Square Enix tried to revive the genre two years ago with Project Sylpheed for the 360, and it ended up being pretty good - in fact, it's on my list for a future "We Want More vs. Enough Already" column on the "We Want More!" side. Also, ever since I heard about Good Old Games (gog.com) and the fact that they have all the Descent & Freespace games available there for $5.99 each, I've had half a mind to go pick up a new joystick and finally check those out. It's been really depressing to watch the space sim genre die - in the late 90's, I was playing all I could handle with X-Wing, TIE Fighter, Wing Commander: Prophecy, and Colony Wars...then things slowed to a trickle, and the only games I've gotten my hands on in this decade are Starlancer (Dreamcast) and Sylpheed. We need more space sims!

My Best Space-sim memory is not with me playing though. As I was younger my parents kicked me out of the house. So I had to find gamers to play with at there houses. My friend shannon was an uber geek by far. He had the Star Wars poster above his bed and mainly anything from Lucas Arts. One day he let me play WCW vs NWO to get some practice in. Yes I needed practice as he always beat me in that game. So he sat on the computer and popped in this game with an old dude on it. Not sure which lucas art game it was, but came in a box of 5 I think. Just watching him make his way down these narrow paths in his aricraft was just like amazing. just watching him play made me want to own my own computer at the time and try it. How ever once I got my own computer a few years later i didn't ever try it. However watching him play it though did get me to wanna watch Star Wars all over again.

wow what to say what to say. It's too hard to put what I thought about TIE fighter intro complete sentences so instead I'm going to describe what a proper sequel should look like: 1.) Sense of scale. One thing I liked about TIE fighter was that when you saw a star destroyer, you SAW a fucking star destroyer. At the time, i was wowed by how big everything was. If they were to do a sequel, I'd like them to make shit God of War 3 big, just monstrously large ships that would make you wonder how they even made them in the first place. You see an explosion you want to SEE the explosion and make everything feel like what you did had an impact. Because in space there's nothing but the ships and to give you a sense of having a plush environment without anything but a black background is pretty impressive. 2.) Sense of speed. Going into and out of hyperspace was fun and when you sped up I had a harder tie controlling the fighter, I liked seeing things whoosh by and hearing the sounds. MIDI, retrospectively, is pretty shitty, but at the time, TIE had the best set and just made the whole experience WAY WAY WAY better. Just good hard hitting sounds that compliment every action would be nice. 3.) Make sure it stays true to it's action RPGs-ish elements. It was one of the few to get it right. I loved the movement trials, the gran turismo-esque licensing exam you had to go through to get to better missions/ships. Crazy side missions and secret empire missions. You were only on a base but it felt like much more. I liked that they kept the story going, had some simpler elements, and made you feel involved, I guess that goes for any game, but I liked the balance it struck. 4.) Multi-player co-op missions or adventures would be cool, they didn't have good connections back at that time so I can't really fault it for not being there, but it'd be way better now if they could make it happen in a sequel. There are more, but I think that covers a lot of the major points. If I were to play the game today, I don't think I would be able to recapture what I thought because gfx have gotten so much better than it was then, but when you're that small and just playing stuff like that for the first time, it turns into something else. I've only had that experience with zelda and final fantasy 3(US) and one other game but I don't remember was it was called. It started on a beach and you side scrolled your way to stores and a final mission. The whole thing was really funky but it was fun. Anyways, yeah, tie fighter mutha@$#%a.

and earthbound.

My favorite space sim of all time has to be Escape Velocity(and it's various incarnations). True it's in 2D, but there's literally an endless amount of things to do.

One that alot of people seem to have surpassed is Freelancer. It's one of the best games I have ever played. The story was semi crap, narrativewise anyway, but everything else was awesome. Combat in that game was a bit arcady (for a space sim), so I'm not sure exactly how hardcore it was. I would like to say that the combat is great, thugh, and is what I spent most time with. The universe and upgrading stuff was very fun, and also trying to get some cash by doing various tasks. Characters aren't really memorable but I remember that the main character was actually pretty cool and not random space douche. Towards the end there is a rather nice plottwist that you sort of get hinted about but you still get pretty surprised, and it seemed fitting. I would have loved to have played X-Wing and the others when they were about, but I was just too young, so I'm hoping for a remake now. Can't stand those 15 year old graphics.

Weird timing on this article since I've been thinking the past few weeks about old console IPs that we haven't heard from in far too long and immediately Colony Wars comes to mind. Colony Wars was the first console game that really made me feel like my actions impacted the world around me. If you failed a mission it wasn't simply Game Over (not every time at least). The story would adapt, the situation would become even more tenuous, and you'd have to fight on hoping that you'd be able to pull yourself out of the hole you had dug. Colony Wars made everything I did feel like it had weight. It [i]mattered[/i]. Today I'm lucky if the average game's story can hold my interest for a few hours let alone actually feel substantive. Or maybe that's just me looking back at the experience through my nostalgia goggles. :D

In late middle school and all throughout high school I played the hell out of the original Wing commander, Wing Commander II (and expansion levels) and finally the cheesy digitized Wing Commander III and IV (staring Mark Hamill!). I loved them and would play them repeatedly seeing how high I could rank up and trying to perfect every mission. To this day I hope for modern revisions of Wing Commander I and II (arguably the best space flight sims ever and certainly the cream of the crop for the Wing Commander series) with updated graphics and new ships and scenarios, but as each year passes I lose a sliver of hope. If anybody were to remake this series I would be eternally grateful and it would even excuse the pathetic limp-dicked Wing Commander film! (barely).

@John The timing's not weird at all. I frequently think about these games, and I still play the X-Wing games. I'm thinking that it's time to revisit Freelancer, too. Especially Freelancer 2. If I can't find the discs, I believe I can get 'em off Good Old Games.

Does The Last Starfighter count?

The music in Colony Wars was pants-shittingly good. It's my favorite thing about that game. I would tongue kiss a shark to get an up-to-date Colony Wars. Who the hell is sleeping on this franchise?

@ Jeremy That's a good question...one that I plan on asking!

Interesting, this post comes on the heels of [url=http://g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/697997/LucasArts-Teasing-X-Wing-Tie-Fighter-Announcement.html]LucasArts teasing a potential return to the X-Wing and Tie Fighter games[/url].

@Rob I've been kicking this story around for a good two years -- I'm just finally tackling it!

I'm with Jeremy on the tongue-kissing a shark to get a Colony Wars sequel. I loved that game and have often thought about it and why it hasn't gotten a sequel.