Genre: Space Sim
Developer: Origin
Publisher: Origin

Like the original title, Super Wing Commander uses sprites for the ships, and they are wonderfully rendered, featuring tons of angles that switch during gameplay very effectively. All of the inter-mission interludes have been re-done using pre-rendered CGI, and they are impressively free of any noticable compression artifacts. Lots of the hand-drawn art, like the character faces, are very reminiscent of early 90s adventure games-- a real treat.

Super Wing Commander is one of the rare 3DO games that uses the superpowered DSP audio chip for music, and what a job was done of it too; the music sounds vaguely like Soundblaster synth, but with samples that absolutely pop out of the speakers-- like classic DOS music taken to the next level! All of the dialog in the game is totally dynamic, which is unfortunate in a way because the load delay between sound samples makes these sequences seem very unnatural. Fortunately, the quality of the voice acting itself is stellar. There are lots of memorable small touches too-- such as the dripping water in the baracks-- that, like mentioned earlier, invoke memories of the hey-day of DOS adventure games.

Super Wing Commander takes the PC title, maps everything wonderfully to the 3DO's gamepad, and drastically increases the smoothness of ship movement and rotation, making it an absolutely huge improvement over the original title. In terms of content, the game features the entire PC campaign, plus both of the "secret mission" expansions. The whole experience flows together as well, with the first secret mission campaign starting right away after the base campaign is completed.

Super Wing Commander is an absolutely stellar space combat sim, with excellent graphics, a moody and technically impressive soundtrack, and core gameplay that makes the game difficult to put down. Perhaps the game's biggest shortcoming is that there is no way to restart failed missions directly, especially since many of the missions are extremely difficult. The game could have used a little more balancing too, with many mission failures seemingly coming down to bad luck. But those are both minor quibbles; Super Wing Commander is an excellent upgrade over the classic original title.