[Terrell]

It's finally here! I remember installing MSFS 95 onto my dads first PC, running Windows 3.1. The cockpit was a flat texture, no interactable parts of the display with clouds that were literally white squares.

Fast forward 15 years and we've gone from squres to volumetric clouds and dynamic weather that looks completely lifelike. I just did a quick flight from Fenland airfield (EGCL) in Norfolk, UK in a Cessna 152. Not quite the same aircraft I used to fly from there, that was a 152 Aerobat but it's close enough. Took off from RW36 and flew VFR (visual flight rules) using landmarks I could recognise from IRL with the satelite imagery used for the terrain and followed the main road all the way back to my front door lol.

Our house is the one circled in red, the trees are a little weird at the moment. There's way too many of them and they're about 150ft tall haha but I guess the AI still has a way to go. For a stock simulator to have such precise detailing is quite remarkable. In FSX you'd have to pay a lot of money for scenery packs from ORBX etc but now we've got it mostly correct from the get go.

If you've never tried it, I recommend giving it a go. There are LOTS of options to tone down the "simulator" aspects and you can even fly third person with guages showing you the necessary instrumentation. Very relaxing!

[Sul-Matuul]

I'm just downloading now on Xbox pass as it looks like a nice relaxing game to tinker with.

I'm not really into the realistic simulation side of things but the large open space to fly around in and just enjoy the scenery is what makes these games fun for me.

[Terrell]

Honestly the way they've set this game/sim up, you don't need prior experience. There are some tutroials which should explain the basics of flight, but you can make it very arcade like from what I've seen. I recommend taking off from Innsbruck, it's a lovely airport in the middle of the alps. Terrific scenery to fly around!

[vonLuden]

I remember installing MSFS 95 onto my dads first PC, running Windows 3.1.

I had FS1 (by Microsoft) on my TRS-80 around 1980. A machine code programmer where I worked hacked the code so I could use a joystick instead of the keyboard to fly. The graphics were B&W wireframe.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FS1_Flight_Simulator

[Terrell]

FYI if you enable developer mode you can turn on the wireframe view if you want it to look like that haha.

[Sul-Matuul]

Started playing this morning. The assistance mode makes it pretty easy to get to grips with the basic flight controls though it's still challenging to keep the aircraft fully under control at low altitude as it'll behave accurately and you've not got room for mistakes!

I'm only using a keyboard so it's tricky but not impossible. Joystick would be good fun.

The scenery looks amazing from the air, but many buildings are pretty funky copy-paste jobs when you get really close. I've also found some really funny map errors around bridges where the AI clearly hasn't spotted the bridge and just made the ground look like a solid wall!

The real time ATC and weather is pretty fun to play about with if you want a real challenge, go look up somewhere with a real storm blowing and pick a nearby airfield to start from!

[Emmy]

I remember flying the Flight Simulator 2005 or something like that with my brother. Good ol' memories