No one has rated this review as helpful yet
Recommended
0.0 hrs last two weeks / 1,337.6 hrs on record (113.0 hrs at review time)
Posted: 26 Jul, 2022 @ 3:20pm

After playing this game for about a month there's a few things I have to comment on.

PROS:
1. The graphics are visually stunning, whether that be for the planes themselves or for the world, sunset and sunrise flights have some of the most beautiful lighting you'll ever see and with an RTX graphics card the light shafts through the clouds are seriously a sight to behold.
2. Lighting, as aforementioned, is unbelievable. There seems to be a perfect balance of natural volumetric light that permeates every inch of the game, from cockpits to tail-tips (potentially pun intended), there's no shortage of beautiful lighting and shading.
3. The plane selection is great, many planes are incredibly easy to use, my personal favourite is the 787X (Boeing 787 Dreamliner), it flies great, handles exceptionally and is overall a fantastic plane.
4. There's a good amount of activities, from the Maverick activities to the landing challenges as well as discovery flights there's no shortage of things to do when you're bored.
5. Airports look great as well, they're all pretty spot on to their real life counterparts.

CONS:
1. While the game is fantastic there's certainly some shortages which the game could definitely improve upon. Most notable is terrain rendering. I've had multiple issues where even running the game at max performance (ultra graphics, ultra terrain rendering etc etc), there's been instances where there's holes within the taxiways themselves. Take for example a recent flight I did from KLAS to KPSP, the KLAS E Terminal Taxiway had holes every few feet, this caused me to have to restart my flight about 10 times solely because these holes would randomly generate and cause my plane to either fall through the map or flip over and become "severely damaged."
2. The plane selection is good but there's got to be more airlines. Yes you can add airliners to the game through payware or freeware but the selection is pretty nill and void. As of current I've been able to fly the; Boeing 747, Boeing 787-10, Airbus A320, Airbus A321 Neo and the Concorde along with some private jets (I'm not discussing prop planes since they're not the most enjoyable to fly). It'd be great to see more Boeing and Airbus aircraft integrated into the game via the Microsoft Flight Simulator Team themselves, take for example the Boeing 777, 757, 737, 787 (8-9 Dreamliner Series), B767 etc along with their ER variants like the 777-300/400ER. It'd also be great to see more Airbus aircraft like the famous A380, A340, A330's. A340's along with their variants as well.
3. World generation is amazing but its subpar at the same time. While the graphics are visually stunning with a cacophony of mods and add-ons, the vanilla version of the game could use some improvements. The world itself could use more recently updated maps along with terrain generation methods, many times mountains will sort of have a mountainous shape but won't have as many ridges/grooves as the ones in real life do. With that being said however it is still a game and not the real world so this can be a shortcoming while also being a massive improvement to other simulators that rival Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020.
4. Interactivity and cockpits don't exactly mix, it'd be great to see fully interactive cockpits that could be selected based on either the difficulty the player wants to work with or based on the plane type, take the 787-10, there could be a V1 (Fully interactive cockpit) or a V2 (Partially interactive cockpit). To make this more visible and apparent to the user there could be packages of fully interactive planes that the user could utilize or purchase via the market.
5. Better VATSIM integrations. This could be a VATSIM specific server that VATSIM players could use or some other form of "exclusive network/multiplayer mode" that VATSIM users could work/play through.
6. It'd be awesome if you didn't NEED to use the airport ATC, if there was a mode that allowed you to select "With In Game ATC" or "Without In Game ATC" that'd be an awesome integration. Yes you could add the "Pushback Toolbar" which is a great help for circumventing the in-game ATC but for less experienced players as well as players who just want to pushback without going through the whole pushback process getting IFR/VFR clearance etc it'd be an awesome integration that the community would love.
7. Passengers would be a pretty neat feature as well as fully modeled cabins. Take for example PACX add-on or FSRealistic. While both of these add-ons/mods allow you to hear passengers, boarding music, an ambient cockpit environment etc, it'd be pretty cool if you could switch to drone mode and see the passengers walking from the Jetway to the cabin and taking their seats etc. Now this doesn't mean randomly rendered people that make the graphics and game look shotty and poorly produced/maintained, but it also doesn't mean such high quality renderings of people that one's computer turns into a combusting nuclear reactor core.

SUMMARY TL/DR:
Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 is truly one of its kind exceeding the competition in every way. While there's a variety of positives such as breathtaking graphics, incredible aircraft renders, variety of usable aircraft, tons of airports to chose from and a wonderful live player network; the simulator could use improvements in every area. Overall this is a definite purchase and one you'll never regret.
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2 Comments
Destiny 18 Mar, 2023 @ 1:06pm 
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76561198176407142 17 Aug, 2022 @ 7:48pm 
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