Initially beatiful, but then it goes down in flames.
Graphics are excellent and you can jump in straight away and start enjoying the view. This though is where it starts to go downhill.
After messing around in the skies and getting the feel, I started to move on to the tutorials. All very pretty by the way. I noticed that during the Maverick missions, the on board pilot was narrating things that simply weren`t happening. "there we have a target, cross is flashing showing we are locked on and in range, RIFLE". And off the missile went. The problem being that there was nothing even remotely locked on in the target window, let alone a flashing cross. Still, he was enjoying himself as I got more and more frustrated. He was narrating events that I was oblivious to.
I persevered with this and got to the point where I took control. First of all, the trimming is a pain in the A##s#. You trim it and it responds as if youve added 10 tons of scrap metal to the tail and you turn into a rocket heading for the moon. You trim down and suddenly it turms into the mole from Thunderbirds and starts heading for the earths core!!. Fine control it isnt. Way overmodelled.
Even in the easy radar mode. You chose a target by pressing the Tab key and the system selects a target. Take it out, press Tab again, select a target, take it out etc. Then it refuses to respond. You press Tab again and nothing gets selectes so all your missiles are effectively defunct and you have to take out everything with your gatling gun. Not very survivable if they have AAA and Sams in tow.
OK, I`ll start on the ground then. Finally manage to spool the engines up, throttle up, start to taxi............cant taxi cos I cant steer the bloody thing on the ground. Plough a field through the runway grass!
The wingman is asking permission to engage, follow the manual which says "press \ to access radio. sweet FA. No radio. Stop the mission. go back to the controls option AGAIN, to try and see what the correct key press is. Turns out that I`m pressing the right key but nowts happening.
Now some smart alec is going to pick holes in this by saying things like "all you have to do to steer the a/c on the ground is pres (whatever). But finding the correct key press is a nightmare. What ever happened to User Friendly? Surely, steering left or twisting left on the joystick on the ground should taxi the a/c! Makes sense, no?
I know that all the keys are configurable, but there are so many. I might be better off joining the RAF and flying for real.
This is a gorgeous sim to look at, but a real PITAr##e to fly.
Really disappointed.