And now my own first impression of Flight!

Where oh where to begin… Well for starters, I have just had my first experience with Flight which lasted about... well, a while let’s just say. I did the silly missions and listened to the instructor chick play her ukulele thing. Honestly, my impression of this platform is simply put. It’s a game. But do I like it? Well, in a word, yes. And I believe it is this feeling of mine that Microsoft was banking on. They are playing on my love for flying, my love that is… for flight.

Honestly, I don’t know if I should feel excited to have a new flying game or to feel as if I am being taken advantage of. Because Microsoft knows we will be attracted by the beautiful visuals and exciting aircraft. Perhaps their thought process was: the new person will be attracted to a new cool state of the art flying game while the advanced flight simmer will come because they love their flying so much, they won’t be able to say no.

Well I feel as if I am at a crossroads here. I purchased the Take on Helicopters game last year thinking and hoping it would be a cool realistic helicopter game only to find that there were no clickable buttons or switches in the virtual cockpit. I could barely even read the dials. I totally wasted my money there. ToH was simply a game and nothing more. So, I hung it up in the dark recesses of one of my 3 1TB external harddrives likely to never be seen again.

With Flight, I already know it’s a game. It’s very much what I expected. What arouses my fear about Flight is its true potential. Now don’t get me wrong, ToH can very much be made into more of a simulator or “realistic game” and if Bohemia Interactive choose to do that, then I’ll be back on board. But with Flight, I already know it can quickly become a simulator. The default graphics is not bad at all but it needs serious improvement. For those of you who played the demo, just imagine REX, Ground Environment, Ultimate Terrain, FS Global, and add-ons from the likes of FSDT, ORBIX, FlyTampa, Drzewiecki Design and Blueprint Simul… Oops no not them!! But just imagine all the high quality developers going to work on Flight. It really would be the simulation that could possibly make me fully fly above FS9. But even if these developers did improve upon Flight, there is still the 900 pound gorilla in the room, and that is the Windows Live Marketplace.

There is honestly no way in hell I’ll pay just to get to fly into a region in order to then pay again for the 3^rd party add-ons to go with it. Honestly, what are they thinking over at Microsoft? I need to pay to fly into other parts of the world?? Damn the freedom of FS9 and FSX look good right now. There is just no way will I agree to this no matter how well it looks or how high my FPS gets (which was very high).

So honestly my fear has turned into sadness. Because I know just how great this platform can be. I know that is very likely that it might be great. But I also know for me, it never will be. Not as long as I have to pay for such stupid things, and know that I will not be able to spend hours combing the sites for great freeware for it. Microsoft had built a Great Wall and as a simmer I need to pay tolls, and fees to get through that wall only to find another wall to pay to get over. And as a developer, knowing I have to pay and get licenses to develop for it only to be sold by Microsoft, a multibillion dollar company that will cut into my profits. I am not a developer but you get my point.

Many developers signed NDA’s from the very start and it honestly seems that most are not happy with this. Where I am shocked is that the people over at AVSIM seem to be pleased with Flight. Did they sell their soul to the proverbial devil that is Microsoft? Microsoft is paying AVSIM to advertise on their site… Flight, a platform that very well could see the end to the likes of AVSIM should it grabs hold of the FS market. I am quite very much confused here. But I digress.

Microsoft Flight is a game. And as a game I like it. But it stops there for me. If FSDT can make their Hawaii airports avail for Flight with GSX or whatever then perhaps I’ll pay for the entire state of Hawaii so I actually can perform reasonable flights. But ultimately it’s my budget and the fact that I despise Flight for incorporating the Windows Live Marketplace into its modus operandi that will limit me from going any further with this game. As I continue to enjoy my completely free world in FS9 with my PMDG 747 at FSDT KJFK, or enjoy a nice Cessna cruise through the misty fjords in FSX. Only one thing is sure. Flight is not the future for me.

So Mr. Mathijs Kok, it looks like you are back on deck!

Thanks for reading guys. Dom and I are very grateful to all of you who visit every day and we will continue to get better to serve you better no matter what platform you prefer.

Cheers!

D’Andre Newman

AKA

((-D’)) AirDailyX