Freelancer just nailed everything. The looks, the sounds, the world, and the story/atmosphere. On top of that it was great fun in multiplayer.
It wasn't very realistic but it didn't need to be. It was fun and easy to play. It also wasn't filled with overly complicated crafting systems or complex economy simulations.
That's one thing I really dislike about many modern games, why do they always need to have a crafting system? Take Elite Dangerous, a game I really love, even that has crafting in the form of Engineering. It's just too much hassle and it takes away the fun for me. It feels like a job.