For whatever reason over the last few days I've developed a craving to play some space-themed games.  I looked through my collection of PC games, roms, and everything else but wasn't able to turn up much.  As of right now I'm stuck on dial-up, but I get occasional access to high speed so my chances to check out more games are limited. 

I'm looking for suggestions for games of interest.  Ones that involve spaceships, space exploration, trading, combat (though not necessarily), and a story of some sort.  Two examples I've played I can think of off the top of my head are Solar Winds and Freelancer, and an upcoming game I'll be checking out is Infinite Space.  I'm more concerned with the ability to travel around than I am with the combat aspects.  Something with a galaxy or solar system with planets to visit, trading routes to establish, quests/adventures, etc.  For example, Descent Freespace isn't really what I'm looking for as it's pretty heavily focused on combat.  Even a strategy game or RTS would be fine, too.  Also I'm not very picky about graphics, either.

Also I'm not really picky about what system it's on.  I'll gladly emulate something or play a flash game or browser game, or indie, or dos etc.  My PC doesn't have amazing specs but can run most any game as long as it doesn't require intense graphics.  I'd prefer for the game to be on the DS or PSP if possible as those are the two systems I play the most these days but that's not really a big deal.  NES, Genesis, SNES, PSX, etc are all fine.

Anyways, suggest away or feel free to ask me more specific questions.

SPACE QUEST IV. SPORE. fuuuuck you giving really boring restrictions!! basically all you got is freelancer the ur-quan masters (lol) master of orion series uhhh some other dumb space-strategy games. UFO: enemy unkown though you MAY be better off with the new ones called aftermath and aftershock. X4 for the modern day Elite, though your computer propably explode if you try to play it (imagine freelancer but made by germans. yeeeeepppp). Alpha Centauri for an excelent Civilization-in-Mars - experience. you got only dumb shooters for consoles save metroid series and that's not really space.
OHH OHH, Space Rangers 2 is literally your description check it out! Also EVE Online for literally the best scifi-mmorpg. Sword of the Stars for a good space-strategy games. welp looks like there's plenty of good games to pick from i'm dumb but don't expect good stories or any fucking originality or suprise at all.

Star Control 2 for the PC should be pretty close to what you're looking for.

You could always give Earth and Beyond a try.  It's not had official servers for years but there's an emulator in progress atm.  It's been several months since I've played it but it was pretty playable at the time, and I'm sure it's even better now.  The only real drawback is that some things haven't been implemented yet and the server goes down every now and then for maintenance, but it's still one of my favorite space games.

Space Rangers 2, Sword of the Stars, Star Control II, and Earth & Beyond all sound great. 

I'll check them out when I get a chance.  Thanks!

pes2010 is the best space game of our generation


you can fight a space monster like this

Jesus shit ahahahahaha I've never laughed so hard Vellfire. My gut hurts... what a funny gitch. The context of you posting that and your comments make it exponentially funnier though :)

Transcendence is pretty good. Runs on just about anything too: http://www.neurohack.com/transcendence/

i really love vids of game glitches.  there are quite a few for both fifa 10 and pes 10 (mostly from the demos) but none of them came anywhere close to that one in being totally awesome.

someone link me to more really extreme game glitches i want more like that one

i really love vids of game glitches.  there are quite a few for both fifa 10 and pes 10 (mostly from the demos) but none of them came anywhere close to that one in being totally awesome.

someone link me to more really extreme game glitches i want more like that one

This one's funny and makes no sense: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PBS4gNb5go
It's from Just Cause 2 which just came out a week ago. Not quite as awesome as yours but still good.

HA! That's incredible. I want that multi grapple mod. I can't find it though

I'm not interested in playing Freespace 2.  I've played Freespace before and the combat got boring.  Since that's all that game had going for it I dropped it for something else.