70 PCWorld OCTOBER 2020REVIEWS HANDS-ON: FLIGHT SIMULATOR
real-world services, including Bing Maps and
its weather forecasts, promising that you’ll
have the option of experiencing the actual,
current weather as it happens.
Our limited review time meant that I didn’t
have a chance to chase down a hurricane, but
the oddly hazy skies outside my Bay Area home
were replicated in the
virtual space when I
took flight above San
Francisco.
What it does
mean, though, is that
in addition to
opening your wallet
for Flight Simulator,
you’ll also need to
keep track of how
much data the game
uses. Over a couple
of days’ use, FlightSimulator sucked up 2GB of
data on my account. There
are controls to limit
bandwidth as well as the total
available data the game uses
over the course of a month. If
you live in a rural area with
limited bandwidth, you may
have to dial down the live,
real-world features a bit.
Early on, you’ll be asked
to select a difficulty level,
ranging from “easy” to a
“middle ground” to a more hardcore sim
experience. This choice matters. Damage to
the aircraft can occur not just from an outright
crash, but from undue stress on the airframe
and engine. Catastrophic damage ends your
flight—and forces you go back through the
prolonged loading process to try again. YouKeep an eye on your data usage in Flight Simulator, especially if you
live in rural areas or are subject to bandwidth caps.Flight Simulator offers a wide variety of assistive features to make gameplay
more fun...or more realistic.