Where to begin? The beginning? OK! Wing Commander III - Heart of the tiger. It is, in so far as I am concerned, the greatest game for the 3DO Multiplayer.
I know what you are thinking - more fanboy ranting from 3DO Kid but bare with me on this one.
To be the best game for the 3DO it has to tick all the right boxes.
So, it has to incorporate the feel of the generation, or rather it has got to be in-tune with the kids of the time. Right? To be the best game of 'Real(tm)' entertainment, it's got to do the Silicon Vally wet-dream thing. It's got to be down with the kids on the block.
Also - It has got to be emotional. When I talked about D by Warp, I said it was good because D played the player. The best game for the 3DO must also do that. If you don't become one with the game, it has failed at some level.
It's got to take advantage of the CD media. CD was pretty new, it gave developers a lot of storage space. A good game of the time should have made use of it.
It has to have presence in the market place. Microcosm, Night Trap, Rise of the Robots are remembered because of their presence. The best game has to have that too. Cult classics are all well and good but the very best game has to be the best remembered.
Most importantly it has got to be fun. It can have all the other stuff, but if it's not fun, then why bother?
So - does Wing Commander III - Heart of the tiger, have all these things? Read on.
'Big' is a fairly nondescript adjective but it covers all aspects of WCIII.
The size of the story in WCIII is 'big'. War, revenge, envy, love, romance and a big dollop of double-crossing and mis-trust. Murdered girl friends, eager rookies, friendships, trust, dreams, old scores to settle, psychotic cat like aliens - it's all there. An epic story that spans galaxies and the best bit is you do actually take part. Your choices do alter the way the game goes. If albeit only mildly. You chose one girl over another - it has an effect. You choose not to challenge the rookie - it has an effect. It is a big draw for the game - it's greatest achievement is that it is an 'engaging' Interactive movie - something many of the others carrying the same mantal failed to achieve absolutely.
The story of cause spills us over onto the actors and movie sequences. In 1994 we hadn't seen much of Mark Hamill. His most famous previous outing was of cause as Luke Skywalker. I have no complaints about his acting, he does considerably better than Tia Carrera or any of the cast of Hell - sure he's playing a cliche - I mean Mark Hamill in space is hardly new but his performance is admirable. I don't think however it would have hurt if he had shed a few pounds before appearing - many of us remember the skinny kid in Star Wars and frankly I liked him that way.
Hamill is joined by Malcolm McDowell, John Rhys-Davies and Ginger Lynn Allen and of cause Thomas F. Wilson. 'Biff' from Back to the Future - All of who also deliver convincing performances.
The movie sets are also big. Of cause they are all digitally rendered in a 1994 style but they are very good and very convincing. From the opening sequence where Hamill and Rhys-Davies are standing watching the smouldering wreck of Hamills previous assignment in Wing Commander II, to the graphics used in the cataclysmic ending - and all the bits in between. Jumping from system to system sequences. Ships launching. Kilrathi ships and of cause the excellent Kilrathi themselves. Who aren't rendered digitally but are actors in puppet suits. It's damn fine stuff to watch.
The whole $100,000,000 (a big number)spent on sets, actors, puppeteers and 3D graphics artistry,and orchestra (to do the music) culminate to make these the best Interactive movie sequences of any 3DO game. They all balance the epic story wonderfully and the interactive movie and 3D space blaster elements are inter-woven tremendously well. Unheard of in any other 3DO game.
So - to the game.
The game itself has you take over the role of Col., Blair at the point where Hamill stops acting and the real-time 3D space ships start moving.
The game play is fairly straight forward and can be summed up as fly to one point and destroy all the enemy craft, then fly to another and do the same. The game wraps variety around this by providing a reasonably comprehensive series of missions. Sometimes you are guarding a transport, sometimes you are destroying an enemy base, retrieving a friend from deep space, shooting down the equivalent of deep space cruise missiles (called Skippers) and so on. Variety is the spice of life and in the case of WCIII this 'big' variety clouds the fact you are effectively doing the same each time.
Another part of the variety off-set is the ships themselves. Varied. From the light Arrow to heavy Longbow there are enough different types of friendly craft to keep you going. I have to admit to genuinely feeling excited about getting to fly an experimental craft towards the end of the first disk. There are other surprises too and you are not left wondering what any craft is like to fly.
Control of these craft is via the much lamented 3DO D-Pad - which shows itself to be almost usable in this game. The pad itself sports a meagre seven buttons plus directionals but the game provides a myriad of controls that are intuitive and eventually flowing by using key combinations that actually work. This in itself sets WCIII apart.
Special mention to the enemy craft also. The big variety doesn't stop with friendly craft and the opportunity to sweep down the side of an enormous Kilrathi destroyer while pounding the hell out of its shields with your varying canons and missiles is an experience in itself.
The in game 3D designers have managed to squeeze some fairly amazing graphics out of the 3DO system and the ships are huge, detailed and in-so-far as alien spaceships can be, 'realistic'.
A number of other games seem to have used 3DO Inc., provided library 'lasers', 'explosions' and 'textures' which consistently appear in the cheaper 3DO games library. WCIII has none of them and the whole feel of the deep space dog fights is in keeping with what you would expect. For example when you pummell an enemy Corvette class ship and it explodes, it's a great big white light spectacular of an explosion with bits going everywhere, not the usual 3DO 'puff' and it's gone explosion.
And of cause the shields. OK its a graphics whore wet dream but when you shoot an enemy ship that still has shields, it goes blue - just like they do in the movies. I really liked that bit.
So the interactive movie bits are good and the game is good.
Ultimately why WCIII is so good is because it goes for the emotions in a 'big' way. By tweaking the music dependant on how you are doing, by sending video messages to your head up display, by letting you fail missions without ending the game immediately (But don't fail too often!) by letting you chat up the female lead characters, by essentially giving you a genuine feeling you are fighting for the future of the human race and taking part in the inter-personal stories in this epic space drama - Wing Commander III is a gaming blockbuster that truely draws you in.
It's spread over 4 disks and it doesn't let you down once. Nothing about WCIII is disappointing. It is an epic from the start, to the use of controller, to the sound track, to the actors, to the storyline, to the interactive movie acting, to the choice of endings. Not once is it a disappointment.
Even the difficulty - the bane of so many 3DO games - is fair...
What more can I say?
Best game on the 3DO.
Fortunately - not rare!
3DO Kid.
