Help me out here, need space games

[DonLorenzo]

Hey guys,

Every couple of months/years I get a craving to play garish space games. It's that time again and I need me some gratuitous, mainstreamy space battles and explosions. Think something along the lines of Nexus: The jupiter incident or a more hands on space/fighter/sim like the X series. I'm currently playing Endless Space, a fairly good if somewhat bland 4x game. I've seen something-something-pegasus, but it didn't appeal. Any tips for me? Something new-ish (released 2010 on) I want most, but some oldies I might've missed are welcome too. Bring on the suggestions, tell me your favourite 'not too much thought required' space games!

[sal_vager]

Space Rangers 2 would be one of my picks, I love that game, or FTL, or any number of old abandonware games

[SciMan]

Freelancer is a good one, if you can get a copy of it. check Amazon, that's where I got my copy, and it definitely runs on Windows XP, not sure if it runs on Windows 7 yet, as I have not tried that yet (still have my old winXP install ready-to-go on an ancient 40gb PATA HDD for backwards-compatibility)

EDIT: Another one is DarkStar One, its quite similar to Freelancer and its available on Steam

Edited September 19, 2012 by SciMan

[sal_vager]

Both Independence War games are very good, capital ship combat and available on GOG.

Edited September 19, 2012 by sal_vager

[DonLorenzo]

Yeah I loved freelancer. Had some good moments in it. Thanks for your suggestions, keep em coming!

[Vostok]

I've heard of Kinetic Void, like KSP with guns and battleships.

[MiNiKiD15]

X2: The Threat is a good one, but X3: Terran Conflict is better if you want to fly around in the Solar system, although the Orbital Mechanics are non-existent, it's just point in direction and keep engines on max throttle

[AmpsterMan]

Galactic civilizations 2 is pretty fun.