Electronic Arts put 25 old PC games up for sale on November 5: seven restored Anniversary Editions, plus 18 more classics making their Steam debut. The seven are Road Rash and six Wing Commander titles at $9.99 each, and the other 18 cost $4.99. All of them are also on GOG and the EA App, with special pricing on Steam and GOG through November 19. Road Rash and Wing Commander III both show $4.99 on Steam as I write this, which is half off.
“Anniversary” on a re-release often means a new box around old files, so here is what EA says it did. Each edition “preserves the original look, feel and creative intent,” with quality-of-life updates for modern systems and controls, and the release stops there. The bigger claim is a physical vault of thousands of Betacam, VHS and D1 tapes. EA says digitizing them recovered “supposedly lost” Master FMV for all seven games, and that it re-edited the footage across more than 1,500 cinematic scenes. FMV is full-motion video, the filmed actors that CD-era games leaned on (some of them very hard). Community mods also went into the official Wing Commander releases, so fan work is now part of the version EA sells.
Where the tape work has the most to prove
Origin Systems shipped the first Wing Commander in September 1990. Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger followed in 1994 with Mark Hamill, John Rhys-Davies, Thomas F. Wilson and Malcolm McDowell on camera, and Wing Commander IV arrived in 1996. Those two are the test. The release gives no resolution for the restored video, so I can’t yet tell you whether EA fixed that footage or only upscaled it.
Road Rash has its own catch. The series debuted on the Sega Genesis in 1991, but the store screenshots point to the later CD version, which came to 3DO and Windows from 1994. If the Genesis cartridge is the one you remember, this is a different game.
Anyone who owns a digital Wing Commander title on GOG or the EA App gets its Anniversary upgrade free on that platform. EA names only Wing Commander for that offer, so don't count on it for Road Rash.
The other 18 are Ultima I through IX, both Ultima Underworlds, Wing Commander: Privateer, Academy and Armada, Strike Commander, Crusader: No Remorse and No Regret, and Theme Hospital. EA's restoration claims cover none of them, so judge these as the old games they are. Start with Ultima Underworld, the 1992 dungeon crawl from Blue Sky Productions that is often cited as the first immersive sim. Ultima VII is widely seen as the series' high point. In 1993 the name Complete Edition meant both of its parts and both expansion disks, so read the store listing to confirm that is what you're getting. Leave Ultima IX: Ascension for last. It shipped with numerous bugs in 1999, and GameSpot named it the year's Most Disappointing Game.
Check your GOG and EA App libraries before you buy a Wing Commander, because the one you already own costs nothing.
