[Vidmaster]

I considered Homeworld 2 incredibly easy...           ...no idea why so many people were complaining about it.
Still a cool game.


Anyway, while the X-Wing Series is good and the Freespace Series is awesome, WingCommander still is my favorite. It depends on what you want.
WC kicks everybody's ass with it's story and dogfight gameplay.
X-Wing Games always lacked a exciting story and usually suffered from bad design choices in some parts (often in the mission department) but have the StarWars factor and have pretty good dogfights too.
Freespace is the grahical powerhouse and impresses with it's huge capship battles and detailed weaponary and resulting tactical choices. Saddly, the fighter AI is pretty stupid YOU ALL KNOW THAT! Story is definitley better than the X-Wing Series.

My Personal ranking:
1. WC
2. FS
3. X-Wing (actually Tie-Fighter but what the hell)

[Androgeos Exeunt]

How the hell could I forget Descent?!

Because Descent is a first-person shooter.

[haloboy100]

I still love it more than Freespace.

[TrashMan]

WC kicks everybody's ass with it's story and dogfight gameplay.

 

Stop! You're killing me!

[Tyrian]

I absolutely loved Independence War 2.  Great story and a ton of combat depth.  Different ships have different weak points, requiring you to actually read the encyclopedia included in the game to figure out how to kill them.  (Yes, it actually has an encyclopedia in game.  There's that much to it.) 

[Vidmaster]

got the first. Never got it running properly. And a game that forces me to quit when failing a mission is just
AAARRRRRGGGGGGHHHHH     

[Mikes]

There is also X3: Reunion, which is the best Elite-Style game i've ever played. Especially when you apply the patches . it has an nice modding community (Roguey's mod rules ), good economy system, breathtaking graphics, and bsg style flight physics. It also has massive system requirements, by the way...

(THere is also Vega strike, worth checking out ).

On Homeworld... Don't really like that game. I've played Off-World Resource Base, and that was a good game, Homeworld was just to hard to control for me when I played it.

X3 offers a decently large universe to explore and a lot of trading and building (build your own space stations and complexes) kind of gameplay, altough with a rather shallow economic simulation at the core.

Combat gameplay however is just outright bad when compared to an actual space combat game like Freespace or Tie-Fighter and the Missions in the game are even worse, so bad, they are hilarious in their own twisted way.

The combat AI is also so exploitable that there really isn't any challenge at all in the game once you figured the basics. Enemy ships will follow you everywhere (i.e. choose a fast ship - laugh at huge fleets of ships chasing you) can easily be seperated and killed one by one... or outright annihilated by missile salvos (which you can mass produce and mass fire which eliminates pretty much any challenge at al....  the dedicated missile ships in x3 terran conflict for instance will wipe out an entire sector of fighters and capital ships and all you have to do is periodically tap the missile launch button which sends autohoming smart IFF swarm missiles at everything that moves. Swap between anti fighter and cap ship killer missiles as needed lol). Fighter combat is bad... with the AI simply being unable to cope with slow weapon projectiles, fast ship speeds and the small amount of inertia the game applies to maneuvering. (Can observe enemy fighters trying to hit each other unsuccessfully for minutes/hours at a time sometimes,... bit better in X3:terran conflict nowadays, but thats only because they gave all the Xenons instant hit weapons... but they again can be exploited by the player because they have such a short range ). Capital ship combat is outright hilarious. The player can "strafe/dodge" at full speed and easily evade most slow capital ship projectiles.... enemy capital ships, do not dodge...  pretty much a sitting duck hunt lol. And worst of all... while the game allows you to assmble actual fleets of ships and teases you with the prospect from the moment you start playing..... the AI simply can not handle fleets at all. Not pretty. If you deply multiple capital ships then most your casualities will likely be from friendly fire lol. "Fleet combat" is simply not a playable feature (unless you enjoy watching your own fleet blow itself up anyways - a single enemy scout fighter passing inbetween your formation will have all your ships happily unleash full broadsides at each other )

So yeah, you can propably tell by all my explanations, that i have played a lot of X3. I did. I wanted to get my capital ship and my factory and all that and you know what? once i was there i was simply disgusted because there really was nothing you could do with all of it. Combat gameplay being simply broken and not a single mission that would compare favorably even to what a newbie fredder could accomplish... well actually, not a single  mission worth playing at all actually. No. I'm not kidding. Missions really are that bad in the X games.

