You Gears players know what I’m talking about. I guess they’re not wingmen, given the genre, but “squadmates” when you only have one at a time seems the wrong term. “Wingmen” makes them sound like they’re Iceman or Maverick or something like that. Perhaps they’re the out on the town and Dom is the one that is supposed to peel off and defend against a fugly bogey at 12 o’clock. Or 2am. Not sure, since I’ve never picked up anyone while out on the town, so to speak. In any event, he’s supposed some sort of crack soldier-killing-machine something, but no, I spend half my of time rescuing his ass as he charges into battle and gets his ass handed to him. So he ends up cowering behind a box somewhere in the combat zone, or gets gibbed by some boss demon. Yeah, big help there. I remember back in the day, playing Wing Commander 1. Back when ships were 4-5 flat bitmaps of ships from various angles and it looked like the Attack of the Kilrathi Legos if you got to close. In those days, a wingman who actually served as anything but cannon fodder was great. I remember once seeing a wingman kill an enemy ship on-screen and thought it was pretty damn cool. Flash forward to the late 1990’s with Descent: Freespace, possibly my favorite space combat sim ever (just typing that, it’s kind of funny that there’s a genre of sim for something that’s never happened before… at least not that we know of….). I’m playing that, and my Wingmen are stealing my kills. How’s that for progress. I remember a roommate in college who was playing Wing Commander 4 popping the game in and playing it. His first reaction was that it was pretty cool. A day later I hear swearing as he plays, and he informs me that he’s unhappy because his kill count is low due to the fact that his wingmen are doing what they’re supposed to be doing. All I could do is laugh. |
