Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024

Microsoft Flight Simulator was one of the best games of 2020. We praised the technology behind the product and the level of ambition, and in this long-awaited sequel, everything is turned up to eleven and usually a big improvement. There's no mistaking the level of potential and that it's one of the best-looking titles of the year when everything works as it should. The problem is that quite often it doesn't, and many of the technical glitches can sabotage the experience. That's why it's also one of the most difficult titles of the year to review, because when this works, it entertains on royal terms just like its predecessor.

The most impressive thing is that just like in its predecessor, you have the option to choose a location on Earth and start flying. All you have to do is select the location, time, aircraft and then click start, where it's now snappier and faster than ever to load into the game world. If we want to visit the Gobi Desert in a glider or hover our helicopter above The Grand Canyon, we can do it. This is the greatest strength of the title. This time, the simulator has also been armed with gamified elements and more vehicles, which means that in this version you can start a career mode and perform jobs pilots do in real life, and this can include flying passengers, putting out fires, and rescuing people. You're rewarded with stars and money for completing missions that can then be used to fly new types of missions and buy more vehicles.

The career mode is a welcome innovation and something we missed with the predecessor. We no longer have to modify or pretend to fly people to different places on Earth. Although the AI-recorded voices in this version offer several laugh-out-loud moments, we can't help but think that the game mode is a great feature. One of the reasons we like the mode is how varied the missions can be in length, time of day, weather, location and vehicle category. The system also penalises you quite heavily for mistakes, which means you can quickly lose your earned skill levels. We really appreciate the challenge offered.

One criticism we would make about the penalties during missions is that they are often unclear. For example, you can be penalised for moving too fast when taxiing your aircraft, but there is no explanation of what the speed should be in numbers. It also takes time to understand what you are being judged on and the difference between 80% and 95% in any single category. While the systems are deep and complex, the information needs to be better communicated.

One solution to the information problem would be a good encyclopaedia, more elaborate training assignments aimed at the career mode, and video clips. Currently, you have to find the information on third-party sites, which is both time-consuming and unnecessary. Although there are fairly robust manuals for some aircraft on the title's website, we would have liked to see this built into the game. One title that might inspire this is Civilisation, which does a great job of explaining complexity in a good format. This is something we think Asobo needs to explore because of how complex the simulation is and how many different groups of people it targets. It could also lead to more people daring to immerse themselves in the simulator and become a bigger part of the community.

We follow a couple of pilots on social media who delve into this sequel. They helped us get started properly with the predecessor because it's not easy to programme the flight computers, autopilot, or to simply fly. When you want to close the auxiliary systems, you often have to search for the information on the Internet and it's tricky to learn many aspects of the simulation just by trial and error. We hope that the developers invite their dedicated community and work out more and better training modes as we think many players will be a bit confused as the information is sometimes lacking.

Despite some problems with the way information is explained to the player, we think the career mode is a fantastic addition and that's because we've been asking for something like this for more than ten years. One strength is that you get a lot of guidance on how to fly. For example, you can switch on icons that guide you through traffic patterns to land correctly, plus you also get the routes pre-planned in your pad that you can also use to find and jot information down. These routes are shown with icons out in the world as you fly, if you need that help. We like these features and it shows that Asobo has tried to offer assistance to newcomers. You can also customise how easy or difficult the flight will be directly in the menus, where it can be as easy as flying in Grand Theft Auto V or as difficult as in a regular flight simulator.

As well as the ability to customise your experience, this is also one of the best looking games of the year. That's thanks to a better-rendered flora and fauna than in its predecessor and it makes the world look more realistic than ever. Thanks to more biomes, there is also more variety in nature than before. There's a game mode that puts you right in the neighbourhood of some of the most beautiful places on Earth, which is why it's also a positive that there is a great built-in photo mode that helps to make the experience better than ever. We loved discovering the world in its predecessor and it's even more interesting in this version thanks to better lighting, graphics, the photo mode, and stronger performance.

Although the game flows better and the graphics are upgraded, there are problems with the technical side. Several of the training modes for helicopters lock up resulting in you not being able to complete the missions, and the career mode creates situations where passengers sit outside the aircraft. Despite this, we have found that aeroplanes are often spared from the worst of the problems and the other vehicle types are typically affected more. Many of the problems are so severe that you have to restart the game...

Although the technology is flawed, the sound is really impressive, in fact in our hours with the title, we have had zero problems in this category. The planes, helicopters, and gliders sound just like we think they should, and it's powerful to hear the engine roar inside the cockpit heading into a storm. The weather also sounds amazing in this simulation, where the only criticism we can make is that the voices could have done with more lines of text to read out for variety and that Asobo should have worked on improving the quality of the voices as their efforts often invite laughter.

Our conclusion is that there is much to like about this ambitious sequel despite the existence of many game-destroying bugs. Almost all the systems are better than in the predecessor, the background simulation is more advanced and complex, the helicopters, aeroplanes and gliders behave better in the air, and we would venture to say that the latter category is the best simulation ever in a game. The weather is both varied and more complex than before, leading to more interesting journeys and that's because wind and storms affect how aircraft behave in the air. They may be a handful to navigate and a nuisance but storms are also beautiful to watch and this often led us to pause the game and photograph them.

We were flying over Zambia and had an engine failure, which led us to make an emergency landing in South Luangwa National Park. The vegetation was dense with trees, grass and giraffes wandering around individual waterholes, and we was sincerely impressed by the graphic level of ground elevation. We stepped out of our battered Cessna Skyhawk and wandered around the world. Unfortunately, nothing is perfect and some places look miserable, but out in nature there can be scenes at least as beautiful as in the air, which is quite unusual in a simulator of this nature. We were able to get our aircraft in order and eventually complete the mission, but the memories of the trip lingered long after we turned off the game. That's why our impressions are generally positive, partly because it works more often than not, partly because it creates great gaming memories, and partly because it improves on many of its predecessor's gameplay systems. It's the amount of technical issues that prevent this from reaching higher heights than its predecessor.