In Summaryy: While X3 and the newest incarnation are a phenomenon worth checking out that offers a kind of gameplay that is kind of unique (it's quite different from good old elite as well with the option to build your own stations etc.), the combat aspect and especially the missions are simply so outright stupid that it doesn't even qualify to be named as an alternative to something like Freespace or Tie- Fighter where gameplay is all about combat and often combat in huge epic battle environments (both aspects that are simply horribly broken or nonexistant (in the case of good/epic missions) in X3).

Still, the open ended gameplay, freedom of choice, beatiful ships and potential for building your own empire kept me busy for quite a while.
In any case... people who actually "like" X3... certainly don't do it because of the combat or missions in that game. Either that, or they haven't played a real spacesim like FS2 or Tie-Fighter yet in their life.

[Vidmaster]

The very first X was good. Really good. And afterwards the developers just produced cool looking crap.
Even more saddly, they are based in Germany, a country known for great game developer studios.

[Mikes]

The very first X was good. Really good. And afterwards the developers just produced cool looking crap.
Even more saddly, they are based in Germany, a country known for great game developer studios.

Yeah the first X really was groundbreaking, but even then the combat and missions were rather lackluster compared to "real" combat spacesims of the time.

As the X-Series went along they built on the strenght of the game by offering even more openended gameplay with more possibility (and also more graphical bling), but at the same time the games weaknesses, nameley combat and lackluster missions have not just gotten worse, but really gotten out of hand sadly. The latest edition X3: Terran conflict attempts to fix some of the most grave combat issues by offering new (instant hit) player weapons and equipping lots of standard enemy ships with instant hit weapons as well, but it's really just a bandaid fix that doesn't adress the real problem and doesn't make combat and the way AI performs in combat any less pathetic either.

Currently FS2 Open really is the only "recent" combat space-sim worth the name. The only titles that really "could" compare are all much older and are sadly really showing their age as well.
I-War comes to mind, especially the first one. X-Wing and especially Tie Fighter of course as well. Wing Commander (3 and 4 especially) had inferior (to Tie-Fighter, Freespace anyways) - but still solid - combat and mission design, but excelled in story presentation like no other game so far.

The original Schleichfahrt/Archimedean Dynasty (prequel to Aquanox, but quite a bit better than the sequel) propably deserves a honorary mention as an "Underwater" "Sim" that pretty much played like a space sim with futuristic "fighter like" submarines and an ocean floor (instead of space). Aquanox had both, awesome story and decent mission design/combat and also epic combat scenarios - with capital ships duking it out - that were only really surpassed by Freespace and Tie-Fighter to my knowledge.

[Vidmaster]

Well, I am a huge Aquanox fan. Those original German versions are awesome.
Detailed, complex world. Cool characters. Crazy action.

Sadly, every one of the three games has it's own flaw:
Schleichfahrt (=Archimedian Dynasty for the International market): PCs were not really ready for these kind of games. Glitches, AI problems (ever noticed that any vessel can just fly/swim through hills? but you) and the "flying" model wasn't all that great too. Bad Soundtrack too.
Aquanox1 was gorgeous but suffered from lots of bad design choices (like the "invisible sky wall" ). Many of those were patched out but a few, like the horrible menu system remained. Again, silly soundtrack.
Aquanox2 had even better graphics (still looks good today) but inherited some flaws of the first one, no surprise since it was actually planned as an addon. The whole "comic" effects were fixed too and we finally had a good music choice. The downside were some plotholes (no matter how fascinating it was) and a few horrible missions.

