Quote Originally Posted by Forward Observer View Post
If you want something with a bit more meat, the most involved and dynamic sandbox space shooters are the "X" series of game. The latest is X3:Reunion. It's well over two years old now, but has been re-issued with quite a few updates and additional content over the original. (It originally came with Starforce copy protection, which was removed in the re-issue.) It's also available on Steam for direct download.

The graphics are far superior to Freelancer, but don't require anything outlandish to run, and another big difference is that you can eventually acquire multiple ships, hire pilots, and form squadrons of space craft. I believe you can even conquer and own whole planets.

Be warned though, it has a fairly complex learning curve and probably will require a joystick to fly combat missions properly. Still, everybody that takes the time to get into it simply raves about it.
Well, not everyone raves about it. I was a hardcore space sim/flight sim addict (before that whole genre mysteriously died out), and I didn't like X3 at all. I tried to like it, and spent a lot of time with it because there was nothing else around, but too many things bothered me, like....

* Dumb, predictable enemy pilot AI, and simplistic two-dimensional "fighter on rails" combat with restricted speed limits (something I really hate in these types of games). I just didn't find the combat that much fun, and combat can't be easily avoided. The only space sim where I really enjoyed the pure flying/fighting style was Independence War 2, which at least made a stab at realistic physics.

* All the action in X3 takes place on square spatial grids between jump points, and those action areas are fairly small, with objectives close together. Probably a necessary consequence of the silly speed limit caps, but the game world felt pretty cramped, for a "space" game.

* In X3 there are capital ships like cruisers and battleships as well as the usual fighters, but they have no separate crew or in-depth systems management. So they fly and fight just like big, lumbering fighters with more firepower. I appreciate that they do let you fly a capital ship... something most of these games don't do, but the way they did it feels like a cheap shortcut.

* You can become an industrial power with a private space navy, but there is no conquest mode for capturing and controlling territory. It always belongs to someone else, even though you may have factories and other assets there. And there is no diplomacy mode to interact with the main factions that control space. Just trade and piracy interaction, basically. This leads to a big disconnect in the late phase of the sandbox game, when you're tooling around with the most powerful navy in space, but that's not reflected in any of the interactions with the main factions. You're the Rodney Dangerfield of space -- can't get any respect. So there is no real reward for attaining that industrial and combat power, aside from just beating up on everyone for the hell of it.

Anyway, it's worth trying if you like space games. Not everyone will have my objections, and I know some people like it. Also, that review is from about a year after the game was released.... I don't know how far the modders have taken it.

I do highly recommend Independence War 2 though, if you haven't played it and you like space games. For me, it was the absolute best of the genre and hasn't been surpassed... at least in terms of the spaceflight and combat physics. Unfortunately, that great game engine was trapped inside a restrictive, hard-coded linear storyline, instead of being more of a free-form exploration/adventure format. So it's a love/hate relationship for me, but it's still my personal high-water mark for this type of game.