saw the Avatar as being separated from the human plane and more of a supernatural being in Ultima 9 and already had an Ultima 10 plot ready to go.

Wing Commander Academy Review – PC Format

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September 1994 was a bumper month for Origin articles in PC Format. I’ll skip the Origin FX review given how short it was but here to start is a review of Wing Commander Armada. It’s not all that complimentary although I’d have to agree that it doesn’t compare well against Tie Fighter which was also reviewed in the same issue. Being able to fly against a real person was a new experience for me with this game though. I remember enjoying a few battles against my student housemates on a null-modem cable back in the day:-

Wing Commander Armada Review - PC Format Page 1 Wing Commander Armada Review - PC Format Page 2

The ultima(te) completion certificate

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As an overly keen Origin fan and collector, something that has bugged me for years is not having any of the completion certificates for the Ultima games. I’m not even sure if Mindscape sent them out over here in the UK but I was definitely on the wrong side of the world to reach the authors if I had wrote in and I’m not really the sort of person who writes fan letters in the first place. Besides which, I played most of these games years after release and assumed that no one would have been interested.

The certificates do occasionally come up for sale of course but would I really want one with someone else’s name on it? I’ve got pictures of them on the site which kind of suffices and I’ve never actively tried to get hold of the real artifact.

After posting those pictures on here, I found out that the Serpent Isle certificate was actually made and sent in by a fan as no official certificate was ever created for that title. This gave me the inkling of an idea to do the same thing myself, except for the whole Origin catalog.

This thought sat around for a while until a certain ex-Origin and currently Portalarium employee got in touch and I slightly cheekily took the chance to ask if he would be able to get a certificate signed by Lord British himself. I didn’t expect him to actually say yes but after a round trip to the States this arrived in the post today:-

Origin Completion Certificate

I attempted to make the certificate as authentic by “borrowing” artwork and phrases and filled in the rest by mentioning as many Origin games as would fit on there (which wasn’t all that many in the end). It’s even printed on parchment. Now I get it back again I notice a slight clipping issue on the giant L which wasn’t on my test prints. This is what happens when you use Microsoft Word for more than letter writing. It’s also somewhat worse for wear after the 10,000 mile round trip but it all adds character and I think I might just have a new favourite item in the collection.

Safe to say this is going to be framed and hung up on a wall somewhere. I’d like to give a big, big public thank you to David and Richard.