5d ago

What is your favorite simulator game?

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?

96 comments

Elite Dangerous and i also love old school mechwarrior 2
- Elite Dangerous FTW. 🤘🏼
  I haven't played since ~planetary landings/Mamba release (pre-TurdReich, IIRC?🤮), but back then, me & my Mur-der-Lance in Black Friday skin were proudly part of the anti-griefer brigade.
  (Huge underbelly particle cannon + overcharged boost for baiting said ass-clowns into a 180° top speed yaw-slip one-shot kill trap = mmm, so good <chef's kiss>)
  Even DIYed my desk chair w/ Vesa mounts to house a Warthog replica HOTAS, and ran an alt rig overhead for the Index to the battlestation (vs the default full room, standing set-up), et al.
  Ahh... Those were the days. 🤩❤️‍🔥
  p.s. Nowadays, I get close to reliving that nostalgia via my heavily-modded (250+) Starfield NG+, but am quietly & reservedly hopeful for the upcoming Osiris Reborn release... 🤞🏼😅
  ^ahem <*glares @ No Man's Sky launch*>
  
  What kinda mods are you running for Starfield??

I'm going to go with Euro truck simulator 2.
The experience of chill driving across europe and listening to podcasts is nice. The game isn't complicated enough to affect listening experience, but also engaging enough on it's own right that it stays interesting.
I have probably seen 80% or so of the roads and cities, bit they still feel fresh... Could be that I'm forgetting places faster than I'm getting familiar with them as well.
I do have a steering wheel and pedals, but they're just too cumbersome to get out and my wheel stand is made for someone at least 20 shorter than I am, so the experience is hampered a bit anyway. Because I'm lazy I've just resulted to driving witn mouse and keyboard combo.
Edit: typos. Typing on phone is butts
- Yep. I have all the map and special delivery DLCs too and it’s awesome.
  I don’t get it why exactly, but it’s awesome just seeing the detail they put into the game. Getting all the photo locations is really hard!
  And some of the achievements take a looooong time to get.
- Came here to say ETS2 as well. I want to eventually get a sim rig set up so it's even better, but even with just a controller it's a very relaxing experience, supports VR too.
- It's a really great game and it's really relaxing.
- It's so good in VR. I call it a rubbernecking simulator. You're missing most of the game without it imo. I spend most of my time looking out the windows at the views.
  
  It's great in VR, i just have an ancient oculus devkit 2 or so, its horrid mess of cables I don't want to deal with
  Too early adopter issues. :P

KSP 1
- 2nding this, but also I'm looking forward to KSA, hoping it can be the true successor
- I credit Kerbal Space Program for my ability to think in three dimensions. Without KSP, I would have been some kind of dumbass. I thought getting to orbit was just a matter of going up until I was like 18 years old
  Have you ever pulled up an old save file to look at the stuff you used to design? I did that the other day and found out that I used to be good at this game. Folded space stations, massive mining rigs, Apollo Style landers, a beautiful SSTO that's braindead easy to fly, an interplanetary module that can dock to the back of said SSTO, I made fancy shit. Nowadays I just slap boosters and docking ports on fuel tanks and call it good enough
  I gotta post pictures from that save file sometime

Goat Simulator

Motor Town, Operation Harsh Doorstop, Easy Red 2, Sailwind, Hydroneer, Liftoff!, Shredders, Old Market Simulator, Cold Waters Dot Mod, Nebulous Fleet Command, From The Depths, Helicopter Gunship DEX and Out Of Ore are all great "sims".
I also consider extremely mechanically deep rpgs with realistic systems like Cataclysm Dark Days Ahead or Unreal World to be simulators and both are superb.
I am trying out Ships At Sea but don't have enough experience yet to give a thumbs up or down yet on it (Check out Sailwind!).
Sailwind is a "sailing simulator" as in actual sailing!
- I have only heard of two of those so youve given me a large list of games to check out, thank you
- Motor Town is amazing from such a small team. Great force feedback and VR support as well.
  
  It isn't marketed primarily as a racing game or a high speed driving game, but it just feels so damn good I have put SO many urgent taxi job miles in that game it isn't even remotely funny.
  I regret none of that time lol
  I also love doing urgent taxi jobs and cruising in multiplayer while being around players doing radically different vibes of driving jobs.
  It makes the whole driving experience so much more interesting than when everyone is just driving lamborghinis and ferraris are 200mph and the rest of the vehicles are AI. The map just ends up feeling "more alive" somehow in Motor Town, idk I love it.
- Check out eSail as well, if you like sailing.
- I'll definitely look at Sailwind, I'd love a good sailing sim. Thanks for the rec!

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

Elite Dangerous

X-Wing was the reason I jumped from Atari ST to DOS/Windows.
- Damn. And I thought I was old, Methuselah. 🙇🏼‍♂️

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.
- I bought that game just because I watched the Noclip documentary series on the developers. I haven't played it yet, and I'm not sure I ever will, but goddammit I love those two men.
- It's not a simulator, it's a parallel world.

Assetto Corsa
Amazing game, could have more varied maps in free access servers, but the game is old so it's ok
- It's my favorite racing sim. Good pick.

I spent a lot of hours in F-19 Stealth Fighter on the Atari ST as a kid. The manual for that thing was unbelievably in-depth. I'm utterly convinced I could fly real combat missions in that (fictional) plane.
- YES! I PLAYED THE SHIT OUT OF THAT GAME!!!

