Freespace 2

You don't need to love space sims to love the Freespace games, it helps though. Like the first it's packed with atmosphere and a phenomenal story, the gameplay and controls are a combo that make this game the best in the genre (that's right Best!). Be sure to find the hi-res mod online so you can set the resolution to anything above 1280x1024.

this game is definitely one of the greatest Space Sim I've ever played, on more than one occasion the game surprised me -amazing ship to ship combat -constant action -the feeling your not a great hero, a cog in the machine -lasers, lasers everywhere -the feeling of impending doom -a few surprises here and there -and an amazing ending that will (hopefully) make you have a sense of accomplishment this game is definitely worth the 6 dollars your paying for it and the mods out there (blue planet for one) expand the game a lot and will keep you playing for many, many moons

Almost 13 years later and countless games after originally purchasing this in a brick and mortar store on launch day, it's still my favorite game of all time. There is also an open source launcher for the game that makes it a little more Windows 7 friendly. ^_^

Best game ever, the only hard thing is mapping buttons at the beginning Of the game, the rest is perfect. MUST BUY

This is quite possibly the best space sim ever made and terribly overlooked. Everything from the first game is still here and improved upon with a better story too. The dog fighting is brilliant, played well with a mouse but best use a joystick, and the space battles are just epic, seeing two 5KM long ships (and they really are 5KM long) dueling each other with massive beam cannons is a sight to behold, no game has matched it and probably never will.