To celebrate the launch of Wing Commander and Wing Commander 2 on Good Old Games today, I went through and dug up a series of YouTube clips from a series called The Gaming Standards, which looks at the history of the first Wing Commander, the man (Chris Roberts) who created it, and the things that influenced its development:

That’s about it for Wing Commander-related material, Dragons and Dragonettes; hopefully you’ve been checking out all the tasty morsels at the Wing Commander CIC and have enjoyed those too. And if you haven’t already, head on over to GOG and grab yourself a copy of the games!

To celebrate the launch of Wing Commander and Wing Commander 2 on Good Old Games today, I went and dug up a YouTube clip which compares the introductory sequence of Wing Commander 2 as it sounds on a SoundBlaster to how it sounds on a Roland MT-32:

More videos coming later!

To celebrate the launch of Wing Commander and Wing Commander 2 on Good Old Games today, I went and dug up a handful of YouTube clips of the introductory sequences for both games…plus the add-on missions for Wing Commander 2:

And just for fun, here’s the scene that plays if your character gets killed in action in Wing Commander:

More videos coming later!

Well, it turns out that I was wrong in my prediction; Good Old Games did not release the Ultima 4-Ultima 6 trilogy today. What they did release, however, is only slightly less awesome; today, at GOG.com, you can find available for sale Wing Commander and Wing Commander 2 in a two-for-one combo pack, as well as Dungeon Keeper 2!

Come and get it!

No doubt there will be a lot of fine articles posted to the Wing Commander CIC today, accompanied by much fanfare and celebration on the #Wingnut IRC channel; do be sure to check in at both places to take in what they have to offer.

I’ll be posting a few bits of Wing Commander-related content later today as well, though probably nothing as spectacular as what the CIC will have to offer.

If anyone out there has a copy of the Ultima Underworld for Dungeon Keeper ZIP file, please let me know. I don’t seem to have a working copy in my backups, and so cannot restore that particular download to its proper place and functionality at present.

This is also true, unfortunately, of version 0.3 of the Portuguese translation of Ultima Underworld. If anyone has a copy of THAT kicking around, please let me know, as the project’s official website no longer seems to carry the file.

That said, it should be noted that the rest of the Ultima Underworld downloads have been restored to working order.

I was contacted a while back (an inexcusably long while back, as it happens — my apologies!) by Zen, who passed along a bit of an addon module for Dungeon Keeper based on the first level of the Abyss in Ultima Underworld.

As Zen doesn’t have a website to host the project at for himself, he has made it available to the world via Aiera, and I have (finally!!) created a project entry for it. Check thou it out, O Reader, if you’ve still got those Dungeon Keeper discs tucked away in a drawer or closet!

Also, I have added a download for the Ultima 6 Project‘s Milestone 5 release to that project’s entry, so if you haven’t grabbed it from somewhere else already, you can now get it here as well.

Also, other news, courtesy of Dino’s Ultima Page:

Ultima V: Lazarus

Cheerful Dragon has released version 1.29 of his various mods and bugfixes for this remake of Ultima 5. These can be downloaded either at the previous forum link, or via the project entry here at Aiera.

Seven Towers Exult Mods

Marzo has released updates to his mods for Exult, for both The Black Gate (Keyring) and Serpent Isle (Fixes). The latest revisions of both can be downloaded through their respective project entries here at Aiera:

• Black Gate Keyring
• Serpent Isle Fixes

Ultima: Iris

Apparently, the project’s developers took home first prize at the Dusmania 10 hobby game development meeting in Frankfurt, Germany. Congrats!

Ultima 5 for TI Calculators

Ranman has released version 1.01 of his port of Ultima 5 to the Texas Instruments calculator. The up-to-date download can be found via the project entry here.

Exult

This Ultima 7 remake has been updated recently — or, rather, the unstable 1.4 version has been updated, as has Exult Studio and its accompanying tools. The Exult team‘s plugins for GiMP have also been updated this month, and the whole mess of things can be downloaded via the project entry here.

EUO

This Ultima-inspired game has seen the release of version 0.16 of its rudimentary 3D client, which can be downloaded via the project entry here at Aiera.

Ultima Restoration

This comprehensive multi-project has released screenshots of the Kilrathi space station from their remake of Ultima 1. With this completed, they now have all the cities, dungeons, and space stations fully mapped in the game — which, if I do say so myself, is damn good progress!

They’ve also added links to a good couple-dozen Neverwinter Nights modules that I’m going to have to sort through in short order, so…well, it’s nice to know in advance what I’ll be up to for at least part of next week.

Also, the Wing Commander CIC team are attempting to back up what remains of the Origin Systems data library. They are looking for people with experience with this sort of thing, so if you’re one of those people who lives and breathes in backup tapes, you might want to check their project out.

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Produced by: Zen
Downloads:
* Ultima Underworld for Dungeon Keeper (27.7 KiB, 355 hits)

This is a multiplayer Dungeon Keeper level based on the first level of Ultima Underworld. While Dungeon Keeper doesn’t do sloped surfaces the layout is otherwise very close.

Since much of the level is impenitrable rock much of the challenge in designing this level (and, presumably, subsequent levels also based on Underworld) came from managing the space for rooms well.

The map replaces level 61 (multiplayer map 7) in the game, and is for 3 players (but it can be played by one player against the computer). The developer doesn’t have a website at which to host it, so this offering is more or less exclusive to Aiera at present.

To play the level:

1. extract the file into the Dungeon Keeper ‘level’ directory
2. Start Dungeon Keeper with the 1-player option
3. choose multiplayer, then 1 player, and finally level 61