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.
  
  https://archive.org/details/msdos_WolfPack_1990
  Have fun!

This has to be roller coaster. Period.
- Like the og Roller coaster tycoon 2 for example.
  
  Is that a simulator game? I thought "tycoon" was a different category.
  If it fits, I'm on board with it as the GOAT.

Carmageddon. It taught me everything I needed to know about the role of pedestrians while driving.
- I think this is the first time I've EVER seen carmageddon mentioned. Great game

Assetto Corsa, hands down. The mod community have made it into something quite special. I've got pretty much every other driving/racing sim as well, but I keep coming back to AC.
- Any idea if there is a way to get the mods to work on Linux?
  
  Not sure, maybe through Wine, but I'm almost certain it won't work with my Moza wheel and pedals, or VR.
- For example, here's a clip of me driving a Ferrari 321PB around Targa Florio from dawn to dusk. Almost everything in this clip is a mod.

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

I can't believe no-one's mentioned BeamNG.drive. The stuff that game simulates is off the charts. It's been in 'early access' forever, but if you're even remotely interested in driving simulators, it's the gold standard for a realistic driving experience. Crashing in VR in this game is the most visceral thing ever. It'll change you.
Here's a clip of me driving a RHD Piccolina around one of my local roads a kindly modder added to the sim until I crash catastrophically.

It was Aces High II
- That was my first thought when I saw OPs screenshot. I still hear "check 6" in my head every time I get zoom and boomed in War Thunder

X-plane. Ms flight simulator is drop dead gorgeous, but X plane has a better flight engine.
- You can do a lot to improve how it looks, too. There's a lot of custom terrain, and you can download meshes made from satellite photos.
  It also works better in VR.

I like OpenTTD. Based off the old Transport Tycoon game

Rise Of Flight - United
I've always been a little obsessed with Sopwith Camels because they are one of the prettiest but also most insane things to fly into battle with. ROF does an excellent job or giving me that fix :) Also ROF is free to play (and the DLC with the Sopwith right now is super cheap).

Apache longbow 2 from 1997.
Edit: got original mixed with 2

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
- If you like building sets, you should check out Rolling Line.
  
  Not so much the collecting. I like learning how to drive them, and driving them. I blew up my steam engines the first several times I touched the controls

I spent way too much time on Red Baron. The simulation was just good enough to convey the awkwardness of piloting machines that in the end were made of wood, fabric and heroic faith, including the Sopwith Camel's notorious torque issue that made it constantly drift to the right.
- That was another great one; it's one of the most fun eras to fly in.

Cultist Simulator. (half joking 😂).
Big fan of Cities Skylines in city simulator genre.

Sim Collector Simulator

ACC is my favorite right now.

UBOAT, submarine sim and even though it gets very tense at times it is also quite cathartic.
Euro/American Truck Simulator, its the perfect game to chill to and I have been known to fall asleep while driving :/

VTOL VR
https://store.steampowered.com/app/667970/VTOL_VR/
- VTOL VR is incredible
  
  I bought a VR headset solely to play VTOL VR; worth it!

My parents got me a copy of Harrier Jump Jet by Microprose one christmas. I can't even begin to imagine how many hours I spent on that game, both actually playing it and studying the manual for it. Still have the manual actually but the floppies are long gone.
After that I got every Microprose sim I could get my hands on, F14 Fleet Defender was probably my favorite after Harrier.
Then I kinda lost interest in simulators until Arma came along, spent years where I hardly played anything else.
Nowadays though ETS is pretty much the only sim I play.

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.

SWOTL.EXE

SimTower is my jam or SimCopter

American Truck Simulator.

IL-2 Sturmovik: 1946

Swat 4 🤷‍♂️

Euro truck simulator 2! I have lots of hours in this game, playing date and night. At some point I had a Logitech wheel with pedals and shifts, it was so damn good!!!
My routine was to get a long route through graphic and small roads, listening to radio for hours.

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.

B-17 (intellivision)
F19 (Atari computer)
Jumbo jet (Atari computer)

Falcon BMS. It’s a mod of falcon 4.0 from the 90’s. Best combat flight sim out there. DCS is prettier, I guess, but, overpriced garbage by comparison.

Farming Simulator.
I grew up in the country and moved to a city. It's neat to see how accurate the older tractors and equipment are to real life.

Anything by Janes Combat Simulations.

I definitely have the most time spent in Project Cars 2 on PS4, but I've since switched to PC sims and have been playing Automobilista 2 since it is the most similar.
I'd like to get into Assetto Corsa more but idk how to get the mods running on Linux / Steam

XWing Alliance will probably always be my favorite, but Elite Dangerous is up there. If Elite had story missions and a singleplayer campaign to elaborate on the world building, it probably would be my favorite.

SimCity 4 and Factorio.

BeamNG.drive
Starsector
Dwarf Fortress
Dota 2 (psychological warfare simulator)

Oh my god I think this is one of the two games from my childhood that I first played and have not for the life of me been able to find
The other is some weird frog sidescroller platformer I got at Staples as a kid in the late aughts or possibly early 2010s

Heavy Gear 1 and 2. So much fun when multiplayer ever worked.

I like goat simulator

The one where you get to shoot jfk.

96 comments