Older PC Space Flight Sims?

[Mr Unoriginal]

I picked up a Sidewinder joystick for $3 at a yard sale yesterday and decided to install X-Wing again. Goddamn that game is just as good as I remember it and now I'm totally on a flight sim kick. Any games that CAGs love that I should check out? I'm thinking of getting Privateer 2. Of course I love the Wing Commander series, but I think the older games would be a pain to run and the newer ones are not as good.

I don't have a great computer so I probably can't run anything too new, but would love to hear suggestions.

[Sekhmet]

The only one I can think of off the top of my head is Descent.

[dafoomie]

If you want a DOS game check out Frontier: First Encounters. Might not be exactly what you expect but its extremely deep. EVE Online basically lifted this game minus the space combat. Any of the older DOS games can run under DOSBox easily.

Freespace and Freespace 2 are still the standard bearers of the genre. Starlancer and Freelancer are both real good, and Independence War 2 (1 was ok, but different) and the X series are good too. All of those should run fine in Windows and should run on whatever hardware you've got.

Freespace and Starlancer are your linear, here is your mission, come back, get another mission war type space fighter games, though you get some selection of fighters and weapons. Frontier: First Encounters and Freelancer are more like Wing Commander Privateer (Privateer is the one that is like First Encounters only not as deep), they're open ended games where you can trade goods and take missions from different factions as you like, you can buy new ships, etc. If you liked Privateer you'll absolutely love Freelancer. The protagonist is voiced by Scott Bakula.

Battlestar Galactica for the original Xbox and PC was decent, not great though. If you've got a 360, you can try Project Sylpheed.

FFE is older than the rest of these games and the physics are more realistic (not like WW2 fighter planes), but you won't regret playing the hell out of that game. Freespace 1+2 are awesome. After that, I'd play Starlancer and Freelancer, then the rest.

This and adventure games are my favorite genres (and lucky me, both are dead).

[Mr Unoriginal]

If you want a DOS game check out Frontier: First Encounters. Might not be exactly what you expect but its extremely deep. EVE Online basically lifted this game minus the space combat. Any of the older DOS games can run under DOSBox easily.

Freespace and Freespace 2 are still the standard bearers of the genre. Starlancer and Freelancer are both real good, and Independence War 2 (1 was ok, but different) and the X series are good too. All of those should run fine in Windows and should run on whatever hardware you've got.

Freespace and Starlancer are your linear, here is your mission, come back, get another mission war type space fighter games, though you get some selection of fighters and weapons. Frontier: First Encounters and Freelancer are more like Wing Commander Privateer (Privateer is the one that is like First Encounters only not as deep), they're open ended games where you can trade goods and take missions from different factions as you like, you can buy new ships, etc. If you liked Privateer you'll absolutely love Freelancer. The protagonist is voiced by Scott Bakula.

Battlestar Galactica for the original Xbox and PC was decent, not great though. If you've got a 360, you can try Project Sylpheed.

FFE is older than the rest of these games and the physics are more realistic (not like WW2 fighter planes), but you won't regret playing the hell out of that game. Freespace 1+2 are awesome. After that, I'd play Starlancer and Freelancer, then the rest.

This and adventure games are my favorite genres (and lucky me, both are dead).


Damn, thanks, glad to see another fan. I will check out Freespace 1 & 2 next. I always heard the name but I think I had fallen out of PC gaming at the time so never tried them at all. I hope I'm in for a treat.

I think I played Frontier a lot and found it really tough to get going. If I remember correctly you start in a horrible ship and had to hope to get lucky with some nice shipping missions before you could get some good equipment.

I also really loved Project Slypheed even though the critics seemed to hate it. I would kill for more console games like that.

[dafoomie]

When you first start FFE you can make some cash by participating in I think a contest for delivering an album or something first, and either that system or one near it has a huge demand for medical supplies which are cheap where you start. Something like that. The news gives hints with regard to those things. As long as you stay out of low sec systems theres little chance of getting killed early on.

Just remembered. Theres some kind of disease in this system and medical supplies are priced high there, you can buy them a few systems away cheaply. However, a buyer in the missions screen there is paying a lot more than the market value (and you find out later that he's buying them up to prevent them from being used). Lots of interesting wrinkles in that game.

Freelancer is an excellent game in its own right though its more limited in scope.

[F8X]

If you can find this pick it up.

http://i44.tinypic.com/14jux01.jpg

I loved it. Used to have a blast playing it. Although I'm no Flight sim expert.

[crystalklear64]

*Freespace 2*

Terminal Velocity

Descent 1-3

Hellbender

This and adventure games are my favorite genres (and lucky me, both are dead).
High five!

[Mr. Anderson]

I have X-Wing for DOS; how do I go about installing it on XP?

[Mr Unoriginal]

I have X-Wing for DOS; how do I go about installing it on XP?

You can use DosBox, but there was one or two re-releases of X-Wing which were both windows compatible.

[Ruahrc]

Yeah if you can find it, get the X-wing and Tie Fighter collector's editions. It came in a single package, with both games (and the expansions to each game too). The biggest enhancement was that they updated the graphics engine to the one they used in X-Wing vs. Tie Fighter (don't confuse the two!) so you get full textured 3D accelerated grahpics and higher resolution support. I don't know how easy they are to find anymore but I'm sure glad I got mine!

Man you make me want to install that game again those were seriously sweet games. Even with the old graphics, way ahead of their time IMO. I remember playing it with my cousins where one of us would be the pilot and the other would be the co-pilot who could control some of the ship's systems like power balance without the pilot having to take his eyes off the combat :).

Ruahrc

[CoffeeEdge]

This was my favorite genre growing up, pretty much. Mostly thanks to Wing Commander II.

In addition to the universally excellent list of games already mentioned, you absolutely must try the X series, from German developer Egosoft (X2 and X3 are on Steam (http://store.steampowered.com/sub/102/)). They are outstanding. Aside from that, seek out Tachyon: The Fringe. It is made awesome by featuring the voice of Bruce Campbell. Also, though it doesn't take place in space, Hardwar is pretty neat, and reminiscent of Elite. And a fairly recent game called DarkStar One wasn't half-bad either. Also look up the indie Evochron series.

Oh, and if you're hardcore...check out Battlecruiser and Universal Combat. They're freeware now (http://www.3000ad.com/download/#toc-free-games), at least, but they're strictly for the very most dedicated and forgiving of players.

This and adventure games are my favorite genres (and lucky me, both are dead).

Not true, in regards to either, actually. They've just both moved into the realm of "niche, " with good examples being more few and far-between :)

[Ruahrc]

Oh yeah I liked Freelancer, it was a fun game. The story was pretty good and it was fun to cruise around after you beat the missions trading and fighting random stuff. I think X3 takes it to a scope way beyond what Freelancer does (looking at the Steam link I am very tempted to try it out!) but Freelancer might serve as a good introduction.

Ruahrc