I'm gonna kick off with...
Freelancer
Now, bit of a specialist game because it was designed by Microsoft Games Lab as a "non-joystick flight sim". Basically, the entire control scheme is based around using the mouse to navigate which naturally appealed to me because my joystick has always been....temperamental. The game is a flight sim where theres a long storyline that travels around 4 distinct regions of space (completing various missions and stages within each) and then culminating in a massive huge final battle. At the end of this, you're given free reign to do whatever the hell you like, but you can also do this throughout the game by simply ignoring the storyline missions.
The location is a large area of space called the "Sirius sector". Basically, some time ago, the solar system was taken over by huge civil war between two forces: The Coalition, and the Alliance. The former gains the upper hand...yadda yadda yadda and the Alliance decides to create 5 sleeper ships to leave the system, all of which are named for their own patron nation: The Kusari (Japan), The Rheinland (Germany), the Bretonia (UK), the Hispania (Spain) and the Liberty (USA). Each of them provide the four main houses in the game, and the fifth (Hispania) provides two of the main criminal factions. Each place has a litany of law abiding factions from police forces and corporations, as well as equal numbers of lawless factions (pirates, political radicals etc.)
I wont elaborate on the plot, but it's very long and engaging consistently throughout the game. It gets bloody difficult at the end, which for me is nice to have the challenge. But I think the graphics and music create some of the greatest moods and feelings for each of the areas, I think this has to be one of the most atmospheric games I've played, hence my recommendation.
In any case, its a 2002 game designed to run on Win98 and XP, so any computer will run it without a hitch within reason.
I'll do some more recommendations later but I'll let others go ahead.
![Image](http://games.softpedia.com/screenshots/4-252_1.jpg)
A nice beauty shot of a Defender Liberty fighter
![Image](http://www.clantfo.com/pics/screenshots/weekly/9-4-04bobafettfreelancer.jpg)
An online shot of a Liberty dreadnaught going boom!
![Image](http://www.discoveryfl.com/assets/images/thomashill1.jpg)
Lovely image of a Bretonian Crusader fighter and a showcase of the graphics engine.