| | |  | DVD MOVIES | Home » » Microsoft Flight Simulator X: Gold Edition | | | | | | | Description: | | Flight Acceleration X-pack enables gamers to play head to head against their friends or others in exciting racing missions, in addition to 20 new missions and new content. Looks better than ever with enhanced DX10 graphics. | | | Features: | |
• Choose from more than 80 missions that will show you the world with fun assignments from around the globe
• Race alone or against friends online
• Experience the day change from afternoon sun to evening dusk while flying at 32,000 feet
• Keep track of how you¿ve done on each mission and improve your skill levels until your ready for the next challenge
• Fly from your local airport during the winter and then experience the change as you fly from the same airport in summer
| | | Product Details: | | | Product Length:
| 5.0 inches | | Product Width:
| 7.5 inches | | Product Height:
| 2.0 inches | | Product Weight:
| 0.5 pounds | | Package Length:
| 7.4 inches | | Package Width:
| 5.4 inches | | Package Height:
| 1.1 inches | | Package Weight:
| 0.5 pounds | | Release Date:
| September 23, 2008 | | Average Customer Rating:
|  based on 199 reviews |
| | | Game Information: | | | Platform:
| Windows Vista / Windows XP | | Media:
| DVD-ROM | | Item Quantity:
| 1 |
| | | | Customer Reviews: | |
Average Customer Review:
 ( 199 customer reviews )
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
389 of 399 found the following review helpful:
 Well-refined leader of the genreMar 20, 2009
By Jon L. Albee
"Faulkner Wannabe"
Flight simulation for your PC just doesn't get any better than this. Microsoft has been at this for a long time, and they make it better with every release.
A few things seasoned flight simmers will know that new users will certainly WANT to know are:
The system requirements to really make this software work well are dauntingly advanced. You'll need something approaching a top-level gaming machine, with a huge video card, to get the full benefit of the entire visual, audible, advanced controls experience. Got a laptop you think is pretty smokin'? Forget it.
Microsoft follows every release of this product with massive service packs you must download and install, and each one takes a huge chunk out of your hard drive. Be prepared with LOTS of disk space. This particular release (meaning, the "Gold Edition") includes service packs one and two, so you won't need to download them.
An internet connection is required to register the product.
A note to real pilots (I am also a pilot): Keep in mind that this is a $30 product for a home computer, not a Flight Safety training machine. The flight model is basic and stable, and is not intended to simulate extreme attitudes and emergency procedures. If you're looking for a realistic spin trainer, or a procedural instrument trainer there are expensive add-ons that will get you CLOSE, but you should generally be looking elsewhere.
Bottom line is that this is, hands down, the best of the lot, but you really DO need vast hardware resources to run it. If you own those resources, be prepared for a real-time, audio-visual feast.
99 of 103 found the following review helpful:
First time for Flight Simulator [Played Three Days Straight]Jan 03, 2009
By David C. Richey
"The Geeker"
Fun once you've downloaded the three disks. There are over 5,000 Airports, 30 planes plus three if you buy The Gold Version, and Loads of Missions to fly. My Favorite Feature is Free Play. You can take off from your Hometown Airport or any other and vist landmarks like The Egyption Pyramids, The Leaning Tower of Pisa, and Niagra Falls. You can download any plane you want online like UFO's, Futureristic Fliying Cars, and my favorite, a Thunder Bird version F-16. I love this game. Make sure you buy a controler like A Saitek X52 joystick and throttle. This game is unplay able witout one.
233 of 257 found the following review helpful:
 Dumbed down to dumbJan 08, 2010
By Maine AV8R
As a Pilot, I bought this version because it included the G-1000 glass cockpit. The G-1000 simulator from Garmin is $119, FSX was only $34.95.
