Freespace 2

With the original Descent:Freespace, Freespace2 forms one of the best flight-sim franchises out there. Like Descent:Freespace, you pilot individual spacecraft in huge battles, often with capital ships as either enemy targets or friendly targets to be escorted. Despite this, you still feel important in the missions as being able to disable a tactically important enemy turret or shooting down that one bomber might make the difference between passing or failing the mission. The music is gorgeous and atmospheric. THe cutscene, though a little dated, are still suitably cinematic. The voice-acting leads to a compelling story which the player becomes engrossed, following the progress of the war. Important plot events occur both between missions (ie we see them in mission briefings) but more so, during the missions. The plot feels a little less epic than FS1, but the narrative is much tighter and better handled. The only drawback is that there will unlikely be an official Freespace 3. The story feels a little unfinished as a result. There is a VERY ACTIVE fanbase of modders out there. I would highly recommend getting the game, and look for the Freespace Open download which contains many game engine tweaks, HD support, and most importantly, many high quality unofficial campaigns/mission packs (many with custom cutscenes and voice-acting) most of which you can obtain for free. (They have even ported the original Descent:Freespace onto the FS2 engine via the FS Open!)

The official download can be found here: http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Installing_fs2_open Contains Freesapace, Freespace 2, expansion packs, updated graphics, game engine, etc.

my favorite space flight sim of all time. Better than the Wing Commanders, maybe even better than TIE Fighter! I always described this to my friends as "the best Star Wars game there is", since its battles feel more like the huge fleet battles from SW than the actual SW games ever did to me. Cannot recommend this one highly enough!

This is to this day, my favorite video game. It has even beaten Jumpman, which is far older and almost as awesome. This game would make a great movie, and desperately needs to be reborn or continued. There is an Open source site that loves this game so well that they have updated the graphics to keep it current. Truly an awesome game.

For the first look you may find this game an old space shooter with blurry textures and old school gameplay. But if you give it time the game shines: energy systems management, countermeasures, sensors use, advanced weapon use are key features in Freespace 2. The campaign is a long one, the missions are vibrants, varied in goals and the atmosphere is fantastic.