Is there some kind of list of games that are like or "almost" like Wing Commander for all platforms capable of playing video games (PC with any OS, Mac, PS2, GC, handheld devices, etc) ?
The Slyfox games can be found as disk images at several C64 places. Even though I don't know if I can link to this kind of place (But c'mon it's so old... better not to take chances).
Oh you can also get several versions of the original Elite at:
The Star Wars X-Wing/Tie Fighter Series was a favorite of mine back in the day. Similar, though not as good.
-X Wing
-Tie Fighter
-X Wing Alliance
-X Wing vs Tie Fighter
All released for PC, the first three on the list were released a few years ago in a set called X-Wing Trilogy. The original X-Wing and Tie Fighter were released for DOS, so Lucasarts did sort of a WKS thing to bring them up to date. X-Wing Alliance in particular is an excellent game.
Uh oh, I won't get in trouble for reccomending SW games on a WC forum, will I?
While there is no "replacement" for wing commander, i personally think that the freespace series is awsome. Not so much a personal story as you have no player character, but the over all war story is quite good and i personaly find the gameplay to be just as good as wing commander. Prettier too considering they are both newer games. (If i recal correctly there are actually some people trying to import wing commander ships into the Freespace 2 engine.)
If you havn't tried this game yet you really should. I was huge wing fan until the stoppped making them. There is an online space MMOG called Jumpgate (www.jossh.com) I played it for 4 years before giving it up for Starwars Galaxies. (i have superstar destroyer with my name on it) Its a great game with many different thing to do. I think it was designed to be wing/privateer online before origin got chopped up by EA, but there is no official statement for that. Give it a try I bet you'll be hooked like I was for many years.