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This was my first Space sim, and I wasn't disappointed

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 9 / 12
Date: November 13, 1999
Author: Amazon User

With the Mechwarrior games being my only Simulation experience, I bought this one mainly for the cool pictures on the box. For once, they did justice to the frosty disc within. Playing Lt. Casey, you fly missions against a strange invading foe, intent on extinguishing all life they find. Spanning three discs, I lost count of the missions I flew. I was so involved, I actually jumped when I was blown up! I've never played a game that left me shaking afterwards...this one grabs you by the neck, wrings you out, and leaves you exhausted but wanting more. Keeping it from 5 stars is a small glitch that makes the mouse pointer travel across the screen by itself, making menu items difficult to choose at times. A small flaw indeed, but an annoying one.

One of the best space sims ever created

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 9 / 10
Date: November 23, 1999
Author: Amazon User

being an experienced player of flight and space sims, i must say that this is by far the best space sim released yet. i say yet because who knows what the future will bring. this sim has it all 360 degree rotation, realistic control and turning capabilities, ever increasing challenge as you go through the game. and to the reviewer who said there was a glitch i suggest that you mess with your settings because i did not and still do not have that problem. thank you, i hope you agree with me that this game kicks a**.

Prophecy is worth it!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 5
Date: December 26, 1999
Author: Amazon User

Wing Commander is a space simulation series that is unrivaled. Prophecy is not the best of the series, but the improved spaceflight and graphics make it a great game. Anybody interested in space simulation should be interested in this game.

Not the Wing Commander we fell in love with...

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 15 / 21
Date: February 14, 2000
Author: Amazon User

Origin seems to be in the business of reinventing their trademark series that first gave them credit to the "We Create Worlds" slogan. However, in the process of making them 3D accelerator and masses-friendly Origin has also managed to undermine everything that had made the series great, namely its characters and compelling stories. Now this outing which puts closure on the WC series isn't nearly as bad as Ultima Ascension, but it's severely lacking nonetheless.

It makes sense to try to start anew with a fresh-faced protagonist who has yet to make the name for himself that previous legend Chris Blair forged in the last four games, especially with Mark Hamill entering his twilight years and whose heavy uniform pips and medals may alienate newcomers. That's all good. What's not all good is that the choice they made to take over the pilot's seat, Lt. Casey, has all the spine of a jellyfish and the verbal acuity of a junior high school wallflower at his first party. Even in the later half of the game when his piloting skills have started to beget him some respect from his peers, his attempts to affect the grizzled demeanor of a kid who had to grow up too fast and pull his own weight on deck is as laughable as his previously innocuous self. As for the rest of the cast, they even more annoying. All of the men act like egotistical frat boys, and all the women like snotty ice-queens. Even returning loose canon on deck Maniac looks unbelievably uncomfortable on-screen, and in the process hams up his role. You could care less about these superficial cardboard newcomers, in fact, the only relief comes from old comrades reprising roles and making cameos, namely Blair, Hawk, and even brief appearances of Admiral Wilfred and Col. Decker. Unfortunately, the former two end up dying during the game, leaving you to dogs of these petulant Gen-X-Wing jocks.

The plot is unapologetically formulaic: Evil aliens invade our space and its up to our heroes to thwart 'em. The missions cover familiar, if somewhat banal ground from previous WC installments along the escort/patrol/strike variety, though not nearly as innovative as the ones from WC IV. The new alien foes are fearsome enough in their sleek and reptilian splendor, actually bearing an uncanny resemblance to species 8479 from Star Trek: Voyager, but they are given no context. By contrast, they have none of the culture or history of the Kilrathi that was so captivating, even delivering a renegade in your midst in WC II, Hobbes. You really learn nothing about the alien race in Prophecy or the purpose of their invasion, merely some pseudo-theological drivel about they being the harbingers of a space-age apocalypse, but the premise falls flat. One gets the impression that they really exist to merely show off the new ship models. You'll find the one-sided design of the plot to be an enormous step backward from the complex conspiracies woven in WC 4's civil war.

The game ends on one of those portentous sci-fi sequel-promising notes ("They'll be back, y'know"). Except Origin is no longer creating straight-forward single-player epics, so one is forced to ask exactly what was the point of breaking all this supposed new ground if nothing is going to be done to evolve it and its new cast beyond their rote and insipid beginnings. Then again, since Origin seems to have been unable to churn a decent game since 1996, maybe that's not such a bad thing. Sure, the engine looks gorgeous, and all of the fighters and cap ships have undergone complete cosmetic changes, but all the eye-candy in the world can't cover up the lack of a compelling plot or characters, qualities that made the series endure eight years. In summation, the discriminating space sim gamer is better of with Descent: Freespace II, X: Beyond the Frontier, or hell, wait a few months for Chris Roberts of Digital Anvil to release Starlancer, he being the pre-Prophecy WC man who really knew what it was about.

A Fantastic Sci-Fi Space simulation Game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: March 21, 2000
Author: Amazon User

The new graphics and sounds make this game a true masterpiece, although it is not the best in the Wing Commander serie it's still better than any other sci-fi simulation game ever.

Wing Commander: prophecy

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: April 05, 2000
Author: Amazon User

The game play is great though the story line needs a little work. But that really does not matter much if you are after the great graphics and new ships. Not to mention the great intellegence of the AI. Moves of the AI are harder to predict. No patterns so that would mean great dog fights and damn great action. Character interaction is great not to mention the weapons and the guns. I hope origin comes up with a sequel. or even a trilogy like the first three.

