MS Flight: Alaskan Wilderness released

Hey Guys,

Tried to dig up the old FlightSim thread but didn't have much luck finding it.. for those that might be interested and missed it, Microsoft released the new Alaskan Wilderness DLC for their flight simulator last week, Flight. Downloading it now, but the reviews are positive and the screenshots fantastic. It consists of:

"Continue the Microsoft Flight experience in the Alaskan Wilderness Pack, with over 586,000 square miles of aviation playground to test your piloting skills against the brutal weather and majestic terrain of Alaska. The Cub Crafters Carbon Cub is also included as a Basic Aircraft (no cockpit included), an iconic bush plane capable of getting into and out of the most demanding locations.

Key Features:
Alaska Geography: Over half a million square miles of Alaskan land classes. Highly detailed areas for visually stunning vistas.
New Weather Themes: New weather themes emphasize the forbidding and dangerous Alaskan wilderness. New seasonality provides four full seasons of weather.
Basic Aircraft: The Cub Crafters Carbon Cub is an iconic bush plane, designed with light weight in mind, but not at the expense of performance. The Carbon Cub consistently performs in the top three at famous Alaskan Pilot Challenges and provides for exciting game-play in Alaska. No cockpit view is included."


Here's a link, it's a free to play game/simulator that includes a base island in Hawaii and a few planes, and then you can buy additional scenery and aircraft as you want them. I thoroughly enjoy the RV-6A and Maule, but the Stearman and Icon are great as well. The basic planes without cockpits don't excite me as much. It received a lot of flack initially as it appeared on the surface to be a much dumbed down version of FSX, their previous Flight Simulator and a major change to the format and target audience... while it is a big departure from the FSX world and school of thought, it's actually quite a bit better in a lot of ways too, and I've really enjoyed flying around with it. It's still my favorite flight model of any of the general aviation sims (FSX,X-plane), and just seems to get the feel right. Graphics and performance wise it runs great and looks gorgeous and uses a newer technology engine than FSX so runs much better framerate wise and looks nicer at the same time. Lighting and weather effects are particularly improved. Gameplay wise the mechanics are there and solid, and the last patch added much better support for HOTAS and TRACK IR hardware, which was the last real part missing.

Missions, challenges, lessons etc. are fun as well, and take actual aircraft loading and performance into account which is cool... ie, for a mission that requires transporting passengers or heavy cargo the plane squats a bit when loaded and take-off/climb performance are effected accordingly.

All in all a fun time, and better than I initially thought it was going to be. Excited to see where they take it next, both scenery and aircraft wise.

www.microsoftflight.com

And a link to the Alaskan DLC:

Microsoft Flight: Alaskan Wilderness on Steam

 

What the heck is with so many MS Flight planes not having a cockpit view included? The P-51 Mustang, A6M2 Zero, P-40 Warhawk, F4U Corsair, and now the Carbon Cub. Nothing screams "half-baked" to me like intruducing new aircraft with external view ONLY.

If they're going to charge $7 for a new plane or $15 for a wilderness pack and a new plane, they better include a cockpit view. Otherwise I refuse to buy.

 

MS Flight has been a disappoint to me.
I wanted something more like FSX, and I'm not asking them to leave it free,just develop a proper game.

 

The screens looks nice, looks like fun, but wait, what?!? No cockpit view?!? In FSX I spend like 98% of my time there.

So stay with FSX then. With all the addons it's way ahead of MSF.

 

Wish I'd never looked at the screenshots...I don't want to buy this on principle because of the no-cockpit view, but it's soooooooo gorgeous, and I could fly with the few planes that do have a cockpit...meh, I'll probably go ahead and pick it up.

 

I don't think that FSX looks bad too :

 

Planes with full function virtual cockpits are the Icon A5, Maule, RV6A, and Stearman... and soon to be the Carbon Cub it appears based on their latest "guess the plane screenshot" of a Carbon Cub virtual cockpit. And they are spectacular in my opinion. The RV and Maule in particular.

The way I look at it is we have something great to enjoy now, that runs and looks great and has the mechanics in place... the rest is yet to come. Go tell Microsoft what you want to see next, they seem to be listening to feedback at least a bit. I'd take the flight model of MS Flight any day over the model of X-Plane... the "feel" has always been my problem with that series... along with the sterile world of 9, can't get 10 to run worth a crap to even try.

You can play for free, and add onto the game as you like... I agree, I don't fly the planes without a cockpit as that's not my thing, I prefer a more serious and in depth approach, but at least the other planes are there for those that like to just fly with an external view and have fun, and with any luck they will want more and start to appreciate a more in depth sim experience.

But for those looking for heavy iron and jets, at least for now, Flight is not your sim. For us guys that enjoy the general aviation side, it's freakin awesome!

Fun look at a mountain pass flight:
http://forum.avsim.net/topic/378030-flying-the-passes/#entry2404900

 

FSX is a great sim and I've loved it for years, don't get me wrong, I have it, Acceleration, and multiple payware aircraft and sceneries which are all great... but the weather effects, lighting, and base scenery in Flight are just so much more vibrant and alive than the base FSX stuff... and it all works right from the get go with no setup or tweaking.

Flight is nowhere near a replacement for FSX in all that it is capable of, that's not what I'm saying at all... if you want to shoot approaches in a 737 to minimums etc, but for what it does it does surprisingly well, and is at least worth a peak.

