Simulators are one of the earliest PC game genres, and remain compelling experiences to this day, even if they’re not as popular as they used to be.
I like all kinds of combat flight sims; the MS Combat Flight Simulator from 1998 was something special, and I’ve had some similar fun in IL-2 Sturmovik. The newest civil air sims are pretty great too, I’ll pop on a podcast and make a flight. They’re particularly cool in VR.
I’ve also found the MechWarrior games to be fun, but I’ve only played 2 and 5. I got to play a bit of Steel Battalion with the full crazy controller at a con a few years back, and that’s got to be a lot of fun once you really know what you’re doing.
So what’s your favorite sim?
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Elite Dangerous and i also love old school mechwarrior 2
Elite Dangerous
DCS (Digital Combat Simulator)
Tons of well-simulated combat aircraft. IL-2 is probably the closest simulator to it.
DCS is what I play most of the time - particularly the Viper. I help run the unit I play with as well.
Elite Dangerous is the only other sim I play.
Look into falcon BMS
A-10 Attack and A-10 Cuba. Still the crispiest and most enjoyable flight sims I’ve ever played.
OMG I had so much fun with A-10 Cuba on classic macOS. It’s still one of my favorite games.
A-10 Tank Killer was the bomb.
Dwarf Fortress, aka drunken dwarf simulator.
It’s not a simulator, it’s a parallel world.
For me, my favorites are:
RAH-66 Comanche for flying sim.
Wolfpack (from Brøderbund) for submarine sim. I believe it is also free on archive.org. (Added link: https://archive.org/details/msdos_WolfPack_1990)
Euro Truck Simulator 2 for trucking sim.
F1 2019 for racing sim. But it pretty much requires a wheel and pedals if you want to get really good, which does add to the cost.
EDIT: added link
Wolfpack I played up and down 20 years ago. I may check it out again.
Great! Wow.
It was Aces High II
Derail Valley Simulator. I like my trains.
I should get back into that one. I played some in early access, and it was fun.
Depending on how long ago it was, we’ve had a couple of updates recently. You can now paint all your engines, and there’s a ton of gadgets
VTOL VR is incredible
I bought a VR headset solely to play VTOL VR; worth it!
Cultist Simulator. (half joking 😂).
Big fan of Cities Skylines in city simulator genre.
SWOTL.EXE
Train Sim World. Yes Dovetail have their problems, yes its expensive if you want a lot of the latest DLC (why, its not multiplayer so doesn’t decrease in popularity like multiplayer game DLC), yes its not a well optimised graphical tour de force. But damn is it relaxing to play with multiple levels of difficulty that are entirely optional. Its possible to get hundreds of hours of replay from a single route if that’s what you enjoy.
Pick up Derail Valley Simulator. It’s not as pretty, or expensive, but good Lord is it satisfying to learn how to NOT blow up a steam engine.
Not super in-depth like some of these other games but I love Snowrunner. I can count on 3 fingers the number of games I’ve spent over $100 on the game+ additional content in my entire life. Civ5, Civ6, and Snowrunner. It’s such a relaxing game but can definitely be difficult as well. Also i can play music at the same time and not miss any story because there isn’t really any story.
I have spent a lot of money on iRacing and Elite Dangerous. I kind of miss it but also feel that i was way too deep into it to be having fun. It was a struggle to always make things better and i was not really enjoying my self
ACC is my favorite right now.
