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Microsoft Flight |OT| Let's Fly Away

Lkr

Member
so its casual-ified? does this mean i can play it without a flight stick? i've always wanted a simple flight game to play around in
 

plc268

Member
so its casual-ified? does this mean i can play it without a flight stick? i've always wanted a simple flight game to play around in

Yup, fully compatible with the 360 controller. And to be honest, that's probably how I'll play it too, I don't feel like dragging out the flight stick out of the corner of my closet for this.
 
I'm curious about this, I love screwing around flying in stuff like GTA but thought actual flight simulators looked way to crazy to actually have some casual fun with.
 

Xander51

Member
I'll be playing this. My gamertag is Xander51, if you'd like to add me to the barren friends list in the OP. :) I enjoyed my short time with the beta, didn't play it as much as I would have liked to.
 

lefantome

Member
I like the fact they have redone a lot in FS structure cause was old and messy but there is no point in a game like that.

They should have done a Flight Simulator with game modes, settings,missions for casuals and a market where to buy official planes models or mods.

But I don't need a free to play where I can't flight anywhere and I can't use a 747.
 

Lkr

Member
Yup, fully compatible with the 360 controller. And to be honest, that's probably how I'll play it too, I don't feel like dragging out the flight stick out of the corner of my closet for this.

Good to hear. I know you could map the 360 controller to 2k4, but it was god awful to play it that way. Do you know how well it plays with keyboard/mouse?
 

demolitio

Member
Damn, missed the download link for it. I've been wanting to try this for a long time but it's getting pretty clear that it won't be the same game, especially charging those prices for single planes. I wish Bohemia would tackle a full flight sim instead of just helos after Take On Helicopters.
 

lefantome

Member
Good to hear. I know you could map the 360 controller to 2k4, but it was god awful to play it that way. Do you know how well it plays with keyboard/mouse?

I played FS 2004 with xbox 360 pad without doing anything. Probably I just installed the last patch.

Playing without the pad is a pain in that place on FS2004-X
 

Suairyu

Banned
Sometimes I really wish I had a flightstick. It's on the list of purchases I'll make when I can afford to be less frugal. (Mechwarrior is another game that makes me want one)

Still, I'm sure this'll be fun enough with a 360 pad or mouse/keyboard.
 

Ceebs

Member
Yeah I just spent about an hour with this playing with a pad. I can mange the analog sticks, but trim and throttle are almost impossible to adjust with any accuracy.
 

BioHazard

Member
Does there happen to be a retail release of this that comes with some goodies (like one of the DLCs) like they did with Age of Empire online?
 

FlyinJ

Douchebag. Yes, me.
Everyone who is downloading has paid for the 29.95 hawaii adventure pack?

The free one isn't available until tomorrow, right?
 
I played around with for a while. It's simple fun. The DLC model is pretty crappy though. The majority of jobs available (basically fly cargo, passengers, etc from A to B) on the free Big Island REQUIRE the 15 dollar DLC plane.
 

Dineren

Banned
I played it for about an hour in free flight mode and I think it's decent. Even with all the aides turned off the planes are easy to fly and land, but that's not a big deal in my book since it isn't trying to be ultra realistic. I didn't try out any of the missions, but I thought the intro was pretty fun. The two planes included are fun to fly around with and I think they did a good job with the cockpit view on the two planes included. No trackir support is ridiculous, they have the sdk and everything I've read from devs that have implemented it has indicated that support is easy to add. I assume kinect support will eventually be added, but I have no interest in purchasing another peripheral when there is already a standard head tracking solution for sims in general.

I also wasn't impressed at all with the scenery. Set to max, it looks pretty good in general, but unless the last flight sim you've played is vanilla FSX you've probably seen better (although performance is good). Maybe it was just the area I was in (I just picked a random airport and flew in that general area), but the two populated areas nearby looked like they had just stamped a city there. At the edges the cities were just cut off. It was especially noticeable at low altitudes, but even at high altitudes it was just as jarring. With the small amount of area included I expected it to be a lot more detailed. I know Hawaii is a large amount of territory and they can't be realistically expected to model it 1:1, but they should have been able to do a much better job of making the various bits of scenery flow together. It's possible it was just the area I was in so I'll be interested to fly around in some different spots.

All that said I still enjoyed my time with it. I think people who like Pilotwings or just a laid back flying experience will like it quite a bit. If you get tired of flying it even lets you hop out of the plane and run around. Not sure if there is an actual purpose to that since I didn't discover it until right before I quit, but it's there if you want to.
 

demolitio

Member
Played an hour as well, kinda cool but I wish it had some faster planes.

Same here. I'm worried that they'll nickel and dime us for the shit we actually want to see similar to how the P-51 (my favorite prop plane ever) is 8 bucks. The thing that made MS FS games so great was the absolute variety in planes and missions and being able to fly anywhere including your hometown airport.

I get that they want to focus on one area at a time to maximize detail (or nickel and dime us again) but the scenery isn't breathtaking enough to convince me that it's worth it. They should have at least had the free flight world from FSX and add detailed worlds like Hawaii on top of that.

If anyone wants to fly around, add DemoUSAF on GFWL.
 

taoofjord

Member
Downloading now. The first time I've used Games for Windows Marketplace... it is god damn pathetic. It's a mess and freaks out every time you want to download something. (Stop, reload, stop, reload, stop reload beeps) and the window that pops up isn't sized correctly so the download button as well as the X to close the window are obscured. What the hell is microsoft thinking?
 