I was pretty skeptical of it at first, I'll be the first to admit, but it's impressed me thus far...

 

I haven't bought any DLC for MS Flight yet, but I'm really enjoying it. It's not an uber-hardcore sim for people with $300+ of flight sim peripherals, but it's something where I can take a $30 joystick and it feels "real" when I'm flying (despite obviously being a simplified flight model and control scheme). Then, when my five year old wants to fly, I can dial back the realism and let him learn the basics of lift and gravity while taking off and landing the Icon in the ocean and having fun. It's not as good for the hardcore simmers, but for casual and semi-serious simmers, it's the best non-combat flight sim I can think of.

I just hate no-cockpit aircraft is all

 

Sorry, sounded like I was bashing MSF. When in fact I played it for a while and I really loved it! Exactly like you've said be77solo, it doesn't need to be tweaked or additional software bought to make it look and feel good. And that link you've posted, really made me want to jump in-game into some GA a/c and have some fun.
But unfortunately just playing and having "fun" doesn't last for me. That's why MSF didn't survive very long on my HDD. And I think it's one of major MSF disadvantages. You can't jump between various types of planes like in FSX. Got bored of 737? Here's Maule, knock your self out. Got bored again? Give 747 a try!
And IMO aircraft selection is a bit lousy, some without a proper cockpit (the best place to enjoy flying IMO), the only aircraft which could get my attention are RV-6 and Maule. Too many WWII birds. I miss my Mooney Bravo.

 

The heavy emphasis on WWII fighters makes no sense in a game with no combat element. Sure, throwing a P-51 in makes sense because the P-51 has become very popular with civilian aviation enthusiasts...but the P-51 and the P40 and the A6M and the Corsair? Overkill in a non-combat sim, at least one with less than a dozen flyable aircraft overall. About half the flyable aircraft are WWII fighters.

 

You know what would be totally awesome? Instead of a fifth variety of WWII aircraft, how about adding a helicopter? Something small and civilian-oriented, like the sort of thing people use for heli-skiing. I really got into flying helicopters in Enemy Engaged, and the survey-style, small-aircraft, enjoy-the-scenery approach that MS Flight takes would be perfect for a small civilian chopper.

 

I think you've got something there. That would actually be totally awesome.

 

I've got to think one will come before too long... there are special Aerocache's that require a helicopter to get to, and it even says to use a helicopter in the tips and description section... I'm thinking a helicopter and another seaplane are going to be released in the near future.

 

Bell 206 JetRanger. In production for forty-three years. Used by everybody under the sun. Make it happen, Microsoft. (And include a cockpit view, for goodness sake).



Bell 206 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

ha, they'll probably give us a Robinson R-22 ;-)

Nice pic btw

 

Haha, though actually, in all seriousness, they probably will. In all fairness, all the cool points lost in the fact that it's basically an underpowered flying egg are made up for with the unparalleled visibility (great for a watch-the-scenery flight sim like MS Flight) and the responsive controls.

 

Just a heads up for those interested, some really great deals on Flight addons at Steam right now, including Alaska for $8.99 Worth a look. One great deal is the complete pack for $29.99 which appears to include all current DLC.

Gotta love the Steam sales!

 

+rep, taking the bundle plunge. Love the Alaska, now if the load up the rest of Pacific NW so I can do Olympic range to Columbia River to Cascades to Yellowstone, I'd be in heaven.

 

+1 rep to be77solo for bringing my attention to that deal...

 

And for anyone else on the fence, an amazing deal for the next 8 hours on Steam, the new Flight collection with all current DLC is on sale for $16.99 usd... that's a smoking deal! Also I just noticed, all other additional content is also 66% off during the flash sale for those that don't want the entire pack. Enjoy

 

On July 25, 2012 Microsoft announced it was cancelling further development of Microsoft Flight. This effectively ended the 30 year run of Microsoft's Flight Simulator franchise, for a second time after the previous cancellation of Microsoft Flight Simulator.

 

Lol wut?!?

 

Yep, it appears to be true as the forums have been a buzz all day at avsim and steam forums.:

Microsoft cancels 'Microsoft Flight', lays off Vancouver staff | The Verge

They stopped further development and laid off quite a few employees.... I hate to hear that for them, and wish them good luck in the coming future.

On a side note, this doesn't mean Flight is dead, but don't expect any further development in the future. The servers are on Microsoft's side and nobody foresees them going away any time soon... so on that note:

They did release the Carbon Cub yesterday, which is currently on sale on Steam, which is a great little plane with an awesome virtual cockpit. It's a more realistically modeled version of the Cub that came with Alaska, and includes the previously mentioned cockpit and improved flight model and systems.

Save 25% on Microsoft Flight - Carbon Cub Deluxe on Steam

It's currently on sale for $11, which in the flight sim world is still quite a deal for a fully modeled nice aircraft... I'm glad to see they got it finished and released before they were shut down. I picked up a copy today and think they did a really nice job with it.

 

Pulled the plug on this? Shame, MS, shame.

 

So, why did they abandoned it again? No profits or something? They still should have gonna with the traditional MSFS model.
I guess FSX is here to stay for quite a while...

 

Great, wasted money since no future terrains.