A great game for when you just want to have a little fun and not worry about water-cooling your graphics card.
Missions galore
Open ended space
Multiple roles
Incredibly varied arsenal to select from.
All sorts of ships type customizable to your tasks.
Custom Universes and setups for all sorts of configurations.
You can basically do it all, mine, fight, trade, do missions. You can play the main story or start up a custom game where you leave the Scarrid (invaders) out of the picture entirely. For example, you can create a game with only pirates, police and you and just get it on from there... Or you can go for the gold and defeat the Scarrid by destroying every one of their bases before they take things over. You will need some hefty firepower and a strong ship, so you work up to it... My kind of game!
Sure there's scarcely anything remotely similar to first person 3D flight, but what this game lacks in graphics is more than made up for with it's variety of game-play, devices and missions.
The universe, based on a grid system, is a no hassles, hyper-jump, time recharge system. Not much within each sector though, bases, asteroids, and ships or all sorts. Not over populated which is nice.
I find the game very attractive for nights when I don't want to flip out my joystick, hassle with 101 key commands or worry about the temperature of my graphics card. Run a couple of missions like transport, destroy, or capture pirates or criminals (provided you have the right equipment in your ship). Then it's off to other things... all round fun. I would say the closest thing to Elite in pseudo 3D top-down style.
Wide screen is supported as well, nice detail.
You can opt to play it with or without the 'undead' option. If you play undead you can rescue after dying from a savegame. If not, when you're dead, you're dead___but you get to show up in the Hall of Fame. I like both modes, the latter give you a sense of precaution and actually makes you sweat when you enter a new unknown sector.
There's an available demo, try it out it give you free play until you reach a certain score. Then for just $25 the full version is more than worth it.