I never played the original Wing Commander games for PC back when it came out. I first started out the franchise on the SNES ports of both Wing Commander and the Secret missions, and then moved on to the rest of the franchise on PC from there.

Now that I can finally play the original PC version, I gotta say I'm actually disappointed of it. The SNES version was one of my favorite gaming experiences, but the PC version has been practically a chore. Difficulty is extremely high, and your wingmen are totally useless. While in the SNES version, I remember both of us splitting up kills pretty evenly no matter who I was flying with, which helped make the game feel more realistic. Here my wingmen almost never get kills, even when I severely damage a fighter they can't finish it off.

The difficulty gets flat out obscene at times, particularly in regard to escort missions. Dryman transports are just flying coffins and always die within seconds, while even ships that are supposed to be armed, like Exeter destroyers just sit still and never seem to fire at enemies. Compound that with my worthless wingman, and it makes escort missions a nightmare.

The difficulty gets particularly ridiculous in Secret Missions. The game keeps throwing wave after wave of fighters at me, most of which are better ships then mine, and they just swarm all over me. I often end up spending huge amounts of time with the missile lock alarm going off because the enemies are just launching one after another. It seems like every way point I'm expected to take on 4-6 ships singlehanded while my Wingman does nothing but watch me fall victim to missle hoses.

Granted it's been about 20 years since I've played the SNES version, but I just don't remember it being so frustrating. I don't remember having to kill 15-20 enemies every time out in Secret Missions. I don't remember having to run away from every enemy group where it wasn't necessary to kill them in order to complete the mission.

Wing commander remains one of my favorite video game franchises of all time, but really I don't know if I would have gotten so into it if I had started out on the PC instead of SNES. This may be the only time ever where the Console port is better then the original

SNES version was my first WC game too, but you may want to take another look at it as your perception of it may be a little rose colored. Though granted, the SNES sound chip was a huge improvement over the adlib sound on the PC, ,ut it had a lot of limitations to get around graphically and engine wise. For instance only one enemy ship at a time could be in the foreground meant the other ships were in the background where you couldn't really hit them, but your wingman could. Another was that if you lost a gun, due to some programing mechanic this actually would work to your advantage and you could shoot a heck of a lot faster with the one gun. The SNES was version was only the vega campaign which is pretty easy, when compared to the expansions, though there was an SNES version of the first Secret Missions on a separate cart.

The thing about Secret Missions is you aren't suppose to kill everything just survive and try to beat the mission goals. And to be honest I find that a little refreshing in a game. And rather bold. I mean how many games really do that? Have a scenario where you limping home, beat up with one gun, but have decent fuel and you see a wing of gratha in the distance, its actually revolutionary for a game to let you say "I can't win this, I should run"

SM1 is hard but it is beatable, SM2 on the other hand, if you want to talk about brutality in a game, I haven't won the campaign without cheating.

Escort missions were always rough, even in the SNES version. Even the Claw, your ships don't have any weapons, the only way they kill anything is if the enemy flies into them. It wasn't till Wc2 do your escort ships actually get flack guns.

I know Secret Missions and WC1 were separate games for the SNES, but I didn't mind that one bit. I really liked them both.

I know you don't have to kill everything in Secret Missions, but the problem is there are some parts in which enemy fighters do count as victory points and you have to kill them in order to get enough points to move on. There is no way to know which enemy fighters count as victory points and which ones don't unless you look it up in an online walkthrough, which is not something one should have to do.

In one of the three-mission segments in Secret Missions, I completed all the objectives of the missions in each one, including a Dryman escort that took tons of replays to pull off, but I still lost just because I didn't shoot down enough fighters, even though shooting down fighters was never listed as an objective. There was no way to know I had to do that without looking it up.

But really, the key difference between the SNES and PC version is wingman competence. Wingmen felt like true companions in the SNES mode. They almost always got a fair amount of kills, and routinely got more then I did. It helped create the atmosphere of you as a single pilot doing their part in a war rather then a superhero single handedly saving the galexy (something that the ending of WC3 ruined, but that's a different story)

But in the PC version of WC1, wingmen serve almost no role beyond another target for the enemies to shoot at instead of you. This is espcially true in Secret Missions, when I'm running around like crazy as a result of 6 Grathas that are all emptying their entire missle load into me at the same time and my wingman is just flying around twittling their thumbs. When a game routinely has you outnumbered against ships that are superior to yours, having a competent wingman is essential, but the PC version simply fails to deliver.

I totally agree with your perception of the wingmen being worthless. I am on the mission just before the tcs show in wc1, I am bombarded with 4 grathas at the first nav point. With knight on my wing, I try to take on two while he gets the other 2, just to find out my wingman is signaling me for help right at the beginning of the fight. If I don't help him, he's dead in 10 seconds and im having to take on 4 heavy fighters. Not to mention, I lost maniac on the first mission he flew with me, and had to fly solo for the past missions before this one. I do generally think it's based on how well you do, i.e. you get 3 they get one. I guess it just takes practice.

Well I've actually made deep into Secret Missions 2, but the difficulty has officially gotten obscene. I'm on Firekka D 2, where I have to escort a transport and defend it against two Kilrathi wings, one of Jalthis and one of Krants. And I have to do it with a freaking Dralthi! The Dralthi is useless! It's worse than a Scimtar I'm basically supposed to take on 6 fighters, all of whom can wipe me out with single burst of full guns, and do this while protecting a helpless transport at the same time. This is freaking battletoads level of difficulty. I can occasionally kill all the Jalthis, but I'm in such bad shame and so badly depleted of missles that the Krants always slaughter me on the way home.

This is especially frustrating since SM2 never was released for SNES, so I never got to play it. Now I finally get the chance, only to discover it's a nightmare to beat.

told ya so :p

WC1 wingman are just there for their personalities, they don't really do anything except get in your way at times. Haven't really played 2 as it crashes too often. That said, I think WC3 has vamped up the support. though it all depends if you support them or not. I have trouble targeting a Wing in trouble there needs to be a key for that in all the games so you can save there asses before the enemy kills them(usually a split second after they call out in WC1)