Much the same

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 0 / 6
Date: April 05, 2000
Author: Amazon User

Yet another in the turgid 'Wing Commander' series, 'Prophecy'thankfully reduces the amount of dull, plotless FMV, whilst notsignificantly improving the gameplay, which doesn't seem to have evolved very much since the original 'Wing Commander'. Your ship still doesn't 'feel' as if it is flying through space, the supposedly-invincible bad guys are more of a nuisance than a threat, and if you fail a mission it will probably be because you failed to protect something that you were not told about.

Imagine watching a bad, low-budget science fiction film whilst playing a modern homage to 'Star Raiders' and you have the game in a nutshell. END

Great Game , Cheesy Story

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: May 04, 2000
Author: Amazon User

Excelent graphics and a huge improvement over WC4.Its a challenge for all levels of space jocks. It is Overall a very enjoyable game, with the best 3D flight sim engine I have ever seen, dispite not being very hardware intensive. The cutscenes are a bit on the shallow side, but the gameplay really makes up for it.

A Stunning & Epic Story Wrapped In A Great Game!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 7 / 8
Date: May 31, 2000
Author: Amazon User

Wing Commander: Prophecy is without a doubt one of my all-time personal favorite games for the PC. Aside from the fact that it gracefully and heroically retires Christopher Blair (Mark Hammil) from the series, the game is an expertly crafted piece of entertaining with only a few (stylistic) flaws. It also improves greatly over Wing Commander IV: The Price of Freedom by making combat missions longer than the video cut scenes, something that dogged its predecessor greatly. Prophecy has such eerie underpinnings that work together with the game and live action cinematics to make for an awesome story. It is also the start of a new generation.

After the defeat of the Kilrathi by Blair in Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger, the Confederation finally has peace with regards to their once feline adversaries and the Cult of Sivar. But there in lies the crux of the matter for an ages old Kilrathi prophecy points to a time when darkness will descend upon the universe and the Kilrathi will die, bathed in their own blood and their once mighty claws no match for the coming evil, a time that they call Kn'Thrak, (A translation that means either `darkness' or `evil'). And it all begins with the destruction of a Confederation survey ship analyzing the destroyed Kilrathi homeworld in the Kilrah System by an unknown race.

There Shall Come A time

When one who has the heart of a Kilrathi,

but is not Kilrathi born, shall rain

cleansing fire down upon us,

and Kn'Thrak, a time of great darkness,

shall embrace us.

We are then taken to the TCS Midway, a gargantuan super carrier that will be the focus of the game and your home base for the duration. It is truly a magnificent ship and about the same size as Darth Vader's Super Star Destroyer-about 8,000 meters in length. It acts as a mobile base for the Terran Confederation and designed to be the center piece of a larger armada. It is here that we meet Lance Casey-your character-who is fresh from the academy and son of a famous TCN pilot. We also meet up with old Wing Commander alumnus-Maniac (Tom Wilson) who takes every opportunity to belittle Casey until getting his comeuppance in the worst way and by numerous members of the Midway's crew.

Basically it's your job to figure out just who these new aliens are and what they want. What they apparently want is to slaughter everyone and everything they come across, which is great because that's why you're here! There are heaps of missions here and they are all a great deal of fun. Missions range from standard Combat Air Patrols (CAPs), to seeking out and destroying capital ships, taking down freighters and search and rescue missions. One of the most memorable moments of the game is a missile launch, especially the Swarms, which leave twisting contrails as they streak off towards their targets. Origin really did a fine job on the new fighter designs-they no longer have the blocky, slab-like look that Price of Freedom had, but instead have a more graceful, rounded look. Most of these ships are also a joy to fly, conveying a great sense of speed and maneuverability, though less so with bombers like the Devastator.

Sid Mead (of 2010 & Blade Runner fame) was hired on to design the alien Nephilim/Phylum fighters and capital ships, and produces true wonders! The fighters have a beautiful aquatic-insectile look to them while the capital class starships resemble nothing most people have ever seen. They are both fearsome and invoke no small amount of curiosity from the player and made me want to find out more about this dark and enigmatic race.

Mission designs seems to have been a priority at Origin, because they are expertly crafted and bear much resemblance to Freespace 2, and lack the time-sensitive nature that plagued many of the X-Wing & TIE Fighter missions from LucasArts. I also retract my title comment in my Freespace 2 review-Wing Commander: Prophecy is as good a game. The missions take priority over the cut scenes, the post flight ones become annoyingly repetitive, as there are only 2 or 3 to see and you see them often. Beyond that this is Origin's swan song as there doesn't seem to be any movement from them to sequel it beyond Secret Ops which only adds new missions, good as they are. This is a fantastic game-it both looks and plays great while possessing a solid and engrossing story. Superb!

Nice graphics, no story

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 2
Date: June 17, 2000
Author: Amazon User

This is a very pretty game. The graphics were top of the line when this title was released and it still looks very nice. However, the strength of the first 4 Wing Commanders was the storyline. The filmed scenes in WCIII and WCIV told interesting stories that brought you into the game. The filmed scenes in this version serve little to move the story along and are a waste (I am sure they cost quite a bit to make). Furthermore the missions are fairly repetitious - you are either in a dogfight or on a bombing run. Try Independence War if you want a challenging space sim or X-Wing Alliance or Freespace if you want a more traditional but fun space shooter.

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