Today is the final in this latest batch of EA releases on GOG. After a vague hint on the forums, I had the idea that it was going to be the Worlds Of Ultima games, but instead it’s yet another Origin game in the shape of Wing Commander 3. GOG (with more than a little help from the guys at wcnews I gather) has pulled out all the stops with this one and the extras are worth the money on their own and then some.
The biggest surprise is the inclusion of Fleet Action. The Wing Commander 3 novel would have seemed more appropriate but even so it’s a great extra, not to mention the various guides, deleted scenes and all the rest. I expect I might recognise a few of the guides but $6 is clearly a giveaway so if you don’t already own all of this stuff, I highly recommend going over to GOG and buying a copy or two.
I was wondering what I could post with a Wing Commander theme so I’m taking a leaf from the barrage of posts on wcnews and posting a few photos. They have a post with a picture of Wing Commander 3 Premiere Edition, which came in a film can with numerous extras over the regular version of the game. I don’t actually own this, and probably should have it on my shopping list now I think about it, but I do have a copy of the Deluxe Edition:-
One of my rules of game collecting has always been that if it’s not in an oversized cardboard box, it’s usually not worth having and they don’t come much more oversized than this one. I’ve put it next to the regular WC3 box for comparison. The regular box could never have been accused of being small itself.
Inside is a film can, sat on top of a WC3 T-shirt. The label on the can is slightly different to the premiere edition. The T-shirt is the same design however (I’m informed by Loaf that the photo on wcnews is actually the developer edition).
The T-Shirt looks like it would take some serious ironing after 17 years in a box, with a film can on top of it. I actually still get the smell of new T-shirt when opening the box up.
In terms of the rest of the content, this edition falls way short of the premiere. It does have the making-of CD and a couple of extra manuals but everything else is missing. In its favour, the giant box was only included with this version. Both versions pack the CD’s into jewel cases and don’t have the folding card sleeve that came with the regular WC3.
As far as I know, neither this or the premiere edition are especially rare, and I don’t think I paid very much for this when I bought it some years back. They are both decent collectables provided you have large enough shelves to fit them on.
I’m kind of blown away by the extras, even though I gathered them all… I didn’t expect EA legal to approve the guides or Fleet Action or the deleted scenes extracted from the Playstation release… but here we are! (Oddly, they *didn’t* approve the Behind the Screens CD or the Origin Audio CD that came with the guide.)
One of the scans is yours, and I have to take the bullet for that instead of GOG’s–I sent them all the published WC3 material I could think of hoping to get something through. It’s the Authorized Combat Guide. The others are new, though, and totally worth the price! I reconstructed the Official Guide, Victory Streak, the playguide and the reference card from Origin’s old Quark files, so they look great. (Warbirds is a scan, since Origin’s color files were corrupt… but we cleaned it up real nice.)
Fleet Action and not the WC3 guide because Fleet Action came in the Premiere Edition–at least that was the logic I used initially… now I kind of wonder if I could have put all the novels in there. Also, EA’s process for approving material was unusually insane. They came back to me asking if I could send them photos of the various books next to the box of the game. Wha?)
Our picture over at WCNews is actually bad, it’s a version given to developers. The real Premiere Edition had the same t-shirt and it *didn’t* include the black box at all.. it came in a big unlabeled cardboard pizza box. (I think the CD booklet was only the European version, too–the US retail version had jewel cases.)
I can hardly complain about you using the guide scans, after the free copy of UW1&2. There haven’t been many of these Origin games released on GOG that haven’t had some of my scans inclued as extras now so I was more or less expecting it. Pity about the audio CD though as it’s missing from my copy.
That makes sense with Fleet Action I guess and it would set the story up nicely if anyone who bought the game actually read it first. It would be good if the first two novels were put into the extras for WC 1 & 2 when/if the mission packs are added in.
I thought that looked like the developers T-Shirt in the wcnews photo. I’ll correct my post.
Speaking of you and Wing Commander III–if I can track down a copy of the Japanese WC3 official guide for you, would you be willing to photograph it like the others? I can’t read a word of it, but it’s *very* pretty–full color through the whole book.
(Unlike other international WC books, it’s not a translation or an unofficial guide… it’s a new guide written for WC3 PSX.)
I’m happy to scan anything you send my way, but unless you are getting it for free you have to at least let me pay for it. I guess it won’t be all that rare, just a pain to track down for those of us who don’t speak the language.
I’ve never gone in for collecting all the various Japanese bits and pieces so I don’t know much about any of them. Largely it’s the fact that I wouldnt be able to understand them, but the likes of the Ultima mangas also put me right off. If they bore more than a passing resemblence to Ultima, I’d be a lot keener.
Speaking of comics, that just reminded me about Cybermage. Am I right in thinking that there was a series of 3 comics produced for that, with the one included with the game being the first in the set? I vaguely remember reading something about them years back but I’ve never seen anything since. If they do exist, I’d really like to get hold of the other 2 and put them on here.