The original Wing Commander was like that. Playable on 286s/386s, then Pentiums and beyond showed up and it was unplayable. The game started in the "simulator" to show you the controls, and you'd get blown out of space in about 0.5 seconds.

Oh man, I remember that: on a newer computer, I'd tap the left arrow to turn and the Hornet would do a 360.

I suppose, technically, that's one way to make the Scimitar feel more responsive...

The original Wing Commander brings back memories! I remember being amazed by the graphics and the story.

These days I cannot stand games with cliched storyline and tend to skip the cutscenes, but back then it all seemed so amazing... like a cross between a movie and a game.

I remember playing it later and running into speed issues too, but usually there was a way to tweak the emulator in order to fix this.