MSFS first impression

[mutley 4,492]

Take a look at our poll and let us know your reaction.

[mutley 4,492]

There's a lot of bile on social medial about expectations, I remember the same reactions on day one of FSX.

Be realistic, what are your thoughts on this brave new sim?

[Slopey 4]

I think you need another poll option along the lines of "It's Ok, meets expectations" or similar.

All you have currently are love/hate, and 3 options which don't really contribute against two very polarised options.

For example, I'm quite liking it, but compared to a full Orbx TrueEarth P3D4/5 install, it's not that groundbreaking - but it is miles better than FSX (obviously), and pretty much kicks X-Plane into the long grass - the flight dynamics in 2020 are far more realistic (for light singles I have hours in C152/172) than XP.

But it's an evolution, not a revolution.  I don't LOVE it, and I don't HATE it, but I am quite enjoying it - time will tell if it evolves into an FSX/P3D type platform, or if MS do a Flight and don't support it (unlikely, but stranger things have happened).

[Tim_A 997]

I'm kinda disappointed that in 20 years they've made zero progress towards the internationalisation of ATC. (well, the controller did manage to say "decimal" before some waffle about "inches" and someone following me). Anyhow, that's all disabled now, so yah.

Yeah, there are places where TrueEarth is better (England, for example), and a lot of the AI/photogrammetry models are kinda ropey, and Bing Maps is the least impressive/up to date of all the map services. But TrueEarth is only a few tiny patches of the planet, and this is everywhere.

I think there's a nice choice of default aircraft, although they are a bit simplistic (but what do you expect from default aircraft? Study level airliners?!?!?!) . But they do look good. Shame the doors don't open!

The UI definitely shouts "game" rather than "sim", and there's a lot of stuff we're used to being able to do in flight that we can't now do, and I'm not sure how I feel about that.

We'll see how the monthly updates work out... 

[jaydor 345]

2020 Report. First impressions, I am not impressed in using 2020. I know I have to find my way around the system yet, but using it without the needed information that 2020 does not provide is difficult. Flying is very uncomfortable compared to XP. You are going to have to set up the camera first before you start anything as the camera has not been set up in a friendly user mode by the team. Also my peripherals are not able to be set up even after using the tool function. I am using Saitek Combat pedals, 2020 sees them but will not let you save the settings after you select and set them. The eye candy is superb, but a lot of learning is going to be needed to get anywhere near as comfortable as XP or FSX/P3D.  I will spend the rest of the day setting up the camera to map them as I used in XP and will report back. Warning, don't use the X-Cub in icing conditions, no screen heat..