Star Citizen - Squadron 42: Chris Roberts Strikes Back

Television, Movies Games and Books Games & Toys
#1

If you don’t know, once upon a time over twenty years ago, Chris Roberts was the creator of the Wing Commander PC game franchise. With Wing Commander III the series added full motion video and hired a full blown Hollywood cast - starring Mark “Luke Skywalker” Hamill and Malcolm McDowell. It was the golden age of PC gaming. The franchise knew no bounds. Wing Commander IV’s budget topped over $12 million. The franchise spawned an animated television series and the infamous low budget Wing Commander movie starring Freddie Prinze Jr. Chris wandered away from gaming to turn hollywood director. The movie didn’t do so well. Chris returned to gaming under a new company Digital Anvil with Starlancer and Freelancer published by Microsoft. Microsoft conducted a rumored “technology assesment” for Freelancer and judged Chris’s original design “not technically feasible.” We eventually got a vastly pared down Freelancer after development delays. Microsoft seized Digital Anvil, shutting it down after the games were finished. That’s the short version. :slight_smile:

After keeping an reclusive low profile for a decade, Chris Roberts reappeared last month with a web site boasting a new game proposal. There is no publisher this time. His dream is to be crowd funded. Details were sketchy. Some were excited looking to recapture the glory days of Wing Commander. Some were skeptical. So many middle aged developers are flocking to KickStarter in hopes of emerging from retirement.

All of that changed drastically yesterday. Should have known Chris’s ego would never have allowed the legendary Chris Roberts to show up empty handed. :smiley:

GameSpot: Star Citizen Announcement Panel from GDC 2012 (one hour video)
CryDev.net: Star Citizen - Chris Roberts’ CE3 Powered Space Sim
Full details at: Roberts Space Industries - Star Citizen

[video=vimeo;51135962]https://vimeo.com/51135962[/video]

#2

Cinematic trailer - real time rendering in CryENGINE 3 (thanks PC GAMER)

//youtu.be/bN8MZHT74sE

#3

I think that this game will do extremely well with the hardcore PC gamer/space sim fans, particularly those who have fond memories of Wing Commander/Privateer/Freelancer. I myself remember playing the original Wing Commander - along with Secret Missions - back in the day (although, I’m sorry to admit, on console, as an SNES port!), but I did play Freelancer pretty thoroughly when it came out (I was disappointed by how much the game shrank from its original intended scope, however).

With Infinity still in the solar winds and with EVE Online as a not-quite-popular, “love it or hate it” semi-niche title (with plenty of its own developer/publisher issues to boot), Star Citizen seems to have been announced at the perfect time. The scope may be huge, but I don’t think that Roberts’ goals are insurmountable given modern development resources.

At any rate, I now have a new in-dev space combat simulator to follow, and I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed that we all get to play it.

#4

My ancient “Tribes” Guild members are trying to call me back to this.

This game could eat up large parts of my life if not careful :slight_smile:

Not sure how anyone would want to play with a game pad over a joystick (HOTAS) setup though.

I’ll have to dust off my CH Products stick and do some practicing (IL-2).

#5

RSI: THE 300 SERIES REVEALED

More real time rendering in CryEngine 3:

//youtu.be/JrQ0qMRZ_1Q

#6

I loved wing commander, I recall deleting practically everything, except certain vital ooperating system files, from my 20 MEGAbyte (ah those were the days) hard disc drive in order to install wing commander two on my anceint 286. I always felt that space:above and beyond best captured the feel of those games. I may investigate this further post house move.
Phaze
on the “Is the deadpool game out yet? how about now? now? no? WHY THE HELL NOT” ID

#7

Let’s be frank and concise. HOLY SHIT!

ROBERTS SPACE INDUSTRIES: Introducing the Anvil Hornet Lineup

We’re pushing the limits with Star Citizen, and this commercial is our best example yet. It’s rendered 100% in-engine in real time at 4k resolution. We scale everything for the super high resolutions that will be the basis of tomorrow’s gaming experience; our assets are designed with high polycounts instead of having details baked into their textures. That’s a big part of why NVIDIA and AMD have been demoing Star Citizen at 4k! The next generation of CPUs and GPUs will make this kind of experience possible in gameplay, and we are building Star Citizen to be ready. With the Hornet commercial, we wanted to give our backers an early look. If you have a 4k-compatible monitor, select “Original” from the video settings on YouTube (or download the 4k file directly here. ) If you don’t, 1080p is highly recommended. - Chris “All your hardware upgrades belong to ME” Roberts

[video=vimeo;77480949]https://vimeo.com/77480949[/video]