What is your DOSBox Cycles setting? The default of 3,000 is too slow. The CIC's own tech support suggests 4,000. I normally play at 6,000. The GOG version defaults to 8,000. While WC1 goes berserk and unplayable at high cycles, WC2 has a frame limiter during flight. However, some cutscenes will...

Are you trying to bait trolls into complaining that the WC2 Drakhri is not a Dralthi? Then you'll point out that the Academy box indeed says "THREAT: DRALTHI", even if none feature in the game. Incidentally, I thought the box also said "MK VI", but the Star*Soldier gloss says "MK VII". The...

Backwards compatibility a difficult compromise. Windows maintained it for a long time, and appeared succeed until Windows XP. By then it had layer after layer of kludges, just so that older applications would go on functioning. Then we all got broadband Internet connections, and found that...

As for Prophecy, some people have persuaded it to run in WINE. See Play Prophecy, Standoff on Mac or Linux. Once again, you'll probably need a disk image, which WINE can mount. While I haven't tried Prophecy, in general I've found 3D games in WINE to be frustrating. They'll often work...

You definitely can run the DOS versions of WC3 and WC4 on your Mac, via DOSBox. You just need to convert the CDs to disk image files, then mount those in DOSBox. 1. Convert CDs to disk images For any other readers with an optical drive in their Mac, the built in application called "Disk...

Yes, on the programming side Adlib music synthesis was really nice, given the right libraries. You could start a tune playing and it would keep going, and even repeat, all on its own. This meant your program could spend all its precious CPU cycles for graphics and simulation. I've even seen...

I notice that the missile launch and explosion sounds are better on the MT-32. These always seemed to be a weak point in WC2 on sound blaster - if it could do digitised speech, why not digitised explosions? I can also hazard a guess - WC2 didn't seem to have a have the ability to mix digitised...

I've never noticed the debriefing change depending on my damage. Usually it's all about the mission objective. For example, in Gateway Sigma Wing, an escort mission, "Flew Poorly" clearly means that the transport being escorted was destroyed. The woolly case is generally patrols. Indeed...

Apart from Star*Soldier itself, there are the "Star*Soldier Gloss" news posts, where the writers explain some of the references. https://www.wcnews.com/news/search?sortorder_o=0&title=Star*Soldier%20Gloss Here are the posts relating to the timeline. Pages 42 and 43 are the most relevant to the...

According to Pix's Origin Adventures, OriginFX modules were provided with Ultima VII (mentioned in the post) and Strike Commander (mentioned in the comments). However, the Ultima VII one just added the opening and ending sequences, and no one seems to have made Strike Commander actually work...

For most classic games I have a DOSBox installation with a C: drive full of games, and I adjust cycles as needed. However, GoG provides a nice graphical front end, so I thought I'd try playing through WC1 using that. I got to the end of the Vega Sector campaign, but at first had trouble...

Yes, the article seems to need an awful lot of putty to fill the gap between WC3 and ME3. If I were trying to do this I would name WC1 as a high point in plot branching, especially because all wingmen can die independently of the plot. However, WC1 also demonstrates why you can't do that and...

Mercenaries by nature have odd backgrounds (and lie about them), so it's safe to assume there were some former Luftwaffe pilots flying in Africa. However, the only other mercenary pilots I've seen the name of are Jan Zumbach (Poland) and Lynn Garrison (Canada). Jan Zumbach's autobiography, "On...

If the scramble animation is to be believed the pilot is reclining on a lawn chair, so wouldn't have a seat back behind them... A Hornet cockpit appears behind Paladin's head in the introduction. Is that introduction a single long video clip, or does it use in-game assets where possible...

True, but that doesn't stop many companies in the present from trying to anonymise their development teams. I should have remembered that this has already happened. Carl Gustaf von Rosen used these propeller planes to attack an airfield full of MiG-17s. Since it's all about the cost of...

Not when your competitors might make them a better offer. In the particular case of Strike Commander they probably could be safely named, but only because Origin employees were pretty loyal back in 1992. In 1984, the first Macintosh was released containing the signatures of everyone who...

Something lost in WC2 as published is just what ISS does. Having a ship called the Robert Peel makes it clear that yes, you're the police force. Not that naming a spacecraft after an 800-year-old politician is likely, unless the ISS is really out of touch with current events. On the plus...

I see this starts with Bluehair and Hunter flying a single easy mission from the Tiger's Claw. I think it was inevitable that this would be cut - too many single-use art assets. However, it's interesting to see the idea written down in 1990. These days, perhaps every second game starts with a...

Quite correct. I should have said "Behemoth", not "Temblor Bomb". The question still is, in their search for planets to destroy, will the Jim Bowie crew have any compunctions about bioweapons? In the conversation between the Challenger, the Jim Bowie and the Sandman, everyone assumes that...

While Saga has a decent number of fighter models, it often felt to me like I was fighting just two types of fighter behavior: Nimble ships that were hard to hit, but exploded quickly once you draw a bead on them. (Darket and Dralthi) Heavy ships that are easy to hit, but take a lot of...