Wing Commander: Prophecy is the latest sequel in a long series of space sims. However, this episode is played through the eyes of a new Confed pilot. Max Casey, the son of Ice Man, is fresh out of the academy and ready to live up to his father's legend. He is assigned to the new TCS Midway, the largest carrier ever constructed. Soon after his arrival, a new alien race begins to attack Confed.

The original selling point of Prophecy was going to be its added multiplayer capabilities, which were scrapped late in the game's production. The only major ground-breaking element of Prophecy is its new 3D engine. Wing Commander was the start of 3D space flight on a computer. Its "3D" fighting was fast and furious. The original also linked the game action to an almost cinematic story. Most "3D" games of the time were straight polygon driving games. Even arcade games were, in a sense, behind the original Wing Commander's use of textures. Solid colors and boxes were the most advanced that you could see. Wing Commander got rid of the polygon boxes and solid colors for objects that had around 6 different views. The view of the ship changed by your perspective, and gave a much greater sense of reality. The 3rd installment, Wing Commander III (WC3), also broke 3D gaming into SVGA. Wing Commander IV used an enhanced version of WC3's engine. Now, Prophecy takes the leap from DOS gaming, to a new Windows 9x, Direct3D environment that seems to better suit the 3D engine's needs.

The story opens with a prophecy being fulfilled by the opening of a worm hole near the planet Kilrah (the Kilrathi home world). A mysterious insect force, using bio-mechanical ships, moves into our galaxy and starts blowing up everything that isn't theirs. The reason for their attack is never given, but the Confederation fights back. Casey slowly moves from being a "pleb" to a squadron commander. It becomes more and more evident that through the game that it is going to take awhile to get the insects out. The Midway moves from system to system, eliminating the alien threat. This eventually leads to taking out the primary alien worm hole by Kilrah, but with a surprising loss.

Some series veterans may be put off by the lack of movie interaction and locations to move to in this game. The player is now limited to the flight deck section of the carrier, which consists of the bar, barracks, and briefing room. Also gone are most of the long video sequences. The video sequences are there, but only at important sections of the game. The briefings are also done by with a simple 3D layout of the mission and a voice-over describing what needs to be completed. I can understand that Origin was interested in cutting the amount of money spent on Prophecy's video sequences, but the repetitiveness can cause the game to get boring. However, I can say that the game's story can be more easily grasped in the missions than in past games. Earlier in the series, it felt as if you had no part in the big picture. Here, you alone decide what is happening, but not in regards to your fellow crew members.

Most of the primary players are virtually no-name actors. The "Hollywood stars" that Origin boasts appearing in the the game are nothing more than cameos by characters from previous games. Blair (Mark Hamill), now a Commodore, seems distant and is virtually played up as a god. Rachael (Ginger Lynn Allen) seems to have stopped by the set for 10 minutes to get her name in the credits. And Maniac (Tom Wilson) loses more and more originality with each game. Seeing him slapped by a woman was funny in WC3, but it has lost all its humor when he gets slapped about 5 times in Prophecy alone. I think it is about time he retired from the series altogether.

All the previous games in the Wing Commander series have tried to make some headway and break new ground in interactive gaming. Not only does Prophecy not move forward, it moves back. I know that the interactive elements of the previous games were somewhat pointless, but at least they allowed my opinion to be conveyed in a scene, and occasionally part of the story. Now, you may as well sit back with a bowl of popcorn and yell at the characters on the screen for doing something really dumb. This is pretty much what I did for the first third of the game. After that, I became apathetic and really didn't watch the video sequences. The 3D gaming is really fun, but Prophecy turns into an enhanced version of Descent, with a tad more plot. You should pick up Prophecy if you liked the past games of the series, but don't expect much. Perhaps Wing Commander: Strike Force (slated for a Winter `99 release) will be a bit better than this disappointment.

System Requirements: Pentium 166 without a 3D accelerator, Pentium 133 with a 3D accelerator (Direct3d or 3Dfx Compatible), 32 MB RAM, DirectX compatible soundcard, Windows 95, and 200 Megs of uncompressed hard drive space.

Tested on a: Intel Pentium II 400, 128 MB RAM, 20X CD-ROM, Sound Blaster PCI 128, ATI XPert@Play AGP, a Microsoft mouse, a Gravis joystick, DirectX 5a, and Windows 98.