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Good Effort, Great Flight Sim, A few Problems

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 17 / 17
Date: May 25, 2000
Author: Amazon User

I'd been looking forward to the 2000 Edition of Flight Simulator for a long time. I dont think it's dissapointed..a whole lot, anyway.

Microsoft Flight Sim's got the planes, the graphics, the sounds and the feel, as well as the whole world as your travel destination option. The graphics are beautifull, the scenery is generic, but detailed well, and the renderings of the major cities are perfect.

But as far as the System Requirements go...Oh my lord! I run this thing on a 600mhz, 300+ ram, Voodoo3, I still get slowdown and poor framerates at times! It's absolutely obscene! And I cringe at the thought of what this must play like on a system any lower then 500mhz.

The game also implements a nifty little feature where you can hook up to the internet and download real-time weather data. Unfortunently, any time I attempt this, the game crashes. Which sucks.

But aside from that, the graphics and gameplay are excellent. A 777 handles bulky and heavy, and a Cessna handles like a paper airplane. I'm really impressed how detailed they got the physics. If you've got the system to run it, go for it, it's a great add-on to your flight sim collection, however if you dont allready have Flight Unlimited Three, why the heck are you looking at this game? Flight Unlimited is a game worthy of well over five stars! But if you really want to fly the Concorde from San Francisco to France, this is the only game that's going to let you, and if you've got the system to do it, you wont be dissapointed.

Microsoft has TOTALLY misrepresented this product!

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 22 / 25
Date: March 14, 2000
Author: Amazon User

As a seasoned veteran of Flight Simulator 98 and a licensed FAA rated commercial pilot, I am no stranger to Microsoft flight simulations.

Initially when I loaded FS2000Pro I was very excited due mostly to the hype surrounding this product... This of course was short lived.

I am currently running a AMD-K62 400Mhz CPU, 128Mb RAM and an ATI Expert 2000 32Mb video card.

If I turn the overall display quality down to 1 (the lowest setting), I get marginally acceptable framerates at 800X600. (800X600 is the lowest you can go and still have clear, readable rendering of your cockpit intrumentation)

Even Microsoft's recomended system requirements are not enough to run this simulation, much less the minimal requirements of a Pendium 166Mhz! I can now see myself returning to FS98 if not totally abandoning the MS platform all together. (I am currently looking into X-Plane which operates on an OpenGL platform)

On a more positive note, my two stars are given for the great job in the graphics detail. It would be nice to enjoy them in their full glory (as soon as I spend $500.00+ in system upgrades).

In the end the number one quality that will impress real pilots and home users in a flight simulation is INTEGRITY. "Are you listening Microsoft?"

The best alternative to going out and buying an airplane

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 20 / 22
Date: November 30, 2000
Author: Amazon User

Microsoft really does make the best stuff. I know this sounds rather corny but it is true, Flight Simulator 2000 Pro is a perfect example of this statement. 1) I will say that this game is a resource hog, make no mistake about it, a Pentium III and 128 MB of RAM are a necessity here. Also, make sure you have a GOOD video card, good video cards make a much bigger difference than people realize. I reccomend the Matrox Millenium G400 Max. 2) If you are trying to decide between the pro version and the standard version, go with the pro version. The pro version gives you use of the Mooney Bravo (a plane that handles like the Cessna, but with a much higher average speed) and the Bell Helicopter. These additions are definately worth the extra money. The graphics in this game are nothing less than superb. Microsoft has gone to great detail, including a massive list of airports from which to land and take off. Another really great feature is the real world weather that is provided courtesy of Jeppeson. There's nothing quite as cool as flying from LAX to Chicago-O'Hare on FS2000 while actually flying from LA to Chicago, I was surprised at how entirely accurate the game was compared to what was actually happening right outside my window.

GOOD BUT

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 15 / 15
Date: November 10, 1999
Author: Amazon User

Very good, but you need at leat a PII400Mhz and a 3D Card if you want to land that thing...

Great Graphics, sound, trip planner..Nice Clouds..

Great... Much better than FS98

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 16 / 17
Date: November 10, 1999
Author: Amazon User

Microsoft made some definate improvments this time. The new graphics and scenery are the best they've ever been. But... you'll deifinately need a good system to for it to run really smooth on. I'm running a PIII 500, 128MB Ram, and a 16 MB 3D card, and occasionally it gets choppy, but fo the most part, its great. If you're into flight sims, its a must have.