I heared the english voice acting (in all three) was bad, therefore don't get it if you can't speak German.

Recent Space Sims were Tarr Chronicles and Dark Horizon, both crap. Can't even compete with FS2 mediavps on a graphical level.  Worth of note is Freelancer. I disliked combat (that wasn't flying, it was driving) but Starlancer fanboys should enjoy it.

My hopes rest on
http://www.moddb.com/games/naumachia-space-warfare

[Sushi]

I'd love to see a modern (good) sim that really went all-out with the whole "underwater fighters and capships" thing. There's just so much potential! Sounds like Aquanox was trying, but never fully realized its potential. I don't think ANY game has full realized the "underwater combat sim" potential.

So, who wants to do an FS2 mod set underwater? You won't even need to change the physics! Or heck, most of the ships even... especially Vasudan...

[Mikes]

Well, I am a huge Aquanox fan. Those original German versions are awesome.
Detailed, complex world. Cool characters. Crazy action.

Sadly, every one of the three games has it's own flaw:
Schleichfahrt (=Archimedian Dynasty for the International market): PCs were not really ready for these kind of games. Glitches, AI problems (ever noticed that any vessel can just fly/swim through hills? but you) and the "flying" model wasn't all that great too. Bad Soundtrack too.
Aquanox1 was gorgeous but suffered from lots of bad design choices (like the "invisible sky wall" ). Many of those were patched out but a few, like the horrible menu system remained. Again, silly soundtrack.
Aquanox2 had even better graphics (still looks good today) but inherited some flaws of the first one, no surprise since it was actually planned as an addon. The whole "comic" effects were fixed too and we finally had a good music choice. The downside were some plotholes (no matter how fascinating it was) and a few horrible missions.

Mh well i played the german version and i can just say i was blown away by it at the time. Got rave reviews in all the gaming mags at the time too and well deserved too.
The "fly/swimming" model was certainly "different" than the flying model in a spacesim, but it never struck me as any kind of "drawback".

On the other hand, combat, mission design and story  in general were absolutely top notch and makes it one of the few games that i still remember fondly after all the years even now.
Aquanox on the other hand i perceived as a step backward (giant squid fish thingy now ? yeah :yawn:)... and Aquanox 2 basically was a different game alltogether.
The excellence of storytelling and suspense of the original Schleichfahrt was never reached by the later titles, imho anyways.

As far as bugs are concerned, i didn't notice any anyways, different times... but PCs were definitely way more than ready for games of that kind at the time. We are talking post X-Wing already mind you ... and i played I-War (1) in the same year which reached several levels of awesomeness never known before (and not after either). Especially the elaborate mission design and branching storyline (that actually allowed you to switch sides, permanently, in the middle of a sabotaged peace conference, where everyone suddenly started shooting at each other harr... or crash land your full sized corvette on a carrier built for small fighters, while everyone on your bridge (and on the carrier) was going "nooo noo nonono aaaaaaarghhh!" (lol) (complete with vid sequence shearing all kinds of things off your ship) in order to escape an ambush because your jump engines were down...   or using your (disarmed) ship itself as a weapon by ramming the evil presidents cruiser in the final mission while escaping with your bridge/escape module (which also struck the cruiser if you weren't too careful.. I-War actually featured newtonian physics to a large and prominent extent heh)).

Out of all the space games i played... I-War still sticks in the mind as the one with the absolutely craziest mission design that made you think on the fly and often do very unconventional things that went way past the expected dogfighting gameplay. (Being captured by pirates who started throwing your crew out, whose bodies you could see floating past the windows of your bridge while you were arguing with their leader, was another favorite lol).

Matter of fact... looking back... you could argue that PCs of the time were a platform in it's prime that gifted us with games that tried bold things that you really can not find anymore at all in today's mass market adjusted gaming market... not unless you look for indie games/ mods anyways. Well maybe that's inaccurate. PC as a platform are more powerful nowadays by several orders of magnitude, what has gotten worse is the gaming market.... one could argue it isn't in it's prime anymore or at least it's several magnitudes less daring and innovative than it had been previously, no matter what platform you actually look at.

