bit-tech Shopping: Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004: A Century of Flight

• Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional
• Microsoft Windows 98 SE
• Microsoft Windows ME
• Microsoft Windows XP
• Microsoft Windows XP Professional

Rating: 10

Time with product: 3 Months

Strengths: Awesome graphics, really love being able to fly from the teeny airport in the town where i live. Enjoyable for the whole family.

Weaknesses:

Summary: Realistic, with great long play value. I love a game that you can't "beat". This is the first flight sim for me, my uncle is a diehard and recommended i give this one a try, and for the price, im glad i did. It is hard to fly with the keypad, but I wouldnt call that a weakness. I use an Xbox 360 controller to fly and it works great.

Rating: 8

Time with product: 69 Days

Strengths: Graphics, realism, variety of choices

Weaknesses: Training in some areas weak and poorly done.

Summary: I was very pleased with the realism in the flights to the various places. The airplane controls seemed quite responsive, and I could almost imagine myself flying. My main complaint concerns the lessons. I felt that I was very attentive to the lessons and did as well as I could but the very non positive feed back from the virtual instructors was discouraging. Statements such as "since you seem to be very distracted right now I am going to end this lesson" was one of my big gripes. It seems to me that some research could have been done my the Microsoft engineers as to what kind of feedback would encourage rather than discourage the desired skill development. In a period of about 10 seconds I was told "you are too high, you are too far left, your airspeed is too high", all in a period of about 10 seconds followed by well since you seem to be very distrscted etc., etc. All in all I would probably buy a similar product again, but I sure feel improvements are in order

Rating: 10

Time with product: 20 Days

Strengths: Well organized, easy to use, realistic, expandable

Weaknesses: Not easy to file in the air

Summary: I was very surprised---in my younger days I had several thousand hours of flight experience in the military. Other than not being able to get sensations of forces---the program presents flying experiences as good as any simulator I used in real life---well worth the money---very enjoyable.

Rating: 8

Time with product: 14 Days

Strengths: Good scenery, realistic, a good training aid

Weaknesses: Crashes my PC a lot

Summary: I really enjoy using Microsoft Flight Simulator. Wanting to ventue into becoming a pilot, using this product along with my flight books, I am able to get comfortable with the controls, instruments and procedures on the ground.The only problem I have with the game is that it crashes a lot. I searched Microsoft Support, and their recommendation is to start my PC in a "Safe Mode" environment.

Rating: 8

Time with product:

Strengths: Scenery is much improved over the previous versions. Also flight instructions are better.

Weaknesses: None

Summary: It seems that the instructions are improved and more detailed. The addition of the newer version of a GPS system is a real plus. It takes more time to learn all the differnt things that can be done but it would seem to be a more realistic set up. I have enjoyed flying the various aircraft.