This is not a game. It's a real flight simulator. If you want to learn to fly a 'real' aircraft, get this one.
User Rating: 9.7 | Microsoft Flight Simulator 9 PC
Microsoft Flight Simulator has always been one of the most realistic Flight SImulation programs available for the PC. It is often called a 'game' but it's no more a 'game' than the real flight simulators are. I know, I've been working with the real thing for over 36 years and I'm both a simulation engineer and a pilot. This is as real as it gets without adding very expensive powered controls and a realistic panes separate from the 'simulated' one on the display. Adding hardware like that is even possible with FS-9 but, it is rather expensive and it really isn't needed to get plenty of value out of this program. It not only has a fairly good (certainly not perfect) flight model (the modeling of the aerodynamics for the specific airframe) but, it plenty good enough to teach the rudiments of aircraft handling, especially learning proper panel scan and instrument flying techniques. Even way back in the Commodore 64 days, the version of Flight Simulator available then (this one is definetly from the same family tree) was good enough for me to teach a (then nine-year-old) friend to understand flight instruments and procedures for him to be able to to take a real Cessna 152 (with me along) on a cross country flight of over 100 miles and find the airport exactly like he did when flying the computer. If you can remember all the 'key-codes' actually performing those same tasks in a real aircraft are a piece of cake. It's been proven good enough that the US Navy used MS Flight Simulator for new cadets to learn proper procedures and scan. If you can get some 'dual' with a real instructor who knows both the aircraft and how to fly MS Flight Sim, you will have an easier time but, it has plenty of built-in training flights so that you can self-teach yourself if you want or need to do that.
This isn't really a 'shoot-em-up' video game. If that's what you are looking for, you better look elsewhere. This one, like all previous MS Flight Sims, is a real tool for learning to fly or just keeping your skills sharp.
Like flying real aircraft, you can never stop learning. And the program never stops teaching.
But, if you want to walk away from your computer having actually learned something, then MS Flight Sim is what you really need.
If you don't want to take the considerable time needed to learn about flying, leave it on the shelf.
