starlancer, and xwing alliance are my two fav

And there is the always popular X-Universe with X: Beyond the Frontier and X-Treme. Soon they will release X2 which looks promising.

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FL is good, but watch out for the X-Universe. It will blow you away.

TradeWars

Since Freelancer is the latest, everything before it will be a little of a let down. X2 will probably be on a par with it when it finally gets released. In the meantime if you don't mind regressing a little just for the variety I'd try Independence War 2. If you think you might buy X2, then go way back to X-Beyond the Frontier (XBTF) for the background it gives. Terminus was fun, but I had trouble with my computer crashing in heavily attended battles. If you want just one, in my opinion I'd play Independence War 2.

Earth & Beyond

Earth and Beyond is probably the most like FreeLancer in terms of general feel. But as E&B is a RPG the combat is totally different and largely a matter of who has the biggest guns and has almost nothing to do with flying skill.

Any other more recent game you try will require a joystick and put more emphasis on that. Which in and of itself is also a big departure from the Freelancer game. You might want to hold out for X2 by egosoft or EVE online duew out in a few months.

If you want to go the joystick route I loved XWing Alliance and FreeSpace 1 and 2.

Oon-tee-dee!

Freespace 2. Little old, but still great fun.

The wing commander series? LOL

IWar2.

I'm a softie for LDS.

Asteroids for the Atari 2600. That game ROCKS! (Heheh, get it, rocks?)

Any fan of space sims should play Freespace 2

Ok, personal opinions here:
The older X-Wing series <X-Wing, Tie Fighter and it's expansions> are rather good, though the controls are a bit different and take some getting used to - the ships bank left and right rather than turning in a flat plane, like Starlancer or Freelancer. I wasn't too impressed with the later games <X-Wing vs. Tie Fighter, Alliance>

Freespace still holds my vote for the best space combat sim out there. Admittedly, you played ye old generic pilot <They even just called you 'Pilot' in the game> but the gameplay, ship design and overall feel is, IMHO, second to none. Freespace too is good as well, but I liked the first better.

Starlancer, the precursor to Freelancer, was rather good as well - but if there's one thing I hate, and I mentioned this on another board, it's babysitting missions; the sorts that you have to 'protect X from point A to point B'. Those get annoying very quickly, and Starlancer is rife with 'em.

Tachyon was just a cool game, all around. It didn't shine in any particuliar area, but it wasn't _bad_ in any area either. That, and Bruce Campbell <Ash a la Army of Darkness> voiced the main character. Play the game. Input cheat codes. Listen to his responses.

Back to the old school. Wing Commander and it's sequels were very good as well. 1 was primarily mission based, 2 introduced a rather good plotline that ran through 3. Prophesy had a good storyline in itself, albeit it was a bit offbeat. Still, getting to watch Mark Hamill squished by a giant bug at the end made it all worth it. Privateer - if you can still find it - rocked too. The final note I'm going to put in here is probably one of the greatest tragedies of the genre. Privateer 2 would earn my vote as the best of the best, if it wasn't for the fact that the technical glitches and control issues. The game was released during the transition year between DOS and Windows 95, and as such had problems running except on very specific system configurations. But, the storyline was second to none, the gameplay was cool and... well, what can you say about a video game that listed such folks as Christopher Walken and John Hurt acting in the cutscenes? <No, not voiceacting - this was back in the days of actual video footage>

There are a number of other lesser known games in the genre, but those pretty much stick in my mind as good ones to play off.

Er. Make that 'Freespace 2', not 'Freespace too' up there.
What was that about posting at three in the morning?

To put it all in perspective:

- If you like WWII style fighting (kinda like FL) then
X-wing series (Alliance recommanded) or Freespace series
(note that both of these have a moderate learning curve)

- if you like sophistication and realism then
Independece war series... especially IW2
(note that IW2 has an extreme learning curve)

- if you hate all of the above then
Tachyon: TF, X: BTF, Wing commander series... (oh wait mark hamil is in there so if you hate SW)

- if you have an IQ less than 60 then
Asteroids!! (w00t!)