Wing Commander ®: Privateer ™

I remember discovering this game years ago at a PC shop back when they were rare and after scraping to buy this I loved every minute of it. The free movement, the open ended nature of your identity, heck even the amount of detail that went into its detailed merchant system. Nothing quite sells this game than its amazing ability to immerse you, and when you're done faffing around it has an intricate story that really works well. The sequel was dreadful and Freelancer ripped this game off but the original stands as one of the greatest games of all time. 4.8/5

I've always seen space combat sims as one of the casualties of modern gaming. This game is one of the classics. The combat doesn't quite have the "meat" on it that Freespace 2 or Independance War does but the game isn't linear an "Elite" style experience. Run missions, shoot stuff, pay for upgrades and repairs, repeat :) Highly Recommded!

Yes, today it looks pretty basic, but this game (and the expansion, which hopefully will be offered sometime) was hours and hours of fun when I was in my first year of college 18 years ago. I still remember the music, I still remember the sounds, I still remember the one-liners! This is quite literally in my top 5 ever...Tie Fighter still #1 sorry. This game was also a pain to run back in the day, as with the speech pack it needed over 600K of base RAM. For those that don't know what that means...it didn't matter how much RAM you had...if you couldn't get 600 of the first 640 of addressable space empty, no game for you. CD drivers, sound drivers, DOS, all of that took up space in that 640K! Now, however, it is seamless even on a 64bit OS.

I am a huge fan of challenging, fun games, and for whatever reason, the older games seem to do the trick for me. Privateer is a great example of this type of gaming. No special walkthroughs, no hand-holding, and no endless, mind-numbing cutscenes cutting into gameplay. The downside is that it tries for realism, and does a pretty good job at it for an old game. Of course, anyone who has ever done difficult work, especially in the business world, knows that the real world is harsh, uncompromising and often unfair. For me, I like that style of gameplay. Its not for everyone, but if you like a challenge, and enjoy playing arbitrage-style cargo runs, fighting/being a pirate or just drifting through space, doing your thing, this game is for you - as it was for me.

Before EVE Online 're-introduced' the idea of conscience being downloaded into cloned bodies, there was Privateer. Where you are always destroying the same pirates, Retros and Kilrathi. Don't get me wrong, Privateer is great game. Traveling all over the 'universe', making sure you don't run out fuel for your jump drive in a system with no bases. Killing others that are out to kill you, trading, exploring, finding. I hope Righteous Fire and The Darkening.get the GOG treatment soon!!