Take to the skies! (Flight Simulator 98 (PC))

Member Name: jord121290

Product:	Flight Simulator 98 (PC)
Date:	17/05/04 (501 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good flight models, Very Realistic, Great Cockpits

Disadvantages: Getting old, There are better versions available now

Even though it's a bit outdated now, for it's time this is a totally amazing PC flight simulator.
If you can manage to get your hands on it now, usually under a budget label, it's perfect for people with lower spec PCs.

The game includes over 3000 airports including major international airports, regional airports, airstrips and private airfields.
All of the airports have correct runway positions and correct radio and navigation frequencies like ILS and more.
Each airport comes with a small amount of Air Traffic Control but nothing special, that's one of the areas where later versions of MS Flight Simulator prove much better.

The simulator comes with plenty of detailed aircraft including the Learjet 45, Boeing 737-400, Cessna 182, Schweizer sailplane, Sopwith Camel and the Bell 206B JetRanger III helicopter. Each of the aircraft come with an excellent interactive cockpit with realistic displays and working instrument panel. The planes have great realistic sound effects that are correct to that plane and not just made up.
Each plane has realistic flight dynamics providing the ultimate realistic flight experience.
As well as these planes there are thousands more available to download off the internet including military aircraft and plenty more commercial jets, lots of which come with new sounds and panels, others just use the panels from other planes, these planes are unofficial and not provided by Microsoft but they still work fine as long as all the correct files are supplied with the plane, some need you apply a couple of patches to the games but so far I haven't had any problems with my game and I must have around 50 downloaded aircraft on my game, they tend to be much better than the ones supplied with the game and some include moving parts an
d other features that do not come with the planes supplied.

The game's scenery is fantastically realistic as long as you set it to detailed in the options menu, areas of countries are accurately mapped and the correct type of scenery appears in that area, for instance cities like Leeds, Birmingham and London are all heavily built-up areas where as flying over the Lake District will find beautiful countryside.
There are 45 detailed scenery areas where the buildings are true to real life and various landmarks in those areas can be seen, these include Paris, London and 20 US cities, Las Vegas looks especially good when flying at night.
Like planes, scenery areas can be downloaded unofficially from the internet, but unlike planes they are quite difficult to install and it is very hard if the scenery designer does not include any instructions with the add-on.

Navigation in the game takes a lot of getting used to and it's a good idea to find a navigation tool with a map if your not a professional pilot because the frequencies and co-ordinates in the game are very hard to understand and use. Once you have worked out where to go, you can fly the plane yourself or take a break and let the great auto-pilot feature take over, it can take control of almost all the controls including speed, heading, approach, altitude increase and decrease and more.
Getting used to flying in Flight Simulator 98 takes a lot of time but once you've mastered the controls it is really worth it.
If you like the game it is very much worth investing in a £15-£20 joystick, it makes it much easier to fly and gives a much more realistic experience, force feedback joysticks are said to be very good, I've just got a cheap, budget flight yoke though and it does the job well enough.

The ability to take part in group flights on the internet is great, you can
host a session, join an existing session or act as Air Traffic Controller in a flight! If you have a good enough internet connection this is a great feature, although numbers of sessions online are falling due to this been a very old game and many more sessions are for Flight Simulator 2002 and 2004.

All in all this is a great game but age is showing on it a bit. If you have a decent PC and you can afford to pay a bit of extra money I would recommend getting one of the later versions of Flight Simulator.

Summary: