Flight Simulator

Pretty primitive. lol

The clue is in the title Excel 1997

The_Amber_Spyglass wrote:The clue is in the title Excel 1997

Obviously. It's just funny how primitive things were just 13 years ago.

It was primitive even by 1997 standards though, it was just buried within the programme.

The_Amber_Spyglass wrote:It was primitive even by 1997 standards though, it was just buried within the programme.

Kinda like Google Earth's sim. It's bad. Heck even the FS 2004 that I used to play is outdated now.

Here's a picture of Korean Air at Heathrow

Interesting thread guys!

I played a lot of flight simulator about 5 years ago. The reason I could never fully get into the IFR stuff and big planes is that I couldn't be bothered investing £150 in a proper joystick/throttle/rudder pedals set-up. I think you need that to properly appreciate it. It's lame trying to set the throttles when your 'throttle' is a crappy joystick slider thing, lol. And if you're not using pedals you're not getting a true approximation of what it's like to fly.

My main addiction used to be Falcon 4.0 in its various permutations, though. I have to avoid Falcon now because I can start playing it one evening and before I know it its 3 a.m. It's a dangerous addiction.

bigger_guns_nearby wrote:Interesting thread guys!

I played a lot of flight simulator about 5 years ago. The reason I could never fully get into the IFR stuff and big planes is that I couldn't be bothered investing £150 in a proper joystick/throttle/rudder pedals set-up. I think you need that to properly appreciate it. It's lame trying to set the throttles when your 'throttle' is a crappy joystick slider thing, lol. And if you're not using pedals you're not getting a true approximation of what it's like to fly.

My main addiction used to be Falcon 4.0 in its various permutations, though. I have to avoid Falcon now because I can start playing it one evening and before I know it its 3 a.m. It's a dangerous addiction.

I love Falcon 4! I used to play that now and again, and apart from MSFS, it was the only "game" on my computer.

dblboggie wrote:

bigger_guns_nearby wrote:Interesting thread guys!

I played a lot of flight simulator about 5 years ago. The reason I could never fully get into the IFR stuff and big planes is that I couldn't be bothered investing £150 in a proper joystick/throttle/rudder pedals set-up. I think you need that to properly appreciate it. It's lame trying to set the throttles when your 'throttle' is a crappy joystick slider thing, lol. And if you're not using pedals you're not getting a true approximation of what it's like to fly.

My main addiction used to be Falcon 4.0 in its various permutations, though. I have to avoid Falcon now because I can start playing it one evening and before I know it its 3 a.m. It's a dangerous addiction.

I love Falcon 4! I used to play that now and again, and apart from MSFS, it was the only "game" on my computer.

Do you remember the manual? It was 600 pages thick, hahaha. They don't make games like that anymore!

Not sure if you follow it, but there is still a remarkably active modding community for Falcon. I downloaded Free Falcon 5 last year to have a look, the graphics are excellent and you can fly pretty much anything. AFAIK, no other game has come close to rivaling Falcon's dynamic campaign generator. Not bad for a game that's over 12 years old!

Sadly flight simulators are looking like one of the early casualties in the console-ization of video gaming. 'Hardcore' flight simulators require immense development time and technical expertise, and as video game budgets get higher and margins smaller, most major production houses aren't willing to gamble on niche products. I once read about how Microsoft made almost nothing from FS, it was essentially art for art's sake. IMHO it's possibly the best software Microsoft ever produced.

bigger_guns_nearby wrote:

dblboggie wrote:

bigger_guns_nearby wrote:Interesting thread guys!

I played a lot of flight simulator about 5 years ago. The reason I could never fully get into the IFR stuff and big planes is that I couldn't be bothered investing £150 in a proper joystick/throttle/rudder pedals set-up. I think you need that to properly appreciate it. It's lame trying to set the throttles when your 'throttle' is a crappy joystick slider thing, lol. And if you're not using pedals you're not getting a true approximation of what it's like to fly.

My main addiction used to be Falcon 4.0 in its various permutations, though. I have to avoid Falcon now because I can start playing it one evening and before I know it its 3 a.m. It's a dangerous addiction.

I love Falcon 4! I used to play that now and again, and apart from MSFS, it was the only "game" on my computer.

Do you remember the manual? It was 600 pages thick, hahaha. They don't make games like that anymore!

Not sure if you follow it, but there is still a remarkably active modding community for Falcon. I downloaded Free Falcon 5 last year to have a look, the graphics are excellent and you can fly pretty much anything. AFAIK, no other game has come close to rivaling Falcon's dynamic campaign generator. Not bad for a game that's over 12 years old!

Sadly flight simulators are looking like one of the early casualties in the console-ization of video gaming. 'Hardcore' flight simulators require immense development time and technical expertise, and as video game budgets get higher and margins smaller, most major production houses aren't willing to gamble on niche products. I once read about how Microsoft made almost nothing from FS, it was essentially art for art's sake. IMHO it's possibly the best software Microsoft ever produced.

Not only do I remember that manual, I still have it! It was unbelievable! If you actually studied and mastered that manual, I truly believe that you could actually manage to get a real Falcon off the ground and back with no further training.

I'm afraid you are right about the future of flight sims... it is really sad. I've never been into all these other games and the only other simulator I checked out was a NASCAR sim... but making a non-stop left turn just left me bored to death...

And I would agree, MSFS is without question the coolest thing MS has ever produced. I read somewhere that it was actually used by the military some time ago as part of flight training... that's how good it was.

The first flight simulator (true simulator, not just a game about flying aircraft) was 'Dambusters' on the Amstrad 464. There was nine separate screens (press 1 TO view the cockpit, 2 being left view window, 4, being the front gunner... all the way up to 9 which was the bomb bay) I guess the title needs no explanation but it used practically the entire keyboard and the joystick, each button had a different function. It was so complex and looking back it was probably way ahead of its time.

Here's details of the Spectrum version.

http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekid.cgi?id=0001229