Back in 1990, Chris Roberts' space combat epic Wing Commander became an industry milestone, combining fast-paced gameplay and an unprecedented cinematic presentation. And while Wing Commander's colorful graphics and smooth animation were the game's most obvious technical achievement, its stirring dynamic soundtrack by famous cowboy composer George "The Fatman" Sanger united the entire game as a cohesive work of storytelling with scope and complexity that rivals some of the finest science fiction.

Any outer-space epic is inevitably compared to Star Wars, and just as Wing Commander reflected a similarly ambitious interest in design and character, so too did its soundtrack, with recurrent themes to express and reinforce many of the game's most stunning story elements. This was achieved not only through the Fatman's brilliantly orchestrated scoring, but also through the technical achievement behind the game's dynamic score: During space combat sequences, the music would seamlessly change to reflect the course of the action onscreen. The mode and tempo of the music would continually shift and continually heightened the experience that Wing Commander alone could provide.

It's no surprise that the game was instrumental to the success of the Sound Blaster audio format. At a time when sound cards were entirely optional, if not entirely extraneous, for most PC owners, it took a game like Wing Commander, whose soundtrack was so clearly a labor of deep devotion, to convince the average gamer to take the $200 dip. Of course, little did the average Sound Blaster user realize just how he was missing out: Wing Commander also took full advantage of wavetable MIDI soundcards like the Roland Sound Canvas, through which the game's score sounded (and still sounds) absolutely phenomenal, with realistic instrumentation doing full justice to the complexity of the composition.
 

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