X-Plane ver 7.10

THE BAD:
The lack of detail instruction manual and on-line CD to how to use the software could make this game frustrating to use. This game is aim to pilot (and wannabe pilot) with good knowledge of aerodynamics. In ver 7.1 has very limited scenery, which cover California coast. The free update file are to large for modem to download as an example; the latest ver 7.63, it is a compress file of 133 MB, and took me approx. 12 hours to download. Sniper Publishing's retail box shows wrong info on box cover, there is no rocket or the Space Shuttle take-off pad, all aircrafts start on horizontal take-off. They don't even include the 4 CD's global scenery as Laminar Research indicated in their How To Install document.

SUMMARY:
Warning; this is not a fast action, aggressive, explosion and great sound type game. With any civil flight simulators games, it will challenge your own personal skills, and it could be learning tools for some people on aerodynamic and flight instruments of an aircraft. But for flight simulator buffs like myself, it is a great game to have. If you never own some type of flight simulator, this is not the one to start with; you will be discouraged in no time. So my suggestion would be to download the X-Plane demo or to buy one at a low cost such as a combat simulator from the era of WW I or WW II, use any airplane with single engine propeller, then start your flight without engaging to battle right away, therefore follow the flight plan in real time and check out your airplane controls and performance. Now if you find that exciting then you will be ready for X-Plane, if not at least you have a combat flight simulator that will give you some action during battle. Since X-Plane does not give any flying lessons or an understating law of physics on flight, it would be best to try Microsoft Flight Sim or ProPilot , or Fly! which they are offering some type instructions for flying an airplane and understanding airplane’s instruments.

I have an older version of X-Plane 5.52, and I recently bought the newest version 7.1, both from a retail store. These games has some unique features that the other flight simulators don’t have, which I could compare with my 25 different flight simulators, civil and combat that I own. My first flight simulator was Ace of the Pacific –1992, which I consider a classic now. I was so impress by the aircrafts performance in this game, I start collecting other flight simulator. X-Plane comes with the larger amount of aircrafts; there are about 40 of them within the game. I have my license to fly single engine airplane, which I am familiar with Cessna 152 and 172, but I can’t compare my experience with any larger aircrafts or jet except accepting the condition of the flight simulator world. Therefore I will assume these conditions to be close enough to real thing, since I use the Cessna 172 in the flight simulator to fly around. It is not perfect but close enough.. This flight simulator will not replace flying any real aircrafts, but the flight simulators are the next best things to fly your aircraft of your choice.

X-Plane included Plane-Maker, Scenery-Maker, and Part-Maker software; therefore you could modify or build your own airplanes and sceneries. No need to buy third party software. I enjoy this concept when I bought the version X-Plane 5.52 , therefore I decide to purchase next version; I like the idea you could build your own aircraft that will react with the law of physics. If the wings are to small or large, you weight and balance is off or any other missing elements, your aircraft will perform badly. I am no engineer or airplane designer, but this game give me some satisfaction to use my imagination to create my own design or replicate the scale of real aircrafts. At first these software are complicate to use, so you would need lots patience, and experimenting when you build your first plane. It doesn’t come with a detail manual how to use this software. I used the tutor, which it is offer on X-Plane site on how to build your own airplane. You will find it on the www.X-Plane.com site. Plus, I open some already made airplane from the game in Plane-Maker to understand how some of the other features are being created to make the airplane perform the way it does. I was able to create some simple airplanes to some amazing one, and some dud. It became easier to use as you build more aircrafts. I was able to add my own airport with ease with Scenery-Maker but to modify the surrounding was another challenge. So far I have not use the Part-Maker.

