I miss Wing Commander. I always got my ass kicked on my 386sx but it was fun. I dont' want to play "Farmville in Space", that's what I seem to see out there today.

Wing Commander 3 is a classic. The story was just so well written and it had Malcolm McDowell AND Mark Hamill in it! Just how awesome is that?

Yeah, I loved Wing Commander III.

Back in the day when cutscenes ruled and hollywood actors were happy to be seen in them.

I think Privateer II: The Darkening probably rules the 90's cutscene roost.

Don't forget WC4, the sequel to 3, that had all the same actors. McDowell, Hamill, Tom Wilson as Maniac, John Rhys-Davies as Palladin...

The sales are bad after 2000 because the games are. The last I bought were the ones in 1999, after that I had no interest in those games that were still coming out. I liked Freespace, WC, and X Wing. Didn't care about the others.


The Jedi Master

Bring me a game that would be something like Mass Effect 2 + Independence War 1/2 Sci-Fi PC space-sim orgy!

Good going, let us know if he offers any insight please.

Dammit, now I've got to revisit these games. IW2 pretty much hit the sweet spot for me in gameplay and physics. Not quite Newtonian, but fun. If we got that with X3 graphics and ME2 story, interaction and voice work, it would be perfect.
Got to make some progress on Black Prophecy to see how it goes when you get to the meat of it.

Space games aren't dead--they're just alive in the modding community, that is all plus the indie movement.

With that said, classics like Independence War 2 still hold up well to this day (it even will do widescreen nicely). For Wing Commander nuts, I bet a lot of you have missed Wing Commander Standoff:

http://standoff.solsector.net/

Or how about the X-Wing Alliance upgrade project (pretty graphics):

http://www.xwaupgrade.com/

Or, how about Evochron Mercenaries (follows along the lines of Elite):

http://www.starwraith.com/evochronmercenary/index.htm

And then there is vaporware that might come out someday (that will rock your socks off) called Infinity:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7eREddMjt4


But yeah, the whole hunt, gather thing gets old after a while. A lot of us (myself included) would LOVE for another Wing Commander like game to be made and sold. I want epic story, laid out the same way Wing Commander 1 and 2 did it and I don't even need live actors but it'd be nice. At least animated so the story flows better than Freespace 1 / 2 do (which are still awesome regardless, especially with mods). I find I spend more time sitting around playing modded old space games than worrying about new ones. There's so much to play.

Evochron is like the X games though, a single player Eve, not really an action title.
The modding community with these games is impressive, especially with Freespace. I still need to try that B5 version.