I've been chomping at the bit for Wing Commander III ever since Frank Savage gave me a guided tour of an alpha version way back in May. Now that it's finally here I've come to realize one thing: this game makes me feel really old. It's not that the game is hyper fast (which it is), and it's not that my reflexes have decayed (which they have); the weird feeling comes from looking back on one of the most successful game series in the history of the industry and remembering what it was like in the beginning.

	I remember the first time I saw a magazine ad for the first Wing Commander. I saw the pictures, read the text, and my head was immediately filled with thoughts of fulfilling all my Star Wars fantasies via my humble little computer. I waited anxiously for the game to appear on the store shelves, and when it did I almost passed out. I was wandering around Ye Olde Software Shoppe one day, looking for something to waste my money on, and there was Wing Commander. I latched onto the nearest copy, almost crushing the cardboard; I was half way to the counter when I saw that my dream game required things I just couldn't provide: EGA, a hard drive, a 286. I moped back to the shelf, set the box down, and began entertaining thoughts about bludgeoning myself to death with my 8088.

	When Wing Commander II was released, I was ready with a brand new 386/20. I finally had my dream game. And a lot of broken joysticks. I'm not sure how many sticks I mutilated pulling off afterburner slides and torpedo runs, but Kraft and CH must've been happy with my business.

	Now that Wing Commander III is a reality I have to consider myself lucky to be in this business. The system requirements are steep, too steep for my home system, but (once again) Origin has come up with a game that's worth upgrading to play. Wing Commander III is more than just a game, it's a near-future hardware standard. I've discovered one law of computer gaming that has yet to fail me: if Origin requires it today, everyone else will demand it of you within a year.

	This third and final installment in the mighty Wing Commander series piles on the bells and whistles like never before. Coming from Origin that's no suprise. What IS suprising is that the game lives up to its pre-release hype. Digitized actors are no longer a gaming novelty, but WC3's movie sequences must be seen to be believed. They are all shown in a non-standard VGA/SVGA mode that gives them the appearance of a letterboxed movie; in both VGA and SVGA they look terrific, and their frame rate is beyond smooth. The actors, who are superimposed over computer-generated sets, fit very well into their surroundings, and don't carry a hint of that out of place look you can get with bad blue screen effects. The acting itself is of extremely high caliber, exactly what you'd expect from such talents as Mark Hamill, John Rhys-Davies, and Jason Bernard. With such an impressive ensemble cast it's hard for people to stand out, but there are still a fair share of scene stealers here. Tom Wilson ("What are you lookin' at, butthead?") is the perfect choice for Maniac, an irrepressably funny actor in a role he seems born to play. As Admiral Tolwyn, Malcom McDowell is electrifying, playing the part with thinly-veiled spite that is frighteningly perfect. Even the beautiful Ginger Lynn Allen manages to transcend her "porn queen" background and turn in a fine and convincing performance, proving that we haven't seen all her tricks yet.

	As nice as the movies are, they don't really affect the core of the game, which is the missions you fly. No matter which resolution you play the game in, the in-flight graphics have been vastly improved. For the first time in a Wing Commander game, enemy ships actually look better the closer you get to them, instead of the opposite. The gameplay itself has hardly changed, which I mean as a compliment. There are a few minor additions (3D nav maps, better AI, all ships are equipped with ITTS targeting, etc.), but the game feels like a Wing Commander game should; it just looks and sounds a whole lot better this time around.

	One of my few complaints about the previous Wing Commander games is that the missions you flew didn't have a very strong connection to what was currently happening in the plot. This game-movie continuity has been greatly improved in WC3. If the pilots are swapping rumors about a new Kilrathi biological weapon, you can bet that you'll be facing it in the missions to come. This makes the game flow much smoother, and gives you the sense of playing an interactive movie. <Insert shriek of terror here.>

	The only real complaints I have regarding WC3 are basically the same ones that people pointed out when Wing Commander 2 was new. System requirements are a little on the steep side; the processor requirement is fairly lenient, but you'll need eight megs of RAM, a fast video card, and a good chunk of free hard drive space. Even with the maximum amount of the game installed to the hard drive (which amounts to 42 megs, and you'll want to dump that whole thing onto your hard drive if you can) the game's loading times are understandably long. Once a movie starts playing or a mission begins the play is very smooth, but practically everything you do will cause you to wait impatiently for the computer to load the next sequence. In combat, there is a slight pause when an incoming message is heard, and also when a ship blows up. It's irritating at first, but after a few missions I barely even noticed it. These sort of gripes were the same things people complained about in WC2, so veterans of the series should know what to expect and aren't likely to be overly bothered.

	If you're a fan of this kind of space action game, Wing Commander III is a game you simply can't do without. It represents the very best of what the genre has to offer. Once again, Origin has left the envelope crumpled in the gutter. Wing Commander III exploits your system to its fullest potential, and the result is a well-rounded game that quickly grows into a reality-threatening compulsion. The cast is superb, the movie sequences are some of the best you're likely to see for a long time, and the action is enough to make you fall out of your chair. If you have a Pentium system, this is the type of game your computer was meant for; if you're considering upgrading to a Pentium, WC3 should provide about all the justification you need.