Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004 - A Century of Flight Review

Overall Rating

-Stunning visuals, sounds and environments make for an engrossing experience.
-Dynamic and incredible weather system real time weather information.
-Over 24,000 airports to take off and land from.
-You are not alone! The skies are full of other pilots.
-Reenact significant flights over the past 100 years of aviation history.
-A whole fleet of aircraft to fly, from the original Wright Flyer to a Boeing 747-400.
-Extremely user friendly, with plenty of tutorials, guides, and your very own flying instructor.
-Tonnes of written material, plane information, historical data and flying tips.
-A whole community of modders and artists so there's always something new to experience.
-An underlying feeling that it really is 'as real as it gets'

-A high spec computer is required to fully enjoy some of the simulators qualities.
-Textures can look a little low res and blocky at lower altitudes.
-The many features and depth may be a little daunting to those new to the series, however there is plenty of help on offer in the form of tutorials, video clips, and written information.

I've always had an interest in aviation, and of course in the Microsoft Flight Simulator series. No other flight simulator to date can match the sheer depth, realism and quality that these 'games' bring. So does the '2004: A Century of Flight' edition of the series live up to the name? You bet it does.

Those who have played the previous simulators in the series, specifically MS Flight Sim 2002 will feel right at home with this version. There are plenty of new features that I'll touch on later, but the theme of the Flight Simulator series hasn't changed; Its main goal is still to give you a plane, give you the world, and say 'have fun, don't be home too late.' I have always felt this is central to the series, and its great to see that hasn't changed at all.

New pilots are not neglected in the slightest however. Infact, this is the most 'new user friendly' sim of the series thus far. There's reams and reams of written information to flick through, and even better: your very own flight instructor, flying veteran Rod Machado who will literally teach you as though you were a student. It's a fantastically deep learning tool that sets the building blocks of flying from your first flight, to your final flying practical exam. By the end of it, you'll be competent at flying and navigating a Cessna Skyhawk in plenty of different situations, such as fog, or night time flying. With this knowledge safely under your belt, you can move onto more complex aircraft like a Learjet, or Cessna Caravan.

Graphically speaking, Flight Simulator 2004 is incredible. The plane models are unbelievable in detail on the outside. Inside is the option of a virtual cockpit allowing you sit in a 3D cockpit of your aircraft with fully functioning dials and instruments. While not quite so pretty, its still a great looking feature. The terrain below you looks best from far away. Up close you will find its blocky and made of low resolution textures. Fortunately, you'll be spending most of your time a long way above it where the lie of the land mirrors its real world counterpart to great effect. Mountain ranges, hills, valleys, lake and the like are all there as you would expect from the series.

Radio's can be tuned manually for ATC flying. Contact with the tower can be made constantly, and you'll hear the responses as you leave their airspace telling you to tune to the next tower on the way for further instructions. You can request a whole host of things from the tower, just like real life. You really feel like your part of a bigger world, with air traffic controllers telling you to stay in a holding pattern around an airport while a Boeing 747 clears the runway for example. It's vibrant to say the least.

There are new aircraft to fly than the previous versions too. Whats more you can try your hand at flying some of the old classic aircraft over the past 100 years, included the Wright Brothers Flyer, all with respective 'missions' to reenact their famous flights. Of course there are still the modern planes such as the Cessna Skylane and Boeing 747 to fly, and even a Robinson R22 Beta II Chopper.

The real show stopper when it comes to the visual realism of the simulation is the new weather system. In a sentence - 'Clouds look real.' Gone is the hazy layer of fluff from the previous sims, replacing them are real time, unique to the second clouds formed as they do in real life. Whispy, bubbling, and photo-realistic. No two clouds look the same, cloud formations form as they should, dissipate and cumulate as you would expect. Weather happens as it does outside your window, you can even have up to the minute auto downloading of real time weather.


To give you a feel of the detail, I was sitting at East Midlands Airport, awaiting taxi clearance, prepped and ready to go in my learjet for a short flight to Gatwick. It was an overcast day, raining quite heavily. The forecast predicted a thunderstorm moving up from the south, and although those clouds were skidding across the sky above me, it appeared to just be a shower. The tower buzzed through the radio, giving me clearance to begin taxiing to the runway. The sky was gradually darkening by this point, thicker clouds were rolling in, the wind picking up, I thought I could hear a distant rumble of thunder over the engines but I couldn't be sure, the rain was getting a little heavier, but nothing to worry about, I'd flown in worse. By the time I'd reached by designated runway however, I was getting a little worried, the awesome weather system had mapped out a frontal system that was actually happening in the middle of England right there and then. The clouds had formed as I watched them, small ones blending into thick cumulo-nimbus formations which in turn provided heavy rain and strong winds. As I increased throttle to 100% and released the holding breaks, a spear of lightning crackled down from a cloud. It was immensely beautiful, and I was about to fly right into it. Turbulence and buffeting hit me as soon as I was clear of the runway, I was enveloped in clouds almost immediately, the rain streaking off the windscreen as I dove in and out of clouds, it was mind bogglingly realistic and then suddenly, blue skies. Clear of it all. I spent a good long while flying around the top of the storm cell, It was just like a geography lesson. Like a photo from a text book. Breath-taking all the way.

In closing, if you like planes, want to fly, and want to experience something so real its almost impossible, then this is it. You'll need a decent machine to do it, but Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004: A Century of Flight once again re-defines 'As Real as it Gets.' And it is.

Members' Comments onIanLynch's Review

• maniac 1894 on 14th Jan 2007

  I think you are right on the money. Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004 - A Century of Flight is a fantastic game.