| Introduction
The Wing Commander games on the PC are well known
for its stunning 3D graphics and interactive cinematic
videos. Up until now, it would have been impossible
to even contemplate a GameBoy conversion, but thanks
to Raylight Studios and their amazing Blue Roses 3D
engine, Prophecy, the fifth installment in the Wing
Commander series, is now available on the GBA.
GamePlay
Prophecy is basically a mission based space shooter
with an elaborate plot and story line. In the original
PC version, lush cinematic clips featuring real movie
sets and actors like Mark Hamil (Luke in Star Wars)
were used to push the plot and story along. This is
of course missing in the GBA version, and as I will
explain later, is also one of the drawbacks in the overall
conversion.
The actual combat sections, however, are reasonably
fun with a variety of mission objectives available.
These range from reconnaissance and destroying enemies
to escorting important spacecraft to port. As you progress,
you'll also get a variety of new weapons to play with.
If you like statistics, then Prophecy will not disappoint.
By delving into the archives, you'll be able to see
just how statistically well individual pilots or even
teams are doing regarding their kill ratio.
Saving in Prophecy is done via battery backup and
is simple and painless. There's also a multiplayer option
and although this is just a standard dogfight, it's
still hugely enjoyable.
Control
The lack of a tutorial section makes playing initially
difficult, and it'll take a while to get familiar with
the controls. Undoubtedly, a lot of the controls have
been scaled down from the PC version and to make it
work on the GBA, similar button presses are sometimes
used for different functions, which can be confusing
at times. Still, it's all pretty logical and tight particularly
in combat mode.
Graphics
Although the visuals and graphics are reasonably
good, they're not nearly as impressive as they should
be. As I mentioned earlier on, the PC version of Prophecy
had tons of impressive FMV to push the plot and story
along. Due to space limitations, however, the GBA version
has to make do with cut screens, spot animations and
'talking heads' with paragraphs of white text instead.
Bear in mind that all the original dialogue is present,
and so reading through all that text instead of seeing
it acted out can be quite boring. The Blue Roses 3D
engine though is pretty good and the battle sequences
are both exciting and enjoyable. So although the overall
presentation has suffered due to hardware constraints,
the more important elements have thankfully survived.
Sound & Music
The Prophecy soundtrack is probably one of the poorest
I've heard on the GBA and even the GBC. The sound effects
though are a lot better and feature a large collection
of digitized sounds and speech playing throughout the
levels. Shame about that music!
Final Comments
Face it. Prophecy on the GBA is a substantially cut
down version of the PC original, despite what the developers
and advertisers might say. As such, don't expect too
much, especially if you're a Wing Commander fan. This
isn't to say that it's a bad game. My main gripes are
the lack of a tutorial mode (which makes the learning
curve substantially steeper than it needs to be) and
the use of so much dialog text to push the story along.
Once you get to the combat sections, however, it does
become immensely enjoyable and with around 50 missions
and a four-player link-up, there's undoubtedly enough
to keep you occupied for quite some time.
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