The other problems I can forgive as development issues, but this is just plain carelessness.
Installation: "Drag the FlightGear folder to Applications" say the (rather meagre) installation notes: this I tried, and got a permissions error. Its harder to make a comment on the flight models, since my machine (eMac 700MHz, 32MB nVidia, fine according to the limited system specs on the HTML manual pages) couldn't manage more than about 8 fps (guessing, the fps display didn't seem to work), and the poor UI design meant that changing the settings was too much of a chore*. For me, detecting collisions with ground objects is a major part of the "simulation" aspect of any flight sim.
Physics: I managed to roll through the terminal building on a take-off run, did an inverted loop (in a 707!) and flew straight through the ground, which then disappeared leaving only a black dot. Major settings like screen resolution and controller options seem to be inaccessable from inside the game. Not just the "ported-from-UNIX-ugly-but-works" style, I mean pull-down menus that don't do anything except tell you to use an XML editor to edit the preference files (hacking is fun, but shouldn't be mandatory). Stability: takes a long time to load (about 2 minutes) and appears to be the pizza of death, but after the screen changes resolution and aspect ratio a few times it seems to work reasonably well (is the splash screen supposed to tear up like that?). Sound: Good, but then flight sims aren't the most complex soundtracks on the planet. Graphics: OK close to MSFS (pretty good for freeware, in other words). I'm not sure this should even be a beta release yet.įirst the good news.
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