Game review...sort of: Wing Commander Saga: The Darkest Dawn

Here's the deal: I'll try to be as less biased as possible about this. Here's the problem: that's a tall order. Wing Commander is very close to my heart, but then again, this can be a double-edged sword: I'll either be fanboying or being too harsh.


I wasn't one of the few people that were aware of this project since its infancy, roughly ten years ago, but I have been following its progress for several years. With every new tidbit of information I grew impatient, disappointed, eager and even tired at times. But it's finally here. Was it worth the decade-long wait? If it was a commercial game, absolutely not. Being a free game based on a much-beloved but commercially abandoned franchise of yore made from fans for fans? Absolutely hell yes. 


For those of you that have no idea what Wing Commander is, let's clear it up. It is the first and, for many, quintessential space opera of videogames, a much neglected genre reinvented the last few years with the Mass Effect games. There've been more attempts at it, to be sure, but none breathed into the genre as much life as these two franchises did.


It is also one of the first games in the space sim genre, a genre still dominated, all these years later, by 4 games/franchises: The X-Wing/TIE Fighter games (that while stellar had the unfair advantage of having "STAR WARS" in their titles), Wing Commander itself, Elite and, near the swan song of the genre, the Freespace games. For honesty's sake, let's mention that two games in the WC series were heavily inspired by the Elite formula: namely Privateer and Privateer 2 (which had little to do with the story in the rest of the series). 


Each of these games franchises stood out for different reasons: Elite was as free-roaming as technology at the time would allow. The Star Wars games had massive, epic battles, desperate heroics and a dark tint. Freespace was just too bloody good. But Wing Commander...that had soul. 


Gloriously B-movie acting in (literally) hours of FMV cutscenes on each game, a Hollywood cast (including Malcolm McDowel, Mark Hamill, Tom Wilson and others. And Ginger Lynn. OK, not so Hollywood all of the time, then. Go on, google the names if you must). But the cutscenes were just the icing on the cake: loads more important was the gritty war you were called to fight in, the genuinely scary and skilled enemies (personified in the feline-looking alien race of the Kilrathi), the twists of the story, the sometimes hopelessness the game would instill in you about the war, but also the humour of the characters in the face of overwhelming odds, the relationships between them, their relatability or, at the very least, entertainment value. The gameplay was pretty good, too.

 The last official game on the series was Prophecy, which continuing on a few years after the end of the Kilrathi war in the previous game had humanity enter a fragile alliance with the remnants of the Kilrathi civilization to combat the new insectoid/cephalopoid-ic invaders, referred to only as the "bugs". It also saw the death of long-time protagonist of the series, Commodore Christopher "Maverick" Blair, played by Mark "Luke Skywalker" Hamill, passing the torch to Lt. Casey, supposedly the hero for the next trilogy in the series...


...which never came. In a way, that's maybe for the best. How would the Matrix be without the sequels? How would Star Wars be without the new trilogy? Yeah. Exactly.


Fans would have none of that, though. And that's a good thing. Cause fans, unlike some developpers, pay attention to stuff in games. So TNC, the team behind Wing Commander Saga, poured nothing but their love and nostalgia for the previous games into this Freespace 2 standalone total conversion. Since this page is missing a glossary, standalone total conversion basically stands for "free game based on a previous engine".  



The engine is dated, yes, but it doesn't show most of the time, thanks in equal parts to the modelling, pacing of the gameplay and updates tidbits, such as the explosions. Bottom line is, you'll be so busy having fun you won't notice the graphics are not next-gen commercial game level.





Story wise, the game is set between the last and previous parts of the original trilogy, in humanity's darkest hour in a losing war. You can expect a lot of desperate missions and frantic dogfighting against enemies who genuinely feel tough. Unlike the bugs of Prophecy, Saga's Kilrathi bring real menace back into Wing Commander. Up until you blow their Dralthis up....and then your missile alarm will blare and you'll notice the two Dralthis who sneaked up behind you, sights locked and loaded. Clever boys. 

The Freespace 2 engine, apart from updated graphics, offers the best from the Freespace game: the flight model. Ships handle as best and as realistically as you would hope for advanced fighter spaceships, the HUD is a tad complicated at first touch but burns itself in your head quickly enough, turning you into a piloting machine of adrenaline and bravado soon enough. 


This, of course, is by and large owed to the level and AI design, which is seeped in the Wing Commander style: the flight model just enhances it. Thankfully, the team seems to have been adamant about that: make a Wing Commander game in the Freespace 2 engine, and not a Freespace 2 mod based on Wing Commander. This means no Lucifer-like ships, no devastating beam weapons, and while the budget obviously wouldn't allow for FMV cutscenes, it did however allow for 3D rendered briefings on an...let's say "acceptable" level. Also provided are full voiceovers for an array of characters that eventually become detested, loved or buddies as appropriate. Not all of them are memorable, of course: some are more miss than hit, but this is just me judging it on commercial standards.

It's not all adrenaline-fulled dogfighting in the void of space, though. A certain tactical element is, once more, welcome in the form of ammo conservation (use your missiles and make short work of the enemy, or laser away and save them in case something really nasty comes up in the next NAVpoint?) energy allocation in three categories (can you find a balance you're happy with concerning engine, shields or weapon systems?), the inclusion of subsystems on capital ships (Do you disable comms so they can't call for help? Engines so they can't run away? Or weapons so they'll be sitting ducks for your bombers?). What with you being called to fill different roles at times (bomber, support fighter, patrol fighter or torpedo killer being the most notable). While playable smoothly enough with a keyboard/mouse combo, a keyboard/joystick combo is advised for maximum immersion. Aw, who am I kidding, I meant maximum awesomeness.

It's definitely not without flaws, but flaws easily forgivable or even unnoticeable at a cursory playthrough, but then again, I was nitpicking. The game is at times punishingly hard, at other times a tad frustrating, the voiceover can be mediocre sometimes, but with little loving brushstrokes of genius, few outside references, its mostly original (and brilliant) score, in-character jokes and attention to detail (such as having to manually land on your Carrier), it's a Wing Commander through and through. That's the highest praise I can give it for what is is. 


Get it now.