Fly! 2 - PC

Folks,I have FLYII, Flights Unlimited, X-Plane and of course MSFS9. They all have their advantages. They are not games but simulators. Do you want to win a game, don't buy these. If you want to see what it is like to fly a plane, buy FLYII. The others I mention above are good too but I love FLYII. Flight Sims don't challenge you to win or get to the next level. They let you experience flight, navigation, Air Traffic Control. Many people are inspired to get their real pilots license because of Flight Sims.I saw some other reviews saying there is no support for FLYII. Please go to: [...] and [...] You'll find hundreds of addons and a great forum with lots of friendly people to help. There are other site which offer addons, patches, forums and etc. Buy FLYII and get it installed and patched up to version 240. I think you'll be glad you did!Earl

For the date it was released, the simulation is impressive as far as graphics when run on a system not even possible back then.My Saitek yoke and rudder pedals work great too. I prefer MS FSX but heck, it was fun getting it work run and also to fly it afterwards!I am Happy to add it to my collection.

I bought this simulator because of the "Easy to Use" scenery editor touted on the box. However,I was unable to find the scenery editor anywhere in any of the menus, or even on the disk. "Easy to Use" does not mean I should have to be a programmer to even find it! Another problem is shared with the first FLY! release - it is an unfinished product. I hate spending 40 to 50 dollars for a product that might someday be patched into functionality. My 466mhz Celeron, with a GeForce 2 MX card and 256mb's of memory still struggles with stuttering. The framerate indicates in the 60's, but it stutters nonetheless. The documentation is akin to a takeout menu, and promises an extensive manual available for free online. Hate to complain, but "state of the art" flight sims should really come with a fairly hefty manual, not a link to a manual that at this date is not even available on the website! Fly! II also claims an extensive map feature, if you decide the 30 or so map packs (at 50 megs each) are worth the time and the drive space. The maps and complete manual should have been in the box, not available in the future for download. Another thing that the box doesn't mention is that you must have a 64mb video card to take advantage of the detailed textured scenery. Most of us simply don't have a 64meg card at this time, so we are stuck with low resolutions, or forced to turn off the very features that are the selling points of the game. In all fairness, this is a potentially great looking sim, with teriffic lighting and great flight models. The cockpits are the best of any of the commercial flight sims, and it is obvious that love and attention were given to FLY!II...but they should have packaged a COMPLETE sim. I gave it a 3 because it does have enormous potential, and comes from a great company. The scenery looks cool, if you have the horsepower, but I didn't recognize many features that would make VFR flying a realistic endeavor. Also, the interface is clumsy and slow, and sometimes just confusing. Hopefully, future patches will address these issues...If I wanted flimsy documentation and buggy software, I would get my games from bargain bins.

...So how is Fly! II inferior than Flight Simulaor 2000? Unfortunately in many ways.Firstly, the game out of the box that you pay for has precious little when it comes to scenery. There's only one CD and a slim manual. The minimal installation takes up a whopping 1.3 GB. So when you give away so much space of your hard disk for one game, you except something big. You are then sorely disapointed.The game takes about a minute to get to the first screen. Then after you give all the language and graphics options and click "Start",... well, for those doing this for the first time, this is my advice: have a good nap. The actual game takes a generous 4-5 minutes to load. And this is the next problem: Fly! II is extremely resource consuming. To put this into perspective, the game took a whole 4 minutes to load on my 800 MHz, 128 MB RAM, 4 MB AGP machine.OK, so it's loaded. Next: a screen asking you to choose between QuickFlight and Adventures. The former for the firsties, so I choose QuickFlight. After 3 minutes I find myself facing a cockpit, on an unknown airport in the middle of nowhere. There are a thousand-and-one buttons apparently for everything. Ok, so I've done this before in Flight Simulator 98. Start the engine. Already started. Look for the throttle. Nowhere to be seen. Ok, check out the manual. Nothing there. Half an hour gone. Explore the menus. Ok, Options>Keys & Buttons. Alright, first step towards the sky. Got all the keys written down. Start the trottle. Started. So why's not it moving? Oh-parking brakes. OK, got those babies removed. Ok, off we go. In the air. So how do I turn? Trim, pitch, elivator? Nothing is working. Disgusted, I quit the game. Another 3 minutes. In fact: huge, huge, huge learning curve.Now that after weeks of plodding, you've learned the game. And then you find that all those hours spent weren't worth it. There are simply no sceneries worth flying over. TRI, it seems, was in such a hurry to release this game that they chose not to put any cities at all and in a display of supreme cheek, put it in the manual that the cities were available for "free download" at their site. At 100 MB per city, it's going to take a lot of determination to sit through all those hours of Internet watching your cities creep into your system.And now, after this thorough battering, it's time to give some plus points. There are some. First: the cockpit. The actual functioning of all and I mean all the buttons are enough to make the folks at Microsoft a blushing lot. The attention to detail is evident elsewhere: you can make a full 360 throught the plane and see everything from the floor mattress to the comfortable seats at the back. And the scenery that is there is basically decent. The planes are few, but exciting enough. There is also a chopper.(Which inspite of all appearances, is the most difficult to handle). The third party support to this game is tremendous: there are hordes of communities discussing about how to solve various bugs. GODGames itself has provided quite a few patches on it's site.The verdict: one star definitely. Beacause today gamers are not really prepared for the Internet-platform Fly! II has accidentally got itself onto. This is a rich game poorly presented. Wait for Fly ! II Gold and hope that it will contain everything Fly! II is lacking now.