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X-Plane

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 9
Date: August 27, 2004
Author: Amazon User

X-Plane flight simulator offers one of the best environments for flying and making simulated aircraft.

This particular product does not have any scenery. The price on it does not include other then southern CA. In order to fly any other place you have to purchase the scenery as an additional package.

Please visit X-Plane.Org for aircraft, scenery, plug-ins. See what this product has to offer before you buy it. Visit the store and compare prices. You won't be sorry.

Unfinished product?

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 8 / 15
Date: February 28, 2001
Author: Amazon User

If you are tired of paying a lot of money for a software that does not work without a lot of your own help, then buy some other flight simulator. I am trying to give a fair review of this product although I am rather frustrated. Here is my personal experience with this program: I installed the software and found the interface to be rather inept and unprofessional when compared to other games and simulators. The game didn't run at first. It required me to go their website (X-Plane.com) to trouble shoot the problem. I'd say that the low quality of their website is a good representation of their software. I get the impression that some kid has been designing this software during breaks in his computer classes. I then downloaded the updated drivers for my video card. The game partially works now. If there is one highlight, it would be it's flight realism. I must admit that the simulator seems to move much closer to real time. The frame rate seems higher than the Microsoft FS2000. Landing the plane is more challenging and certain aspects of the actual fight appears to be much more like flying a real plane. I like the sounds coming from the radio. Gives the sim a little extra flavor. I guess that this adds to my frustration because I really want to use this simulator. However, I'm unable to use all the features of my flight yoke or new Force Feedback joystick. So now I must fly the friendly skies via my keyboard. How many Cesnas actually have a keyboard in them to operate the rudders and a mouse for the throttle? Eventually I'm sure I'll work this problem out, but should not need to. I then attempted to download the latest version of the simulator from their makeshift website. The only ftp site that worked seems to be the one that someone put up in their Purdue.edu account. After downloading the 68 meg file on my 56k modem I find that it won't work on my computer at all. I'm still waiting for their technical support to reply to my message. I stopped holding my breath as he might be taking his midterm exams right now... I wish X-Plane had a larger staff of programmers. It has a lot of potential but appears to be a work in progress. I'd expect these results if I was beta testing the software, not in the version that is available on the store shelves. It certainly has not been a user friendly simulator. I hope I never fly a plane that has 1/16 of the problems as this sim. The above is just the opinion of a person who is getting rather tired of the poor quality of software being sold. The software companies seem to be the only ones who are not held responsible for the lack of quality in their products. They should be held accountable for the all the wasted time they cause in selling unproven products that do not run properly. -I prefer the MS simulator for it's user interface, better graphics, huge datbase of airports and cities, and control panels. To be fair, FS2000 has bugs in it too. But not nearly the same as X-Plane. -I prefer X-Planes actual flight realism due to it's high frame rate and communication sounds. However, in my opinion it's not worth the price they are charging. They should owe me a little for all my effort in making it work. I hope his midterm exams end soon...

Can't fly w/o the manual.......

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: April 06, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I have owned this flight sim for about 6 months now. My biggest complaint is that the user's manual included is all technical about how to make and create planes and not on flying. Also limited info on how to use buttons at top of flight sim while flying. If you were a novice on flying, you would be lost. I learned by trial and error. It also helped that I also have MS Flight Sim 2000, so I could at least fly. Customer support is lacking, seems like its run by IQ's of 200 at age 7. If they are going to update, they need to make avail discs for backup as downloads do not work most of the time.

X plane Soars Above The Rest!!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: March 17, 2002
Author: Amazon User

X Plane is an AWSOME game-from the giant 777 to the tiny RC Helicopters its got EVRYTHING!! if Your a beginer this is the simulator for you!!!and its not very complicated.over 7,000 airports make this one-of-a-kind.Even if you cant figure it out at first-give it time.my favorite is the Boieng 777 its a very cool plane. also I love space and with the ability to fly the space shuttle and on mars it adds to my long list of compliments-thanks NASA!!!!!!!!Each plane has its own cockpit. its not a lie-this game does have over 40 aircraft.you can land/takeoff from an aircraft carrier and an oil rig at sea!!! you can also fly a blinp.you customize evrything before the flight-weather-time of day-turbulance-even what altitude the clouds are at!!!from the air the ground looks EXACTLY like it does in a real plane!you can download new aircraft at X-plane.com and get lots of flying tips!! with real weather conditions like snow wind and turbulance this game is so realistic you will think your in the real pilots seat!! This is a great flight simulator and I recomend it to anyone who loves the feling of flying!!

Something fishy here...

