Going into research when I was a teen and had time to kill on my hands and through pointing and reccommendations, I found about the Wing Commander series. And boy was I impressed with the game concept of a space combat franchise. For those who don't know about it, here is a small description.
"Set in the year 2654 and characterized by Chris Roberts as "World War II in space," it features a multinational cast of pilots from the "Terran Confederation" flying missions against the predatory, aggressive Kilrathi, a feline warrior race (heavily inspired by the Kzinti of Larry Niven's Known Space universe). Cockpit performance affects gameplay: going above and beyond the call of duty results in medals, promotions in rank are awarded at regular intervals, and success or failure on certain critical missions decides the player's plot progress, "winning" or "losing"."
Not only was the gameplay through walkthroughs, reviews and let's play impressive but the icing on the cake was the Voice actors, many of them coming from Science fiction favourites of the past, including Mark Hammel.
After the decline in the series including Privateer expansion games, I was fearing the space combat genre would take a step away letting all the clutter of Fifa, Call of Duty, Halo and other titles that just get me a glance and make me walk away.
.....However about a couple of months ago, someone came to be while I was tipsy and reccommended of a game bearing the title, Star Citizen...... I decided to give it a look over, and then screamed with joy of their concept. It was a space combat game unlike any other, having the aspects of a MMO, RPG, A Shooter and space combat all rolled in one, and still in development I wanted to try it out. So recently this week I helped fund a little for the game to become a alpha and beta tester for the game. If you are interested, check out the publishers website, which if you believe it or not are the SAME developers who made the Wing Commander and Privateer Series's.
The Developers Website: https://robertsspaceindustries.com
The game Wiki: http://starcitizen.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page
I've currently paid or rather pledged a small amount of money to become a alpha and beta tester, which I have had a look at the Hanger module with my own ship, a fighter because Space Combat demands dakka :3. Also from trying out any character interactions with the scenery, they are really making the space combat experience feel genuine. For example going up ladders, moving about insider or around the ships or even getting into the cockpit seat feels exactly like how a real Pilot would do it.
The Schedule for the game is the following:
The Dogfighting Module (estimated December 2013) will allow a limited number of early backers to play test the ship combat portion of the game against other players.
The Social/Planetside Module (estimated March–April 2014) will allow backers to experience the 1st person non-combat planet based environment, consisting of various shops and bars.
Squadron 42/Singleplayer Alpha (estimated August 2014) - little is known at this stage, but it is understood that this module will allow backers to try out the branching single player campaign (known as Squadron 42).
Persistent Universe/Beta (estimated end of 2014/early 2015) - again little is known at this stage, but it is understood that this module will allow backers to access a Beta version of the massively multiplayer persistent universe (known as Star Citizen).
Final Release (estimated Q1 2015) - Full commercial release of both Squadron 42 and Star Citizen.
Also here are some screenshots if you are also more interested in just PICTURES rather than WORDS
Scenery Concept
Space Port Concept
Scenery Concept 2
Star Citizen Trailer
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Star Citizen Hanger Module Sneak Peak (Which I explored myself but not in this video
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Not to mention they have shown some of the many ships they plan to release here are some of the popular ones
The 300i (which is what i bought for alpha and beta testing )
The Aurora
The Constellation
The Idris
The Bengal Class Carrier
