It has a good story with lots of cool details, decent variation in missions, ships, and weapons, and a simple control scheme with an enormous amount of detail (like shifting your shields around or balancing power between guns, shields, and engines).

BtRL’s control scheme was great. Very fluid, very powerful, and very loyal to the series. In fact the whole game was very loyal to the series, especially in the brilliant sound design.

So how’s it working out so far?

What did you think about the control scheme of beyond the red line?

I played Beyond the Red Line last night, what an incredible demo. It’s hard to believe it was made by a group of fans. The last fight in the second proper mission was way too hard though, I ran out of ammo before I’d even reduced his hull integrity to 90%.

I think I’ll check out XWA next, but I’ve downloaded enough Freespace 2 mods to last me well into 2009

Just got my arse kicked by a destroyer in Freespace 2 – apparently I make a better fighter pilot than bomber pilot. Accidentally installed the game on my Windows partition and then filled up the drive with mods. Now I don’t even have enough disk space to save the pilot profile. Gotta figure out how to move the game.

And as I recall, it’s from the late 90′es, full 3d…

There was also a game that allowed you to fly around a sim city made in sim city 3000 in a chopper…god, if only I knew about modern games what I know about old ones XD

I played Mech Warrior 4 once. Didn’t really fancy it for whatever reason. Admittedly that was with keyboard controls though.

My joystick has arrived btw. It’s a HOTAS, so it creates a strong sense of presence. It has a shitload of buttons though, so it’s a bit intimidating

My favourite feature is the mode selector that has an LED that changes colour when you switch modes. It’s fairly superfluous, but it rocks.

But other than that, yes, you are being very hard to please!

I also just recalled SAR, Search and Rescue…I believe it might actually be a danish game, though I’m not sure. Also hella old tho. Chopper game, where you fly around saving people…It might be fun? I never did try it though…

And then there’s the lander series. Also, again, very old, but it did actually come out in a 3d version at some point. The game is simple in theory: You have a tiny little lander prope with a single jet mounted on the belly of the craft, and you must use it to complete various missions.

But it’s tricky; because as you only have the one jet, you have to use little jet nozzles for stearing rather than rudders…and you basically tilt the craft around to push it where you want it to go. It’s similar to a chopper game in that way, but the focus is obviously quite different. Still, what with having a joystick around now, I should mention it because of it’s unique gameplay.

The Ace Combat series is really not for me, I tried it on Xbox 360, but it’s way too chaotic and confusing. In theory it’s exactly what I’m looking for, but in practice it’s just too… well, too Japanese. It’s the only way I can describe it.

I know, I’m being very hard to please

X-Wing Alliance, I will look into. I didn’t think about it because it’s so old, but if you say the graphics have been kept up-to-date by the community, I should give it a shot. I’m checking out Freespace 2 first though, which also has a million billion mods (no exaggeration), and I still have a half-completed Darkstar One savegame lying around, plus if I get really starved for space sims I never did make it very far into Freelancer, so I think I’m pretty well set for space games for now.

Crimson Skies was epic. Loved it. Bought it. Lent it to a friend. Never saw it again. Asked him for it recently but he finally came clean and admitted that he’d lost it. Now I’m waiting for the sequel.

A sequel better happen.

I remember the Strike series! Specifically Jungle Strike, I played it in the youth club when I was but a wee lad, on the rare occasions that one of the older kids deigned to load it up for me (damn you, MS DOS!) I remembered it with great nostalgia as well, but earlier this year I actually downloaded it from The Underdogs and… well, it didn’t hold up very well to time

For now it’s moderately-complicated IL-2 and Freespace 2 for me. I also found the demo for a modern flight combat game called Lock On which looks reasonably accessible, and I think I’ll be tracking down a copy of Gunship from 2000 for my helicopter fix, as I’ve heard many good things about it. I also recently remembered that I used to lust after Yager because of the lush futuristic landscapes, so I’ll probably try to find that as well.

I declare this christmas the season of flight games!

But Ace Combat is not for me. Too Japanese.