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 5 / 8
Date: August 26, 2002
Author: Amazon User

Shell out forty bucks for this at Wal-mart. Get home, open the box. Nice pictures. Plop down in an armchair with the manual. Installation-easy peasy. Aircraft-simple. Flight controls-okay. Weather and part-maker, plane-maker, ground-maker-totally incomprehensible. Install, click 'play'. As soon as you start on the runway, you advance the throttle. Nothing happens. You switch to an outside view and throttle up again. Your rudder moves left. In frustration, you move the stick right. Your plane starts moving down the tarmac.
This and other quirks are fixable, but take a lot of adjusting. Another thing, in my aircraft folder, where are the 747, P-51, and other promised aircraft? Oh, I get it. I have to build em from scratch. Terrain-stinks. Object detail-blegh. Sharpness-very good. This is a SERIOUS sim meant only for advanced users. I dont know about you, but Im going back to the comforting simplicity of WW2 Fighters, FS, and the like.

computer bugs

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: February 05, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I recently purchased the latest version of this software. My initial impression of the sim was very favorable. When I tried to exit the program my PC (Dell PIII 933, nvidia TNT2 graphics card)consistently froze. After getting no response from the technical service either by phone or email I finally called the designer. The standard response was the video driver was not correct even though it is the one they recommend. As of now I am still not able to get the program to run well. My advice to any considering this purchase is if the program runs well, great, but if it does not do not expect alot of help from the manufacturer.

Game is too ugly and buggy

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 3 / 5
Date: August 07, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I will admit that graphics are pretty important for me and I am quite excited about the upcoming Flight Simulator 2002 which looks like it is going to have ground breaking graphics. In contrast, X-Plane features graphics that are undeniably stuck in 1995. The terrain models are horrible up close and far away and the instrument panels are very low color 2d monstrosities. If graphics are important to you too, then don't even think about playing this game without first downloading the demo. As for talk about the flight model being realistic -- I find that the planes are easier to fly in X-Plane than in MSFS2000 which I also find more boring.

wow, but also a CAVEAT

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 5
Date: July 17, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I use version 5.66 that I upgraded to for FREE after I bought X-Plane 5.54 by XICAT. It's awesome, very realistic experience... BUT: you should know that a newer improved version of X-plane (6.xx) is available from www.x-plane.com and if you own a fast computer with a good graphics card you should really get that instead of the discontinued version that XICAT still (!) sells. At X-Plane.com there also is a DEMO available for free!!! So you can check it out yourself.
Happy Flying!

Accurate flight models

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: February 19, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I purchased this game to supplement my real flight training mostly because of its highly touted flight model. I have found that for the most part, this simulator provides a very true flying experience from a physics standpoint. Utilizing incremental slices of the aicraft's structure and airfoils, this program simulates the real effect of aerodynamic forces on these "slices" and combines this data into a composite flight model. Subtle realism is key here as all flight sims are effective in simple X-Y-Z planes of motion. Graphics are not the greatest, but the people who this simulation targets are hardly worried about such trivial details.
Bottom Line: If you're looking for one of the most physically accurate simulations available, you should give X-Plane a try. If you're looking for fancy pictures and scenery, I would recommend looking elsewhere.

Hmmm....

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 2 / 4
Date: July 15, 2004
Author: Amazon User

well, I have to admit..I DO NOT OWN THE GAME. but from the demo it wasn't very impressive. I own a whole bunch of flight sim stuff-Ch yoke, pedals-the works. When I started the demo I got these random alerts about the problems my computer was having but it said it could fix them. I plugged in my yoke and pedals expecting that the game would recognize them (considering that it did say to go to CH's website for sticks and yokes). I push the throttle...nothing happens. ? well, ok and I went to the settings and finally set up all the controls after about 30 minutes of frustration. (THE DARN THING DIDN"T COME WITH A READ ME OR ANYTHING..IT LEFT ME ALL ON MY OWN WITS) well, now that I set my controls (only half of them because half the controls weren't even on the list of controls. For a matter fo fact, the game only lets you look left and right, the rest is panning. It didn't recognize the hat switch of flipper switches for gears so I couldn't lower or raise gears. very frusterating. Well, then I thought: I've heard all this rage about the shuttle re-entry, let's try it! I go into the menu to shuttle approach and click it. It loads, and puts me in space..cool! All of a sudden an alert pops up saying space isn't in the demo. HUH? but it loaded me in here and im now stuck in this one screen and it glitches my comp. sigh Now I have to restart...oh well..I told myself: alright one more try...after about 2 minutes another darn alret pops up: "I have not recognized the 7.0 X plane CD so I am going to disable the joystick"...What the HECK? disable the stick? Well now I can't fly at all so I just went back to playing fs 2002 which is vastly more intelligent and fun. When I first used fs 2002 I recognized my yoke and pedals in the equipement tab. X Plane (even though it advertises CH products) doesn't even bother to recognize my yoke or pedals. So, maybe if I owned the game and had a manual it would make more sense...but if a demo is supposed to attract a buyer this sure did a terrible job of it, I'm not motivated to buy it AT ALL.

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