Excellent, Very Very Excellent!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 17 / 19
Date: November 08, 1999
Author: Amazon User

Flight Simulator 2000 Professional is just an incredible sim game. The graphics are just superb and if you have a 3D accelerator and a Pentium III with lots of RAM, boy you will think you were flying the real thing. The instant weather thing is really cool and it is neat to update it and then look outside. This is a must have game that you have to buy if you like this!

A Note for those who have an MMX computer

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 11 / 11
Date: December 29, 1999
Author: Amazon User

On the back of the box, Microsoft says it needs a Pentium 166 with 500mb free disk space and a quad speed CD rom drive. I have a pretty good system: Pentium 233MMX, 2 gig hard drive, fast CDROM and a 3d banshee card. It was terrible! The typical install took over 700 megabytes and there was blood running out of the hard drive. It took about 40 minutes to install the game and another 10 while it was building the scenery database. It also took the hard drive 7 minutes to load the game and much more to change aircraft. Because I had a 3d card, the actual perfomance was not too bad, although the SLIGHTEST change made the hard drive go crazy!

I was very disappointed. For those of you that may be considering buying this product and have a 166 or a 233, STAY with FS98! I went back and I am pleased with its performance! It may not have all the fancy features and scenery that 2000 has, but it is worth the tradeoff in performance.

I am very happy using FS98. The third party utilities I downloaded made it almost as good as FS2000, so if you're in my position..DON'T BUY IT! Buy FS98 instead, or keep it if you have it.

You will spare yourself time, patience and money!

Think hard about staying with FS98

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 13 / 15
Date: January 04, 2000
Author: Amazon User

The Pro version promised enhanced scenery for my hometown, Boston. That scenery's there but not very good. No Beacon or Bunker Hills, for example; the State House and the Bunker Hill monument, when you fly low enough to find them, just sit on flat terrain. Pluses: having the worldwide airport scenery is fun. I lived for a period in Sicily, and the local Palermo airports are there butting up against mountains resembling the real terrain rather satisfyingly. Being able to pan smoothly around your airplane in Spot view is fun too. Minuses: Pushes your computer to the max. I had to take my new PIII/450, 128 MB RAM, 16MB 3D card 'puter back to the shop for a video card driver upgrade and some other tweaks before the program would run without freezing. The program still burps and balks at times. My setup is the MINIMUM I would recommend to run this program. The San Francisco scenery is very disappointing. No Coit Hill, the Coit Tower sits on flat ground. The Marin Headlands just NW of the Golden Gate are rendered as flat terrain, which is inexplicable, since in FS98 the rendering is much more accurate. And lastly, even with a standard or full install you have to have the CD in the drive to run the program. A security measure, sure, but still a nuisance (shared by MS Combat Flight Simulator but not by FS98). Bottom line: by comparison, FS98 ain't so bad!

A Very Average Flight Simulation

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 13 / 15
Date: May 31, 2003
Author: Amazon User

This game can be fun to play. Making movies is fun, and trying the various adventures can be amusing as well. However, there really aren't enough adventures to keep you interested if you aren't interested in taking a three hour-flight from New York to Paris (in a Concorde, of course). Personally, I grew tired of the game after I ran out of the adventures. I tried the lessons, and it's fun to try to land at an airport in a storm, at night...but after you beat those things, there's really no reason to try to do them again.

You can also try to earn the various liscences that real-world pilots can. For instance, you can try to earn an ATP (Airline Transport Pilot) Certificate by flying a 737 around, performing various maneuvers. It is fairly fun, and will keep your interest for a while. Once you get the hang of flying the planes though, the tests become easy, and present little challenge. Until you master them, however, they will keep you busy.

The game also gives you the GPS coordinates for most of the famous landmarks, so you don't have to fly around looking for them yourself. I used that tactic on several occasions, just jumping to the area I wanted.

As with any flying game, landing is a real challenge. In general, it will take you a little while to master the art of landing, but that's only day time approaches. Night time landings are a whole different story. Just finding the runway is often a challenge, although radar helps a lot. Still, until you learn to use radar to the best of your ability, you'll pretty much rely on your sight to tell you where things are.

I think that what I was expecting from this game was something akin to a storytelling game, in which you took the role of a young pilot's live, and completed various tests until you finally get the "Ok" to fly, then flying to various places (as a real-world pilot would) for money, until you retired, and bought more airplanes. Of course, that isn't the way the game is, and it is one of the reasons why, after you master the game, you have no reason to re-play it. You can pretty much fly anywhere you want at the beginning of the game, and so there's no reason to even attempt some of the various license tests, unless you're really desperate for something new to try.

