Very good review and pretty much my opinion on this topic!

Great review BeachAV8R, and I say that as someone who is actually enjoying Flight.

The lack of TIR support is ridiculous, and I you nailed it about how bad the "first impression" is for a simmer (just like with XP10 recently).

After flying that poor Icon in those baloon and wedding missions I was ready to park Flight (much as I did FSX when it first came out), but thankfully I gave the Stearman a try in Freeflight and multiplayer and found that I actually enjoy flying around Hawaii in low level and interacting with others in Multiplayer.

Yeah I've seen a couple of asshats as you see in any multiplayer pub server game, but I've also ran into quite a few nice new sim flyers who seem to like this sim flying thing and appreciated the help with their questions, on one MP session I actually ran into a nice guy who had parked his plane and was playing ATC controller at Hilo airport where I was doing touch and goes, and once myself and another pilot played along using proper radio calls soon we had even the new simmers asking for permission to land and if the runway was clear etc.

Overall I agree with you that Microsoft shoots itself in the foot and creates a poor first impression for simmers (no TIR and all the harder core aircraft being DLC only), the Hawaii DLC was decent value at $20 IMHO but $15 for the Maule is overpriced and they won't sell many more like that.

Much to my surprise though, I'm enjoying Flight's improved performance, lighting and graphics and especially the multiplayer and am spending a good amount of time flying it as a relaxing sim when not flying FSX, and there's a lot of potential here if MS quits listening to that console guy in the conference room and gets busy adding TrackIR, ATC and autopilot, maybe even someday an SDK and 3PD support would make for a great FS11.

Great review. I have to say I agree with all of it. Lets hope Micosoft reads any of these. Flight does have potential.

Rob

As I said to Beach... Ironic that Microsoft created a flight game that holds the attention span even less than the flight sims they dropped because they didn't hold attention span.

Thank you for your well written review. I believe that “Flight” was never destined to be the FSX successor per say, but rather a very steady assessment platform. I anticipate the minute their download and sales data is refined and developed into a healthy business model we will see purpose, or failure. The bottom line is “Flight” is a very good platform that can be redirected into a very realistic and sophisticated simulator, or retained as is, simple and fun… what’s behind door number two?

-rjetster

I actually like Flight more than FSX. Does that make me a drooling Call of Duty Xbox player?

I can't say I enjoy either of them though. As you mentioned, I honestly find them boring and lacking of anything worthwhile to do. Give me a combat flight sim any day. Being able to fly an aircraft is one thing. Being able to fight it is another.

You hit the nail on the head Chris, I did buy the Islands because it included an RV-6A but I couldn't see buying the Maule for $15 and that's the problem, where is the value of that just to complete missions? It just ain't gonna fly.

...Anyone else noticed those 944 pounds of live cats on the mission selector? That would be a lot for the cargo compartment, or indeed, the cabin of any light aircraft.

Something just doesn't seem to compute for me. Not even with all those eye-candies.

Nice review!

EDIT:

Actually it is a photo...

Well-done extremely informative review. I would agree with most everything in it except for one thing: the flight model. I'd turned up every slider and checked every box I could find and it still felt like ArmA 2 with an added trim feature to me. Maybe I'm biased because I'm used to things like DCS A-10C and Black Shark but I just don't like it. *climbs down from soapbox* Good day.

Good review!

Regarding it being a "fail" when it comes to appealing to non-simmers - My father in-law has never played a flight simulator in his life. He has probably seen me do it at times and has never seemed to express any interest. He has always been interested in aviation, though, and he happens to live in Hawaii. I sent him the link to MS Flight. He downloaded it, tried it, and stayed up until mid-night the first night playing it. He bought the HI Adventure Pack and has supposedly not been able to stop playing since. He is just using a mouse and laptop. I know this is only n=1, but it still shows that there may be some hope for M$'s strategy here...

Also, regarding this:



Carefully read what each check box does. Checking some boxes increases realism, while checking others decreases realism...