Darias

Member
Terrified this is going to be garbage. :( I really hope they haven't mucked about with the idea of a flight sim to garner casual appeal.
 

Megasoum

Banned
Couple of points...

-The P-51, the only possible redeaming feature of that game is a paid DLC. It's 8$ (haha wtf) and doesn't include a cockcpit. It's external views only....

-The "Icon" is the worst plane ever. Not only is it a blatant promotional tie-in (the plane is going on sale soon I think so they want publicity) but a 15 years old car dashboard has more buttons and gauges. Seriously, how the FUCK can you make a plane without an attitude indicator (artificial horizon). It's like releasing a car now without a speedometer.

I am so sad to see how that game turned out. I had some hope when it was first announced even if there was just small prop planes in the trailers/screenshots. This is kind of a slap to the face to all the fans of the Flight Simulator franchise that's been running for what now, 20 years?

Ugh... It's like if they announced that the next Gran Turismo or the next Forza will be a kart racer with battle mode.
 

MizzouRah

Member
It basically feels like a Microsoft-branded Pilotwings.

Pilotwings sans charm.

I do hope that add-on developers are able to mimic the technique of the scratched windscreens that pick up neat little sunlight refractions and bring that art asset to a legit flight simulator like X-plane 10.

I won't be deleting this quite yet, but I doubt it will get much more than a quick playthrough. No way in hell I'm paying for DLC if I can't use the trackir I purchased.

Think I'll start working on an X-plane 10 OT, or a general flight sim OT if there isn't one.
 

Darias

Member
Oh dear. :(

Nothing I've read sounds at all promising. I was so looking forward to a new flight sim to expand bostonvirtualatc.com Sounds like that's not going to happen.
 

kanugo

Member
The controller support is useless. I'll give it another go later playing with my keyboard.

At least I have an achievement: Crashtastic - 1st catastrophic crash.
 

inky

Member
All that said I still enjoyed my time with it. I think people who like Pilotwings or just a laid back flying experience will like it quite a bit. If you get tired of flying it even lets you hop out of the plane and run around. Not sure if there is an actual purpose to that since I didn't discover it until right before I quit, but it's there if you want to.

There's Aerochaces that you can only get on foot, but that's about it. You can also walk on water and pretend you're Jesus. (or at least you could in the beta).
 
lack of a cockpit view in a dlc plane is beyond stupid of microsoft, part of these sims is to immerse yourself into the vehicle and fly like it was real.
 

Darias

Member
Has anyone figured out where to get the product key to sign into live?

I am signed in with my 'gamertag' but it's asking for a key..
 

Dineren

Banned
The controller support is useless. I'll give it another go later playing with my keyboard.

At least I have an achievement: Crashtastic - 1st catastrophic crash.

What did you find wrong with the controller support? I tried it with the 360 controller and the default mapping seemed pretty good and everything worked well. Still need the keyboard for some things, but it controlled well enough.

Has anyone figured out where to get the product key to sign into live?

I am signed in with my 'gamertag' but it's asking for a key..

I'm going off the top of my head, but if you open the GFW marketplace client and go to downloads, you should be able to view your product key under the MS Flight entry.
 

inky

Member
Has anyone figured out where to get the product key to sign into live?

I am signed in with my 'gamertag' but it's asking for a key..

In the Microsoft client, on the downloads tab choose the game to see it's description and it should have a drop down menu that says View Game Keys.
 

Atomski

Member
What did you find wrong with the controller support? I tried it with the 360 controller and the default mapping seemed pretty good and everything worked well. Still need the keyboard for some things, but it controlled well enough.

Yeah I flew fine with the controler, just had to use G and X on the keyboard.
 

Darias

Member
I'm going off the top of my head, but if you open the GFW marketplace client and go to downloads, you should be able to view your product key under the MS Flight entry.


Well, I think that may work. I found the Games for Windows Marketplace app. Unfortunately, the app says that my sign in credentials are invalid. However,the same login and password works on the live, and microsoftflight.com. If used on either of those webpages, it tells me the account is blocked, but has a proceed anyway button. If I try to unblock it, it wants to send a code to a phone. I gave it my google voice number, and my cell number, but it never sends the code.

Microsoft's really outdone themselves with this...

wtfisthisshit.gif
 

creid

Member
Played a bit last night and it was kinda fun. I believe I had all the graphics settings on High, and the city near the first aerocache looked awful. Not sure what's going on there.
 
Played for about 3 hours or so last night. I am midly impressed. The flying was fun and using a joystick felt good, but I qas pretty underwhelmed by the landscapes and terrain graphics, even with those settings at maximum. The planes themselves look nice, but cities and buildings didn't look nearly as good as I was hoping. But overall I was having a good time doing the landing challenges and some of the missions, I just hope they release more planes soon. I need some more variety!
 

plc268

Member
So I tried downloading the mustang preview, and I ended up downloading a whopping 300kb in five minutes.

Something is wrong here...
 
The graphics at maximum settings in this game are nothing short of disgusting. Ace Combat 5 (what 6 years old now?), Blazing Angels and IL-2 all looked better on inferior hardware.
 
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