I have a joystick but no space ship- yo!

[ChernobylCow]

I used to play X-Wing Vs Tie-Fighter when I was twelve and man oh man I remember that being a really advanced and fun game. Reverse thrusters, flying backwards, shooting at tie fighters. Shifting shields. All that jazz. Don't even know if I could do that now.

Anyways, I have a Saitek joystick and I was wondering if there are any good spaceflight/fun airplane shooters.

1) I want games that are a step above arcadey
2) I don't want ultra-sims or pure flight simulators.
3) Whacky themes always welcome.

I tried getting into Freespace 2 a while back but never had the time, probably don't have the discs.

Or hell, if there are any games that would be fun with a joystick that aren't flight games let me know. Hahha now I am remembering playing Rebel Assault 2 with a joystick.

 

[Hydro2Oxide]

GoGamer has Blazing Angels 2 for 3 bucks and Rise of Flight for 20. I've got no input but Blazing Angels 2 for about 5-6 shipped, not much risk involved there.

http://www.gogamer.com/48-Hour-Madness_stcVVcatId544567VVviewcat.htm

Not very space ship though, sorry.

 

[kilm]

Tom Clancy's HAWX, maybe? I don't play flight games, but maybe it's worth checking out.

 

[Megazell]

Check out Allegiance and/or Ace Online/Space Cowboy/Air Rivals posted here

http://www.cheapassgamer.com/forums/showthread.php?t=244468

 

[sniping_dreamer]

If your looking for a low-end, freeware flight simulator, try YS Flight Simulation System 2000
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YS_Flight

Sure the graphics are simplistic, but it runs great on crappy computers.

Upon further research, I found this:
FlightGear
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FlightGear

Open-source flight simulator looks pretty good, haven't tried myself.

 

[Megazell]

[quote name='sniping_dreamer']If your looking for a low-end, freeware flight simulator, try YS Flight Simulation System 2000
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YS_Flight

Sure the graphics are simplistic, but it runs great on crappy computers.

Upon further research, I found this:
FlightGear
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FlightGear

Open-source flight simulator looks pretty good, haven't tried myself.[/QUOTE]

I used FlightGear - Got it to run with max settings on a cheap machine too running Windows 98 - Got 55FPS too. It should be coming up on my list of Free PC Games soon. There are a few but I forget their names. I will post them all up soon.

 

[Logain8955]

Give Darkstar One a try, you fly a little 3 man starship around a galaxy, has open exploration and space combat, it was pretty good.

 

[DukeEdwardI]

You might try Freespace 1 & 2. I played a bit of that back in the day and it seemd very well suited to a joystick.

And I believe they have released the source code for either the first one or both of them, so you should find a lot of info and custom made stuff for it.