| An
impressive addition to the Flight Simulator family of
software, Microsoft has produced what I think is one of their
best pieces of software ever, were it not for the $74.99 price
tag.
Heck, were it not for that
price tag, I might have bought this piece of software with my
own money instead of having to wait for my most benevolent
boss Jonathon Witherspoon to ship it to me.
But that's not really relevant.
The first thing that struck me about this game when I started
it was the lack of the nice Select Flight feature Microsoft
first included with version 6.1. As such, I docked a point
from the gameplay section. Okay, well, that wasn't the only
reason, but it did violate one of my hard-and-fast rules of
gaming: Don't Screw With What Works.
Now, given, you do have to be a
flight simulation enthusiast to enjoy this game. But even if
you, like myself, can't navigate between VORs and as such have
no way of figuring out where you're going, Microsoft has taken
a page from the freeware and shareware designers who created
programs based on the Global Positioning System, a network of
21 satellites used by civilians and the military in order to
determine position on the earth. All the game's default
aircraft include a generic GPS system that can be linked to
the autopilot in place of the navigational radios.
Now, the aircraft. Well, I can
say one thing: Microsoft did well here. The King Air 350 is
simply a joy to fly, the Cessna's and the Learjet are still
excellent flight models, the Mooney Bravo has excellent
handling characteristics and only a few flaws that I can find.
The heavy jets - the Boeing 737-400 and 777-300 - are both
modeled superbly. Speaking as someone who's flown many
aircraft beginning with Flight Simulator 4.0 for Macintosh,
these are some fine pieces of work that handle well and in my
opinion, quite realistic. The Concorde is also good, but I
only recommend it to more experienced virtual pilots. She's a
hard bird to handle.
On to the multiplayer. Now, the
multiplayer works. That's about the best that can be said for
it. It's no better or worse than it is in the last release of
this game. However, it is an excellent multiplayer system,
which is why they shouldn't have screwed around with it.
Perhaps I'm being hypocritical, but I don't really care.
Replay value is, well, lower
than most games. The problem here is you're always flying, and
even that can get boring after a while. That's why I highly
recommend joining a virtual airlines to help give you
incentives to fly, like accumulated hours, a rank structure,
et cetera.
The graphics are purely
phenomenal, the best yet - as they should be. On my test
system, Pentium III 800 MHz with a NVIDA TNT 32MB graphics
card, it simply was spectacular. There's no other way to
describe it. Certain aircraft do look better than others
though. In my opinion, the best-looking aircraft is the
Beechcraft King Air 350. The propeller effects are very well
done also.
This game has many high points
and few low points, but the main thing that keeps this from
receiving a Staff's Choice award is its relatively limited
market appeal. People who don't like flight simulations won't
buy this game. That aside, bravo Microsoft. Pick up this game
if you don't already have a FS program.
-Stephen Ryan |
Learning Curve: 6 hours
All scores are
out of ten possible points.
Gameplay: 9
Graphics: 10
Replayability: 7
Multi-player: 7
Player Compatibility: 10
-Highs-
Graphics, Good User
Interface, Helpful Manual, Realism, GPS Navigation
-Lows-
Little Innovation,
Ungodly Expensive
-Bottom Line-
If you can get this game
for free or you don't already have a FS program, this is
definitely worth it. If you have FS '98 and a GPS program,
wait until the price comes down.
87%
|
