72 PCWorld OCTOBER 2020REVIEWS HANDS-ON: FLIGHT SIMULATOR
enjoy tinkering with aircraft systems, and there
are those who are just there for the ride. (Our
earlier story [go.pcworld.com/3edt] details
all the aircraft within the game, from a Cessna
152 to a Boeing 78710 Dreamliner.)
I absolutely fall within the latter camp. I
recall playing the original Flight Simulator
when it came out in the late 80s, and
immediately giving up
on it—it simply wasn’t
the real world. With
the Flight Simulator
reboot, it comes
pretty darn close.
Once in the air, all
of the technical
wizardry fades away.
You simply can’t help
but marvel at the
graphical detail...
everywhere. Thegolden hills of the East
Bay, the deep green of
the Northern California
coastal forests. The
traffic on the roads as
you swoop down.
Diving in a 747 doesn’t
lend itself to close
examination of textures
and structures, but it
appears that many
buildings in urban
centers are, in fact,
buildings, rather than just textures overlaid
onto terrain. Naturally, one of the first things I
flew over was my own house, just to see if the
nearby schools and shopping centers looked
as I imagined them to be. They certainly did.
Flight Simulator includes a number of
“handcrafted” airports, which include more
than the usual level of detail. While I’m notThe interiors of the aircraft are as detailed, or more, than the outside world.The detail in Microsoft’s Flight Simulator is simply amazing.