Microsoft Flight in Beta. UPDATE: 'Flight' will be free

[amanoai]

Although I've played pc games for a long time, I have to admit I've never played the MFS in the past. I may give this a shot once it's out.

 

[Red Storm]

Do you need to have an old school joystick to play this? I remember trying FSX with an Xbox controller and I didn't get beyond crashing my plane over and over while trying to take off.

 

[crownjules]

You don't have to use a joystick, but it's highly recommended.

 

[Anteaus]

Do you need to have an old school joystick to play this? I remember trying FSX with an Xbox controller and I didn't get beyond crashing my plane over and over while trying to take off.

With these types of games a joystick or yoke is almost always preferable but my guess is that this version will be much more controller friendly since they are aiming to attract more casual players into this time of genre. If you want to use a Xbox controller, I'd just give a try after release and then get a joystick if you like the game. It's free to play so you have that option.

 

[Josh123]

Add a pair of 20mm cannon and quad .50's and I can finally dust off the old MS Force Feedback Pro stick !!

Same here. I miss playing Fighter Ace

 

[M0oG0oGaiPan]

This is available for download today.

 

[Anteaus]

This is available for download today.

It actually went live last night. I downloaded and played it around 8pm CST. I didn't spend much time playing though. It runs smooth (compared to FSX), though you can tell they used the FSX engine. I'm going to play again tonight and figure out if its worth the hastle for me. The default view is behind the aircraft so if don't see any decent virtual cockpits my time with it will be short.

 

[you2]

Bit confused; is this free forever or just a beta ?

 

[M0oG0oGaiPan]

It's free to play. So you get access to the Big Island of Hawaii and 1 or 2 free planes. You have to pay to access additional areas and additional vehicles.

 

[Anteaus]

Does anyone know if all the addons will be from MS only? I'm hoping they allow third party developers (PMDG, Flight1, LevelD, etc) to sell their aircraft through MS's Flight store. The only way MS will be able to get FS vets to pay any serious attention to Flight will be is if they are commited to substance.

 

[gorydetails]

good no airbus's this 1

 

[DaveSimmons]

From the article, it's the F2P model -- the first 2 missions are free, the rest of Hawii will cost you:

"More content will cost you

Naturally, with a free-to-play model, additional content will cost additional money. At launch, users will have the option to buy the entire chain of Hawaiian islands to fly over and explore - but players won't be able to strike out for the mainland, as fuel is modeled, too.

However, Howard would not disclose the pricing of the additionla content. Additional planes can be purchased, as well as additional challenges. So far, the model does not include ads. "

 

[JimmiG]

I've been a "casual" flight simmer since Flight Unlimited. I like doing the occasional sightseeing flight in a small plane, but can't be bothered with jetliners and doing everything "by the book", flying 12-hour flights in realtime etc.

Still, I find the dumbing down they've done to Flight a bit too much. No ATC or AI traffic makes the world seem dead and lifeless. They've even removed road traffic that existed in FSX. It's just an empty shell of a flightsim. If you pay for all the additional content, it's about $40, almost the price of a full game. Not worth it in its current state. It's basically FSX with a tweaked graphics engine and 99.9% of the content removed.

I also have a hard time understanding what market they're trying to cater to. "Gamers" want guns and bombs, flight sim hobbyists want a proper, full-featured simulator. MS Flights gives you neither.

 

[brandonb]

I downloaded and played it last night. It's not too bad. It seems a bit outdated already with the graphics. But just slightly. Seems to be about year 2006-2008 type graphics quality. I didn't see anything too flashy. I ran it in eye finity and worked just fine except the cockpit glass on the left hand off the first plane was being clipped. So it worked but not bug free. There is no way to change the FOV from what I could tell in the settings. The FPS was acceptable on my rig below but it wasn't 60 fps in 6036x1080 resolution, maybe 25-30ish.

The missions weren't too bad, but the first two were very basic. Land the sea plane near a yacht, and land on the runway. I did play a challenge after unlocking it where you have to fly into coins floating in the air, have to collect 25 of them in 4 minutes, and I believe I had about 10 left after 4 minutes but got a "silver" award (think olympics, bronze, silver, and gold)...

There is experience points for your pilot, the more you play the challenges and do stuff, you get exp and level your pilot. I assume this unlocks the other plane at some point and/or other missions.

It almost seems like a civilian flight game with BF3 type unlocks, but I did not get far enough into it to confirm but when you end a mission you see your points go up much like BF3. There was a multiplayer setting on the menu but not sure what it contains. If you can fly challenges with other people, if so, that might be pretty fun.

While it is not a full sim, and doesn't have bombs (that I've seen), it does seem fairly good for simple flight sim to do random things. I think Microsoft was attempting to hit that goal and they did fairly well. Not that I think that is a huge market or will make them money in the end, but what they set out to do I believe they succeeded in.

 

[gorcorps]

I know it's free but... it looks like garbage IMO. Very very dated visuals.

 

[drizek]

Ya, not impressed

 

[Rudee]

Downloaded it. Played it for about two hours. Deleted it.

 

[blinblue]

I know it's free but... it looks like garbage IMO. Very very dated visuals.

They need to get the people who make Just Cause 2 and get them make Microsoft Flight look good.

 

[Kalmah]

No IFR?? Radios don't work, no ai traffic, when I'm turning the trim knob on my joystick there is no readout on my screen telling me what I'm setting the trim at making me have to look down in the virtual cockpit and use my mouse anyways.

My stupid ass threw $40 at this to get more of the map and an additional plane. (I was assuming the starter plane just had the more advanced stuff disabled) Nope.. just doesn't exist.

Made me want to re-install FSX though.

This game is like 10 years newer than FSX, seems to be the same engine, slightly higher textures and betting lighting, with 90% of actually flying a plane gone.

 

[mmntech]

The only problem with FSX is it ran like ass back when it was launched in 2006, even on the best systems. Six years later, it still runs like ass. There's still X-Plane but I get a little discouraged when their recommended specs suggest using a dual CPU rig. When eight cores aren't enough!

 

[Kalmah]

The only problem with FSX is it ran like ass back when it was launched in 2006, even on the best systems. Six years later, it still runs like ass. There's still X-Plane but I get a little discouraged when their recommended specs suggest using a dual CPU rig. When eight cores aren't enough!

True. FSX ran like ass. I remember settling on an average 9fps. I didn't want to compromise.

I'm re-installing it right now though. Hopefully my newer hardware will help. I have about $300 worth of third party payware addons and texture packs sitting on my hard drive still. I guess I'll spend the two hours getting it all set back up and hope that I'm not disappointed.

 

[Sunny129]

that last one i played was FS9 (FS2004: A Century Of Flight). is the scenery/visual effects and playability really that much better in FSX?

 

[Kalmah]

that last one i played was FS9 (FS2004: A Century Of Flight). is the scenery/visual effects and playability really that much better in FSX?

I could be mistaken, but I believe fs9 is fsx. I'm running updates and stuff right now. But if I remember correctly, when I run fsx it runs fs9.exe.

 

[Sunny129]

well maybe i have my version #'s wrong, but i do know i was playing FS2004: A Century Of Flight...so unless FSX has the above title on the box, they're two different games as far as i know...

 

[waggy]

woo! i loved the old flight sims.