All wings report in.

 It';s been just over a decade. What happened? Where did the genre go?

 Whether it was Christopher Blair or a pilot in the Rebel Alliance, the 90's always had some place for you to go in order to get your space-flight fix. It was a great concept when done right. I was never a Wing Commander fan because I never played the games. I was of the X-Wing camp. The last game I played in that series was X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter, but nothing worthwhile has come up since. I think the timing is now perfect for a return.

 I feel a rant coming on, so let me organize myself by starting at the beginning. Star Raiders was really the first of the genre, and the Atari release had the wow-factor going for it in being the first of its kind. Largely forgotten by the majority of gamers, it would be forgotten for almost fifteen years. In its stead, computers would show off their capabilities through real-world flight sims and jet-fighter games. If you were buying an Apple II, PC, Amiga, or whatever your box choice was, you were bound to be given a joystick for the purpose of flying a 747 or bush-plane. Don't get me wrong, it was astounding to see at the time. Those were amazing graphics, long before we even had the imagination to dream up the Half-Life engine.

 Yet, in 1990, Wing Commander was released, to be followed by X-Wing 4 years later. These games changed everything we expected from our PC games. They were high and above the software available at the time because of the way they used things that were already available. In other words, while Mode 7 was still in its infancy, gamers could plop themselves into deep space in relative 3-D and enjoy themselves thoroughly.

 We need these games back. It's been quite a long time since anything worthy of X-Wing's reign has come along, and even the genre itself has changed to be more of a console experience. Star Wars : Shadows of the Empire didn't get the magic down, and Rogue Squadron borrowed more from Rebel Assault than anything else. Even away from space and galaxies far far away, we get games like Crimson Skies for flight-combat. Nothing has stepped up. X-Wing was captivating, Wing Commander had a huge following, and nothing else has really ever touched them.

 Do we need the style to return? I think it's time to consider it. Every controller is already packed with the ability to, at the very least, fake a flight-stick. Whether it's motion control or the analog sticks, we don't have to go out and buy the hardware just to enjoy the genre, though it's way more rewarding to get behind the real thing.

 The games are well suited for the modern gaming climate, flexible to fit into anyone's schedule. The amount of missions available in these games were addictive enough to sucker a gamer in for hours, and with missions of varying depth, a gamer could choose between 10-30 minute battles depending on their schedule. On top of that, we already have the tools that we wanted available back then on our systems now. We all wanted multiplayer as well as headsets, and there's nothing better to fix the Rambo, score-stacking culture than to force players to cooperate and coordinate with their wingmen. Without a wingman, you're dead from the second you leave the fighter bay, and that's exactly what's needed to bring random players together now.

 One thing that could be incredibly innovative is to borrow the idea of medals from the original games. By having teammates vote for your ability in flight, players could have their say in determining whether or not somebody just went Leeroy, leaving your team in the dust for personal glory.So, award medal-credits to fellow players. If a pilot does a damn good job at saving teammates, voting him points will literally leave him decorated as a good teammate for the world to see. Clans are replaced with squadrons, an online/offline game of galactic dominance could be a year-long game of Risk....the possibilities are endless. Sure, these ideas could be used in FPS games, but I think this generation forgot how gripping space combat was. Digg It Stumble it ! Reddit