Ares Rising

A group of former Origin staffers and members of the original Privateer team got together to create this space sim, which is a spiritual succesor to the original Privateer.

You play Mike Marlowe, a romantic Han Solo-like character who finds himself on the run after scoring with a certain princess. In his run from the law, he finds a haven and steady jobs through a mysterious woman who eventually gets you caught into the main game plot involving the obligatory alien device and a group of warring factions, the IPEC, the Scavage, the Mayjr, etc. You are able to freely decide your relationship with every faction by the way you treat other ships, the missions you take, and other plot decisions which can lead you to 5 possible endings.

There are two selectable flight model (the standard Wing Commander-like and an inertial one that resembles I-War's). Gameplay consists of standard space "sim" action, with a series of missions that range from the usual patrols to bounty hunts, ambushes, all-out confrontations, etc. There's no trading whatsoever in the game, and the cargo space in the ship is used only to measure the quantity of equipment you can carry, and speaking of equipment you have a humongous selection of weapons (under three categories) missiles, and other goodies like active/passive radars, cloaking devices, jamming mechanisms etc. As well as 6 ships to fly in.

Multiplayer support is also available, with a persistent pilot who has to gain money and goods by duking it out on the net or via modem/lan in plain deathmatch, team battles or cooperative missions.