I got Wing Commander the Secret mission last week when I was looking at some old video games. It was the first Wing Commander I played when my older brother barrowed it from a friend. So I decided to pick it up and try it again. Well Wing Commander the Secret Missions has a few improvements in it from the original game but like a Mega Man game there isn’t to much different from it.

For the record the Secret Missions was originally an add on to the PC version of the game, since SNES games couldn’t do add ons they made a completely new game for it.

Story.
Things in the Vega sector have been peaceful since you destroyed the main Kilrathi base in the system and cause the cats to flee. But the Cats have found a way to strike back this time they have made a super weapon capable of destroying all life on a colony in a single blast. The TCS Tiger Claw makes it way to Goddard after receiving a call from HQ to go there. After seeing the destruction a plan is to made to go into Kilrathi space and find and destroy the ship that has the weapon on it.

Graphics.
Same has the original Wing Commander game and pretty much every aspect with the exception of a few new cut scenes that have more detail then the original nothing will surprise if you have played the original. If you haven’t played the original though the graphics are top notch for the SNES it mimics a 3d engine on a 2d system and while it’s no Star Fox it does a pretty good job. While the things on screen tend to skip a bit they stay constant enough that you have not trouble tracking a ships movement or hitting a moving target.

Also a few of the bugs in the original Wing Commander seem to have been fixed, I didn’t run into any asteroid belts that had me dodging mines and vice versa like the original one had.

Sound.
The same music track has the original which is ok since the original had some good music. Happy space fighting music will play when your doing good, it will turn intense when your getting shot to pieces and tragic if you botch your mission.

Gameplay.
Ok the same thing goes for pretty much every Wing Commander game you get your mission orders and then you follow them. You listen to the commander to see if you’re escorting a ship, destroying an enemy ship, or just going out on patrol. You have a Nav that will help point you the direction of your goal. Once your goal is completed you return to the claw and give a report.

Like other Wing Commander games if you succeed in your missions good things will happen to the crew and the claw has you fight your way through Kilrathi space. You screw up and the Tiger Claw will have to retreat and the Kilrathi will have a dangerous new toy that they can still play with. Different story lines and missions will unfold depending on how well you do with the game.

Like the first Wing Commander game you get a wing man that is assign to you on what ever chapter you hit. It’s the same ones from the first so if you stuck with Maniac prepare for a tough couple of missions in till he either gets destroyed or you get assign a new wing man. They have kind of tone down your wing man’s control has your no longer able to really communicate with them. Only to targets that are straight ahead of you and you can only say one thing. Basically your communications systems can only be used to taunt enemies and ask for landing clearance in this game.

While the communications and the wing man might be a bit of a disappointment the rest of the game is not. First off they added in an easy mode for beginners and with this the game becomes a bit of a joke. It only takes about 3 hits to destroy a Fralari ship. Of course that’s not a bad thing when you consider that you start fighting Fralari’s on your 2nd story and that you can sometimes be fighting 2 or more at once. The Ace mode is pretty much the same amount of hits to destroy a fighter or a capital ship has the first one so the game is still pretty hard once you put it on regular difficulty.

Like the first one do if your hit without shields your armor gets damaged, if your hit without shields and armor you start taking damage to your systems and your ship will loose a feature. If your plant or computer goes your space dust. You can eject from a fighter at any time by pressing L-R-select-and start thought. But you automatically loose the mission.

Final Recommendation
I liked Wing Commander the Secret Mission and I recommend it to anybody who hasen’t tried a Wing Commander game. It’s got a really simple and easy to get into beginner mode and still has a tough has nails normal mode.


Recommended: Yes