What a new flight simmer says about FS2004

[TonyB 1]

I saw this message over at gonegold, a site that talks about all different sorts of games. There was a nice write-up by a someone that says FS2004 is his first experience with a flight simulator. He is really enjoying it. Here is the link. http://www.gonegold.com/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi...ic;f=2;t=013371 Note there are some nice comments regarding avsim there as well. Here is what he says:"Picked up FS2004 yesterday and have been playing it quite a bit since. This is my first flight simulator and I'm finding it easy to get into.First off, the manual sucks. Yes, I think the learning center is incredible and has more information than I will ever read. But would it have been too hard to just put a card in the box with all the key strokes on it. Hell, I'd trade the fancy metal box for that. There are 'basic key commands' on the back of the manual, but some necessary commands are missing.Graphics, as should be expected, are awesome. Flying through the center of a storm with lightning everywhere just has to be seen to be believed. I fly mostly rural places. So, I'm able to have my setting cranked pretty high with just a P4 2 gig, GeForce 3, and 256 mb ram. My experience has been that the weather effects puts more stress on my computer than anything else. I think the ground effects could have been a little better. It isn't until 3,000 - 5,000 ft that everything starts to look like real life. The shimmering people have mentioned hasn't really been a big issue. I see it occasionally, but generally there is only one line where it is happening in a given area and you have to be just so to see that line of glittering trees. I can see why it would bother some people though.The flight lessons are wonderful. There is a bit of reading involved, but nothing too scary. The guy's humor is kind of forced. It's not painful and doesn't detract from the experience, but I wouldn't miss it. Like I said, I'm a noobie to flight sims and I've never flown a plane before. Still, I'm managing to pick up the techniques and that says a lot for the game.I can't really comment on the planes. I've stuck with the Cessna 172 for the most part. It seems stable and I'm still learning. I can't say whether the flight models are realistic.I'm amazed how many airports there are. One review I read said, "unless it's really out in the boonies, the airport you want to fly is here." Fort Yukon is out in the boonies, but it is still there. It thrilled me to no end to fly up and see the Yukon and Porcupine rivers, just like in real life. I wish Anuktuvik Pass could have made it in, but some modder will put it there I'm sure.I had been wanting to get into flight sims for a while. I was just always scared off by the complexity. FS 2004 has really done a good job to help me find my wings, so to speak. It is a far different experience from the FPS's, RTS's, or RPG's, but any many ways a much better way to unwind at the end of the day. In the end, one of the best ratings a game can get is when it converts someone over to it's genre. FS2004 has done that.