Wing Commander 3: Heart of the Tiger goes free on Origin

It's hard to be too critical of anything that's free, assuming that the free thing in question isn't actually doing you harm. So even though I'm not a big fan of Wing Commander 3: Heart of the Tiger , I can recommend it right now because it's free—"On the house," you might say—and it's probably not going to set your PC on fire.

I'm somewhat less enthusiastic about Wing Commander 3 than I have been about previous On the House offerings, as you may have picked up on. It was an incredibly ambitious project, but those ambitions were almost entirely technological and didn't always work to its benefit. The game boasted an impressive cast for its extensive FMV segments but they were poorly written and poorly acted, and the move away from sprites to texture-mapped 3D objects left the combat segments looking dull and drab compared to those of the previous games.

That is, admittedly, a minority opinion. Our own Cory Banks loves Wing Commander 3 deeply, though we're all concerned he may be a Kilrathi sympathizer. My disappointment in WC3 may just be a reflection of my preference for the hand-drawn style of the first two games. Regardless, you should definitely give it a try ; it's free, after all.

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Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.