Play Strike Commander Online

Strike Commander throws you into the cockpit of an F-16 in a world that feels eerily plausible—it's 2011, but not the one we lived through. Alaska's gone rogue, oil's the prize, and you're running a ragtag mercenary squadron trying to stay afloat. The dogfighting's surprisingly smooth once you get the hang of it (no endless button combos here), but what hooked me were the downtime moments—haggling over contracts in smoky backrooms, deciding whether to betray a client for better pay, watching your crew morale tank after a bad call.

It's one of those rare games where you feel like an actual mercenary, not just a pilot. Screw up a mission? Your best mechanic might quit. Take too many high-risk jobs? Good luck affording missiles next week. The world-building's wild too—Japan's calling the shots globally, there's a simmering holy war, and your radio chatter's full of guys arguing about whether to defect to the "Alaskan Provisional Government." Just don't expect to win any humanitarian awards for your career choices.

Half the time I was more stressed about payroll than enemy MiGs, and I mean that as a compliment.

Each game uses different controls, most DOS games use the keyboard arrows. Some will use the mouse , "Alt" ,"Enter" and "Space bar".