It's a cliche but they just don't make them like this anymore. In fact I haven't found a true blue space combat since this, even a bad one. There have been some that pretend to be a space combat sim, but they mostly focus on commerce and flying from place to place and rarely have even the most basic physics and combat properly implemented.
Space combat seems to be a forgotten genre and this truly is the pinnacle of it. Starting with such gems as X-wing and the amazing Tie fighter, Freespace 1 was a huge leap technically and gameplay wise. This game had amazing graphics for the time, had a realistic atmosphere and played like a real dogfighter. When Freespace 2 came out I could hardly see how it could improve ton the original, but boy was I wrong. This took the scale up 50 notches and really made you feel like a pilot in a massive war. Not only was the gameplay and graphics greatly improved the variety of missions is phenomenal. One minute you're dogfighting for your life, the next your trying to take down a MASSIVE warship then you are running covert black ops missions.
Really all I can say is buy it now, you won't regret it.