Wing Commander™ 1+2

These games set the stander for space flight sims that followed, not to mention flight sims in general. The games were where I cut my teeth on SFS/FS after I got hired on by Origin in the early 90s. Outstanding does not give the right tone and feel for these two games.

I've played and completed both games with their two expansions. For me it was more a work that an enjoyment. I'll explain why: First, the good, you will have tons of hours of gaming with a nice history and you can lose misions without losing the game. That's pretty cool and that's the reason why I purchased it. Now, you need a joystick (I've tried with a gamepad too, but is more difficult that playing with a joystick). Now the bad: Buggy behavior playing with gamepad/joystick + xPadder (I'm very good using xPadder, it's not my problem): like you cannot use two simultaneous keys (ie, rotate/pitch), from time to time some key get stuck and the cinematics runs too fast. To save a game, you have to right click the computer (do not try to left click, because for some strange motive in my pc the game consider it a double click and goes right away to the load screen, which is pretty similar). The graphics are BMP based, the pixels becames huge when you're close to a ship and you cannot know what's happening. When you have to destroy a capital ship with a torpedo you must attack it from behind, however, since dated graphics, it's very difficult knowing its heading when you're far or close. Also, it's very easy losing the track of your heading, since you only have minimal visual references (maybe a planet). WC1 + SO1 have a CPU clock dependancy, so when you have 4 or more ships in the screen it goes to 5 FPS or similar. it's very difficult aim weapons with that. And maybe this isn't something related to the game, but my bad, but when you have your enemy targeted and locked with an IR or HS missile, sometimes the missile just don't want to fire (and you have no damaged missiles / you're at a good distance and speed).

Quite possibly the most important thing to happen to gaming ever. Chris Roberts was a genius far ahead of his time. Oh yeah, and the story is really good too ;)

Very unstable on Windows 8. Shame as it spoils what is a good game.

These games have a way of pulling you into them. I remember my first time through doing terrible and actually being afraid/upset when the Colonel would chew me out or getting raging mad when the kats would ice one of my wingmen and I would go on a revenge kill spree. Great game, great history.