Hello everyone! Want to get into the Wing commander games, and hear everyone raving about how 3 or 4 are thier favorites. I am new with the series, so do you all think I should start with 3? or should I start with 1 and 2? are they worth it? Cause I hear people that love the first two, and others that say they are super outdated.

Thanks!

I started at 3, the intro video in 3 gives you most of the back story you need.

Because i mainly bought 3 back in day for the FMV, I didn't ever go back and play 1 or 2 - but I do own them both from GOG and would try to play through them eventually just for historical reference.

If you have the time and are willing to take 1&2 in context of the time they were made, I'd say it would be worth it to play through them.

Wing Commander 1 and 2 on GOG are almost unplayable due to slowdown/speedup issues.
Best hope is that they can get a hold of the Kilrathi Saga versions which were adapted to run on Windows and don't have slowdowns and speedups.

Aside from that they're awesome games.

Thanks guys, for the help!!! I will probably start with 3 then, but if the first two games are only like $1 during the sales, then I will probably pick those up anyways

If you have a PSP, I recommend EA Replay. http://www.mobygames.com/game/psp/ea-replay

A bunch of games on the go, including Wing Commander 1 and Secret Missions.

The fact is, the KS versions are riddled with bugs (the music bug for instance in wc1 is not trivial) and just unplayable on modern systems. There is the wcdx project on www.wcnews.com. So far wc1 is made working (although still doesn't have damage effects) and wc2 ks is planned but not worked on yet.

http://www.wcnews.com/chatzone/threads/introducing-wcdx-kilrathi-saga-for-modern-windows.27685/

I'd recommend them, because they're two of my favorite games of all time.

I don't really recommend the EA Replay on PSP though, if I remember correctly that's the SNES version which isn't nearly as good.

Well worth it.

I would definitely recommend playing them as they give lots of background on the various characters and events, making the story of WC3-WC4 much more intense. As for which version to play, that I'm not sure, I played the original ones a few years ago using dosbox on Linux and they worked decently well, but can't say on Windows or with more modern computers.

I played them back when they came out, and they were amazing. I just bought them this weekend, and have been enjoying them all over again. If you make allowances for the graphics and audio, which were top notch at the time, they hold up amazingly well in terms of gameplay. I've had a few minor problems. A weird tone has popped up twice during play, kind of a background hum. Exiting and restarting fixed that. I also had the keyboard stop responding once. I'm not so sure about there being problems with slowdown/speedup beyond what always existed even when the game first came out. For me, it's been more than just nostalgia; the game is honestly still tons of fun.