Microsoft Flight Simulator

[briareos_kerensky]

It sort-of mirrors the many refunds asked on Steam when the game came out. People wanted to check the graphics, and maybe thought it wasn't that simulative...even if it's in the friggin' title.

[Brad]

Yeah it’s not a simulator in the way that DCS is plus you can’t blow stuff up so really it’s Google earth with planes in it. Which is really cool if that’s what you want! I’d get bored pretty quick without the ability to shoot stuff etc.

[briareos_kerensky]

Yeah it’s not a simulator in the way that DCS is plus you can’t blow stuff up so really it’s Google earth with planes in it. Which is really cool if that’s what you want! I’d get bored pretty quick without the ability to shoot stuff etc.

Civilian flight simulators have a charm of their own. You don't get to blow stuff up, but there aren't things trying to blow you up, so it's all about following proper flying rules and take your time mastering as many planes as you can. Plus there are already a small number of fast military jets available, so you can sonic boom your way over as many cities as you want.
And if you play online you can get your share of heart-pounding stuff: like when I landing in San Francisco in a VL-3 and a 787 ignored traffic control and took off from the same runway as mine, and traffic control frantically issued a go-around order for me :P And I was in final!

[nonny]

Then they are clowns. The only downside to MS Flight Sim is that it needs a fairly high-end PC to run smoothly and it takes up a chunk of HDD space.

In VR the experience is incredible - maybe the were expecting to be Maverick - that's not what Flight Simulator is. It's a simulator.

Maverick is coming at the end of the year so I'm eager to see just what they do with that... Could go either way really.

[Brad]

Civilian flight simulators have a charm of their own. You don't get to blow stuff up, but there aren't things trying to blow you up, so it's all about following proper flying rules and take your time mastering as many planes as you can. Plus there are already a small number of fast military jets available, so you can sonic boom your way over as many cities as you want.
And if you play online you can get your share of heart-pounding stuff: like when I landing in San Francisco in a VL-3 and a 787 ignored traffic control and took off from the same runway as mine, and traffic control frantically issued a go-around order for me :P And I was in final!

Oh sure, some folk love all that! Mate who I fly DCS with likes that too. The actual aircraft aren’t simulated too well either in msfs, which is fine. Suits a lot of people. Like forza horizon but for planes might be a good comparison? I’m only going off what I’ve heard from Uber flight sim nerds.
Does msfs actually support supersonic speeds now then? It didn’t at launch.

DCS is getting the Eurofighter next year, which I’m super hyped for. Joint development from True Grit who have ex typhoon pilots and tech crew on the team, and Heat Blur who made the Viggen and the Tomcat so good pedigree. I should start a flight sim thread really.

[MartyG]

I shall definitely keep an eye on that (though these DCS add-ons aren't cheap) - but it may be worth it for the Eurofighter plug-in.

DCS and MS Flight Sim are very different games - MSFS is definitely concentrating on the visuals aspect, but on stick it feels good enough to me; sometimes all you want is to be able to fly through the mountains and land at Lukla. By any objective measure, this isn't a 1 star game.

[eastyy]

Seen these DCS around but are they actual campaigns or are they just aircraft simulators ?

[Brad]

Seen these DCS around but are they actual campaigns or are they just aircraft simulators ?

There are actual campaigns. And people make their own. And you can make your own too. There are multiplayer servers and you can run your own server too, for free.

The core game is free. Properly free, not freemium. You get one map and a couple of planes. The planes are lower fidelity and don’t have clickable cockpits. If you enjoy it you’ll eventually want to buy one of the high fidelity aircraft. The standard price for a single aircraft is about £60 but often they are cheaper in sales. You can pay for more maps and stuff too and of course if you want to have proper controls that can cost hundreds or even thousands. But you don’t have to. You can try it for free and play with an Xbox pad if you like

[BIG EDD]

https://metro.co.uk/2021/07/26/microsoft-flight-simulator-xbox-series-x-review-flying-the-world-14989930/

Seen two reviews now both claiming this game has the best next gen console graphics so far. I know it's not everyone's cup of tea but I'm ready for take off

[nonny]

I think that's a lofty headline grabbing statement ... But it does at least look better than I would have imagined on both consoles, particularly the Series S.

I just wish asobo maybe loop back with updates after launch to maybe streamline or improve the menu interface for console use. It's quite clearly a bit limiting in most reviews.

[Cassius_Smoke]

On the surface it feels like a bit of a cheat. It's essentially high res photos layered over a 3D texture that you fly over. But then, isn't everything? Even the unreal demo was just 4k images put on top of 3D rocks.
If I owned an Xbox I'd be messing around on this for ages. I'd put headphones on and just Coast the skys.

[hudson]

Get yo'self a Series S for buttons and ride those clouds like Mario chasing down mad coin.

[MartyG]

https://metro.co.uk/2021/07/26/micro...orld-14989930/

Seen two reviews now both claiming this game has the best next gen console graphics so far. I know it's not everyone's cup of tea but I'm ready for take off

I've seen a review from a source I trust that says, generally speaking, the game is a solid 30 FPS at 4K on Series X 99% of the time - he did find one instance in one plane at one particular airport that for some reason made it run at 3 FPS, but I'd imagine there's some quirk going on there that can be patched.

Overall, the impressions seem very positive indeed, the only barrier to entry to give it a try (well, along with having the console of course) is a month of Game Pass and ~100GB download - so definitely worth a try I think.

[BIG EDD]

I haven't played a flight sim in years so it'll be interesting to try this.

[MartyG]

What I'm more interested to see over XSX performance, is how these have translated to the PC version which is supposed to get a patch tomorrow - I'd definitely appreaciate an uplift for the VR experience.