Super Wing Commander MAC CD classic space wingman shooter combat simulation game Type: Game Platform: Mac Publisher: Origin Released: 1995 Media: CD Wing Commander has enjoyed considerable success on a variety of formats, but this MAC version is without doubt the best of the lot. Developers Origin could have chosen the easy option and simply ported the already excellent PC version, but that's not their style. Instead, they've isolated the rougher aspects including the scaling of the ingame fighters and the substandard Star Cruisers - and smoothed them out, while leaving the rest of the game intact.One part of the game that hasn't changed is the storyline. As in every other version of Wing Commander, you play the part of a rookie wingman, enlisted to help in the Confederation's battle against the evil Draithi. To begin with, you've given simple missions - fly to a certain location, take out a few enemy fighters, and then fly back to the safety of your motherships, the Tiger Claw. But once you've got a few kills to your name, things get a lot more interesting: sorties become more intricate, the atmosphere intensifies and the plot starts to unfold.As in the PC version, each mission is self-contained, with its own plot and conclusion, but they're all in integral part of the main main story. Every mission you tackle - whether you're victorious or not - affects the Confederation's chances of success, and with 72 potential missions, Super Wing Commander's plot has more twists than an Alton Towers rollercoaster. To describe Super WIng Commander as satisfying to play would be a grotesque understatement. Pursuing the enemy at close range, letting 'em have it right up their exhaust port with your missiles and then watching them explode in a shower of twisted metal is disturbingly gratifying stuff.Then there's the atmosphere: Super Wing Commander is absolutely dripping with the stuff. This is largely thanks to some brilliantly rendered cut scenes (many of which don't appear on the PC version, incidentially), but the stirring music makes a significant contribution as well. Origin's improvements to the ingame graphics also help: the alien craft now scale more smoothly, are more detailed and move around the screen faster than ever before - with no evidence of slowdown. The aesthetic improvements to the game are most apparent when you face a Star Cruiser for the first time: not only are they now absolutely enormous, but they're also incredibly detailed and impressively shaded. In fact, the more you play, the more you realise how much `tweaking' of the original game has been undertaken by Origin.For Mac (Power Macintosh: OS 9 or Below) [*Please review compatibility/platform sections in 'What You Get']