So, overall, I got what I wanted. I was very disappointed that MS decided to dumb down the flight physics even more than in FS9. Lot's of silly things too: For example, the left turning tendency is pronounced in a single engine propellor aircraft. This is caused by Torque, P-Factor, Gyroscopic precession and slipstream. Why do the 2 and 4 engine Commercial Jets in FSX also require heavy right rudder on take-off? They are immune to these forces. (They don't have props!) Stalls are so subtle and gentle as to be pointless, FSX wings never drop and full recovery is possible without relieving back pressure on the stick. FSX Planes will not spin, even when forced into cross-controlled flight. It's impossible to get the spin started and spin recovery; one of the most important basic flight skills to master, is impossible to properly simulate in FSX. Forward slips don't work properly and the glide ratios (at least for 172's) are ridiculously exaggerated (maybe I'm flying really "dirty" planes in real life?). I was also disappointed that there are no physics included to simulate the F-18 breaking the sound barrier. :(
It's great for learning instrumentation and navigation, but as a simulation of flight; it is pretty useless. The things this simulator lets you get away with (Yes, on Full Realism) would kill you several times per day in a real aircraft.
Graphics are good, but not the quantum leap you would expect from FS9-FSX (I'm running a quad core i7 940 at 2.93ghz, 6gb ram and a nVidia GTX-260 and have pretty much everything set to medium. Even set that low, NYC can knock me down to 6 FPS.
Buy it for fun, or to experiment with cockpit instumentation (it's really good for that, especially for student pilots training in G-1000 equipped aircraft), but don't fool yourself into believing that it is as Real As It Gets, because it flies like a video game.
22 of 22 found the following review helpful:
Versatile, Challenging, and a resource hogDec 28, 2009
By Crash and Burn
"Resident Curmudgeon"
I got this product a couple weeks ago, and finally had a chance to use it. I had hoped/expected to be able to have Flight Sim 2004 and Flight Sim X on the same machine at the same time. No such luck. However, after using X for a few days, I doubt I'd use 2004 much, anyway.
Observations: More missions, more planes, and if you have the Deluxe Version (Gold includes Deluxe and the Accelerator) you can fly with a glass cockpit, which is the wave of the future for aviation.
In 2004, I had to move the instrument panel down to see much sky out the windshield, and then move it up to check the switches and flap indicator. With X, the panel is fixed, but you can select several additional views of the instrument panel just be selecting that view from the View drop down menu. I like to fly with the switch panel displayed, but that obscures the G-1000 soft keys.
Flight Sim 2004 also had the W key, which cycles through views, but I never really used it. I need to use the W key in X, because the primary G-1000 display takes up 3/4s of the display, which is leaves enough sky for takeoff and cruise, but not enough for landing. The first W press gives me the landing view, which is about 1/2 the screen as windshield. That's almost enough for landing. The second W press gives you a full exterior view, except for the 6 pack of steam gauges (vacuum), and the third gives you a full exteriour view, no gauges. The fourth press brings you back to the original display.
After I had it installed, and was flying, the simulator seemed to be unstable because it would stop responding properly, would crash, or would just exit with mo warning. I researched the problem on the Microsoft Web site, and found that turning some services off would solve the problem. I ended up completely unchecking one box, and in the second tab, left all the Microsoft services on, and turned a few select non Microsoft services off. That seemed to solve the problem.
I have a seriously fast machine. Its not the ultimate, but it has a quad core Xenon (I think) Intel processor running at 2.66 GHz, 9 G bytes of RAM, a recent high end N-Vidia Graphics card. In fact, the game rating for my computer is 5.9. Flight Sim X's minimum is 3.0 and the recommended rating is 5.0. I have the graphics mostly on medium high, and yet the frame rate is low enough I see jerkiness.
I have all the controls set to maximum sensitivity, with no null spots. When I tried to do a run-up with full power, the brakes wouldn't hold the plane. You need to do that to check mags before the flight. Also, I can't see the ailerons move, and can barely see the rudder move.
I'm using the older USB CH Products yoke and rudder pedals. From what I've read, the newer yoke is easier to use, but I'm working on practicing division of attention, so I don't want the plane to be well trimmed so I learn not to pay too much attention to everything.
So, I'm glad I bought this product, even though its not perfet.
26 of 28 found the following review helpful:
Training aid for pilots!Mar 13, 2009
By J. Cardenas
If you are a student pilot you are going to love this game! It helped me on my VFR pilot training. Now that I'm thinking about getting my instrument rating, I know this software is going to help me a lot as well! You have to have a very good graphics card on your system to fully enjoy it.
See all 199 customer reviews on Amazon.com
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