Back in the day you still had a huge amount of developpers actually enthusiastically making games that they themselves wanted to play.
Nowadays that is the exception,... with the majority of games being the result of a market study, the gazillionst to the letter clone of a proven concept (the suits don't like risks or chances), or a sequel to a glorious game of the past (with the sequel usually being less complex with inferior gameplay due to market considerations).

Heck... back in the day we had spacesims like WC3/WC4 that blew a few millions at life-acted cutscenes, where's that today? (and nope the paltry CnC3/Red Alert cutscenes do not even begin to compare to what was done in WC3/WC4 back in the day:p)

We got better graphics today...  but as far as gameplay, gameplay complexity, storylines in general and even story presentation goes (thinking WC3/4 for presentation), the commercial gaming market has been on a downhill slope for a long time sadly. Not even in the storydriven RPG genre is a glimmer of light: The games that Bioware releases nowadays do not even begin to compare to the awesomeness that was Baldurs Gate 2 or Planescape:Torment back in the day. Mass Effect ? Seriously... not even in the same ballpark anymore :/.

[Vidmaster]

Mass Effect is very cinematic.

[haloboy100]

Worth of note is Freelancer. I disliked combat (that wasn't flying, it was driving) but Starlancer fanboys should enjoy it.

I'm so pissed that game wasn't truly completed (I downright refuse to believe it was). If I loved it so damn much (For it to be the best game I ever played next to Half-Life 2 in second an Freespace 2 in first) in the state it shipped, I can only gawk at what it could of achieved if it was polished, perfected and worked on with real passion. I don't really care if it wasn't a space sim; lack of real space sim flying is a small price to pay, in my opinion, for what Freelancer achieved.

[Narvi]

Worth of note is Freelancer. I disliked combat (that wasn't flying, it was driving) but Starlancer fanboys should enjoy it.

I'm so pissed that game wasn't truly completed (I downright refuse to believe it was). If I loved it so damn much (For it to be the best game I ever played next to Half-Life 2 in second an Freespace 2 in first) in the state it shipped, I can only gawk at what it could of achieved if it was polished, perfected and worked on with real passion. I don't really care if it wasn't a space sim; lack of real space sim flying is a small price to pay, in my opinion, for what Freelancer achieved.

It looks more like they stripped down the features to make i t more playable actually.

Try the Discovery mod if you want more variety. Though the flying in that can be very tedious.

[Zantor]

How the hell could I forget Descent?!

Because Descent is a first-person shooter.

Descent may be an FPS, but FS can be argued to be such, too. It all depends on how you look at it. Descent was meant to have full freedom of movement and maneuverability.

[haloboy100]

Worth of note is Freelancer. I disliked combat (that wasn't flying, it was driving) but Starlancer fanboys should enjoy it.

I'm so pissed that game wasn't truly completed (I downright refuse to believe it was). If I loved it so damn much (For it to be the best game I ever played next to Half-Life 2 in second an Freespace 2 in first) in the state it shipped, I can only gawk at what it could of achieved if it was polished, perfected and worked on with real passion. I don't really care if it wasn't a space sim; lack of real space sim flying is a small price to pay, in my opinion, for what Freelancer achieved.

It looks more like they stripped down the features to make i t more playable actually.

Try the Discovery mod if you want more variety. Though the flying in that can be very tedious.

I did. I loved it. That's why Freelancer is so good.

[Zantor]

I did. I loved it. That's why Freelancer is so good.

x2. Freelancer is good, but I like FS and Descent better.

[Scotty]

Wow, I remember playing O.R.B.  The only thing I didn't like was the relatively low pop cap (you could only have maybe four cruiser sized ships at a time, and that was with nothing else).

[General Battuta]

I played ORB after Homeworld.

It was...a step down, unfortunately.