This game has the Space Shuttle; I try to make a full entry from the orbit to Edwards airport, it take about a good 30 min from start to finish, unless you crash it first. This is a very challenging adventure. I found something else new in version 7.x that is not found yet in any other flight simulators, I am able to pilot an airship or build them. The Hindenberg, is offer only by the X-Plane upgrade ver 7.0, and this airship is something else to fly. X-Plane has a radar weather map, local map and world map. I was able to fly some special jet airplane on Mars atmosphere and gravity; unfortunately it comes with a limited scenery area unless you order full Mars scenery or build your own with Scenery-Maker. The rest of the navigational information and instruments are very similar to the other civil flight simulator for IFR, ATC and so on. The sounds are average but you could create or modify them to your liking, they come in WAV file format. The flight simulator graphics and instrument panels are generic, because they could be modify in the Plane-Maker.The instrument panel are better in ver 7.1 than ver 5.52. It comes with lots of airports world wide including aircraft carriers, I was able to find some aircraft carriers on the California coast. You are able to download real time weather from the X-Plane site; the file name for it is metar.rwx which you would copy at the root of X-Plane folder. The earth scenery comes complete with version 5.52, but the version 7.1 it is a water world with the California Island, the only land offer through the CD and you have floating airports in the air all over the world except California Island. It make me think of the movie Waterworld. These airports are at their true topographic elevation even with no ground is shown below. What happen to me at first, when I want to take off from Toronto's airport, my airplane took the plunge in the water when it run off the runway. It did show me good water effect while my airplane was sinking, and that when I realize this game was missing whole lots of scenery. I try several international airports with same result. Obviously I was very disappointed for the lack of scenery. There was only one CD included in the retail box. I felt this package ver 7.1 was incomplete compare from ver 5.52 that I purchase previously. With time and patience, I download from my modest modem 56k the free earth basic scenery from X-Plane site. It took me about 40 some hours just to download the scenery from the X-Plane site. It comes in sectional longitude and latitude areas. Afterward, I had to download WinRar to decompress these files. I notice there is no Antarctic continent except for some type ”icebergs” which is actual bit and pieces of the Antarctic coast. Once I installed the sceneries, which took about 3 gigs of space of my hard drive, I found the topography of the world was precise for all the locations I chose to go. I was able to see now movable vehicles on the roads, even some people waiving you from the airport fence when landing or take off from the municipal airport, and it does include other obstacles. This will depend how high you set you graphic quality. It has AI airplanes flying around your airplane, and it has all normal atmospheric weather conditions you would find in real world such as carburator icing and wings, heavy rain, thunderstorm, except for extreme violent weather. The clouds are cumulus type only. There is option for plug-in on version 7.1 for the programmer (C+) to modify the game. If you are a Flight Simulator enthusiast, then you will enjoy to fly different airplanes, it come with variety of aircrafts such as civil, seaplane, airship, jet, jet fighter, rocket fuel, Space Shuttle, helicopter, sci-fi. This flight simulator is for anyone who would like to build, paint, and fly their new design aircraft under the realistic law of physics. And enjoy adding or modifying some scenery. But if you enjoy the details sceneries and airports, and airplane’s cockpits, then it would best to go with Microsoft FS2004.

It would be best to have a type of yoke or joystick to fly these airplanes, I try it with keyboard command and mouse and it was little harder to handle the airplane. There is lest downloadable airplanes on web site compared to the competitions.

This game is more oriented to the people who have some understanding of aerodynamics. I found this out by testing this game on my relative who doesn’t have a clue how to fly an airplane. They were able to take-off and fly the aircraft, but most time they were on the edge of stalling it, they couldn't land it, they don't know how to use and read the instruments. At the end they got too fustrated to keep going. They got back in they car races games.

In conclusion, the X-plane strength of this software is to build your own aircrafts which is govern by law of physics instead of programming an xxx.AIR file in the software like MSFS, and you will become a test pilot of your own creation.

Although I enjoyed X-Plane 7.1, It is not worth to buy this game from Sniper Publishing's due lack of world scenery (Missing 4 CDs scenery). unless you are ready to download the entire world map from the x-plane web site like me. Would be best to wait for the next version.


This game was played on;

Windows XP SP1
AMD Athlon XP 2200+ (1.8ghz)
videocard ATI A/W Radeon 7500 64 MB
500Mb RAM
Soundblaster Live! 5.1
Yoke with no rudder pedal

Note if you bought this game and you need the global scenery, go to this link;
http://www.chromatix.uklinux.net/scenery/download.html

Tutor for Plane-maker link;
http://x-plane.org/home/suncoaster/xplanesite.html