Therefore, the gameplay is very average. I think that if this game had more "adventures", and/or had more things to do in multi-player, it would have recieved a five in this area. As it stands, however, it needs a lot more re-play value before it is considered an "excellent" flight sim.

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2000 Pro is a very average game. It's controls are very good, it's graphics are awesome (but the price you pay for that is a lot of slowdown), and the re-play value is minimal. You can also play it on Microsoft's Zone .... but I didn't even try that, simply because of the fact that, if I'm having this much slowdown in the single player game, the multi-player game will probably not even work for me. Not only that, I really don't see how flying commercial aircraft would be really fun with other people. What would you do, race someone from New York to Paris? I think that the real hard-core flight simmers might like the the idea of racing your buddy like that, but for me, it really doesn't have that much potential. However, the game, played in single player, is fairly fun. I enjoyed flying around New York City, seeing the Statue of Liberty, and the various other sites. As far as I know, Microsoft hasn't released a patch to delete the World Trade Towers from the game, so they're still there.

The manual is very well designed, and will tell you how to fly your plane with little fuss. Lessons are included in the game as well. However, I found it hard to find some of them...as in, you have to navigate through several of the in-game menus before you actually find anything. However, you really need to read the manual before you go flying, unless you turn the realism settings on low.

There are also several of what this game calls "adventures". Basically, what they are, are pre-developed flights with a certian objective. For instance, in one "adventure" your prop plane runs out of fuel out in the middle of the ocean. You get permission to land on an air-craft carrier that just happens to be patrolling the area. You then have to land your plane, with no engine power, on the deck. Very innovative. In another "adventure" you have to fly under the Russians radar in Red Square to try to land your plane. Supposedly, if you don't fly under the radar, they will target you, and shoot you down. However, I have never had that happen to me, no matter where I flew my plane.

You can also create your own movies. However, I found this fairly confusing, and really didn't get into it much. It has potential though. Imagine flying over Paris at night in a Concorde...then watching what your plane did. Since you have a cockpit view, you really can't see the outside of your plane...so with a movie, you would get to do that. Movies also have the potential to be cool if you are interested in airplane aerobatics.

In case it needs to be said, I would HIGHLY recommend playing this game with a joystick. I can't remember if it actually says that a joystick is required on the back of the game's box, but regardless, If you want this game, you really should buy a joystick. I can't imagine playing this game with a key-board and mouse.

Overall, I would recommend this game to hard-core flight simmers who want to absolute most realistic thing they can get their hands on, and don't mind some slowdown. To people that want to fly, but want something to do while they're up there, I would steer them away from this game, and insted direct them toward a combat flight simulation.

Sim Rocks! on High End Machines

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 11 / 12
Date: June 28, 2000
Author: Amazon User

When this game runs at the maximum realism, real weather and graphics settings, it is truly a work of art. Microsoft has thought of everything to bring you the reality of flight operations. Plus the graphics around the world are more inclusive than any I have ever seen. From the pyramids of Egypt to Amazon jungle rivers to active lava flows in Hawaii, things I have personally seen...they were there.

The reality is compounded by the fact that there is a large user community which fly in simulated worlds with some enthusiast acting as Air Traffic Controller. I have tested Real Weather and have noted that the internet site is usually updated every 15 minutes. The weather presented is very accurate from Blizzards to sprinkles and crosswinds. Add on graphics are available as freeware on the internet or through purchase so you can make specific areas like Chicago Ohare super detailed.

The only drawback is that this sim requires a lot of CPU power to run the simulated environment. The faster CPU the better. The Video Card does not make that much of a difference. 16-32mb should be fine.

I originally ran FS2k on my Pentium I, 200mgz, 48 megs, 16megs Vodoo Card. The frame rate was slow but manageable as long as I kept the sound turned off and did not run real weather. I kept the graphics at level 2 (out of 6, with 6 the most detail)

I have since upgraded to a Pentium III, 866mgz, 256 mb, 64 mb GE Force Nvidia Card. This sim is a masterpiece on it. I recommend at least having a PIII to get satisfaction from this game. And I only recommend upgrading machines if its your time to do so. Don't let this game influence your decision because its a big investment.

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